The Presidential Library’s materials illustrate "golden" age of lyceum brotherhood

October 19 (31st in the new style), 1811 is the day of the inauguration of the Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. It was graduated by Pushkin, Delvig, Gorchakov, Matyushkin, Küchelbecker, Korf, Pushchin and others made the glory of their Homeland. Memories and documents about the brightest of them are available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

Thus, for example, the former lyceum student Dmitry Kobeko in his work Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum quotes the words of the reformer and lawmaker M. M. Speransky: “the subjects of study are divided into two courses: literature and knowledge. Among the subjects of teaching are mathematical sciences in the broad sense with all applications to military art”. The note emphasizes that "all students in the Lyceum make up one society without any difference in table and clothes".

Such democracy allowed lyceum students to quickly converge in character and some of them gave friendship for the rest of their lives.

The first year of the Lyceum, where six-year education was equivalent to university, accepted 30 children of noble origin aged 10-12. The most important place among the taught disciplines was given to the study of Russian history. Classes in art, which included the literary work of lyceum students, belonged to the category of leisure. Who could have imagined that the presence in the Lyceum of Pushkin and his closest associates: Delvig, Kükhelbeker, Pushchin, and others, in terms of the number of editions of manuscript magazines, would bring to the foreground elegant literature?..

One of the most profound studies concerning lyceum traditions is the work of the graduate and later teacher of the Lyceum J. K. Grot Pushkin, his lyceum comrades and mentors: “Among spiritual blessings”, - writes Yakov Karlovich, - bequeathed to the new lyceum, almost all the most precious is the immortal name of the pupil sparkling on the tablets, who magnified the Russian word with his creations, enriched the treasures of his people with imperishable treasures”. Here, of course, we are talking about Pushkin... 

For all his mobile, extraordinary nature of young Pushkin, who had five (!) nicknames in the Lyceum, starting with Sverchok (cricket) and French man, his “internal engine” was aimed at collective creativity.

Every desire for knowledge was encouraged in the Lyceum. For example, Alexey Illichevsky collected materials for biographies of the great people of Russia, and Wilhelm Küchelbecker compiled a dictionary containing extracts from the works of writers-philosophers close to him. And, of course, the students read a lot. “We studied little in a class, but a lot in reading and the conversation with the constant friction of minds”, - Modest Korf recalled.

One of his classmates, Alexey Illichevsky, once said prophetic words: "The rays of Pushkin's glory will be reflected in his comrades". Indeed, the rays of Pushkin's glory touched the prosperous officials Gorchakov and Korf, as well as the early departed Illichevsky, whom the poet immortalized with two verses of the poem “To the Illichevsky’s Album”: “Ah! My good genius knows, / What I would prefer sooner / Immortality of my soul / to Immortality of my works".

The last Pushkin’s line was embodied entirely: the poet’s works have been living for centuries, just like the names of his comrades. Many graduates of the Lyceum glorified Russia in various fields of state and public life, science and culture. But the most important thing that the pupils took out of the lyceum years is the belief that they must live and work “For the Common Good”. These are the words that the lyceum students of the “first wave” chose as their motto and fully implemented it.