Presidential Library marks anniversary of birthday of Tsiolkovsky Konstantin

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, born on September 5, 1857 in Russia, was a scientist and the founder of modern space exploration. He was the first to justify the possibility of interplanetary communication and the use of rockets for this purpose.

Tsiolkovsky devoted most of his life to both scientific research and teaching, living for 78 years. As a teacher, he was a unique figure.

The collection Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. 1857-1932, published on the 75th anniversary of the scientist's birth, includes Tsiolkovsky's memories: "After recovering from scarlet fever, I became severely deaf and confused. School was out of the question. My thoughts began to clear up at the age of 14 or 15. I could still go to school, but it was no use to me, as I only heard noises and could not understand the teachers' words, even when they were standing right next to me. My parents did not have enough money to hire private tutors. That's why I spent time alone with books and became self-educated."

When Tsiolkovsky was 17 years old, his father decided to send him to Moscow. In his book Dreams of Earth and Heaven, Tsiolkovsky describes how he, living in Moscow without teachers or guidance, first studied elementary mathematics and physics in depth, then spherical and analytical trigonometry, and finally higher algebra and differential and integral calculus. To reinforce his knowledge, he conducted experiments that consumed all the money his father had sent him.

After returning to Vyatka, where his family lived, Tsiolkovsky began giving lessons to students at secondary schools and quickly gained a reputation as a good teacher. Boris Vorobyov wrote about this in his book about Tsiolkovsky published in 1940.

From Vyatka, the Tsiolkovskys moved to Ryazan, where Konstantin successfully passed the exam for the title of teacher of county schools. A year later, he moved to the city of Borovsk.

In 1892, Konstantin left Borovsk for Kaluga, where he was offered a position as a physics teacher at a state real school and then at a women's diocesan school. However, Tsiolkovsky was not allowed to teach physics because he had not passed a special exam. The collection Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky: 1857-1932 states that the scientist referred to himself as an "illegal teacher."

Most of his life, nearly forty years, Konstantin Eduardovich dedicated to teaching. In his autobiography, published in Dreams of Earth and Heaven, the scientist wrote, "About 500 students and 2,000 girls who graduated from high school passed through my lessons. I gave at least 40 thousand lectures (I didn't like to ask questions and therefore adhered to the lecture method).

After the 1917 Revolution, Tsiolkovsky started teaching at a Soviet school. He loved his teaching job very much, but he had to leave it in 1920 due to poor health. On September 19th, 1935, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky passed away in Kaluga.

Today, Kaluga is home to the State Museum of Cosmonautics History, the first museum in the world dedicated to space exploration and the largest in Russia.

The collection Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) is available on the portal of the Presidential Library. It presents various publications about the life and work of K. E. Tsiolkovsky, including his works on aeronautics, star navigation, rocket science, astronomy, physics, biology, and philosophy. A unique newsreel from 1918 captures the scientist in different everyday situations.

The documentary legacy of K. E. Tsiolkovsky is also presented in the video lecture K. E. Tsiolkovsky: Looking Upward. Additionally, you can explore the collection Digital Tsiolkovsky, which features some of the scientist's publications that were taken to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017 with the ISS seal and autographs from Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko.