October 30: Remembering mathematician Leonty Magnitsky
A 70-year-old man died in Moscow. Leonty MagnitskyMathematician, engineer, and teacher. Author of the first printed mathematics textbook in Russia, "Magnitsky's Arithmetic."
Arithmetic, or numeracy, is an art that is honest, unbiased, easily understood by all, most useful and highly praised.
Leonty Magnitsky was born in the Rzhevsky district.
Born in 1669 in the Rzhevsky district (now - Tver region). Came from peasants. Real surname - Veal or Telyashin.
From childhood, he was drawn to reading. As a teenager, he was sent to deliver fish to the monks at the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery. When they met, Leonty so impressed them with his intelligence that they retained him as a reader at the monastery.
He prepared for the priesthood at the Simonov Monastery, then studied at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. He lived in Moscow, tutoring children in private homes. He knew six languages, mastering three of them himself. He also learned mathematics on his own.
Around 1700, 30-year-old Telyashin met Peter I - according to one version, through the tsar's adviser Alexey KurbatovHe impressed the head of state with his extensive knowledge. As a sign of respect, Peter I "bestowed" him with the surname Magnitsky, explaining it this way:
In comparison to how a magnet attracts iron to itself, it has attracted attention to itself with its natural and self-developed abilities
Leonty Magnitsky at the Navigation School
A year later, he was appointed to the School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences. He taught arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry there for nearly 40 years. At court, his abilities were valued more highly than those of the visiting English teachers, who "didn't reach Leonty's level of learning."
On February 1, 1701, Leonty Magnitsky, an Ostashkovite, was taken into the custody of the Armory Chamber and ordered to publish his book on arithmetic in the Slovenian dialect for the benefit of the people.
(from the Armory Chamber record)
"Magnitsky's Arithmetic" is the first textbook on mathematics
In 1703, he compiled the first Russian educational encyclopedia on mathematics, the so-called "Magnitsky Arithmetic." The previous "Brief Guide to Arithmetic" by the educator Ilya Kopievich included only 16 pages on the simplest mathematical operations.
Magnitsky's new textbook contained a systematic approach to arithmetic. It was published in a print run of approximately 2,500 copies, a remarkable success for the 18th century.
"Arithmetic, that is, the science of numbers, was translated from various dialects into the Slavic language and collected into one, and divided into two books."
(the full title of Magnitsky's textbook)
Introduced into the Russian language such mathematical terms as multiplier, divisor, product, denominator, fraction, root extraction, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion.
Nobility, villages and service
By royal decree, he was ennobled. Peter granted him several villages in the Vladimir and Tambov provinces, ordered a house built on Lubyanka Square, and awarded him a fashionable "Saxon caftan" for his "continuous and diligent studies at the navigation schools."
He was responsible for selecting teachers for Peter I's digital schools (elementary schools where boys of all classes except peasants studied).
In 1707, as an engineer, he supervised the reconstruction of the Tver Kremlin, strengthening its ramparts and constructing bastions.
In 1715, after military studies were transferred to the new Naval Academy, the Navigator's School began teaching only arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry. From that point on, Magnitsky served as the school's senior teacher. And from 1732 until his final days, he served as its director.
He was buried in the church on Lubyanka Street, which was dismantled during the Soviet era, in 1927. In 1932, during the construction of the first line of the Moscow Metro, a slab with an "epitaph" from Magnitsky's tombstone was discovered at a depth of one meter—it called him "Russia's first mathematics teacher." His remains are now in the Nilov-Stolobensky Hermitage, in his birthplace.
The book outlived its author by many decades. And although by the mid-1750s, Magnitsky's textbook had become difficult to understand and somewhat outdated in content, it was still in demand. In the provinces, among Old Believers, and in private homes, Magnitsky's book continued to be used for arithmetic instruction even into the late 18th century. It was often copied by hand, and the young Mikhail Lomonosov called it "the gate of his scholarship."
