Witness of Black years

It turns out that many materials in Polit.ru somehow concern my biography. But an interview with Julius Sergeevich Ilyashenko, especially the second part of it , affected too much. I wanted to respond. In order.

Jewish question

As for the special admission of Jews on the mechmat.

In my seventeen, I was a naive Soviet teenager. If you try to describe my views with the language of a new era, I believed that everything was going fine . In particular, I did not consider myself a Jew. That is, I knew that my grandmother was a Jewish, but did not attach to this quarter of value. Moreover, he could not imagine the connection of Jewry with admission to the university. We add that my father’s slippery name-Walter, and one of the “wrong” schools of Moscow-the 2nd-2nd. Yu.S. Ilyashenko writes about the 57th school. I will call four good, free-thinking and not very desirable schools: 2nd, 57th, 91st, 179th.

In fairness, I heard the stiffiness and jokes about the oppression of the Jews. But one thing is school folklore. Another is a serious adult life of the country's best university.

In writing, I seemed to have done all 5 tasks. The assessment was announced on an oral exam. Going there, I knew one thing - she is above two.

In the oral exam, I felt great: in the classroom I knew and understood mathematics almost better than anyone. In addition, I generally liked the situation of an oral exam. But this one did not immediately ask.

For example, the examiner asks me for the definition of an angle. I give word to word from a textbook. Then he begins to ask for definitions of concepts from this definition - plane, beam. I give them too. Then he makes an acidic face and says: why didn’t you say this right away?

And - the task of the task. Ilyashenko and Tkachuk describe the type of horseshoe task, where there is a simple solution that is almost impossible to guess about. But such tasks can be saved for conscious and malicious Jews, in advance of an appeal. On the same naive as me, there were enough simply unsolved tasks. The last examiner issued this: an equation with sinuses and cosine of a double, triple and quadruple argument and the coefficients “from Balda”, from air. It is clear to readers with a less or less developed mathematical culture that such equations are not solved. My opponent did not hide this. He approached five minutes later, muttered “still do not decide” and opened my written work.

There in one place was reduced for dirt. In the other, there was an answer to the thousands, but it was necessary to hundredths - a pure minus. As a result, a “wide three”, which is well mentioned by Ilyashenko. And three for an oral exam-he still failed to set two (he was ashamed?).

And then something happens that, in general, should not have happened. I hand over an essay on 4, physics for 5. Separate competition for Muscovites and nonresident (limited number of places in the hostel). And I act on snot. On the same, if not a slurry, snot enters my group two more guys with controversial surnames and non -Slavic faces. One of the 91st school, the other from the Kolmogorovo boarding school No. 18.

I don’t know how they are, but I go with an inferiority complex. And the session we pass all three “excellently” (more, I will add from scientific honesty, one clean -up Slav is handing over to all five). And something starts to take shape in my head.

For example. I recall that there were only black heads on the oral exam around. Such a blackhead. This, by the way, is the answer to the question of how persecution was carried out on an oral exam in terms of transparency. In 1976-in a separate audience. And there is no one to be shy.

And the secretary of the Mehmat party committee examined me, the last name, unfortunately, forgot. Such a detail - he was with an assistant. And when I went away for five minutes, I answered the assistant as a whole question to a pure plus without a single complaint. That is, the assistant did not fill up the abyss. Only attended and watched. And, perhaps, it is to this plus that I should be grateful - from the point of view of the final result.

Finally, the puzzle was drawn up by the end of the school year. The ballast part was determined on the course - students between 2 and 3 were determined. They were called to the Komsomol Committee and put them before the choice: either you fly out or do dirty work - in the lists of applicants you look for disputed names, patronymics, and other elements. Many agreed - what to do? And they told us. And we fell into the position of the average Soviet man - knowledge and disgusting non -participation.

I want to fix your attention here. At first glance, the anti -Semitic policy of the selection committee nevertheless contradicted the vocal general line of the party, the principles of internationalism, the moral code of the builder of communism, etc. It would seem that there is a facade, but there is a wrong side. Why dedicate ordinary people in the wrong side? Let it stare at the facade. Wasn’t it better to sweat a little from the point of view of conspiracy and the national cleansing by the forces themselves from the Komsomol Committee, without attracting unreliable talkative dimensions?

No. Not better. It is better to smear just by the action of everyone who can. And cover the rest with knowledge - let them be silent. Feeling a slight feeling of guilt and smashing.

Learning, and not knowing are dangerous - so I would say if I was not afraid of excessive pathos.

There were funny moments in this search activity. For example, Moses Abramovich Katz, Latvy from Tbilisi were identified vigilant dvochniki.

I also knew a person who fought with this outrage, Valery Anatolyevich Senderov. To begin with, he was my school teacher of mathematics. But I intersected with him in modern times, after his imprisonment and perestroika liberation. Now - as with a publicist who collaborates with “Russian thought” and “faces”.

A few more generalizations.

How to set up an executive communist on an anti -Semitic line? He is also a person with his concepts and not necessarily a household anti -Semite. The household anti -Semite was, for example, Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov, director of Miana, a person of clearly anti -Soviet views. So active loyalty was by no means always combined with anti -Semitism, and it was impossible to rely on this connection.

Two considerations.

Firstly, mathematicians are ideological maximalists, they have brains so arranged that they will switch to the end any idea. And if the mathematician is an immoralist, then such an immoralist that it will not seem enough. Little where I met such distilled scoundrels as among party mathematicians.

Secondly, there was a state explanation of this national policy: Jews are not bad because the Jews, but by the fact that they go to Israel. We, you know, teach them for state money, and they emigrate treacherously.

This communist was enough. A person with the inclinations of legal thinking can doubt: how can I blame the 17-year-old teenager what he has not yet done and can only do in the distant future? And if the Russian guy graduates from the university, and he will die - how to recover training costs from him?

But these doubts are purely intellectual and a person is not worthy of a person - what then, what now.

Party approach

Since there should no longer be on the Mehmat Jews, there was simply no ground for anti -Semitism. At least, neither in relation to myself or to anyone else, I have not noticed this. Just as a special attitude towards Caucasians, Asians, black. That is, from the point of view of internationalism, everything went OK.

I studied for 5 years mostly perfectly - I would not mention it if this had not been a little important for a further plot. I liked to study on Mehmat. It was easy for the semester - our company for the most part rested. And the session was the time for sports excitement. We laid out and really liked ourselves.

By the way, most of the Muscovites were still from good matting schools - from each class, on average, three people, but in these schools there were many classes in parallel. In our 2nd, for example, there are five.

I was a frivolous and infantile young man, but even by the fifth course I realized that mathematics is hardly my life. Time passed - and now the department recommended me to graduate school. And the Komsomol committee wrapped.

It was by no means in my nationality, not in moderate anti -Sovietism and not at all in me. The point was that at our department of mathematical logic there were still specialists in discrete mathematics led by the new dean O. B. Lupanov. And, as a sin, almost all the logic were non -partisan. And almost all discrete are members of the CPSU. And for starters, they simply chopped down all graduate students. And then someone managed to save, and someone (including me) did not.

I was not upset, because this refusal was well cut with my substantial doubts. But - precisely because for me the situation itself was not nervous - I wanted to walk around the instances, to shake the rights. See how it all functions. Motivation is perfectly expressed by I. Brodsky:

... this is your chance to find out how it works from the inside

What you looked at the outside for so long.

The chance is noble. In my place, fate was great in my place. Moreover, notice, having nothing against him personally. Now look in his eyes and lie. Explain what I'm bad for graduate school.

Secretary of the Party Committee, Dean, Secretary of the Komsomol Committee. However, they did not even lie. They dullly sorted out the versions and sent me to each other.

At first, some party rank suggested that I was a bad mathematician. I replied that it was more logical to judge this to the department, ready to recommend me to graduate school. He did not argue. Then, he said, the point is in my assessments in socio-political disciplines. But - thanks to the long tongue - in these subjects I had all the fives. At this, the CPSU figure was exhausted and sent me to the Komsomol members.

More than others during this time, I dealt with the secretary of the Komsomol St that Otkryov - I remembered him. A characteristic Komsomol type, so dull, half -dead. If he had to kill me in party layouts, he would have killed without thinking and not experiencing feelings. Martian.

His only human phrase is before the decisive meeting: you still will not succeed . She expectedly coffee with all the same, do not decide from the entrance exam.

Before the decisive meeting, I felt unbearably bored - and I did not go there.

I started all Katavasia with the thought that it wouldn’t be worse, that they could make me, except not to let me go into graduate school. And I was a little mistaken. For the concern, I was deprived of a red diploma. I came to the educational part to find out why it is blue.

- For red, all five on state examinations are needed.

- Yes.

- And according to the diploma, in practice.

- Yes.

- And such a percentage of fives among the current assessments.

- Yes.

- and active participation in the public life of the faculty.

- ...

I will explain what this last paragraph is especially lousy - not by its social character, God would be with Him, but by His inability, undocumentality. Suppose I desperately need a red diploma. I strain and fulfill all the necessary points. Including, conducting giant public work. But to consider this participation is active or not - the matter is not mine, but the dean.

But I needed a red diploma, to put it mildly, not desperately, and this petty revenge even slightly touched me.

Three years later, when the department safely divided into logic and discrete mathematics, I entered the graduate school without problems, to Andrei Nikolayevich Kolmogorov.

A few more observations

As far as I heard, Tights later became the director of the Kolmogorovo boarding school. I am offended for the boarding school, even though I did not study there.

The only place where I strongly doubt the correctness of the respected Julia Sergeyevich Ilyashenko is when he talks about the rector of Moscow State University Sadovnich. That then, in the USSR, on Mehmat they were on different sides of the barricades, and now the Sadovnichy is going against the stream and does a lot of good.

I think people are reborn extremely rarely. Therefore, the biography of the Apostle Paul is so famous: it is exceptional. It's not about those barricades, a place on one or another side of which can be chosen. And just - some went to the Komsomol committee in the youth, while others disdain. Both those and others could not, turning to the Soviet language, to do otherwise. Henry Bell in "Billard at half past nine" writes about the sacrament of the lamb and the sacrament of the buffalo. In my opinion, no one better wrote about the nature of man.

I know a little about today's Moscow State University, but I know something. A couple of years ago, I led cultural studies at the Faculty of Economics. And before that, he taught at a small non -state institute - IZHLT. Small economic calculations.

In Izhlt, I was paid about 2 times more for the lecture than at Moscow State University. And students in IZHLT paid about 10 times less per year than students of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University. At the same time, Izhlt somehow made ends meet. That is, it is obvious that Moscow State University is a colossal business project. And he lives on business entities. And it goes quite in the stream.

I had to deal as a tutor (in mathematics) with students of Moscow State University of different years. I will not say that the level is constantly falling, or even that it is lower than in our time. I will say - both then, and now there was and is one hundred percent ballast, people who know nothing .

Ilyashenko, as an illustration of the fall in the level of universities, gives a distant external example - how young people score to death the passerby. Everything is interconnected; The heart works worse - the leg is taken away. Thanks to Julia Sergeyevich, I will also give an external example, although closer to the topic.

About five years ago, I - also as a tutor - sobbed three second -year students (!) Of the University of Design and Technology. They had to master differentiation skills - a completely non -creative dumb occupation. Confident in success, I began to train girls, but I came across strange obstacles. At the third hour I realized that the problem is not in differentiation and not in matanalization in general, but much closer to the roots. Quite quickly, I reached an equation, for the reproduction of which I will not need special characters:

2 x = 6

The three of them could not solve it. More precisely, they found X with a selection of about ten minutes. My children (12 and 14 years old) pulled themselves up and hidden breathing watched the attraction.

Let me remind you - these are a second -year student. That is, they successfully graduated from the third grade, the fifth grade, the tenth, school, entered the university, moved to the second year.

I think it makes sense to somehow evaluate the activities of the Russian educational institution for the best students and graduates. Because judging by the worst or at least by average, we are very upset. Education does not obviously give any guarantees.

See also:

• Interview with Julius Ilyashenko. Part 1. Part2.
• Lecture by Mikhail Tsfasman. The fate of mathematics in Russia