“I have never seen such beautiful ones... Geological Museum in Leningrad and the first scientific expeditions In the autumn of 1925 I entered

And the declarative surrender of their powers by emigrant ministers in favor of Soviet Belarus. But then, when the “prodigal sons” cross the border of the USSR and receive Soviet citizenship, the original scenario for their forgiveness will be crossed out...

“Gentlemen, everyone is in Paris!” - one character in Soviet literature of the twenties sternly asserted and was right in that the French capital concentrated White Guard monarchists and similar audiences irreconcilable with the Soviets. And a different type of emigrants - liberal and social-democratic in orientation - could be indicated by the phrase of another popular character: “My colleague and I arrived from Berlin.”

It was in the German capital that a turning point took place in October 1925: the public capitulation of the leaders of the Belarusian People's Republic with the subsequent request to receive them in their homeland - now Soviet.

Printed document:

"PASTANOVA AND PRATAKOL"

Passage of the Council of People's Ministers of the Belarusian People's Republic 15 Kastrychnik 1925:

In Svyadomastsi that ўlada salayan i rabotnikaў, mattsavana ў Mensk - the capital of Radavai Belarusi, zapraўna imknetsa adradzitsi Belarusian people are cultural, economical and dzyarzhaўna, that Radavai Belarus is the adzinaya real force that can be called ts Western Belarus hell Poland iga, ў poўnym parazumenni z regional arganizations, pastanavili: spynits istnavanna юrad Belarusian People's Republic i priznat Mensk adzin centers natsyyanalna-dzyarzhaўnaga adradzhennya Belarusi.

Elder of the Rada of the Ministry of B.N.R. A. TSVIKEVICH

Dzyarzhauny Sekratar PRAKULEVICH

Dzyarzhauny Kantraler L. HARE

Berlin, 15 Kastrychnika 1925."

The following events served as the background. The year 1925 was a time of serious consolidation in the BSSR. In previous years, widespread amnesties were implemented. Thanks to the NEP, the shelves are filled with goods, and there are positive changes in industry and agriculture. Belarusization has been carried out, enormous strides have been made in cultural construction. These achievements are demonstrated to the whole world, and everything would be fine if not for political emigration. From a top-secret analytical note by the former commissioner of the NKID of the USSR under the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)B S.L. Kozyura addressed to the Party Collegium of the Central Committee:

“It must be said that we were especially disgusted by this “BPR Government”, which got confused in the League of Nations with its stupid protests against oppression in the BSSR, in the front lines of various foreign ministries and various counterintelligence services.”

It is clear that the Bolsheviks needed a loud action that would demoralize the Belarusian political emigration. According to their plan, this could be a capitulation in favor of the BSSR by the government of the Belarusian People's Republic. How labor-intensive was this operation?..

On the archival table in front of me lies the original minutes of the meeting of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of January 6, 1925 with a handwritten note “Cipher”. I am reading this fundamental document, written partly in Odessa language:

“Present: vol. Krinitsky, Dyakov, Ignatovsky, Chervyakov, Adamovich.

1. Message from Comrade Itwi about Belarusian figures.

The personalities of the emigrant leaders required a delicate approach. Here is Alexander Tsvikevich - Prime Minister of the BPR in 1923-1925. Born in Brest in 1888. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University in 1912 and served as a sworn attorney in Brest and Pruzhany. During the First World War he worked in the Tula Refugee Assistance Committee. One of the founders of the Belarusian People's Community in 1917, participant in the First All-Belarusian Congress. One of the initiators of the proclamation of the Belarusian People's Republic on March 25, 1918. Initially, in the government of the BPR he served as Minister of Justice and carried out diplomatic missions in Ukraine and Western European countries. Then he lived in Kovno and Prague.

Dear Alexander Ivanovich could be called the Belarusian Kerensky, if not for his reflections on the part of the masses. When other politicians argued that the masses should be despised, Premier Tsvikevich, with the romanticism of a zemstvo figure, nurtured the idea of ​​national harmony and, rightly, worried about the lack of popular recognition:

Or maybe it’s time to put the unifying Belarusian idea above the political rejection of Bolshevism?..

The time comes after the XII Congress of the RCP (b) in April 1923, which adopted a liberal resolution on the national question. An attractive image of the Soviet system is also created by the political amnesty declared in the USSR in 1923. There are more and more people in exile who are ready to scratch their heads.

It seems that the Bolsheviks are no longer the same...

And the consolidation of the BSSR by territories in the east completely confuses foreign dreamers.

It turns out that many of our goals have already been achieved!

Most of them were reasonable, honest people: teachers, doctors, lawyers, agronomists, and zemstvo workers. They should not be presented as weak-minded nationalists with only one basic idea - hatred of Muscovy. But, it seems to me, one thing prevented them from achieving practical results: excessive romanticism.

And almost all Belarusian dreamers were processed by Minsk native Alexander Ulyanov, a diplomat and intelligence officer. Very efficient, flexible, sociable, able to listen - this slight brown-haired man with a sparse soft beard becomes the axis of the foreign Belarusian right.

Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, Danzig, Kovno, Vilno, Riga... Acquainted with everyone, accepted everywhere, charming and tamed everyone (or almost everyone), Alexander Fedorovich scurries between the centers of Belarusian emigration like a shuttle. And, importantly, he does not skimp on money.

From the testimony of Anton Lutskevich: “Ulyanov promised financial assistance. How and through whom it was given in the future, I was not interested.”

Through the efforts of Ulyanov, in August 1925, a secret conference was held in the resort Sopot (in historiography it is called the Danzig Conference) with the participation of such figures as V. Ignatovsky, R. Ostrovsky, N. Orekhvo, A. Slavinsky, S. Rak-Mikhailovsky, B. Tarashkevich . Here the idea of ​​the future Belarusian peasant-worker community is taking shape - a structure that will draw the Belarusian right to itself and thereby lay a mine under the BPR.

At the meeting of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)B on January 6, 1925, as can be seen from the text published above, only five members were present. But then mid-autumn comes, the task has been successfully completed, and as many as 14 members of the Bureau gather for a triumphal meeting on October 22, 1925. Victory, unlike defeat, does not lack authors. Let us pay attention to how fussily and joyfully the pen of the Secretary of the Central Committee A. Krinitsky walked across the draft protocol:

For reference, here is the final text published in the modern Ministry of Foreign Affairs scientific and historical collection:

Extract from the minutes No. 67 of the closed meeting of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Berlin Conference and the further work of A.F. Ulyanova

I. Listened to: Information from A.F. Ulyanov about the conference in Berlin.

Resolved:

1. Recognize that:

a) the outcome of the conference confirmed the correctness of the position taken by the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)B on this issue;

b) Comrade Ulyanov fully and completely fulfilled the directives of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)B in holding the conference.

2. Take into account Comrade Ulyanov’s message that in connection with the ban on Golovinsky’s entry into Lithuania, Yakovyuk, Guzney and Valkovich were temporarily left at the head of the Belarusian National Committee in Kovno. At the bureau after the CICB session, discuss in more detail the issue of the national committee in Kovno.

4. It is advisable to provide information about the Berlin Conference and its resolutions with appropriate coverage in the speeches of comrade. Adamovich and Chervyakov at a meeting of the Vitebsk City Council.

5. Allow Golovinsky, Tsvikevich, Prokulevich and Zaits to enter the BSSR. Provide support to Golovinsky and Tsvikevich for $400 each.

6. Instruct Comrade Ulyanov to coordinate all decisions with the NKID.

II. Listened to: Statement by Comrade Slavinsky on the future work of Ulyanov.

Resolved: To recognize it as necessary to retain Comrade Ulyanov as an adviser to the Plenipotentiary Mission in Warsaw. Instruct Comrade Slavinsky to defend this proposal in Moscow.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)B A. Krinitsky

Let me add that Krinitsky did not fail to boast in a telegram addressed to the Central Committee of the RCP (b): “The experience with sending Comrade Ulyanov to Warsaw fully justified itself.”

But what about: where the Belarusian Central Committee is, there is victory!

These efforts were appreciated by Moscow, and a little over a month later Krinitsky became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus.

As soon as the leaders of the BPR (now former) crossed the border of the USSR, they began to communicate with them without curtsies - in the language of leading newspaper articles.

The beginning of the editorial “Liquidation of the “BNR Government”” in the issue of the newspaper “Savetskaya Belarus” dated November 15, 1925.

Dancing on the bones of a defeated enemy was expressed in savoring the published documents.

Let's take an interest in the endings of the biographies of the main participants in that story.

The Izvestia newspaper on December 1, 1930, in the section “About the Soviet Union” published a note “A counter-revolutionary group of national democrats has been arrested”:

MINSK, November 30. (TASS). The OGPU of Belarus arrested a counter-revolutionary intellectual group of national democrats, consisting overwhelmingly of former Socialist Revolutionaries and White Guard emigrants who returned from abroad. The Soviet government of Belarus at one time allowed a number of people to return from emigration in view of their assurances that they would work conscientiously and honestly in the interests of Soviet construction. In fact, these individuals, taking advantage of the trust shown, continued their counter-revolutionary activities in agreement with foreign bourgeois national fascist organizations and on their instructions. Among those arrested are former ministers: Lastovsky, Tsvikevich, Kraskovsky, Smolich, as well as Lesik, Nekrashevich and others. An investigation is underway.

This was the beginning of the end for Alexander Tsvikevich: first he was sentenced to five years of exile, he lived in Perm and Sarapul. He was arrested again in 1937 and executed on December 30 in Minsk. The falsified charges included connections with Poland. Rehabilitated for both convictions in 1988 and 1989.

The earliest manuscript of the novel dates from the fall of 1925 and tells about the events of the summer of 1917 related to the participation of the Cossacks in Kornilov’s campaign against Petrograd. “I wrote 5-6 printed sheets. When I wrote it, I felt that it was not right,” Sholokhov later said. – It will not become clear to the reader why the Cossacks took part in the suppression of the revolution. What kind of Cossacks are these? What is the Region of the Don Army? Doesn't it appear to be a kind of terra incognito for readers? So I quit the job I started. I started thinking about a broader novel. When the plan was mature, I began collecting material. Knowledge of Cossack life helped.” The chapters written by this time about the Kornilov revolt later became the plot basis for the second volume of the novel. “I started anew and started with Cossack antiquity, from those years that preceded the First World War. He wrote three parts of the novel, which make up the first volume of Quiet Don. And when the first volume was finished, and it was necessary to write further - Petrograd, the Kornilov revolt - I returned to the previous manuscript and used it for the second volume. It was a pity to throw away the work that had already been done.” However, before the writer returned to work on the novel, almost a year passed, filled with both sad (the death of his father at the end of 1925) and joyful events.

In 1925, the publishing house “New Moscow” published a separate book, “Don Stories.” In 1926, a second collection of stories appeared, “Azure Steppe” (in 1931, Sholokhov’s early stories would be published in one book, “Azure Steppe. Don Stories”). In February 1926, the Sholokhovs had a daughter, Svetlana.

At this time, the writer’s thoughts are connected with the “Quiet Don”. One of the few evidence of his work on the novel during this period is a letter to Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov dated April 6, 1926: “Dear comrade. Ermakov! I need to receive additional information from you regarding the era of 1919. I hope that you will not refuse me the courtesy of providing this information upon my arrival from Moscow. I expect to be at your house in May - June this year. This information concerns the details of the V-Donskoy uprising.” Donskoy Kharlampy Ermakov became one of the prototypes of Grigory Melekhov (in the earliest manuscript of the novel the hero is called Abram Ermakov).

In the fall, Sholokhov and his family moved to Veshenskaya, where he plunged into work on a novel. The first lines of the first volume were written on November 8, 1926. Work on the book was surprisingly intense. Having completed the draft version of the first part, Sholokhov began work on the second in November. By the end of summer, work on the first volume was completed, and in the fall Sholokhov took the manuscript to Moscow, to the October magazine and the Moscow Writer publishing house. The magazine recognized the novel as “everyday writer” and devoid of political urgency, but thanks to the active intervention of A. Serafimovich, it was already in the first four issues of 1928 that the first book of the novel was published. And in issues 5-10 for the same year - the second book of “Quiet Don”. In the same 1928, the first book of the novel was published first in Roman-Gazeta, then as a separate publication in Moskovsky Rabochiy. The manuscript of the novel, not yet published in Oktyabr, was recommended for publication by the head of the publishing department, Evgenia Grigorievna Levitskaya. There, in the publishing house, in 1927, a meeting took place between twenty-two-year-old Sholokhov and Levitskaya, who was a quarter of a century older than him. This meeting was destined to become the beginning of a strong friendship. Levitskaya helped Sholokhov more than once in difficult moments of his life. Sholokhov took an active part in her fate and the fate of her loved ones. In 1956, Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man” was published with a dedication: “Evgenia Grigorievna Levitskaya, member of the CPSU since 1903.”

By the end of the first year of study at Leningrad University, I received a permanent position as a night shift driver at a beer factory and became a “rich man” among the students with a permanent salary of fifty to sixty rubles a month. However, this “wealth” did not bring me any savings for the future. The comrades around me lived so poorly that I could not help but help them. As a result, my high income allowed me to buy books only occasionally. Everything else was handed over, and, of course, irrevocably.

In the fall of 1925, I entered the Academy of Sciences as a laboratory assistant at the geological museum.

It would seem that all I had to do was finish university. In reality it turned out quite differently. The varied activities of the laboratory assistant and science itself fascinated me so much that I often stayed in the laboratory until nightfall. It became increasingly difficult to combine such intense work with classes. In addition, from spring to late autumn we had to go on expeditions. Soon I quit my studies completely, not being able to combine long-distance expeditions to Central Asia and Siberia, where I was already working as a geologist, although I did not yet have a diploma.

I was fortunate to be among those geologists who discovered many important mineral deposits. This difficult work fascinated us so much that we forgot everything. I also forgot about my teaching.

Every now and then I “stumbled” when I had to defend my views, put forward new research projects, or “defend” discovered deposits. Finally, it became clear to me that without a higher education I would face too many annoying obstacles. Being already a qualified geologist, I applied for permission, as an exception, to graduate as an external student from the Leningrad Mining Institute. They met me halfway, and within two and a half years I managed to finish it without interrupting my work.

How much I repented and scolded myself for leaving the teaching and not completing it earlier, when I still had few obligations, accumulated little research that required hasty completion.

Now, when I, an elderly scientist and writer who has seen a lot, look into the past, it is clear to me that the desire and will for knowledge did not leave me. I made my way to knowledge, feeling and understanding what a huge and wide world was opening up before me in books, research, and travel. But whatever my abilities and desires, only systematic education could make accessible all the spiritual wealth of the world. All this - school and lessons, dictations and tasks - was a difficult obstacle, but at the same time a key that opened the gates to something new, interesting, and beautiful.

I was lucky with my teachers - there were good, high-hearted people along the way. Real teachers who managed to discern some abilities in a poorly educated, poorly brought up, sometimes just rude boy. But I think that if this had not happened, I would still have continued to overcome all the difficulties of teaching. Will, like everything else, requires hardening and exercise. What seemed difficult yesterday becomes easy today if you do not give in to momentary weakness, but fight with yourself step by step, exam after exam.

Training in perseverance and will comes unnoticed. When you learn to drive a car, it is difficult to cope with it and keep an eye on the road, signs, and pedestrians. And suddenly you stop noticing your actions, the car becomes obedient and does not require intense attention. So it is with the difficulties of life. The habit of overcoming them comes unnoticed, learning becomes easy, but you can’t let yourself get discouraged and complain. Comrades will respectfully call such a person collected, strong-willed, courageous, and he will be surprised: what was so special about him?

And if you really strive for knowledge, then do not give in to weakness, never cancel your decision. The road is overcome by a weakened man as he walks. But having fallen, it will be difficult for him to get up, much more difficult than to continue walking!

The editors of Stroitelnaya Gazeta introduced me to letters from builders who work and study in evening and correspondence educational institutions. Among them there are letters from people who, for one reason or another, abandoned teaching. And I looked back at the years of the first decade of the Soviet country.

Maybe the readers of the newspaper will be interested to know about my path to science.

During the civil war, I lived in Ukraine and was left without parents at the age of twelve. I was given shelter by the automobile unit of the Red Army. I stayed there until demobilization and disbandment at the end of 1921, after which I went to Leningrad (then Petrograd) with the firm intention of studying.

As a boy, although tall and developed beyond his years, but rather exhausted by constant malnutrition, I had a hard time at first. There were many simply homeless, not to mention unemployed, unskilled laborers, like me. The only thing with which there was no difficulty was the apartments: the former capital of the Russian Empire, after the hunger war and the blockade of the imperialists, was half, if not three-quarters, empty.

To enter the workers' faculty and receive a scholarship, I did not have work experience at a permanent job. I wasn’t the right age either, and there were no evening schools then. I had to enroll in a regular high school, try my best to make up for lost time during the years of the Civil War, completing two classes a year (there were no external studies then). If it weren’t for the help of selfless teachers who helped me in my studies for free, and if it weren’t for the help of public organizations that were in charge of feeding the children, I would never have managed to finish school in two and a half years.

But no matter how difficult the classes were, one also had to live. Summer, part of spring and autumn, and in general all free time was spent in pursuit of earnings. We were brought up in the old rules. Slightly older children could not be a burden to their parents or relatives. Therefore, turning to relatives for help, which some young people now do so easily, in those days seemed simply impossible, and I had to provide for myself.

I started by unloading firewood from wagons at freight stations in Petrograd. It is most convenient to unload “firewood” alone - short logs half an arshin in length. You can’t throw a “six” (110 cm) far on your own: you’ll roll over the wheels of the car and have to move it twice. Three rubles were paid for unloading 16-20 tons of firewood from a wagon. If you got involved in work, you could earn six rubles in an evening - about a third of a monthly student stipend. But after such work he came home long after midnight, in a restless dream he saw endless firewood, and the next day he was good for almost nothing. In addition, such work required increased nutrition, so it was necessary to live and eat not like a student, but like a loader, spending much more money than he earned.

When I realized that I could not study in such conditions, I switched to unloading firewood from a barge. Petrograd, which was heated with wood, was supplied with it not only by rail, but also by river. Wooden barges approached the houses along the numerous streams that ran through the entire city. They removed the embankment grating, laid boards, and rolled the firewood on wheelbarrows directly into the courtyards. Here you could earn four rubles a day and not get as tired as unloading cars alone. The team rolled the firewood, so the work was easy and, with skillful handling of the wheelbarrow, it was not too difficult.

When I started falling asleep over problem books and dreaming about white rolls that I couldn’t eat, I realized that I needed to change my type of work again.

And then I found a friend. Together we began to walk around the yards, sawing, chopping and stacking firewood into the vast Leningrad basements, which were used as sheds. At this job, you could take a break at any time and even figure out something from what you read from textbooks, when the work did not require special attention. So I would have lived like this as a woodcutter if a vacancy had not turned up for an assistant driver in one of the artel garages. Then - the driver of a White system truck, with a chain drive, model 1916.

However, I had to immediately leave the job I found with such difficulty in order to pass my final exams. Literally using my last rubles, I left for the Far East almost immediately after graduating from school. He sailed there as a sailor on the motor-sailing ship "International" to Sakhalin and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk until the late autumn of 1924. Then he returned to Leningrad to enter university. I did not receive a scholarship - there were very few of them. I had to take up unskilled labor again.

Ivan Antonovich Efremov in his student years (1925-1926), preparator at the Geological Museum in Leningrad. (published for the first time

Things went incomparably easier. Firstly, then students were not required to attend lectures in order to complete laboratory assignments and pass tests on time. Secondly, student worker artels were organized, attached to various organizations that found easier and more profitable jobs for them.

I joined a student team of the healthiest guys who worked at the port. Particularly profitable was loading salt (nine-pound coolies are not feasible for everyone), as well as rolling oak staves. Wet, it made up a very heavy load on the wheelbarrow, handling which on narrow and bending boards-ladders is a whole art.

If we were lucky, we earned up to nine rubles a day. A two-week job provided two months of comfortable living, by those student standards.

At one of the jobs, having taken on a job with my comrades to build a fence around someone’s cabbage garden, I almost, as they say, “gave up”: I scratched my hands with rusty wire and contracted tetanus.

I understand that our efforts to find work may now cause a condescending smile among young people. Just go to any construction site and you’re done... Yes, but at that time there were almost no construction projects in the city. If they did happen, there was no shortage of permanent, qualified builders. I was at one time the secretary of the summer internship committee. We, the students, allocated places for practice. This was a more serious issue than it may seem now, because for non-scholarship students, two or three months of summer practice, that is, paid work in their own or a similar specialty, was an opportunity not only to feed themselves, but also to provide for themselves financially for at least part of the next academic year. If you had seen how many tears accompanied each distribution of vouchers for summer practice, the difficult situation of students at the beginning of the New Economic Policy would become clear to you.

By the end of the first year of study at Leningrad University, I received a permanent position as a night shift driver at a beer factory and became a “rich guy” among the students with a regular salary of fifty to sixty rubles a month. However, this “wealth” did not bring me any savings for the future. The comrades around me lived so poorly that I could not help but help them. As a result, my high income allowed me to buy books only occasionally. Everything else was handed over, and, of course, irrevocably.

In the fall of 1925, I entered the Academy of Sciences as a laboratory assistant at the geological museum.

It would seem that all I had to do was finish university. In reality it turned out quite differently. The varied activities of the laboratory assistant and science itself fascinated me so much that I often stayed in the laboratory until nightfall. It became increasingly difficult to combine such intense work with classes. In addition, from spring to late autumn we had to go on expeditions. Soon I quit my studies completely, not being able to combine long-distance expeditions to Central Asia and Siberia, where I was already working as a geologist, although I did not yet have a diploma.

I was fortunate to be among those geologists who discovered many important mineral deposits. This difficult work fascinated us so much that we forgot everything. I also forgot about my teaching.

Every now and then I “stumbled” when I had to defend my views, put forward new research projects, or “defend” discovered deposits. Finally, it became clear to me that without a higher education I would face too many annoying obstacles. Being already a qualified geologist, I applied for permission, as an exception, to graduate as an external student from the Leningrad Mining Institute. They met me halfway, and within two and a half years I managed to finish it without interrupting my work.

How much I repented and scolded myself for leaving the teaching and not completing it earlier, when I still had few obligations, accumulated little research that required hasty completion.

Now, when I, an elderly scientist and writer who has seen a lot, look into the past, it is clear to me that the desire and will for knowledge did not leave me. I made my way to knowledge, feeling and understanding what a huge and wide world was opening up before me in books, research, and travel. But whatever my abilities and desires, only systematic education could make accessible all the spiritual wealth of the world. All this - school and lessons, dictations and tasks - was a difficult obstacle, but at the same time a key that opened the gates to something new, interesting, and beautiful.

I was lucky with my teachers - there were good, high-hearted people along the way. Real teachers who managed to discern some abilities in a poorly educated, poorly brought up, sometimes just rude boy. But I think that if this had not happened, I would still have continued to overcome all the difficulties of teaching. Will, like everything else, requires hardening and exercise. What seemed difficult yesterday becomes easy today if you do not give in to momentary weakness, but fight with yourself step by step, exam after exam.

Training in perseverance and will comes unnoticed. When you learn to drive a car, it is difficult to cope with it and keep an eye on the road, signs, and pedestrians. And suddenly you stop noticing your actions, the car becomes obedient and does not require intense attention. So it is with the difficulties of life. The habit of overcoming them comes unnoticed, learning becomes easy, but you can’t let yourself get discouraged and complain. Comrades will respectfully call such a person collected, strong-willed, courageous, and he will be surprised: what was so special about him?

And if you really strive for knowledge, then do not give in to weakness, never cancel your decision. Even a weakened man can navigate the road while he walks. But having fallen, it will be difficult for him to get up, much more difficult than to continue walking!

Why does a person need to strive for constant self-improvement? What role does knowledge acquired throughout life play in this process? And is it really necessary to make enormous efforts, fight against your weaknesses and educate yourself as a person in order to achieve your goal? It is these questions that Ivan Antonovich Efremov answers, raising in his text the problem of the importance of the pursuit of knowledge.

Reflecting on this urgent problem, the author with great emotion tells a story from his life, when he “scolded himself for leaving the teaching and not bringing it to the end sooner.” I. A. Efremov writes: “Finally, it became clear to me that without higher education you will not encounter too many annoying obstacles,” leading the reader to the fact that knowledge, in the author’s opinion, is the key that can open the gates to new, interesting and beautiful.

I. A. Efremov believes that “only systematic education can make accessible all the spiritual wealth of the world.”

I absolutely agree with the author’s opinion, because without the desire for knowledge, a person will not know even a fraction of what our wonderful world conceals within itself, ready to open up only to those who can not succumb to their weaknesses and will be able to overcome all the difficulties along the way .

There is a lot in both Russian and foreign literature on this topic. And I would like to give an example of the work “Flowers for Algernon”, authored by Daniel Keyes. The main character of the work, Charlie Gordon, is a mentally retarded young man, which dooms him to an inferior life. However, Charlie is a shining example of a person who never gives up and always strives to learn, despite all life's difficulties.

It was the desire for self-improvement that prompted Charlie to agree to participate in the experiment. And this experiment gave the main character the opportunity to learn. As a result, Charlie managed to surpass not only himself, but also most of the people around him. The main character showed that it is important to strive for learning, as it opens up enormous opportunities for a person.

As a second argument, I would like to take the famous dystopia of Ray Bradbury “Fahrenheit 451”. Guy Montag is an ordinary fireman who happened to live in a spiritless world, where stereotyped thinking was considered the norm, and any craving for knowledge was instantly suppressed. Unhappy Montag had to burn a storehouse of knowledge every day - books. But in the end, he realized that he would never become happy if he did not develop and strive for more, because only this could open the gates to new and interesting things for a person. After this, Montag decided to preserve the source of knowledge - books - at all costs.

And in conclusion, I would like to say that only an incessant pursuit of knowledge can open for a person all the doors to a new, interesting and fascinating world.