” Solar Man ” Alexander Chizhevsky Repnikov A. V.
“You stood firm against the delusion of the black herd,
Looked into it without turning your face away:
A genius of knowledge – a true scholar
Remained steadfast in his post until death’s end.”
A.L. Chizhevsky
Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky – one of the greatest scientists of the last century. His works and biography, unfortunately, remain little known to non-specialists in our country. Yet, many people have heard his name, usually in connection with the famous “Chizhevsky Chandelier.” Meanwhile, this man was not only a gifted inventor, but also the founder of cosmobiology and heliobiology, a thinker who proposed a new philosophical understanding of world history. In his youth, he was passionate about astronomy, was an artist-painter and poet, but the true source of his inspiration was the Sun: “All books about the Sun that I found in the library… were diligently studied by me… Everything I could, I purchased from the largest stores in Moscow and Petrograd.”
The biography of Alexander Leonidovich is simple, yet extraordinary. He was born on January 26, 1897, into the family of an officer – an artillery general-major of the Russian army. He graduated from the Kaluga Real School. From 1915 to 1918, he studied at the Moscow Archaeological and Commercial Institutes. In 1917, he defended his master’s thesis, and in 1918, his doctoral dissertation in general history. From 1918 to 1922, he was a free auditor at the faculties of physics and mathematics and medicine at Moscow University. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had a tremendous influence on the formation of A.L. Chizhevsky’s worldview. In Kaluga, Chizhevsky, according to his own calculations, lived for 50 months (from 1915 to 1930) and had at least 250 meetings with Konstantin Eduardovich.
In 1922, Chizhevsky was confirmed as a professor at the Moscow Archaeological Institute. In 1924, in Kaluga, A.L. Chizhevsky’s brochure “Physical Factors of the Historical Process” was published, initiated by A.V. Lunacharsky. From 1924 to 1931, Chizhevsky worked at the Practical Laboratory of Zoopsychology under Glavnauka of Narkompros. In the 1930s, he proposed artificially regulating air ionization in industrial and residential spaces using a special device. On April 11, 1931, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR issued a decree “On the Work of Professor Chizhevsky,” published in “Pravda” and “Izvestia,” which highly praised the measures “for the broad implementation of Professor Chizhevsky’s invention.” The scientist himself was awarded a prize. That same year, 1931, Chizhevsky was appointed director of the newly established Central Research Laboratory of Ionization.
In 1936, Chizhevsky’s laboratory was liquidated, and he himself was removed from work. Many people appealed on his behalf, including the famous polar aviator M. Vodopyanov and prominent foreign researchers. In 1939, Chizhevsky was elected an honorary member of the International Congress of Biological Physics and Cosmic Biology. In 1942, Chizhevsky was arrested. “Informers” and denunciations “helped” bring this about. He spent eight years in confinement. “I did not renounce my work, neither in writing nor orally – and paid dearly for it,” the scientist later wrote to his friend. In the Urals and Kazakhstan, the scholar, whose rich library had been stolen, continued his work. It was in Karlag that Chizhevsky met and married his wife, Nigov V.S.
In 1958, he was rehabilitated. He lived in Moscow, on Zvyozdnaya Avenue. In his works, A.L. Chizhevsky emphasized that living organisms on our planet are shaped by both terrestrial and cosmic factors. The process of life development on Earth results from the interaction of earthly and cosmic forces; the cosmic world and the terrestrial biosphere are intrinsically linked. Radiant flows connect the planet with the cosmic environment – wrote A.L. Chizhevsky – they make every atom of Earth vibrate in unison with them, constantly provoking the movement of matter and filling the ocean of air, seas, and land with elemental life. When encountering life, these flows transfer their energy to it, thereby sustaining and strengthening life’s struggle against the forces of inanimate nature. Organic life is possible only where there is free access to cosmic radiation, for to live means to channel through oneself a stream of cosmic energy in its kinetic form.
The primary source responsible for the emergence and evolution of organic life on Earth is the radiant energy of the Sun. Moreover, “the most significant events among nations” are also linked to solar activity, that is, to the transformation of “the Sun’s radiant energy into an excess of nervous-psychic energy in human masses.” However, this statement by Chizhevsky does not mean that solar energy alone bears responsibility for wars, revolutions, coups, and socio-political cataclysms. For the Sun merely provides the energy; the specific action depends on humanity. And if “mankind follows the path of least resistance and plunges itself into oceans of its own blood,” then the fault does not lie with the Sun. Thus, Chizhevsky by no means ignored the role of economic and political factors in social processes: “In our hands,” he wrote, “we have a simple but effective scheme: when the nature of the Sun and Earth becomes turbulent – people become agitated; when the nature of the Sun and Earth calms down – people calm down as well. Therefore, political figures or military leaders should not rely on the possibility of any particular event. They must understand that reality will manifest with the same inevitable necessity that characterizes phenomena in the physical world, entirely independent of personal hopes or state plans.”
From 1958 to 1964, A.L. Chizhevsky served as a scientific consultant, and from 1962, as head of the Laboratory of the USSR. He died on December 10, 1964, from throat cancer and was buried at Pyatnitskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
To the memory of a great man, scientist, and philosopher! Thirty years later, Chizhevsky’s works would be published and republished in massive editions; dissertations would be written about him, and articles analyzing his predictions would appear in numerous newspapers, from “Sovetskaya Rossiya” to “Trud v Dome.”
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