The mind of the cosmos and the mind of its creatures The Universe is one, but it can be conditionally divided into three areas. One is huge and seemingly unconscious. This is the region of suns, eternally extinguishing and arising again. The second is the world of relatively small and therefore cooled bodies. These are planets, moons,

Irina Levontina

Everyone admires Chernomyrdin’s linguistic talent. And by the way, Gryzlov is in some ways no worse. Only Chernomyrdin is a bright representative, so to speak, of the Gogol trend, and Gryzlov rather continues the line of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Recently he (not the writer Saltykov-Shchedrin, but Speaker Gryzlov) complained that innovation has a difficult fate in our society: “There are specific proposals that encounter obstacles in the way of either careless officials, whom we call bureaucrats, or even in the way discussions in our scientific structures, such as the Academy of Sciences. Today it was said by one of the speakers that we even have a Commission to Combat Pseudoscience at the Academy of Sciences. It is interesting how they, these representatives of the Commission, took upon themselves the right to judge those who propose new ideas. I don't think we need to go back to the Middle Ages and create an Inquisition. This is just obscurantism." Exactly. The desire of academic circles to conduct a scientific examination of the project before directing an avalanche of budget money towards its implementation is not just an inquisition, it is some kind of fascism.

But I liked the use of the word obscurantism here. This word, by the way, has a very interesting history, which V.V. wrote about more than half a century ago. Vinogradov (sorry - academician).

In a word, obscurantism in Russian literature, and especially in journalism, since the middle of the 19th century. they brand blind hostility to progress, to enlightenment, to all advanced ideas - obscurantism. A typical obscurantist in Russian literature is Famusov:

Once evil is stopped:

Take all the books and burn them.

It may seem that the words obscurantism, obscurantism are of Church Slavonic origin: they resemble demonic darkness. However, writes Vinogradov, this is not so. These words are not found in Old Russian and South Slavic monuments of the 11th-16th centuries, they are not indicated in lexicographic works of the 16th-17th centuries, and they do not appear in the Russian literary language of the 18th century. They were not registered either by the dictionaries of the Russian Academy (1789–1794 and 1806–1822), or by the dictionary of 1847. Even V.I. did not include them in his dictionary. Dahl. The word obscurantism arose earlier than obscurantism, and entered Russian literary use only in the first quarter of the 19th century. However, in old texts there is a component - madness for the translation of the Greek - jiavia (-mania): gluttony (gluttony), laryngeal madness (in different meanings, including gluttony), misogyny (lust, morbid womanizing). Until the beginning of the 19th century. this type of compound word formation was unproductive. But from the 10-20s of the 19th century. The component - madness has intensified: metromanie, chinobesy, book madness, Italian madness, Slav madness, Muscovite madness, whip madness, and dancing madness appear. In 1845 V.A. Sollogub wrote the vaudeville “Bouquets or St. Petersburg Flowers,” which was staged on the stage of the Alexandria Theater. The impetus for this movement was given by the spread of international terms containing in the second part - manie.

Against this historical and linguistic background, the word obscurantism (manic love for darkness) arose. It originated, according to V.V. Vinogradov, “in the circles of the advanced, revolutionary-minded intelligentsia of the late 1910s.” The magazine “Son of the Fatherland” published a letter under the pseudonym “Peter Svetolyubov”, in which the possibility of translating the French comedy “La manie tenebres”, obscurantism, was discussed. It’s funny that the author of the letter offers four name options for the main character: Gasilnikov, Gasitelev, Pogashenko and Shchiptsov (by association with tongs used to extinguish candles), the publisher in response offers his own four options: Barshchin, Rabovsky, Poklonenko and Pogasilius - also very revealing.

Which of the Russian writers of the early 19th century. hiding behind the pseudonym “Peter Svetolyubov” is unknown. Vinogradov suggested that it was Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. In any case, the word, starting from the 20s of the 19th century, has been spreading in progressive circles; Its use especially increased in the 30s and 40s. The widespread dissemination of the word obscurantism in Russian journalistic style was greatly facilitated by the following passage from the famous letter of V.G. Belinsky to Gogol (1847) regarding “Selected passages from correspondence with friends”: “Preacher of the whip, apostle of ignorance, champion of obscurantism and obscurantism, panegyrist of Tatar morals - what are you doing?.. Look at your feet: after all, you are standing over the abyss” . Following Belinsky, the entire Belinsky circle began to use the word in their literary works, and then all advanced Russian criticism of the 50s and 60s of the 19th century. By the 60s it had become a literary norm. At I.S. Turgenev in the article “About “Fathers and Sons”” (1868–1869) we read: “...While some accuse me of insulting the younger generation, of backwardness, of obscurantism... - others, on the contrary, indignantly reproach me for kowtowing to this very young generation.”

It’s remarkable how many things come together in the word obscurantism: the Greek substratum, the French prototype, and Belinsky’s linguistic activity. And most importantly, how clearly his time is visible in this word, how it breathes with faith in reason, in enlightenment and progress. Here one cannot help but recall Pushkin:

How this lamp fades

Before the clear sunrise of dawn,

So false wisdom flickers and smolders

Before the sun of the immortal mind.

Long live the sun, may the darkness disappear!

So it’s in vain that journalists giggle about the speaker’s use of words. And it was no accident that he blurted out about obscurantism. The whole point here is what is considered light and what is considered darkness. Why not decide that the Commission on Pseudoscience, created, by the way, on the initiative of Nobel laureate V.L. Ginzburg is a nest of enemies of enlightenment and champions of ignorance, and the inventor of the perpetual motion machine Petrik is a torch of advanced scientific thought. He is practically Prometheus, and academics are evil obscurantists and extinguishers. Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno were also not recognized in their time.

But by the way... As they say, Gryzlov and Petrik are co-authors of a superpatent for a superinnovative superfilter... Maybe it’s not a matter of any special love of light on the part of the Speaker? Here a word suggests itself in the spirit of advanced journalism of the 19th century. - let's say, silver.

Why did the joyful voice fall silent?
Ring out, bacchanal choruses!
Long live gentle maidens
And the young wives who loved us!
Pour the glass fuller!
To the sounding bottom
Into thick wine
Throw the treasured rings!
Let's raise our glasses and move them together!
Long live the muses, long live the mind!
You, holy sun, burn!
How this lamp fades
Before the clear sunrise of dawn,
So false wisdom flickers and smolders
Before the sun of the immortal mind.
Long live the sun, may the darkness disappear!

Analysis of the poem “Bacchic Song” by Pushkin

Since 1824, A.S. Pushkin was in “village” exile on his father’s family estate. He had a hard time experiencing the time of forced seclusion, which was brightened up only by the stories of Arina Rodionovna and rare visits from close friends. But melancholy could not completely capture the poet’s soul. Pushkin hoped for his speedy release and a long-awaited meeting with all his comrades. The poet’s optimism is clearly manifested in the work “Bacchanalian Song” (1825).

Pushkin's love for noisy feasts is widely known. Many accuse the great poet of excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages. But this view is based on modern ideas about a drunken company. In the era of Pushkin, they drank mainly light wines or champagne. At the table, highly intellectual conversations about the highest human ideals and literature did not stop. They rarely got drunk. According to contemporaries, Pushkin generally adhered to measures very strictly.

Therefore, the poet’s peculiar hymn to the god of wine cannot in any way be reproached. In a friendly feast, Pushkin valued not the drink, but the opportunity for close and open communication. The great poet can sooner be accused of excessive passion for the female sex (“long live the tender maidens”) than of drunkenness. In addition, the author suffered from long loneliness. It is quite natural that his most vivid memories were noisy friendly companies.

Pushkin’s call to throw “cherished rings” into glasses (with symbols applied that indicated belonging to any society) symbolizes the unity of the friendly circle. At that time, people who did not know each other well or had hostility towards each other would never have sat down at the same table.

Pushkin’s toast (“Long live the muses, long live the mind!”) once again emphasizes that those gathered are not at all going to sleep in a salad or lie under the table, as is customary now. All of Pushkin's comrades were highly educated people, for whom the best home entertainment was a friendly conversation on various topics. They treated with contempt those who allowed themselves to lose their minds during the feast. It is no coincidence that Pushkin, developing his thought, speaks of “false wisdom” and “immortal mind”, ending his toast with the words “Long live the sun, may darkness disappear!”

In general, the poem “Bacchic Song” is a playful prank of Pushkin, bored in the rural wilderness.

Symbiotic hydroponics. Nobel lecture.

The photograph shows a transparent plastic vessel with a capacity of 4 liters with numerous colonies of green algae growing in it. When the day is sunny and bright, many bubbles of oxygen produced by algae through photosynthesis appear on the surface of the water.
(It would be more accurate to say not “photosynthesis”, but just the opposite - the photo-splitting of water and carbon dioxide. More precisely, it is still the process of photosynthesis of thousands of complex organic substances, the waste of which is oxygen) From the side you can see how the bubbles grow and float to the surface. A thought was born: What will happen if I plant plants, grass, say, in these colonies. In an ordinary jar of water, the grass will grow, but will probably wither: The roots must breathe, but there is not enough oxygen in the water. After this idea comes the next one. But, if there are a lot of green algae in the water, which produce oxygen in the light, then the water will be saturated with it and the roots will receive the gas necessary for life! I planted blades of grass there, in this jar, a couple of years ago. And, look, how they grew and multiplied IN THE WATER. Probably a successful symbiosis: The roots live in oxygen-saturated water, and the algae, apparently, also get something from the grass growing on them! I remember from school about alfalfa, which has nodules on its roots with anaerobic bacteria, that is, breathing nitrogen, they create a supply of nitrogen fertilizers in the soil. Next thought step: Flood waters or other origins often flood meadows, fields, forests and plants die due to the same reason. So maybe you can put in there (spray from an airplane or from a boat) a lot of green algae and they will provide the necessary oxygen? But the ROOTS of plants are in the ground! The light doesn’t get there, like in my transparent vessel! And algae can produce oxygen ONLY IN THE LIGHT!!! You can’t stick millions of fluorescent lamps into the ground!
So the problem is formulated as follows: How to give green algae the light necessary for “photosynthesis”, but inside the soil itself?
Two options: Make the soil transparent. HOW? Don't know! Remove color pigment from soil bacteria? And from the mineral particles themselves? Actually “soil”?
Another possibility: Provide some illumination within the soil. HOW? Mix our green algae with other micro-creatures, chemofluorescent bacteria! The bacteria will glow in the dark, feeding on the remains of organic matter, and provide light to green algae. The result is a volumetrically luminous earth! At the bottom of the deep oceans, after all, there are such colonies that often live on the bodies of deep-sea fish and cuttlefish. A mixture of photoluminescent algae and green algae will give light and then there will be plenty of oxygen under water and underground. And the Black Sea, starting from a depth of two hundred meters, can be made habitable (now it is dead, because from two hundred meters to the bottom the water there is hydrogen sulfide.) So pour tons of bacteria there that feed on sulfur - heaven for them there, they will multiply and convert hydrogen sulfide into something life-sustaining. And that will be?
There will be Pushkin’s “Bacchic Hymn”:
“Let's raise the glasses (with seaweed), let's move them together!
Long live the muses! Long live reason!
You, Holy Sun, burn!
How this lamp fades
Before the clear sunrise of dawn,
So false wisdom flickers and smolders
Before the Sun, the immortal mind.
Long live the Sun! Let the darkness disappear!
So what did we get?
A scientific article framed by poetry, or poetry framed by science.
Something new has emerged: Poetic Science. Or Scientific Poetry.
6 IX 2014

"Bacchic Song" Alexander Pushkin

Why did the joyful voice fall silent?
Ring out, bacchanal choruses!
Long live gentle maidens
And the young wives who loved us!
Pour the glass fuller!
To the sounding bottom
Into thick wine
Throw the treasured rings!
Let's raise our glasses and move them together!
Long live the muses, long live the mind!
You, holy sun, burn!
How this lamp fades
Before the clear sunrise of dawn,
So false wisdom flickers and smolders
Before the sun of the immortal mind.
Long live the sun, may the darkness disappear!

Analysis of Pushkin’s poem “Bacchic Song”

It is no secret that Alexander Pushkin loved noisy companies and often organized real feasts to which his fellow lyceum students were invited. It was to the Thracian god Bacchus, who patronizes winemaking, that the poet dedicated a huge number of his works. However, gatherings over a glass of good wine for Pushkin are not only a pleasant pastime. This is a special ritual that is designed to unite friendship, give food for the mind and help find inspiration.

In 1825, while on the Mikhailovskoye family estate, Pushkin wrote the poem “Bacchanalian Song,” which is filled with optimism and hope for a bright future. It is worth noting that the poet is going through not the easiest times. He is virtually exiled to the wilderness, and is under the secret supervision of his own father. Therefore, there simply cannot be any talk about guests and feasts. But it is precisely the warm, friendly company that the 26-year-old poet is missing at this moment, who exclaims with nostalgia: “Ring out, bacchanalian choruses!”

The author understands that his stay in Mikhailovsky will not last forever, and the day will come when he will be able to see his fellow lyceum students. Some of them still secretly visit Pushkin, and on such days the poet feels like the happiest person. Nevertheless, he dreams of a real holiday and, turning to his friends, encourages them to pour their glasses more fully. “Let’s raise our glasses, let’s move them together!” Pushkin dreams, remembering his carefree and serene youth. The poet believes that the best years of his life are not left in the past, and many amazing discoveries await him ahead.

Despite his rather light and festive attitude towards life, Pushkin is still a philosopher at heart. Therefore, the process of drinking itself does not captivate him. The common phrase that truth should be sought in wine is not an empty phrase for the poet. After all, Pushkin’s most daring ideas and best poems are born precisely during feasts, and his life motto is formulated in the line: “Long live the muses, long live the mind!”

For some, a feast with friends is entertainment. The poet sees the highest meaning in such a pastime. After all, it is during such meetings that “false wisdom flickers and smolders before the immortal sun of the mind.” And Pushkin, who is forced to lead a solitary life as a person rejected by society, is especially lacking in such holidays of soul and heart at this moment. Of course, in such meetings all the components are important - the “thick wine” into which, according to tradition, friends threw rings received from beautiful ladies, and conversations on topics of love and friendship, and poetic improvisations. Therefore, Pushkin expresses the hope that very soon everything will return to normal, and such feasts will again become an integral part of his life. For now, he is forced to be content with memories of his happiest years, when he could often meet with friends, read poetry to them and raise toasts to “the young wives who loved us.”

However, the poet does not only dream about feasts. The last line in the poem clearly indicates that Pushkin wants to change this world. “Long live the sun, may the darkness disappear!” the poet voices his desire, putting a rather deep meaning into this phrase. The author dreams of Russia getting rid of autocracy, although he does not risk talking about it openly. The poet does not yet know that many of his friends are participating in the conspiracy and will soon become famous throughout the world as the Decembrists. But he feels that the country is on the verge of serious changes, and welcomes them, believing that the destruction of the previous foundations of society is inevitable.