Yegor Belyavski
Egor Belyavsky (14th/26th of April 1838, Smolensk Governorate, Russian Empire – 1st/14th of December 1903, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) – a teacher of literature. From 1886 to 1902 he had been the principal of Riga Alexander gymnasium.
Egor Belyavsky was born on April 14 (April 26, New Style), 1838. His father, Vasily Belyavsky (1805/06–1886), was a priest in the village of Stolbovo, Gzhatsk District of Smolensk Governorate, where he served for 25 years. The family had six children, three of whom—Egor, Alexander, and Maria—later devoted themselves to teaching.
In 1861, Belyavsky graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Imperial Moscow University, after which he enrolled in pedagogical courses specializing in the Russian language. Among his instructors were prominent scholars of the time, including the academician Fyodor Buslaev (1818–1897), a founder of Russian linguistic studies, and the future rector of the university, Nikolai Tikhonravov (1832–1893).
From 1862 to 1883, Belyavsky had been teaching literature at several Russian gymnasiums, including nearly 20 years at the 5th Moscow Gymnasium. Among his students were such notable figures as the future Russian religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), the historian and sociologist Nikolai Kareev (1850–1931), and the psychiatrist Sergei Korsakov (1854–1900), author of the classic Course of Psychiatry.
During this period, Belyavsky authored several textbooks. In 1869, his Theory of Literature… was published (it went through eight editions by 1900); in 1875, The Etymology of Old Church Slavonic and the Russian Language, Compared with the Etymology of Greek and Latin; and in 1881, The Method of Teaching Composition in the Senior Classes of Gymnasiums, with Examples and Essays.
In the 1870s, in addition to his work at the 5th Moscow Gymnasium, Belyavsky contributed to the scholarly journal Philological Notes and also taught at the Moscow Commercial School.
In 1878, he spent a vacation on the Riga seaside, which was rapidly gaining popularity as a resort at the time. There he met Anna Karum, the daughter of the owner of the boarding house where he was staying, and soon proposed marriage to her.
In 1883, the couple moved from Moscow to Tver, where Belyavsky was appointed inspector of the Tver Gymnasium—a promotion compared to his previous position as a teacher.
He spent his vacations on the Riga seaside, where he became acquainted with Mikhail Kapustin, trustee of the Dorpat Educational District (which included Livonia, Estonia, and Courland; from 1893 it was renamed the Riga Educational District). Kapustin offered him the position of director of the Riga Alexander Gymnasium.
For 16 years—from 1886 to 1902—Egor Belyavsky had been serving as principal of the Riga Alexander Gymnasium. At that time, the school educated many future prominent politicians, scholars, and high-ranking officials, including the future member of the 1st Saeima of Latvia Alexander Bochagov, the Director General of Latvian Railways Andrejs Rode, Doctor of Medical Sciences and professor Sergei Tomilin, and others.
In the book The 25th Anniversary of the Riga Alexander Gymnasium (Riga, 1893; compiled by Orest Milevsky), it was noted that under Belyavsky’s leadership, greater attention was paid to the arts: literary evenings developed significantly, and a student orchestra was established. The level of education is illustrated by the fact that at these literary evenings students performed excerpts from ancient Greek tragedies in the original language.
The same publication noted that the gymnasium attracted not only students from Riga. Its reputation was so high that students came from the Kovno (Kaunas), Vitebsk, Minsk, and Vilna (Vilnius) governorates.
While in Riga, Belyavsky continued his scholarly work. He collaborated with journals in St. Petersburg, published reviews of pedagogical works, wrote the article “Why Do Our Secondary Schools Provide So Little Upbringing?” (Herald of Education, 1890, No. 7), and published the popular scholarly work Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir (Riga, 1888).
Belyavsky’s teaching career spanned nearly 40 years. In 1902, he accepted an offer from his former student, Prince Nikolai Shakhovskoy, to take up a high-ranking administrative position in the capital of the Russian Empire. However, he did not work long in St. Petersburg: he died on December 1 (December 14, New Style), 1903. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in St. Petersburg.
After his death, in 1905, his work Pedagogical Memoirs: 1861–1902 was published (Moscow: editorial office of the journal Herald of Education).
Alexander Gunrin, Irēna Ase
Sources of information:
Белявский Егор Васильевич// Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона : в 86 т.
– СПб., 1890—1907;
https://drevo-info.ru/articles/26587.html ;
https://drevo-info.ru/forum/4981.html ;
https://www.directmedia.ru/author_15449_belyavskiy_egor_vasilevich/ ;
25-летие рижской Александровской гимназии / Сост. О. Милевский. — Рига, 1893.;
А. Г. Кравецкий. Е. В. Белявский и его книги –
http://urss.ru/cgi-bin/db.pl?lang=Ru&blang=ru&page=Book&id=192183
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