Bibliography

L. D. Belkind, Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov. Life and Works. State Energy Publishing House, Moscow—Leningrad, 1950, 379 pp. Price 15 rub. 35 kopecks.

The interest in the history of science and technology that has grown in recent years has given rise to the appearance of an extensive biographical literature.

A truly Soviet biographical style has already taken shape. This style is distinguished by a profound penetration into the creative work of the scientist or technologist in question, to whom the biography is devoted. An unsurpassed example of the Soviet biographical style in this sense is the brilliant biography of Newton written by S. I. Vavilov.

Also characteristic of the Soviet biographical style is the portrayal of outstanding people in close connection with their epoch, taking into account the socio-economic features of that epoch.

The history of science and technology is instructive from many points of view. Perhaps most instructive, however, is the history of the introduction of the results of scientific research into life. Finding the shortest path in this matter has not always been easy.

In this sense, the history of the emergence of modern electrical engineering from the physical doctrine of electrical and magnetic phenomena is of great interest. From the experiments of Faraday and Petrov to the creation of modern electrical machines and devices there lies an immense distance, and the creative labor of many people was required to overcome it.

Among these people the first places are occupied by such Russian inventors and engineers as Lodygin, Yablochkov, Chikolev, Slavyanov, Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, and Popov.

L. D. Belkind’s book is devoted to P. N. Yablochkov, who played an especially outstanding role precisely in the first stage of the development of modern electrical engineering. Today it is often forgotten how strongly electrical engineering was bound up with its own development as lighting technology.

At the present time the greater part of the electric energy produced is spent not on lighting; but the first rapid growth in the consumption of electric energy was connected precisely with the appearance of P. N. Yablochkov’s “electric candle,” and the needs of electric lighting posed new problems for the first electrical engineers. Therefore P. N. Yablochkov’s role in the development of electrical engineering was by no means limited to the invention of the “candle” that bears his name. To him also belongs the introduction of alternating current and transformers, which left its mark on the entire development of modern electrical engineering.

The enormous role of P. N. Yablochkov in the development of electrical engineering was recognized in his own time both in our country and abroad, but later there occurred a distortion of scale, and everything was reduced to the “Yablochkov candle.”

L. D. Belkind’s book presents the first truly scientific biography of P. N. Yablochkov, “…based on the collection, study, and critical analysis over many years of primary sources both for establishing new, previously unknown facts about P. N. Yablochkov (and many such facts were found) and for verifying previously published data” (Fig. 4).

The book was written by a specialist in lighting engineering, who is capable of competently assessing everything done by P. N. Yablochkov. The merit of the book is that it is not “dry” and is read with interest. In it, P. N. Yablochkov is shown in interaction with his surroundings, shown as a living person with a tragic fate, which was the lot of many talented Russian people of that time.

The book begins with the chapter “Childhood Years.” In this chapter, information about the ancestors and relatives of P. N. Yablochkov is set out in detail (which required much work on the author’s part), and the date of P. N. Yablochkov’s birth is clarified (September 2, 1847). Strange as it may seem, there had been confusion even on this question.

The next chapter—“Gymnasium Years”—contains a very vivid and interesting picture of the secondary school of that time. Here there are corporal punishments, and the embezzlement of directors, and the teachers’ constant drunkenness. “The teachers’ falling asleep in class while drunk was not rare, nor were hand-to-hand scuffles with pupils” (p. 33). It is not for nothing that N. G. Chernyshevsky wrote about the Saratov gymnasium, where P. N. Yablochkov studied: “The pupils of the gymnasium are fairly well developed. The teachers are laughter and woe...” (p. 33). True, there were also progressive people among the teachers (not to mention Chernyshevsky himself).

P. N. Yablochkov spent only 3½ years in the gymnasium. Material and other reasons compelled his parents to transfer him to the Military Engineering School.

The next chapter gives a clear idea of this outstanding educational institution and of P. N. Yablochkov’s studies there. Here the author particularly notes the role of the major military engineer and well-known composer César Cui in the formation of P. N. Yablochkov’s scientific interests. Among the instructors were such scholars as the founder of the theory of regulation, I. A. Vyshnegradsky, and N. P. Petrov—the founder of the hydrodynamic theory of lubrication. P. N. Yablochkov received a good engineering education. “Meanwhile, in various popular articles and even studies it is stated that P. N. Yablochkov was self-taught and did not receive a systematic education. Such opinions are difficult to explain except as a misunderstanding” (p. 58). The author justly emphasizes the generally high level of military-engineering science in Russia in the 1860s.

The chapter “P. N. Yablochkov—the Officer,” properly speaking, does not contain especially interesting information about Yablochkov himself, for military service was not a productive period of his life. On the other hand, this chapter presents an interesting sketch of Russian, chiefly military, electrical engineering of that period.

Three chapters of the book are devoted to a very important Moscow period in the life of P. N. Yablochkov.

In these chapters the preparation and organization of the Moscow Polytechnic Exhibition of 1872 are described in detail. The environment that helped P. N. Yablochkov broaden his scientific and engineering outlook is shown. The author, convincingly drawing on a large body of factual material, depicts the active scientific and technical atmosphere that had then developed in Moscow around such people as Stoletov, Chikolev, Glukhov, and Vladimirsky. In this atmosphere P. N. Yablochkov matured as an inventor. On the basis of direct evidence (the testimony of K. A. Chernyshev), the author arrives at a new and very important conclusion: “There is no doubt that the very principle of the electric candle with parallel-arranged carbons was devised by P. N. Yablochkov in Moscow” (p. 132). Yablochkov was prompted to this invention by observing the arc that arose between the electrodes in an electrolytic bath in Glukhov’s workshop. This thereby refutes the opinion established in the literature, according to which P. N. Yablochkov made this invention in Paris (see, for example, Essays on the History of Physics in Russia, p. 255).

L. D. Belkind writes: “If we turn to the list of patents received by P. N. Ya. abroad during approximately the year of his stay there..., we shall note that there were quite a number of these patents and that they related to various electrotechnical devices. This list shows that a whole series of inventions—complex inventions, sometimes representing the solution of a fundamentally new technical problem—were fully developed and patented within the space of a single year. It is clear that in Paris P. N. Yablochkov made most of these inventions in 1876, only refined them” (p. 138). This conclusion has great fundamental significance and changes our entire conception of the creative biography of P. N. Yablochkov.

Until now there has been an exaggeration of the role of the Paris period in the life and work of P. N. Yablochkov. This was explained by the fact that the real situation that existed in Russia in those days was not taken into account. Contrary to the reactionary technical policy of the government, which did not believe in the creative powers of its own people, a fairly large group of advanced technical figures had arisen, whose ideas and work often outstripped those abroad. Therefore P. N. Yablochkov was far more indebted to his homeland than is usually written. L. D. Belkind also convincingly shows that P. N. Yablochkov’s departure abroad was caused simply by his financial bankruptcy, and not by a desire “to show something abroad from among his inventions and to learn something there” (p. 133).

In describing the first Paris period of P. N. Yablochkov’s life, the author again devotes much attention to the milieu surrounding the inventor. This is correct, but at times the author, in his conscientiousness, breaks the proportions and gives too many details about persons who came into contact with P. N. Yablochkov (see, for example, pp. 142—144 on Breguet and du Moncel, p. 154 on Delarue). These details do not obscure the image of P. N. Yablochkov, but they distract the reader’s attention.

Naturally, the book devotes much space to P. N. Yablochkov’s principal invention—the “electric candle.” The author carefully substantiates P. N. Yablochkov’s priority in this invention and describes in detail the various designs of the “candle.” Most importantly, he quite correctly emphasizes the exceptional role of the “candle” in the development of all electrical engineering. “The subsequent history of the electric candle is paradoxical. The electric candle is now not used anywhere. It shone brightly only for a very brief time—less than five years. It quickly left the stage as a technical means, yielding without a fight all positions to the electric incandescent lamp. But in its five years of life it produced a genuine revolution. This was not understood, or they did not wish to understand and note it, by many foreign historians of electrical engineering” (p. 162).

Describing P. N. Yablochkov’s other inventions of the same period (the introduction of alternating current and transformers), the author points out that Yablochkov was the first to encounter the peculiar character of the laws of branched alternating currents and tried to explain the effects observed here by an “addition to the currents” obtained from atmospheric electricity (p. 204).

The book gives a vivid picture of the triumphal march of Yablochkov’s electric lighting system through various countries, which ended in universal recognition of the inventor.

The author, along with a description of P. N. Yablochkov’s activity after his first return to his homeland, gives a very interesting comparison of the merits of Edison and of Russian inventors in the creation of electric lighting. It is curious that even in those years the Americans were compelled to acknowledge the great role of Russian inventors (p. 284).

The book substantiates P. N. Yablochkov’s priority in the creation of systems of centralized production of electrical energy. The author may once again be reproached for excessive detailing of information that has no direct relation to Yablochkov.

The chapter “The Last Years Abroad” (1881–1893) covers a long period in the life of P. N. Yablochkov, when he was no longer engaged in the development of light sources but concentrated his efforts on creating current generators. Here a detailed account is given of P. N. Yablochkov’s inventions in this field of electrical engineering.

The last chapter of the book describes P. N. Yablochkov’s second return to Russia and his death. As is known, the famous inventor met with an ungracious reception in his homeland and died in poverty. Yablochkov’s contemporary, the well-known chemist M. Berthelot, in his book Science and Morality, translated into Russian by K. A. Timiryazev, rightly points out that often “a clever speculator who, without the slightest intellectual effort, having waited for a convenient moment to supply an enterprise with the necessary capital—capital moreover collected from other people’s pockets—appropriates all the fruits of the labors of the true creators of the enterprise.” It was from such “speculators,”1 who are an inalienable attribute of bourgeois society, that P. N. Yablochkov suffered greatly.

At the end of L. D. Belkind’s book brief information is given about P. N. Yablochkov’s contemporaries who were connected with his work; a detailed bibliography and a chronology of P. N. Yablochkov’s life are provided.

The book captivates by the breadth with which all the questions touched upon are illuminated and by the thoroughness of the author’s argumentation of his principal conclusions.

Our literature on the history of Russian science and technology has undoubtedly been enriched by a valuable monograph that revives one of the most important stages in the history of electrical engineering and truthfully illuminates the enormous role of P. N. Yablochkov in the creation of modern electrical engineering.

L. D. Belkind’s book is a scholarly foundation for popular biographies of P. N. Yablochkov and will be widely used by lecturers delivering public lectures on his life and work.

The book is well produced and supplied with numerous illustrations.

V. A. Fabrikant

1. “Speculators,” in the terminology of M. Berthelot. ↩