Teacher, students, era: the life and teaching activities of Fyodor Vasilyevich Anderson

The study is aimed at reconstructing the milestones in the biography of Fyodor Vasilyevich Anderson, Vladimir Vernadsky’s student, a talented teacher and local historian, who taught in secondary schools in Ekaterinodar (Krasnodar) in the first third of the twentieth century. The authors focus on identifying and analyzing events related to the pedagogical and local history work he carried out. The source base consisted of materials of personal origin (diaries, letters), unpublished office documents from the collections of Russian state archives, as well as previously unknown materials (including photographs) from the personal archives of Anderson’s descendants. The methodology is based on the biographical method, which is understood by the authors in the spirit of the “genetic personalistics” concept by Boris Ananyev. Historical-anthropological and hermeneutic methods, as well as the methodology of historical source study, were also used in the work. The main facts related to the family of Anderson’s parents and his immediate relatives are revealed, biographical events related to the period of his studies at Moscow University are highlighted. The authors paid the closest attention to the years of his work as a teacher in the 1st Ekaterinodar Men’s Gymnasium: the innovative methods Anderson used are highlighted’ his activities in organizing an educational natural science museum and student clubs, conducting research excursions and other experimental and practical forms of work with gymnasium students are reflected. Anderson's successes in local history work are described. The influence that the teacher had on his students is shown - Anderson guided some of them to choose the natural science as a field of future professional scientific activities. The authors emphasize that among the outstanding students of Fyodor Anderson were the most famous Soviet scientists: entomologist Nikolai Bogdanov-Katkov, embryologist and ichthyologist Sergei Kryzhanovsky, ornithologist Evgeniy Ptushenko. The stages of Anderson's biography are reconstructed, covering the revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War, as well as the period that followed, associated with the establishment and strengthening of Soviet power. The authors’ periodization of the life and professional path of Fyodor Anderson is given. The authors conclude that he was a talented natural scientist, but did not have the opportunity to devote himself entirely to scientific pursuits and found self-realization in pedagogical work, training students who in the future became highly qualified researchers.