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School in the Twenties
the honor of our class during intra-school competitions. Having her as a neighbor
worked to my advantage in mastering German. Zhenya Taratuta did not finish
school.At the beginning of her last academic year, fulminant tuberculosis took the
life of the most advanced and—in the opinion of our teachers—the most promising
young woman of our class.
Freedom reigned during literature lessons. The tall, handsome, bearded and
dark-haired Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovskiy seated his pupils according to
“ladies’ choice.” He read us his own poems, which were far from the prescribed
syllabus, all the while attentively noting how the female contingent of the class
reacted to them.
When it was announced that we were free to sit anywhere, Zoya Sudnik,
generally recognized as the prettiest girl in the class, sat next to me. She was
Polish. Our observant and sharp-tongued teacher did not pass up the opportunity
to say to me:“Chertok, you now have the responsibility for the literary success of
the beautiful Pole.”We had already read Gogol’s Taras Bulba in the seventh grade,
so I wasn’t shaken. 16
I said,“Andrey’s fate does not threaten me.The beautiful Pole and I have already
mastered range rifle firing together and Taras Bulba doesn’t have a pass to the
Khamovnicheskoye range.”
I never had enough time to read all the literature in the syllabus. Aleksandr
Aleksandrovich knew this and did not miss his chance to put me in my place.
“Your charming neighbor will not enhance the fighting efficiency of our Red
Army with her rifle. But Zoya has gotten through three volumes of War and
Peace ahead of schedule and I hope that she will help you to get a decent grade
in my class.”
Soon our literature teacher got his chance to check whether his instructions
regarding War and Peace had been fulfilled.
In the winter of 1928, in search of earnings and glory, I decided on a venture.
I had gotten an idea for a fundamentally new radio receiver from the German
journal Radio für Alle (Radio for Everyone), but having neither the time nor the
means to manufacture a receiver that really worked, I decided to develop the
circuitry and design on paper only.The description of the two-tube reflex receiver
that I invented was very detailed. I attached its external view to a separate sheet in
accordance with all the canons of design of that era. Completing the detailed article,
I cited a list of European radio stations that anyone who reproduced my
circuitry could successfully receive. I sent all of this to the editorial staff of the journal
Radio for Everyone.
On a sunny spring morning on my way to school, I passed a newspaper kiosk
on Kudrinskaya Square and saw my drawing in living color on the cover of Radio
16. Taras Bulba is the story of a Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his sons Ostap and Andrey. Andrey betrays the
Cossacks for the love of a beautiful Polish woman and Taras kills him.
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