My great-grandfather

MY HERO

Solntsev Pietr SpiridonovichFamily archive
There are no celebrities in my family, but there are a lot of personalities in it whom I am proud of. One of them is my great-grandfather. His name is Solntsev Pietr Spiridonovich (1913 – 1999). He lived a very interesting life.

My great-grandfather conducts a meeting of the school managementFamily archive

He was born in Belarus in a simple peasant family with six children. He was the only one of them who, from the very childhood, longed for knowledge. Very early, my great-grandfather entered a vocational school and after finishing it he entered a technical school and then he went to work as a railway engine driver.
But his strive for knowledge made him learn further, and he went to the pedagogical university in St-Petersburg (Leningrad). After he graduated from the university he was invited to the post-graduate courses to do scientific research.
However, World War II broke out in 1941 and my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were evacuated to Siberia together with a group of schoolchildren. During the war, he organized work of several schools for children in evacuation.
After the war, they returned to Moldavia where, in a small town, he headed the school education system which had to be rebuilt after a complete destruction. This was incredibly difficult, and my great-grandfather wrote in his memoirs: “From my very childhood, I got accustomed to real hardships. It seemed those were usual difficulties caused by the war, draughts or crop failure, etc. But my dream of the bright future continued to live in my conscience. I firmly believed in it.”
Later, he was invited to work in Belarus in the position of the headmaster of a typical school in Minsk. Working as a school headmaster he was engaged in scientific research and became the first teacher in Belarus to defend his PH.d. doctor thesis (philology).

Then my great-grandfather was promoted to be head of the research institute of pedagogics which created text-books for schoolchildren throughout the country.

My great-granfather chairing a UNESCO international conference on educationFamily archive
At the next stage of his career, he was invited to work in UNESCO at the education department where he contributed to the development of teaching methods at the international level. He knew well that children in African and Asian countries had almost no possibility to get education, there were few schools, there were no text books. He actively took part in the elaboration of educational programs for third world countries, he studied the situation in those countries, composed reports and gave recommendations on how to improve it. Working in UNESCO, he also helped developing nations in Africa and Asia to build their educational systems. He often went on business trips to such countries and, generally, he travelled a lot. He studied the world with great interest.

This was a very interesting and fruitful career which successfully ended with his retirement on pension, and my great-grandfather was happy to return home. As he clearly declared in his memoirs: “I have never imagined myself outside my country and away from my people”.
I am proud of my great-grandfather. He devoted all his life to study. Even having received secondary special education and already working as an engine driver, he wanted to study more and more and to become a teacher himself. He did become a teacher, but this was not enough for him. He became a scientist and author of text books and educational programs, administrator and diplomat.

In our family, we are proud of our great-grandfather. But also, we could mention such vivid examples of our members as the USSR champion and record-breaker in track-and-field, two more Ph.D. doctors of sciences, merited worker of public education, and many other honest and intelligent personalities.

In ParisFamily archive