ABSTRACT
I am again being carried away but I cannot help remembering GS he had a strong character and he did not bow down to anybody. Luckily, he was not put into prison. For some reason, I remembered a 'debate' in the Great Physics Classroom with certain 'mechanicists', Tseitlin, Timiryazev and others, on one side, and I E Tamm, GS, Gessen and others, on other side. The 'mechanicists' insisted that the propagation of electromagnetic waves was impossible without some 'mechanical movement'. Among other things, Tseitlin attacked IE and 'advised' him to learn 'mechanical movement' in the way Daphnis and Chloe had learnt it-by watching mountain goats. IE was indignant. GS was calm but did not retreat a step. I think he rather liked me, though with him I somehow happened to be especially silly and tactless. Once E L Feinberg and I called on GS right after the celebration of his 60th anniversary (it was about 1951) and I blurted out: Andronov refused to be present at his 50th anniversary, as he put it, at the rehearsal of his funeral. GS did not turn a hair, while I was burning with shame. There were some other cases like that. His effect on me must have been a bit like that of a boa on a rabbit ('a bit' seems to have been
GS's favorite expression). S M Raiskii once well said about GS: 'He cannot be re-educated, he can only be re. . . "re-conceived".' But, of course, SM was well aware of GS's merits. About his drawbacks I do not want to write--Bveryone has drawbacks but to me he did only good. There was quite a small episode which, for some reason, is engraved in my memory. In 1953, I was elected a Corresponding Member of the Academy (it happened quite accidentally: IE was in favor of it and IV Kurchatov did not object and even confirmed my merits).6* And I do not know what the matter was but GS did not congratulate me and even passed by when seeing me on the staircase. He might have not voted for me and felt too embarrassed to congratulate me. Or there was something else. I did not take offence and I would have forgiven GS (and understood him) if he had been against my being elected in general (for there were people of merit who were older than me). But I just remember my surprise. In general, I see that trying to describe GS here I have failed, as giving a more detailed analyses would mean writing about his weaknesses and I realized that it would be unpleasant for me to write about that. 7* The same can be said about N D Papaleksi. IE also had weak points, to say nothing of Dau. But I am not one of those who 'foul their home nest' and I have always been tolerant of friends and people of an older generation who belong to our camp (Mandelshtam's school and others). The only person in whom I did not notice any weak points and whom I admired was A A Andronov-what a dominant personality, what breadth-words fail me. But it does not mean that my love for IE was any the less. By the by, my conscience is clear-never, not only in my actions but also in my thoughts, have I been unfaithful to IE. Nor have I played a double game if my attitude to someone was more critical. Anyway, I will not go into criticism here-though there would be enough people to be criticized, not to mention the scoundrels and all sorts of scum. But the purpose of these notes is quite different, though it is already almost forgotten among all sorts of small details.
