“About myself there is not much to write,” Pavlov informed an old friend in a characteristically short letter of 1907. “Science and science. And science has also provided enough money, so I even live with my family—my wife, three sons, and daughter—in comfort.”1
With two healthy academic salaries and the Nobel Prize money in the bank, the Pavlovs were now quite comfortable and secure.2 Their basic lifestyle did not change, but Serafima could now indulge her taste for simple luxuries (especially fine chocolate), and they could attend generously to the needs and desires of their growing children. Pavlov divided the prize money among family members, but, as Serafima learned, he retained moral authority over its use. Shortly after depositing her windfall in the bank, she was approached by family friend Nikolai Terskii, now vice director of the Ministry of Transportation and manager of the division that oversaw the acquisition of property for state projects. In that capacity, Terskii possessed potentially lucrative inside information and “always knew in advance what stocks would rise and fall in the market.” Explaining to Serafima that this had enabled him to invest quite profitably, he offered to help her do the same. “You have your part of Ivan Petrovich’s prize,” he said. “Take five thousand and give it to me for a week.... At the end of that period I will return to you, not five thousand, but thirty thousand. If you then give me these thirty thousand for another month, then you will receive from me, not thirty thousand, but one hundred thousand, and you will become a wealthy, independent woman.”
She was much tempted, but her husband objected on principle—not to the dishonesty of insider trading, but to this besmirching of science: “I earned this money by unceasing scientific labor, and science never had, does not have, and never will have anything in common with the market.” Serafima enlisted Terskii’s persuasive powers, but to no avail: “Ivan Petrovich became enraged and tore into him with all his soul. Thus ended this tempting proposition.”3 Her money, like his, remained in the St. Petersburg branch of the Nobel Brothers’ Bank.
Despite Pavlov’s great success and the family’s newfound wealth, Serafima implies more than once in her memoirs that the years around 1904 marked the end of the “happiest time in our life.” Her nostalgia for the 1890s surely owed much to the unique pleasures of their sudden, decisive escape from long privation with her husband’s appointments of 1890–1891, to the joys of finally setting up a comfortable household and raising four children, and to the great satisfaction that each partner took in Pavlov’s scientific achievements. That earlier decade also lacked the palpable political instability of post-1904 Russia that cast a pall over their lives, their prospects, and the future of their children.
Perhaps no less important, however, was the deterioration of domestic harmony after 1904, in large part because Pavlov’s research on conditional reflexes upset his religious wife and diminished the intimacy between them. They had always differed about religion, but this new research, his characteristic preoccupation with his science and its broader significance, and his habit of confidently (and sometimes insensitively) speaking his mind must have now made this difference—whether explicitly addressed or not—a sore subject in their daily life.
Explaining that he liked to think aloud about his research and for that needed an audience, Pavlov complained to Orbeli that Serafima had ceased to play that role at home. Earlier she had listened attentively as he pondered the meaning of the day’s experiments and had transcribed his thoughts so he could formulate them more clearly in discussions with coworkers the next day. “But from the time that I moved to conditional reflexes, it became harder and harder for me, because each time I would begin to speak Serafima Vasil’evna would become agitated, begin to cry, and say: ‘What are you doing, you know this leads to materialism, this is real materialism!’ The situation is such that I feel constrained and can’t think freely as I must.” (In her memoirs, Serafima mentions several episodes during which the couple politely discussed religion, but is silent about the substance of her husband’s studies of conditional reflexes and avoids entirely the effect of this research and their differences in worldview upon their intimate life.)4
In the early 1900s, according to oral lore in Pavlovian circles, Serafima became a disciple of the sensationally popular cleric Ioann Kronshtadskii (John of Kronstadt). As priest of the Andreev Cathedral on the island of Kronstadt (the military base just across the Gulf of Finland from Petersburg), Kronshtadskii enjoyed a massive following and a sizable group of ecstatic disciples who embraced him as the second Christ. He lived a simple life devoted to preaching and charity, and founded a House of Love of Labor that provided food, clothing, shelter, a hospital, and a library for hundreds of indigents. During the years of political upheaval, he supported the far-right nationalist Union of the Russian People (best known for its squads of Black Hundreds that hunted liberals, leftists, Jews, and politically suspect intellectuals). According to one source, Serafima “even attempted to bring Ivan Petrovich and Father Ioann together over some sort of holiday meal, hoping for a polemic between them in which, she thought, Father Ioann would certainly defeat her husband. But the potential disputants both discreetly abstained from a skirmish, and unbroken silence reigned at the table.”5
For his part, Pavlov was an atheist, and, despite his positivist disclaimers to scientific audiences, anybody who heard him speak informally about his new research would have had good reason to believe that he was indeed seeking a physiological explanation of the experiences attributed by believers to the immaterial soul. He would always remain an atheist, but his attitude toward religion and religious believers changed over the years.
Having become a militant atheist during his final years at seminary, his attitude toward religion had softened (though his beliefs did not change) amid the travails of his wilderness years and his courtship of Serafima, but his militancy returned with his professional and scientific successes, and increasing self-confidence, of the 1890s, when he contemptuously dismissed religious belief as backward, unscientific superstition. When his cousin Alexander asked him if he believed in God, he replied “No,” adding with a smile that this was “a superstition, an absurdity, a sign of intellectual backwardness.” He frequently expressed that same view in the lab. One day, for example, he encountered on his way to work a medical student who stopped to cross himself in front of a church. “Think about it!” he exclaimed to coworkers. “A naturalist, a physician, but he prays like an old woman in an almshouse!”6
Upon becoming president of the Society of Russian Physicians in 1907, Pavlov put an end to the practice of beginning special commemorative sessions with a short religious memorial service (panikhida). “The devil only knows—what is this meaningless habit of beginning with a service? We are scientists, we gather to honor the memory of a scientist, and yet for some reason.... I have to smell the scent of incense! Completely senseless!”
He soon reconsidered. At the session memorializing Botkin in 1907, the late physician’s widow and sons attended with their families. There was much ceremony—with soldiers in their uniforms, officials in their tailcoats—but no service. Arriving the next morning at the lab, Pavlov confessed to Orbeli that he had been insensitive. “What a fool I was, spoiling the evening! How thoughtless! I didn’t want to smell incense, but didn’t consider what the family members might feel. You know, they didn’t come to hear the reports; they were accustomed to the fact that we dedicate the meeting to Botkin’s memory and have a service; they are believers. I am not a believer, but I must all the same take believers into consideration. I will never forgive myself! I understood this as soon as I saw the expression on the faces of the widow and the other family members.”7 This sentiment—no less than his confirmed atheism—thereafter became part of Pavlov’s repertoire on this subject. He would often relate a tale (in which the details often changed) about a physician who had once asked him about the possibility of an afterlife and who, after Pavlov had lambasted him for talking “nonsense,” had committed suicide. This man, so the story went, had recently lost his wife.8 This combination of atheism and the belief that irrational religious beliefs were a necessary comfort for many people later found expression in his view, couched in the language of conditional reflexes, that religion was a purposeful “defensive reflex” that preserved “weak types.”
Pavlov being Pavlov, he certainly expressed these sentiments in some form at home—particularly when Serafima objected to his scientific research. Her bedside was surrounded by religious objects and she prayed at least twice a day; one wonders how she dealt with Ivan’s attitude toward her faith. He remained capable of using religious language when necessary to soothe hurt feelings—for example, when he was traveling during Easter 1911: “My kind and dear Sara. Christ has risen! With all my soul I hope you have greeted the holiday at peace. For now, glory to God, everything is fine. And, my dear, upon arrival here I have thought constantly of you. You have been such a dependable mother and wife; believe that God will preserve you from great unhappiness in the future. Although I don’t know how to express my feelings, although as a consequence of our intimacy you have had to bear many of my awful outbursts—still, we are tightly joined with each other.”9
The family often attended Christmas and Easter services together. Pavlov did not pray, but he derived emotional comfort from the music and the childhood memories the service elicited. His explanation to one coworker alluded revealingly to an Eastern Orthodox custom that promised children certain protection from ill fortune if they could accomplish one task: “I remember vividly how on Holy Thursday mother would bundle me and my brothers off to church, give us each a candle, and tell us that during the service we must light a candle and then carry it home—and we went and worried that the candle would go out. And these memories are so joyful that I sometimes go to church on Christmas and Easter.”10 Such comforting memories notwithstanding, his own quest for certainty remained firmly bound to science, scientism, and his life’s routines.
In the 1910s all three of the Pavlov sons chose a profession and began making their way in life. The two oldest embarked on a scientific career—Vladimir in physics and Viktor in histology. The youngest, Vsevolod, chose statecraft and jurisprudence. Vera, unhappy, drifting, and constantly complaining about her health, began periodically to conduct research in her father’s lab, eagerly engaged him on the subject in dinnertime conversations, and even delivered a report on “trace reflexes” to the Society of Russian Physicians in 1913. Her father, however, never took her scientific interests seriously.11
The oldest Pavlov son, Vladimir, was soon mired in intertwined, painful professional and personal trials. For years he had conducted a determined dacha courtship of the charming, wealthy, intelligent, and heartbreakingly beautiful Elizaveta Kiune. She, however, longed for adventure and cast a cold eye upon the looming prospects of adult life, her circle, and her suitor, whom she described in her diary as “too self-confident” and “intelligent...but, in my opinion, not original.”12
Perhaps Vladimir suspected the truth: that Elizaveta was in love with another habitué of Sillamiagi—Vladimir’s closest friend, Valentin Dogel’. By the mid-1900s, Dogel’ was well launched on what would be a distinguished career in invertebrate zoology. He was happiest when on an expedition, and between 1905 and 1910 he was very happy indeed, spending two full years collecting and analyzing specimens at biological stations in Naples, Norway, and Murmansk, and on an expedition through the Red Sea region. The protégé of St. Petersburg University zoologist Vladimir Sheviakov, he spent his spare hours analyzing the mountain of specimens he had collected, writing scientific articles, teaching at the Women’s Pedagogical Institute, and, whenever possible during the summer, relaxing with his friends in “dear Sillamiagi.”13
Elizaveta wrote regularly to Dogel’, reminding him repeatedly of her affection for him and her availability despite his close friend’s persistent courtship. Dogel’ reciprocated her feelings, but—whether from loyalty to Vladimir or to remain free for his travels—he maintained a stance as Elizaveta’s platonic (if emotionally intimate) friend. “You seem to have forgotten me,” she complained in one letter of May 1905, and wondered if Vladimir had intervened. They were quarreling, she added, “This is my fault, but also, in large part, his. That is, he is guilty of being who he is and not the person I had created in my imagination.”14
Not the ideal sentiments for a prospective wife. Yet Dogel’ continued his travels and his letters grew more distant—and Elizaveta married Vladimir in 1908. Four years later, the pair departed for Cambridge, England, where Vladimir pursued doctoral studies at the Cavendish laboratory with the eminent physicist J. J. Thomson. Spring 1913 found Elizaveta languishing in “a cold, terrible country”—teaching Russian, suffering through parties and formal dinners, living with a man she did not love, and writing warm letters to Dogel’, who in rapid succession defended his doctoral thesis, became assistant professor of zoology at St. Petersburg University, and embarked on another expedition.
Vladimir, meanwhile, was floundering, increasingly desperate about his failure to obtain original scientific results. In reassuring letters of fall 1912, Pavlov counseled him not to worry. He should take the long view—study Thomson’s lectures, absorb the atmosphere at the Cavendish, and “As for the results of your current work, be entirely indifferent. Nobody can ever guarantee results. If there are some—good; if none result—there is no harm; they will emerge later, in another place under other conditions.” He was of course reflecting on his own experience in Europe three decades earlier, but Vladimir lacked his father’s drive, self-confidence, and talents, and he was increasingly anxious about his career.15 Deeply fearful of disappointing his father, he was unwilling to confide in him about the real problem. As Elizaveta explained to Dogel’, Vladimir had, in fact, generated some interesting results—but since these contradicted Thomson’s theoretical views, the lab chief had repeatedly insisted on additional proof. Precious time was lost, and, one dreadful day, some Berlin scientists published results identical to Vladimir’s. Thomson then urged him quickly to publish his remaining findings, but when Vladimir produced an article one week later, the chief again reacted skeptically, demanding more proof. “If the Germans publish a continuation of their work,” Elizaveta informed Dogel’, “all of Volia’s work will be wasted, and our terror about this gives us no peace. You see from all this that nothing may work out, and so you must not speak of it to anybody, especially the Pavlovs.”16
Vladimir decided to extend his stay in Cambridge in order to keep working—but Elizaveta had had enough. In January 1914, she informed Dogel’ that her marriage to “Failure Number 1” was over. It was a letter full of bitterness and cold fury that she showed to Vladimir before mailing: “I don’t want to be the wife of a ‘laboratory bottle-washer’ any longer,” she declared, and she was prepared to do anything to “escape this humiliating position.” Vladimir would never succeed as a scientist; the best he could hope for was to “become a ‘mathematician’ in some state gymnasium, [where], even in their dotage, the poor wretches are provided for and do not perish from hunger.”17 The couple remained together for several more unpleasant months—supported by funds from the Pavlovs, to whom they maintained a facade of marital harmony—until their return to Russia in May 1914. When Dogel’ returned from an expedition the following year, Elizaveta was waiting for him. After divorcing Vladimir, she married him in 1918.
The Pavlovs’ favorite son, Viktor, also began a scientific career in the last years before World War I. A gold medalist at St. Petersburg University, he remained there for further studies in histology. By then, he had already tasted the joys of a scientific expedition to Sevastopol and was clearly addicted. During summer 1913, he traveled with Dogel’ through Arkhangelsk to the Murmansk Biological Station, and from there, he informed his parents contentedly, he “wandered through Lapland.”18 He joined a team of geologists in a return trip the following summer. He was “reading rather much,” he informed his parents in July 1914, collecting histological samples of embryological development in two especially interesting worms, and studying the ganglions of fish. “I hope that this year my work will yield more than in the past. In any case, I sense strongly how much more easily I now orient myself amid the rich material that lies before one’s eyes here.”19 Everybody was worried about the possibility of war, he wrote on July 19—and he had heard rumors of an armed uprising in Moscow. “Is this true? Whatever is going on now in Russia?”20
The Pavlovs were proudly confident that Viktor was destined for a bright future in science. According to Serafima, two of Russia’s leading histologists—Alexander Dogel’ at St. Petersburg University (Pavlov’s old friend, and father of Valentin) and Alexander Maksimov at the Military-Medical Academy—“competed over who would have him as his assistant.”21
Viktor shared much with each of his parents: science, of course, with his father—along with the weekly gymnastics sessions and the garden in Sillamiagi—and religious faith with his mother. “Viktor suffered a great deal through a period of religious doubts,” she later recalled, “but ended as a fervent believer. This faith also joined me to him especially closely.” Viktor’s wanderings through Lapland in summer 1914 were part of his project of self-education and reflection. Wanting better to understand his homeland and engaged in a spiritual quest, he also visited the monastery in Solovki, where, Serafima writes, “he was struck by the unusual prosperity of this spiritual commune, which was flourishing at the time under the leadership of a broadly educated Father Superior who was vitally interested in all scientific questions and who surprised [Viktor] with his serious knowledge of purely specialized sciences. He brought me from [the Father Superior] a gift of a wooden spoon made by his own hands with the inscription ‘Give this to your mother for having a good son.’” Viktor continued his travels through the Crimea and Ural regions, and his mother described his return in terms befitting a religious pilgrim: “He returned such a ragamuffin that I, his own mother, did not recognize him and forbade the doorman to allow him into the apartment.”22
Their youngest son, Vsevolod, also seemed well on his way to a successful career. Exceptionally articulate and charming as a boy—for which he earned the family nickname of “the Diplomat”—he entered the juridical faculty of St. Petersburg University. Shortly thereafter, in January 1912, he was bedridden for two weeks with typhus. He emerged from the experience, his mother recalled, “a completely different person,” without a trace of his former cheerful loquaciousness. For almost two weeks after his recovery, he was silent with family and friends, clearly deep in reflection, and then announced that he wanted to leave the university and matriculate instead at the Aleksandrovsk Lycée.23
That decision may well have resulted from the high-profile celebration of the 100th jubilee of this most august and prestigious institution, an event that coincided precisely with Vsevolod’s period of recuperation. Attended by Tsar Nicholas II and the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna, the jubilee highlighted the Lycée’s special role as training ground of Russia’s highest state servants and diplomats. In keeping with its motto, “For the Common Good,” it provided a broad education in the humanities with an emphasis on jurisprudence, with the goal of producing not mere specialists but rounded, well-educated individuals for state service. The Lycée’s most famous graduate remained poet Alexander Pushkin (who had studied there when it was located at the tsarist residence in Tsarskoe Selo), but its alumni included an impressive number of high state officials and distinguished writers and scholars. This most elite institution was closely identified with the tsarist family—its director reported directly to Nicholas II, who granted each year’s graduating class a personal audience. Aside from a general education, Lycée graduates acquired the lifelong connections so important to a successful career at the apex of the tsarist state.24 Identifying deeply with tsarist traditions, Vsevolod had decided to pursue just such a career.
Pavlov no doubt took great pride in the fact that his own achievements had brought this aristocratic education within his son’s reach: the Lycée accepted only sons of the hereditary nobility and state servants who had achieved the rank of Actual State Councillor or military general. Pavlov’s ascent up the academic ladder had earned him the former rank in 1898, after which he had petitioned successfully for membership in the hereditary nobility. Vsevolod, however, needed to prepare for the Lycée’s rigorous admissions exam on foreign languages. Like the other Pavlov children, he was well schooled in German and French, but knew little or no English. For that, his parents sent him to a preparatory school in Vevey, Switzerland. There he combined rowing, gymnastics, climbing, scenic walks, and billiards with intensive language studies. He kept detailed records of expenses for his parents’ inspection, adding once a request that they buy him a new watch: his present one ran slowly (so father would surely approve its replacement) and he wanted a Patek Philippe, which was only available in gold (beginning at 320 francs).25
Passing the entrance exams easily, he matriculated at the Lycée and excelled in his studies. His proud mother noted in her memoirs that the Lycée’s trustee, Senator Ermolov, informed her that Vsevolod stood “a head above all his classmates,” and Viktor informed Valentin Dogel’ in June 1914 that his brother had “performed brilliantly on his exams.”26 By this time, however, war was only months away. Vsevolod would complete his final exams during two trips from the front, but his prospects for a diplomatic career would vanish together with Imperial Russia.
Like his brothers, Vsevolod enthusiastically adopted his father’s passion for gymnastics, bicycling, and gorodki. By all accounts, he was the best gorodki player among the “sons” in the annual Sillamiagi competitions, delighting his father with his artistry at the sport. Serafima’s account of one episode highlighted Vsevolod’s skills at both sport and diplomacy. One summer, Dubovskoi enlivened Pavlov’s annual gorodki competition by offering as a first prize one of his many landscape paintings of Sillamiagi. As the frequent winner of these competitions, Vsevolod was the odds-on favorite, but his opponent in the final round, Vladimir, was, as underdog, the sentimental choice of the dachniki who gathered to watch. In the decisive contest, the brothers proved so evenly matched that the game lasted three days. Serafima later recalled proudly that “Vsevolod, knowing full well the general sentiment, but not wanting to throw the game, acted fully like a ‘diplomat’: on the day of the decisive battle, in hot weather, he rode his bicycle to Gungenburg...to get a haircut and returned, much fatigued, just as the game was to begin. He lost, of course—which satisfied the general wish—but without himself suffering a humiliating defeat.”27
In the 1910s, one son or another was often away summers on his travels, but Sillamiagi continued to serve as the family’s spiritual center. Those who were absent inquired eagerly about goings-on there, and those who were present reported in great detail. In summer 1911, both Viktor and Vsevolod wrote proudly to their mother, who was visiting relatives in Pernov (now Pärnu, Estonia), that their team of “sons” was defeating the “fathers” decisively (time, though, was marching on, and Vladimir soon joined the fathers team).28 That year, Pavlov was taking special pleasure from his new bicycle, which he affectionately christened “my little bull.” He preserved it in top condition to the end of his days, keeping it in a polished shine and gracefully but firmly refusing all requests by others to take it for a spin.29
Vladimir was acknowledging the great importance of Sillamiagi summers to his father when, in his warm birthday greetings of September 1912 from Cambridge, he wished him many more years of “health, vitality, and continued success in your winter work and summer activities.”30