A Word about the Teacher

Abstract

Strict and attentive, but at the same time fatherly and warm — a glance above the glasses (in a simple thin frame). He walked through the rows of students looking into notebooks, checking how the problem written on the blackboard was being solved. September 1955 ∶ a seminar in higher algebra is in progress for the students of the 104th section of the first year in the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics [Mehmat] at MSU. The seminar is run by the Teacher, Anatoly Illarionovich Shirshov, a young assistant in the Department of Higher Algebra at MSU. The Department is headed by Alexander Gennadievich Kurosh, the author of the textbook “A Course in Higher Algebra” and the monography “Group Theory”. A.I. stops next to me, nods with satisfaction and calls me to the blackboard: “Kuzmin, come and tell us how to solve this problem”. I go up and explain it. Stopping me before I finish, A.I. asks the audience: “Who knows how to complete the solution? Vinogradov, come to the blackboard.”