Editing Mikhail Lomonosov (section)

==Early life and family==
Lomonosov was born in the village of [[Kholmogorsky District|Mishaninskaya]], later renamed [[Lomonosovo, Arkhangelsk Oblast|Lomonosovo]] in his honor, in [[Archangelgorod Governorate]], on an island not far from [[Kholmogory, Arkhangelsk Oblast|Kholmogory]], in the far north of Russia.{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=11}} His father, Vasily Dorofeyevich Lomonosov, was a prosperous peasant fisherman turned ship owner, who amassed a small fortune transporting goods from [[Arkhangelsk]] to [[Pustozyorsk]], [[Solovetsky Islands|Solovki]], [[Kola (town)|Kola]], and [[Lapland (Finland)|Lapland]].{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=11}} Lomonosov's mother was Vasily's first wife, a [[deacon]]'s daughter, Elena Ivanovna Sivkova.{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=12}}

He remained at Denisovka until he was ten, when his father decided that he was old enough to participate in his business ventures, and Lomonosov began accompanying Vasily on trading missions.{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=12}}

Learning was young Lomonosov's passion, not business. The boy's thirst for knowledge was insatiable. Lomonosov had been taught to read as a boy by his neighbor Ivan Shubny, and he spent every spare moment with his books.{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=12}} He continued his studies with the village deacon, S.N. Sabelnikov, but for many years the only books he had access to were religious texts. When he was fourteen, Lomonosov was given copies of [[Meletius Smotrytsky]]'s ''Modern Church Slavonic'' (a grammar book) and [[Leonty Magnitsky]]'s ''Arithmetic''.{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=13}} Lomonosov was a Russian Orthodox Christian all his life, but had close encounters with [[Old Believers]] schism in early youth and later in life he became a [[deist]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov: his life and work|date=1980|publisher=Mir|page=161|author=Galina Evgenʹevna Pavlova |author2=Aleksandr Sergeevich Fedorov|quote=The atheistic direction of Lomonosov's scientific and artistic creativity was not always consistent. His world outlook, just as that of many other representatives of the age of enlightenment, possessed elements of deism according to which God, having created the universe, assumed no control over its development which was governed by the laws of nature. Lomonosov's deism was no chance factor. As Karl Marx aptly put it, deism was the most convenient and easiest way for many materialists of the 17th–18th centuries to abandon religion.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Pushkin's Lyric Intelligence|url=https://archive.org/details/pushkinslyricint00kahn|url-access=limited|date=2008|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780191552939|page=[https://archive.org/details/pushkinslyricint00kahn/page/n142 130]|author=Andrew Kahn|quote=No atheistic conclusions spring from 'The Orb of Day has Set' to reverse Lomonosov's deism, but the poem still intrudes a painful gap between man and nature.}}</ref>

In 1724, his father married for the third and final time. Lomonosov and his stepmother Irina had an acrimonious relationship. Unhappy at home and intent on obtaining a higher education, which Lomonosov could not receive in Mishaninskaya, he was determined to leave the village.{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=15}}