Jacqui is one of the oldest dynasties of SFU. The destinies of many representatives of this family are closely connected with the Southern Federal University (aka Warsaw, Don, North Caucasus, Rostov) at all stages of its historical development.

The Museum of History of the Southern Federal University houses the student card of Esther Solomonovna Brailovskaya (1862-1943). In 1918, she, the respectable wife of a merchant of the first guild, became a volunteer student at the Rostov Institute of Archeology, which was part of Don University. By this time she had five children. The youngest daughter, Maria Semenovna (1901-1995), later became the wife of the poet Veniamin Konstantinovich Jacques (1905-1982).

Veniamin Konstantinovich and Maria Semenovna Veniamin Konstantinovich and Maria Semenovna

Maria Semenovna and Veniamin Konstantinovich are graduates of the pedagogical faculty of the North Caucasus State University. Jacqui devoted his entire life to the cause of education. He is a famous poet, author of fifty poetry collections, and translator. She is a methodological librarian, the creator of a network of children’s libraries.

Veniamin Konstantinovich Jacques Veniamin Konstantinovich Jacques

The Jacques had to endure a lot: revolutions and pogroms, the collapse of the old world, the death of friends in the 1930s, war, illness, “the fight against cosmopolitanism”… They passed all the trials of the century with dignity: contemporaries characterize them in their memoirs as people of exceptional kindness and high decency. During the Great Patriotic War, they repaid their debt to the Motherland: Maria Semyonovna served as a statistician in a hospital, and Veniamin Konstantinovich, despite very poor eyesight (minus 10), voluntarily joined the army and was near Stalingrad.

It is generally accepted that Veniamin Jacques is primarily a children’s poet. His poems were noted by Marshak and Chukovsky . But he is also known for his “serious” philosophical lyrics. His first small collection of adult poems, “Coolness,” was published in 1926. The last, posthumous collection “Night Calls”, containing the best poems and memories of the poet, was published in 2004.

Veniamin Konstantinovich and Maria Semenovna Veniamin Konstantinovich and Maria Semenovna

Maria Semenovna and Veniamin Konstantinovich raised their son Sergei Veniaminovich (1930-2012) and adopted daughter Elena Evgenievna (1930-2012). Elena Evgenievna taught at the Dagestan State Pedagogical University for many years.

Sergei Zhak’s main love was mathematics. In 1948, after graduating from school with a gold medal, he entered the department of mechanics of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Rostov State University.

Faculty Sergei Veniaminovich graduated with honors in 1953. In 1957, in Kharkov, Jacques defended his PhD thesis under the guidance of the future academician Nikita Moiseev. It was devoted to the movement of a liquid-filled gyroscope. Sergei Zhak returned to RSU as a fully formed teacher, a scientist with extensive work experience. And from then on, he did not part with the university until the end of his life.

Within the walls of the Russian State University, he worked his way up from a teacher to the head of the department of higher mathematics and operations research, which he created and led for more than 30 years. Now the department is part of the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science named after. I.I. Vorovich SFU. It preserves the traditions of its founder. In 1993, Sergei Zhak defended his doctoral dissertation “Development of a methodology for optimizing design solutions for the creation and use of agricultural mechanization means.”

Sergei Veniaminovich Jacques Sergei Veniaminovich Jacques

Sergei Veniaminovich is the founder of a scientific school that dealt with optimal design and related issues. His research was aimed at achieving practically important goals; he was known as a person who could build a mathematical model of any economic process. Many specialists in the field of mathematical modeling working around the world consider Sergei Zhak their teacher. Among them are 23 candidates and 7 doctors of science.

Colleagues and friends considered him a Renaissance man: his encyclopedic knowledge and depth of thinking were impressive. In his articles, he emphasized the importance of not only natural science, but also humanitarian knowledge. The scientist explained that not knowing the works of Bach, Dostoevsky and Kafka is as shameful as not knowing about the works of Descartes and Kasha, Dedekind and the Bourbaki community.

“Like a root is alive, just like a tree is alive”*

Sergei Veniaminovich has five children and a stepdaughter. All of them are somehow connected with the university: they studied, received diplomas, defended candidate dissertations… One of the successors to the dynasty of university teachers was Ekaterina Sergeevna Zhak , who has been teaching the history of Russian literature since 1976.

“When the Faculty of Mechanics and Philology and Journalism were located in the same building on Gorky, 88, my father joked that the Jacques occupied all the floors. On the first floor there was his department, on the second there was a stand with excellent students, where a portrait of my sister, Elena Sergeevna Zhak, hung, and on the third there was the department where I worked,” recalls Ekaterina Sergeevna.

Sergei Veniaminovich has six grandchildren – ages from 48 to 4 years . Three already have diplomas from SFU. There are five great-grandchildren, the oldest is 26 years old, and the youngest is 10 years old. Two have already received their bachelor’s degrees at Southern Federal University.

Ekaterina Sergeevna Zhak with her students Ekaterina Sergeevna Zhak with her students

* “Like a root is alive, like a tree is alive” – a quote from Veniamin Jacques’ poem “Father”