Ilya Kapievich
(1651 -1740)

Ilya Kapievich got his education at the Slutsk Calvin School. Because of land disputes with Jesuits, he had to leave his Motherland and to settle in Amsterdam, where he was engaged in book publishing. In Amsterdam, Kapievich was introduced to Peter I, on whose instructions he published in Amsterdam the first text book on mathematics in the Russian language: "A Brief and Useful Guidebook in Arithmetic". At the beginning of the 18th century, Ilya Kapievich moved to Moscow, where he published the first textbook in grammar and rhetoric. More than 20 volumes were written and published by Ilya Kapievich in his lifetime. These books helped Russia's population learn the wealth of the European science and culture.