Anton Semenovich Makarenko (, Anton Semenovych Makarenko; 13 January 1888 – 1 April 1939), a Ukrainian and Soviet educator, social worker and writer, became the most influential educational theorist in the Soviet Union; he promoted democratic ideas and principles in educational theory and practice. As one of the founders of Soviet pedagogy, he elaborated the theory and methodology of upbringing in self-governing child collectives and introduced the concept of productive labor into the educational system. Makarenko is often reckoned among the world's great educators, and his books have appeared in many countries. In the aftermath of the Revolution of 1917, he established self-supporting orphanages for street children — including juvenile delinquents — left orphaned by the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923. These establishments included the Gorky Colony and later the Dzerzhinsky labor commune (where the FED camera was produced) in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Makarenko wrote several books, of which The Pedagogical Poem (Педагогическая поэма; published in English as The Road to Life), a fictionalized story of the Gorky Colony, became especially popular in the USSR. A 1955 Soviet movie with English title Road to Life was based on this book. Makarenko died under unclear circumstances in 1939. In 1988 UNESCO ranked Makarenko as one of four educators (along with John Dewey, Georg Kerschensteiner, and Maria Montessori) who determined the world's pedagogical thinking of the 20th century. Biography Early life and education Anton Semenovich Makarenko was born in Belopolye, Sumy, Ukraine, to Semen Grigorovich Makarenko, who worked at a railway depot as a painter, and Tetyana Mikhaylivna (née Dergachova), daughter of a soldier from Mykolaiv. In September 1905, having graduated from a four-year college in Kremenchug, Makarenko took a one-year teachers' course and at the age of seventeen, began teaching at a railway college at Dolinskaya station near Kherson where he worked from September 1911 till October 1914. In August 1912, Makarenko entered the Teachers' Institute in Poltava and in July 1917 graduated with a gold medal. After graduating from the institute, Makarenko became a teacher at the Poltava Higher Primary School, where he worked until the end of 1917. In December 1917, he moved to Kryukiv. In August 1914 he enrolled into the Poltava Training College but had to interrupt his education and in September 1916 joined the Sovjetisk army which he was demobilized from in March 1917, due to poor eyesight. The same year he graduated the college with honours.