Vasyl Olexandrovych Sukhomlynsky (, ; in transliteration from Russian: Vasily Aleksandrovich Sukhomlinsky or Vasilii Aleksandrovich Sukhomlinskii) (September 28, 1918 – September 2, 1970) was a Ukrainian humanistic educator in the Soviet Union who saw the aim of education in producing a truly humane being. Biography Sukhomlynsky was born in a peasant family in the village of Omelnyk, Vasyliv volost of Oleksandriia uezd (today Oleksandriia Raion of Kirovohrad Oblast in Ukraine). In 1933 he finished a seven-year school of primary education after which his mother escorted him to Kremenchuk where he enrolled into a local medical college (tekhnikum). However, he quit the medical school and enrolled into Robitfak which he finished in short term. In 1935 he started to work as a teacher not far from his native village. In 1938 Sukhomlynsky enrolled into the Poltava Pedagogical Institute out of which he graduated the same year. Upon graduation, he returned to native lands where he worked as a teacher of the Ukrainian language and literature in the Onufriivka middle school. During World War II he volunteered to the front-lines in 1941 and as a junior politruk was severely wounded in January 1942 during the defense of Moscow. He was transferred to a military hospital in the Ural mountains where he continued his medical treatment. During that time he continuously requested his return to the front-lines while the medical commission could not recognize him even conditionally available for that. He was appointed a principal of a middle school in the town of Uva (Republic of Udmurtia). In 1944 when the native lands were liberated of Nazi Germany he was appointed as a director of the Regional People's Education (RAINO). In 1948, he became principal of the Pavlysh Secondary School in the settlement of Pavlysh (upon his own request) – a post he held to the end of his life. Educational philosophy The core of Sukhomlynsky's system of education was his approach to moral education, which involved sensitising his students to beauty in nature, in art and in human relations, and encouraging students to take responsibility for the living environment which surrounded them. Sukhomlynsky taught his students that the most precious thing in life is a human being and that there is no greater honor than to bring joy to other people. He taught them that to bring joy to other people, and especially to their families, they should strive to create beauty