Mikhail Vasilevich Lomonosov was born in 1711 near Archangelsk in the north of Russia. When a boy he didn't go to school. Instead he studied Russian grammar and arithmetic. In the 1730 young Mikhail went to Moscow to get a regular education. there he worked in the field of sciences and also wrote lyric poetry. In 1757 he became a councillor of Moscow University which he had helped to found.