Beginners Course in Topology

This book is the result of reworking part of a rather lengthy course of lectures of which we delivered several versions at the Leningrad and Moscow Universities. In these lectures we presented an introduction to the fundamental topics of topology: homology theory, homotopy theory, theory of bundles, and topology of manifolds. The structure of the course was well determined by the guiding term elementary topology, whose main significance resides in the fact that it made us use a rather simple apparatus. tn this book we have retained {hose sections of the course where algebra plays a subordinate role. We plan to publish the more algebraic part of the lectures as a separate book. Reprocessing the lectures to produce the book resulted in the profits and losses inherent in such a situation: the rigour has increased to the detriment of the intuitiveness, the geometric descriptions have been replaced by formulas needing interpretations, etc. Nevertheless, it seems to us that the book retains the main qualities of our lectures: their elementary, systematic, and pedagogical features. The preparation of the reader is assumed to be limi ted to the usual knowledge of set theory, algebra, and calculus which mathematics students should master after the first year and a half of studies. The exposition is accompanied by examples and exercises. We hope that the book can be used as a topology textbook.