Johann Gottlieb Georgi (31 December 1729 – 27 October 1802) was a German
botanist
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
,
naturalist and
geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...
.
A native of
Pomerania
Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...
, Georgi accompanied both
Johan Peter Falk
Johan Peter Falk (26 November 1732 – 31 March 1774) was a Sweden, Swedish botanist and an Apostles of Linnaeus, apostle of Carl Linnaeus. His first name is sometimes spelled "Johann"; his middle name is sometimes spelled "Pehr"; and his surname i ...
and
Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (22 September 1741 – 8 September 1811) was a Prussian zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia between 1767 and 1810.
Life and work
Peter Simon Pallas was born in Berlin, the son ...
on their respective journeys through
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
. During 1770-1774 he travelled on its behalf to
Astrakhan
Astrakhan ( rus, Астрахань, p=ˈastrəxənʲ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in Southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the ...
, the
Urals
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through European ...
,
Bashkir, the
Barabinsk
Barabinsk (russian: Бара́бинск) is a town in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, located in the Baraba steppe on the Trans-Siberian Railway between Omsk and Novosibirsk. Population:
History
It was founded at the end of the 19th century and was ...
steppe
In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.
Steppe biomes may include:
* the montane grasslands and shrublands biome
* the temperate grasslands, ...
, the Kolyvanskoe silver mines (to assess the ore content),
Altai,
Tomsk
Tomsk ( rus, Томск, p=tomsk, sty, Түң-тора) is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast in Russia, located on the Tom River. Population:
Founded in 1604, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. The city is a not ...
,
Irkutsk
Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is ...
,
Baikal
Lake Baikal (, russian: Oзеро Байкал, Ozero Baykal ); mn, Байгал нуур, Baigal nuur) is a rift lake in Russia. It is situated in southern Siberia, between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Rep ...
, and Dauren. In 1783 he became an academician of the
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
in
St Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
.
[
]
Georgi was particularly interested in the Baikal region. Based on collections from far eastern Russia, in his 1775 publication ''Bemerkungen einer Reise im Russischen Reich im Jahre 1772'', Georgi provided the first botanical descriptions of many of the region's flowering plants, among them the
Baikal skullcap (''Scutellaria baicalensis''). Many of these plants and herbs were later collected by European botanists in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, and thereafter became rare specimens in European botanical gardens.
After his fellow botanist and travelling companion Falk took his own life in 1774, Georgi edited his notes, which were published in Germany from 1785 to 1786 as ''Beyträge zur topographischen Kenntniss des Russischen Reichs I – III''.
In 1790, Georgi's description and urban plans of the city of
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
was published in German. It appeared in a second edition in
Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...
in 1793 and was finally translated into Russian a year later. His ''Geographisch-physikalische und naturhistorische Beschreibung des Russischen Reichs'', a six volume edition of the geography and natural history of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, was published in
Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...
, Germany, from 1797 to 1802.
Georgi also translated many works of
Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
.
Literature
* Vera Shirokova, Alexey Sobisevich, 'Illustrations from Academic Expeditions in Russia: The works of Falck and Georgi', iLINNAEUS , iMagazine , iStories (December 2015) https://www.ikfoundation.org/ilinnaeus/istories/verashirokova.php
See also
*
:Taxa named by Johann Gottlieb Georgi
References
1729 births
1802 deaths
18th-century German botanists
German geographers
Geographers from the Russian Empire
Explorers from the Russian Empire
German ornithologists
Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
People from the Province of Pomerania
{{Geographer-stub