Gerhard Friedrich Müller (; 29 October 1705 – ) was a Russian–German historian and pioneer ethnologist.

Early life

Müller was born in Herford and educated at

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. In 1725, he was invited to St. Petersburg to co-found the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

Career

Müller participated in the second Kamchatka expedition, which reported on life and nature of the further (eastern) side of the Ural mountain range. From 1733 until 1743, nineteen scientists and artists traveled through

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

to study people, cultures and collected data for the creation of maps. Müller, who described and categorized clothing, religions and rituals of the Siberian ethnic groups, is considered to be the father of

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

. On his return from Siberia, he became historiographer to the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. He was one of the first historians to bring out a general account of Russian history based on an extensive examination of the documentary sources. His accentuation of the role of Scandinavians and Germans in the history of that country – a germ of the so-called Normanist theory – earned him enmity of Mikhail Lomonosov, who had previously supported his work, and dented his Russian career. In the early 1760s he rediscovered the List of Russian Cities, Near and Far, after which his colleague August Ludwig von Schlözer published in Russian in 1816. In 1766, after many attacks by his colleagues, Müller was appointed keeper of the national archives. He drew up for the government a collection of its treatises.

Later life

In 1761, Müller was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

. He died, aged 77, in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

References

Bibliography

* Kerstin Holm, '' Stuttgarter Zeitung'', No. 303 (29 December 2005), p. 38. *

* Joseph Lawrence Black, ''G.F. Müller and the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences, 1725-1783: First Steps in the Development of the Historical Sciences in Russia.'' Kingston-Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986. * Joseph Lawrence Black and Dieter K. Buse, ''G.-F. Müller and Siberia, 1733-1743.'' With translations of German materials by Victoria Joan Moessner. Kingston, Ontario/Fairbanks, Alaska: Limestone Press (Russia and Asia Series 1), 1989. * Aleksander Christianovich Elert, ''Ekspedicionnye materialy G. F. Millera kak istocnik po istorii Sibiri'' xpedition Materials of G.F. Müller as Sources for the History of Siberia Novosibirsk, 1990. * Gudrun Bucher, ''"Von Beschreibung der Sitten und Gebräuche der Völcker": Die Instruktionen Gerhard Friedrich Müllers und ihre Bedeutung für die Geschichte der Ethnologie und der Geschichtswissenschaft''. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des östlichen Europa 63), 2002. * * Claus Priesner, Müller, Gerhard Friedrich von. ''Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB)'' 18 (1997), S. 394 f. On-line edition: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118953362.html * Peter Hoffmann, ''Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705-1783): Historiker, Geograph, Archivar im Dienste Russlands''. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005. * Gerard Fridrich Miller erhard Friedrich Müller ''Opisanie sibirskich narodov. eschreibung sibirischer Völker'' Edited by Aleksandr Christianovich Elert and Wieland Hintzsche. Moskva: Pamjatniki Istoricheskoj Mysli (Quellen zur Geschichte Sibiriens und Alaskas aus russischen Archiven Band VIII/1), 2009. * Gerhard Friedrich Müller, ''Ethnographische Schriften I''. Bearbeitet von Wieland Hintzsche und Aleksandr Christianovich Elert unter Mitarbeit von Heike Heklau. Halle: Verlag der Franckeschen Stiftungen zu Halle, Harrassowitz Verlag in Kommission (Quellen zur Geschichte Sibiriens und Alaskas aus russischen Archiven VIII), 2010. . Band I: Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker a. 1736-1747 * Han F. Vermeulen: 'Ethnography and Empire: G. F. Müller and the Description of Siberian Peoples'. In: Han F. Vermeulen: ''Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment''. Lincoln & London, University of Nebraska Press, 2015.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Gerhardt Friedrich German emigrants to the Russian Empire 18th-century explorers from the Russian Empire German ethnographers 1705 births 1783 deaths Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences People from Herford Fellows of the Royal Society Leipzig University alumni 18th-century German explorers 18th-century scientists from the Russian Empire Explorers of Siberia Great Northern Expedition Writers about Russia Historians of Russia Russian scientists