Pyotr Petrovich Semyonov or Semenov (; 2 January ''(

New style Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various Europe, European countrie ...

: 14 January)'', 1827 – 26 February ''(

: 11 March)'', 1914) was a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

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 ...

and

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

who managed the

Russian Geographical Society The Russian Geographical Society (), or RGO, is a learned society based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It promotes geography, exploration and nature protection with research programs in fields including oceanography, ethnography, ecology and stati ...

for more than 40 years. He gained international fame for his pioneering exploration of the

Tian Shan The Tian Shan, also known as the Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, meaning the "Mountains of God/Heaven", is a large system of mountain ranges in Central Asia. The highest peak is Jengish Chokusu at high and located in Kyrgyzstan. Its lowest point is ...

mountains. He changed his surname to "Semyonov of Tian Shan" (Семёнов-Тян-Шанский, ''Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky'') at the age of 79. Several of his descendants, including a son, Andrey Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, and a grandson

Oleg Semenov-Tian-Shansky Oleg Izmailovich Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky (; October 15, 1906 – September 21, 1990) was a Soviet Ornithology, ornithologist, naturalist, biologist and a founder of the Lapland Biosphere Reserve, Lapland nature reserve. Life and work Semyonov-Tyan ...

became scientists of note.

Life

Pyotr Semenov was born into a noble family and studied at Saint Petersburg University. Together with

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian literature, Russian and world literature, and many of his works are consider ...

, Semenov attended secret meetings of the "

Petrashevsky Circle The Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals in St. Petersburg in the 1840s. It was organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky, a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. Among the me ...

" (a literary discussion group of progressive-minded commoner-intellectuals in St. Petersburg). During the 1850s he studied geography and

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

under Alexander Humboldt and

Carl Ritter Carl Ritter (August 7, 1779September 28, 1859) was a German geographer. Along with Alexander von Humboldt, he is considered one of the founders of modern geography, as they established it as an independent scientific discipline. From 1825 until ...

, whose writings he translated into Russian. On Humboldt's suggestion, Semenov determined to explore the largely unknown mountains of the

. In 1856, he set off from

Barnaul Barnaul (, ) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative centre of Altai Krai, Russia, located at the confluence of the Barnaulka and Ob (river), Ob rivers in the West Siberian Plain. As of the Russian Censu ...

on his first expedition, passing through the

Altay Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with th ...

and visiting Lake

Issyk Kul Issyk-Kul () or Ysyk-Köl (, ; ) is an endorheic saline lake in the western Tianshan Mountains in eastern Kyrgyzstan, just south of a dividing range separating Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan. It is the eighth-deepest lake in the world, the eleve ...

on his way. In 1857, he returned to the Tian Shan, exploring the interior of this hitherto unknown mountain range. Semenov was the first European to see the scenic panorama of the Tengri Tag, and its most beautiful peak, the colossal

Khan Tengri Khan Tengri is a mountain of the Tian Shan mountain range in Central Asia. It is on the China—Kyrgyzstan—Kazakhstan tripoint, east of lake Issyk-Kul, Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan. Its geologic elevation is , but its glacial icecap rises to ...

. One of his most interesting discoveries was to disprove Humboldt's earlier claims about Tian Shan's supposed

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

origins. Semenov found no evidence of volcanic activity anywhere in the mountains. The next year, he published the first systematic description of the Tian Shan. The reputation of this monograph was such that half a century later

Nicholas II of Russia Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 186817 July 1918) or Nikolai II was the last reigning Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 1 November 1894 until Abdication of Nicholas II, hi ...

authorized him to add the epithet "Tian-Shansky" (that is, "of Tian Shan") to his last name. Semenov also became interested in

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

and did his best to advance this discipline in Russia. He served as Chairman of the Central Committee for Statistics from 1864 until 1874, when it was transformed into the Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Interior, of which he remained chairman until 1891. It was largely due to his efforts that the first

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 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 ...

was held in 1897. The same year, he was made a member of the

State Council of Imperial Russia The State Council ( rus, Госуда́рственный сове́т, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj sɐˈvʲet) was the supreme state advisory body to the tsar in the Russian Empire. From 1906, it was the upper house of the parliament under t ...

. Semenov was a member of 53

learned societies A learned society ( ; also scholarly, intellectual, or academic society) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences. Membership may be open to al ...

and managed the

from 1873 until his death, using this position to encourage the exploration of inland Asia, notably by

Nikolai Przhevalsky Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky (or Prjevalsky;; , . – ) was a Russian geographer and a renowned explorer of Central and East Asia. Although he never reached his ultimate goal, the city of Lhasa in Tibet, he still travelled through regio ...

and

Pyotr Kozlov Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov (; 3 October 1863 in Dukhovshchina – 26 September 1935 in Peterhof) was a Russian and Soviet traveller and explorer who continued the studies of Nikolai Przhevalsky in Mongolia and Tibet. Biography Although prepar ...

. Semenov's memoirs were published after his death in four volumes.

Collections

During his frequent visits to Switzerland, Italy, and France, Semenov—a man of considerable fortune—amassed a collection of old

Dutch masters Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...

, and he became knowledgeable enough to be considered an expert on the paintings in his own and other large collections in St. Petersburg. He contributed to the 1895 update of the catalog of the Hermitage, the Dutch-Flemish-German version of which lists over 1000 paintings. He donated his collection to the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the large ...

where it still resides, though some of the more prominent ones were sold by the Soviets in the 1930s. His insect collection consisted of ca. 700,000 specimens, while more than a hundred new species were named after him.

Tributes

* In 1866, botanists Regel &

Herder A herder is a pastoralism, pastoral worker responsible for the care and management of a herd or flock of domestic animals, usually on extensive management, open pasture. It is particularly associated with nomadic pastoralism, nomadic or transhuma ...

'' Semenovia'', which is a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s from Central Asia and China, belonging to the family

Apiaceae Apiaceae () or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium,'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot, or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering p ...

. It was named in his honour. * The 4895m Semenov-Tian-Shansky Peak and the 5816m Semyonov Peak are named after him. * On 14 January 2021,

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

celebrated his 194th birthday with a

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References

* Semenov, Petr Petrovitch. ''Travels in the Tian'-Shan' 1856–1857''. Trans. by Liudmila Gilmour, Colin Thomas and Marcus Wheeler. Edited and annotated by Colin Thomas. The Hakluyt Society, London. (1998). .

External links

Эрмитаж чествует Семенова-Тян-Шанского
{{DEFAULTSORT:Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, Pyotr 1827 births 1914 deaths Explorers of Central Asia Explorers from the Russian Empire Geographers from the Russian Empire Art collectors from the Russian Empire Entomologists from the Russian Empire Statisticians from the Russian Empire Members of the State Council (Russian Empire) Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Burials at Smolensky Cemetery Graduates of the Nicholas Cavalry College