Name: Nikolay Miklukho-Maklay
Age: 41 years
Place of Birth: yazykovo village, Novgorod province
A place of death: St. Petersburg
Activity: ethnographer, anthropologist, biologist and traveler
Family status: was married
Nikolay Miklukho-Maclay - biography
Arriving at the native shore, Miklouho-Maclay invited the Papuans to board the Vityaz corvette, where he presented gifts as a sign of his location. It seemed that contact had been made, but everything was spoiled by a volley welcoming the natives. They took the roar for the wrath of an evil spirit and rushed in all directions ...
The family of the engineer Nikolai Miklouha had a legend that the founder of their family was an impoverished Scottish nobleman Mikael Maclay. Allegedly, in a battle, he was captured by the Cossacks and remained in Little Russia. The legend was adopted by his son Nikolai, making the surname double - Miklouho-Maclay.
Nikolai Miklukha lost his father at the age of 11, remaining with three brothers and a sister in the care of his mother. Ekaterina Semyonovna did everything to give them a good education. At first they were taught by visiting teachers, later the eldest sons - Sergei and Nicholas - were sent to a gymnasium for children of nobles. It was then that it became clear that in the books of the Chernigov noble collection there is no record of the noble origin of the Miklukha family. But Ekaterina Semyonovna achieved that, based on the merits of her husband, his children were ranked among the nobility of the Petersburg province.
In the gymnasium, Nikolai often missed classes. As he later admitted himself, not only because of ill health. He stayed twice in the second year, and did not finish the sixth grade, having submitted a petition for expulsion. As a freethinker, he spent three days in the Peter and Paul Fortress for participating in a student demonstration.
At the age of 17, the young man became a volunteer at St. Petersburg University. He often changed training courses, not leaving his activity in public and political life. As a result, for a number of actions Miklukha was closed the entrance to the university. On the advice of his mentor, Nikolai decided to go to study in Germany.
At the University of Heidelberg, he took courses in geometry, political economy and law. A year later he transferred to Leipzig University, and after another four months he moved to Jena, where he began to study natural sciences and became interested in Darwinism. On this basis, the student became close to Professor Ernst Haeckel, who fascinated him with the theory of the origin of species and medicine. Nikolai even tried to treat the sick. One of his patients, a girl in love with him, bequeathed her skeleton to Nikolai after death. Miklukha treated him like a practical naturalist. The skull, set on the elbows, he covered with a green lampshade, having received a table lamp.
Seeing the scientific potential in the 20-year-old student, Haeckel invited him on an expedition to the Canary Islands. At that time, Miklukha was interested in sea sponges and even discovered a new type of lime sponge.
In the Canary Islands, local residents, seeing the corpses of animals and insects in the house of scientists, mistook them for sorcerers and often asked for help in treatment and predicting the future. The researchers had to play their part to the end.
After finishing work Haeckel sailed to Germany, and Miklouha and his student friend conceived an adventure. Having bought an Arab dress in Morocco, they set off with a trade caravan to Marrakesh. From here Nikolai sailed to Andalusia, where he lived for several weeks in a gypsy camp. The expedition enriched the young scientist not so much in natural science as in ethnographic terms. Upon arrival in Jena, he published an article in German, where he first signed himself as Maclay.
After reading in the newspapers in 1869 about the completion of the construction of the Suez Canal, Nicholas was eager to study the fauna of the Red Sea. In Suez, he had to shave his head and drop his beard to blend in with the local population. And even in spite of this "disguise", he risked being killed by Islamic fanatics (which almost happened one day) or falling into slavery.
Returning to St. Petersburg, Nikolai convinced the vice-chairman of the Russian Geographical Society (RGO), Admiral Litke, to send him to the Pacific Islands. It was assumed that the scientist would find there convenient bays for the Russian fleet. But the state allocated him only 1,200 rubles, with a need of 5,000. As a result, Miklouho-Maclay collected instruments and books from friends and patrons.
On September 20, 1871, the corvette Vityaz approached the shores of New Guinea. The salutary volley from the cannon frightened the natives: they thought that an evil spirit had arrived on the ship. The sailors from the Vityaz helped the scientist build a hut on Cape Garagasi, far from the village where he was conducting research.
When Nikolai, along with his servants - a Swedish sailor Niels Olsen and a black boy Boy, arrived in the village of the Papuans, it turned out to be empty. The only daredevil was an aboriginal named Tui, who became Miklouho-Maclay's guide to the new world. Further attempts to establish contact were perceived by the Papuans with caution. Only after 4 months was he allowed to arrive at the village of Bongu, where the exchange of gifts took place.
The turning point came when Nikolai healed Tui from a serious injury. The Papuans changed their mind about the scientist and began to invite him to the holidays. It's funny that after seeing a massive fight one day and failing to break it apart, Nikolai poured alcohol into a bowl and set it on fire. The natives instantly stopped fighting and rushed at his feet so that the "miracle worker" would not set the sea on fire. Papuans began to call Miklouho-Maclay "kaaram tamo", which means "moon man". Moreover, not a man from the Moon, for the Moon among the Papuans is a small insignificant body, but a man with skin the color of the Moon.
When the Russian ship "Izumrud" entered the bay a year later, its captain did not expect to see the scientist alive. Petersburg newspapers even published an obituary! However, he did not even think of dying. After a short absence in Manila and the Moluccas, Miklouho-Maclay came to the Papuans for the second time. At this time, the European press began to write about his expedition, and, contrary to the opinion that the savages should have eaten him, the scientist continued his research.
In 1865, Miklouho-Maclay arrived in St. Petersburg, where he presented to Emperor Alexander II a project for the Russian colonization of the island of Pa-Pua-New Guinea. He rejected the project, not wanting to worsen relations with Britain.
The scientist addressed the new project seven years later to the new emperor Alexander III. In March 1883, Miklouho-Maclay, together with counter-admiral Kopytov, arrived in the Palau archipelago. By that time, most of his Papuan friends had already died, and the villagers were at war with each other. Kopytov did not find a single harbor suitable for arranging coal depots for Russian ships. The project was rejected again.
In the same year, 35-year-old Miklouho-Maclay proposed to the daughter of the ex-governor of New South Wales, Margaret Robertson-Clark. Margaret's father was against the Russian groom because of his poverty and poor health, and he did not want him to take his daughter away from Australia. In addition, Margaret was a Protestant, and Nikolai was Orthodox. But the scientist managed to get permission for marriage in the Synod, and then Margaret's parents reconciled with the Russian son-in-law. A year after the wedding, the couple had a son, Alexander, a year later, Vladimir.
When the authorities of New South Wales took away his research station from Miklouho-Maclay, and anti-Russian sentiments intensified in Australia, he understood: it was time to go home. Unfortunately, by the age of 40, his health was thoroughly undermined, and he returned to Russia practically an old man. In St. Petersburg, the researcher continued to work on his scientific works, but he felt worse and worse and on April 2, 1888 he died. Later, during the exhumation, it was found that the scientist was killed by jaw cancer.
The widow handed over her husband's archives to the Russian Geographical Society and returned to Australia with her sons. Until 1917, Russia paid the Miklouho-Maclay family a substantial pension of 5,000 rubles a year.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay is a famous Russian traveler who made a number of expeditions to the previously unexplored New Guinea and other islands of the Pacific Ocean, a researcher of primitive culture who collected a wealth of materials about primitive peoples. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay was born on July 17, 1846 in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye, near the town of Borovichi, Novgorod province. His father, Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha, was an engineer-captain, and his great-grandfather Stepan was a cornet of one of the Cossack Little Russian regiments who distinguished himself in the capture of Ochakov in 1772. His mother, Ekaterina Semyonovna, was also from a military family. Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha had four sons and a daughter. Nikolai Nikolaevich was the second. All children bore their father's surname. But Nikolai Nikolaevich from his youth began to call himself Miklouho-Maclay. Miklouho-Maclay's father died when the boy was 11 years old. During his father's life, he studied at home. After the death of his father, his mother sent him to school in St. Petersburg, and then he was transferred to the 2nd St. Petersburg gymnasium.
Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay did not graduate from high school; due to frequent misunderstandings with teachers and bickering with them, he was forced to leave the 6th grade. In 1863, seventeen-year-old NN Miklukho-Maclay entered the St. Petersburg University as a volunteer in the Department of Natural Sciences of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty, from where in the spring of 1864 he was dismissed "for repeated violations of the rules established for volunteers."
To continue his education, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay went abroad. For two years he listened to physicists and naturalists and partly to lawyers and philosophers at the University of Heidelberg. In Leipzig, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay diligently studied anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine, while at the same time listening to lectures on natural sciences and at other faculties. His interest in comparative anatomy continued throughout his life. Even completely devoting himself to the study of primitive peoples, he did not abandon anatomical work. Miklouho-Maclay continued his medical education in Jena, where he attended lectures by the famous Ernst Haeckel, then a young professor of zoology, who had a beneficial effect on him in the development of independent scientific research.
Having completed his natural history education, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay devoted himself to studying the broadest scientific problems devoted to the origin of life, the development of species, the laws of evolution of the organic world. Together with E. Haeckel, whose assistant he became in 1866, he made his first trip to the Canary Islands. Here he studied sponge anatomy and the study of the brain of cartilaginous fish. Returning from the expedition in 1867, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay conducted comparative anatomical work in Messina, where he went with Dr. Dorn, a propagandist for the organization of marine zoological stations. In 1869 N. N. Miklukho-Maclay made a trip along the shores of the Red Sea, collecting material for his great generalizations. In order to avoid persecution from the Arabs, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay was transformed into a Muslim: he shaved his head, painted his face, put on an Arabic costume, acquired some familiarity with the language and external Muslim customs. In this form, he wandered the coral reefs of the Red Sea with a microscope, alone, undergoing many hardships and dangers. I had to endure a temperature of more than 35 °, fever, grief and, to top it off, hunger. But despite all this, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay managed to collect rich zoological and comparative anatomical materials. Soon he went to Constantinople and Odessa, visited the southern coast of Crimea and visited the Volga, collecting materials on the anatomy of cartilaginous fish. From here he came to Moscow for the 2nd Congress of Russian Naturalists and Physicians, where he made a presentation on the need to organize Russian zoological and biological stations on the Black, Baltic, Caspian and White Seas, on the Volga and other rivers. This idea of \u200b\u200bN. N. Miklouho-Maclay met with sympathy at the congress. Soon Russian zoological stations began to appear. But the completely broad plan of scientific research proposed by N. N. Miklouho-Maclay was not implemented due to lack of funds.
From Moscow N. N. Miklouho-Maclay arrived in St. Petersburg and was warmly received at the Academy of Sciences, where he was offered to take up a collection of sponges from rich academic collections. At a meeting of the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg, N. N. Miklukho-Maclay made a report on the features of the Red Sea, its fauna, the nature of the shores and the life of the population. At the same time, he had the idea of \u200b\u200btraveling to the vast territories of the Pacific Islands to study the life and customs of primitive peoples. It distracted N. N. Miklouho-Maclay from processing the enormous natural history materials he had collected. But for him the "field of scientific observation" was still "white", unexplored. Neither the materials collected personally, nor the academic collections seemed to him sufficient for the grandiose generalizations that carried him along. A young and energetic traveler, obsessed with the desire to give science more and more riches of factual material, rushes into the "field", which this time for him is the Pacific Ocean.
“Choosing in 1868 that part of the world to which I intended to devote my research,” writes N. N. Miklukho-Maclay in his message to the Russian Geographical Society in 1882, “I settled on the islands of the Pacific Ocean and mainly in New Guinea, as the least known island ... with the main goal in mind is to find an area that, until 1868, had not yet been visited by whites. This area was the northeastern coast of New Guinea, near Astrolabe Bay. " NN Miklouho-Maclay called it “Maclay Coast”. Explaining the reasons why he left zoology and embryology and devoted himself to ethnology, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay writes: “Still, he considered it more important: to draw my attention to the status praesens of the life of the Papuan, believing that these phases the life of this part of humanity under certain new conditions (which may appear every day) are very soon transient. The same birds of paradise and butterflies will fly over New Guinea even in the distant future. "
On October 27, 1870, the Russian military corvette "Vityaz" set sail from Kronstadt around the world. NN Miklouho-Maclay went on a long journey on it. The route of the "Knight" lay through the Strait of Magellan, and this made it possible for N. N. Miklouho-Maclay to engage in scientific observations in different points of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. In September 1871 N. N. Miklouho-Maclay arrived on the northeastern coast of the huge (785,000 square kilometers) deserted island of New Guinea in the Astrolabe Bay, where he settled in a small hut with two servants.
N. N. Miklouho-Maclay was met with hostility by the natives-Papuans. They pointed to the sea with gestures, demanding his removal. “It got, - wrote N. N. Miklouho-Maclay, - even to the point that almost every day, for the sake of fun, they shot arrows that flew very close to me”. But soon the Papuans fell in love with him so much that when the Russian military corvette "Emerald" came for him in December 1872, the natives did not let him in and persuaded him to stay with them forever; they took him to the villages, declared their friendship, promised to build a new house for him instead of a hut, which had collapsed by that time, offered any girl as a wife. NN Miklouho-Maclay promised to return to his new friends. "Having considered completely objectively all the circumstances of my first stay between the natives and the subsequent acquaintance with them," writes N. N. Miklouho-Maclay, "I came to the conclusion that I owe a good result of my relations with savages, mainly, to my restraint and patience." ... NN Miklouho-Maclay's truthfulness, his attentive friendliness to the Papuans amazed and charmed them, and they decided that he was a special person, "kaaram-tamo", which means "a man from the moon." They also considered his homeland, Russia, to be on the moon.
Miklouho-Maclay Nikolai Nikolaevich is a famous Russian scientist, traveler, researcher of the indigenous population of Oceania, Australia and Southeast Asia. His many years of work on the study of the Papuans and other peoples living in the Pacific islands turned out to be a great contribution to the development of natural sciences.
Brief biography of Miklouho-Maclay Nikolai Nikolaevich
The future natural scientist was born on July 17, 1846 in an intelligent family. After graduating from high school, he was enrolled in St. Petersburg University, which was forced to leave due to participation in the student movement.
Not having the right to enter any higher educational institution in Russia, young Miklouho-Maclay went to Europe for knowledge, where he studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and Medicine.
Figure: 1. N. N. Miklouho-Maclay.
While studying at the Faculty of Medicine, Miklouho-Maclay was incredibly lucky, as he became an assistant to the outstanding German scientist Ernst Haeckel. Together with his mentor, he visited Morocco and the Canary Islands to study the local nature.
During his travels, Miklouho-Maclay came to the conclusion that the formation of cultural and racial characteristics of peoples largely depends not only on the social, but also on the natural environment. However, the confirmation of this hypothesis required the most thorough research work, and the young scientist decided to go on a long journey to the Pacific islands to study local tribes.
Expedition to New Guinea
Having convinced the Russian Geographical Society of the importance of the upcoming expedition, in the fall of 1870 Nikolai Nikolayevich set off for the picturesque shores of New Guinea on the Vityaz ship.
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For 15 months, the researcher lived among the Papuans, having managed to win their friendship and trust. Located in the northeast of the island, he devoted all his time to the study of life, religious rituals and customs of the aborigines. The researcher continued his observations in Indonesia, the Philippines, the islands of Oceania, and the Malacca Peninsula.
Figure: 2. Islands of the Pacific Ocean.
Nikolai Nikolaevich declared himself not only as a naturalist, but also as a fighter against the slave trade on the islands. In 1875, he wrote a letter to the Russian Emperor Alexander II with a request to take the Papuans of New Guinea under his highest patronage, but received a negative response from the ruler.
Figure: 3. Papuans of New Guinea.
In 1882 Miklouho-Maclay returned to Russia, where he acquainted the scientific community with the results of his many years of research.
The indisputable merits of the outstanding natural scientist include:
- a detailed description of the Melanesian race, widespread in Western Oceania and the islands of Southeast Asia;
- description of everyday life, peculiarities of economic management, culture and religion of the Papuans and other peoples of this region;
- numerous proofs of the unity and kinship of the human races.
During the life of the scientist, many of his works were published on zoology, anthropology, ethnography, geography and other sciences. Most of his observations were remarkably accurate, and at present they are of great scientific value.
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Exactly 130 years ago - on April 14, 1888, the famous Russian ethnographer, biologist, anthropologist and traveler Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay passed away, who devoted most of his life to studying the indigenous population of Australia, Oceania and Southeast Asia, including the Papuans the eastern coast of New Guinea, today called the Maclay Coast (a section of the northeastern coast of the island of New Guinea between 5 and 6 ° south latitude, about 300 kilometers long, between Astrolabe Bay and the Huon Peninsula). His research was highly regarded during his lifetime. Considering his merits, Miklouho-Maclay's birthday on July 17 is unofficially celebrated in Russia as a professional holiday - the Day of the Ethnographer.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay was born on July 17, 1846 (July 5, old style) in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye (today it is Yazykovo-Rozhdestvenskoye Okulovsky municipal district of Novgorod region) into the family of an engineer. His father Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha was a railroad worker. The mother of the future ethnographer was called Ekaterina Semyonovna Becker, she was the daughter of a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812. Contrary to a fairly widespread misconception, Miklouho-Maclay did not have any significant foreign roots. The widespread legend about the Scottish mercenary Michael Maclay, who, having taken root in Russia, became the founder of the family, was just a legend. The traveler himself came from an ignorant Cossack family called Miklukh. If we talk about the second part of the surname, then he first used it in 1868, thus signing the first scientific publication in German "The rudiment of the swim bladder in the Selachians." At the same time, historians have never been able to come to a consensus about the reason for this double surname Miklouho-Maclay. Discussing his nationality, in his dying autobiography, the ethnographer pointed out that he is a mixture of elements: Russian, German and Polish.
Surprisingly, the future ethnographer studied poorly at school, often missing classes. As he admitted 20 years later, at the gymnasium he missed lessons not only because of ill health, but also simply from unwillingness to study. In the 4th grade of the Second St. Petersburg Gymnasium, he spent two years, and in the 1860/61 academic year he attended classes very rarely, missing a total of 414 lessons. Miklouha's only mark was “good” in French, in German he was “satisfactory”, in other subjects - “bad” and “mediocre”. While still a schoolboy, Miklouho-Maclay was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, he was sent there together with his brother for participating in a student demonstration, which was caused by the socio-political upsurge of 1861 and was associated with the abolition of serfdom in the country.
Photo of Nikolai Miklukha - student (until 1866)
In Soviet times, the biography of the ethnographer indicated that Miklouho-Maclay was expelled from the gymnasium, and then from the University for participation in political activities. But this is not true. The future famous traveler left the gymnasium of his own free will, and they simply could not expel him from the university, since he was there as an auditor. He did not finish his studies in St. Petersburg, leaving for Germany. In 1864, the future ethnographer studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg, in 1865 - at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Leipzig. And in 1866 he moved to Jena (a university city in Germany), where he studied comparative animal anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine. He visited Morocco and the Canary Islands as an assistant to the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel. In 1868 Miklouho-Maclay completed his studies at the University of Jena. During the first expedition to the Canary Islands, the future explorer studied sea sponges, and as a result discovered a new type of calcareous sponge, named Guancha blanca after the indigenous inhabitants of these islands. It is curious that from 1864 to 1869, from 1870 to 1882 and from 1883 to 1886, Miklouho-Maclay lived outside Russia, never staying in his homeland for more than one year.
In 1869 he made a trip to the Red Sea coast, the purpose of the trip was to study the local marine fauna. In the same year he returned back to Russia. The first scientific studies of the ethnographer were devoted to the comparative anatomy of sea sponges, shark brains, and other issues of zoology. But during his travels Miklouho-Maclay also made valuable geographical observations. Nikolai was inclined to the version that the cultural and racial characteristics of the peoples of the world are formed under the influence of the social and natural environment. In order to substantiate this theory, Miklouho-Maclay decided to undertake a long journey to the islands of the Pacific Ocean, here he was going to study the “Papuan race”. At the end of October 1870, with the assistance of the Russian Geographical Society, the traveler got the opportunity to leave for New Guinea. Here he went on board the military ship Vityaz. His expedition was designed for several years.
On September 20, 1871, the Vityaz landed Maclay on the northeastern coast of New Guinea. In the future, this area of \u200b\u200bthe coast will be called the Maclay Coast. Contrary to misconceptions, he did not travel alone, but accompanied by two servants - a young man from the island of Niue named Boy and the Swedish sailor Olsen. At the same time, with the help of the Vityaz crew members, a hut was built, which became for Miklouho-Maclay not only housing, but also a suitable laboratory. Among the local Papuans, he lived 15 months in 1871-1872, with his tactful behavior and friendliness, he managed to win their love and trust.
Corvette "Vityaz" under sail
But initially Miklouho-Maclay was considered among the Papuans not a god, as is commonly believed, but quite the opposite, an evil spirit. The reason for this attitude towards him was the episode on the first day of their acquaintance. Seeing the ship and the white people, the islanders thought that it was Rotei, their great ancestor, who had returned. A large number of Papuans went on their boats to the ship in order to present the newcomer with gifts. On board the Viking they were also well received and presented, but on the way back a cannon shot suddenly rang out from the ship, so the crew saluted in honor of their arrival. However, out of fear, the islanders literally jumped out of their own boats, threw gifts and floated to the shore, deciding that it was not Rotei who had come to them, but the evil spirit of Buk.
Later, a Papuan named Tui helped to change the situation, who was bolder than the rest of the islanders and managed to make friends with the traveler. When Miklouho-Maclay managed to cure Tui from a serious injury, the Papuans accepted him into their society as an equal to themselves, including him in the local society. For a long time, Tui remained a translator and mediator of the ethnographer in his relations with other Papuans.
In 1873 Miklouho-Maclay visited the Philippines and Indonesia, and the next year he visited the southwestern coast of New Guinea. In 1874-1875, he again traveled twice through the Malacca Peninsula, studying the local tribes of the Sakai and Semangi. In 1876 he traveled to Western Micronesia (Oceania islands), as well as Northern Melanesia (visiting various island groups in the Pacific Ocean). In 1876 and 1877, he again visited the Maclay Coast. From here he wanted to return back to Russia, but due to a serious illness, the traveler was forced to settle in Sydney, Australia, where he lived until 1882. Not far from Sydney, Nicholas founded Australia's first biological station. In the same period of his life, he traveled to the islands of Melanesia (1879), and also examined the southern coast of New Guinea (1880), and a year later, in 1881, he visited the southern coast of New Guinea for the second time.
Miklouho-Maclay with Papuan Akhmat. Malacca, 1874 or 1875
It is curious that Miklouho-Maclay was preparing a Russian protectorate over the Papuans. He several times carried out an expedition to New Guinea, having drawn up the so-called "Maclay Coast development project". His project provided for the preservation of the Papuans' way of life, but at the same time declared the achievement of a higher level of self-government on the basis of existing local customs. At the same time, the Maclay Coast, according to his plans, was to receive the protectorate of the Russian Empire, becoming also one of the basing points of the Russian fleet. But his project was not feasible. By the time of the third trip to New Guinea, most of his friends among the Papuans, including Tui, had already died, at the same time, the villagers were mired in internecine conflicts, and the officers of the Russian fleet, who studied the local conditions, concluded that the local coast was not suitable for deployment of warships. And already in 1885 New Guinea was divided between Great Britain and Germany. Thus, the question of the possibility of realizing a Russian protectorate over this territory was finally closed.
Miklouho-Maclay returned to his homeland after a long absence in 1882. After returning to Russia, he read a number of public reports on his travels to members of the Geographical Society. For his research, the society of lovers of natural science, anthropology and ethnography awarded Nikolai a gold medal. After visiting the European capitals - Berlin, London and Paris, he introduced the public to the results of his trips and research. Then he again went to Australia, having visited the Maclay Coast for the third time on the way, this happened in 1883.
From 1884 to 1886, the traveler lived in Sydney, and in 1886 he returned to his homeland. All this time he was seriously ill, but at the same time he continued to prepare for the publication of his scientific materials and diaries. In the same 1886, he handed over to the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg all the ethnographic collections he had collected from 1870 to 1885. Today these collections can be seen at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg.
Miklouho-Maclay in the winter of 1886-1887. St. Petersburg
The traveler who returned to Petersburg changed a lot. As the people who know him noted, the 40-year-old young scientist sharply grew decrepit, weakened, his hair turned gray. Pains in the jaw appeared again, which intensified in February 1887, a tumor appeared. The doctors could not diagnose him and could not determine the cause of the disease. Only in the second half of the 20th century did doctors manage to remove the veil of secrecy from this issue. Ethnographer was killed by cancer with localization in the area of \u200b\u200bthe right mandibular canal. Exactly 130 years ago on April 14, 1888 (April 2, old style) Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay died, he was only 41 years old. The traveler was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.
The most important scientific merit of the scientist was that he raised the question of the species unity and relationship of existing human races. It was also he who first gave a detailed description of the Melanesian anthropological type and proved that it is very widespread on the islands of Southeast Asia and in Western Oceania. For ethnography, his descriptions of the material culture, economy and life of the Papuans and other peoples inhabiting the numerous islands of Oceania and Southeast Asia are of great importance. Many observations of the traveler, distinguished by a high level of accuracy, and at present remain practically the only materials on the ethnography of some islands of Oceania.
During the life of Nikolai Nikolaevich, more than 100 of his scientific works on anthropology, ethnography, geography, zoology and other sciences were published; in total, he wrote more than 160 such works. At the same time, during the life of the scientist, not a single of his major work was published, all of them appeared only after his death. So in 1923, Miklouho-Maclay's Travel Diaries were first published, and even later, in 1950-1954, a collection of works in five volumes.
Portrait of Miklouho-Maclay by K. Makovsky. Stored in the Cabinet of Curiosities
The memory of the researcher and ethnographer is widely preserved not only in Russia, but all over the world. His bust can be found today in Sydney, and in New Guinea a mountain and a river are named after him, excluding the section of the northeastern coast, which is called the Maclay Coast. In 1947, the name of Miklouho-Maclay was given to the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences (RAS). And relatively recently, in 2014, the Russian Geographical Society established a special Gold Medal named after Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay, as the highest award of the society for ethnographic research and travel. The world recognition of this researcher is also evidenced by the fact that in honor of his 150th anniversary, 1996 was proclaimed by UNESCO the year of Miklouho-Maclay, at the same time he was named a Citizen of the World.
Based on materials from open sources.
On September 20, 1871, a young Russian scientist landed on the lush green shore of a tropical paradise. His dream has finally come true. After 10 long months of travel on the corvette Vityaz, 25-year-old Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay landed in Astrolabe Bay, on the coast of New Guinea, which became the coast of his fate, where he aspired for the rest of his life.
This is how this wonderful story and a new era began in the life of a young explorer, traveler and great humanist, whose name, after a century and a half, children in Papuan families on the Maclay Coast, on the northeastern coast of New Guinea, are named.
Nikolay Miklukho-Maclay - "White Papuan"
Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukha, later Miklouho-Maclay, was born on June 17, 1846 in the village of Yazykovo-Rozhdestvenskoye near Borovichi, Novgorod province. He was the second of five children in the family of a young railway engineer Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha, who in those years worked on the construction of a railway in this province. Nikolai Ilyich became the first head of the Nikolaevsky, today Moskovsky railway station in St. Petersburg, but he lived a short life, having died at the age of 39 from tuberculosis. He was a true patriot of his cause, personally participating in the construction of the railway, where he often lived in extremely cramped conditions and undermined his health. The children, the eldest of whom was 12 at that time, and the youngest 1.5 years old, remained with their mother, Ekaterina Semyonovna, nee Becker, who came from a family of Russified Germans who came to Russia under Catherine II. Ekaterina Semyonovna's grandfather was a physician-in-law of the Polish king Stanislav Poniatowski, to whose service he came from Prussia on behalf of the Prussian king, and her father married a Polish woman, Louise Shatkovskaya, from the city of Vilna.
Nikolai Nikolaevich became the most famous of the Miklukho-Maklaev family, and today Novgorodians and all Russians are proud of their famous compatriot. However, the life of Nikolai Nikolaevich was filled with difficulties from an early age. It was very difficult for the mother to support such a large family, but she managed to raise all the children in the spirit of the primordially Russian nobility, with high morals and principles. All children received a good education. Nikolai Nikolaevich began his education at St. Petersburg University, but in 1864, for participation in the student movement, he was expelled. Nikolai Nikolayevich continued his studies abroad, at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Heidelberg University, and at the medical faculties of the Leipzig and Jena Universities, studying anatomy and zoology. Scientific work in these areas brought Nikolai Nikolayevich his first fame in scientific circles.
In 1866, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay went to the Canary Islands, where, together with his zoology teacher, famous biologist, professor at the University of Jena, Ernst Haeckel, he studied the fauna of the island of Lanzarote. After trips to Sicily and the coastal regions of the Red Sea, in the fall of 1869, Nikolai Nikolayevich presented his plan for a scientific trip to the Pacific Ocean to the Russian Geographical Society and received support and approval. As a result, the corvette "Vityaz", which was then sailing around the world, took on board a young scientist, and on September 20, 1871, he landed on the island of New Guinea, in Astrolabe Bay, and the "Vityaz" team built a small hut on the shore of the bay for Nikolai Nikolaevich and two of his companions. Thus began the amazing epic of the life and scientific research of the famous scientist. During his first trip, Miklouho-Maclay spent 15 months among the Papuans, gaining unlimited trust and respect, as a man of his word, who became his “white Papuan” for the local population.
Miklouho-Maclay was the first among Europeans to assert the equality of all races and to advocate for the Papuans' right to independence. In 1882, Nikolai Nikolaevich, during his stay in St. Petersburg, even turned to Emperor Alexander III with a proposal to protect the population of the Malay coast of New Guinea and establish a "free Russian colony" there. However, this proposal was not accepted, and he went back to Sydney, where for two years he put in order his extensive collections and diaries.
There he also married Margaret Robertson (01/21/1855 - 01/01/1936), the daughter of a large landowner, governor general of New South Wales in Australia, with whom he later lived in St. Petersburg for almost two years, bringing with him two sons to his homeland - Alexander (11/14/1884 - November 1951) and Vladimir (12/29/1885 - 02/19/1958).
The collected materials and collections allowed Nikolai Nikolaevich to organize an exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1886, which became a sensation in scientific circles. Miklouho-Maclay's articles were published in many publications and, above all, in Izvestia of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.
On April 14, 1888, at the age of 42, Nikolai Nikolayevich died in St. Petersburg and was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery. In 1938, his remains were reburied next to his father's grave at Literatorskie Mostki. After the death of Nikolai Nikolaevich, his widow returned to Sydney with her children. Until 1917, for special services to the fatherland, she received a pension from the Russian government for the maintenance of children. She donated her husband's works and collections to the Russian Geographical Society. More than 700 drawings are kept in the archives of the Russian Geographical Society, a collection of items collected in expeditions, and some diaries are now kept in St. Petersburg, in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after I. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) ¹.
The rare Russian surname Miklouho-Maclay is known all over the world today. But it was restored by Nikolai Nikolaevich, after which the whole family officially accepted her.
According to one of the family legends, in 1648, during the Battle of Zheltye Vody in Ukraine, the Cossacks of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who defeated the troops of the Polish hetman Pototsky, captured the Scottish Baron Michael McLay, who served in the Polish army. The baron remained in Ukraine, became Russified and married the daughter of a Cossack who had captured him by the name of Miklukh, taking the name of his wife. Until the 60s of the XIX century, the second part of the surname was used very rarely, and Nikolai Nikolayevich officially restored it before his first trip to the island of New Guinea.
It was after Margaret took her sons to Sydney that the Miklukho-Maclay family got an Australian branch. The descendants of Nikolai Nikolaevich live in Australia - in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Canbera, and still maintain contact with their family in Russia.
The Russian branch of the bearers of the surname in the male line comes from the older brother of Sergei Nikolaevich. Unfortunately, there are not so many bearers of the surname left - someone died during the war in besieged Leningrad, someone left for Yugoslavia during the revolution, someone disappeared in the troubled 20s of the twentieth century.
Miklouho-Maclay and Maclay Coast
The descendants of Sergei Nikolaevich, the elder brother of the great humanist and traveler, live in St. Petersburg. His great-grandson Nikolai Andreevich was born in 1940, graduated from the Geography Faculty of Leningrad University, and worked for 35 years at the Central Research Geological Prospecting Institute. He is now retired. His son, the successor of the surname, great-great-grandson Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay was born in 1973. He is the first full namesake of the great scientist, an economist by education, who is fond of the heritage of the great traveler Nikolai Nikolaevich, the first Miklukho-Maklaev in 2017 repeated the trip to the island of New Guinea, organizing an expedition with the participation of scientists from the St. Petersburg Museum of Ethnography and Anthropology (Kunstkamera ) RAS and Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay RAS.
Contemporary Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay is the founder of the Foundation for the Preservation of Ethnocultural Heritage named after A. Miklouho-Maclay.
As a result of the expedition, it was possible to bring to Russia a rich collection of objects of the material culture of the peoples living on the Maclay Coast, a unique photo and video material was collected that will serve humanity and will become the basis for organizing exhibitions, creating documentaries, scientific articles and works.
The modern collection will supplement the one that was collected in the 19th century by Miklouho-Maclay the elder, and is kept in the St. Petersburg Kunstkamera. Now we can really say that the idea of \u200b\u200bpreserving the heritage of the great scientist came to life, discovering a unique world that is still little studied, and the interest of the world community in it has not faded to this day.
The expedition of a descendant of Miklouho-Maclay with the participation of scientists confirmed the relevance of the works of Nikolai Nikolaevich and the collections he collected. We are re-opening the world, unknown to us 150 years ago, establishing ties not only with the local population, but also with the scientific community - with the largest Universities and Museums of Papua New Guinea.
It is symbolic that Papua New Guinea opened its doors to the full namesake and descendant of Miklouho-Maclay from Russia, with the desire to restore the lost ties. Miklouho-Maclay of the 21st century was received by the “father of the nation” Sir Michael Somare, prominent public figures of this country, one of whom is Sir Peter Barter, the leadership of the Universities and National Museums.
Oceania, the island of New Guinea, once so distant and unknown, is getting closer thanks to Miklouho-Maclay the younger and the memory of Miklouho-Maclay the elder, who is still rightfully considered the discoverer of the island. After all, it was he who opened to mankind an island inhabited by people equal to Europeans, although it was previously believed that a separate transitional species between a monkey and a man lives on the island. Miklouho-Maclay proved the failure of these ideas and fought for a long time for the rights of the peoples inhabiting the second largest island in the world.
At one time, the Maclay Coast was named after the great scientist - a section of the northeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, about 300 km long. But over time, the historical name was lost, and today it is called the Rai coast, after a French researcher who studied the languages \u200b\u200bof New Guinea.
During the first in the modern history of the Russian expedition in 2017, Miklouho-Maclay Jr., or the fourth, as he was called on the island, discovered documents in the Mitchell Library in Australia confirming the historical name of the coast - Maclay Coast, which was used in documents of that time. And today there is a real opportunity to restore this name on the maps of Papua New Guinea, especially since public figures and local residents of this country were happy to learn about such an initiative.
More than a century has passed since the death of H. H. Miklouho-Maclay - a classic of world science, a brave traveler, a humanist thinker, a passionate fighter for the rights of oppressed peoples. But his scientific and social feat, his rich heritage have not lost their significance to this day.
¹ Based on materials from the archives of the Miklukho-Maklaev family and the article “Russian family - a placer of diamonds. Getting acquainted with Miklouho-Maclay. " V.E. Pavlov, magazine "History of Petersburg" №3 (13) from 2003