Gerhardt Friedrich Müller

Gerhardt Friedrich Müller (1705-1783) was a historian and ethnologist who studied Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and China in Leipzig, Germany and Saint Petersburg, Russia. He was invited to St. Petersburg in 1725 to co-found the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Müller participated in the second Kamchatka expedition, which reported on life and nature of the other side of the Ural mountain range to the Moscow. From 1733 till 1743, nineteen scientists and artists traveled through Siberia 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. He was one of the first historians to bring out a general account of Russian history, but his excessive 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 Lomonosov and he was compelled to leave Russia.

References

* Kerstin Holm, "Stuttgarter Zeitung", page 38, December 29, 2005, Nr. 303

Further reading

* "G.-F. Müller and the Imperial Russian Academy", J. L. Black, 1986
* "·Ekspedicionnye materialy G. F. Millera kak istocnik po istorii Sibiri" ( Reisebericht 1733-1743 Halbinsel Kamtschatka) von Aleksander Ch. Elert u. G. F. Müller, Neuauflage Novosibirsk 1990, ISBN 5020296279
* "Von Beschreibung der Sitten und Gebräuche der Völcker": Die Instruktionen Gerhard Friedrich Müllers und ihre Bedeutung für die Geschichte der Ethnologie und der Geschichtswissenschaft", von G. Bucher, Stuttgart 2002

Persondata
NAME=Müller, Gerhard Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=German historian and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH=October 29 1705
PLACE OF BIRTH=Herford (Germany)
DATE OF DEATH=October 22 1783
PLACE OF DEATH=Moscow, Russia