Muller G. F., (1705-83), Ethnographer, Historian

Categories / Science. Education/Personalia
MULLER Gerard Friedrich (1705-1783), historian, ethnographer, professor, Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1730), State Counsellor (1783). Native of Germany. Muller made his home in Russia upon graduating from Leipzig University in 1725. He taught at the Academic Gymnasium. In 1728-30, Muller edited Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. From 1728, he edited the first ever Russian scientific and literary journal Mesyachnye - Primechaniya v Vedomostyakh. The journal was published up to 1742. In 1733-43, together with botanist I. G. Gmelin, Muller was in charge of the land group of the First Academic (Second Kamchatskaya) Expedition, investigating the territory of Siberian Volga Region, which resulted in several written works, including History of Siberia (1750), and Description of Peoples of the Kazanskaya Province (1756). Muller was one of the founders of the so called Norman Theory in Russian historiography. Following Bayer, he made a case in his thesis, On the Origin of the Russian Nation and Name, for the Scandinavian origin of Ryurik and the name Rus. The thesis aroused sharp criticism by M. V. Lomonosov, who accused Muller of antipatriotism. Muller lived and worked in Moscow from 1765.

References: Джаксон Т. Н. Миллер Герард Фридрих (1705-1783) // Историки России: Биографии. М., 2001. С. 15-18.

A. Y. Chistyakov. Bayer Gottlieb Siegfried
Gmelin Johann Georg
Lomonosov Mikhail Vasilievich
Muller Gerard Friedrich
Джаксон Т. Н. Миллер Герард Фридрих (1705-1783) // Историки России: Биографии. М., 2001 Russian Academy of Sciences
Academic Gymnasium
Sankt Peterburgskie Vedomosti (St. Petersburg Gazette), newspaper