(Critical Studies in The History of Anthropology) Han F. Vermeulen - Before Boas - The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in The German Enlightenment-University of Nebraska Press (2015)

before boas
Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology

series editors
Regna Darnell
Stephen O. Murray
BEFOR E BOAS
The Genesis of Ethnography
and Ethnology in the
German Enlightenment
h a n f. v er meu l en
University of Nebraska Press

Lincoln & London
© 2015 by Han F. Vermeulen
Some of the data and interpretations herein appeared in articles
written in English, German, French, Dutch, and Russian that are
listed in the references, especially material in chapters 4, 5, and 6,
which was published in a different form in: Anthropology and Colonialism
in Asia and Oceania, edited by Jan van Bremen and Akitoshi Shimizu
(Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 1999); and The German Invention of Race,
edited by Sara Eigen and Mark Larrimore (Albany n y: sun y Press, 2006).
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Vermeulen, Han F., 1952–
Before Boas: the genesis of ethnography and ethnology
in the German Enlightenment / Han F. Vermeulen.
pages cm.— (Critical studies in the history of anthropology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8032-5542-5 (hardback: alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8032- 7738-0 (epub)
isbn 978-0-8032- 7739- 7 (mobi)
isbn 978-0-8032- 7740-3 (pdf)
1. Ethnology— Germany—History—18th century.
2. Anthropology— Germany—History—18th century.
3. Enlightenment— Germany. 4. Germany—
Intellectual life—18th century. 5. Ethnology—Philosophy.
6. Ethnology—Europe—History. 7. Ethnology—
Russia—History. 8. Boas, Franz, 1858–1942—Influence. I. Title.
gn308.3.g3v37 2015
306.0943'09033— dc23
2015012611
Set in Adobe Caslon Pro by L. Auten.
For my parents
and their parents
The arts and sciences are the true treasure of humankind.
— G. W. Leibniz to Peter the Great (1712)
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

The proper study of mankind is Man.
— Alex ander Pope (1733–34)
Mein mehrfacher Wunsch war es, daß eine erfahrene Person . . .

den Versuch übernehmen möge, eine ganz allgemeine Völkerbe-
schreibung zu verfassen und daß [dadurch] . . . eine gewisse neue
Wissenschaft begründet werden möge, von der die
Nachwelt einen ewigen Nutzen erwarten könnte.
— Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1744–45)
Les lois, les coutumes et les divers usages de tous les peuples de la terre.
— Charles- Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1748)
Die edelste Beschäftigung des Menschen ist der Mensch.

— Got thold Ephr aim Lessing (1753)
Toute la terre est couverte de nations dont nous ne

connoissons que les noms, & nous nous
mêlons de juger le genre humain!
— Jean- Jacques Rousseau (1755)
It is in their present condition, that we are to behold,

as in a mirrour, the features of our own progenitors.
— A dam Ferguson (1767)
The compilation of a systema populorum in classes and
orders, genera and species is possible.
—August Ludwig Schlözer (1771)
Ethnologia . . . est notitia gentium populorumque.

— A dam Fr antišek Koll ár (1783)
It is important to look at an age or country in its own point of view.

—Thomas Arnold (1842)
It is my opinion that the main object of ethnological collections

should be the dissemination of the fact that civilization is not something
absolute, but that it is relative, and that our ideas and conceptions are
true only so far as our civilization goes.
— Fr anz Boas (1887)
L’anthropologue est l’astronome des sciences sociales.

— Cl aude Lév i- Str auss (1954)
Ethnography is . . . the Anthropologist’s Muse.

— Ioan M. Lewis (1973)
The proper object of history is not the past

but the past-present-future relationship.
— Jennifer Robertson (1991)
Each nation is basically a collection of immigrants.

—Trevor Phillips (2003)
contents
List of Illustrations xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Series Editors’ Introduction xxi
1. History and Theory of Anthropology and Ethnology:

Introduction 1
2. Theory and Practice: G. W. Leibniz and the
Advancement of Science in Russia 39
3. Enlightenment and Pietism: D. G. Messerschmidt
and the Early Exploration of Siberia 87
4. Ethnography and Empire: G. F. Müller and the
Description of Siberian Peoples 131
5. Anthropology and the Orient: C. Niebuhr and the
Danish-German Arabia Expedition 219
6. From the Field to the Study: A. L. Schlözer
and the Invention of Ethnology 269
7. Anthropology in the German Enlightenment:
Plural Approaches to Human Diversity 357
8. Epilogue: Reception of the German
Ethnographic Tradition 395
Conclusion 437
Notes 459
References Cited 515
Index 689
illustrations
figures
1. Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg, 1741 61
2. Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg 62
3. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 82
4. The Francke Foundations 105
5. Gerhard Friedrich Müller 210
6. Carsten Niebuhr 259
7. August Ludwig Schlözer 276
8. Johann Christoph Gatterer 305
9. Adam František Kollár 317
10. Johann Gottfried Herder 325
maps
1. Inner Eurasia and Outer Eurasia 88
2. Petr Chaplin’s map of the itinerary of the
First Kamchatka Expedition 140
3. Stylized version of Chaplin’s map of Siberia 142
4. Müller’s itinerary during the Second
Kamchatka Expedition 150
5. The Kamchatka Peninsula and
surrounding regions 192
6. Niebuhr’s itinerary during the Danish-German
Arabia Expedition 242
tables
1. Leibniz’s classification of languages, 1710 65
2. Müller’s ethnographic instructions to Fischer, 1740 169
3. Müller’s “Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker” 179
4. Vocabulary of Siberian languages compiled by Fischer, ca. 1747 189
5. The Linnaeus apostles, 1745–1796 234
6. Schlözer’s classification of North European languages, 1771 290
7. Ethnos terms in Schlözer’s early works, 1771–1775 300
8. Work location and age of the editors of the
ethnological journals, 1781–1790 337
9. Classifications of geography and ethnography 340
10. Ethnological discourse in Asia, Europe, and the
United States, 1710–1815 354
11. Enlightenment anthropological studies 364
12. Ethnographic museums in the nineteenth century 426
preface
Ethnography is . . . that part of anthropology (in the English

sense of the word, the whole science of man) . . . which deals
with the “cultures” of human groups.
— Robert H. Lowie, 1937
T
his book aims to serve historians and students of anthropol-
ogy, ethnography, and ethnology; of modern German and
Russian history; of science and society during the Enlight-
enment. In writing an intellectual history of anthropological and
ethnological theory and practice in Europe and Asia during the
eighteenth century, I argue that ethnography and ethnology origi-
nated in the German Enlightenment long before these studies were
established in other parts of Europe and America. Drawing on pri-
mary and secondary sources from archives and libraries in the United
States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Russia, I demonstrate
how “ethnography” commenced as field research among peoples in
Siberia (Russian Asia) during the 1730s and 1740s, was generalized
as “ethnology” in the academic centers of Göttingen (Germany)
and Vienna (Austria) during the 1770s and 1780s, and subsequently
adopted by scholars in other countries. The first two developments
occurred in the Russian and Holy Roman Empires, continental pol-
ities with multiple indigenous populations. In the epilogue, develop-
ments in nineteenth-century France, Russia, and the Netherlands are
discussed, and the subject is followed up to the work of E. B. Tylor
in Great Britain and Franz Boas in the United States.
The primary material suggests that there was considerable con-
tinuity between ethnography and ethnology practiced in the eigh-
teenth century and these studies as developed during the nineteenth
century. When ethnography and ethnology first emerged in the work
of Enlightenment historians like Gerhard Friedrich Müller, August
Ludwig Schlözer, and Adam František Kollár, their object of study
was neither alterity nor culture, as is often assumed, but ethnicity,
or rather multiethnicity, the world’s diversity of peoples and nations.
The relation between ethnology and ethnography on the one hand
and anthropology on the other is complicated. Following French,
British, and American models of the second half of the nineteenth
century, in which anthropology was elevated to the status of an
umbrella science, ethnography and ethnology are now often consid-
ered subfields of (general) anthropology. While the term “anthropol-
ogy” is certainly more general and definitely older than “ethnology,”
(physical) anthropology and ethnology/ethnography developed in
distinct domains of science during the eighteenth century, the nat-
ural sciences and the historical sciences or humanities, respectively.
Although there were connections, these studies developed paral-
lel to each other.
These findings are relevant for the positioning of anthropologi-
cal and ethnological sciences in the wider field of academic knowl-
edge and for debates about their identity and subject matter. One
of the present study’s findings is that the current biological view of
ethnicity as a euphemistic term for “race” is not valid for the eigh-
teenth century when ethnos served as the Greek term referring to a
people or nation. Although there was considerable debate about the
latter object, “race” was not part of the historical reflection on eth-
nic or national diversity. Instead, it was invented by naturalists like
Carolus Linnaeus and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and phi-
losophers like Immanuel Kant in quite a different field of knowl-
edge: the “natural history of man” and its “varieties.”
Another result of the present study is that ethnography and eth-
nology, when they emerged in eighteenth-century Asia and Europe,
were not concerned with “other” people but with all peoples, both
within and outside Europe, of all eras. Thus the twentieth-century
distinction between ethnology (or Völkerkunde) as the study of non-
European cultures and folklore studies (or Volkskunde) as the study
of the peoples of Europe is not valid for the Age of Reason, when
xiv Preface
these concepts were invented. Ethnography in the eighteenth cen-
tury was a description of peoples and nations; ethnology was a gen-
eral (comparative) study of the world’s peoples and nations; whereas
Volkskunde was the study of a single people or nation.
In all cases the aim was to study peoples and nations (ethnos, in
Greek; gens, in Latin) in whatever way these human groups should
be defined, rather than the “manners and customs” that are usually
regarded as the object of premodern sociocultural anthropology. The
coining of the concepts Völker-Beschreibung (1740), ethnographia (1767),
Völkerkunde (1771), Volkskunde (1776), and ethnologia (1781) implied a
paradigmatic shift from the study of “manners and customs” that was
part of an older research tradition toward the study of peoples and
nations. The latter were no longer seen as characterized principally
by their manners and customs but by their languages, even if man-
ners and customs remained a key aspect of “culture,” as defined by
Tylor in 1871. The study of language as a marker of ethnicity remained
important until the work of Franz Boas, who from 1886 on modern-
ized the German perspective on ethnology in the United States and
professionalized the holistic study of anthropology.
Preface xv
acknowledgments
D
uring the more than thirty years of conducting the research
presented in this book, numerous scholars in Europe and
North America have been of invaluable assistance. Words
of gratitude go to Lawrence J. Baack (Berkeley, California), Rob-
ert E. Bieder (Bloomington, Indiana), Michael C. Carhart (Nor-
folk, Virginia), Raymond Corbey (Leiden, The Netherlands), John
R. Eidson (Halle/Saale, Germany), Frank Grunert (Halle/Saale),
Lars Hansen (London and Whitby, United Kingdom), Wieland
Hintzsche (Halle/Saale), Peter Hoffmann (Berlin/Nassenheide,
Germany), Carl Niekerk (Urbana-Champagne, Illinois), Herbert S.
Lewis (Madison, Wisconsin), Peter K. J. Park (Dallas, Texas), Peter
T. Suzuki (Omaha, Nebraska), John J. Stachel (Boston, Massachu-
setts), John H. Zammito (Houston, Texas), Johan van der Zande
(Oakland, California), and R. Tom Zuidema (Urbana, Illinois) for
commenting on parts of the manuscript. I treasure the help of Mir-
iam Claude Meijer (Silver Spring, Maryland) and Kees Boterbloem
(Tampa, Florida) for improving my English, German, and Rus-
sian. I am grateful to Reimar Schefold (Amsterdam, The Nether-
lands) and Jarich Oosten (Leiden) for supervising the dissertation
on which this book is based. Many thanks to Roy Jordaan (Ren-
kum, The Netherlands) for strengthening the argument and to Peter
Richardus (Leiden) for polishing the text. I am indebted to Anett C.
Oelschlägel (Halle/Saale) for strategic and organizational support.
In the Netherlands, and Leiden in particular, the late P. E. de
Josselin de Jong, Hans Claessen, the late Jan Heesterman, Dirk
Kolff, Carla Risseeuw, Henk Maier, Sander Adelaar, Fifi Effert, the
late Bert van den Hoek, Jos Platenkamp, James McAllister, Rob-
ert Busschots, Wilfried van Damme, Jean Kommers, and the late
Frans Hüsken made valuable contributions. I am grateful to Bas ter
Haar Romeny, Laban Kaptein, Dirk Kruisheer, Dirk Nijland, Jozien
Driessen-van het Reve, and Sjoerd Zanen for reading several chapters.
I would also like to thank my friends and peers Rob de Ridder,
Anke Niehof, Ad Boeren, the late Kees Epskamp, Elke van der
Hoeven, Gérard Geurten, Ankie Nijland, Jan Brouwer, Roger Buss-
chots, Jerry Mager, Willem van der Molen, Frans de Haan, Paul
Folmer, Metje Postma, Bal Gopal Shrestha, Tonneke Beijers, Else
Denninghoff Stelling, Mascha Toppenberg, Annette van Houwe-
lingen, Joop Goosen, Joep Noordman, Hans Kouwenhoven, Bas
Duindam, Charles Beringer, Cor Hendriks, Peter Konter, Yvonne
Lammers, Feng, Anna Souverijn, and Wim Versteegen.
Hans Fischer (Hamburg), Justin Stagl (Salzburg), Hans Erich
Bödeker (Göttingen), Martin Gierl (Göttingen), Helga Lühmann-
Frester (Hoya), Günter Mühlpfordt (Halle), Günter Arnold (Wei-
mar), Dittmar Dahlmann (Bonn), and Peter Schweitzer (Vienna)
shared valuable expertise. I thank Edith Lumma, Rolf and Gabi
Hussmann, Erhard Schlesier, Manfred Urban, Peter Fuchs, Bri-
gitta Benzing, Gundolf Krüger, Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin, Ulrich
Braukämper, János Gulya, Uli Kutter, Rolf Siemon, Swen Alp-
ers, the late Frank Dougherty, and Norbert Klatt (all Göttingen);
Thomas Theye (Bremen); and the late Wolfgang Liedtke and Bern-
hard Streck (Leipzig). In Halle my thanks go out to Chris Hann,
Günther Schlee, the late Franz von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet von
Benda-Beckmann, Erich Donnert, Heike Heklau, Elisabeth Hintz-
sche, Joachim Otto Habeck, Brian Donahoe, Kirill Istomin, Say-
ana Namsaraeva, Bettina Mann, Markus Höhne, Martin Ramstedt,
Merle Schatz, Dittmar Schorkowitz, Thomas Müller-Bahlke, Frie-
derike Lippold, Daniel Fulda, Erdmut Jost, Axel Rüdiger, Rainer
Godel, Frank Grunert, and Uwe Wolfradt. In Berlin special thanks to
Jürgen Renn, Lorraine Daston, Wolfgang Lefèvre, Volkmar Schül-
ler, Fernando Vidal, Anke te Heesen, Stefan Laube, Veronika Lipp-
hardt, Thomas Sturm, Wolfgang Kaschuba, and Ullrich Wannhoff.
Warm thanks go to Andreas and Kerstin König in Switzerland;
Boris Djubo, Eduard Kolchinsky, Natasha Kopaneva, Maria Stan-
iukovich, Irina Tunkina (St. Petersburg), Aleksandr Elert (Novo-
sibirsk), Alexei Elfimov, Dmitrii Funk, and Sergei Sokolovsky
xviii Acknowledgments
(Moscow) in the Russian Federation; and Michael Harbsmeier and
Peter Ulf Møller (Copenhagen) in Denmark. In the United Kingdom
my appreciation extends to Alan and Joy Barnard (Edinburgh), Adam
and Jessica Kuper (London, Ontario), and Michael Banton (Downe);
in Canada to Regna Darnell (London), Ken Wallace (Halifax), and
Gregory Forth (Edmonton); in France to Claude Blanckaert, Jean-
Claude Galey, Britta Rupp-Eisenreich (Paris), and Thomas Schippers
(Nice); in Spain to Arturo Alvarez Roldán (Granada). In Prague (the
Czech Republic) Václav Hubinger and Petr Skalník rendered highly
appreciated assistance, as did Zita Škovierová, Kornélia Jakubíková,
and Viera Urbancová in Bratislava (Slovakia); Zmago Šmitek and
Božidar Jezernik in Ljubljana (Slovenia); Mihály Sárkány and Ist-
ván Sántha in Budapest (Hungary); the late Richard Jeřábek (Brno);
Zbigniew Jasiewicz (Poznań); and Michel Henri Kowalewicz (Cra-
cow) in Poland, as well as Gheorghiţă Geană (Bucharest) in Romania.
For funding various étappes of this study, special appreciation goes
to the Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Stud-
ies (cnws) at Leiden University, the Netherlands Organization of
Scientific Research (nwo) in The Hague, the German Academic
Exchange Service (daad) in Bonn, the Max Planck Institute for
Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale), the Fritz Wiedemann Stif-
tung in Essen, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
in Berlin, the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung in Cologne, and the Francke-
sche Stiftungen in Halle (Saale).
Numerous libraries in Europe contributed to this project. The
Leiden University Library, the Göttingen State and University Library
(sub), and the Institute of Ethnology of the University of Göt-
tingen facilitated my research during its early stages. The Herzog
August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel), the libraries of the Max Planck
Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle), the Max Planck Insti-
tute for the History of Science (Berlin), the Franckesche Stiftun-
gen, and the Interdisciplinary Centre of European Enlightenment
Studies (both Halle) played an invaluable role in its final stages. I
thank the librarians Anja Neuner and Anett Kirchhof in Halle, Urs
Schöpflin in Berlin, Helmut Rohlfing and other staff members of
the sub Göttingen, Klaus Schmidt and his colleagues of the former
Zeitschriften-Index at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, Dik de
Heer and Jan Just Witkam in Leiden, Jill Bepler and her colleagues
Acknowledgments xix
in Wolfenbüttel, as well as Britta Klosterberg and her colleagues at
the Franckesche Stiftungen in Halle for highly appreciated support
and unexpected references.
I am indebted to the directors and my colleagues of the Depart-
ment of Cultural Anthropology and the former Centre of Non-West-
ern Studies in Leiden, the Institute of Ethnology in Göttingen, the
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, the Max
Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and the Inter-
disciplinary Centre for European Enlightenment Studies (izea) in
Halle for support and intellectual exchanges. I am particularly grate-
ful to Chris Hann for inviting me to the mpi in Halle and to Gün-
ther Schlee for extending my stay. Many thanks to Jutta Turner for
drawing three maps.
I appreciate the support of Matthew Bokovoy, Heather Stauffer,
Ann Baker, and the entire staff of the University of Nebraska Press,
as well as the copyediting of Julie Kimmel. I am grateful for the
review reports of Regna Darnell and Herbert S. Lewis recommend-
ing that my manuscript be included in the Critical Studies in the
History of Anthropology series.
Last but not least, I dedicate this book to my parents, in mem-
ory of their parents, with loving thanks to both my muses, Anett
and Erato.
xx Acknowledgments
series editors ’ introduction
A
lthough a revisionist reading of the work and ongoing sig-
nificance of Franz Boas has been underway in North Amer-
ica and Europe for some time now, very little has been
written in English about the intellectual context that underwrote
the anthropological paradigm Boas transported to North America.
Historians of anthropology have largely taken for granted without
detailed examination that Boas’s German background and educa-
tion must have determined the nature of his anthropology. But reas-
sessment has suffered from the inaccessibility of works both by and
about Boas, many written in German and based in a philosophical
milieu of emerging professionalization of the social and natural sci-
ences that is no longer considered an essential part of anthropological
socialization. Firmly locating Boas’s paradigm within the German
Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Han
Vermeulen reconstitutes the transnational and interdisciplinary con-
text that underwrote Boas’s anthropology and its alternatives during
this period. His meticulous, exhaustive, treatment clarifies charac-
teristic misreadings and enables readers to access the evidence on
which he bases his position.
The key terms of disciplinary identification characteristic of what
is now recognized as “anthropology” in its move toward profession-
alization shift considerably when considering different national tra-
ditions at different periods in time. Vermeulen moves adroitly across
multiple traditions of what were then called “ethnology,” “ethnogra-
phy,” and “anthropology” and traces the genealogies, both theoretical
and practical, of scholars approaching the study of humankind from
different angles. He locates “the roots of sociocultural anthropol-
ogy” as we know it today in multiple intersections of thought across
a range of disciplines rarely controlled by a single scholar. He begins
with the ethnolinguistics of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, philoso-
pher and adviser to European monarchs, especially Peter the Great
of Russia, and moves to the consequent exploration of Siberia, par-
ticularly the Second Kamchatka Expedition, that honed the prac-
tice of ethnography and rendered it scientific.
Vermeulen then returns to Europe and the Late German Enlight-
enment, a deft exercise in international cultural description and inter-
pretation. He documents how the distinction between ethnography
and ethnology came to fit with the geopolitical and scientific aspira-
tions of European empires as well as with the emergence of anthro-
pological institutions. Interestingly, given Boas’s later commitment to
grounding anthropology in universities, research expeditions proved
far more important than academic institutions in the initial moves
toward professionalization. These expeditions were supervised and
executed by scholars attached to the Academy of Sciences in St.
Petersburg. While ethnography was begun in the field of Siberia,
ethnology was developed in the academies of Europe.
Vermeulen emphasizes that the conceptual basis of the anthropol-
ogy arising out of this ethnological and ethnographic tradition dur-
ing the German Enlightenment was quite distinct from what was
then called “anthropology.” The anthropology of that day was prac-
ticed by medical personnel working within a natural science model
without any clear understanding of race as a category. Pre-Boasian
North American anthropology was more inclined to this natural sci-
ence tradition in ways that Vermeulen delineates as post-Darwinian
and based on a racialist and eugenicist variety of cultural evolution-
ism. The relativism Boas brought with him from the countervailing
tradition in Germany contrasted sharply with the covert teleology
of Lester Frank Ward and others and arose from this separate and
arguably incommensurable strand of thought. Much of the Amer-
ican resistance to Boasian innovations in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century can be attributed to this separation of the
biological and sociocultural traditions and the persistence of natural
history perspectives in studies of culture. Recognizing the histori-
cal differences among these strands of thought clarifies the surface
unintelligibility of different professional vocabularies across forma-
xxii Series Editors’ Introduction

tive anthropological traditions and institutions. Boas’s insistence on
the four-field model of incorporating cultural, biological, archaeo-
logical, and linguistic studies within a single holistic discipline called
“anthropology” emerges from and flourished within this context.
Continuing debates within the discipline underscore the need to
clarify these disparate origins and their trajectories.
The present volume is a substantial contribution to the history of
science and forms a crucial background context for the revisionist
scholarship expected to arise from the documentary edition of the
professional papers of Franz Boas, forthcoming from the Univer-
sity of Nebraska Press.
Regna Darnell
Stephen O. Murray
Series Editors’ Introduction xxiii

before boas
one
History and Theory of Anthropology

and Ethnology
Introduction
In the absence of history, men create myths.

— George W. Stocking Jr., in “Matthew Arnold,
E. B. Tylor, and the Uses of Invention” (1963)
D
ebates on the history of anthropology play an important part
in anthropological theory. They generally revolve around
questions such as: When did anthropology begin? How was
its subject matter defined? What were the formative influences on
its development: scholarly curiosity or colonialism? Anthropologists
enjoy such debates as part of a “professional socialization that con-
sists in good part of constructing unique, individual genealogies for
disciplinary practice” (Darnell 2001:xxi). Accordingly, the history of
anthropology has been written from a variety of viewpoints, depend-
ing on gender, nationality, and theoretical or political perspectives.
The data presented in this book indicate that ethnography and eth-
nology as important roots of sociocultural anthropology originated in
the work of eighteenth-century German or German-speaking schol-
ars associated with the Russian Academy of Sciences, the University
of Göttingen, and the Imperial Library in Vienna. The formation
of these studies took place in three stages: (1) as Völker-Beschreibung
or ethnography in the work of the German historian and Siberia
explorer Gerhard Friedrich Müller during the first half of the eigh-
teenth century, (2) as Völkerkunde and ethnologia in the work of the
German or German-speaking historians August Ludwig Schlözer,
Johann Christoph Gatterer, and Adam František Kollár during the
second half of the eighteenth century, and (3) as ethnography or eth-
nology by scholars in other centers of learning in Europe and the
United States during the final decades of the eighteenth and the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
While ethnography was conceived as a program for describing
peoples and nations in Russian Asia and carried out by German-
speaking explorers and historians, ethnology originated with histo-
rians in European academic centers dealing with a comprehensive
and critical study of peoples—in principle, of all peoples and nations.
Whereas the former group of scholars laid the foundations for a
descriptive and comprehensive study of peoples and nations, the
latter developed ethnology as a theoretical and comparative disci-
pline (Völkerkunde).
Plural Views on Anthropology and Its History

These findings are relevant to debates on the origins of anthropol-
ogy, its object, and its identity. Most sociocultural anthropologists
view anthropology as a “young” discipline, originating during the
second half of the nineteenth century with Edward Burnett Tylor
(1832–1917), Henry Sumner Maine (1822–88), and John Ferguson
McLennan (1827–81) in Great Britain; Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–
87) and Adolf Bastian (1826–1905) in Switzerland and Germany;
and Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–81) in the United States. In their
research, anthropology—at the time usually referred to as ethnol-
ogy—is regarded to have become “scientific” by adopting evolutionism
as a theory and kinship as the primary object of study. Ethnologists
and social or cultural anthropologists share this opinion to an almost
canonical degree.1 Subsequently, Franz Boas (1858–1942) founded
modern anthropology in the United States during the early twenti-
eth century, while Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) and Marcel Mauss
(1872–1950) played a similar role in France. In Great Britain Bron-
islaw Malinowski (1884–1942) and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1881–
1955) are seen as the fathers of social anthropology. Malinowski is
often celebrated as the father of long-term fieldwork, developing the
emblematic method of “participant observation” with which mod-
ern anthropology purportedly began.2
In contrast to practicing anthropologists, historians trace anthro-
pology to ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Arabic schol-
ars. Arguing that anthropology is an “old” discipline, they see it as
commencing in antiquity with Herodotus and Strabo among the
2 History and Theory

Greeks, Ptolemy and Tacitus among the Romans. Their work on
the history and geography of the ancient world included a discus-
sion of the population, or ethnography, which is often seen as hav-
ing laid the foundation for anthropology.3 This view is sometimes
broadened by assuming that an interest in other people is basic to
humanity, leading to the thesis that cultural anthropology began in
prehistoric times when the “first Stone Age man” commented on
his neighbors’ customs.4
Many theories have been developed as alternatives to these two
basic views. Some argue that anthropology arose during the Renais-
sance and the Age of Discovery (1450–1700), when Europeans explored
the world.5 Such journeys mainly served to expand trade but seafar-
ers encountered “exotic” human beings beyond Europe and wrote
valuable ethnographic reports. Others point to overland travelers like
Carpini, Rubruck, and Marco Polo. During the Middle Ages mer-
chants and missionaries, dispatched to establish relations with the
Mongol rulers of China, often penned detailed reports. Still oth-
ers see anthropology as a “romantic” discipline, originating from
encounters between European travelers, missionaries, and colonial
officers and the peoples outside Europe.6 This view links a defini-
tion of anthropology as the study of the “Other” to Romanticism, a
philosophical movement of the late eighteenth and the early nine-
teenth centuries that added a sentimental countercurrent to West-
ern rationalism.
Historians of Native Americans claim that comparative ethnology
began with the French Jesuit Joseph-François Lafitau in 1724. He in
turn built on José de Acosta’s work, dated 1590 (Pagden 1986). Oth-
ers argue that relativism in anthropology originated with Michel de
Montaigne, Fernández de Oviedo, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Ber-
nardino de Sahagún during the sixteenth century, both in Europe
and in the Americas (Erdheim 1990).
Social anthropologists in Britain and France developed their own
perspectives, seeing anthropology as a product of the Enlighten-
ment. Durkheim (1892) counted Montesquieu among his scholarly
forebears; Claude Lévi-Strauss (1962, 1963) adopted Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. Radcliffe-Brown (1951, 1957) and Edward Evans-Pritchard
(1951, 1962, 1981) acknowledged the moral philosophers of the Scot-
tish Enlightenment as their intellectual precursors. Adam Fergu-
History and Theory 3

son, John Millar, Lord Kames (Henry Home), Lord Monboddo
(James Burnett), William Falconer, and William Robertson uti-
lized ethnographic data to illustrate the presumed development of
human society.7
Finally, there are those who recognize anthropology only when it
was professionalized. Anthropology began when “the first anthro-
pological (then called ethnological) society was formed” in Paris in
1839 (Tax 1955b:316). This narrative falls in with the viewpoint that
anthropology was established as a discipline during the nineteenth
century in specialized societies, ethnographic museums, and anthro-
pological departments. The first ethnological societies were founded
in France, the United States, and Great Britain between 1839 and
1843; the first specialized ethnographic museums were established
in St. Petersburg (Russia), Leiden (the Netherlands), and Copenha-
gen (Denmark) in 1836–41 (see table 12); the first ethnographic chairs
were established in Russia and the Netherlands during the 1830s (see
epilogue); and the first anthropological departments emerged in the
United States during the 1890s. American historians of anthropology
consider professional anthropology to have commenced with Franz
Boas and his students in the early twentieth century (Stocking 1974).
My view is that ethnology as one of sociocultural anthropolo-
gy’s roots is neither young nor old but a mature discipline emerging
during the German Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Russia,
northern Asia, and central Germany. This view supplements Regna
Darnell’s summary that the “role of the eighteenth-century Scot-
tish philosophers, or the French rationalists of the same period is
already well known to the history of social science. These men laid
the foundations not only of anthropology as a discipline, but also of
other fields of inquiry” (Darnell 1974b:5).
Varieties of Anthropology
Thus the origins of anthropology are highly diverse. Evolutionism,
Romanticism, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the Age of Dis-
covery, and classical antiquity have all been proposed as starting
points. These views clearly depend on the theoretical perspectives
of the respective authors and their answers to the question: What
is anthropology about?
In the world at large, anthropology is especially known in three

forms: as philosophical anthropology, as physical or biological anthro-
pology, and as cultural or social anthropology.8 Philosophical anthro-
pology came into being during the eighteenth century with Immanuel
Kant and Johann Gottfried Herder. John Zammito (2002) argues
that Kant and Herder stood at the cradle of anthropology, which
“was born out of philosophy” in Herder’s reformulation of Kant’s
precritical work of the 1760s and early 1770s. Michael Forster (2010)
emphasizes Herder’s pivotal role in the emergence of the philoso-
phy of language, “founding such whole new disciplines concerned
with language as anthropology and linguistics.”
Biological anthropologists claim that a physical study of the human
species developed after 1735 with Carolus Linnaeus, Georges-Louis
Leclerc de Buffon, Petrus Camper, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach,
John Hunter, Samuel Thomas Soemmerring, Georg Forster, Charles
White, Georges Cuvier, James Cowles Prichard, William Lawrence,
and others (see chapter 7).
Cultural anthropologists emphasize the predominance of culture
and of evolutionism and thus give priority to the nineteenth cen-
tury. Social anthropologists focus on the study of society, a concept
surfacing during the eighteenth century. Students of folklore, usu-
ally regarded as a separate discipline, emphasize the study of man-
ners and customs beginning in sixteenth-century Europe.9 Social
and cultural anthropology are generally seen as ethnology’s succes-
sor, but even in this field one finds considerable debate on its ori-
gins. Clifford Geertz summarized the dilemma in the Times Literary
Supplement by stating that the problem of defining anthropology’s
subject matter “has been around since the beginning of the field,
whenever that was (Rivers? Tylor? Herder? Herodotus?)” (Geertz
1985:623). This lineup ranges from the twentieth to the nineteenth
and the eighteenth centuries back to antiquity.
Yet the majority of sociocultural anthropologists trace the origins
of their discipline to the 1860s, when their “ancestors” embraced evo-
lutionism as a theory and kinship as a method. For them Bachofen’s
Mutterrecht (1861), Maine’s Ancient Law (1861), McLennan’s Primi-
tive Marriage (1865), Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), and Morgan’s
Ancient Society (1877) are the founding texts of sociocultural anthro-
pology as a specialized discourse on human diversity.
Most practicing anthropologists do not see it as a problem that

none of these founding fathers presented their work as a contribu-
tion to anthropology. In the era of these ancestors, anthropology was
predominantly seen as a biological study of humans conducted by
medical doctors and naturalists. True, in the late eighteenth century,
Kant applied the term “anthropology” to a philosophical discussion
of humankind, not in terms of culture, nor of peoples, but “from a
pragmatic point of view” (Kant 1798). By 1860, however, “anthropol-
ogy” was primarily reserved for the biological study of human diver-
sity. This trend had been set by the German anatomist Blumenbach,
who in 1790–95 reserved the name “anthropology” for a study pre-
viously referred to as the “natural history of man” (see chapter 7).
In the second half of the nineteenth century, physical anthro-
pology rose to dominance with the founding of anthropological
societies in Europe and the United States. Adopting Blumenbach’s
terminology, the French physician Paul Broca created the Société
d’Anthropologie de Paris in 1859. He was followed by the British
physician James Hunt, who founded the Anthropological Society of
London (asl) in 1863. These societies appeared alongside the ethno-
logical societies that had been established in Paris, New York, and
London two decades earlier. As the result of discussions about the
origins and definition of the terms “anthropology” and “ethnology,”
a holistic model was invented during the 1860s and 1870s in which
“anthropology” was seen as the general term for a field of sciences
including ethnology.10
Anthropology and Ethnology

The founding of anthropological societies sparked a debate in Eng-
land, France, and the United States about the unity of the human
species and the name of the societies dealing with this subject. Fol-
lowing French initiatives, the Ethnological Society of London (esl)
had been founded in 1843. The asl split off from this organization
in 1863. One year later, John Lubbock, president of the esl and
future author of Pre-Historic Times (1865) and The Origin of Civili-
sation (1870), argued that ethnology was “an older word and a pret-
tier word than anthropology” (Stocking 1971:381).11 Therefore, it was
to be preferred in the title of Section E of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science (ba as), which covered “Geogra-
phy and Ethnology.” With this argument Lubbock prevented an

attempt by asl members to incorporate anthropology in this sec-
tion. Lubbock did not favor anthropology because the asl’s founder
was a polygenesist who emphasized a biological rather than a cul-
tural history of humankind. Following the publication of Charles
Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and the debate on evolu-
tion during the ba as meeting at Oxford in 1860, this became an
important issue.
The battle between the “anthropologicals” and the “ethnologicals”
ignited a heated discussion about the name under which a common
institute should operate. Lubbock’s remark inspired members of the
asl, especially Thomas Bendyshe (1865a, 1865b, 1865c) and James
Hunt, “to trace the origin and different meanings attached to the
words anthropology, ethnography and ethnology” (Hunt 1865:xcii).
Both favored the term “anthropology,” which they found to be much
older, having been introduced by Magnus Hundt in Leipzig as early
as 1501 (see chapter 7). An agreement was reached in 1871, when the
esl and asl merged into the Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland (Cunningham 1908; Stocking 1971).
These events formed the background to the debate about the differ-
ences between anthropology and ethnology in England. Reflections
on the conceptual history of anthropology and ethnology induced
participants to change the name of a research institute. These debates
also took place in France and the United States, mutually influenc-
ing each other.
In France the Société d’Ethnographie was founded in 1859, five
days before the founding of the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris.
The ethnographic society held its position alongside the anthropo-
logical society only with great difficulty (Lacombe 1980; Stocking
1984b). Broca was interested in “the scientific study of the human
races.” Despite defining “general anthropology” as “the biology of
the human species,” Broca’s anthropological program was holis-
tic.12 Apart from three periodicals Broca set up a museum, the Lab-
oratoire d’Anthropologie in 1867, and an anthropological school
(École d’Anthropologie de Paris) in 1876. The laboratory and the
school provided lectures in six or more fields: anatomical (or general)
anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology, demography,
ethnology (defined as a “study of . . . races”), and linguistic anthro-
pology (Blanckaert 2009; Conklin 2013). Nevertheless, Broca sub-

sumed the cultural study of man within the physical study of man
(to paraphrase Stocking 1968:21).
Twenty years later, American scholars developed a holistic model
in which “anthropology” was chosen as the general designation for
both ethnological and physical anthropological approaches. Anthro-
pology, in the American view, consists of four subdisciplines: (1)
physical or biological anthropology, (2) ethnology or cultural anthro-
pology, (3) archaeology, and (4) linguistic anthropology. The four-
field model was first formulated in the Anthropological Society of
Washington’s statutes of 1879, including “Archaeology, Somatology,
Ethnology and Philology” (de Laguna 1960:94; Eidson 2000). Despite
discussions about its history and status, the four-field approach is
still accepted today.13 Boas encouraged the four-field model in the
United States (Stocking 1974), having become familiar with three
of them—anthropology, ethnology, and archaeology—while work-
ing in Berlin.
This holistic model was not universally accepted. Until World
War II developments in many parts of Europe were rather different:
anthropology and ethnology developed in separate domains, as par-
allels. The practitioners of these sciences primarily came from sepa-
rate fields: in the case of anthropology, from biology (natural history)
or medical studies; in the case of ethnology, from jurisprudence and
the humanities, including history, geography, and linguistics. For a
long time the term “anthropology” did not require an adjective to
specify the kind of study one was referring to. During the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, anthropology was a medical, biological, or
philosophical study of humankind. Social and cultural anthropol-
ogy did not yet exist, being the product of later developments in the
United Kingdom and the United States, respectively. These stud-
ies were introduced in the early twentieth century to replace a pre-
viously existing discipline: ethnology (Lowie 1953).14
Remarkably, the definition of ethnology presented in the ethno-
logical societies and in Broca’s school differed from that found in
contemporary German works. While the German sources defined
ethnology as the study of peoples (Völkerkunde), the ethnological
societies defined ethnology as the study of human races. The Société
ethnologique de Paris was founded in 1839 to study “human races
according to the historical tradition, the languages and the physi-

cal and moral characteristics of each people.”15 The society’s aim, in
the words of its founder, William Edwards, was to establish “what
are, in effect, the various human races.”16
This definition was by and large adopted in Britain. In 1848 the
physiologist William Carpenter, one of the esl’s members, called
ethnology “the science of races” (Carpenter 1848; see also Burke
1848; Hunt 1865; Stocking 1973:ix–x). A decade earlier, physician
James Cowles Prichard, often regarded as the founder of ethnology
in Britain, defined ethnography as “a survey of the different races
of men, an investigation of the physical history . . . of every tribe of
the human family” (Prichard 1836–47, vol. 1:110). When the surgeon
Richard King delivered his first anniversary address to the Ethnolog-
ical Society of London in 1844, he defined ethnology as “the natural
history of man” (King 1850[1844]:9). Following Edwards’s example,
the phrenologist Luke Burke (1848) defined ethnology as “the sci-
ence of human races,” while the Scottish Congregational minis-
ter John Kennedy (1851) called ethnography the “natural history of
man”—the reverse of the position of Blumenbach, who had equated
the “natural history of man” with anthropology.
This shift from a nation-oriented to a race-oriented ethnology
has been noticed, but its epistemic character has not been under-
stood because the history of eighteenth-century ethnology, and its
connection to nineteenth-century ethnology, has not been stud-
ied in any detail.17 As a result, it has not been fully grasped that the
definition of ethnology provided by the French and British ethno-
logical societies of the early nineteenth century departed from that
found in the eighteenth-century German works in which the sub-
ject was first articulated.
Not only physicians like Edwards and Prichard but also the British
historian Thomas Arnold (1842) tended to utilize the plural “races”
as another term for “peoples.” This tendency was also expressed in
their equating a physical study of humankind with ethnology, rather
than with anthropology, as was common in the German-speaking
world. The practice to confound races and peoples occurred earlier
in the work of the naturalist Buffon (see chapter 7).
German scholars distinguished anthropology as the study of human
beings from ethnology as the study of peoples. As George W. Stock-
ing Jr. noted on Boas’s work of the 1880s, “In the German usage of

this period, ‘anthropology’ referred only to the physical study of
man; what we would now call ‘cultural anthropology’ was ‘ethnol-
ogy’” (Stocking 1968:335).
Some members of the asl seem to have been aware of these dif-
ferences. While the French assumed the term ethnologie to have
been invented by the founders of the Société ethnologique de Paris
and ethnographie by the geographer Adriano Balbi in his Atlas eth-
nographique du globe (1826), British research indicated that “ethnog-
raphy seems to be first used” by historian Barthold Niebuhr, who
lectured on the subject in Berlin in 1810, and by lexicographer J. H.
Campe, who included the term in his 1807–11 dictionary under its
German equivalent, Volksbeschreibung (Hunt 1865:xcii–xcv; Bendyshe
1865c). The earliest use of “ethnography” in England was found in
Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman’s Lectures on the Connexion between Sci-
ence and Revealed Religion (delivered in 1835; published in 1836). Wise-
man defined ethnography as “the classification of nations from the
comparative study of languages” (Hunt 1865:xcv).
These references were adopted by anthropologists like Broca (1866)
and Paul Topinard (1876, 1880, 1885, 1888, 1891) in France and Théo-
phil Gollier (1905) in Belgium.18 The new consensus was: ethnographie
had been coined by German scholars, ethnologie by French savants.
This myth was still recanted a century later by the Belgian anthro-
pologist André Leguebe (1982:349).
None of these views took into account that ethnography and eth-
nology had commenced during the eighteenth century. In this era
the foundations were laid for an “ethnical anthropology,” to borrow
a term from Juul Dieserud (1908:17). As the present study demon-
strates, ethnography and ethnology arose during the Enlightenment
when German-speaking historians conceptualized and practiced a
study of peoples called Völker-Beschreibung and Völkerkunde in Ger-
man, or ethnographia and ethnologia in neo-Greek, between the 1730s
and 1780s. Because ethnology was the name of the discipline now
known as social or cultural anthropology, it is important to recon-
struct its early history.
Early Studies on the History of Ethnology

The French anthropologist Paul Topinard (1888, 1891) was the first
to point out that ethnologie had not been invented by the founders of

the Société ethnologique de Paris but fifty-two years earlier—with
a different meaning. The Swiss theologian and educator Alexandre-
César Chavannes used the term in his Essai sur l’éducation intel-
lectuelle avec le Projet d’une science nouvelle (1787) and a book titled
Anthropologie ou science générale de l’homme (1788). Following a partial
reprint of Chavannes’s essay on education, with an introduction by
the Russian émigré in France, Alexander Herzen (1886), Topinard
noted that Chavannes defined ethnologie as “the history of peoples
progressing towards civilization.”19 Chavannes regarded it as part
of a larger field of study, anthropology, which he called une science
nouvelle (the “new science” of his 1787 essay) or a “general science of
man” (science générale de l’homme). Many scholars took up this refer-
ence, which remained the earliest-known occurrence of “ethnology”
until an article written by Ján Tibenský (1978) proved otherwise.20
In 1881 Adolf Bastian, who is often viewed as the founder of eth-
nology in Germany, published a “Prehistory of ethnology” (Vorge-
schichte der Ethnologie). Ethnography, he observed, had surfaced in
the late eighteenth century, for instance, in an illustrated Ethnog-
raphische Bildergallerie (Ethnographic picture gallery), published in
Nuremberg in 1791 (Bastian 1881:17–19).21 Seeing ethnology as com-
mencing with the ethnological societies, Bastian noted that it arose
later than anthropology, which originated in the sixteenth century
(7). He referred to Herder’s “History of Humankind” (14) and cited
from Magazin für Ethnographie und Linguistik, a journal published
in Weimar in 1808, in which the editor, F. J. Bertuch, declared,
“Völkerkunde or Ethnographie, guided by Anthropologie, reviews all
larger and smaller branches of the . . . system of human beings” (5,
15). (In fact, the journal’s title was Allgemeines Archiv für Ethnographie
und Linguistik, edited by Bertuch and J. S. Vater, while the quotation
derives from the introductory article written by T. F. Ehrmann.)22
Viewing ethnology as a “homeless” science, Bastian added that it
required assistance from linguistics (ethnology’s “powerful ally”),
psychology, archaeology, and anthropology (7). His booklet, albeit
a rich piece of research, lacked precision. Its major drawback is that
Bastian, by presenting the early history of ethnology as “prehistory,”
suggested that the “history” of ethnology had begun with his own
research, dating from 1859 on, and that of some of his contempo-
raries, which is highly misleading.

In his overview of “modern ethnology,” Father Wilhelm Schmidt,
a supporter of separating biological and “immaterial” approaches to
human diversity, reviewed a number of Bastian’s statements. Ethnol-
ogy had indeed received a powerful boost from comparative linguis-
tics during the early nineteenth century, he claimed, as linguists had
made scholars aware of the fact that, apart from the anthropolog-
ical grouping of races, humanity also knew other forms of belong-
ing, namely, language families (W. Schmidt 1906:144–146). However,
the first occurrence of the name Ethnographie remained controver-
sial. Repeating the British findings that the term was coined at the
beginning of the nineteenth century with historian Niebuhr (Ben-
dyshe 1865c) and the lexicographer Campe (Hunt 1865:xcv), Schmidt
noted that Bastian had pointed to the Ethnographische Bildergallerie
of the late eighteenth century.23
Hans Plischke, professor of ethnology at the University of Göttin-
gen, studied the history of ethnology in the context of sea and land
voyages, utilizing a large number of travel accounts kept at the Göt-
tingen library. Studying Göttingen’s rich ethnographic collections,
which go back to the eighteenth century, Plischke (1931) pointed out
that Blumenbach did not concentrate solely on physical anthropology
but also studied artifacts, thus linking anthropology with ethnol-
ogy. He wrote about Göttingen’s most spectacular piece, a Tungu-
sian shaman’s coat (Plischke 1936), described Blumenbach’s influence
on contemporary explorers (1937), analyzed the relations between
Göttingen and Tahiti (1938b), and discussed the “Malay variety” of
humankind that Blumenbach had introduced (1938a). Plischke was
the first to notice that the term Völkerkunde had appeared in 1781 in
the title of the journal Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde, edited by
Johann Reinhold Forster and Matthias Christian Sprengel (Plischke
1925:109). Even if this is not the term’s first usage, the reference pre-
ceded all others in the contemporary literature.
In 1948 Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann, favoring a combination of
biological, cultural, and social approaches to human diversity, pub-
lished a “history of anthropology” (Geschichte der Anthropologie), in
which he discussed both French and German anthropology and eth-
nology. Its second, enlarged edition (1968) is still being reprinted as
a textbook. Ignoring Scottish Enlightenment philosophers, Mühl-
mann held the view that French scholars had preceded the Ger-

mans but that the latter had “caught up” in the late eighteenth
century. He distinguished a “critical” stage (1735– 78), connected
with philosophers like Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, from
a “classical” stage (1775–1810), in which “leadership in anthropol-
ogy passed suddenly into the hands of the Germans” (Mühlmann
1948:52, 1968:51). Scholars dominating this classical period were Blu-
menbach, Kant, Johann Reinhold Forster and Georg Forster, Soem-
merring, Christoph Meiners, Herder, and Wilhelm von Humboldt.
This view was relatively clear-cut, but Mühlmann fatally erred in
stating, “Although the material and epistemological prerequisites of
a disciplinary establishment of ethnology (Völkerkunde), not yet of
raceology (Rassenkunde), were laid during the classical period, eth-
nology did not come about [in this period].”24 He added that eth-
nology could not have originated in this classical period because the
interest in “exotic countries and peoples” had declined (Mühlmann
1948:71, 1968:67).
Mühlmann was misled in dating the origins of ethnology because
he mistakenly believed that the terms Ethnographie and Ethnologie
had been introduced in the seventeenth century. In the first edition
of his history, Mühlmann stated that Johann Olorinus’s 1608 Ethno-
graphia mundi was “the first proof of the surfacing of the term ‘eth-
nography.’”25 In its second edition Mühlmann had to correct this
error: “The attribution of the word Ethnographie to the Ethnographia
mundi of Olorinus (=Johann Sommer, Magdeburg 1607, 1609), that
one occasionally encounters in the literature, is a misnomer: the
appropriate title of the work is Ethographia mundi.”26 Indeed, Johann
Sommer’s book was titled Ethographia mundi and was published at
Magdeburg in three volumes (1608–13).27 In the same way Mühl-
mann (1968:78) had to correct Wilhelm Schmidt (1926:29), who had
spelled the title of the French linguist Étienne Guichard’s Harmonie
étymologique (1606) incorrectly as Harmonie ethnologique.
As a result, Mühlmann failed to observe the origins of ethnography
and ethnology during the German Enlightenment. This is surprising
as Mühlmann was one of the best-informed ethno-anthropologists
of postwar Germany. It appears that he was familiar neither with
eighteenth-century German historians doing research in Siberia nor
with universal historians in Göttingen engaged in incorporating
their findings into a theory of world history (see chapters 4 and 6).

American Views on the History of Ethnology
Apart from Tax’s previously mentioned article, pointing to the
“anthropological (then called ethnological) societies,” only a few
American studies discuss ethnology before it evolved into cultural
or social anthropology. In the United States ethnology is still used
as a synonym for cultural anthropology (e.g., Stocking 1968; Darnell
1974b; Voget 1975; Honigmann 1976). However, only a small number
of authors have discussed the eighteenth century as the era in which
ethnology first developed. One of these was Robert H. Lowie, an
American ethnologist of Austrian descent. In his History of Eth-
nological Theory, Lowie (1937:5, 10–11) pointed to Christoph Mein-
ers’s Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit (1785) as the work of an
eighteenth-century historian with “a tolerably clear conception of
the central core of ethnography” who had sensed “the need of a new
branch of learning to be set over against political history, a science
to be dubbed ‘the history of humanity.’” Lowie then discussed the
nineteenth-century research of Gustav Klemm, Theodor Waitz, and
Bastian, acknowledging that these scholars built upon predecessors
like Meiners. The latter published numerous articles on ethnologi-
cal subjects and employed the term Völkerkunde. More recent histo-
rians denounce his work as racist (see chapter 7).
In their review of the concept of culture, Alfred Kroeber and
Clyde Kluckhohn (1952) discussed authors writing “culture-conscious”
studies during the eighteenth century. They valued Voltaire’s Essai
sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations (1753–56), often considered the
first contribution to the philosophy of history, and argued that “two
paths . . . led out from Voltaire.” The first emphasized the “spirit”
(l’esprit, Geist) of nations and inspired Isaak Iselin, Nicolas de Con-
dorcet, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to reflect on human
history. The second path, followed by Johann Christoph Adelung
(1782), Herder (1784–91), Meiners (1785), and Daniel Jenisch (1801),
focused on the “customs” (coutumes, moeurs) of nations, regarded as
variable, plural, and empirical, rather than as rational. Thereafter,
the development of the philosophy of history in Germany bifurcated
to an even higher degree. The first branch became “less interested in
history and more in its supreme principle. It dealt increasingly with
mankind instead of peoples, it aimed at clarifying basic schemes,

and it operated with the concept of ‘spirit’ instead of that of culture.”
Considering this development to be of little concern, Kroeber and
Kluckhohn focused on the second “current, in which comparative,
cultural, and ethnographic slants are visible from the beginning.”
This branch was “interested in the actual story of what appeared
to have happened to mankind. It therefore bore heavily on cus-
toms and institutions, became what we today should call culture-
conscious, and finally resulted in a somewhat diffuse ethnographic
interest.” The scholars involved viewed “mankind . . . as an array or
series of particular peoples” (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952:19, 145–
146; 1963: 33, 285).
This observation is relevant for the present research. Focusing on
the concept of culture, Kroeber and Kluckhohn paid little atten-
tion to the role of Völkerkunde and did not consult Bastian (1881) or
Plischke (1925). However, mentioning that Meiners had employed
the term Völkerkunde in 1785, they added in a footnote that this term
had been found previously in Johann Reinhold Forster’s Beiträge zur
Völker- und Länderkunde in 1781.28 They too were misguided by Müh-
lmann’s (1948:46) statement that the word ethnography was allegedly
first used by Olorinus (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952:23 nn. 57, 58).
In 1955 the American historian of medicine Erwin Ackerknecht
characterized the University of Göttingen as “the first academic
center of geography in Germany” and “the first academic center
of anthropology in history.” To support these claims, Ackerknecht
mentioned Blumenbach’s physical anthropology, the Arabia expe-
dition effectuated by Carsten Niebuhr (1761–67), lectures dealing
with the “art of traveling” (ars apodemica), Meiners’s Grundriß der
Geschichte der Menschheit (1785), and the influence of Georg Forster.
This naturalist accompanied Captain James Cook on his second voy-
age around the world and published a celebrated travel account in
1777. Although these events were clearly important, Ackerknecht’s
list is incomplete. One should also include the Göttingen histori-
ans Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727–99), August Ludwig Schlözer
(1735–1809), and Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren (1760–1842). These
scholars not only discussed ethnographic details in their historical
and geographical works but also outlined a study called Völkerkunde
or Ethnographie (see chapter 6).

Margaret T. Hodgen’s Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (1964) entails a great deal of anthropology in
chapters like “The Cabinet of Curios,” “Collections of Customs,”
“The Ark of Noah and the Problem of Cultural Diversity,” “Dif-
fusion, Degeneration, and Environmentalism,” and “The Problem
of Savagery.” Hodgen even studied “the ethnology of the Medi-
eval Encyclopedists” (49– 77), but her use of the term “ethnology”
is anachronistic. Many studies she discussed were contributions to
“cosmography,” a description of the world. An influential example
was the Cosmographia of the German humanist Sebastian Münster
(1544), in which about forty peoples in Europe, Asia, and the New
World were described.
James Sydney Slotkin compiled a rich collection of Readings in
Early Anthropology (1965). Drawing on numerous European sources
from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Slotkin cited Ger-
man authors like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing, Herder, Kant, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schil-
ler, Blumenbach, and Heeren. Ordered in categories derived from
the four-field model, he presented his readings with minimal com-
ments. In a paper presented in Chicago in 1955, published in the same
volume, Slotkin (1965:xiii) defined ethnology as “a study of the his-
torical relations between cultures,” concluding that in the period at
hand, “There were no students of ethnology as such.” Whereas the
first statement is largely correct for the eighteenth century, the sec-
ond is not, as the present volume demonstrates.
George W. Stocking Jr. published on the history of anthropol-
ogy in France and Great Britain. He wrote important articles on
the Société des Observateurs de l’Homme (1964), the merger of the
ethnological and anthropological societies in London (1971), and
the ethnological work of James Cowles Prichard (1973). Advancing
anthropology’s life span from 1871 back to 1842 (1971) and from 1841
back to 1800 (1964), Stocking was well aware of the terminologi-
cal differences discussed previously. But he relativized their impor-
tance by adopting Shakespeare’s “What’s in a Name?” (1971, 1984b).
Whereas Stocking in his early work focused on enlarging the scope
of anthropology’s history by looking at the period before Tylor, he
later shifted to Victorian Anthropology (1987) and the era After Tylor
(1995). Identifying three “paradigmatic traditions” in anthropology—

the “biblical,” “developmental,” and “polygenetic” (Stocking 1990:713–
715, 1992:347–349)—he wrote elsewhere, “A very interesting problem
in the history of anthropology [is]: the way in which the Bible func-
tioned as a kind of Kuhnian paradigm for research on the cultural,
linguistic and physical diversity of mankind” (Stocking 1982:71).
Robert E. Bieder wrote an indispensable book on early American
ethnology (1986). In the dissertation on which it was based, Bieder
(1972:18) analyzed American scholarship between 1780 and 1820, dis-
tinguishing a “biblical-historical” from a “secular-scientific model.”
Could the first of these be the American equivalent of eighteenth-
century German ethnology?
Recent American contributions to the history of German ethnol-
ogy include studies by Matti Bunzl (1996a, 2003), H. Glenn Penny
(2002, 2003, 2007), and Andrew Zimmerman (2001), all mainly deal-
ing with developments in nineteenth-century Germany. Lorraine
Daston and Peter Galison (2007) discuss nineteenth- and twentieth-
century anthropology and ethnology. Others focus on anthropol-
ogy and the study of culture in the Enlightenment (Faull 1995; Fox,
Porter, and Wokler 1995; Liebersohn 2006; Carhart 2007; Wolff
and Cipolloni 2007).
Recent Contributions to the Early History of Ethnology

Today most German ethnologists follow Lowie in considering eth-
nology to commence with nineteenth-century scholars like Klemm,
Waitz, and Bastian. Apart from a few authors referring to eighteenth-
century scholars like Georg Forster and Herder, the majority of
German-speaking ethnologists entertain American, British, and
French views of the history of their discipline.29 They credit Bas-
tian for having laid “the origins of German anthropology” (Fischer
et al. 2007). Owing largely to the political isolation of Germany fol-
lowing World Wars I and II, German-speaking ethnologists play a
much more modest role in international scholarship after 1945 than
they had previously (Gingrich 2005). Adapting in principle to post-
war tendencies to view anthropology as the overarching discipline, in
practice they do not adhere to the four-field approach. Instead, they
continue the continental tradition of pursuing ethnology as a separate
study, albeit on a new basis with fieldwork-based research and often
under new labels, such as cultural or social anthropology (Haller 2012).

With the reception of Michel Foucault’s Les mots et les choses (1966),
anthropology and its history became popular topics of research (e.g.,
Lepenies 1971, 1976; Krauss 1978). However, some scholars continued
to pay attention to the history of ethnology. In Paris, Hungarian eth-
nologist Geza de Rohan-Csermak noted the presence of ethnology
and ethnography in the physicist André-Marie Ampère’s classifi-
cation of sciences of 1829– 34. Titling his article “The first appear-
ance of the term ethnologie,” de Rohan-Csermak (1967) neglected its
previous use by Chavannes. His analysis of Ampère’s 1833–34 work
did show that the latter had paid attention to the relations between
ethnology, anthropology, and the “social sciences.”
In a book on eighteenth-century anthropology, the Italian his-
torian Sergio Moravia (1970, 1973) discussed Enlightenment schol-
ars, citing documents published by the Société des Observateurs
de l’Homme, founded at Paris in 1799. (More on this society in the
epilogue.)
The Austrian ethnologist Britta Rupp-Eisenreich, working in
Paris, studied early German Völkerkunde. She discovered that Mein-
ers’s work had been familiar to two members of this society, Louis-
François Jauffret and Joseph-Marie Degérando, who adopted German
ethnological ideas from the 1780s and 1790s (Rupp-Eisenreich 1983a,
1983b, 1984, 1985a, 1985b).
The French historian of anthropology Michèle Duchet wrote a
celebrated book on Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des Lumières (1971),
focusing on the “anthropological discourse” of Buffon and the phi-
losophers Voltaire, Rousseau, Claude Adrien Helvétius, and Denis
Diderot. Anthropology in France has always carried the connotation
of being a practice of philosophers, and Duchet’s study pays homage
to this tradition. However, Duchet also identified an “ethnological
discourse” that she (following Topinard) found in French-speaking
Switzerland in the work of Chavannes, who saw ethnologie as part
of anthropology (12, 229). Remarkably, this is the only reference to
ethnology found thus far in the ancien régime.
Claude Blanckaert (1985, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1996) studied the birth
of ethnology among missionaries in the Americas from the sixteenth
to the eighteenth century, the origins of French ethnology with
Edwards, and the history of anthropology in France. He was able
to trace only one occurrence of the term “ethnography” in France

before Balbi’s Atlas ethnographique du globe (1826): the Porte-feuille
géographique et ethnographique, written by Godefroy Engelmann and
G. Berger and published at Mulhouse in 1820 (Blanckaert 1988:26).
As ethnology, in the words of Stocking (1971:372), “was still new
to English usage” when Richard King issued a prospectus to found
an ethnological society in London in 1842, this leads to a surpris-
ing question: Had ethnology developed earlier within the Russian
Empire and the Holy Roman Empire than in France (from 1820 on)
and Great Britain (from 1842 on)?
In 1970 Hans Fischer, from the University of Hamburg, pointed
out that the concepts ethnographia and Völkerkunde had surfaced as
early as 1775 in Gatterer’s Abriß der Geographie (Overview of geogra-
phy), published at Göttingen.30 Both concepts served as equivalents
and were classified together with anthropologia or Menschenkunde as
a category within geography. Fischer evaluated all previous claims
concerning the origins of the concepts Völkerkunde, ethnography,
and ethnology. He found that the term Völkerkunde appeared in the
titles of “a great number of books and journals during the 1780s and
1790s that have two things in common: they all derive from northern
Germany, especially from Göttingen and either relate to geograph-
ical textbooks or to travel accounts” (H. Fischer 1970:170). Fischer
thought, incorrectly as we now know, that Gatterer was also the first
to use Ethnographie, but he did notice that this term served as a syn-
onym of Völkerkunde. He concluded, “Völkerkunde and Ethnographie
originated simultaneously and with the same meaning— as transla-
tions of each other—in northern Germany and in all likelihood in
Göttingen” (176, 181). As these terms later occur in the work of geog-
raphers in Göttingen and Hamburg, “there can be little doubt that
Völkerkunde originated here as part of geography” (182).
As to Ethnologie, Fischer pointed not only at the Swiss theologian
Chavannes (1787) but also at the French physicist Ampère (1833, 1834)
and the French archaeologist Edme-François Jomard (1839). On the
basis of these references and his own findings concerning the early
emergence of Ethnographie in northern Germany, Fischer concluded
that Ethnologie “certainly originated in the French-speaking world,
perhaps in imitation of Ethnographie, possibly several times indepen-
dently of each other” (H. Fischer 1970:182). Noting that Ethnologie
initially meant more or less the same as Ethnographie, he observed

the shift in meaning during the 1830s and 1840s, when ethnology
was defined as a study of races.
Fischer expanded the state of our knowledge, but the dates he pro-
vided are no longer correct. Gatterer could not have coined the con-
cepts Völkerkunde and Ethnographie because his colleague Schlözer
had used them four years earlier and more often. In addition, Cha-
vannes had not been the first to use the term “ethnology.” The Slovak
historian Ján Tibenský reported in 1978 that ethnologia was defined
by historian-cum-librarian Adam František Kollár in a book writ-
ten in Latin and published in Vienna in 1783: “Ethnology . . . is the
study of peoples and nations” (ethnologia . . . est notitia gentium popu-
lorumque). Given the effects of the Cold War on scholarly exchange,
this definition remained unknown to the West until colleagues from
Slovenia drew attention to it during a 1992 conference in Prague
(Vermeulen 1995).
Justin Stagl, working at the universities in Bonn and Salzburg,
improved on Fischer’s findings. He discovered in 1974 that Schlözer
had used the terms Völkerkunde and Ethnographie, along with eth-
nographisch, three years before Gatterer in a textbook on univer-
sal history, Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie (1772, 1775). In it
Schlözer outlined “an ethnographic method” of history, that is, a
history according to peoples. While Gatterer used these terms only
once, Schlözer did so several times and, according to Stagl (1974a:79,
1981:20 n. 16), “for the first time.” Both Gatterer and Schlözer used
the terms as synonyms. Stagl had been led to Schlözer’s Vorstellung
through Herder, who in a review had attacked Schlözer’s theory
of world history and criticized his use of the term ethnographisch,
which sounded “harsh” to him (Herder 1772). Schlözer had reacted
to Herder by means of a second part of his world history (Schlözer
1773b), in which he defended his views and his usage of ethnogra-
phisch. Stagl saw in Schlözer’s Vorstellung an “outline of a Völkerkunde
or Ethnographie” and confirmed that Göttingen was the location
where Völkerkunde had originated. He did not assert that Schlözer
had invented these concepts but inferred that Schlözer, in his reply to
Herder, had implicitly claimed the word ethnographisch as his intel-
lectual property. Like Fischer, Stagl did not exclude the possibility
that the concepts had been coined several times and “perhaps even
before Schlözer” (Stagl 1974a:74, 81).

My own research built on Fischer’s and Stagl’s findings as well
as on primary materials made available by members of the Edu-
ard Winter School in East Germany.31 During studies in Leiden, I
discovered that the terms Völkerkunde, Ethnographie, and ethnogra-
phisch, together with Ethnograph, had appeared in Schlözer’s Allge-
meine Nordische Geschichte (General history of the North), published
in Halle in 1771, a book Fischer and Stagl had overlooked. Much
more elaborate than Schlözer’s Vorstellung, this volume presented
a history of the European and Asian North, which Schlözer con-
sidered to be interconnected. In line with the historical linguistics
introduced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (see chapter 2), Schlözer
used these terms to study the peoples of the world and arrange them
in a Systema populorum or Völker-System. He used the terms in stra-
tegic places in his argument and much more often than Gatterer
or any other contemporary author. This made it likely that he had
coined them in or before 1770– 71 while writing his Allgemeine Nor-
dische Geschichte. This hypothesis, in turn, would confirm Fischer’s
and Stagl’s view that Völkerkunde originated in Göttingen (Vermeu-
len 1988, 1992).
Subsequent research in German libraries, especially in Göttin-
gen, provided sufficient evidence for concluding that the early his-
tory of Völkerkunde or Ethnographie was indeed a stage in the history
of ethnology rather than its prehistory (as Bastian had surmised). In
1994 I had the opportunity to publish a list of forty-two books and
journals printed in Germany, Bohemia, and Switzerland between
1771 and 1791 having one of the terms Völkerkunde, Ethnographie,
Volkskunde, or Ethnologie in either their titles or the text (Vermeulen
1994a:340–342). I formulated the theory that this early stage, which
could be called “the conceptualization of ethnology or Völkerkunde
[as a] descriptive and historical study of all nations,” had been fol-
lowed by the institutionalization of ethnology and ethnography dur-
ing the nineteenth century. In the latter stage, “ethnology underwent
a transformation and was influenced by nationalistic ideas on the
one hand (especially in Central and Eastern Europe) and by racial
ideas on the other (particularly in France and England)” (Vermeu-
len 1994b, 1995:40, 54).
This theory, published in Moscow and London, was put to the test
by later findings. In 1994 Klaus Schmidt, head of the Zeitschriften-

Index in Göttingen, discovered that Schlözer had not been the first
to use the term Ethnographie: historian Johann Friedrich Schöpper-
lin, working in Nördlingen, Swabia, had done so four years earlier,
in 1767. I reported on Schmidt’s findings in several articles.32 They
were surprising as Schöpperlin’s name had never been mentioned in
the secondary literature that focused on the University of Göttin-
gen or on Schlözer’s and Gatterer’s work at that university. How-
ever, as we shall see in chapter 6, there was a direct relation among
Schöpperlin, Schlözer, and Müller.
Stagl included some of these findings in a chapter on “August Lud-
wig Schlözer and the Study of Mankind According to Peoples” (Stagl
1995a, 2002a). Stagl’s books A History of Curiosity: The Theory of Travel,
1550–1800 (1995) and Eine Geschichte der Neugier (2002) focus on the
“art of traveling” (ars apodemica) and instructions for travelers, begin-
ning in the sixteenth century. He identified three research methods
used before the professionalization of anthropology and sociology in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: travel, questionnaires, and
the acquisition of objects. Schlözer’s ethnographic approach to world
history occupied a central place in Stagl’s argument. In an article
on “the controversy between Schlözer and Herder,” Stagl concluded
that what he called the “ethnos-terms” (Ethnographie, Völkerkunde,
ethnologie, and Volkskunde), which “stress human cultural diversity
over the fundamental unity of mankind,” were “coined by a group of
mutually known scholars in late eighteenth-century Germany,” that
is, within the context of the German Enlightenment (Stagl 1998).33
A conference about naturalist-explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller
held at Halle (Saale) in 1996 indicated that the work of the Göttin-
gen historians had been built on a foundation laid during the first
half of the eighteenth century.34 Ethnology had been prepared by
historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller and other members of the Sec-
ond Kamchatka, or Second Bering, Expedition (1733–43) during
research in Russian Asia. Müller conducted ethnographic fieldwork;
instructed other expedition members, like Steller, to carry out eth-
nographic research; wrote extensive instructions to that effect; and in
summary used the term Völker-Beschreibung (ethnography) in one of
those instructions, dated 1740 (see chapter 4). The Halle conference
was convened by Wieland Hintzsche, an expert on the Kamchatka
expeditions. Together with Aleksandr Elert, a Russian historian of

Müller’s work, Hintzsche has recently published Müller’s manu-
scripts from the 1730s and 1740s (Müller 2009, 2010d). These texts,
partly written in Siberia, confirm that there had been a stage, before
the introduction of Völkerkunde and ethnologia in the academic cen-
ters of Göttingen and Vienna, during which a new research pro-
gram for describing all peoples of Siberia had been conceived and
developed: Völker-Beschreibung. This was the first step toward the
conceptualization of ethnology as the study of the world’s peoples.
While the earlier studies were conducted in an absolutist and
imperial setting by historians or physicians like Müller and Steller
during the Early Enlightenment, emanating from central Germany,
the later ones were carried out by historians Schlözer, Gatterer, and
Kollár in northern Germany and Austria during the Late Enlight-
enment, with no direct connection to colonialism. I made this point
in several articles, the first of which (Vermeulen 1999) was cited by
Stagl (2002a) and Werner Petermann (2004). Although both schol-
ars adopted some of my data and interpretations, I now feel that eth-
nology cannot be properly understood without looking more closely
at the genesis of ethnography before 1767. This is one of the reasons
for writing the present book. Hopefully, a history of the German
ethnographic tradition, characterized by a comprehensive, empiri-
cal, and comparative perspective, may inspire scholars in the United
States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and other countries to reexam-
ine the early material and conduct historical research on eighteenth-
century studies of peoples and nations.
Anthropology and Colonialism

Ethnography as a description of peoples emerged from the field in
the context of the Russian exploration of Siberia and Alaska. As the
Siberian conquest had begun in 1581, the Kamchatka expeditions
were part of Russian expansion and the postconquest colonization
of Siberia (Dahlmann 2009; Donnert 2009). The relation between
ethnography and empire may thus be seen as evidence of the the-
ory that anthropology evolved from colonialism, was in league with
it, and derived some of its key notions from it (e.g., Asad 1973, 1991;
Pels 2008). However, in anthropology and its historiography, this
theory is a matter of controversy (H. S. Lewis 2014).
The debate started with the questioning of authority in the 1960s.

Charges were made that anthropology was a form of “scientific colo-
nialism” (Galtung 1967) and the “child of imperialism” (Gough 1968a,
1968b). Others accused anthropology of complicity with contempo-
rary imperialism (Stauder 1972; D. Lewis 1973). In 1969 Dell Hymes
published a volume on “reinventing anthropology” in which criti-
cal anthropologists called for a reflexive approach to ethnography,
critical awareness, and ethical concern (Hymes 1969, 1972). Taking
a stand against historical studies fueled by political debates, Ray-
mond Firth argued that “anthropology is not the bastard of colo-
nialism but the legitimate offspring of the Enlightenment” (Firth
1972:26; 1975:44). Following Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard,
Firth pointed at the eighteenth-century roots of social anthropology,
thus distancing the discipline from its ties with colonialism during
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1972 Ian Cunnison ini-
tiated a seminar in Hull, resulting in the volume Anthropology and
the Colonial Encounter, edited by Talal Asad (1973). Presenting rela-
tively benign conclusions on the nexus between anthropology and
colonial rule, mainly in India and Africa, Asad’s volume inspired
a seminar at the London School of Economics (lse) that attacked
the basic premises of the Hull sessions. Peter Loizos, editor of the
lse volume, found the argument that anthropology was a hand-
maiden of colonialism “acrimonious” and pleaded for more nuance
(Loizos 1977).
In the following years the history of anthropology profited from a
renewed interest in anthropology’s past and present links to academia
and society at large. Anthropology’s agenda reflected these devel-
opments: the study of ethics and of complex societies, “fieldwork at
home,” and applied anthropology all came to the center of attention
(H. S. Lewis 1998, 2009). The notions that reality is “socially con-
structed” (Berger and Luckmann 1966) and that cultural traditions
are (continuously) being “invented” (Hobsbawm 1983) were partic-
ularly fruitful. This, in turn, led to an inversion of the relationship
between the observer and the observed as well as to an increased self-
consciousness within the field of ethnography. Whereas in earlier
histories of anthropology (Haddon 1910; Penniman 1935; Mühlmann
1948) attention had been paid primarily to a genealogical history of
ideas about “other,” non-Western people, the interest now focused
on the observer instead of on the observed. Another powerful influ-

ence on this change in focus (or “gaze”) was the critical work of the
literary scholar Edward Said (1978), who claimed that “Orientalism”
was the intellectual counterpart of colonialism, a way of represent-
ing “other” people, particularly in the Middle East, leading to cul-
tural appropriation.
From a historical perspective, the relation between anthropol-
ogy and colonialism has been so close that it only became possible
to speak of the history of anthropology in colonial contexts (plural)
during the 1990s. In Colonial Situations Stocking (1991:5) stressed the
necessity of pluralizing the “colonial situation” in order to “explore in
greater depth a variety of differing ‘colonial situations,’ the range of
interaction of widely differing individuals and groups within them
and the ways in which these situational interactions conditioned the
specific ethnographic knowledge that emerged.” Surprisingly, per-
haps, studies of such a complicated subject are sparse. We find some
chapters in books (Kuper 1973; Kuklick 1991; Goody 1995; Stocking
1995), a few monographs (Leclerc 1972; H. Fischer 1981; Gotsch 1983;
N. Thomas 1991, 1994), several edited volumes (Asad 1973; Copans
1975; Loizos 1977; Diamond 1980; Stocking 1991; Dirks 1992; Breck-
enridge and van der Veer 1993; Cooper and Stoler 1997; van Bre-
men and Shimizu 1999), and a volume in two versions edited by
Pels and Salemink (1994, 1999). The latter discuss ethnography in
colonial “practices” during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Their view is presentist, rather than historicist, and their cases often
include traders, government officials, soldiers, and amateur ethnog-
raphers rather than professional anthropologists (for a critique, see
H. S. Lewis 2004, 2014).
In postcolonial studies literary specialists search for models of
inclusion and exclusion during colonialism, testing Foucault’s the-
ory that knowledge and power are intrinsically linked. Again, most
cases are drawn from nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial-
ism, although Zantop (1997) and Berman (1998) deal with precolonial
discourse in German society. (Germany’s overseas colonial period
lasted from 1884 to 1918.) The Canadian literary scholar, Mary Louise
Pratt, argued in Imperial Eyes (1992) that eighteenth-century travel
accounts were attempts to intellectually annex non-European territory
and pave the way for colonial expansion. This interpretation makes
the endeavor sound intentional, as if travelers were consciously pro-

moting the “Western project” of colonization. However, the Dutch
literary scholar Siegfried Huigen, after having analyzed accounts
of ten eighteenth-century travelers to the Cape Colony, concluded
that most of them were not concerned with profit but with questions
posed by the scientific literature of their era: “Many travellers [dis-
cussed in his book] do not satisfy the image currently prevailing in
the postcolonial theory, namely that of the narrow-minded Euro-
pean who already knew before his departure what was wrong with
the natives. On the whole, the travellers of the eighteenth century
took pains to understand foreign cultures, were inquisitive and had
the latest knowledge at their disposal” (Huigen 2007:35, 2009:30).
This raises the question: Were these travelers “agents of modernity”
and pioneers of Western expansion or were they ambitious scientists
driven by curiosity and a scholarly agenda?
The answer to this question depends on both the colonial context
in which the scholars traveled and their scientific goals. Eighteenth-
century visitors to South Africa like Peter Kolb were not part of the
Dutch colonial project in the Cape Colony. Carsten Niebuhr was
not a subject of the Ottoman Empire, through which the Danish-
German Arabia Expedition passed during the 1760s (see chapter
5). In both cases the travelers carried out scholarly programs. Ger-
man scholars working for Russian imperial rulers in northern Asia
were dispatched by the Academy of Science as members of scientific
expeditions. They held no position in the Russian colonial adminis-
tration. Scholars like Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, Müller, and
Steller had been commissioned to report on natural resources, but
they collected and recorded many things that bore no relationship
to economic gains. Certainly, the authorities in St. Petersburg saw
the peoples inhabiting their empire as a source of taxes and furs, a
resource to be tapped. This utilitarian goal led the Russian officials
to express an interest in a description of the peoples in their expand-
ing empire. Apparently, Messerschmidt, Müller, Steller, and many
others were prepared to produce such descriptions according to their
scholarly standards.
The genesis of ethnography in Siberia was the result of several fac-
tors, including state interests (power, taxes, legal order) and schol-
arly curiosity (Stagl 2002b). Following a colonial agenda, the Russian
authorities required an inventory of the peoples under their rule. In

this context, Tsar Peter’s pragmatic interest in science and technol-
ogy is significant. The alliance between science and imperial policy
gave birth to an academic study. Müller and his colleagues operated
in a colonial context but their scientific agenda, as will be explained
in chapters 2 to 4, was based on the following: (1) the ethnolinguistic
program suggested by Leibniz, tested by Messerschmidt, and carried
out by Müller, Fischer, and Schlözer; (2) the comparative program
of Lafitau that Müller adopted; and (3) the Early Enlightenment’s
emphasis on empirical research, building on Francis Bacon and the
philosophy of the Scientific Revolution. The combination of these
factors, paired with Siberia’s diversity and the German ethnological
perspective—the product of the scholars having been raised in mul-
tilingual, multiethnic, and multireligious parts of Europe—resulted
in the birth of ethnography as a new scientific field in Russia dur-
ing the second quarter of the eighteenth century.
In an afterword to Stocking’s volume Colonial Situations, Asad
observed,
The role of anthropologists in maintaining structures of imperial
domination has, despite slogans to the contrary, usually been trivial;
the knowledge they produced was often too esoteric for government
use and even where it was usable it was marginal in comparison to
the vast body of information routinely accumulated by merchants,
missionaries and administrators. But if the role of anthropology for
colonialism was relatively unimportant, the reverse proposition does
not hold. The process of European global power has been central to
the anthropological task of recording and analysing the ways of life
of subject populations, even when a serious consideration of that
power was theoretically excluded. (Asad 1991:315)
As will become clear, Asad’s first point, that anthropology’s role with
regard to colonialism was “relatively unimportant,” cannot be con-
firmed by the case of the eighteenth-century Russian expeditions.
The use of ethnographic information by the colonial administration
in Siberia, the Urals, and the Volga basin during the eighteenth cen-
tury has not been investigated. Asad’s second point, that the “process
of European global power has been central to the anthropological
task of recording and analysing,” seems accurate, provided we con-
sider the early eighteenth-century Russian Empire and its Asian

possessions as belonging to Europe and “anthropology” as taken
to mean the description of peoples referred to as ethnographia soon
afterward (1767– 75).
Thus, to the extent that ethnography was invented by German
scholars in eighteenth-century Russia, anthropology profited from
the Russian exploration of Siberia. However, the other side of the
debate on anthropology and colonialism—if and to what extent
ethnography contributed to the Russian Empire—remains unan-
swered. My thesis is that anthropology was not born of colonial-
ism (as Gough and others assert on the basis of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century evidence) but developed within its context (Vermeu-
len 1999). If anthropology has had a symbiotic relation with colo-
nialism, it did not evolve from it. Rather, anthropology was drawn
into and advanced within these contexts; the inspiration came from
other sectors of society, notably the development and diffusion of a
scientific (ethnological) outlook on the world. It is, therefore, impor-
tant to distinguish between “colonial anthropology” and “anthro-
pology developed in colonial contexts.” (More on this in chapters 4
and 5 and the conclusion.)
Ethnicity and Race

Most German ethnologists are unaware of the originality of their eth-
nographic tradition, which formulated the basic distinction between
ethnography and ethnology, outlined the world’s national diver-
sity (Völkervielfalt) as their subject matter, and coined the concepts
with which these studies are designated even today, more than two
centuries later. Moreover, this ethnographic tradition, and the eth-
nological program at its basis, focusing on a descriptive and com-
parative study of “peoples” and “nations,” differed significantly from
the anthropological tradition developed by naturalists like Lin-
naeus and Buffon, philosophers like Kant, and anatomists like Blu-
menbach dealing with human “varieties” or “races.” The distinction
between these fields is comparable to that between civil (or polit-
ical) history (historia civilis) and natural history (historia naturalis),
the division of labor between the historian Müller and the natu-
ralist Johann Georg Gmelin during the Second Kamchatka Expe-
dition (see chapter 4). Thus ethnology and anthropology belonged
to distinct scientific domains, and scholars pursuing either of these

subjects had been trained in different faculties, of arts and medi-
cine, respectively.
The question is, of course, what the difference was between “peo-
ples” and “races.” This issue is relevant for two reasons. First, the
confusion among scholars about these subjects and their deliber-
ate blending by dictatorial regimes have led to horrible genocides
in the past. Second, this confusion to a certain extent continues to
the present day. In the United States today, Hispanics, defined by
language, are regarded as an ethnic group. The latter category also
includes Afro-Americans, defined by skin color, which is usually
seen as a marker of race. Thus, the concepts of race and ethnicity
are often confounded. Their equation not only occurs in the United
States but also in the United Kingdom: “Race is generally classified
in U.K. policy documents as equivalent to ethnicity” (Evans 2010:119).
The history of the distinction between ethnicity and race, nations
and ethnic groups, is highly complicated. Eighteenth-century views
on nations or peoples differed from current usage. Ever since the
invention of the nation-state, nations are primarily seen as politi-
cal entities, characterized by a constitution and often a state. This
view reflects political developments of the past two centuries, in the
course of which the nation, serving as the modern word for “a peo-
ple” (Lat. gens), came to be defined as a political entity, usually and
increasingly so, for a nation-state (Anderson 1983; Gellner 1983; A.
D. Smith 1986; Hobsbawm 1990; Hroch 1996). In the eighteenth
century, however, when scholars like Leibniz began to investigate
languages in order to study the origins and migrations of peoples,
they referred to the latter as “nations” (Lat. gentes). For Leibniz and
German-speaking historians, nations were groups of people con-
nected by means of a common history and usually a shared territory
and predominantly defined by their languages. In the same tradi-
tion, the Dutch lexicographer Pieter Weiland defined ethnography
in 1824 as “a study of morals.”
While Leibniz was not familiar with the concept of culture, which
surfaced among German historians during the 1770s (Carhart 2007),
his view on nations built on legal theories about “natural law” ( jus
naturae) and the “law of nations” ( jus gentium). A central problem for
German legal scholars and historians was that in spite of the political
and religious diversity within the Holy Roman Empire, there was

a great deal of linguistic unity. This union of about three hundred
states and territories in central Europe (962–1806), nominally ruled
by the Habsburg emperor, was the only empire to be found in con-
tinental Europe, apart from the Ottoman Empire. In the world at
large, there were many sorts of nations, depending on whether they
had their own state, were part of a larger state or empire, and so on.
Kollár included both gens and populus in his 1783 definition of eth-
nology, which reflected time-honored distinctions between homoge-
neous and heterogeneous nations. The Latin concepts gens, populus,
and natio derive from Greek and Roman texts reintroduced by the
humanists. For the Greeks a people (mostly ethnos) was primarily
defined by its origins and descent, including cultural traditions. The
Latin term populus, on the contrary, referred to a heterogeneous unit,
consisting of several gentes or nations. It was this diversity that was
to be the primary object of ethnological studies, as Leibniz, Mül-
ler, Schlözer, and Kollár make clear: How are these peoples related?
What are their origins? Whence do they derive? What groups do
their names (often invented by others) indicate? Should they be dis-
tinguished, or do they belong together?
The concept of race entered German scholarship during the 1760s,
when Kant introduced the word Racen, borrowed from Buffon. To
Kant, racial traits are immutable and inheritable. He saw races as
deviations that were constantly preserved over generations (see chap-
ter 7). Kant is regarded as the founder of the modern concept of race
(Scheidt 1923–24, 1950; Mühlmann 1968:57–58; Bernasconi 2001b,
2002). Mühlmann saw Kant as “the founder of the modern concept
of race” and Blumenbach as “the real father of human racial studies
(Rassenkunde).” Kant’s and Blumenbach’s racial theories related to the
biological variation in the human species, not to the study of ethnic
diversity. The differences can be summed up by equating race with
skin color and nation with language. A key part of the problem was
that sciences had to be coined by means of a terminology based on
Greek. A term for race was not included in classical Greek vocabu-
lary. Therefore, the study of race had no scientific name.
Although nations (the object of eighteenth-century ethnology)
are not the same as races (the object of physical anthropology until
1945), their studies were often confounded. For example, when the
German geographer Oscar Peschel’s Völkerkunde (1874) was trans-

lated into English, its title became The Races of Man and Their Geo-
graphical Distribution (1876). When the French anthropologist Joseph
Deniker published a handbook titled Les races et les peuples de la terre:
éléments d’anthropologie et d’ethnographie (1900), it was immediately
translated into English but published under the significantly short-
ened title The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnog-
raphy (1900).
Deniker coined the term groupe ethnique, seeing ethnic groups
as “constituted by the different combinations of the ‘Somatological
Units’ or ‘Races’” (Deniker 1900b:1–11). Elucidating this term dur-
ing a lecture at the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
Ireland in 1904, Deniker noted that the concept of race was too con-
fusing; therefore, a term should be introduced to include the various
races. Julian S. Huxley and Alfred C. Haddon adopted this term in
their work We Europeans (1935). However, while Deniker saw “eth-
nic group” as a higher-level term, including races, Huxley and Had-
don utilized it as another word for “people.” They spoke of “ethnic
classification,” “ethnic groups of Europe,” and the “ethnic compo-
sition of European nations” (Huxley and Haddon 1935:110, 144–163,
164–187, 188–240).
After World War II the unesco Committee on Race proposed
to replace the term “races” with “ethnic groups.” Ashley Montagu,
one of the committee members, summarized one of the commit-
tee’s recommendations of 1950 as follows:
National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do
not necessarily coincide with racial groups; and the cultural traits
of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connexion with racial
traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed
when the term “race” is used in popular parlance, it would be better
when speaking of human races to drop the term “race” altogether
and speak of ethnic groups. (Ashley Montagu 1952:99)
Although well intended, this decision has increased the confu-

sion that began when Edwards and his associates, and their prede-
cessors, conflated races and nations in France and Britain (Conze
1984:156–157). Even if scholarly opposition to the biological view of
“ethnic groups” increased during the 1970s, when ethnicity in a soci-
ological sense was introduced, the physical view on ethnicity seems

to be dominant in state policies and among the general public (see
also Banton 2002, 2010).35
If language is a valid criterion for distinguishing between peoples
or nations, then the number of languages should equal the num-
ber of peoples. The eighteenth-century linguists Fritz and Schul-
tze (1748) listed 200 languages and dialects. Repeating this number,
Schlözer (1771a) specified “at least 200.” Adelung and Vater (1806–
17) augmented it to “almost 500.” Balbi (1826a) classified 700 lan-
guages. At present 7,106 living languages are known in the world,
915 of which are listed as endangered (P. Lewis 2014). By contrast,
Linnaeus (1735) identified just four human “varieties” (or races), pri-
marily on the basis of skin color and obviously linked to the four
continents then known. Today, most biological anthropologists no
longer regard “race” as a valid scientific category. But these varia-
tions in numbers indicate that there was and is an enormous differ-
ence between “ethnic groups” (or nations) and human “races.”
In the following, the shift from a linguistic-ethnological to a
biological-anthropological definition of ethnic groups can only be
signaled. To explain it would require another book. But to notice such
a shift at all, we need a proper perspective and a solid methodology.
What’s In a Name? Methodology in the History of Science

In the historiography of anthropology, the discipline’s past is often
viewed in terms of present-day models. Stocking (1981:19) called
anthropology “the hybrid study of human culture and nature,” defined
as a “discipline uniting at least two distinct scholarly traditions: the
natural historical and the social theoretical (with input as well from
various lines of humanistic inquiry).” Likewise, Eric Wolf once char-
acterized anthropology as “the most scientific of the humanities
and the most humanistic of the social sciences.” Thus the concept
of anthropology as developed in North America is of a composite
nature: half humanities, half science.
This ambiguity causes complications when pursuing the history of
anthropology. To give just one example, Douglas Cole, in his biog-
raphy of Franz Boas, cited him reflecting on his formative years at
the Berlin museum. The museum’s director, Bastian, was assisted by
four aides, each with a regional specialty. Boas wrote that “it was my
good fortune . . . to work in the inspiring surroundings of the Royal

Ethnographical Museum of Berlin” and “in close friendship” with
these colleagues. Cole (1999:96) added that the men were roughly
the same age and, “though from diverse backgrounds and specialties,
were also trying to make sense of the new science of anthropology.”
This assessment is a historical misjudgment for two reasons: first,
the science of anthropology was not “new,” and second, there was
not “one” science of anthropology but at least two. In Berlin Boas
worked on ethnology, under Bastian, as well as on physical anthro-
pology, under Rudolf Virchow. Glossing over the differences, Cole
arrived at an anachronistic statement concerning Boas working on
anthropology in the Berlin museum, although he was, in fact, there
working on ethnology.
The history of anthropology, according to Stocking, can best be
studied by adopting a historicist approach. His distinction between
historicist and presentist approaches (Stocking 1965b, 1999; see also
Di Brizio 1995) is invaluable. Historicism is an attempt to describe
the past in its own terms and study past events and ideas in their
contemporary context. Presentism is a mode of historical analysis in
which present-day views are anachronistically inserted into repre-
sentations of the past and past complexities obscured. This is usually
done to construct a lineage of relevance. The latter approach is also
known as “Whig history,” after eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
English historians who represented the past to validate their polit-
ical beliefs (Butterfield 1931, 1955, 1969). Stocking coined the term
“presentism” in analogy of “ethnocentrism” (a term introduced by
Sumner in 1906). Examples of a presentist approach, in which cur-
rent views of anthropology are transported into the past, include
Daniel Carey’s (2004) analysis of John Locke’s “anthropology” and
John Gascoigne’s (1994) presenting the botanist Joseph Banks as an
“anthropologist.” The reverse position, seeing ethnology as emerg-
ing earlier than it actually did, is exemplified not only by Hodgen
(1964), but also by Joan-Pau Rubiés (2000, 2007), who studies Renais-
sance travelers and cosmographers as contributing to a “history of
early modern travel and ethnology.” Rubiés’s assumption that their
accounts were similar to ethnology is anachronistic because this sub-
ject did not exist before the eighteenth century.
These examples indicate that the history of anthropology is an
anthropological problem, as A. Irving Hallowell (1965) articulated

fifty years ago. A historicist approach may prevent anachronisms,
errors with regard to the chronological sequence, but it does not suf-
fice (Darnell 2001). The historiography of anthropology can profit
from the distinction between “emic” and “etic” analyses of behav-
ior that Kenneth Pike introduced into linguistics in 1966– 67 and
Ward Goodenough into cultural anthropology in 1970. Emic is an
account of human behavior in terms meaningful to the actor; etic an
account in terms familiar to the observer. Marvin Harris in The Rise
of Anthropological Theory (1968) analyses “theories of cultures” from
the past in order to promote a theory in the present. By means of
a scientific, behaviorally-based, “etic” approach to the understand-
ing of culture, Harris (1976) set out his personal theory of cultural
materialism, evaluating past theories from this perspective and elim-
inating much that was important to past scholars themselves. Such
reductions can be avoided only by combining a historical-critical
approach with an emic perspective. Therefore, anthropology’s his-
tory should be studied by describing developments from within and
by historicizing as fully as possible.
The primary method applied by most authors dealing with the
origins of ethnology and ethnography, as we have seen, is conceptual
history. In his preface to a journal on conceptual history, Archiv für
Begriffsgeschichte, founded in 1955, Erich Rothacker drew attention
to the “many-layered interrelatedness of the history of problems and
the history of terminology” (Bödeker 1998, 2002a; Boer 1998). I pro-
pose to focus on the conceptualization of ethnography and ethnology
during the eighteenth century and relate that to changes in object
and methods. If we regard the dates and meanings of ethnography,
ethnology, and anthropology as indicators of more general develop-
ments, the method has great potential. It points to shifts in meaning
and terminological innovations, allowing us to observe shifts other-
wise overlooked. Stagl (1995a:234, 1998:521) found the concepts that are
the focus of the present book so important that he coined a name for
them: ethnos-terms. Each time one of these terms is encountered, it
must be analyzed and contextualized. In my view, the coining of the
terms Völker-Beschreibung (1740), ethnographia (1767– 75), Völkerkunde
(1771–81), and ethnologia (1781–83) indicates the emergence of a sep-
arate science of peoples during the eighteenth century. Contempo-
rary scholars saw these terms as referring to a new scientific study.

However, several theoretical views were advanced, from diverging
research traditions, during the eighteenth century. For historiograph-
ical purposes it is essential to study these traditions in their histor-
ical, political, and academic contexts.
Furthermore, it is vital to look for changes in meaning and scope
as these are often related to shifts in theory and method. Because of
such ruptures, I concentrate on changes in terminology and practice
that suggest “hidden” paradigmatic shifts. A paradigm, according
to Thomas S. Kuhn (1962, 1977), “is what the members of a scien-
tific community, and they alone, share” (Kuhn 1974:460). While
this concept is of great value to the historiography of the natural
sciences (Golinski 1998; Renn 2012), it is less suitable with regard
to the humanities, characterized by a larger degree of individuality
among scholars. I therefore prefer Imre Lakatos’s (1977) definition of
paradigms as “research programs.” Thus the coining of the concept
Völker-Beschreibung (1740) implied the formulation of an ethnologi-
cal research program, stipulating the object of study and the meth-
ods for attaining it. The introduction of the ethnos-terms (1740–87)
implied a paradigmatic shift from the study of “manners and cus-
toms” (Sitten und Gebräuche) toward the study of peoples or nations
and their morals. (The German term Sitten can be translated both
as “manners” and as “morals.”) Another example is the shift from
a “science of nations” toward a “science of human races” during the
1830s and 1840s, which foreshadowed the demise of the ethnologi-
cal societies during the 1850s and their absorption in anthropologi-
cal institutions during the 1870s and 1880s.
Needless to say, conceptual history has its limitations. Sometimes
sciences are formulated without a name. Vico’s Scienza Nuova (1725)
is a classic example. Therefore, conceptual history must be comple-
mented by an analysis of definitions and programmatic statements
in the texts, the history of the reception of scientific innovations,
and the study of scholarly practice. In an effort to locate eighteenth-
century debates among German-speaking scholars in their con-
text and link them to their immediate forebears, the humanists
and empiricists, I consistently strive to apply the historicist-emic-
paradigmatic approach.
Ideally, such a study should be pursued within a comparative
framework. International connections in scholarship need to be taken

into account. There is no single national standpoint from which
the history of anthropology can be studied. Moreover, we have to
bear in mind that it is virtually impossible to completely transcend
one’s cultural categories, as ethnographic studies abundantly dem-
onstrate. In dealing with foreign cultures or other time frames we
are always led by the images, views, and emotions acquired from
educators, books, and media. A truly historicist study is untenable
and our historical interpretations will always be influenced by pre-
sentist concerns (Kuper 1991; Urry 1996; Darnell 2001). The ideal of
grasping another reality by means of its own emic categories can be
accomplished only to a certain extent. Moreover, a researcher must
always return to the theoretical (etic) language in which he or she
needs to report about what was found in social practice (Banton 2011,
2013). Therefore, as the historian of anthropology Jacob W. Gruber
(1982:590) reminded us, in the history of science, “as in anthropol-
ogy itself, some double vision is required in which one can see the
now and then, the here and there.”
Pursuing the historiography with the four-field model in mind,
one would be led to assume that ethnology developed as a sub-
field of anthropology. Instead, as the present study demonstrates,
ethnology and anthropology developed along parallel tracks, with
their participants working in diverging domains of science. The
four-field model would be misleading for a historical analysis of
developments before the model was introduced. More suitable for
describing eighteenth-century developments seems to be the model
of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sci-
ences (iuaes). Founded in 1948, the union opted for a horizontal
ordering of anthropological and ethnological sciences (in the plural).
The aims of the present project are, first, to retrace, describe, and
contextualize the early history of ethnography and ethnology in
German-speaking territories in the Age of Reason; second, to con-
nect that body of scholarship to developments in other parts of the
world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and third, to
study the contemporary distinction between anthropology and eth-
nology while recording when these studies were connected.
The following chapters are devoted to the conceptualization and

early institutionalization of ethnography and ethnology. Chapter

2 deals with Leibniz’s theories about the importance of historical
language studies for elucidating the early history of peoples. It also
shows the relations Leibniz entertained with Peter the Great and
his advisers from 1697 to Leibniz’s death in 1716. Chapter 3 discusses
the postconquest exploration of Russian Asia by Russian, Swed-
ish, Dutch, and German scholars, including the pioneering Siberia
expedition by Messerschmidt (1719–27). Chapter 4 deals with later
Russian-German explorations of Siberia, particularly the Second
Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43). As a participant in this expedition,
the historian Müller developed a program of ethnographic research
titled Völker-Beschreibung of Siberia (spb aras, Müller, n.d. [1740])
and wrote a recently published comparative “Description of Sibe-
rian peoples” (Müller 2010c). Chapter 5 provides an analysis of the
Danish-German Arabia Expedition (1761–67), which gathered eth-
nographic data on the Middle East but did not produce an ethno-
graphic research program. Chapter 6 is devoted to the formation of
Völkerkunde in universities and academies during the second half of
the eighteenth century. It analyzes the introduction of the concepts
ethnographia and ethnologia, Völkerkunde and Volkskunde by Schlözer,
Gatterer, Kollár, and other scholars in northern Germany and central
Europe during the 1770s and 1780s, in the context of historical, geo-
graphical, and linguistic discussions on the origins and migrations
of peoples and nations. It also deals with the program of a global
Völkerkunde and Herder’s efforts to transform this into a relativist
study of the world’s peoples. Chapter 7 sketches the parallel devel-
opment of eighteenth-century German anthropology as the medi-
cal, theological, physical, and philosophical study of humankind. In
the epilogue, the influence of the German ethnographic tradition
on scholars in France, Russia, the Netherlands, the United States,
and Great Britain is outlined.

two
Theory and Practice

G. W. Leibniz and the Advancement of Science in Russia
For knowledge itself is power. Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.

— Fr ancis Bacon (1597)
Languages are the most ancient monuments of the human

species . . . that serve best for determining the origin of peoples.
— Leibniz to Bignon (1694)
Languages are the pedigree of nations.

— Samuel Johnson (1773)
T
he foundation for a modern ethnological way of thinking
was laid by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). Leibniz
was a Universalgelehrter, or polymath, whose work covered a
broad range from philosophy, politics, and mathematics to history,
geography, and linguistics.1 Independently of Isaac Newton, Leibniz
developed the differential calculus, and he also invented the binary
system of arithmetic. His research on the relation between the his-
tory of European and Asian nations, and the development of their
languages, is not as well known as his mathematical and philosoph-
ical studies, but it too can be considered groundbreaking. By com-
paring the world’s languages, Leibniz hoped to shed light on early
human history. In developing a strict methodology, he contributed
to a field that later acquired the name “historical linguistics.” Begin-
ning in 1689, Leibniz directed his attention to China; in 1697, also
to Russia. He entered into a dialogue with Peter the Great and his
advisers to advance science in the Russian Empire. Leibniz’s pleas
for language samples and his linguistic theories influenced the com-
parative study of language during the German Enlightenment. As
we shall see, his ethnolinguistic approach was conducive in laying
the groundwork for a systematic ethnological perspective.
Leibniz between Science and Politics

Leibniz’s monism, the metaphysical view that all is one, offered an
alternative to both René Descartes’s rationalism and John Locke’s
empiricism. Their work followed on the Scientific Revolution that
Andreas Vesalius, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and oth-
ers started in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Butterfield
1960; Shapin 1996; Applebaum 2000). In the tradition of the Renais-
sance humanists, these natural scientists favored a conception of sci-
ence in which observation and experimentation were central (Shapin
and Schaffer 1985). Leibniz’s philosophy aimed at providing a better
foundation to the new natural science of Galileo than contempo-
raries like Descartes, Baruch de Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, Locke,
and Newton had been able to (Jespers 1991). Since Leibniz sustained
a critical dialogue with Locke’s work, a brief discussion of its rele-
vance is imperative.
The natural philosophy of Locke (1632–1704) resulted in two major
works—An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Two
Treatises of Government (1690)—that are regarded as foundational
texts for the social sciences, including anthropology. In the first
Locke explored the sources of human thought, while in the second he
assailed the “Divine Right” theory of politics that justified royal abso-
lutism. He held the human mind to be a “blank slate” (tabula rasa) at
birth and maintained against Descartes that human beings are born
without innate content. This idea is central to Lockean empiricism,
emphasizing the individual’s freedom to define one’s own character.
Locke’s theory of knowledge was seminal in the Scottish Enlight-
enment through David Hume, who further developed empiricism
and philosophical skepticism in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–
40) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). Locke’s
ideas also influenced Montesquieu, a central Enlightenment figure
whose political views were adopted by the Scottish philosophers and
the American Founding Fathers. Locke’s language theories inspired
the development of language theories in the English-speaking world
as well as in France (Aarsleff 1982; Gray 1999).
For Leibniz, language was not conventional and words were not
40 Theory and Practice

randomly related to things. Rather, words were symbols bearing
an underlying and divinely sanctioned connection to the things
they referred to (Aarsleff 1982:88; Gray 1999:129). Leibniz’s linguis-
tic work influenced German-speaking scholars to the same extent as
Locke’s work did in Great Britain and France. In contrast to Locke’s
proposition about the blank slate, Leibniz believed that the human
mind reflected the universe at birth. His philosophy was rational-
ist, dynamic, and optimistic. In accordance with Early Enlighten-
ment thinking Leibniz held that God ruled in good order and that
monarchs should follow His rules.2 He believed in a preestablished,
divine harmony that suffuses the cosmos; the evil in the world does
not conflict with God’s goodness, and notwithstanding its evils, the
world is the best of all possible worlds, as he stated in his Théodicée
(Leibniz 1710b). Science should strive to advance this harmony. Leib-
niz was a pursuer of a synthesis: between East and West, Europe and
Asia, Catholics and Protestants (Richter 1946:20–21). His philoso-
phy was deeply influenced by the trauma of the Thirty Years’ War
(1618–48), a terrible conflict between Catholics and Protestants that
had devastated large parts of Europe, especially the German states.
Seeking to prevent a recurrence, Leibniz strove for cosmic harmony,
to be advanced by developing the arts and sciences.
Through his vast correspondence and numerous memoirs, Leib-
niz influenced scholarly practice not only in Germany but also in
Russia. His motto was theoria cum praxi, a phrase he placed at the
beginning of his works to express the harmony of theory and prac-
tice, the unity of science and life. In his 1666 dissertation on the art
of combinations, Leibniz (1992:229) declared, “If we regard the dis-
ciplines in and for themselves they are all theoretical; if we regard
them from the point of view of their application, they are all practi-
cal.” Therefore, academic disciplines had to be made practical, which
means application oriented: it was crucial to solve not only the prob-
lems that science poses but also the problems presented by society.
Fueled by this ambition, Leibniz strove to become an adviser
to European monarchs. Born in Leipzig (Saxony) to a professor of
moral philosophy, he studied philosophy and law in Leipzig under
Jacob Thomasius and mathematics in Jena under Erhard Weigel.
Weigel was the patriarch of the Primary Enlightenment, an often-
overlooked movement in Jena that preceded the Early Enlightenment
Theory and Practice 41

emanating from Halle (Mühlpfordt 2005:53; see chapter 3). Weigel
introduced Leibniz to Descartes’s work and taught him that schol-
ars should work to advance the “common good” (Winter 1968:4).
After earning a doctorate in law at the University of Altdorf in 1666,
Leibniz moved to Nuremberg, where he became a client of the well-
connected Baron Johann Christian von Boineburg. Boineburg hired
him as an assistant and introduced him to cultural and political
figures in the Free City of Frankfurt like the Pietist Philipp Jacob
Spener and the legal scholar Hermann Conring. On Boineburg’s
recommendation, Leibniz in 1670 entered into the political service
of the archbishop-elector of Mainz, where he invented a calculat-
ing machine. Dispatched on a diplomatic mission to Paris in 1672,
he continued his study of mathematics under the Dutch physicist
Christiaan Huygens. During a mission to London in 1673, Leibniz
demonstrated his calculating machine to the Royal Society. Real-
izing that his knowledge of mathematics was incomplete, he inten-
sified his efforts. After his return to Paris, he was elected a member
of the Royal Society on the recommendation of its secretary, Henry
Oldenburg, in April 1673. Leibniz now worked on the calculus (or
calculis integralis, as he called it in 1675), a mathematical problem that
kept him occupied until 1686, one year before Newton published his
“Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” Having worked
in Paris for four years, Leibniz visited Holland in the fall of 1676.3
There he met the inventor of the microscope, Antoni van Leeuwen-
hoek, in Delft; the entomologist Jan Swammerdam in Amsterdam;
and the philosopher Spinoza in The Hague (Stewart 2006).
Upon his return to Germany that year, Leibniz began a life-
long career as councillor and librarian of Johann Friedrich, Duke of
Brunswick-Calenberg, and his brother, Ernst August, who became
the first elector of Hanover in 1692 and was the father of King George
I of England. He served the Hanoverians for forty years. From
1691 on Leibniz also acted as a librarian for Anton Ulrich, Duke of
Brunswick-Lüneburg and Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who expanded
the renowned library founded by his father in Wolfenbüttel. In 1685
Leibniz was commissioned to write a dynastic history of the Guelf
family—the House of Welf—including the dukes, princes, and kings
of Brunswick, Brunswick-Lüneburg, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and
Hanover, and many German and British monarchs. To conduct

archival research for this project, he traveled through southern Ger-
many, Austria, and Italy from November 1687 to June 1690. Dur-
ing this trip he discovered medieval sources attesting to the historic
role the Guelfs had played in the medieval Holy Roman Empire,
including northern Italy. Of consequence was his meeting in Rome
in early 1689 with Father Claudio Filippo Grimaldi, a Piedmontese
Jesuit who had been working in China as a mathematician (Mung-
ello 1977; Brockey 2007). This meeting made Leibniz aware of the
possibilities of cultural and scientific exchange between Europe and
China. In Vienna Leibniz was able to advise the Habsburg emperor
on an imminent war between France and Austria. He also helped
his patron to become the ninth German elector. After Georg Lud-
wig succeeded Ernst August in 1698, to be crowned king of Great
Britain and Ireland in London in 1714, Leibniz’s role at the court
in Hanover waned. Eventually, he spent more time in Vienna and
Berlin than in Hanover.
Leibniz shifted daily between science, religion, and politics. His
attempts to unite Catholics and Protestants, approved by Boine-
burg and Johann Friedrich, had little success in France. The bishop
and historian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, an influential adviser of
Louis XIV, opposed the Protestants in his correspondence with
Leibniz of 1692–93 and 1698. Leibniz’s efforts to at least unite the
Protestants—Brunswick-Hanover was Lutheran; Brandenburg, Prus-
sia, was Calvinist—met with approval in Berlin but had little prac-
tical effect. A letter to Bishop Gilbert Burnet, a key adviser to King
William and Queen Mary, remained unanswered in 1699. In his
attempt to create a Christian alliance, Leibniz also cast his eye on
Russia. He hoped to persuade Russia to join the German lands, the
United Provinces, and Great Britain against Louis XIV’s efforts
toward political hegemony in Europe. None of his efforts to restore
an ecumenical Christian unity bore fruit, however, even if Louis
faced a coalition that held his ambitions in check.4
But his major scholarly aim was more realistic: to create a net-
work of academies in order to coordinate research into the arts and
sciences, as well as into agriculture, manufacturing, technology,
and commerce. As early as 1669– 72 Leibniz proposed to establish a
“Society in Germany to promote the Arts and Sciences.” He con-
vinced Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia (and later King) Frederick

I to establish a “Society of Sciences” in Berlin and became its first
president in 1700. The Berlin academy was the German equivalent
of the first modern scientific academies in Europe: Accademia dei
Lincei (Lyncean Academy), founded at Rome in 1603; Academia
Aboensis, Åbo (Finland), 1640; Deutsche Akademie der Natur-
forscher Leopoldina, Schweinfurt (Bavaria), 1652 (since 2008 known
as the German National Academy of Sciences in Halle/Saale); Acca-
demia del Cimento, Florence, 1657; Royal Society of London for the
Improvement of Natural Knowledge, established in 1660; and Aca-
démie Royale des Sciences, created at Paris in 1666. These societies
accompanied the Scientific Revolution and reflected the upsurge of
interest in the empirical study of nature. The Berlin academy was
followed by the foundation of the academies of Dresden and Vienna,
also founded at Leibniz’s suggestion. In several memoirs to Tsar
Peter the Great, Leibniz encouraged establishing an academy of
sciences in St. Petersburg.
Peter the Great

During his first European journey, known as the Grand Embassy
(1697–98), Peter the Great (1672–1725) and his retainers contacted
scientists and engineers in Germany, Holland, England, Bohemia,
Austria, and Poland. The official aim of this trip was to seek support
against the Turks; an additional motive was to obtain military train-
ing and equipment for the Russian army and navy. Peter’s plan was to
modernize his archaic country by opening it to Western technology
and trade. To this end he wanted to acquire first-rate knowledge of
modern science and technology in western Europe (Driessen-van het
Reve 2012). Already in his youth, when he was joint tsar, Peter had
befriended Dutch, German, Scottish, and Swiss merchants, engi-
neers, and officers in Nemetskaia sloboda, the “German settlement”
just outside Moscow where all foreign residents were required to
live (Massie 1981:110–113). Through people like the Dutch merchant
Frans Timmerman, who tutored him in mathematics and fortifi-
cation, the young tsar became fascinated with Western knowledge.
Peter’s interest in science was primarily focused on its application.
During the nine months of his sojourn in Holland—August 1697 to
May 1698—the tsar worked as a shipwright in Zaandam and Amster-
dam to learn the art of shipbuilding and construct a merchantman

on the shipyards of the Dutch East India Company. He familiarized
himself with the training of officers and sailors and the complexities
of managing an international harbor. Driven by a restless curiosity,
Peter also frequented scholars. He inspected the collections of nat-
uralia and artificiala gathered by prominent Dutch citizens from all
over the world and the books describing these collections, as well as
the scientific instruments that could see the stars and demonstrate
the newly discovered laws of nature (Driessen-van het Reve 1996b,
2006). Among these collectors were the anatomist Frederik Ruysch,
the merchant Levinus Vincent, the admiralty’s administrator Jacob
de Wilde, and the mayor Nicolaas Witsen. When the tsar paid a
visit to physician Herman Boerhaave at Leiden University in 1698
(repeated on his second trip to Holland in 1717), he inspected the
university’s anatomical collection and was shown around its botan-
ical gardens. Boerhaave, praeceptor totius Europae (the teacher of all
of Europe), supplied Peter with names of physicians willing to enlist
in the service of the Russian Empire.
After having traveled on to England in 1698, Peter became
acquainted with the theory of shipbuilding. He studied mathemat-
ics, visited Parliament, received an honorary law degree in Oxford,
and was instructed in astronomy at the Greenwich Observatory.
He talked to Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley, and other British sci-
entists. The tsar spent 105 days in England, a lengthy stay that was
reflected in the reforms he enacted in Russia after his return. His
first European journey is seen by historians as the launchpad for the
Westernization of Russia.
Upon his return, Peter the Great introduced a series of domestic
changes known as the “Petrine reforms” (Donnert 1987). To make
his empire self-supporting, the tsar established schools, manufacto-
ries, a library, and a museum; outmaneuvered the Russian orthodox
clergy from the state; and introduced Western customs and dress
codes (Figes 2002; Cracraft 2003). In Moscow a school of naviga-
tion (1698) and a school of artillery (1699) were founded to train
sailors, navigators, surveyors, and students of fortification. In 1701
these schools merged into the Moscow School of Mathematics and
Navigation. The latter was transferred to St. Petersburg in 1715 and
renamed the Naval Academy. A school of engineers was created in
Moscow in 1712.

The Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation was modeled
after the Royal Mathematical School in London and, for the first
time, provided Russians with formal technical education. Its cur-
riculum was suited to train sailors, engineers, land surveyors (geod-
esists), cartographers, and gunners for Peter’s expanding navy and
army. The first teachers at this school were British mathematicians,
engineers, and naval officers (MacGregor 2003:79–86).
Apart from engineers, scientists, naval and military officers, instru-
ment makers, and craftsmen, Peter hired physicians. His personal
physician, Nicolaas Bidloo, founded the Moscow Hospital in 1706
and opened a medical school for the training of surgeons. Even more
influential was Robert Erskine (1677–1718), a Scot of noble birth who
had studied medicine in Edinburgh and Utrecht. After he had earned
a doctorate with a dissertation on human anatomy, Erskine continued
his studies in Paris and Halle. He was elected a member of the Royal
Society and came to Russia as the personal physician of Aleksandr
Menshikov, Peter’s favorite, in 1704. Areskine, as Erskine became
known in Russia, was the first to describe the flora in the vicinity of
Moscow. Beginning in 1706, he was in charge of the Aptekarskii Pri-
kaz, the Apothecary Chancellery in Moscow, which held the impe-
rial natural history collection (Neverov 1985, 1996). Areskine reformed
it into one of the first places in Russia in which the natural sciences
were developed (Driessen-van het Reve 2006:69). In 1714 Areskine
became the tsar’s archiater, or “imperial physician,” and head of the
Imperial Kunstkamera and Imperial Library in St. Petersburg (dis-
cussed later). He initiated the first scientific expeditions that left St.
Petersburg to explore the remote corners of the expanding Russian
Empire from 1710 onward (see chapter 3).
Yakov Vilimovich Brius (Jacob Daniel Bruce, 1669–1735), one
of the tsar’s friends and generals, was the grandson of a Scottish
nobleman who had entered Russian service in 1647. Born in Mos-
cow, Brius received military training with the young tsar in his “toy
army” (poteshnye voiska) and accompanied him during the Grand
Embassy. He had a keen interest in science and was Peter’s main
science adviser. Brius founded the first Russian observatory at Mos-
cow in 1702. He corresponded with Huygens, Leibniz, and Leon-
hard Euler and translated several textbooks into Russian, including
a grammar of the Dutch language (Djubo 2004).

After his return to Moscow, the tsar concluded that any latter-
day crusade of the Christian powers of Europe against the Otto-
man Empire was a pipe dream. Instead, he chose to attack Sweden,
the country whose territories blocked Russia from access to the Bal-
tic Sea. Sweden seemed vulnerable after Charles XII had succeeded
his father as king. In the opening round of this Great Northern War
(1700–21), however, Charles managed to defeat each member of the
alliance that Peter forged: Denmark, Saxony, and Russia. Neverthe-
less, Peter persisted and managed to win a decisive battle against the
Swedes at Poltava in central Ukraine (1709). Russia now entered the
European stage as a powerful state, eclipsing Poland and Sweden
in the east and north of the continent, even if the war with Sweden
lasted for another decade.
As part of Peter’s plan to modernize his empire, St. Petersburg
was founded in 1703. Located on the banks of the Neva River, with
access to the Baltic Sea, the city was constructed at great costs under
the supervision of Menshikov, governor of Ingria, a province just
reconquered from Sweden. St. Petersburg was to be Russia’s “win-
dow to the West,” in Alexander Pushkin’s famous phrase.5 It served
as the new capital of the Russian Empire from 1712 to 1918.
Tsar Peter made three more trips to western and central Europe.
The first two led him to Germany (Saxony, Prussia) and Bohemia
(1711, 1712–13), and the third to Germany, Denmark, Holland, and
France (1716–17).6 During these later European trips, Peter met Leib-
niz, who presented him with plans for advancing science in Russia.
Indeed, all of Peter’s four trips to western and central Europe had
great impact. The contacts between Peter and Leibniz, as well as the
scientific expeditions to Siberia and Alaska, followed from them.
Leibniz and Tsar Peter

When Leibniz first met Peter the Great in 1711, he had wanted
to personally meet the “Tsar of all the Russias” for almost fifteen
years. Leibniz was fascinated by the Russian monarch who strove
to modernize his country and open a window to the West. Leibniz
considered it “heroic” that a ruler of Peter’s stature would serve the
“common good” in an age crowded by selfish absolutists and argued
that it would be in the interest of both science and diplomacy to sup-
port such a leader (Richter 1946:42, 46, 62). Leibniz saw in Peter the

ideal ruler for realizing his own ideas of advancing science and cul-
ture on a global scale.
Leibniz’s interest in Russia preceded the Grand Embassy.7 The
1689 meeting with Grimaldi in Rome had made Leibniz aware of
scholarly developments in China and of Russia’s potential role as
intermediary between Europe and China (Richter 1946:29). In Novis-
sima Sinica (Latest news from China, 1697b) Leibniz suggested that
China and the West shared the same pursuit of perfection. This
book, consisting of essays by Leibniz, Grimaldi, and others, pre-
sented China as the most rational society on earth and a model for
European societies (Li and Poser 2000; Perkins 2004; Park 2014).
Leibniz felt it was imperative that Europe and China establish cul-
tural and scientific exchanges. Grimaldi had informed Leibniz of
the Jesuit wish to travel from Europe to China by a safer and faster
way, overland through Russia and Siberia. Grimaldi himself had
once taken the route through Persia, Uzbekistan, and Great Tar-
tary to China (Richter 1946:33).
Leibniz’s interest in Russia became acute when he learned about
Tsar Peter’s 1697 journey through Germany to Holland. Grasping the
importance of this first trip ever of a Russian emperor outside Russian
territory, Leibniz unsuccessfully tried to meet the tsar at Hanover
and Minden. In August 1697 he contacted François Lefort, a Russian
general of Swiss descent who was one of the Grand Embassy’s offi-
cial leaders and Peter’s most trusted adviser. That same year, Leib-
niz also sought out Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf, a German diplomat
from Erfurt who was stationed in London at the Danish legation.
Ludolf had traveled through Russia in 1692– 94 and published the
first Latin grammar of spoken Russian in 1696 (Tetzner 1955:56–62).
Leibniz’s first encounter with Peter the Great took place at Tor-
gau (Saxony) in October 1711 when he spoke with the tsar twice,
once at dinner. After this initial encounter Leibniz would become
one of the tsar’s foreign advisers. They met again on at least two
occasions. In November 1712 they had several encounters, for after
a meeting at Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary), Leibniz was invited to
travel in the tsar’s entourage to Teplitz (now Teplice) and Dresden.
In May and July 1716, they conversed several times at Bad Pyrmont,
where the tsar resided at the local spa, and at Herrenhausen, where
the Hanover court was based.

These meetings led Leibniz to write many letters and memoirs
(Denkschriften) to Peter the Great and his assistants.8 Between 1708
and 1716 Leibniz directed to the tsar himself no fewer that nine
memoirs, in which he discussed both scholarly topics and politics.
Regarding Russia as a powerful ally against the Turkish threat in
southeastern Europe and French dominance in western Europe,
Leibniz cherished ideals about harmonious relations between the
German and Russian states, overseen by the emperors in Vienna
and St. Petersburg. For this purpose the Russians needed to expel
the Swedes from the Holy Roman Empire, fight the Turks in cen-
tral Asia and southern Europe, and assist Germany in obtaining a
natural border along the Rhine against France (1708). Later Leibniz
promoted a “nordic alliance” between Germany, Poland, and Rus-
sia against Sweden (1712).
However, his main ambition remained that of a science organizer.
The dominant theme in all Leibniz’s letters relating to Russia was
the advancement of science and the arts. The four main tasks set by
Leibniz were to investigate the possible overland connection between
Asia and America; establish an academy of sciences, or Gelehrten-
Collegium; set up observatories to measure the deviation of the mag-
net in the northern parts of Russia; and collect language samples in
Russia (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:190–196, vol. 2:364– 69; Aiton 1985:324).
As early as 1697, in his first memoir to Lefort, in which Leib-
niz asked for the tsar’s genealogy and language specimens from his
empire, he included an essay on the founding of an “établissement
général pour les sciences et les arts,” an academy of sciences (Guerrier
1873, vol. 2:20–23; Richter 1946:44–45). He reiterated this suggestion
in all his exchanges with Russia. In 1708 he wrote to the tsar that,
because science had not yet been established in his empire, Russia
was a tabula rasa and Western errors in its scientific infrastructure
could be avoided. To this end a “considerable, well-equipped col-
lege” should be founded to encourage the development of schools,
print shops, laboratories, workshops, artists, and craftsmen.9
When they first met in 1711, Leibniz gave Peter a memoir about
the founding and funding of a scientific academy (Guerrier 1873, vol.
2:180–183; Richter 1946:148–149). He also spoke to the tsar about the
“improvement of geography and insight in the origins of peoples.”10
Presumably during this meeting Leibniz submitted a long memoir

on the establishment of the Collegien, or ministries.11 At that time
Peter initiated his overhaul of the Russian system of administration,
and Leibniz may have tried to aid the tsar’s policies. While distin-
guishing eleven ministries, Leibniz elaborated on the last one, “an
academic college” (ein Gelehrt-Collegium), listing the many disciplines
it should supervise and supply with the necessary wherewithal. The
manner in which the tsar took up the plan for an academy is not
known. Attending his son’s wedding in Torgau, Peter was preoccu-
pied with the ongoing war with the Swedes. This and other urgent
matters postponed the tsar’s decision to found an academy of sciences
until 1718, after Leibniz had died. However, we know that the tsar
and General Brius responded positively to Leibniz’s proposal to set
up observatories to calculate the distortion of magnetism for deter-
mining longitude and latitude. Leibniz’s plea for language samples
was also honored in 1711, and he received permission to approach
the Imperial Chancellery to that effect. As a result of this meeting,
Leibniz was appointed adviser to the tsar on the understanding that
he would continue his work and receive an annual pension (Guerrier
1873, vol. 1:119–120). One year later, at Karlsbad, Leibniz was presented
with an official diploma that named him privy counselor of justice.12
After this first successful meeting, Leibniz sent letters to Gen-
eral Brius and Grand Chancellor Gavriil Golovkin and, when he
did not receive an immediate reply, wrote directly to the tsar for the
first time. Written in January 1712, this letter is regarded by Guer-
rier as “one of the finest pieces of German eloquence from the early
eighteenth century” (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:127). In it Leibniz outlined
his motives for promoting science and the arts in Russia:
While I have often been consulted in public affairs and in matters of
law, sometimes even by great monarchs, I have higher regards for the
arts and sciences, because it is through them that the honor of God
and the good of the entire human species are enduringly advanced.
The miracle of God, His power, wisdom and benevolence are espe-
cially displayed in the sciences and the knowledge of nature and
art and the arts and sciences are the true treasure of humankind. It
is through them that art gains power over nature and the civilized
peoples distinguish themselves from the barbaric ones. (Leibniz to
Peter the Great, January 1712)13

Leibniz used the exact turn of phrase that “the arts and sciences are
the true treasure of humankind” in a letter to Golovkin that same
day.14 In his letter to Peter, Leibniz wrote that he would consider it
an honor and a pleasure to serve the tsar in such “a commendable
and sacred work” because “I do not belong to those eager for their
fatherland or a particular nation, but aim at the benefit of the entire
human species; as I take the heavens to be the fatherland and all
people of good will to be its citizens. And I would rather do many
good works with the Russians than few with the Germans or other
Europeans.”15
Whereas this betrays the ambivalent position of the independent
scholar in need of a patron, it bespeaks at the same time Leibniz’s
philosophy, which, as we have seen, was rational, optimistic, and
synthetic. Leibniz regarded the pursuit of science as a mission and
saw the “Republic of Letters” of the humanists as the realization of a
sort of Augustinian “Civitas Dei” (Richter 1946:18, 30–36, 142). Leib-
niz believed there was great potential for Russia’s scientific flourish-
ing, precisely because the country had not advanced in science yet.
Moreover, Russia could serve as a mediator between Europe and
China, the two locations of worthwhile scientific research.16 Leib-
niz’s ideal was an exchange of science and culture between these
ends of the Eurasian continuum, which he believed would lead to a
better world. A strong proponent of rational development, he con-
sidered the main human goal “the common good of all peoples”
(das gemeine Beste aller Völcker), or the “common good” (das gemeine
Beste). Science and scholarship were the best instruments for achiev-
ing this aim and an academy of sciences was to play a central role in
nurturing their flourishing (Richter 1946:118–119). Thus in all Leib-
niz’s strivings for humanity’s benefit, the sciences and scholarship
touched him the most, as he stated in 1707.17
Just as Leibniz turned to Peter the Great and Russia as a media-
tor between Europe and Asia, he saw himself as a mediator between
knowledge and power. In his early years Leibniz had written, “My
entire ambition has been to find a great monarch with deeper insights
than usual and I believe that in human life there is nothing more beau-
tiful and noble than deep wisdom connected with a great power.”18
This shows that Leibniz was well aware of Francis Bacon’s dictum,
“For knowledge . . . is power” (Bacon 1597). He followed Bacon, Wei-

gel, and others in developing utilitarian (mercantilist or cameralist)
forms of scientific planning that attached strategic value to the role
of science and scientists in absolutist states (Stagl 2002b).
Cameralism was a system of administration to reform society and
promote economic development in the Holy Roman Empire. It was
the German counterpart of the mercantilism of Jean-Baptiste Colbert,
Louis XIV’s finance minister, who emphasized government control
of foreign trade to ensure the prosperity and security of the French
state by limiting imports and favoring export. (In 1776 Adam Smith
repudiated the system and gave it its name.) Whereas mercantilism
was developed in states with overseas interests, such as France and
Britain, cameralism was designed to increase revenues in landlocked
states, such as the German lands, but it was also influential in Swe-
den. Its aim was to mobilize the resources of land and population in
service of the common good. Cameralism was both a science and an
administrative practice (Wakefield 2009). The German name, Kame-
ralwissenschaft, derives from Kammer or Camera, the “royal cham-
ber” (Rüdiger 2005). The first academic chairs in cameralism were
established at the Prussian universities of Halle and Frankfurt-on-
the-Oder in 1727. Graduates from universities like Halle, Leipzig,
and Jena brought the ideas of the common good, natural law, and
cameralism to Russia, where they gained entry to the highest state
organs of the Russian Empire (Mühlpfordt 2011:180–191). In both
mercantilism and cameralism, the population was regarded as an
important part of the state’s wealth.
Leibniz exhibited a strong interest in historical and comparative
linguistics. In the final decade of his life, Leibniz consistently pointed
out the importance of language studies and the need to collect lan-
guage specimens (specimina variarum linguarum) for solving the ori-
gins of peoples. Already his first letter to the tsar (1712) contained
an essay on “the origin of European peoples” (über den Ursprung der
Europäischen Völker). In it Leibniz summarized the findings on the
history and linguistics of Europe and Asia that he earlier had pub-
lished in Latin (Leibniz 1710a). He divided the peoples of north-
ern and eastern Europe into four main groups (Haupt Völcker) on
the basis of their languages: Tartars, Sarmatians (Slavs), Finns, and
Germans (Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:210–213). Translated into Russian,
these documents were forwarded to the Russian court, where they

were well received. Brius invited Leibniz to expand on two points he
and Peter had discussed at Torgau: the observations of the magnet’s
declination and the collection of language specimens in the Russian
Empire. In September 1712 Leibniz sent a long memoir discussing
both issues and added a third point of investigation: “whether Asia
could be completely circumnavigated in the North.”19 These exposi-
tions led to a personal invitation from the tsar to meet him at Karls-
bad (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:142).
There Leibniz discussed these three subjects as well as politics.
With Duke Anton Ulrich’s support, he urged the necessity of an
alliance between the German emperor and the Russian tsar. While
the tsar displayed interest, he already had two diplomats attached
to the Viennese court to explore such options. The Habsburgers had
been at war with France since 1701 over the Spanish succession and
delayed any decision in this regard until the end of that war in 1714.
But Leibniz was appointed privy counselor of Russia, as we saw, and
the tsar invited him to draft laws for the new Russia. During the
trip to Teplitz and Dresden, Leibniz contacted several courtiers, in
particular Brius, who promised to assist Leibniz in his research into
magnetism, the linguistic divisions of Europe and Asia, and the pos-
sibility of a northeast passage. Leibniz drew up a list of things for
Brius to acquire that contained thirteen items, including a catalog of
books published in Russia, a list of Greek and Russian manuscripts
in Russian monasteries, a Russian dictionary-cum-vocabulary, a
Slavonic grammar, and by way of a post-scriptum, an “encyclopedia”
written in Russian (Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:272–273, 280).20
In Dresden Leibniz took his leave from the Russian company and
traveled to Vienna, where he was to work for two years, mainly on
matters of diplomacy and the history of the Guelfs. He remained
in touch with Brius and Areskine, however, and wrote three more
letters to the tsar, dealing with Europe’s political situation (Decem-
ber 1712), law and science in Russia (October 1713), and the history of
Slavic peoples (June 1714). In all cases Leibniz emphasized the impor-
tance of language studies, now using the additional argument that
this would help spread Christianity in the Russian Empire (Guer-
rier 1873, vol. 2:284–286, 311– 314, 321– 323).
In the midst of these activities, Newton supporters accused Leib-
niz of having plagiarized Newton’s calculus in 1710–13 (Hall 1980;

Schüller 2007). Although these accusations were later found to be
unwarranted, the charges damaged Leibniz’s reputation, presum-
ably also in Russia.
In preparation for the meetings at Bad Pyrmont in the summer
of 1716, Leibniz exchanged letters with the tsar’s vice chancellor,
Petr Shafirov. Leibniz was in the tsar’s vicinity for a week, but what
matters were discussed during these meetings is unknown (Guer-
rier 1873, vol. 1:174). Presumably, Leibniz repeated to the tsar the fol-
lowing proposals, previously sent to Shafirov:
(1) to clarify ancient history and the origins of nations, if all lan-
guages in your empire and neighboring countries would be observed
through translations of the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed;
(2) to expand Christian religion; (3) to improve navigation by investi-
gating the declination of the magnet in your lands and contact [peo-
ple in] Great Britain in this respect; (4) to encourage astronomy; (5)
to improve geography, if you would order inquiries about whether
Asia is connected with America; (6) to increase the study of nature
(Natur-kunde); and (7) to improve all arts and sciences. (Leibniz to
Shafirov, June 1716)21
On this occasion, Leibniz wrote two more memoirs to the tsar: a

short one “on the magnet needle” and a longer one “on the improve-
ment of the arts and sciences in the Russian Empire” (Guerrier 1873,
vol. 2:346–360). The latter included sections on a library, a museum,
schools, a university, laboratories, an encyclopedia, and again a plea
to investigate the existence of a possible passage between Asia and
America.22 Leibniz wrote how “the extensive lands of the Russian
Empire . . . offer excellent opportunities . . . for new discoveries
through which the sciences are advanced.” Suggesting that the tsar
might “render a great service” by ordering the exploration of the north-
ern polar seas and the geographical relationship between Asia and
America, he noted that the huge empire would undoubtedly “yield
many new plants, animals, minerals, and other natural objects that
have not yet been discovered.”23
Pleased about the meeting in Bad Pyrmont, Leibniz felt he had
accomplished something (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:188). The tsar impressed
him, as he described in July 1716:

I admire the vivacity and judgment of this great Prince. He gathers
knowledgeable people from all corners and when he talks to them
they are amazed as his speaking makes a great deal of sense. He is
interested in all mechanical arts, but his main interest is in every-
thing relating to navigation and, by consequence, he also loves astron-
omy and geography. I hope that, through him, we will learn whether
Asia is connected with America. (Leibniz to Bourguet, July 1716)24
This confirms the image of a tsar fascinated by science and tech-

nology, especially by mechanical sciences and all things relating to
navigation.
In a letter to Areskine, written in August 1716, three months
before his own death, Leibniz expressed his gratitude and referred
to another dispute, now with the British theologian Samuel Clarke,
“apologist of Mr. Newton,” on the principles of natural philosophy
and religion. He stated that it was continuing but that hopefully it
would soon be ended.25
Leibniz’s Achievements
After this last set of meetings with the tsar and his advisers, Leib-
niz hoped he had achieved something. But what? Vladimir Guer-
rier (1873, vol. 1:190–196) evaluated Leibniz’s contributions to Russia’s
development of science in the following four fields: the Northeast
Passage, the academy of sciences, the earth’s magnetism, and com-
parative linguistics.
Could Asia be circumnavigated by the North? The investiga-
tion into a passage or a land bridge between Asia and America has
received much attention in the literature. In an attempt to find prec-
edents of Peter’s decision to order the First Bering Expedition to
Kamchatka in 1725, Ernst Benz (1947) claimed that Leibniz was the
first scientist to point to the importance of the border areas between
Asia and America. The qualification “first” is problematic, however,
as Dutch and English seafarers had tried to find the Northeast Pas-
sage unsuccessfully, as Leibniz himself emphasized. In addition,
Guerrier mentioned that the problem had already been solved by
Semen Dezhnev’s voyage, rounding the Chukchi Peninsula in 1648
and founding Anadyrsk one year later. But the fact had been for-
gotten and the evidence that Dezhnev had already demonstrated

what Bering proved in 1728 was rediscovered in 1737 by Müller in
the Yakutsk archives (Fisher 1956, 1973, 1981). Moreover, the ques-
tion of whether America had been populated from Asia had fas-
cinated scholars decades before Leibniz. Some scholars had even
found material evidence, as Müller could read in the second edition
of Noord en Oost Tartarye by Nicolaas Witsen, who actually claimed
that there was a gap between the landmasses of America and Asia:
“It is probable that the large, protruding corner in northeast Asia,
called Ice-Cape by me [on my map], is close to America. . . . One
finds in this corner, in particular in its southern beginnings, people
who carry small stones and bones drilled to their cheeks and who
seem to be related to the North Americans, of whom such stones
are in my possession; they are bright blue, three inches long and one
inch wide: so that, perhaps, America was populated via this route
or thereabout.”26
In 1989 Black and Buse stated that Leibniz’s “suggestions were
timely, if not decisive in Peter’s decision to explore and open up
the vast potential of his domain” (Black and Buse 1989:2). Indeed,
although Leibniz had broached the subject regularly since 1697, one
of Peter’s advisers, Fedor Saltykov, made similar recommendations
in 1713–14 (Donnert 2009:19). When Saltykov proposed to explore
the northern seaway, the tsar became interested in finding a sea route
through the Arctic to China and India. Peter hoped that ships could
reach Japan from Arkhangelsk in two months. Upon the conclusion
of the war against Sweden, the tsar gave orders to explore Arctic nav-
igation from the Ob River (L. Berg 1954:16–18). But the tsar’s inter-
est in mapping his empire long preceded these efforts, for already
in 1699 he had ordered a survey of the Caspian Sea and of Russia’s
borders with Persia and Turkey (Black and Buse 1989:2–3). As these
were slowly prepared (1705, 1719–22), reports on rebellions in east-
ern Siberia, on the one hand, and prospects of trade with Japan and
China, on the other, persuaded Peter to appoint the Great Kam-
chatka Command in 1716. This expedition never took off but paved
the way for others. The following year, when he visited Paris for sev-
eral months, Peter met with scientists of the Académie des Sciences
and discussed Siberia’s geography with Guillaume Delisle, the lead-
ing French geographer. Delisle had issued a map in 1706 suggest-
ing a chain of mountains linking Siberia to “some other continent”

(Black and Buse 1989:3). During the 1717 academy session, Delisle
posed two questions to Peter: Did he have any concrete knowledge
about his empire’s eastern borders? Would he allow a French expe-
dition to enter this region? This provoked the tsar to order the explo-
ration of the eastern parts of the Russian Empire, albeit by his own
subjects. In 1719–22 the surveyors Fedor Luzhin and Ivan Evreinov
traveled to Kamchatka to map this region as well as the Kuril Islands
(Fisher 1977:34). They had secret instructions to find out whether
Asia and America were connected but failed to carry out their mis-
sion once their ship was wrecked (Black and Buse 1989:3). Their
findings informed the First Kamchatka Expedition (1725–30) under
Vitus Bering’s command (see chapter 4). In sum, Leibniz’s sugges-
tions were indeed timely, for they reinforced the idea of an explo-
ration of the Russian Empire’s eastern borders, which led Peter to
raise the matter with French specialists.
The Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg was founded
eight years after Leibniz’s death. Leibniz’s proposals undoubtedly
interested the tsar, but Peter also followed the advice of other advis-
ers and was a member of the Royal Society in London. Peter had
already talked about establishing an academy of sciences in Russia
during conversations with Halley in 1698 (Driessen-van het Reve
2006:61). The tsar was also a member of the Académie des Sciences
and had been impressed by the quality of scholarship in France. Con-
sidering that the decision to found an academy of sciences in Russia
was made in 1718, the French example may have also inspired Peter.
However, as we have seen, the project had to wait until the end of
the Great Northern War. Compared with the French and British
academies, the Berlin Society, founded at Leibniz’s instigation, was
anything but flourishing during the first years of its existence. Yet
Leibniz’s plans for the Russian academy were explicitly modeled on
the Berlin Society (Richter 1946:119), and the tsar’s instructions for
the Russian academy were in line with Leibniz’s suggestions, both
in regard to its three departments and its financing. While Leibniz
was certainly not the only one in Europe sponsoring the establish-
ment of an academy (Francis Bacon had launched similar research
programs a full century earlier), he stood out for his persistence. He
advocated the foundation of academies of science as early as 1667,
and the concept continued to occupy a central place in his philoso-

phy, as demonstrated by his 1708, 1711, and 1716 proposals. Leibniz’s
ideas indirectly influenced Russian developments through the teach-
ings and correspondence of Christian Wolff, who between 1719 and
1753 wrote more than one hundred letters to the tsar and his entou-
rage about the academy’s organization (Mühlpfordt 1952b:169). 27
These suggestions were generally along the lines set out by Leibniz
(Richter 1946:124–129). Thus Leibniz’s proposals may have achieved
a great deal more than just strengthening preexisting ideas with
Peter the Great.
Leibniz’s proposals for observations on the properties of the com-
pass magnet in Russia interested the tsar and his advisers who wanted
to improve navigation. However, the results bore full fruit only when
Alexander von Humboldt renewed Leibniz’s idea of setting up a chain
of observatories in 1829. Stations were established at the Academy
of Sciences in St. Petersburg and in Kazan, Tiflis, Nikolaev, Hel-
singfors, and on Sitka in North America, enabling Carl Friedrich
Gauss in Göttingen to formulate a theory about the earth’s magne-
tism (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:194–195).
A final subject discussed by Guerrier is Leibniz’s linguistic work,
or as he himself called it, “das Werck der Sprachen” (Guerrier 1873,
vol. 2:243; Richter 1946:82). Guerrier believed that Leibniz’s pleas
to collect language samples in Russia were even more important
but just as premature as preceding attempts. Leibniz’s efforts had
met “no appeal (keinen Anklang) at the court of the tsar, because he
was preoccupied with mathematical and mechanical arts” (Guer-
rier 1873, vol. 1:196). Guerrier claimed that the charting of languages
was taken seriously only later, when Catherine the Great personally
assembled the samples in a comparative dictionary edited and pub-
lished by Pallas in 1786–89. In this Guerrier was clearly mistaken,
for he overlooked the linguistic research undertaken by historians
and naturalists exploring Siberia during the 1720s, 1730s, and 1740s
(see chapters 3 and 4). Leibniz’s language studies reached a much
wider audience in Russia and Germany than understood by Guerrier.
The Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg

German authors often point to Leibniz’s influence on the founda-
tion of the Kunstkamera in 1714. Yet two Dutch collections served
as the cornerstones of this early version of a science museum. Dur-

ing the seventeenth century Dutch scientists were active in scien-
tific collecting, facilitated by their worldwide trade network in the
East and West Indies, as well as in Africa (Bergvelt and Kiste-
maker 1992; Kistemaker et al. 1996; Kistemaker et al. 2005). Tsar
Peter inspected the best of these collections during his first trip to
western Europe and decided to create a collection similar but larger
and more complete.
The Imperial Kunstkamera (German Kunstkammer) was estab-
lished in St. Petersburg in January 1714 (or December 1713, depend-
ing on the calendar used).28 Officially called Museum Imperialis
Petropolitani, Peter the Great founded it as part of his program to
reform Russian society and promote science and education. The first
public museum in Russia opened its doors in 1719. The Kunstkamera
formed the basis of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, established
in 1724–25.29 Entrance was free of charge. A free public museum
was altogether a new phenomenon. Museums were generally pri-
vate and merely open to friends or contacts of the collections’ own-
ers. Others were open to the public but charged a fee. Peter ordered
that his museum would be open to the public and that citizens vis-
iting it would be rewarded with a drink.
The Petrine reforms constituted the beginning of the Enlighten-
ment in Russia. The tsar and his advisers followed the most important
scientific developments in Europe, adopting Western technology and
know-how whenever deemed useful. Realizing that not all scientific
findings find immediate application, Peter understood that experi-
mental investigation and theoretical reflection were vital before prac-
tical science-based tools and instruments could be developed. The
Kunstkamera arose from Peter’s wish to establish a public museum
according to European standards, as he had seen in Holland, Eng-
land, Saxony (Dresden), Denmark, and France.
A visit to the Gottorp collection in Schleswig-Holstein in 1713
spurred Peter to acquire collections. The Gottorp collection included
parts of the renowned Dutch anatomist Bernardus Paludanus’s cab-
inet. Two other Dutch collections formed the Kunstkamera’s core.
They had been assembled by Frederik Ruysch, professor of anatomy
at Amsterdam, and Albert Seba, an East Frisian apothecary and
collector working in Amsterdam. The tsar bought them in 1716–17.
Robert Areskine, who had become head of the Kunstkamera and its

library in 1714, and the Alsatian secretary of the Apothecary Chan-
cellery and librarian, Johann Daniel Schumacher (1690–1761), acted
as intermediaries.30 As noted earlier, Areskine had transformed the
Aptekarskii Prikaz into a study center of the natural sciences. When
the Dutch painter Cornelis de Bruyn visited Moscow in 1710, he
observed that the Aptekarskii Prikaz housed a herbarium, a botan-
ical and a pharmaceutical garden, a hothouse, and a small cabinet
with plants, animals, and natural curiosities as well as artificialia,
or “objects of art” (de Bruyn 1711:451–452).
Seba dispatched medicines to the tsar and Areskine in 1715. In the
process he offered his collections to Peter, who purchased them for
fifteen thousand Dutch guilders in February 1716. Seba then acted
as intermediary in acquiring Ruysch’s anatomical cabinet, which
was bought on behalf of the Russian autocrat for thirty thousand
guilders in April 1717. After a delay at the docks in Amsterdam,
the Ruysch collection arrived at St. Petersburg in two shipments
in July and August 1718 (Driessen-van het Reve 2006:153). While
the Ruysch collection was anatomical in outlook, Seba’s collection
was predominantly natural historical, with many objects from “the
East and West Indies and other distant countries” (Russow 1900:7).31
Russow characterized Seba’s collection as consisting of both natural
objects and curiosities (Naturalien und Raritäten), but this was not
accurate. Seba (1734–65) himself spoke of “rarities of nature,” and
the list of objects sold to the Kunstkamera mentioned only a few
human-made items.32
Moreover, Peter was not interested in art as such but rather in col-
lecting knowledge (Driessen-van het Reve 2006). This aim appears to
be reflected in the Kunstkamera, which included all things remark-
able from a scientific perspective, not from that of aesthetics. The
Kunstkamera that the tsar built was an encyclopedia—not in the
shape of a book, as Leibniz had suggested, but a three-dimensional
encyclopedia in the form of a museum, including workshops. Tsar
Peter’s order that all objects be documented on paper, in drawings and
in print, enhanced the idea of an encyclopedic museum of sciences
and the arts (Kistemaker et al. 2005). The Kunstkamera’s first bro-
chure, compiled by Schumacher in 1741–44, stated that it contained
both Kunst- und Natur-sachen, that is, objects classified as artificialia

Fig. 1. Kunstkamera (left) and Imperial Library (right),
St. Petersburg, 1741. From Schumacher 1741 (table 7).
(human-made products) and naturalia (products of nature), evoking

the classical division between Artes and Natura.33 The museum evolved
from the Aptekarskii Prikaz’s collections and included the natura-
lia that the tsar had acquired during his travels in Holland in 1698.
These collections were transported from Moscow to St. Petersburg
in 1712 and housed in the new Summer Palace. Subsequently, other
items were added, while the collections of minerals, coins, zoolog-
ical and anatomical items, and objects pertaining to the culture of
European and Asian peoples were displayed in separate chambers.
Cabinets presented the finest objects, and the walls were adorned
with figurines representing the four continents: Africa, America,
Asia, and Europe (fig. 1).
As a result of these purchases, the collections of the Kunstkamera
became so extensive that new premises were needed. Initially, they
were lodged in the Kikin Palace (1719–27) and placed under Schu-
macher’s supervision. They included anatomical, zoological, botani-
cal, and geological collections; a coins collection; and the library. In
1721 the tsar ordered his librarian to travel across Europe to supple-
ment the Kunstkamera’s collections and the library by buying addi-

Fig. 2. Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg (center). On the left, the Academy of
Sciences, St. Petersburg Branch. Courtesy of Peter the Great Museum
of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian
Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.
tional items. Schumacher visited the Dutch Republic too, acquiring

the newest instruments for conducting scientific experiments. This
illustrates the scholarly focus of the Kunstkamera, which now began
to add technical instruments and even paintings to its natural his-
tory and artifacts.
The Kunstkamera became the cornerstone on which the Academy
of Sciences would be founded (see chapter 4). In 1728 it was moved
to a specially built edifice on Vasilevskii Island, where it remains to
the present day. Badly damaged by fire in 1747, the building was ren-
ovated and reopened in 1766. Initially, the academy’s library was also
housed in the Kunstkamera, but it was later moved elsewhere. The
Academy of Sciences was at first housed in Petrogradskii, Shafirov’s
former mansion, where the academicians worked and the first ses-
sions were held between 1725 and 1728. In the latter year the acad-
emy moved to a palace next to the Kunstkamera and in 1789 to a
classic building constructed on the other side of the Kunstkamera
(fig. 2).34 The Kunstkamera was Russia’s first state museum and its
first scientific museum.

Since the 1830s the Kunstkamera’s collections have been divided
among new museums, but the Kunstkamera has kept the ethnographic
and anatomical specimens. The Ethnographic Museum became an
independent institution, the first with such a title, in 1836. It is the
world’s oldest ethnographic museum (see epilogue) and has been
housed within the Kunstkamera ever since its founding. To honor
its founder, in 1879 its name was changed to Museum of Anthropol-
ogy and Ethnography Named after Peter the Great (Kunstkamera),
St. Petersburg, and again after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.
Leibniz’s Language Studies

The linguistic studies that Leibniz pursued between 1679 and 1716
were exceptionally broad. In his language reconstructions Leib-
niz was a historian on a grand scale and innovative in his methods.
Despite their importance for the writing of world history, his “var-
ious attempts to employ linguistic theory and evidence as a tool in
reconstructing the history of mankind” are “not so well-known” now-
adays (Waterman 1963:27).35 This is mainly because these studies were
conducted by means of correspondence. Only a few of his texts on
the comparison of natural languages appeared during his lifetime.
Leibniz published one article in Latin in the memoirs of the Ber-
lin Academy of Sciences on “the origin of peoples, based primarily
upon evidence from their languages” (Leibniz 1710a). Some of his
linguistic writings and excerpts were published posthumously by his
secretary, Johann Georg Eckhart, in Collectanea etymologica, illustra-
tioni linguarum veteris celticae, germanicae, gallicae (Leibniz 1717). His
Protogaea (1691), a text on the formation of the earth, was sent to the
Academy of Sciences in Paris but went astray and appeared in 1749
both in Latin and in a German translation. Its sequel on the migra-
tion of nations (Migrationes gentium) was never completed. His Nou-
veaux Essais sur l’entendement humain, written in 1703–5 in reaction
to Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding but withdrawn
from publication because of Locke’s death in 1704, became available
in 1765 (edited by Rudolf Erich Raspe; see Schmied-Kowarzik 2005)
and again in 1768 (Leibniz’s Opera omnia, edited by Louis Dutens).
Parts of his correspondence on linguistic subjects were published in
1755 and 1978 (A. Michaelis 1755; Waterman 1978). But the bulk of
Leibniz’s linguistic writings remained in manuscript, and editing

his “historical and linguistic writings” (Reihe V of the Akademie-
Ausgabe) “has not been taken up thus far.”36
This publishing record does not do justice to the innovative qual-
ity of Leibniz’s linguistic work. The scope of his work was large and
his classification of world languages was “amazingly advanced” for its
time (Mühlmann 1968:42). His influence on contemporary scholars
was strong, both in Russia and in western Europe, and he inspired
students of language up to the mid-nineteenth century. Let us turn
to the questions Leibniz posed and his desired achievements.
In her book on Leibniz and his view on Russia, the German his-
torian Liselotte Richter (1946) included a linguistic table illustrat-
ing how Leibniz developed family trees for at least three language
families: the Indo-European, Hamito-Semitic, and Finno-Ugric.
This table was slightly refined by the American linguist John T.
Waterman (1963:34), who added several Germanic languages, such
as English, Gothic, Icelandic, and Dutch. Whereas Richter con-
centrated on Leibniz’s classification of the Slavic languages, Water-
man emphasized Leibniz’s interest in the Germanic ones. As we
shall see, however, both neglected the importance of the Oriental
languages. Table 1 presents Leibniz’s language classification, recon-
structed by Richter on the basis of his 1710 article, his manuscripts,
and correspondence.
The classification shows that Leibniz posed an unknown and no
longer existing primal language (Ursprache) from which all languages
developed. This primal language was divided into two branches: the
“Japhetic tribe,” which was the basis of the European and north-
eastern Asian languages, and the “Aramaic tribe,” including the
languages of southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa. Leibniz
believed that—“leaving the Holy Scriptures apart”—the languages
of Europe and of Asia derived from “a common source” and that this
also applied to many languages of Africa. However, the languages
of America, the southern parts of Africa, and China appeared “far
removed from the others.”37
Leibniz concentrated his efforts mostly on the languages of Europe
and Asia, but he was also interested in the languages of America,
Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. To a large degree, Leib-
niz accepted the authority of Holy Writ, assuming that humankind
originated from the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates (the Garden

Table 1. Leibniz’s classification of languages, 1710
From Richter 1946 (Anhang). Courtesy of the Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin, Germany.
of Eden). He did not mention the Tower of Babel or the Confusion

of Languages but did not doubt the Great Flood. After the Deluge
Noah and his three sons (Sem, Ham, and Japheth) had populated
the earth again (Gen. 5–9). Noah’s sons were often held to have been
the founders of the world’s three major language groups, but Leib-
niz could not quite place the American and African languages in
his world scheme. He did believe that the only plausible exit from
humankind’s homeland (Urheimat) was through the mountain passes
between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Following the Greeks,
he called the vast area to the north and stretching eastward into Asia
“Scythia.”38 Leibniz embraced this theory partly for linguistic rea-
sons, due to his “intuitive reconstruction of prehistory,” and partly
from patriotism (Waterman 1978:58). Subdividing the Japhetic lan-
guages into Scythian and Celtic, Leibniz assumed that Europe and
Asia were populated by migrants from Scythia. He referred to this
region as vagina gentium, or a “portal of peoples.”39 Another name he
used for the Japhetic language group was “Celto-Scythian,” which
included all known languages of Europe and Asia: Turkish, Slavic
(or “Sarmatian”), Finnish (including Hungarian), Germanic, Celtic,

Greek, and Latin. The “Aramaic” language group included Ara-
bic, Syrian, Chaldaean, Hebrew, Phoenician, Abyssinian, Amharic,
and Egyptian. Leibniz noted combined forms, for instance, Latin,
but also Persian and Armenian, which he saw as a mixture of the
Japhetic and Aramaic languages.
Of special interest was the attention Leibniz paid to Finno-Ugric
languages. This language family caused great fascination among com-
parative linguists and Siberianists alike because these languages were
geographically so far apart. They include Lappish (Sami), Finnish,
Estonian, and Hungarian in Europe and Ostyak (Khanty), Vogu-
lic (Mansi), Mordvinian, and other languages in Siberia. Leibniz
was the first, in his 1710 article, to point to the connection between
these languages; later studies confirmed his suppositions (Droixhe
1978, 1987, 1990, 2007).
The ulterior motive for Leibniz’s investigation of languages and
the people speaking them was to study the origins and migrations of
peoples, or as he called them, “nations.” After visiting the Oriental-
ist Hiob Ludolf in Frankfurt in 1687, Leibniz wrote him about the
desirability of having a dictionary listing roots and primary words
of many languages; with such a dictionary “the origins of nations
would also be wonderfully elucidated” (Aarsleff 1982:85, 95 n. 3). In
1691 Leibniz set out his program on the utility of languages for the
study of history to Huldreich von Eyben, a law professor at the Uni-
versity of Helmstedt:
I must also in some measure consider the migrations of nations
[Migrationes Gentium] and the origins of languages [Origines Lin-
guarum]. . . . It is . . . curious that the Persians have so many words
in common with the Germans. I fully believe that the harmony of
languages is the best means of determining the origin of nations
[ursprung der völcker] and virtually the only one that is left to us where
historical accounts fail. It seems in fact that all languages from the
Indus River to the Baltic Sea have a single origin. (Leibniz to Huld-
reich von Eyben, March 1691)40
Leibniz believed that the compilation of a “harmony of languages”

was the best method for arriving at “the origin of nations.” He wrote
in a 1692 letter to Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel, “There is no doubt but
that the origins and relationships are illustrated by linguistic con-

nections; indeed, I hold this to be an unparalleled method [for find-
ing our way back] to hidden antiquity [abdita antiquitate]” (translated
in Waterman 1978:59, n. 3). In a letter to the Abbé Bignon, dated
1694, Leibniz stated that “languages are the most ancient monu-
ments of the human species . . . that serve best for determining the
origin of peoples.” 41
This material object, the “origin of nations,” occurs repeatedly in
Leibniz’s published and unpublished work, be it in Latin, French,
or German, from 1687 on. Leibniz called his 1710 article “my con-
jectures on the origin of nations” and, a little more elaborately, “my
dissertation on knowing the origin of nations on the basis of lan-
guages” (translated in Aarsleff 1982:96 n. 10, 98 n. 32). In his Nou-
veaux Essais sur l’entendement humain, Leibniz remarked that the
main purpose of linguistic research was to discover “the harmony
that serves particularly to enlighten the origin of nations.” 42
As noted in chapter 1, Leibniz’s use of the term “nations” differed
from current usage, in which nations are primarily seen as political
entities, characterized by a constitution and usually a state. This view
reflects political developments since 1815, when the nation came to
be defined as a political entity, usually a nation-state. For Leibniz, in
contrast, nations, or peoples (Völker), were groups of people bound by
a history and territory and predominantly characterized by their lan-
guages. The equivalence between “nation” and “language” in Leibniz’s
work was part of his attempt to historicize the migration of nations.
To this end Leibniz saw the compilation of a “harmony of lan-
guages” as a vital step for establishing the “origin of nations” (Ursprung
der Völker). In a programmatic statement in his opening essay to the
1710 Berlin Academy memoirs, Leibniz declared, “Since the remote
origin of nations transcend history, languages take for us the place
of ancient documents. And the oldest traces of languages remain
in the names of rivers and forests, which, even though the inhab-
itants have changed, are usually kept” (Leibniz 1710a:1; translated
in Waterman 1978:59; Aarsleff 1982:48, 86). This shows that Leibniz
regarded the “origin of nations” as his primary object. Languages
were the most important sources for tracing particular peoples to
their unrecorded past. The following passage, which appears in the
section on the study of words in his Nouveaux Essais (Livre III: Des
Mots), reveals his way of thinking:

And I say in passing that the names of rivers usually derive from
the most distant antiquity known, best mark the old language and
ancient inhabitants, and therefore deserve special inquiry. Being the
most ancient monuments of peoples, before writing and the arts, lan-
guages in general best indicate the origin, cognations and migrations
of peoples. That is why etymologies when well understood would
be interesting and full of consequences. (Leibniz 1962[1765]:285)43
All this amounted to a highly ambitious research project: Leibniz

exhorted historians to use the study of languages to resolve the mys-
teries about the prehistoric origins, descent, and migrations of peo-
ples or nations.
Whence derived Leibniz’s interest in the origins and migrations of
“nations” as subdivisions of humankind? Waterman (1963:31) claimed
that Leibniz’s fundamental interest was “in tracing the origins and
affiliations of the Germanic languages.” Richter focused on Leibniz’s
classification of Slavic languages and their positions within Europe.
Leibniz had a personal interest in Slavic issues, for Slavic and Ger-
man speakers had lived together for centuries in his native country
of Saxony. Perhaps it bears relevance that even if Leibniz’s imme-
diate ancestors were German, his surname (and the suffix “-niz”)
suggests Slavic origins (Waterman 1978:7). Extant evidence leads
us to agree with Sigrid von der Schulenberg, who in 1939 claimed
that Leibniz’s interest in language studies began in 1685 with the
medieval documents that he found for his history of the House of
Brunswick-Lüneburg. His efforts to “understand and explain the
ancient texts” written in a variety of languages and dialects led him
to “probe deeper and deeper in etymology.” 44 The editor of Schulen-
berg’s work, Kurt Müller (1973:xi), added that Leibniz intensified
his linguistic studies during 1690–93. This is confirmed by Leibniz’s
correspondence published in Guerrier (1873, vol. 2) and his Sämtliche
Schriften und Briefe. Given this time frame, Leibniz’s linguistic inter-
est was heightened by his historical studies and strengthened during
his travels through Europe from November 1687 to June 1690; while
his interest in the philosophical aspects of language was influenced
by Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).
According to Michael Carhart (2014), Leibniz developed an inter-
est in comparative language studies at the early stage of his proj-

ect on writing the history of the Guelfs, for which he needed two
preliminary dissertations, the first on the territory of Lower Sax-
ony, where the house of Guelf ruled, and the second on the people
whom they ruled. These became the Protogaea, on the formation of
the earth, and the Migrationes gentium, on the origins and migra-
tions of the Saxons, Bavarians, Franks, Slavs, and Europeans gen-
erally, that were planned and written in 1691– 97. While the former
was published in 1749, the latter exists only in correspondence and
manuscripts (some of which were published at the time).
Leibniz’s interest in the dialects of the German language dated
from even earlier. This is shown by his “exhort to the Germans
to better cultivate their intellect and language,” dated 1679 (Leib-
niz 1846). The American historian of linguistics Hans Aarsleff has
noted that Leibniz had another, more powerful motive for his lin-
guistic studies, which predated his European travels. Already in the
late 1670s, Leibniz was aware of the work of Swedish historians like
Georg Stiernhjelm, Olof Verelius, and Olof Rudbeck, who argued
that the origins of the Germanic nations were in Sweden. Rud-
beck, a physician and antiquarian in Uppsala, tried, in his study on
“Scytho-Scandicae” and the three-volume work Atlantica (1675–98),
to prove that Sweden was Atlantis and that Swedish was Adam’s
original language. All major nations had migrated from Sweden
to the European continent. Leibniz refuted this “Gothic doctrine”
because it lacked a solid foundation. Aarsleff (1975:134, 1982:96, n.
4) concluded, “It is true that Leibniz’s study of natural languages is
linked with his work on the history of the ducal house he served;
but it is the Swedish thesis that sets this study in motion and the
opportunity to gain knowledge of Asian languages that gives prom-
ise of ultimate success.”
This conclusion matches the chronological data. Leibniz’s earliest
linguistic work dates from the late 1670s, when he had not yet begun
his historical investigation into the ducal family’s ancestry and long
before the release of Locke’s Essay. By that time the Swedish theo-
ries had become widely known. As we have seen in the section on
Leibniz and Peter the Great, Leibniz acquired such an interest in
language samples from the Russian Empire’s peoples that he even
contacted the tsar personally. This confirms Aarsleff’s view that Leib-
niz tried to investigate Asian languages in the hope of developing a

general theory about the world’s diffusion of languages. However,
Aarsleff does not address Leibniz’s interest in the Middle Eastern
and American languages. The answer to this question may at least
in part be found by looking at Leibniz’s travels through Germany.
When Leibniz met Hiob Ludolf in the autumn of 1687, he encoun-
tered an Orientalist familiar with twenty-six languages. Ludolf
descended from a patrician family in Erfurt and had studied med-
icine and law at the University of Erfurt before switching to Ori-
ental languages. He mastered Arabic, Hebrew, Samaritan, Syriac,
Chaldaic, and Armenian. Continuing these studies at the Univer-
sity of Leiden under Jacob Golius in 1645, he concentrated on Ara-
bic, Hebrew, and Persian. He traveled through England, France,
Italy, Sweden, and Denmark. In Rome Ludolf met four Ethiopian
clergymen who “were impressed by his desire to perfect his knowl-
edge of Amharic, amazed at his ability to explain and translate it,
and amused by his pronunciation of it” (Waterman 1978:4–5). He had
written a lexicon and a grammar of Ethiopian that were published,
in a pirated edition, in 1661, as well as Historia Aethiopica (1681–94)
and a grammar of Amharic (1702). After having served in Stockholm
and worked for the dukes of Saxony in Altenburg, Ludolf retired
to Frankfurt am Main in 1678 to spend the rest of his life in private
study. Leibniz’s visit began an intensive correspondence, predomi-
nantly on linguistic subjects.
The Leibniz-Ludolf correspondence consists of more than sixty
letters in Latin from 1687 to 1703. Published by August Benedict
Michaelis at Göttingen in 1755, they present a crucial insight into
the development of Leibniz’s linguistic and ethnographic views. In
his shortened English translation, Waterman provided a summary,
stating that “the letters are devoted in whole or part to linguistic
or ethnolinguistic themes” (Waterman 1978:18). The subjects dis-
cussed “can be grouped under four headings: (1) the geographical
origins of the Germanic people; (2) the theory of a proto-language;
(3) the principles and methods of establishing linguistic relation-
ships; and (4) the study and improvement of the German language
including its dialects” (18). The first three topics are directly rele-
vant to our discussion.
As Ludolf studied Oriental languages and history, the main sub-
ject of his correspondence with Leibniz concerned the linguistic

makeup of the Middle East, a region linked to Europe, Asia, and
Africa. Leibniz hoped to find the “origins of the Germanic people”
in this region. He saw Scythia (southern Russia) as the “staging area
for the Germanic migrations” (Waterman 1978:57), as it had been
populated by migrants from the Middle East. But what explained
the bifurcation between Hebrew and Arabic within the Semitic lan-
guage family or the separate development of the Semitic and the
Indo-European language families, to the latter of which the Ger-
manic languages belonged? These questions were to occupy Euro-
pean Orientalists and biblical scholars for the next century and a
half (see chapters 5 and 6).
As noted, Leibniz was highly interested in the vocabularies of the
Russian Empire’s peoples, in which historical Scythia played a role.
He discussed this in letters with Peter the Great’s advisers and with
the tsar himself. His interest in the Scythian languages did not exist
in a vacuum; he was likewise interested in their relationship with
the eastern and northern Asian languages. And this interest was in
turn combined with an interest in America’s native languages and
peoples. Ever since the sixteenth century, the origins of the Amer-
ican peoples had been widely debated among European humanists.
Leibniz believed that a comparison of the languages spoken in the
Russian Empire might throw light on the relationship between the
populations of eastern Asian and the Americas (Aarsleff 1982:93).
In this way a contribution could be made to the main problem for
scholars like José de Acosta (1590) and Hugo Grotius (1642): “the
origins of the American nations” (de origine gentium Americana-
rum).45 Scholars like Johannes de Laet (1643), Matthew Hale (1677),
and Witsen (1692) continued to debate this issue up to Cornelis de
Pauw (1768–69) (see Droixhe 1997). The possible connection between
Asia and America remained a continuous theme in German schol-
arship throughout the eighteenth century (see, for example, J. E.
Fischer 1771) until Johann Severin Vater (1810) demonstrated a lin-
guistic connection between the two continents.
This brings us closer to understanding how Leibniz came to for-
mulate his program for the comparison of languages. The question
of “the origins of the American nations” was widened to that of “the
origins of mankind and of particular peoples” (Poliakov 1974:142).
Thus the problem of the early Americans obtained significance for

a much larger topic, the relations between the peoples of Europe
and Asia. This issue could be solved only by combining history and
linguistics on a global scale. While Leibniz’s interest in languages
resulted from his historical studies on behalf of the Guelfs, this inter-
est increased during his study tour across the Holy Roman Empire
to Rome, during which he met Orientalists and Jesuits familiar with
world languages. Whereas Rudbeck’s Gothic thesis set Leibniz’s lan-
guage studies in motion, the origins of the Germanic nations played
a key role for Leibniz. Finally, we saw that he was highly interested
in Scythia (southern Russia) and even approached the tsar in 1711–
16 to find out if Asia and America were connected.
Leibniz’s Linguistic Program: “Das Werck der Sprachen”

The concepts of “homeland” (Urheimat), “staging area,” and “portal
of peoples” (vagina gentium) indicate that Leibniz was fascinated by
the migration of peoples from Mesopotamia. He shared this interest
with many contemporaries but found their theories often parochial
and arbitrary. In 1569, for example, Johannes Goropius Becanus (Jan
van Gorp), a Flemish physician who knew six languages, includ-
ing Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, developed a theory that Adam and
Eve had spoken Flemish and that even Hebrew had descended from
Flemish. In 1675 Rudbeck launched Sweden as the cradle of the
Germanic nations. Paul-Yves Pezron, a Benedictine monk from
Brittany, was the first Celtomaniac to show France its roots. Com-
menting on Genesis 9–10 and supported by the Church Fathers,
Pezron restored Gomer as an ancestor of the Gauls, whom he iden-
tified as the Titans of Greek mythology, and allowed the Gauls to
hail from the fabulous Bactria in central Asia (Pezron 1703; Bayer
1738; Poliakov 1974:23).46 To refute these fictive genealogies, based on
selective etymologies and patriotic claims, Leibniz devised a meth-
odology for comparing languages.
Leibniz was a monogenist who believed that all humans are
descendants of Adam and Eve. While accepting a single origin of
humankind, he rejected the popular thesis that Hebrew was the pri-
mal language (Ursprache). He was one of the first to do so.47 Arno
Borst reports that Leibniz “explicitly rejected Bochart’s thesis that
Hebrew was the primal language” (Borst 1960– 61:1477). Samuel
Bochart (1599–1667) was an influential Orientalist from France who

had studied Arabic with Erpenius in Leiden. The idea that Hebrew
was the primal language did not originate with him, as it already
occurs in works by the Swiss encyclopedist Conrad Gesner (1555),
the French linguist Étienne Guichard (1606), the Flemish author
Adrianus Scrieckius (1614), and the French polyhistor Joseph Sca-
liger (1619), but Bochart gave it a wide diffusion. In his Geographia
sacra (1646–51), Bochart used his knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic
to arrive at a novel Old Testament exegesis. Reinterpreting biblical
genealogies, he assigned a new ancestor to the French, Italians, Span-
iards, and even the Americans. The acceptance of Bochart’s views
was so complete that Johann David Michaelis, the Göttingen Ori-
entalist (see chapter 5), quipped a century later, “Previous authors
on the origins of peoples believed they were founding themselves
on the ancient Hebrew Moses, whereas, in fact, they based them-
selves on the new French Bochart.” 48
While rejecting Hebrew’s priority, Leibniz subscribed to the idea,
current among some scholars, that German was the purest of all lan-
guages and the most direct in representing reality.49 He wrote, “Il il
semble que le Teuton a plus gardé du naturel, et . . . de l’Adamique”
(Leibniz 1962:281). This patriotic notion had surfaced during the six-
teenth century in the works of Goropius Becanus and the geogra-
pher Philipp Cluverius (Borst 1960–61:1465). The grammarian Justus
Georg Schottel had modified the idea in a manner more accept-
able to Leibniz (Poliakov 1974:93). According to Leibniz, the pri-
mal language was not God-given (as Locke assumed) but a “natural
language” (Natur-Sprache) developed by man. For lack of an alterna-
tive, Leibniz, following the mystic Jacob Böhme, called it “Adamic.”
This natural language had been lost, but new languages had been
“invented” (erfunden) since Noah in a way that Leibniz thought had
much in common with onomatopoeia.50
These new languages had evolved through a process of differ-
entiation, but they all derived from the same source. As we have
seen, Leibniz divided historical languages into two groups, Aramaea
and Japetica, the language families respectively known as Hamito-
Semitic and Indo-European. The Aramaic branch was thought to
have migrated south from Armenia (after Noah’s ark had landed on
Mount Ararat), while the Japhetic branch moved to the north, pop-
ulating Europe and Asia. Leibniz regarded these two as protolan-

guages, meaning that their form could only be approximated in an
artificial reconstruction. The two protolanguages were the common
ancestors of related languages that formed a language family. Both
Aramaic and Japhetic went back to Noah and through him to Adam.
Japhetic, to which the Leibniz-Ludolf correspondence makes ref-
erence, is a clear case of a protolanguage. It derives from Japheth,
the third son of Noah, whose descendants were thought to have
populated Europe and Asia. The twofold subdivisions of this lan-
guage family spoke Celtic (subdivided by Leibniz into Gauls, Ger-
mans, English, and Romans) and Scythian (subdivided by Leibniz
into Slavs, Turks, Hungarians, and Greeks). The idea of a relation-
ship between Celtic and Scythian was not original. 51 But Leibniz
was the first to place all Celto-Scythian languages under a com-
mon ancestor (Japhetic) and to group them together with the Ara-
maic languages as derived from a common language, the Adamic
Ursprache. This reflected Leibniz’s conviction, at which he arrived
after years of study, that there was “a common origin of nations and
a radical primitive [primal] language” (Poliakov 1974:93). As Leib-
niz wrote in his Nouveaux Essais, European languages “all derive
from one source and may be taken as alterations of the one and the
same language that could be called Celtic” (Leibniz 1962:280).52 He
asserted that numerous Scythian languages “have many common
roots,” both among each other and with “ours” (that is, with the
Celtic languages) and that the same phenomenon occurs with Ara-
bic (including Hebrew, Phoenician, Chaldaean, Syriac, and Ethi-
opian). The similarities were so striking that they could “not be
attributed to coincidence, not even to trade, but first and foremost
to the migrations of peoples” (Leibniz 1962:281).53
Thus Leibniz dealt with Hebrew’s priority by postulating a pri-
mal language called Adamic. He applied the same principle to the
relationship between the Celtic and Scythian languages: both proto-
languages descended from an older proto-language, Japhetic. On a
lower level he followed the same logic: “It is certain that the Celts at
one time included both the Germanic and Gaulish peoples” (Leib-
niz 1699, cited in Waterman 1978:60).
Waterman (1978:59–63), who translated the correspondence between
Leibniz and Ludolf, emphasized the key concept of protolanguages
in Leibniz’s classification of world languages. Although Leibniz did

not use the term “protolanguage” itself (it arose much later), the idea
was clearly present in his work, both in the Adamic and Japhetic con-
cepts and in the terms “Celtic” and “Scythian.” Waterman (1978:2,
60–61) found this to be such an innovation in comparison to Leib-
niz’s predecessors and contemporaries that he raised the question
whether Leibniz should be considered the “true father of compar-
ative linguistics,” instead of William Jones, generally seen as the
founder of comparative linguistics because of his 1786 address in
Calcutta about the relationships among Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin.
As Waterman wrote,
One of the letters [exchanged with Ludolf] defines the term “linguis-
tic relationship” in a way which most linguists believe was not formu-
lated until a full century later. Other letters discuss proto-languages
and families of languages, ideas which led both men before their
deaths to propose linguistic pedigrees, or “family trees”—something
which most textbooks tell us, was not done until the mid-nineteenth
century. . . . [Altogether they make it] probable . . . that the begin-
nings of modern linguistics are to be found in the eighteenth rather
than in the nineteenth century. (Waterman 1978:ix, 2)
Leibniz’s etymological studies were closely connected with his phi-

losophy of language. He assumed that a nonarbitrary relationship
exists among words, thoughts, and objects: “words are signs not only
of thoughts but also of things” (Aarsleff 1982:88; from a letter written
by Leibniz in 1697). As he argued against Locke, there was “some-
thing natural in the origin of words that indicate a relation between
things and the sounds and movements of the vocal organs” (Leib-
niz 1962:283). The primal language was a direct (we would now say
iconographic) depiction of reality, and this also applied to languages
that developed later, even if the direct terms in these had already
become mixed or had moved to the background. Therefore, Leib-
niz wrote in the introduction of his 1710 article,
Since the distant origins of nations transcend history, languages take
for us the place of old documents. The most ancient vestiges of lan-
guages [linguarum vestigia] remain in the names of rivers and for-
ests, which very often survive the changes of populations. The most
obvious are the appellations of places that have been established by

men. . . . I therefore hold it as an axiom that all the names that we
call proper names were formerly appellatives; otherwise they would
not conform to reason. Thus whenever we do not understand the
name of a river, mountain, forest, nation, region, town, villages,
we must conclude that we have gone beyond the ancient language.
(Leibniz 1710:1; translated in Aarsleff 1982:48; cf. Aarsleff 1982:86;
Waterman 1978:59)
The function of language comparison should be to reconstruct the

historical development of languages by retrieving the “most ancient
vestiges of languages” preserved in the names of rivers and forests
and other proper names that formerly were appellatives (“established
by men”). To prevent this reconstruction from becoming arbitrary,
Leibniz formulated a number of methodical rules. He assumed that
two of his philosophical laws, the “principle of sufficient reason”
and the “principle of continuity,” also applied to linguistics.54 Hav-
ing pointed out that the names of rivers and forests are of the great-
est antiquity and that languages “are the most ancient monuments
of peoples,” Leibniz formulated the methodology in his Nouveaux
Essais as follows:
Being the most ancient monuments of peoples, before writing and
the arts, languages in general best indicate the origin, cognations
and migrations of peoples. That is why etymologies when well under-
stood would be interesting and full of consequences. But we must
be sure to bring together the languages of a number of peoples and
not make too many leaps from one nation to another far away; here
it is especially important to have the assurance of peoples that are
located in between. In general, one should not place too much trust
on etymologies until there is sufficient converging evidence; other-
wise it would be Goropiser. (Leibniz 1962[1765]:285)55
The principle of sufficient reason stipulated that the amount of evi-

dence should be large and that a thorough analysis especially of
root words in a great number of languages (the maximum possi-
ble) should be made. The principle of continuity demanded that the
steps from one people to another should not be too large and that
evidence should be obtained of the intermediate peoples. This sec-
ond principle was formulated to correct the customary practice of

posing genealogical relations between, for instance, the Franks and
the Trojans, two peoples that stood far apart, in time and space.
Enough converging evidence (indices concourans) should be consid-
ered before the etymologies could acquire credibility. Thus language
was the oldest historical document, but it needed to be checked by
other sources (as summarized by Borst 1960–61:1477).
In this way Leibniz advanced the conceptualization of language
studies at the beginning of the eighteenth century. By stipulating
rules, he caused a shift in comparative language studies that proved
influential in the German-speaking world. Leibniz’s “ethnolinguis-
tic” perspective signaled a changed attitude toward biblical dogmas
and patriotic genealogies. 56 Instead of perpetuating myths about
the development of languages, language studies needed to be veri-
fied by empirical work. Such a perspective was inconceivable in the
work of the Port Royal grammarians discussed by Noam Chom-
sky (1966) and Michel Foucault (1969), who, following Descartes,
focused on a universal grammar and mechanistic rules for language
acquisition. Leibniz’s interest in ethnolinguistics rested on the belief
“that the historico-comparative study of language is the only reli-
able method of determining ethnic origins and affinities” (Water-
man 1963:28) and “that a careful study of languages was the surest
way of reconstructing the prehistorical record of the human race”
(Waterman 1978:17). “For reconstructing prehistory he considered
the comparative and historical study of language to be the most reli-
able and effective tool” (Waterman 1978:63, repeated on p. 59, 17, 78
n. 2; Aarsleff 1969).
Hence, the study of languages became “an auxiliary discipline to
history” (Aarsleff 1975:126, 1982:85). Leibniz was “decidedly pragmatic”
in his approach: “knowledge, to his way of thinking, had to serve
some useful purpose” (Waterman 1978:17). For this reason Leibniz
approached the tsar to “collect Dictionariis or at least small Vocab-
ulariis under the peoples of Scythia and neighboring countries that
are subject to your rule.” It would promote “the study of the origin
of nations . . . by comparing their languages” and have the addi-
tional advantage that Christianity could be spread among them.57
Leibniz’s perspective allowed for a much greater time span than
indicated in the Bible. Aarsleff writes that Leibniz

took a much wider view of language than did his contemporaries.
In space he ranged from Chinese and the languages of Asia in the
East to Icelandic and Basque in the West, and he even sought infor-
mation on the languages of sub-Sahara Africa, including that of the
Hottentots. And as regards time, there is no indication that he ever
accepted the traditional Old-Testament chronology, which was widely
believed in his day and indeed also later. To Leibniz the changes
from the original tongue had occurred over a much greater expanse
of time. (Aarsleff 1982:89)
To prevent etymology from being “conjectural” (speculative) and

parochial, Leibniz developed rules for comparing languages, pointing
out “the necessity not only of finding as many witnesses as possible,
but of trying to establish a spatial continuity” (Waterman 1963:29).
In one of his earliest letters to Ludolf, Leibniz predicted that schol-
ars in due course would “advance the matter further and collect the
dialects also of living nations.”58 He demanded that the vocabular-
ies be arranged according to roots, promoted the translation of the
Lord’s Prayer in as many languages as possible, and emphasized that
language comparison should not be solely based on vocabularies but
also on grammars.59 Leibniz presented a first model of such a vocab-
ulary in 1695, when he, in a letter to a correspondent in Vienna, gave
a list of the words for several numbers, kinship terms, body parts,
“necessities,” natural phenomena, and “actions” that should be ren-
dered in the “vocabularies of peoples” (vocabula gentis).60
His correspondence with people in Russia even included instruc-
tions on how this material should be collected in practice. For instance,
as he wrote in his 1712 memoir, not only should the Lord’s Prayer
and the Apostles’ Creed be translated “in every language spoken in
the Empire of the tsar and in neighboring countries,” but this should
be done in a “versione interlineari so that each word would corre-
spond to the other as fully as possible.” Moreover, one would need a
vocabulary in which Russian nouns and verbs, as well as their pro-
nunciation and their deviation in other languages, were provided.
In addition, the names of the region’s population groups and of the
main rivers needed to be clearly demarcated to establish the lan-
guage sample’s geographical location. Finally, it would be impor-
tant to use not only “interpreters, but also travelers and merchants,

preferably natives of the people in question (aus der Nation bürtig),
or at least those well acquainted with them.”61
These and other instructions were a major improvement on the
manner in which language samples had been acquired since Human-
ism. A first collection of translations of the Lord’s Prayer was pub-
lished by the German humanist Johannes Schiltberger in 1427
(Trabant 2003). In 1555 Conrad Gesner included translations of the
Lord’s Prayer in 130 languages in his Mithridates. The idea was con-
tinued by Hieronymus Megiser (1603) and Witsen (1692). Leibniz
and many others, including Johann Friedrich Fritz and Benjamin
Schultze (1748, 1769), who added seventy languages, followed this
tradition. When, in the late eighteenth century, Peter Simon Pal-
las published a “Comparative Dictionary of All Languages” (1786–
89), he discussed 200 languages, of which 149 were spoken in Asia
and 51 in Europe.62 The practice reached its apex with Johann Chris-
toph Adelung and Johann Severin Vater’s Mithridates, oder allgeme-
ine Sprachenkunde, mit dem Vater Unser als Sprachprobe in bey nahe 500
Sprachen und Mundarten (1806–17), listing almost five hundred lan-
guages and dialects. Friedrich von Adelung and Wilhelm von Hum-
boldt enlarged the collection with another 203 languages (Richter
1946:76). For his comparative work Adelung profited from two ear-
lier works by the Spanish Jesuit working in Italy, Lorenzo Hervás
y Panduro: Vocabolario poligloto (1787b) and Saggio pratico delle lingue
(1787b), the latter providing 307 Pater Nosters.63
In an important manuscript from 1711–12, Leibniz called the
combination of historical and linguistic studies he pursued histo-
ria etymologica, which can be interpreted as “historical linguistics”
(Leibniz-Bibliothek, Leibniz 1711–12).64 Fundamental to his approach
was the study of languages as a prerequisite for classifying peoples.
This idea had significant consequences for the description of peo-
ples that from 1740 on was called Völker-Beschreibung or ethnog-
raphy (see chapter 4). The underlying assumption was that there
was a direct relationship between languages and the ethnē (peoples)
speaking them. By equating linguistic and ethnic pedigree, and by
assuming a correlation between language and peoples (Waterman
1963:28–29), Leibniz arrived at a grand scheme for humankind’s
prehistory. This assumption was still shared a full century later,
when the linguist Theodor Benfey described Leibniz’s 1710 classifi-

cation of languages as “a classification of peoples according to their
languages and therefore, at the same time, a classification of lan-
guages.”65 Discussing the history of ethnography, the geographers
Oscar Peschel and Sophus Ruge presented Leibniz as the first scholar
who attempted “to arrange peoples on the basis of their languages”
(Peschel 1877:798).66 This approach differed radically from the usual
way of arranging peoples according to their customs (Sitten) or to
the levels or stages of their civilization.
Apart from his language classification, Leibniz’s most impor-
tant contributions were the methods he designed for comparing
languages. By setting the rules for a reliable study of “hidden antiq-
uity” and by encouraging international research on language com-
parison, he exerted a strong influence on both central and eastern
European scholars.
In the reception of Leibniz’s linguistic studies, we may discern
three stages. During his life he diffused his ideas primarily through
correspondence and a few publications. We have already encoun-
tered the most famous examples of this in his correspondence with
Ludolf (1687–1702) and the Russian tsar and his advisers (1703–16).
After Leibniz’s death a new phase began, when his secretary, Eck-
hart, published a number of essays written by Leibniz and others
in the Collectanea etymologica (1717), a collection on which Leibniz
had been working for a long time. In this stage Leibniz influenced
scholars working in Russia, including the German explorer Dan-
iel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, the Swedish military officer Philipp
Johann Tabbert von Strahlenberg (1730), the Russian historian Vasi-
lii Nikitich Tatishchev, and the German historians Gottlieb Sieg-
fried Bayer and Gerhard Friedrich Müller (see chapters 3 and 4). All
these scholars collected vocabularies of Siberian peoples in order to
contribute to Leibniz’s historical etymology project. The third stage
in the spread of Leibniz’s ideas began with the publication of the
Leibniz-Ludolf correspondence (A. Michaelis 1755), his Nouveaux
Essais (Raspe 1765), and Opera omnia (Leibniz 1768). These works
influenced German scholars working in Göttingen, including the
philosopher and mathematician Abraham Gotthelf Kästner (1765,
1769), the Orientalist Johann David Michaelis (1769–80), the natu-
ralist Christian Wilhelm Büttner (1771– 79), historian Johann Chris-
toph Gatterer (1770, 1771), and historian August Ludwig Schlözer

(1771a) (see chapters 5 and 6). Leibniz’s work also inspired the research
of later comparative linguists like Johann Christoph Adelung, Peter
Simon Pallas, and Johann Severin Vater.
There is a curious paradox in Leibniz’s view on the “common good”
and his historical focus on the relation between nations and their
languages. His philosophical position of 1712 (“I take the heavens
to be the fatherland and all people of good will to be its citizens”)
is in marked contrast to the determined way in which he pleaded
for language samples with which to tackle the problem of the “ori-
gins of nations.” It was Leibniz the historian (fig. 3) who inspired
generations of scholars to conduct ethnolinguistic research to help
solve that problem.
Given the importance of Leibniz’s historical linguistics and the
influence he exerted in an international context, it is surprising that
an article on Leibniz was not included in a recent handbook on
eighteenth-century linguistics in the German-speaking world (Brekle
et al. 1992–2005). Moreover, the fact that his writings on history and
linguistics have not yet been made accessible by the Leibniz Edition
is a remarkable omission that seriously hampers research. As a result,
Leibniz’s influence is not generally acknowledged precisely in that
field, bordering on world history and historical linguistics, that a few
decades after his demise developed into ethnography and ethnology.
Leibniz’s Achievements
After meeting Peter the Great for the final time, at Bad Pyrmont
in 1716, Leibniz felt he had achieved something (Guerrier 1873, vol.
1:188). However, when he passed away that same year, at the age of
seventy, Leibniz’s reputation was in decline and most of his work
remained in manuscript. During his lifetime he had published three
books, De arte combinatoria (1666, 1690), in which he developed sym-
bolic logic; Novissima Sinica (1697); and Théodicée (1710), as well as
numerous smaller studies, mostly in the form of essays.67 His vast
correspondence had not been edited, and he had been unable to fin-
ish the history of the House of Brunswick he had been commis-
sioned to write (Leibniz 1843–46).68 For this reason he had been left
behind when the elector of Hanover ascended the throne in London
as King George I in 1714. Leibniz’s reputation had suffered from the
plagiarism accusations and his disputes with Newton and Clarke.

Fig. 3. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz by Christoph Bernhard Francke, ca. 1700.
Courtesy of the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick, Germany.
Although a life member of the Royal Society of London and a found-

ing member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, neither organiza-
tion honored his death. At least the French Academy of Sciences
paid tribute to its foreign member with Bernard le Bovier de Fon-
tenelle’s eulogy (1716). A year later, Wolff published a eulogy in the
Acta Eruditorum, the journal Leibniz had helped found. But Leib-
niz was in disfavor among the Hanoverians, who considered him
an atheist, and for fifty years his grave in Hanover went unmarked.

Nevertheless, Leibniz’s teachings were carried forward to the
next generation. His most important “pupil,” Christian Wolff, cor-
responded with the Russian Academy of Sciences and continued
developing Leibniz’s philosophy, making it less utopian and more
practical. Half a century after his death, Leibniz’s star began to
rise again thanks to the publication of his correspondence (1755),
his Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement humain (1765), and his col-
lected works (1768). Leibniz became a cultural hero, the subject of
an academic cult. In Göttingen, the intellectual center of the Late
Enlightenment in northern Germany, a veritable Leibniz revival can
be observed in the work of Büttner, Michaelis, Kästner, Gatterer,
and Schlözer of the 1760s.
His fame continued to grow, and in 1923 the first volume of a com-
plete edition of Leibniz’s writings and correspondence, covering eight
series, was published under the title Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. This
is a huge undertaking considering that Leibniz exchanged some fif-
teen thousand letters with scholars and politicians around the world,
written to eleven hundred correspondents from sixteen different
countries.69 The Leibniz-Archiv in Hanover, the Berlin-Brandenburg
Academy of Sciences in Potsdam and Berlin, and the Göttingen
Academy of Sciences cooperate in this project. In his honor the Uni-
versity of Hanover renamed itself the “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Universität Hannover” in 2006. Today, the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft
coordinates eighty-six scientific institutions in Germany.
A full evaluation of Leibniz’s impact on scholarly developments in
Germany and Russia has to await the scrutiny of all available facts.
Until documents in German and Russian archives have been com-
pared, the following can only be a preliminary assessment. As we
have seen, Leibniz’s influence on the establishment of the Academy
of Sciences in Russia was both direct and indirect, even though its
foundation occurred a decade after he had died and Peter the Great
had many advisers, both from Britain and France. Leibniz’s influ-
ence on the reform of the Russian ministries may have been stronger
than realized in Russia. Guerrier concluded that “the circumstances
had allowed him [Leibniz] only an ephemeral influence on the great
reformer of the East,” but Guerrier had not been able to consult all
relevant documents.70 Richter (1946:132–140) argued that the undated
proposal for establishing Collegien may have been drafted by Leib-

niz and should be dated to 1711 (instead of 1716). In that case Leib-
niz may indeed have been an “initiator of the Russian ministerial
administration,” even if the Russians opted for the Swedish system
of administration in 1719.71
Leibniz’s influence on the exploration of the Russian Empire was
presumably strong, even though he was among a choir of advisers,
including scientists like Delisle and Halley. The feasibility of set-
ting up a network of stations to observe magnetism in the Russian
Empire, implemented later by Alexander von Humboldt, originated
with Leibniz. Likewise, Leibniz’s persistent pleas for the explora-
tion of the border areas between Asia and America motivated the
tsar to dispatch expeditions to the east, especially after the French
geographer Delisle had confirmed this query’s importance during
the 1717 academy meeting in Paris.
Leibniz’s effect on Russian explorations was not as profound as it
might have been, probably because Areskine did not trust Leibniz as
a result of the 1711–12 calculus priority dispute and his 1715–16 phil-
osophical dispute with Clarke. Guerrier lists only two letters from
Leibniz to Areskine, dated 1713 and 1716. This is puzzling since Are-
skine was Russia’s main science organizer, planning scientific expe-
ditions into the Russian Empire from 1710 on (see chapter 3). The fact
that Leibniz in his second letter to Areskine referred to his dispute
with Clarke indicates that this had been a subject during the 1716
conversations. The damaging effect of his disagreements with Brit-
ish scholars on Leibniz’s scholarly relations to Russia has not been
adequately discussed in the literature. Further research in Russian,
German, or British archives might confirm this personal dissonance
on Leibniz’s impact on Russian scientific endeavor.
Leibniz’s impact was the most straightforward on the study of
the languages spoken in the Russian Empire. While Guerrier (1873,
vol. 1:196) alleged that Leibniz’s suggestions for collecting language
samples had found “no appeal” with the tsar, Leibniz’s linguistic
theories were highly influential among German-speaking scholars
working for the Russians during the eighteenth century. His consis-
tent pleas directly influenced Messerschmidt, Strahlenberg, Bayer,
Tatishchev, Müller, and Fischer in Russia as well as Michaelis, Büt-
tner, Gatterer, and Schlözer in Göttingen, extending right up to
Pallas, Adelung, and Vater (1810) and ultimately reaching Benja-

min Smith Barton (1797, 1798) in the United States. Leibniz’s influ-
ence was the most enduring in the field of historical linguistics, a
field that has largely been overlooked by modern scholars. It is the
least documented aspect of Leibniz’s oeuvre but the most relevant
for the genesis of ethnography and ethnology.
Leibniz’s historical linguistics served as a major incentive for the
formation of ethnology. By focusing on the study of languages as
vestiges of history, and an alternative to the age-old study of man-
ners and customs, Leibniz profoundly influenced the genesis of an
ethnological perspective in Europe and the United States after his
demise. His fundamental idea that language studies were a prereq-
uisite for classifying peoples in (pre-)history provided generations
of researchers with the scholarly basis for setting up a comparative
study of peoples and nations.
While Leibniz’s impact on Russian science may not have been as
large as German historians have argued, especially not in the case of
the Kunstkamera, his influence on German scholarship was enormous.
Historians of science and intellectual historians have insufficiently
acknowledged this fact. Leibniz’s ethnolinguistic work represented
the first stage of a new, empirical perspective on the world’s peoples.
We shall see in the following chapters how Leibniz’s ethnolinguis-
tic approach was developed into a veritable ethnological program.

three
Enlightenment and Pietism

D. G. Messerschmidt and the Early Exploration of Siberia
We recognize in the universe of medicine that both

theory and especially practice are important.
— Daniel Got tlieb Messerschmidt (1713)
I
n the grand narrative of European expansion beginning in the
early modern era, Europeans, inspired by religious fervor and
mercantile aspirations, discovered the Americas and established
trading posts in Asia and Africa during the Age of Discovery (1450–
1700).1 Christopher Columbus sailed to the West Indies in 1492, Vasco
da Gama reached India during his sea voyages of 1497–99, the Por-
tuguese first sighted the Moluccas in 1512, and Ferdinand Magellan
passed through the strait bearing his name in 1520. In this discourse
trade and power precede science and exploration as motivating fac-
tors. As a result of these voyages, nonetheless, European scholars
developed a new understanding of the world, contributing a great
deal to the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. These narratives are intrinsically ethnocentric. Thus the
Chinese sea voyages of Zheng He, undertaken at the Ming emper-
or’s order to sail to “the countries beyond the horizon, all the way
to the end of the earth” in 1405– 33 (Menzies 2002), have long been
excluded from Western accounts of “discoveries.” In much the same
way, the Russian conquest of Siberia during the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries has rarely been included in the canon of Western
exploration. Yet the arrival of the Russians in Asia was contempora-
neous and in many ways analogous to European colonization in the
Americas.2 Moreover, the Russian conquests resulted in important
discoveries still neglected in the secondary literature.
Map 1. Inner Eurasia and Outer Eurasia. Cartography by Jutta Turner,
after Christian 1998 (vol. 1:xvi). © Max Planck Institute for
Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale.
A pioneer in this respect was the German naturalist Daniel Gott-

lieb Messerschmidt, the first scientific explorer of Siberia, whose
work included observations on Siberia’s peoples and their languages.
Messerschmidt’s papers, although by and large unpublished, were
read by later explorers like Gerhard Friedrich Müller, Georg Wil-
helm Steller, and Peter Simon Pallas. Trained at the University of
Halle, Messerschmidt reflected in his work the influences of both
the Early Enlightenment and Pietist Protestant movements associ-
ated with this city. His research set an example for the empirical and
comprehensive study of Russian Asia and its inhabitants.
The Conquest and Early Exploration of Siberia

Siberia is the area in northern and central Asia that was partly ruled
by Tatars and Mongols before the Russian conquest. From the thir-
teenth century on, Europeans referred to the region as Great Tartary.
Its western part was known as Yugra and the people as Yugrians.3 A
modern term for the region is Inner Eurasia, which includes Sibe-
ria, central Asia, Xinjiang, and Mongolia and contrasts with Outer
Eurasia, the Asian rim (Christian 1994, 1998; Naarden 2010; map 1).
88 Enlightenment and Pietism

Tartary (correctly, Tatary) was little known in western Europe
although eastern Europe suffered from the “Mongol yoke” for cen-
turies. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Mongols con-
trolled vast areas of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Under the rule
of Genghis Khan and Ogedei Khan, Tartary extended as far west
as the Adriatic and Baltic Seas and as far east as the Pacific Ocean.
Europeans had difficulty distinguishing between Tatars and Mon-
gols. Tatars proper are Turkic-speaking peoples living in Russia and
in parts of China, but the “Tartar” label was applied to both Tur-
kic- and Mongol-speaking nomads invading Europe. After Geng-
his Khan’s conquests, the invaders became known as Tartars. The
Mongolian conquest of Rus’ (the East Slavonic–speaking state pop-
ulated by the ancestors of the Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians)
in 1237–38 was followed by their invasion of Hungary and Germany
(1241), better known as the Tatar invasion and led by Batu Khan, the
founder of the Golden Horde. In the fourteenth century the Golden
Horde adopted Islam. Mongol horsemen ruled Russia until 1480,
when the Mongol yoke was removed (Kappeler 1992; Khodarkovsky
2002). The Tatar Empire disintegrated in the fifteenth century with
the emergence of the independent khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan,
Sibir, and Crimea. Russia conquered the first three khanates dur-
ing the sixteenth century, the khans of Crimea becoming Ottoman
Empire vassals in 1478. Despite the Russian conquest Siberia long
continued to be known as Tartary and the Crimean domains as
Little Tartary. Eventually Russian expansionists replaced the term
“Tartary” with “Siberia” (Sibir).
The Russians conquered Siberia from the Tatar khans. This con-
quest was initiated by the Cossack ataman (captain) Yermak Timofee-
vich but found its roots in the rule of the Muscovite Grand Duke
Ivan III Vasil’evich (Ivan the Great, 1440–1505). Ivan III, one of the
most successful Russian rulers, ended the regular tribute payments
to the Tatars (Semyonov 1963:14). Securing his newfound status as
a great ruler, Ivan III married the last Byzantine emperor’s niece
in 1472. Seeing Moscow as the Third Rome (Byzantium being the
second), he built the Moscow Kremlin and laid the foundations
for Russian autocracy. Ivan III initiated a policy to unite the east-
ern Slavonic lands under Muscovy’s rule, but his expansionist aims
were barred to the south by the Turks and Crimean Tatars; to the
Enlightenment and Pietism 89

east by Siberian, Kazan, and Astrakhan Tatars; and to the west by
the Poles and Lithuanians. He annexed the rich trading center of
Novgorod and its huge hinterland in 1478. Novgorod had access to
the Baltic and the White Sea and provided the opening to Siberia
across the Ural Mountains. This annexation triggered the incorpo-
ration of parts of western Siberia into the Muscovite state between
1499 and 1502.
The conquest of Siberia was resumed under Ivan IV, better known
as Ivan the Terrible (1530–84), who was Russia’s first ruler to for-
mally assume the tsar title. His long reign witnessed the conquest
of the lands along the southern reaches of the Volga as well as parts
of Siberia, transforming Russia into a multinational and multi-
confessional state. In 1552 he defeated the Tatar khanate of Kazan,
whose armies had repeatedly devastated the northeast of Russia and
annexed its territory. Ivan IV’s conquest of this Islamic khanate is
often regarded as the founding event of the Russian Empire. Four
years later, he annexed the Astrakhan khanate, thereby, inter alia,
destroying the largest slave market on the Volga River. These acts
opened “vast regions of virgin black earth previously inhabited by
nomads” to Russian colonization (Massie 1981:781). In 1558 Ivan IV
granted financial, judicial, and trade privileges of the Perm Dis-
trict’s “uninhabited lands” to the Stroganovs, a merchant family of
fur traders who exploited salt mines and later ironworks and copper-
smelting factories in the Urals. The tsar launched a war in the west
(1558–83), fighting the Livonian Order of Teutonic Knights, Swe-
den, as well as Poland–Lithuania, and supported Yermak’s conquest
of the Siberian khanate.
Tradition has it that the Stroganov family wanted to protect the
territories of their hunters from Tatar attacks and were instrumen-
tal in dispatching Yermak Timofeevich on an expedition across the
Urals to defeat the Tatars. Yermak and his band crossed the Urals
in 1581 and, with the superior force of firearms, conquered Isker, the
capital of the khanate of Kuchum, in 1582.4 Advancing in riverboats,
the Cossacks reached the Irtysh River, where Yermak was killed in a
Tatar encounter in 1584 or 1585. His troops were forced to retreat, but
Russian troops retook the territory in 1586 and founded Tyumen, the
first Russian city in Siberia. Sibir, the residence of Khan Kuchum,
was abandoned after the foundation of Tobolsk (Müller and Pallas

1842:11–12). Yermak’s expedition initiated the Russian takeover of
northern Asia. Resistance was intermittent, especially in the south-
ern Urals, where the Russian conquest had begun (Forsyth 1992:117).
The Cossacks (kazaks), descendants of runaway serfs from Mus-
covy, the Tatar khanates, and Poland–Lithuania who initially set-
tled in the Dnepr, Don, and Volga regions to the north of the Black
Sea, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Sea, became the Orthodox
equivalent of conquistadores in Siberia. Yermak has been character-
ized as the “Russian Pizarro” (Karamzin 1827; Dahlmann 2009). In
their wake colonists from Muscovy, authorized or not, moved into
the new territories. Siberia was attractive to runaway serfs because
it had no serfdom. However, it soon became the area for banishing
convicts. Russian administrators primarily relied on Cossacks in
ruling this vast and sparsely populated but ethnically and linguis-
tically diverse territory. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
the Russians moved across the Asian continent from the Urals to its
eastern shores, reaching the Pacific Ocean in 1639 (L. Berg 1954:88).
The pattern of “pacification” (the subjugation of the local inhabit-
ants) followed the establishment of Russian towns in Siberia: Tyu-
men (1586), Tobolsk (1587), Berezov (1593), Surgut (1594), Mangazeya
(1601), Tomsk (1604), Yeniseisk (1619), Krasnoyarsk (1627), Bratsk (1631),
Yakutsk (1632), Okhotsk (1647), Anadyrsk (1649), Irkutsk (1652), and
Nerchinsk (1659).5 The famous Lake Baikal was first encountered by
Ivan Kurbatov in 1643. Within sixty-five years of Yermak’s expedi-
tion, the vast lands of Siberia had—at least formally—been incor-
porated into the Muscovy state (P. Hoffmann 1988:64).
The Russian conquest of Siberia was a territorial expansion pro-
gram that has rarely been equaled. Siberia was littered with forti-
fied settlements (ostrogi) and factories built by colonists. The local
population was required to pay tribute (yasak), mostly in the form of
furs, to the government (Wolf 1982). The early stage of this process
culminated in 1697–99, when the Cossack leader Vladimir Atlasov
occupied the Kamchatka Peninsula in the northeast after a bloody
war with the indigenous Itelmens and Koryaks (Howgego 2003–
13, vol. 1:63–64).6
Russian administrative and economic policies of the tsarist period
can be divided into three stages (Schorkowitz 1995:331– 32). In the
first, pre-Petrinian stage, the Siberian territories were heavily taxed,

mainly in kind; private trade was insignificant, and Siberia was seen
as “a colony, its peoples as willing providers of taxes and furs.” 7 In
the second stage, beginning with the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689),
which brought the eastward expansion of Muscovy to a halt by a
border determination with China, trade between Russia and China
became important, although the tax system of fur tribute (yasak) was
not abandoned.8 Under Peter the Great (see chapter 2), the devel-
opment of trade went hand in hand with the exploration of Rus-
sian Asia. During this period, in which the scientific exploration
of Siberia was closely linked with finding natural resources, Siberia
was incorporated into the Russian state. According to Bakhrushin
(1999:21), the first aim was “to investigate the economic power of
the colonies” in order to exploit “their rich resources to the benefit
of the ruling classes.” This policy was continued under Catherine
the Great and lasted until the end of the eighteenth century. In the
third stage, during the early nineteenth century, Siberia was assim-
ilated into Russian culture. The reports about Siberia’s exploration
reflect these stages of conquest.
Russian Reports
From 1558 on, Russians were interested in amassing riches in Sibe-
ria and making a cartographic inventory of their empire (Lantzeff
and Pierce 1973; Kivelson 2006).9 Their conquests resulted in geo-
graphical discoveries. Doris Posselt (1969:66– 67) presents a list of
seventeenth-century Russian explorers with primarily geographical
aims, including Ivan Moskvitin, who explored the coast of the Sea
of Okhotsk (1639); Vasilii Poyarkov, who reached the Amur River
basin (1643–46); Semen Dezhnev, who explored the Bering Strait
eighty years before Bering; Yerofei Khabarov, who traveled through
the area north of the Amur (1649–53); and Luka Morosko and Vlad-
imir Atlasov, who staked the Russian claim in Kamchatka (1697–99).
Russian administrators compiled lists of peoples to be taxed. The
first Moscow department dealing with Siberia, the Sibirskii Prikaz,
was established in 1637. This office collected data on peoples to be sub-
jected to yasak and on natural resources to be exploited. Schorkow-
itz mentions that “people in the service of the state, hunters for fur,
and Cossacks” sent reports to their supervisors, even if their pri-
mary tasks were “to occupy the territory for the tsar, establish win-

ter camps, forts, and settlements, and force the subdued people into
paying taxes, if necessary by using firearms or by taking hostages
(amanaty).”10 Although these reports contained valuable accounts of
native people, they were brief and unsystematic. The primary concern
was the exploitation of people and natural resources. In the eigh-
teenth century Müller found many such documents in the archives
of Siberian towns. In his view they were neither complete nor reli-
able and needed to be checked and expanded (Hintzsche 2010).
Russian historians claim that Siberian ethnography began with
Semen Ul’ianovich Remezov (1642–ca.1720). His work provided the
starting point for the systematic exploration of Siberia (Bakhrushin
1999:7). The son of a boyar (nobleman) from Tobolsk, Remezov was
assigned by Andrei Vinius, director of the Sibirskii Prikaz, to col-
lect all available information on Siberia. His commission was to
“draw . . . sketches of the Siberian lands” in 1699. He compiled his
“Siberian Sketchbook” (Chertezhnaya kniga Sibiri) in 1700–1701.11
Also known as the “Book of Siberian Maps,” it has twenty-four
maps with sketches of towns, lists of distances between rivers and
towns, and brief descriptions of Siberian peoples, indicating whether
they were nomadic or sedentary. European scholars were introduced
to the book after Strahlenberg consulted it during his residence in
Tobolsk and published excerpts in Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von
Europa und Asia (Tokarev 1966:64). Although only part of Remezov’s
information is preserved today, his work was known to later Siberia
explorers like Messerschmidt, Gmelin, and Müller (P. Hoffmann
2005:70, 82). Sergei Tokarev (1966:63) called Remezov Siberia’s first
ethnographer, but this is an overstatement. Remezov was the first
Russian cartographer and geographer.12
Of even greater importance was the work of Vasilii Nikitich Tatish-
chev (1686–1750), the most eminent Russian historian of the first half
of the eighteenth century. In addition to being a historian, Tatish-
chev was a statesman and an economist. He wrote about Russia’s
history and geography, especially about early Russian chronicles,
and encouraged statistical and linguistic research. He served as an
economic reformer of the Urals (1720–23, 1734– 37) and, after head-
ing the Orenburg Committee (1737–40), as the governor of Oren-
burg District in 1741–45 (Pekarskii 1870– 73; Grau 1962, 1963). During
his travels in the Urals, western Siberia, and southeastern European

Russia, Tatishchev had ample opportunity for studying their native
populations (Winter 1953:321). Having visited Berlin in 1713–14, he
was personally acquainted with German scholars. He inspired the
advancement of geography and cartography, including the publica-
tion of a Russian atlas. In 1725 he wrote the first summary of reports
on Siberian mammoth findings. He issued instructions for research
in Siberia and, in 1734, submitted a proposal to the Academy of Sci-
ences for a historical and geographic survey of the Russian Empire.
That same year, he sent Siberian administrators ninety-two ques-
tions relating to the history, economy, geography, and ethnography
in their territories.13 These questions were extended to 198 in 1737.14
Tatishchev sent Müller some of the answers to his questionnaire
during the Second Kamchatka Expedition.
Tatishchev arranged peoples according to their religion, distin-
guishing orthodox Russians from nonbelievers and converts that he
called inovertsy (people of a different faith), but he also collected lin-
guistic material.15 He studied Messerschmidt’s unpublished results
through the work of Strahlenberg and Bayer. Strahlenberg, who qual-
ified Leibniz as “the great Philosopher,” knew Tatishchev’s work.16
Tatishchev met Strahlenberg in Stockholm in 1724–26 and discussed
Strahlenberg’s own as well as Messerschmidt’s research in Siberia.
Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694–1738) was a German historian and
Orientalist connected with the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St.
Petersburg. Born in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Bayer studied his-
tory there, as well as Hebrew, Arabic, and Coptic and theology of
the Eastern churches. In 1713 he became “overwhelmed by a desire
to learn Chinese” and, after his 1716 promotion, traveled to Berlin to
work with the French polyhistor La Croze, who recommended him
to Leibniz, who was looking for an assistant in Chinese studies. But
Leibniz died that winter, and Bayer continued his studies in Frank-
furt an der Oder, Halle, and Leipzig, where he acquired a second
degree (Magister) in 1718. Returning to Königsberg as a librarian,
he was already a respected scholar when he was hired as a professor
at the Academy of Sciences in 1726. One of the most learned men
in the Russian Empire, specializing in Asian languages and history,
including early Russian history, Bayer published an early textbook
of Chinese, Museum Sinicum, in 1730.17
Inspired by Messerschmidt and Bayer, Tatishchev collected Sibe-

rian language samples (Winter 1953:321). In 1735 Bayer requested
Tatishchev to send information about the “names of rivers, moun-
tains, etc.” (Grau 1963:212). This is a clear reference to Leibniz’s thesis
that ancient names were best preserved in the names of immovable
objects of nature. Tatishchev continued to request linguistic mate-
rial from the administrators in Siberia as late as 1736–38. His main
achievement was the compilation of a “Russian history dating back
to the most ancient times,” based on medieval chronicles. Classify-
ing the peoples of the Russian Empire according to their languages,
he distinguished between Scythian, Sarmatian, and Slavic peoples.
August Ludwig Schlözer, who worked in Russia in 1761–67, hailed
Tatishchev as “the Father of Russian history.”18 Schlözer suggested
that Tatishchev’s history, which existed only in manuscript, be pub-
lished. Scholars like Müller, Johann Kaspar Taubert, and Mikhail
Vasil’evich Lomonosov were happy to use it. Müller edited the work
in four volumes, which appeared in 1768–84 (Winter 1961b:11, 32).
Apart from the aim to elucidate the origins of nations, Tatish-
chev combined history, geography, and linguistics in a pragmatic
view that “science brought real benefits to the state and its inhab-
itants”; his “inquiries into the character, beliefs and languages of
indigenous peoples were motivated primarily by the practical con-
cerns of empire” (Knight 1994:27, 31). As noted, this utilitarian view
of the uses of science for absolutist states was well developed by 1727
(see Raeff 1983). Tatishchev’s work fits in the line of Bacon, Weigel,
Leibniz, and Linnaeus.
Meanwhile, numerous reports on peoples, places, and products of
the newly occupied territories in northern and central Asia served the
Russian administration. For example, Atlasov, who conquered and
explored Kamchatka, reported on the physical condition, economy,
material culture, warfare, marriage rules, customs, and religion of the
indigenous population, including Chukchi and Koryaks.19 By the end
of the seventeenth century, “at least a minimum amount of knowledge
was available on almost all Siberian peoples” (Bucher 2002:61–62).
The case of Remezov illustrates the Russians’ spadework in map-
ping the ethnic makeup of Siberia. Tatishchev systematized the
materials from Siberia collected over the decades. The first geo-
graphical study of Inner Eurasia, as defined in map 1, was published
by a Dutchman.

A Dutch Synthesis
When Nicolaas Witsen (1641–1717) compiled his Noord en Oost Tar-
tarye (1692, 2nd ed. 1705), the Russian conquest of Siberia was formally
almost complete. Witsen wanted to present a scholarly depiction of
an area that had been more or less closed to Western observers. Pre-
viously, diplomatic and trade mission reports had been written by
Sigmund von Herberstein, Adam Olearius, Eberhard Isbrand Ides,
Adam Brand, Lorenz Lange, and Georg Johann Unverzagt and travel
accounts by Isaac Massa, Samuel Purchas, and Jean Chardin (see F.
Adelung 1846). While these were partial eyewitness reports, Witsen
had visited only the European parts of Russia. But his work stands
out because he succeeded in collecting all available facts about Asia’s
virtually uncharted northern and eastern parts. He not only dealt
with Siberia, Mongolia, and Tartary but also depicted Manchuria,
some of the Japanese islands, Korea, Persia, the Crimea, the Cauca-
sus, the Volga region, and the Ural Mountains (Naarden 2010:213).
His work presented an encyclopedic account of Asian peoples and
places based on reports by others.20
A Dutch politician, geographer, and collector who served his native
city, Amsterdam, in several functions, Witsen was one of Amster-
dam’s four burgomasters intermittently between 1682 and 1707 and a
board member of the Dutch East India Company (voc), founded in
1602. After having traveled to England with his father when he was
fifteen, Witsen enrolled at the Athenaeum Illustre in Amsterdam.
While he was studying at Leiden University (1663–64), his attention
was drawn to the Orient by Jacob Golius’s lectures.21 Having com-
pleted a law doctorate in Leiden, Witsen from 1664 to 1665 served
in Jacob Boreel’s embassy to Russia (Witsen 1966–67). In Moscow
he displayed a lively interest in Russian government and culture.
Although he later complained about limitations set on his work in
Muscovy, Witsen was able to collect a wealth of information about
Siberia. After his return to the Dutch Republic, Witsen built up a
large network of correspondents in Russia and beyond. One of his
informants was his cousin Andrei Vinius, the son of a Dutch grain
merchant who had set up ironworks and an arms manufactory in
Tula. Vinius rose to high-ranking positions, including head of the
Sibirskii Prikaz in Moscow (1695–1703), and supported Tsar Peter’s
project of modernizing Russia (Boterbloem 2013).

This network enabled Witsen to gather material for his book and
compile a map of Siberia (1687), then considered the most detailed
map of Inner Asia. In an explanatory note to this map, Witsen stated
that the best trade route to Persia was along the Caspian Sea, and
he suggested the establishment of a trade route to China through
Siberia. He also mentioned that it was unclear whether a land bridge
existed between Asia and North America. Peter the Great was highly
interested in trade routes to China and India (Winter 1953:314). Sibe-
ria shared a long border with China, and the overland trade route
to China went through Siberia. Witsen corresponded with Leib-
niz, who emphasized the importance of these trading routes in his
memoirs (K. Müller 1955).
During Peter’s first visit to Holland, Witsen served as his host
and adviser. As the author of a book on shipbuilding (1671, reissued
in more elaborate form in 1690), Witsen had been consulted by Peter
before the Grand Embassy. In 1697 Witsen brokered an incognito
three-month apprenticeship for the tsar at the Dutch East India
Company’s shipyard. After the tsar’s departure, Witsen remained
his correspondent, and he dedicated the second edition of his Noord
en Oost Tartarye (1705) to Peter the Great. Witsen also helped other
travelers to Russia and beyond. He edited Eberhard Isbrand Ides’s
account of his mission through Siberia and Mongolia to China,
undertaken between 1692 and 1695, and partly funded Cornelis de
Bruyn’s voyage through northern Russia, Moscow, and Astrakhan to
Persia, India, and Java (1701–10).22 For his own book Witsen selected
a mixed form consisting of geography and topography. In one of
his letters to Leibniz, Witsen summarized his work as a “geogra-
phy of Tartary.”23
In the preface to his book, Witsen indicated as its main topic
Land-en Plaets-beschryvinge (geography and topography). Ides saw
his own work as a contribution to Waereldbeschryvinge, or “cosmog-
raphy” (Ides 1704:Opdragt). Apart from describing the territories
and their natural products, Witsen reported on the inhabitants of
the region and their customs and languages. He introduced the
word “mammoth,” spelled mammout, to Western scientists (Witsen
1692, vol. 2:473; 1705, vol. 2:742– 746) and published the first picture
of a Tungus shaman.24
Witsen had a special interest in the link between Asian and Amer-

ican peoples. On the basis of cultural characteristics the Tatars shared
with Native Americans, he considered it probable “that the northern
Americans descend from the Tartars, . . . either those around Jezo, or
more to the north from Tartary crossed to America, [which] appears
from many remnants of manners and customs of the northern and
eastern Tartars that are still found among the northern Americans
in the present day” (Witsen 1692, 1785:157). He provided examples
from which this conclusion could be drawn, based on statements
from historians Georg Hornius and Johannes de Laet. According
to later linguists like Leibniz and Schlözer, correspondences in cus-
toms do not constitute sufficient evidence to establish an affinity
of “nations.” Nevertheless, Witsen had serious linguistic interests
(Naarden 2004). He published translations of the Lord’s Prayer in
nine Asian languages and also collected vocabularies.25
All in all, it is amazing that Witsen was able to collect such a large
quantity of information without ever having set foot in Siberia. His
book was compiled from over seven hundred sources, including travel
accounts, correspondence, and oral information (Naarden 2010:223–
224). As Witsen (1705, 1785) explained in his preface, he had spoken
to numerous Tatars, Greeks, Persians, and others who had been in
Tatary as traders, convicts, or otherwise, in addition to Chinese who
had seen Tatary behind the Great Chinese Wall and had translated
Tatar or Chinese writings. It remains difficult to establish how much
of Witsen’s work owed to Russian reports. Russian administrators
and explorers probably had inventories of peoples inhabiting Russia’s
newly conquered territories. In a recent Russian translation (Witsen
2010), these sources are disclosed as fully as possible.26
Although rare, Witsen’s work was influential. Siberia specialists like
Messerschmidt, Bering, Tatishchev, and Müller, as well as linguists
like Adelung, used it (Naarden 2010:218). Excerpts from Witsen’s
correspondence with Leibniz were published in Leibniz’s Collecta-
nea etymologica (1717:361– 369). Gerhard Friedrich Müller, preparing
himself for the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43), wrote an
article about “a rare work titled Noord- en Oost-Tartarye by Nico-
laes Witsen” (Müller 1733c) and published a fifty-page index on Wit-
sen’s first and second edition in his periodical, Sammlung Russischer
Geschichte (Müller 1733b). Almost sixty years after his demise, Wit-
sen’s work was still cited with admiration by Schlözer (1771a:292),

who regretted the book’s rarity due to its small print run.27 Müller
cited Witsen often in his ethnographic work (for instance, Müller
2010c) but was critical of the Amsterdam mayor’s methods.28 Wit-
sen’s lack of a systematic approach irritated scholars using his work:
Apart from this general division there is no order to be found in the
book. The most extensive descriptions and reports, in which many
times entirely different subjects are treated, are—in Forma—indented
and it often appears as if the author has arranged the reports according
to the moment they reached him. As a result, one loses a great deal
of time using the book, because information of a town or region has
sometimes to be looked for in ten different places. (Müller 1733a:216)
In contrast, the early German explorers of Siberia made their main

contribution through their methods for conducting empirical research
and for organizing their results. Most of them were educated at the
universities of Halle, Leipzig, or Jena in central Germany, which
played a key role in the dissemination of Early Enlightenment think-
ing (Winter 1966; Bödeker 2008a; Mühlpfordt 2011). Especially the
University of Halle turned into a center for Oriental and Slavic stud-
ies with far-flung connections to Asia, North America, and the Rus-
sian Empire.
Halle and the Early Enlightenment
Together with the universities of Leipzig (founded 1409), Witten-
berg (1502), and Jena (1558), the University of Halle (1694) was part
of a scholarly rectangle that played a crucial role in the Aufklärung.
This secularizing movement in science and philosophy was known
as “the Enlightenment” in the English-speaking world. It developed
into a virtual, cosmopolitan “Republic of Letters,” with regional bases
in local centers of learning. Halle was part of the bishopric prin-
cipality of Magdeburg, now part of Saxony-Anhalt, that, together
with Saxony and Thuringia, constitutes “central Germany.”29 Halle
and Wittenberg have been Protestant strongholds ever since Mar-
tin Luther started the Reformation at Wittenberg in 1517.
The establishment of the Fridericiana Halensis, named after Fred-
erick III of Prussia (the elector of Brandenburg who became Frederick
I, King in Prussia, in 1701), represented a vital step in the dissemi-
nation of Early Enlightenment thought.30 The University of Halle

remained the most modern German university until the founda-
tion of the University of Göttingen in 1737 (Speler 2005:221). When
Napoleon closed it in 1806, the University of Halle had the high-
est number of students in central Germany, equaling Göttingen’s
count. These two universities held a leading position until the Uni-
versity of Berlin was founded in 1810. After the French departure,
the reestablished University of Halle was combined with that of
Wittenberg in 1817 and later renamed the Martin-Luther-Universität
Halle-Wittenberg.31 While a center of the German Enlightenment,
Halle was also a center of Protestantism. This combination of Pietism
and Enlightenment was a unique Halle characteristic (Hinske 1989).
When the Enlightenment began is a matter of debate. In 1684,
one year after Ottoman troops laid siege to Vienna for the final
time, Pierre Bayle published the first of his Nouvelles de la Répub-
lique des Lettres in Amsterdam. In what was one of the first mod-
ern scholarly journals, Bayle referred to the Dutch Republic as a
“Suburb of Enlightenment,” indicating the onset of what Marga-
ret C. Jacob (1981) and Jonathan Israel (2001) termed the “Radical
Enlightenment.” This philosophical movement to reform science,
education, and society was seminal in “the making of modernity”
during the era 1650–1750 (Israel 2001; Mulsow 2002). It preceded
the moderate Enlightenment, usually assumed to have commenced
with the eighteenth-century Scottish philosophers Hume, Smith,
Ferguson, Lord Kames, Lord Monboddo, and Robertson or the
French philosophes Montesquieu, Buffon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvé-
tius, Diderot, and Condorcet (Hazard 1935, 1946; Gay 1966–69). The
Radical Enlightenment started with Spinoza (1632– 77) and other
“free thinkers” in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic who
broke away from Judeo-Christian beliefs and were considered to
endorse atheism (Israel 2001). The movement reached John Locke
in England—who had to finish his work in Rotterdam— as well as
moderate and radical philosophers in Germany (Israel 2006) and
the United States (Israel 2011).
The German Enlightenment took off after the Thirty Years’
War (1618–48). Its “patriarch” was Erhard Weigel (1625– 99), a pro-
fessor of mathematics at the University of Jena (Thuringia) from
1653 on.32 His teachings were part of the Primary Enlightenment
(Primäraufklärung), a movement preceding the Early Enlightenment

(Frühaufklärung) of Christian Thomasius in Halle and the High
Enlightenment (Hochaufklärung), or Middle Enlightenment (Mitt-
lere Aufklärung), associated with Christian Wolff and his followers
in Marburg and Halle. The Late Enlightenment (Spätaufklärung),
concentrated at the University of Göttingen, followed from 1763
until 1815 (Mühlpfordt 1990, 1994, 1997, 2005, 2011).
Weigel endeavored to introduce mathematics into the universi-
ties and secondary schools.33 He tried to demonstrate the mysterium
trinitatis by using geometrical principles and advocated the intro-
duction of the Gregorian calendar (Schielicke, Herbst, and Kra-
tochwil 1999). Weigel taught many members of the Early German
Enlightenment, including its founding fathers Samuel von Pufen-
dorf, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, and Ehrenfried Walther von
Tschirnhaus, a friend of Leibniz and Spinoza. Pufendorf went to
Jena to attend Weigel’s lectures in 1656; Leibniz in 1663. Leibniz
and Tschirnhaus met again in Paris in 1675. Pufendorf, Leibniz, and
Tschirnhaus served as models for Christian Wolff. The latter’s rival,
Christian Thomasius, and his adversary, August Hermann Francke,
the leader of Pietism in Halle, were also students of Weigel at Jena
(Mühlpfordt 2005:53).
Christian Thomasius (1655–1728), a legal scholar, was one of the
spearheads of the Early German Enlightenment and a founding
professor of Halle University. He laid the groundwork for reforms
in philosophy, law, and German society. Born in Leipzig and edu-
cated by his father, Jacob Thomasius, head of the Thomasschule and
one of Leibniz’s teachers, Christian Thomasius fell under the influ-
ence of Grotius’s and Pufendorf ’s political philosophy. He studied
philosophy in Leipzig, where he received the degree Magister der
Philosophie in 1672. He earned his law doctorate from the Viadrina
University at Frankfurt an der Oder in 1676. Pufendorf ’s work con-
vinced him of the importance of Enlightenment thought. After hav-
ing met and corresponded with Pufendorf, Thomasius taught natural
law in Leipzig from 1684 on. Four years later, he published his first
textbook on natural law.
Following the example of the Royal Society, which conducted
sessions in English, Thomasius was one of the first German profes-
sors to lecture in German instead of Latin. One year later, in 1688,
Thomasius started a monthly (Monatsgespräche), the first popular sci-

entific journal in the German language. Championing a rational-
ist perspective, aimed against unquestioned authority in society and
learning, he combated scholastics in Leipzig. These lectures drew the
attention of students but made him enemies. In 1690, when Thom-
asius was forbidden to lecture, he escaped arrest by fleeing to Ber-
lin. Elector Frederick III of Prussia offered him refuge in Halle and
permission to teach. His lectures laid the basis for the Law Faculty
of the University of Halle, which he helped found in 1694. Living
in Halle the rest of his life, Thomasius became one of the universi-
ty’s most esteemed teachers.34
Christian Wolff (1679–1754) was Halle’s greatest Enlightenment
scholar. His work reflects the full-fledged rationalism of the High,
or Middle, Enlightenment. The son of a tanner, Wolff was born in
Breslau (Wroclaw). After having studied mathematics in Jena, he
continued his studies in Leipzig, defending a thesis on Philosophia
practica universalis in 1703. Leibniz welcomed this work. Wolff and
Leibniz engaged in a correspondence and exchanged ideas in the
Acta Eruditorum, a journal founded by Otto Mencke in 1682 (Laeven
1990). On Leibniz’s recommendation, Wolff was appointed profes-
sor of physics and mathematics at Halle University in 1707, exoner-
ating the professor of medicine Friedrich Hoffmann. In his lectures
on physics and experiments, Wolff expounded on the methods of
empirical research, like the microscope, field observations, and the
recording of experiments and observations. As noted, Wolff was a
major adviser of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1719–53.
Following Thomasius’s example, Wolff used German as the lan-
guage of instruction, reflecting its emergence as the exclusive means
of communication of the middle class that ascended during the eigh-
teenth century (Mühlpfordt 1952a:33). Building his philosophy on
Leibniz’s rationalism, while rejecting the latter’s concept of harmony,
Wolff applied a deductive, mathematical method to demonstrate the
unity of knowledge. He wanted to be “teacher of the entire human
species” and change the scholastic way of rote learning into one of
“learning by intellect.” Adopting the phrase sapere aude (dare to know)
from Horatius, Wolff turned it into a motto: “dare to know— dare to
think for yourself.”35 The idea was so powerful that Kant employed
it in his influential article “Was ist Aufklärung?” (1784a).
The Pietist Protestants, who were becoming a new orthodoxy in

Halle, eventually saw Wolff’s philosophy as a threat. When Wolff
delivered the lecture “On the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese”
(1721), in which he praised Confucius’s moral precepts, the Pietists
seized the occasion and pointed out the political consequences of
Wolff’s “atheism” to Frederick William I. The king was so enraged
that he ordered Wolff to leave Prussia within forty-eight hours or be
hanged (Park 2014). Wolff fled across the border, accepting a chair
at Marburg. There he enjoyed his greatest success and became one
of Europe’s most popular professors. His classrooms were packed
with students and he was responsible for increasing matriculation
figures about 50 percent. The publishers could not keep up with the
demand for Wolff’s publications from students around Europe. To
reach a broader readership, Wolff translated his own works into
Latin. After Frederick William I had died in 1740, his son, Freder-
ick the Great, invited Wolff to return to Halle, where he was wel-
comed back by hundreds of excited students and citizens.
Wolff taught philosophy as a theoretical and practical branch of
science. His philosophy was rationalist, practical, and universal. His
rationalism pushed theology from its leading position and influenced
the German Enlightenment. Leibniz’s and Wolff’s views remained
in vogue as German Schulphilosophie in the Halle–Leipzig–Jena tri-
angle until the rise of Kantianism in the 1780s. Wolff was the most
eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant.36 How-
ever, whereas Leibniz was interested in history, Wolff was not. Unlike
historians, Wolff paid little attention to national diversity, although
he continued and systematized Leibniz’s philosophy and Pufendorf ’s
natural law theories.
More than half a century ago, Eduard Winter, a historian from
Bohemia (Austria) working in Halle and East Berlin, devoted a
study to Halle as “the point of departure for German studies of Rus-
sia during the eighteenth century” (Winter 1953). Many German
explorers and administrators and their Russian counterparts earned
their degrees at the University of Halle. In a follow-up study Win-
ter (1954) outlined how Halle turned into a center for Slavic studies
as the result of the teachers, students, and travelers who were asso-
ciated with the university. Along with the universities of Leipzig,
Jena, and in a later stage, Göttingen, Halle was of great significance
for the German–Russian scholarly exchange. Halle has also been a

center of Oriental studies, and this was especially related to Pietism
and Lutheran Protestantism.
Halle and Pietism

Pietism was a reform movement in the Lutheran Church. It began as
a devotional movement but, under the lead of Philipp Jacob Spener
(1635–1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), became a
movement of social reform. Extending its influence over the world
in a short time span, Pietism affected social aid, education, and
medical practice. One year after the founding of the University of
Halle, Francke created the orphanage and “school village” of Glau-
cha. Established in 1695–98, the Francke Foundations (Franckesche
Stiftungen) became the center of German Pietism and Halle’s gate-
way to the world.37
After having studied theology and Hebrew at Erfurt, Kiel, and
Leipzig, Francke had a religious experience in 1686 that led him
to Pietism. He went to stay with Spener in Dresden and began
lecturing at Leipzig. However, the orthodox faculty soon prohib-
ited him from teaching because his lectures were inciting a “Pietist
movement.” Francke then moved to Erfurt, where he taught and
preached in Spener’s spirit, but he was expelled within a year. After
he had accepted a job as pastor in Glaucha, an impoverished sub-
urb of Halle, in 1692, Francke opened a school for the poor and an
orphanage in 1695. That same year, he was appointed professor of
Greek and Hebrew at the University of Halle, transferring later to
a professorship in theology.
In July 1698 Francke began building the orphanage’s main edifice.
By September that year he had obtained a privilege from the elector
of Brandenburg that allowed him to open a bookshop, a print shop,
a bookbinder, and an apothecary. This enabled him to finance the
educational program he had in mind. In 1696 Francke opened the
Pädagogium to prepare children of well-to-do families for univer-
sity study. Apart from the orphanage and workshops, the Francke
Foundations included a botanical and a pharmaceutical garden, a
clinic, agricultural gardens, and a library—all intended to mobilize
children into gainful employment. The foundations also had a Wun-
derkammer, a cabinet of natural and artificial curiosities, built from
students’ and missionaries’ donations.38 From 1710 on they housed

Fig. 4. The Francke Foundations by Gottfried August Gründler, 1749.
Courtesy of the Franckesche Stiftungen zu Halle, AFSt/B Sb 0004.
the Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt, a bible college that exported bibles in

affordable editions around the world. In this way Francke’s “school
village” developed into a New Jerusalem (see fig. 4). Its Pietist devout-
ness and progressive pedagogy impressed contemporaries.
Francke’s aims were to promote Pietist Protestantism, build a uni-
versal church, and spread “universal awareness of true Christianity”
across the globe. To achieve this, Francke needed to train devout,
well-educated Christians. During the eighteenth century German
Pietist missionaries worked in Russia, Siberia, Poland, Bohemia,
Slovenia, the Baltic region, India, and North America. Francke
and the Halle Pietists set up a communication network of practic-
ing Christians. They exchanged medicine and books for informa-
tion from abroad, used in turn by Francke and his collaborators to
expand their reformatory labors.
From an early stage Francke extended his network into the Rus-
sian Empire. Impressed by Peter the Great’s reforms, Francke sent
pastors, teachers, physicians, and naturalists to Russia and estab-
lished contacts with Russian ministers, generals, and bishops (Win-
ter 1953). Soon Halle stations were set up in St. Petersburg, Moscow,
Arkhangelsk, and Astrakhan. Francke’s associates participated in
founding schools and in preparing the Academy of Sciences in St.
Petersburg. The academy’s first president, Laurentius Blumentrost
Jr., had studied in Halle, Oxford, Leiden, Amsterdam, and Paris.
His father, Laurentius Blumentrost Sr., the personal physician of

three Russian tsars, including Peter the Great, was a good friend
of Francke’s, whom he knew from Gotha and had met again at the
University of Erfurt in Thuringia.
Halle missionaries also played a role in the cultural and scholarly
dialogue between central Germany and South Asia. India was an
important locus of missionary activity. At the invitation of Frederik
IV, king of Denmark and Norway, and with the active support of
Francke, Pietists from Halle settled in southeastern India, where
they founded a mission station in Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) in
1706.39 This post, known as the Dänisch-Hallesche Mission, was
established by the pastors Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719) and
Heinrich Plütschau (Liebau 2006; App 2010). It was not just the first
Protestant mission post in India, but the first missionary enterprise
in Protestant church history. The Danish Halle mission expanded
its influence into coastal cities controlled by the English East India
Company, becoming the English Halle mission stations in Madras
(1728), Cuddalore (1737), and Calcutta (1758).
Not unlike their Jesuit counterparts, the Halle missionaries became
fascinated with culture and religion. They studied the local languages
in order to translate the Bible and other Christian texts. Almost
immediately upon arriving in India, Ziegenbalg delved into lin-
guistic and cultural aspects of local society, including the caste sys-
tem. He wrote several monographs about South Indian culture that
were sent to Halle but remained unpublished during his lifetime.
The first European to document Tamil language and culture had
been Philippus Baldaeus (1672). But Ziegenbalg’s work is regarded
as having provided a solid foundation for Western knowledge about
Tamil society and religion during the early eighteenth century. It
has been aptly characterized as “proto-ethnography” (Dharampal-
Frick 2007, 2010).
The missionaries’ studies were published in the Hallesche Berichte
from 1710 on. This periodical shaped the image of India in Ger-
many and played an important role in transforming the subconti-
nent into a place of exotic desire and ardent longing. Although the
Halle missionaries were sent to India to missionize “pagan” people
in conformity with Francke’s aim of spreading the Pietist gospel,
they became captivated by their surroundings. The ancient culture
that emerged from the indigenous texts that Ziegenbalg, Schultze,

and others translated and published would influence the likes of
Herder, Goethe, Novalis, the Schlegel brothers, Heinrich Heine,
Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Müller, and Hermann Hesse (Gross,
Kumaradoss, and Liebau 2006). It was no coincidence that Jacob
Haafner (1754–1809), an inspired traveler in Asia and popular author
of travelogues, was born and raised in Halle (van der Velde 2008).
Apart from inspiring German romanticism, the work of the Halle
missionaries in India advanced scholarly knowledge. Halle mis-
sionaries contributed to German Indology avant la lettre (Jürgens
2004, 2006). Benjamin Schultze (1689–1760), a German theologian
and linguist, is one of the finest examples of this nascent study.
After having studied at Halle, Schultze served as a missionary at
the Tranquebar station beginning in 1719. Conflicts with his col-
leagues caused him to relocate to Madras in 1726. He was the first
German missionary to work at the English Halle mission station
in Madras, being employed by the London-based Society for Pro-
moting Christian Knowledge in 1728. Before returning to Halle in
1743, Schultze set up a charity school and translated religious texts
into Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. He was also an active linguist who
wrote a Grammatica telugica at Madras in 1728 (published at Halle
in 1984) as well as a Grammatica hindostanica (1745).
By 1725 Schultze noticed the uniformity of numerals in Sanskrit
and Latin, a fact also noted by Bayer in his Museum Sinicum (1730).
In his “Hindustani grammar” Schultze pointed to the similarities
between several European languages and Sanskrit (Benfey 1869:261,
333–341). This point was taken up by the French Jesuit Gaston-Laurent
Coeurdoux in greater detail in 1767 (but published only later), that is,
long before William Jones lectured on the relations between Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and Persian in 1786.40 In cooperation
with Johann Friedrich Fritz, Schultze composed an Orientalisch-
und Occidentalischer Sprachmeister (Oriental and occidental language
manual) with samples from two hundred European, Asian, Afri-
can, and American languages, including a polyglot table. It was pub-
lished at Leipzig in 1748 (and again, by Schultze, under a different
title, in 1769). This was an early example of comparative linguistics
as suggested by Leibniz.
The Francke Foundations were also active in North America. When
the Halle Pietists established the Lutheran Church in the English

colonies of North America, the lines of communication initially ran
through London. The Halle Pietist and royal pastor Anton Wilhelm
Böhme, a friend of Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf, established contact
with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in London.
Owing to political sensibilities, it was only in the next generation
that Francke’s son, Gotthilf August Francke (1696–1769), was able to
contact the American colonies. In 1742 the foundations sent Heinrich
Melchior Mühlenberg (1711–87) as a Lutheran pastor to Pennsylva-
nia and Georgia, where he gained a reputation as “patriarch” of the
North American Lutheran Church (Müller-Bahlke 2011). His sons,
trained at the Halle orphanage, were among the Founding Fathers
of the United States. One of them, Frederick Muhlenberg, was the
first Speaker of the House of Representatives.
In 1702, influenced by conversations with Ludolf and Saltykov,
Francke established the Oriental Theological College (Collegium
Orientale Theologicum) in Halle.41 Following the example of the
Jesuits’ Collegium Orientale in Rome, the Halle college aimed at
preparing Francke’s students for work as missionaries, educators,
or scholars. Entry was selective, for no more than twelve students
were accepted each year. The college taught languages of the Near
East, which included Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopian, Syriac, and
Chaldean (Aramaic), as well as Russian, Church Slavonic, and Pol-
ish (Brentjes 1985–88:104). Johann Heinrich Michaelis and Chris-
tian Benedict Michaelis directed the college. In 1728 it was followed
by the Judaic and Muhammedan Institute (Institutum Judaicum et
Muhammedicum), which translated religious material to convert
Jews and Muslims in eastern Europe and the Middle East. In this
way Halle became a center for biblical, Oriental, and Slavic stud-
ies. In its combination of Early Enlightenment at the university and
Pietist Protestantism at the Francke Foundations, Halle offered a
school and research system that had no equivalent anywhere else in
the German lands.
Swedish and German Studies of Siberia

In the early eighteenth century, Swedish prisoners of war set up a
Pietist school in Tobolsk, where they were interned, and began to
investigate Siberia’s western parts. After the Battle of Poltava (1709),
thousands of Swedish soldiers had been taken prisoner, and many

of these prisoners were sent to Siberia. Concerned about the welfare
of the Swedish prisoners in Siberia, Francke in 1711 sent the pastor
Christoph Eberhard as his representative to Russia, where he resided
until 1716 and again in 1720–26. Curt Friedrich von Wreech (1650–
1724), a Swedish officer of German ancestry, founded the Tobolsk
school in 1712. Following the example of Francke’s institutions in
Halle, the Tobolsk school was part of a compound that also included
an orphanage and a clinic (Jarosch 1966b:218). The Swedish Pietists
pursued the study of Siberia, helped by the fact that they were free to
move around but had to provide for themselves. To spend their time
usefully, and in the hope of earning something with their research
results (Winter 1953:314), they traveled to the territories of the Kalmyks
(Oirats), the Ostyaks (Khanty), and the Tatars.
At least five studies were generated by this center of learning. The
first dealt with the “interior and exterior condition of the Swedish
prisoners in Russia based on their own letters” and reported on “the
establishment of a public school in Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia.”
Compiled by Eberhard, but published under the pseudonym Ale-
thophilus, the book was composed of eight well-illustrated parts
(Eberhard 1718–21).
A second study, probably also compiled by Eberhard, described
“the most recent state of Siberia,” according to correspondence among
Francke, Eberhard, and the Swedish war prisoners. This account dis-
cussed the physical and political condition of this “large and thus
far little known province of Muscovy in Asia”; its mountains, riv-
ers, towns, and animals; and the “manners and customs of Samo-
yeds, Voguls, Kalmyks, Ostyaks, Tungus, Buryats, Mongols, and
other Tatar peoples.” It also contained notes on “remarkable events”
concerning the Swedes held prisoner there, on the Pietist school,
and on the “wonderful beginnings of the conversion of unbeliev-
ers” (Eberhard 1720).
The third was a short book by Johann Bernhard Müller, a Swed-
ish officer who reported on the Ostyaks to the north of Tobolsk.
The author presented details on “life and customs of the Ostyaks”
and “the manner in which they had been converted to Greek Ortho-
dox Christianity” (J. B. Müller 1720; Robel 1992).42 His report was
based on a manuscript by the Ukrainian exile Novitskii, who made
a missionary trip in 1710–12 with the metropolitan of Siberia, Filo-

fei Leshchinskii, and his successor to convert the Ostyaks (Khanty)
and Voguls (Mansi) at the order of Tsar Peter. Novitskii’s report was
completed in 1715 but published only in 1884.43
Von Wreech, the founder and director of the Pietist school in
Tobolsk, produced the fourth study of Siberia. His memoir on “the
condition of the Swedish prisoners in Russia and Siberia” appeared
posthumously in 1725. As he hailed from Estonia, von Wreech rec-
ognized similarities between the Uralic languages spoken in north-
ern, northeastern, and central Europe and those in western Siberia,
a link already noted by Leibniz (1710a). Knowledge of Finno-Ugric
(or Uralic) languages spoken in western and northern Siberia may
have been common among von Wreech and other Estonian Swedes.44
Their observations may have influenced later language scholars like
Müller, Fischer, and Schlözer.
Philipp Johann Tabbert von Strahlenberg (1676–1747), a Swed-
ish officer and cartographer of German ancestry confined to Sibe-
ria for over a decade, wrote the most impressive regional study. A
leading figure in the Swedish circle at Tobolsk, Tabbert, as he was
known at the time, was a fervent supporter of the Pietist school
directed by his friend von Wreech. He traveled extensively in the
Tobolsk region, studied the language and customs of the Ostyaks
(Khanty), and possibly with Messerschmidt, translated a “genealog-
ical history of Khans and Regents of the Tatars” into German. This
history was based on a seventeenth-century manuscript by Abu’l
Ghazi Bahadur Khan (ca.1603–63), a Tatar historian who ruled as
khan of Chiwa from 1643 on. A Dutch or a Swedish colleague pub-
lished the history in French in 1726 (Anonymous 1726).45 After hav-
ing joined Messerschmidt’s expedition for a year (1721– 22), Tabbert
and his countrymen were released in the framework of the Treaty
of Nystad (1721), which concluded the Great Northern War. Upon
his return to Sweden, Tabbert donned the title “von Strahlenberg,”
the name he used as an author.46
Strahlenberg wrote a voluminous treatise on Das Nord- und Ostliche
Theil von Europa und Asia (1730), the title of which is reminiscent of
Witsen’s Noord en Oost Tartarye.47 Its English edition, translated by
Strahlenberg himself, presented An Historico-Geographical Descrip-
tion of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia; but More Par-
ticularly of Russia, Siberia and Great Tartary; Both in Their Ancient and

Modern State (1736). The book included a “Polyglot Table of Dialects
of 32 Tartarian Nations,” twenty woodcuts, two tables, and a map.
As indicated by the English title, Strahlenberg combined history
and geography to describe Russia, Siberia, and Tatary.48 In depict-
ing the Russian Empire, he proposed Siberia as its northern Asian
part, Tatary as its southern Asian part. He compared the map he
had drawn in 1716–18 to Witsen’s 1687 map and criticized Witsen
for not situating place names according to their correct latitude and
longitude and for misspelling geographical names.49
Strahlenberg was the first to suggest the Ural Mountains as the
natural boundary between Europe and Asia, basing his recommen-
dation on the differences “in regno animali, vegetabili et minerali”
(Semyonov 1963:166–167). Tatishchev adopted this boundary in the
1730s, shifting it from the Don River to the Urals (Bassin 1991:768).
Historian Schlözer (1771a:307) followed suit.
Writing in German, Strahlenberg had a strong ethnic perspec-
tive, focusing on peoples or nations. He observed, for instance,
that “the Kalmyk nation consists of four principal tribes.”50 In the
book’s glossary Strahlenberg provided short descriptions of the Sibe-
rian and Tatar peoples. Distinguishing “thirty-two species of Tatar
peoples languages,” he presented samples in a polyglot table called
“harmonia linguarum,” reminiscent of Leibniz’s efforts to base his-
tory on linguistics.51 This table, subdividing these languages into
six classes, probably resulted from the joint efforts of Strahlenberg,
other Swedish scholars, and Messerschmidt. Whatever Strahlen-
berg’s originality in this respect, his work served as an example for
later researchers like Müller and Fischer (see chapter 4) and helped
found Ural-Altaic language studies. Although Messerschmidt’s lin-
guistic material was more extensive, Strahlenberg was proud of
having connected the linguistic table with his map, indicating the
locations of each language. In his preface Strahlenberg empha-
sized Leibniz’s program to investigate the “migration of peoples”
(Migration der Völcker) by studying their languages. His “harmony
of languages” aimed at furthering Leibniz’s project. In his English
translation Strahlenberg declared, “The Transmigration of Nations
is, indeed, a nice and ticklish Point to touch upon; But certain it is,
that many difficulties would be removed, were the advice of Leib-
nitz followed and a competent Knowledge obtained of the Lan-

guages of North-Asia; This great Philosopher being fully convinced,
that by the Help of these, many Things concerning the Transmi-
gration of Nations might be clear’d up” (Strahlenberg 1736; Barton
1798:1).52 This was a full acknowledgment of Leibniz’s thesis that
a thorough study of northern Asian languages would clarify the
“migration of nations.”
Strahlenberg’s ethnological interests were part of the historical-
geographical approach developed by the Halle historian Christoph
Cellarius (Mühlpfordt 2007), continuing the historical geography
tradition initiated by Ptolemy and Strabo in the Roman Empire.
Strahlenberg’s historical-geographical approach was similar to that
of Tatishchev. After Strahlenberg’s return, Tatishchev visited him in
1724–26 when studying Swedish mining systems at the tsar’s order
(Winter 1953:322). Strahlenberg described these meetings in a letter
to Johann Leonhard Frisch, dated March 1725, in which he expressed
high regard for Tatishchev’s scholarly work, especially his geograph-
ical writings. Frisch was a polyhistor and one of the best scholars of
Slavic languages at the time (Grau 1963:23). He had served as rec-
tor of the Berlin school Zum Grauen Kloster since 1698 and was
a member of the Berlin Society of Sciences founded by Leibniz.
Aleksandr Golovkin, the Russian ambassador at Berlin, had taught
him Russian. Frisch trained six Russian students at the Berlin Rit-
terakademie (as he informed Leibniz in letters dated September 2
and October 29, 1712). Peter the Great invited Frisch to work for the
Academy of Sciences when the tsar visited Berlin in the fall of 1712.
Frisch probably knew Tatishchev, who visited Berlin in 1713–14.53
Eduard Winter (1953:318) argued that the arrival of scientifically
educated explorers like Gottlob Schober and Messerschmidt in
Tobolsk helped systematize the research of Tabbert von Strahlen-
berg and other Swedish Pietists. Messerschmidt profited in turn
from their input. Tabbert von Strahlenberg had experience in west-
ern Siberia, maintained good relations with local people, was famil-
iar with their languages, and could help Messerschmidt prepare for
his expedition. In the journal of their combined expedition, Tabbert
noted on New Year’s Day 1722 that he was now entering his fifth year
(annus quintus) of travels in Orientis Hyperborei, or Siberia (Mes-
serschmidt 1962– 77, vol. 1:167; cf. Jahn 1995:213–214).

Early German Explorers
At least four young scholars educated at the universities of Halle
and Jena traversed the Russian Empire during the early decades of
the eighteenth century: Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf traveled to Istan-
bul; Justus Samuel Scharschmidt to Astrakhan; Gottlob Schober to
Kazan and Persia; and Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt to Siberia.
The first two traveled in commission of Francke, who was interested
in new trade routes, extensions of his network, and ways to spread
the Pietist mission. Ludolf was Francke’s Russia consultant (Winter
1953). Contacted by Leibniz in 1697, Ludolf gave a course in spoken
Russian at the Francke Foundations in 1698. Scharschmidt, pastor
in Moscow and “Francke’s first envoy to Russia,” maintained close
ties with the archbishop of Novgorod, Feofan Prokopovich (1681–
1736), one of Peter’s key advisers in his later years. 54
The last two, Gottlob Schober (ca.1670–1739) and Daniel Gott-
lieb Messerschmidt, were medical doctors and naturalists. Schober,
enlisted by the Russian Apothecary Chancellery as a physician in
1712, made a four-year trip to Persia and the Caspian Sea to research
natural history from 1717 to 1720. Having studied medicine at Leipzig
and Utrecht, he earned a doctorate at Utrecht in 1696. After hav-
ing worked as a physician in Lübeck, Reval, Dresden, and Leipzig,
Schober was appointed as supervisor of the apothecary and medi-
cus ordinarius in the Aptekarskii Prikaz (Posselt 1977). Areskine, the
institution’s director, sent Schober “to Kazan and Astrakhan to study
nature” (Driessen-van het Reve 2006:152). Although in the tsar’s
service, Schober also provided Francke with information (Brentjes
1985–88:105). After his return Schober produced a report, titled “Mem-
orabilia Russico-Asiatica,” in which he recorded his observations on
“physics, medicine, geography, politics, and economics.” The report
also included notes on the languages of various hitherto unknown
peoples. Unfortunately, Schober’s report was never published and
went missing during the second half of the eighteenth century. It is
known only through a Russian abstract published in 1760 (Winter
1953:313, 318) and a German abstract by Schlözer, published in Mül-
ler’s Sammlung Russischer Geschichte in 1762 (P. Hoffmann 2005:363).
A copy with notes by the physician Johann Jacob Lerche seems to

have survived.55 Messerschmidt probably studied Schober’s manu-
script after his return from Siberia (Jahn 1995:212).
The German historians of science Doris Posselt (1969, 1976a, 1976b,
1976c) and Ilse Jahn (1995) refer to Messerschmidt as a Forschungs-
reisender, a term that accurately describes his activities but has no
English equivalent. Posselt, who studied Messerschmidt’s botanical
work in the context of German eighteenth-century scientific expe-
ditions, additionally labels him the “pathfinder” or the “pioneer in
the exploration of Siberia.”56 The editors of Messerschmidt’s jour-
nals present his travels as a Forschungsreise (Messerschmidt 1962–
77).57 The British expert Raymond Howgego does not use this term
in his massive Encyclopedia of Exploration (2003–13), glossing all voy-
ages of discovery under the label of “exploration,” nor does Felipe
Fernández-Armesto (2006). The English equivalent of the Ger-
man term Erforschung is “exploration,” but a Forschungsreisender is
more specific than an “explorer” in English. I propose to translate
Forschungsreise as “scientific expedition,” although “research expe-
dition” and “exploring expedition” come close. 58
These scientific expeditions must be distinguished from military
expeditions, diplomatic or trade missions, and “academic wanderings”
(peregrinatio academica), that is, private “edifying journeys” (Bildungs-
reisen) or “grand tours.”59 Significantly, this type of scientific traveler
appeared during the Enlightenment in the “second age of discovery,”
which John H. Parry distinguished from the “age of reconaissance,”
the period 1450–1650 (Parry 1963, 1971). The geographer Hanno Beck
(1971) used the term Forschungsreise to distinguish this type of travel
from Entdeckungsreisen, or voyages of discovery. He regards Engel-
bert Kaempfer as one of the greatest travelers of the Baroque and the
discloser of Japan but views him as an Entdeckungsreisende (discovery
traveler), in contrast to the Arabia explorer Carsten Niebuhr, whom
Beck (1971) calls the first Forschungsreisende. Niebuhr is also seen as
“the first modern scientific traveler” (see chapter 5).60 However, to give
this distinction to Niebuhr would be to ignore the significance of the
scientific expeditions of Messerschmidt and his successors, includ-
ing Müller, Gmelin, and Steller, to Siberia and Alaska. They may
be considered earlier examples of this new type of voyager, defined
as a scientifically educated traveler, officially employed by a scien-
tific academy, and following a clear research agenda.

Messerschmidt as Explorer of Siberia
Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685–1735), the first scientifically
trained explorer of Siberia, is regarded as “the founder of the com-
prehensive study of Siberia.”61 He was the first to systematically
conduct ethnographic research in Siberia. Before his expedition,
observations had been haphazardly made by diplomatic trade mis-
sions, like the journey Ides and Brand made to Beijing. The Swedish
Pietists had begun to study Tobolsk’s surroundings in a systematic
manner, but they were not scientifically educated. Building on their
work, Messerschmidt traversed the northern and central parts of the
Russian Empire from 1719 to 1727 and attempted to report on every
aspect of the region he observed.62 Most of the collections of this dil-
igent observer and collector landed in the Kunstkamera. Although
his meticulous writings remain largely unpublished, they were the
major source for later research on Siberia. Scholars consulted his
journals and other manuscripts in the archives of the Academy of
Sciences in St. Petersburg.
Messerschmidt was trained as a medical doctor and naturalist
in Jena between 1706 and 1708 and in Halle between 1708 and 1713.
Physicians Friedrich Hoffmann and Georg Ernst Stahl, the theolo-
gian Francke, and the philosopher Wolff were among his tutors in
Halle. Hoffmann and Stahl instructed Messerschmidt in modern
medicine and natural history, including Materia Medica; in collec-
tion and conservation techniques; and in the organizing and label-
ing of natural specimens (Jahn 1979–80, vol. 1:155). Wolff taught him
the principles of empirical research, such as measurements with the
microscope, field observations, and the exact recording of experi-
ments and observations. Messerschmidt applied these lessons dur-
ing his research in Siberia (Posselt 1969:54; Wendland 1996:68). In
Halle he also came into contact with Francke’s Pietism and the facil-
ities of the Francke Foundations. It is quite possible that he worked
in the foundations’ apothecary and took part in the production of
medicine (te Heesen 2000a, 2000b). After earning a medical degree
under Hoffmann with a thesis on the “ratio behind the world of
medicine” (Messerschmidt 1713), he returned to his native Danzig
to practice medicine. Johann Philipp Breyne (1680–1764), a Danzig
naturalist noted for his collections, encouraged Messerschmidt to

continue his studies of nature. In March 1716, during the tsar’s sec-
ond European tour, Peter the Great and Areskine inspected Brey-
ne’s cabinet of natural history.63 The tsar asked Breyne for a scientist
who “would be prepared to undertake a voyage through Russia and
make a description of everything remarkable” (Pekarskii 1862:351).
Breyne recommended Messerschmidt, and Areskine supported this
recommendation.64
Messerschmidt left Danzig for St. Petersburg in February 1718.
He signed a contract for a scientific expedition in November that
year, mere weeks before Areskine’s death. Areskine’s many tasks
included supervision of the Apothecary Chancellery (Aptekarskii
Prikaz), renamed the Medical Collegium (Meditsinskaia Kollegiia)
in 1717; the Kunstkamera; and the Imperial Library. His tasks were
divided between the Blumentrost brothers, who had earlier taken
over several tasks for Areskine, who had been ill since 1716 (Winter
and Figurovskij 1962:5). Before his departure Messerschmidt received
instructions from Johann Deodat Blumentrost (1678–1756), head of
the Medical Collegium from 1718 to 1730, and his brother, Lauren-
tius Blumentrost Jr. (1692–1755), by then archiater and head of the
Kunstkamera and later the first president of the Academy of Sci-
ences. Both brothers, like Breyne and Messerschmidt, had studied
in Halle. Messerschmidt’s orders were to study the medicine, nat-
ural history, and geography of Siberia as well as the history, lan-
guages, and customs of its peoples. He directed his annual reports
to Johann Deodat Blumentrost, to whom he was subordinated dur-
ing the expedition (Hintzsche 2004:xxvii). Although the brothers
briefed Messerschmidt, the greatest influence on his assignment
was probably Areskine.
Messerschmidt’s expedition was one of several dispatched from St.
Petersburg. Around the same time Alexander Bekovich-Cherkasskii
explored the Caspian Sea, while Lorenz Lange traveled to China.
This set of destinations (Siberia, the Caspian Sea, and China) sug-
gests a well-thought-out plan, probably designed by Areskine with the
tsar’s backing. Several years earlier, de Bruyn (1711: 451–52) reported
that Areskine was planning “to send a few people to Siberia to col-
lect herbs, flowers, and other things relating to nature.” As head of
the Apothecary Chancellery, later the Medical Collegium, Areskine
had a rank equivalent to government minister and could realize these

plans. He sent scholars on scientific expeditions, like Schober’s trip
to Kazan, Astrakhan, and Persia in 1717, and was the driving force
behind Messerschmidt’s trip to Siberia. When the Swedish engi-
neer Lange was sent on a 1715–17 mission to China, accompanied by
the Scottish physician Thomas Garvine, Areskine instructed them
to study “the present state of this country and to collect all curios-
ities relating to natural history and antiquity.”65 Another Scottish
physician, John Bell, accompanied expeditions to Persia (1715–18),
China (1721–22), and Derbent (Bell 1763).66 The German naturalist
Johann Christian Buxbaum was dispatched to investigate the flora,
fauna, and minerals of Turkey, Armenia, Dagestan, and Astrakhan
in 1724–27. Like Messerschmidt, Buxbaum had received his doctor-
ate at Halle under Hoffmann.
It is noteworthy that Messerschmidt received explicit instructions
to also study Siberia’s peoples and languages. He was expected to
study all scholarly domains. The contract he signed in St. Peters-
burg on November 15, 1718, specified a time span of several years.
He was ordered
to travel to Siberia and study (1) the geography of the country, (2)
[its] natural history, (3) [its] medicine, including medicinal plants
and epidemic diseases; (4) [its] peoples and [their] languages; (5) [its]
monuments and antiquities and (6) [collect] everything remarkable.67
Modern scholars do not always agree about the terms of the con-
tract. Ilse Jahn (1989:109) noted that Messerschmidt was to treat nat-
ural history in its three domains (zoology, botany, and mineralogy).
She phrased the third point as “popular medicine and knowledge of
pharmaceutics” and the fourth point as “ethnology and linguistics”
(Völker- und Sprachenkunde), which is an anachronism.68 Wendland
(1996:68) supplied a different list, to which meteorology was added,
and mentioned that Messerschmidt was ordered to study economy
and trade and collect relevant material about these activities as well.
Schorkowitz stated that all traveling scholars in the Russian Empire
had been instructed to “purposefully collect objects and information
about the peoples,” adding that Messerschmidt’s contract “already
foresaw ethnography, that is, the description of Siberian peoples
and their languages.”69 This statement is anachronistic because the
fourth point of Messerschmidt’s contract stipulated that he would

study “the peoples [of Siberia] and their languages.” A few decades
later scholars would indeed dub this subject “ethnography” and “eth-
nology” (see chapters 4 and 6).
Whose idea was it to instruct Messerschmidt to also investi-
gate the Siberian peoples and their languages? Such a study could
not be expected from just anyone with medical and natural history
training. Language studies belonged to an entirely different field
than medicine did, for philology was an auxiliary discipline of his-
tory. In his General Heads for a Natural History of a Countrey, Rob-
ert Boyle included “a careful account of the Inhabitants themselves,
both Natives and Strangers, that have been long settled there: And
in particular, their Stature, Shape, Colour, Features, Strength, Agil-
ity, Beauty (or want of it), Complexions, Hair, Dyet Inclinations and
Customs that seem not due to Education” (Boyle 1665:188) but did
not mention languages.
The Blumentrost brothers had written Messerschmidt’s instruc-
tions, but had they masterminded the elaborate list and the inclu-
sion of a description of peoples and their languages? None of the
sources consulted suggest this. We may infer instead that the archi-
tect of these expeditions was Areskine, the primary organizer of sci-
entific endeavor in Russia at the time. When Areskine passed away
in November 1718, two weeks after Messerschmidt signed his con-
tract, Johann Deodat Blumentrost was still new to his office and his
twenty-six-year-old brother, Laurentius, had just returned from an
acquisition tour in the Dutch Republic. Further research in Russian
archives might confirm Areskine’s paramount importance in this.
The original plan for Messerschmidt’s expedition seemed mod-
est. He was to acquire objects for the Kunstkamera’s collections, as
well as for the curiosity cabinets of two physicians, namely, Breyne in
Danzig and Nikolaus Martini in Riga (Jahn 1995:212). But his brief
expanded significantly, as we have seen, and accordingly, Messer-
schmidt engaged in a systematic investigation of Siberia in seven
scientific fields. Halfway through his journey, in November 1724, he
organized his notes in Chitinsk and divided them into seven cate-
gories: “geography, philology, antiquarian monuments, mineralogy,
botany, zoology, and medicine.” 70 The monthly summaries in his
journal indicate identical distinctions. This list is characteristic of
Messerschmidt’s encyclopedic outlook and his comprehensive brief.

Anke te Heesen (2000b) correctly concluded that it was “not com-
mon to send a single person to attempt such a comprehensive task.”71
For our purposes it is important to notice that “ethnography” did
not enter Messerschmidt’s scheme. Messerschmidt reported on Sibe-
rian peoples in his journal, subsuming his observations under phi-
lology, history, or geography, but he did not have a separate category
to this end. In the same way he did not distinguish meteorology or
astronomy as separate categories, although he made meteorological
recordings and determined astronomical latitudes; he grouped both
under the heading of (mathematical) geography. Generally, Mes-
serschmidt excelled in collecting data, and he processed his obser-
vations during the expedition, systematizing them along the way.
In doing so he often anticipated later attempts at systematization
(Jahn 1989:129).
Messerschmidt’s Itinerary, Methods, and Results

In March 1719 Messerschmidt left St. Petersburg for Moscow; in Sep-
tember he departed for Tobolsk, then the capital of Siberia. Arriving
there in December, he met the Swedish Pietists, with whom he was
comfortable. In the next fourteen months, Tobolsk was his point of
departure for many field trips into western Siberia. Messerschmidt
then asked the governor of Siberia for the assistance of four Swedish
prisoners. He especially pleaded for Tabbert’s release on account of
his expertise and contacts with other Swedish prisoners who placed
their findings, including drawings of birds and plants, at his dis-
posal (Winter 1953:319; Jarosch 1966b:219). During the first year of
his expedition, Messerschmidt was accompanied by Tabbert and the
latter’s nephew Karl Gustav Schulman, a draftsman. From March
1721 on, Messerschmidt, Tabbert, and Schulman traveled on horse
carriages, sleds, or ships from Tobolsk to Krasnoyarsk on the Yeni-
sei River in central Siberia. Traveling to Mangazeya in the north,
they reached the Lena watershed by way of the Lower Tunguska
River. After news about the peace treaty between Russia and Swe-
den (1721) had reached them, the Swedes took their leave; in May
1722 Tabbert returned home.72 Messerschmidt (1962– 77, vol. 1:224)
continued his journey with three Russian students and two German
servants, one of whom served as cook. The number of their party later
increased somewhat (Messerschmidt 1962– 77, vol. 3:194). Often with

insufficient gear they departed from Irkutsk through the Transbai-
kal area in southern Siberia and intrepidly traveled along the Chi-
nese and Mongolian frontiers up to Argunsk, east of Lake Baikal.
From there they journeyed back to Irkutsk and to Yeniseisk. (For
a detailed map of Messerschmidt’s itinerary in western and central
Siberia see Messerschmidt 1962– 77, vol. 5.)
In Yeniseisk Messerschmidt encountered Vitus Bering and Martin
Spangberg, the leaders of the First Kamchatka Expedition (see chap-
ter 4). Conversing in German, Bering and Messerschmidt repeat-
edly met between July 23 and August 12, 1725. Discussing routes into
the uncharted, they exchanged notes and maps. Messerschmidt
acquainted Bering with charts of the northeastern part of Asia,
including that of Witsen (Messerschmidt 1962– 77, vol. 4:172–192).
During Messerschmidt’s expedition his academic practice was
complex. He organized his steadily increasing collections in written
lists and notes, as well as in boxes and cases (te Heesen 2000a:381).
He distinguished between notes, taken during the day and trans-
ferred each evening into his journal, and excerpts (“annotations”)
from the journal, classified in each of the seven fields. These were
refined in catalogs, reports, or manuscripts and indexed to make
connections between the data. In 1724 Messerschmidt identified
three steps in his work schedule: (1) observatio in curru et via, field
observations and collections made “along the way”; (2) annotatio et
consignatio, data recording that “could only be conducted in a tent”;
and (3) relatione elaborata, analysis and reporting, including cata-
loging that could be done only in a “comfortable [i.e., large enough]
room” (Messerschmidt 1962– 77, vol. 3:216; Jahn 1994b:493). Accord-
ingly, he first stored collected items in travel cases; then transferred
them to boxes, cases, and containers according to size and mate-
rial, for example, for seeds, minerals, birds, and so forth; and finally
indexed them. He classified seeds and plants according to the twenty-
two-class system developed by the French botanist Joseph Pitton
de Tournefort. Last but not least, Messerschmidt invented a refer-
ence system to coordinate his recording and storage systems. This
system was refined during long winter breaks, when he worked
on his notes and collections (te Heesen 2000a:395). During these
breaks, in the settlements of Abakan (1721–22), Krasnoyarsk (1722–
23), Irkutsk (1723–24), Chitinsk (1724–25), and Samarov-yam (1725–

26), Messerschmidt drafted outlines of works he hoped to publish
after his return.
Messerschmidt’s scientific approach was admired in France. When
Schumacher gave a talk at the Académie des Sciences in August 1721,
he showed audience members a map of the Caspian Sea and informed
them about Messerschmidt’s descriptions of Siberian birds, using
his detailed drawings. The French academicians were impressed,
suggested that “other aspects of the natural history of . . . Rus-
sia be described in detail as well,” and asked for the descriptions of
the “other provinces of Russia” to be illustrated “in the same way”
(Kopaneva 2005:81).
Messerschmidt’s approach is also evident in his reports on mam-
moth remains in Siberia. In his fourteenth report he conveyed to
Johann Deodat Blumentrost findings of large bones and teeth in May
1722 and January 1724. During his winter sojourn in Irkutsk, Mes-
serschmidt examined a skull, two large teeth, a molar, and bones
of mammoths that had been found near the lower Lena River. He
had them drawn by his assistants and sent to Blumentrost in St.
Petersburg.73 He also dispatched a report, together with two teeth,
to Breyne in Danzig. Breyne lectured on these findings before the
Societas Litteraria at Danzig in 1722 and 1728. He then wrote an arti-
cle, based on Messerschmidt’s report, containing six drawings and
an eyewitness report on the mammoth bones’ excavation.74 Hans
Sloane, secretary of the Royal Society in London, published the
article in the society’s Philosophical Transactions of 1737.
While the origin of the term mammout is uncertain, it may derive
from Mansi, a Finno-Ugrian language spoken in northwestern Sibe-
ria and was popularized in English as “mammoth.”75 The first reports
about mammoth remains date from the late sixteenth century.76 Wit-
sen reported on mammoth remains in Siberia in 1692, seeing them
as elephants that lived in Siberia in warmer times and died in the
Flood. Leibniz noted the “diluvial” animal in his Protogaea. The
first published report in England was an entry with “curious obser-
vations concerning the products of Russia” in Ludolf ’s Grammatica
Russica (1696) and Brand’s journal (1698). Ides (1704), Lange (1721,
1723), J. B. Müller (1720), and Tatishchev (1725) also described Sibe-
rian mammoth bones. Hans Sloane summarized his findings in “An
Account of Elephants Teeth and Bones” in 1728. Seventy-five years

after Messerschmidt’s examinations, a Sakha chieftain hunting for
ivory in the Lena River delta found the first complete specimen
of a frozen mammoth. It was excavated by the naturalist Michael
Adams in 1806 (“Adams Mammoth”) and is the first-ever skeleton
of a woolly mammoth, now on display in Yakutsk. Messerschmidt’s
descriptions published by Breyne were so precise that they inspired
Georges Cuvier to begin investigations that initiated paleozoology
in 1796 (Uschmann 1982:171; Jahn 1995:215).77
These expositions may suffice to clarify how Messerschmidt
worked during his expedition. Departing from Samarovsk in Feb-
ruary 1726, he traveled to Tobolsk, where he stayed for a month to
organize his collections and send them to the Medical Collegium
in St. Petersburg. Then Messerschmidt returned through the Urals
to the European parts of Russia, where he sojourned in Solikamsk
for eight months before traveling back via Moscow, where he met
Schober. When he arrived in St. Petersburg in March 1727, he had
been gone for eight years.
Upon his return Messerschmidt faced a serious lack of interest.
Peter the Great had passed away in 1725, as had his widow and suc-
cessor, Catherine I, in the year of Messerschmidt’s return. Interest in
scholarship had declined, and the government was low on finances.
The First Kamchatka Expedition, setting off in 1725, instructed by
Peter weeks before his death, was consuming all Russian reserves.
Only a decade later, when the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–
43) and the First Orenburg Expedition (1734– 37) took off, was this
situation remedied.
Messerschmidt brought collections in all seven fields he had iden-
tified in 1724, as well as detailed journals (in nine folio volumes) and
several manuscripts, including a “Mantissa ornithologica.” He sub-
mitted a research plan for processing his notes and collections to the
Academy of Sciences, which had been founded during his absence
(see chapter 4), but received no support. Instead, the Blumentrost
brothers ordered Messerschmidt to hand over his journals and field
material to the Kunstkamera.78 He had to sign a contract of trans-
fer in September 1727 that allowed him only a few doublets. Pallas
(1782:103) noted that Johann Deodat Blumentrost received Messer-
schmidt “unfriendly” because Siberian officials had filed complaints
about him, which had to be investigated, at the Medical Colle-

gium. Apparently, he was soon exonerated but had already surren-
dered his materials.
In February 1728 a committee from the academy studied Mes-
serschmidt’s collections. It included many of the academy’s leading
lights: the managing director Schumacher, the astronomer and car-
tographer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, the botanists Johann Amman and
Johann Georg Gmelin, historian and Orientalist Gottlieb Siegfried
Bayer, and historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller. It took these schol-
ars two weeks to catalog Messerschmidt’s collections.
Winter (1962a:199) reports that it was painful for Messerschmidt
that he no longer had access to his material after its transfer to the
academy. His demands for financial compensation were not or not
fully met (Posselt 1976a:221; Winter 1953:320). Müller later explained
that Messerschmidt claimed to have collected doublets of natural
objects (Naturalien) for himself, but this claim was turned down. His
argument that he had not been instructed to collect artistic curios-
ities (Seltenheiten), but had rather done so on his own initiative and
paid for them with his own money, was ignored. The committee rec-
ommended that the “antiquities, Mongolian, Tangutian, and Chi-
nese rarities and writings, as well as many articles of clothing from
various Siberian peoples” remain in the Kunstkamera and that Mes-
serschmidt be compensated with a gift of money (apparently two hun-
dred rubles).79 He worked on a long study titled “Sibiria perlustrata
seu Pinax triplicis naturae regni,” which summarized his findings in
the field of natural history. Offered a job in the library, the Natu-
raliensammlung (in the Kunstkamera), or the Medical Collegium,
he could not make up his mind (Pallas 1782:103–104) and retreated
into married life, in which he was unhappy (Müller 1890:152–153;
Stejneger 1936:83–84).
Returning to Danzig in October 1729, Messerschmidt lost his
few remaining personal belongings in a shipwreck. Embittered by
his harsh treatment from the Academy of Sciences, especially by the
vow that he remain silent about his results and not publish anything
without the academy’s consent, the unfortunate explorer lived qui-
etly and withdrawn in Danzig.
Things changed only when Strahlenberg published his book on Das
Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia (1730), which included
material collected during his participation in Messerschmidt’s expe-

dition. It must have shocked Messerschmidt that Strahlenberg pub-
lished a detailed monograph despite his promise to keep the results to
himself. Even if Strahlenberg had an unusual talent for history and
geography, he was not a trained scientist. In the expedition journal
that Messerschmidt had allowed Strahlenberg to keep, Strahlenberg
refers to him as “Herr Doktor” (Jarosch 1966b:219). Strahlenberg
avoided mentioning Messerschmidt’s name in his preface, referring
to him as “a certain good friend,” but he slipped a respectful men-
tion of him as “Doctor Messerschmidt” on page 280. Strahlenberg
regretted that the latter (for reasons unknown to him) had found
no opportunity to publish the results, “as he stayed in these remote
countries even longer than I have and . . . as a scientist would have
done a much better job [in describing them]” (Strahlenberg 1730;
Winter and Figurovskij 1962:14; Posselt 1976a:222).
Strahlenberg’s book drew attention toward Messerschmidt. In 1731
he was called back to St. Petersburg at the recommendation of Tatish-
chev and Bayer, who had received positive reports via their Uppsala
contacts. He was allowed to work on his material but curiously was
never made a member of the Academy of Sciences. Working on his
manuscripts with the support of Georg and Dorothea Maria Gsell,
who rendered his sketches of birds and plants into drawings, and
of Prokopovich, who consulted him as a physician, Messerschmidt
completed several texts, including his archaeological study Curi-
osa sibiriae (Brentjes 1985–88, 1988) and his ten-volume “birds book”
(Ornithologica Sibirica et Tatariae), in which he designed a systematic
classification of Siberian birds (Jahn 1989).80 Sadly, before publish-
ing any of these works, Messerschmidt passed away in poverty in
1735, the year in which Carolus Linnaeus revolutionized the classifi-
cation of nature. Only fifty years of age, Messerschmidt left behind
a wife and their young daughter.
Messerschmidt’s Legacy
Given the complexity of his task, the manner in which he carried
out his expedition, and the fact that he had no scientific precur-
sors, we may endorse the view that Messerschmidt was a pioneer
in Siberia’s exploration (Posselt 1976a). Posselt (1969) calculates that
Messerschmidt collected 1,290 plants, 359 of which grow only in
Russia (Novlianskaia 1970). Jahn (1989) reports that he collected

and described about 265 species of birds, 80 species of mammals,
and 60 species of fish, apart from insects, minerals, and fossils, and
dissected 10 large mammals, including a camel (Egerton 2008). He
wrote twenty-two reports about his research, seven of which were
composed in Tobolsk. In addition, he made archaeological, lin-
guistic, and ethnographic observations and described his findings
in journals, extracts, lists, and manuscripts that are all conserved in
the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy
of Sciences (spb aras).81
Scholars allowed access to Messerschmidt’s manuscripts profited
from them. These included Bayer and Tatishchev, as well as Müller,
Gmelin, Fischer, Steller, and Pallas. Messerschmidt’s results were
used in the planning of the Second Kamchatka Expedition.82 Mül-
ler, Gmelin, and Steller studied his journals before departing for
Siberia (see chapter 4). His journals served the Academic Expedi-
tions of 1768– 74, supervised by Pallas (see chapter 6). Although the
majority of Messerschmidt’s writings remained unpublished, his
work became a rich resource for his colleagues. To give one exam-
ple, Müller took Messerschmidt’s journals with him when he moved
to Moscow in 1765. It took Pallas some effort to persuade Müller to
return them to St. Petersburg so that he could use Messerschmidt’s
zoological findings for his own work.83
While the majority of Messerschmidt’s manuscripts to the pres-
ent day gather dust in the archives of the Academy of Sciences
at St. Petersburg, some parts have been published. In 1739 Johann
Amman, the Swiss director of the St. Petersburg Botanical Gar-
den, included Messerschmidt’s botanical material in a catalog on
the garden (Amman 1739). Its flora was augmented with seedlings
and plants brought by later Siberia explorers like Gmelin and Steller.
Messerschmidt’s drawings of plants are exquisite and accurate. Gme-
lin referred to his material in his own Flora Sibirica (1747–69). Pal-
las used Messerschmidt’s results in his Flora Rossica (1784–88) and
Zoographia Rossa-Asiatica (1811–31). In 1782 Pallas published excerpts
from Messerschmidt’s journal in his “Report on Dr. Daniel Gott-
lieb Messerschmidt’s seven-year journey through Siberia” in order
to introduce “him and his merits for the study of Siberia and to do
him justice.” In 1781 Pallas credited Messerschmidt with having been
the first to identify the Dsiggetäi, a wild, half-bred donkey inhabit-

ing central Asia’s eastern deserts, as a distinct species of horse. And
in 1780 Messerschmidt’s edition of the Turkic manuscript with the
genealogical tables of historian Abu’l Ghazi Bahadur Khan was
published in Göttingen.
Messerschmidt found many art objects from Siberia, as well as
from Mongolia, including three items excavated in Siberian tombs.84
Strahlenberg brought findings by Messerschmidt to St. Petersburg in
1722 (Winter 1953:320). The art historian Brentjes (1985–88, 1988) ana-
lyzed Messerschmidt’s archaeology and praised him for his “excel-
lent way of documenting.”85
Messerschmidt’s journals were partly published in the context of
the German–Russian Encounters project directed by Eduard Win-
ter. East German scholars received photocopies of Messerschmidt’s
manuscripts in St. Petersburg and organized an interdisciplinary
research team to edit his work. Supervised by historian Winter in
Berlin and the biologist Georg Uschmann in Jena, the team included
Ilse Jahn, a historian of biology in Jena working on zoology; Doris
Posselt, a historian of biology in Jena working on botany; Hans Pre-
scher, working on mineralogy; Burchard Brentjes, an art historian in
Halle working on Asian archaeology; and the editor, the folklorist
Günther Jarosch in Berlin. The result was a five-volume edition of
Messerschmidt’s Forschungsreise durch Sibirien, 1720–1727 (1962– 77).
The promising edition brought Messerschmidt’s accomplishments
to public attention but unfortunately remained incomplete. Ten vol-
umes had been planned originally. The beginning and the end of the
expedition were not included, as the journals of the expedition’s first
and final year seem to be lost. The published journal covers only the
period between March 1721 and April 1726 (instead of March 1719 to
March 1727).86 Many detailed descriptions were left out, and religious
reflections or sections unflattering to the Russians were omitted in
order not to upset the Soviet friends. Moreover, the concluding vol-
ume with essays by specialists, planned since 1966, never materialized
(Jarosch 1966a). Specialists in each of Messerschmidt’s seven fields
had in fact completed their articles, but in January 1993 Jarosch, the
editor, passed away before anything could be published.87 Brentjes’s
essay was to discuss Messerschmidt’s ethnography and might have
shed light on Messerschmidt as a pioneer in an embryonic study.
We thus continue to lack a clear understanding of the full extent

of Messerschmidt’s ethnography. The first volume of the published
version of his journal contains many descriptions of peoples encoun-
tered along the way. The journal’s final eight months, which were
never published, also contain rich ethnographic accounts, especially
of the European parts of Russia.88
Winter (1953:321) mentions that Tatishchev learned about Messer-
schmidt’s results primarily through Bayer, who was assigned by
the Academy of Sciences to process Messerschmidt’s historical and
linguistic results. Both Messerschmidt’s and Bayer’s work inspired
Tatishchev to collect language samples from Siberian peoples. Bayer
profited from Messerschmidt’s data for his own work on the his-
tory of Asian peoples.
Messerschmidt’s combination of historical and linguistic research
proved highly valuable for the development of ethnography as a spe-
cialized field of inquiry. Posselt (1976a:224) reports, “Bayer, Rad-
lov, and G. F. Müller analyzed Messerschmidt’s ethnographic and
linguistic results.” Part of the continuing value of Messerschmidt’s
research is his unusual sensitivity toward the colonized, a rare qual-
ity in his age of serfdom and slavery. Such receptiveness is of course
a key quality for modern anthropologists. Posselt, who gives no fur-
ther details about the analysis by Bayer and the others, adds that
Messerschmidt made numerous remarks in his journals that “dem-
onstrate his sympathy for the local population and his dislike of the
arbitrariness of the local authorities (including harassment, high
taxes, and torture).” This confirms the image that he “stood for the
simple people” (Posselt 1976a:225) in accordance with the Pietist
principles on which Messerschmidt was raised and that he shared
with Strahlenberg and the other Pietists from Halle and Tobolsk
(Winter 1953:319).
In anticipation of a full rendering of Messerschmidt’s investiga-
tions of Siberian peoples and their languages, we have a clear state-
ment about his work in this regard. The editor of his travel account,
Jarosch, declared in a synopsis of Messerschmidt’s ethnographic
results:
(3) The journals of Messerschmidt as a source of information for eth-
nography and folklore [essay to be prepared by G. Jarosch]: Dur-
ing his scientific expedition Messerschmidt also paid a great deal of

attention to the Siberian peoples’ culture and way of living. While
we have only a few ethnographic descriptions of separate Siberian
peoples (among others Isbrand Ides, Adam Brand) from the period
preceding his work, we find in Messerschmidt’s journals accounts
of many Siberian peoples, such as Tatars, Kalmyks, Mongols, Bury-
ats, Samoyeds (now Nenets) and Ostyaks. He traveled almost three
years in the territory of the Tungus (now Evenks). In many cases,
his notes represent first recordings. They contain important infor-
mation on the ethnogenesis of individual nationalities. The eth-
nographic material contains among other things a description of
settlements and architecture, costumes, jewellery, household appli-
ances, hunting and fishing tools and boats from birch tree. Messer-
schmidt employs the scientific method of simultaneous examination
of words and things. Recordings of customs (especially burial rites)
and religious representations (shamanism) are numerous. Especially
valuable are the drawings added to the journals (for example, of tat-
tooing among the Orotong tribe and of shamanistic drums) as well
as the description of numerous pieces of national costumes that he
collected. (Jarosch 1966a:3)
Jarosch also compiled the following synopsis of Messerschmidt’s

linguistic results:
(4) The significance of Messerschmidt’s notes for linguistics [essay to
be prepared by W. Steinitz et al.]: Messerschmidt’s notes about the
languages of small Siberian peoples are of great significance for lin-
guistics, as his notes were the first, or the first reliable, ones for many
of them. As the precise locations [of these peoples] are known, these
notes serve to advance the study of Siberian dialects. Many of the
dialects that Messerschmidt documented are now extinct and some
are only known to us through his journals. Messerschmidt occu-
pies a honorable place in the history of European linguistics, firstly,
because he was the first to realize Leibniz’s request for compiling
vocabularies, especially of northern and central Asia, and, secondly,
because his astonishingly wide-ranging ideas about the relationship
between several Siberian and other languages—through his travel
companion Strahlenberg and the users of his journals— entered the
eighteenth-century scholarly works on Siberia (G.F. Müller, V.N.
Tatishchev, J.E. Fischer, A.L. Schlözer, and others) and played an

important role in laying the foundations for nineteenth-century com-
parative linguistics. (Jarosch 1966a:3–4)
These observations provide ample ground for an in-depth study of

Messerschmidt’s linguistic and ethnographic recordings. All spe-
cialists agree that his expedition provided the touchstone for fur-
ther explorations in Russian Asia during the eighteenth century.
Messerschmidt’s historical-philological studies of the Tatars,
Kalmyks, Mongols, Buryats, Samoyeds (Nenets), Tungus (Evenks),
and Ostyaks (Khanty), among others, influenced Bayer, Tatishchev,
Strahlenberg, Müller, Fischer, and Schlözer. By combining history
and philology, Messerschmidt and Strahlenberg were able to produce
valuable results from an ethnographic perspective. Winter (1953:321)
called Messerschmidt “the real creator of the [historical-philological]
method,” but this disregards the impact of Leibniz, who articulated
the principles of historical linguistics (see chapter 2). Messerschmidt
was applying these rules; he was one of the first to test them in the
field. Especially valuable was that he had studied the “dialects of
living nations,” as Leibniz had predicted in 1687.89 His vocabularies
of some twenty such “living nations” are more extensive than those
of Strahlenberg and the earliest, collected years before Tatishchev
tried his hand.90
Taking his orders seriously, Messerschmidt indeed described every-
thing “remarkable,” just as Peter the Great had requested. Although
botany was his primary interest and the sampling of medicinal plants
his main task, he also reported on Siberia’s ethnographic and lin-
guistic particulars. In carrying out his expedition in a systematic and
empirically sophisticated way, Messerschmidt set the standard for
later Siberia travelers like Müller, Gmelin, Fischer, Steller, and Pal-
las. Whereas Messerschmidt’s interests had been encyclopedic, con-
centrating on the seven fields he outlined in 1724, later researchers
would narrow their focus and specialize on a few of these. Generally,
however, the naturalists working in Russia continued to develop an
encompassing view of their subject of interest (see chapters 4 and 6).
Müller especially was impressed by Messerschmidt’s work. He
probably became interested in Siberia when he was a member of the
academy committee cataloging Messerschmidt’s collections in Febru-
ary 1728 (P. Hoffmann 1959:39). Müller later recalled that it “exceeded

all expectations to what extent the Imperial Kunstkammer had been
expanded by indigenous natural specimens and artistic rarities [col-
lected by] Mr. Messerschmidt’s zeal.”91 These collections proba-
bly inspired Müller to elaborate on Messerschmidt’s observations
by focusing on Siberia’s history, including archaeology, geography,
ethnography, and linguistics. However, whereas the physician-cum-
naturalist Messerschmidt paid a great deal of attention to Siberian
peoples and their languages in his journals, he did not synthesize
his ethnographic observations in a separate manuscript and he never
considered ethnography a separate subject. This is precisely what the
historian Müller was to accomplish.

four
Ethnography and Empire

G. F. Müller and the Description of Siberian Peoples
I have repeatedly wished that an experienced person . . . would make

the attempt to write a very general description of peoples and that
[in this way] . . . a certain new science might be founded that
would be beneficial to posterity forever.
— Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1744–45)
T
he emergence of ethnography as a separate study during the
exploration of Siberia was a key contribution to modern sci-
ence. Historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705–83) inaugu-
rated ethnography as a descriptive study of peoples in the 1730s and
1740s. While German-speaking scholars like Müller did not initi-
ate the description of Siberian peoples, they systematized its sub-
ject matter and turned it into a comprehensive research program. By
conceptualizing ethnography as a “description of peoples,” Müller
outlined a new academic discipline. This type of research appealed
to many young scholars departing on scientific expeditions into the
Russian Empire’s outer regions, formerly dominated by non-Russians.
Müller’s ethnographic work merits a special place in the history of
anthropology. He is remembered for contributing to Russian impe-
rial history and geography. His participation as a “historian” in the
Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43) is recognized.1 Yet his con-
tributions to Siberian ethnography have hardly been acknowledged,
and his name does not appear in any major work on the history of
anthropology, with only two exceptions (Tokarev 1966; Petermann
2004). This neglect was largely due to the lack of published works,
as in the cases of Leibniz and Messerschmidt discussed in chap-
ters 2 and 3. Recently, however, two of Müller’s manuscripts on the
description and comparison of Siberian peoples have been published
in both German and Russian editions (Müller 2003, 2009, 2010d).
They illustrate Müller’s ethnographic work, which, as his biographer
Peter Hoffmann (2005:245) proclaims, provided the first descriptions
of many Siberian peoples and the only ones for peoples now extinct.
These and other sources allow us to evaluate Müller’s ethnographic
work. Müller deserves credit as a founder of ethnography on five
counts: (1) he conducted ethnographic research while participating
in the Second Kamchatka Expedition and described Siberian peo-
ples during and after the expedition; (2) he launched an ethnological
program for Siberia that was descriptive, comprehensive, systematic,
and comparative; (3) he developed ethnographic methods and wrote
instructions for students and colleagues; (4) he inspired other scholars
to conduct ethnographic research; and (5) he invented a theoretical
concept for this type of study, which he coined Völker-Beschreibung,
or “description of peoples” (Müller 1900).2 Introduced in 1740, this
term was a German-language precursor of “ethnography” that sur-
faced in the German lands thirty years later and is still in use today.
Writing from an ethnological praxis, in the context of postconquest
exploration, Müller arrived at a systematic view of a study that had
not yet been defined—even if ethnographic accounts had occurred in
travel accounts, Spanish writings about American natives, and Greek,
Roman, Arabic, Byzantine, and Chinese reports about foreign peoples.
Building on Lafitau’s 1724 comparative work (discussed later) and
expanding on Messerschmidt’s ethnographic studies (see chapter 3),
Müller developed an encompassing research program for Siberia’s
ethnological study that he partly carried out himself and partly del-
egated to others. His recent editors, Aleksandr Elert and Wieland
Hintzsche, regard Müller as “the first ethnographer” and “the true
father of scientific ethnology.”3 His “ethnographic writings” (Mül-
ler 1759a, 2003, 2009, 2010d) and other contemporary sources reveal
that Müller formulated a clearly circumscribed ethnological program
that he actively transmitted to his colleagues. In short, he had the
means, the methods, and the motive for creating the academic study
now called ethnography. The following will demonstrate how Mül-
ler became the first all-around ethnographer of Siberia and why he
should be seen as a founder of ethnography— one of anthropology’s
earliest and most enduring incarnations.
132 Ethnography and Empire

At first sight Müller’s case seems to support the claim of criti-
cal anthropologists that anthropology was a “child of imperialism”
contributing to the “colonial project.” 4 As a member of an expedi-
tion with scholarly, geopolitical, and utilitarian aims, Müller worked
in a colonial context. His Senate employers were engaged in Peter
the Great’s modernizing project, expanding the empire’s borders
to increase trade and taxation. Did this make Müller complicit in
Russia’s colonization of Siberia? Such an oversimplification would
ignore the fact that Müller had no position in the Russian colonial
administration but in the Academy of Sciences and that his aim
was to collect data for scholarly debates about peoples worldwide.
Müller and the Imperial Academy

Nothing in Müller’s upbringing suggested a lifelong career in Russian
service. He came from a middle-class family in what is now western
Germany. His father was rector of the evangelical grammar school
in Herford (Westphalia). His mother was a daughter of Gerhard
Bodinus, professor of theology and Oriental languages at Rinteln, for
a long time the only university in the Holy Roman Empire’s north-
west. Müller pursued a university education in the empire’s western
and central parts that familiarized him with Early Enlightenment
thought. He studied philosophy and history, first at Rinteln in 1722–
23 and then at Leipzig (Saxony), where historian Johann Burckhard
Mencke was his mentor. After he had obtained a first degree in June
1725, Müller learned about work at the Russian Academy of Sciences
from his teacher Mencke. A professor of history, privy counselor of
the elector of Saxony, and editor of the Acta Eruditorum, founded by
his father and Leibniz, Mencke had declined Peter the Great’s offer
to become an academy member but recommended scholars, as Wolff
did for scientists. Mencke was instrumental in the appointment of
Johann Peter Kohl as professor of church history. Kohl suggested that
Müller join him in St. Petersburg. This invitation convinced Mül-
ler to follow Mencke’s advice. He knew the principles of historiog-
raphy, an education begun in his father’s library (Müller 1890:250)
and had helped organize parts of Mencke’s important library. Seiz-
ing the opportunity, Müller, not even twenty years old, moved to St.
Petersburg. He arrived in the Russian capital on November 5, 1725,
six weeks before the academy’s inauguration ceremony.
Ethnography and Empire 133

The Imperial Academy of Sciences (Akademia Nauk), inaugu-
rated on December 27, 1725, after a long period of gestation, was a
pet project of Peter the Great.5 The tsar’s travels through Germany,
Denmark, Holland, England, and France (see chapter 2) had con-
vinced him that the only way to modernize his empire was through
science, technology, and education. He issued the order to found an
academy of sciences shortly before his death. The academy’s mis-
sion was to spread “the fame of the [Russian] state in benefiting the
sciences . . . in the present and [ensure that] its teachings and dis-
semination will benefit the people in the future.”6 To this end, the
academy appointed scholars from abroad who began to train young
Russians as scholars, instrument makers, and draftsmen. In turn, they
would subsequently occupy senior positions in the arts and sciences.
The proposal to establish an academy of sciences was brought
before the Imperial Senate in St. Petersburg on January 22, 1724.
Reflecting the ideas of Peter and his associates, the proposal was
drafted by Laurentius Blumentrost Jr., the academy’s first president,
and Johann Daniel Schumacher, the tsar’s librarian. The “Academy
of Sciences and the Arts” would incorporate the academy itself, a
university, a grammar school (Gymnasium), a museum, a library, and
an observatory. On January 28 Peter ratified the academy’s statute
in the presence of Fedor Apraksin, Golovkin, Menshikov, and two
other friends (Materialy 1885–1900, vol. 1:301–324).7 Before the acad-
emy opened, Peter the Great died unexpectedly (January 28, 1725).
His wife and successor, who ruled as Catherine I from 1725 to 1727,
oversaw the academy’s opening.
Before the academy’s establishment, the highest institute of learn-
ing in Russia had been the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy in Mos-
cow, founded by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1687. It traced
its roots to Kiev, whose Clerical Academy (founded in 1615) and
Mohyla Academy (1632) preceded the Slavonic Academy. In addi-
tion, a grammar school in Moscow, founded by the Pietist educator
Ernst Glück in 1703, operated as a private initiative.8 These schools
were hardly suitable for Peter the Great’s reforms. He therefore cre-
ated a series of educational institutions during the early eighteenth
century (see chapter 2).
The Academy of Sciences’s inauguration was the crowning achieve-
ment of Peter’s educational reforms. Modeled after the Paris academy,

it had three classes: (1) Mathematica, (2) Physica (including mechanics,
physics, anatomy, chemistry, and botany), and (3) Historica (includ-
ing rhetoric, classics, history, natural law, public law, politics, ethics,
and economics). In accordance with Leibniz’s proposals, the acad-
emy was to oversee a university and a grammar school for younger
students to prepare them for their matriculation. In contrast to other
universities in Europe, the University of St. Petersburg would con-
sist of three faculties only: the Faculties of Law, Medicine, and Phi-
losophy. Theology, the “queen” of the fourfold division in the West
(Facultas Theologica, Juridica, Medica, Philosophica), was not repre-
sented; it could be pursued at Moscow’s Slavonic-Greek-Latin Acad-
emy. The exclusion of theology from the university, also from the
University of Moscow, founded in 1755, attested to the formal sep-
aration of church and state Peter the Great instituted to modern-
ize Russian society. Because the University of St. Petersburg began
to operate only in the nineteenth century, the University of Mos-
cow became Russia’s first university a generation after Peter’s death.9
To bolster the academic level, the Russians invited foreign scholars
to work at the academy. Many came from the universities in Halle,
Leipzig, and Jena in central Germany, the most modern universities
in the Holy Roman Empire and spearheads of the Early Enlight-
enment and Protestantism (see chapter 3). The academy’s president,
Laurentius Blumentrost Jr., was a German born in Moscow who had
studied in Halle, as well as in Amsterdam and Leiden. Schumacher,
Bayer, and historian H. L. C. Bacmeister also were graduates of Halle.
Tsarina Anna’s adviser, Heinrich Ostermann, had studied at Jena;
Vladimir Orlov, another academy director, at Leipzig (Mühlpfordt
2011:182–184). The Russians also appointed scientists from Scotland,
Sweden, Holland, Denmark, and Switzerland—all predominantly
Protestant countries. With a few exceptions Peter the Great refrained
from appointing Catholics to avoid missionary inclinations. Until
1800 the Imperial Academy had 108 members, 24 of whom were
Russian and 68 German-speaking. German was the lingua franca
of the academy during the eighteenth century (Hobsbawm 1990),
even though the language of diplomacy was French.
In the summer of 1725, the first academy members arrived in
the Russian capital. They included a bevy of established scholars,
like historian Bayer from Königsberg, the mathematician Nicholas

Bernoulli from Basel, the philosopher G. B. Bilfinger from Tübin-
gen, and the astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle from Paris. Junior
scholars like Müller and the Basel mathematicians Daniel Bernoulli
and Leonhard Euler also joined. Of the academy’s seventeen foun-
dational members, twelve hailed from the universities in Halle or
Leipzig (Mühlpfordt 2011:182). Müller belonged to this first gener-
ation of academicians. He would outlive all of them.
Müller first worked as a studiosus (adjunct) for a modest annual
salary of two hundred rubles. He taught Latin, rhetoric, history,
and geography at the academy’s Gymnasium and attended the acade-
my’s General Assembly. In January 1728 he took up a position at the
academy’s archives, where he was assigned to prepare the minutes
of the assembly’s meetings and handle its foreign correspondence.
In 1727– 30 he edited the Petersburg journal, St. Petersburgskie vedo-
mosti, published in Russian and German, and initiated its monthly
supplement.10 He also worked in the academy’s library as Schum-
acher’s assistant. Schumacher was imperial librarian but, in effect,
ran the academy because Blumentrost, its president, was impe-
rial physician and often absent. Moving with the court to Mos-
cow upon its return there in 1727, Blumentrost left Schumacher in
charge of the Chancellery (Canzley), the academy’s bureaucratic
center, which was often at odds with the academicians’ General
Assembly (Conferenz).11 Schumacher held this influential posi-
tion until his 1761 resignation, while also heading the library and
the Kunstkamera.
Schumacher entrusted Müller with several jobs and saw to it
that Müller was appointed both professor of history at the academy
and ordinary member of the academy in January 1731. By that time
Peter the Great’s niece, Anna Ivanovna, had succeeded to the throne
(1730–40). She brought the Russian court back to St. Petersburg. A
former duchess of Courland, she was fonder of foreigners than her
predecessor’s entourage and placed them in important positions.12
Before accepting his professorship, Müller had traveled through
Germany, Holland, and England to acquire books for the library
and encourage scholars to join the Russian academy. This trip lasted
from August 1730 to August 1731. In London he was elected a fel-
low of the Royal Society. After his return Müller was confronted by
a financially strapped academy and fell out with Schumacher over

his expenses (P. Hoffmann 2005:63– 64). The conflict forced Mül-
ler to resign from his library position and abandon his ambition to
succeed Schumacher and become his son-in-law (Müller 1890:250).
He began to teach at the academy, announcing lectures on “univer-
sal history after Pufendorf ” and “literary history” (historia litteraria).
Inspired by Bayer, he turned to the study of Russian history. In 1732
he published “a proposal to improve Russian history by printing a
collection of accounts about the circumstances and events of this
empire” (P. Hoffmann 2005:65–66). That same year, Müller started an
important series with sources and essays on Russian history, Samm-
lung Russischer Geschichte (1732–37, 1758–64). This publication made
Russian history better known in western Europe.13
As his conflict with Schumacher made Müller’s professorship at the
academy insecure, Müller accepted a job that would lead him away
from the Russian capital for nearly a decade. In 1732–33 he joined the
Second Kamchatka Expedition, set to explore the passage between
America and Asia and the vast territory stretching from the Urals
in the west to Kamchatka in the east. Müller traveled mostly in the
company of Johann Georg Gmelin, a chemist and natural historian
from Swabia, a region in southwest Germany. While Gmelin con-
centrated on Siberia’s natural history and its natural resources, Mül-
ler focused on the history of Siberia and its peoples.
After his travels Müller returned to his post at the academy. His
field material relating to Siberia was voluminous, but he was able to
publish only part of it. During his lifetime just a few articles from
his ethnographic research appeared in print. Yet Müller was produc-
tive in other ways. He published a history of Siberia and of Russia,
as well as important geographical studies and maps. Despite severe
opposition at times, his career was distinguished. He became impe-
rial historiographer in 1748 and standing secretary of the Academy of
Sciences in 1754. In his later years Müller was supported by Catherine
II, whose rise to power in 1762 ameliorated the position of German
scholars in Russia. He was a member of the committee to write a
new Russian code of law and assisted Catherine in her 1772 rebuttal
of Jean-Baptiste Chappe d’Auteroche’s travel account. In 1765 Mül-
ler moved to Moscow as a director of the Foundling Home and as
director of the archives of the College of Foreign Affairs from 1766
to his death.

The Kamchatka Expeditions
When Müller arrived in St. Petersburg, the First Kamchatka Expe-
dition had just left the new capital. Following suggestions by Leibniz,
the French astronomer Guillaume Delisle, and his adviser, Saltykov,
Peter the Great commissioned the First Kamchatka (or First Bering)
Expedition to investigate whether Asia and America had a land con-
nection. Other reasons for the expedition were economic and polit-
ical: to obtain furs, find minerals, and expand the state’s territory.
The expedition took more than five years to complete (1725– 30). The
tsar formulated the expedition’s objectives on December 23, 1724,
four weeks before his death. After conversations with Ivan Kirilov-
ich Kirilov, first secretary of the Russian Senate, Peter instructed a
future commander as follows:
1. You are to build one or two boats, with decks, either in Kam-
chatka or in some other place.
2. You are to proceed in those boats along the land that lies to
the north, . . . according to the expectations (since it is unknown
where it ends), it appears this land [is] part of America.
3. You are to search for the place where it is joined to Amer-
ica and proceed [from there] to some settlement that belongs
to a European power; or, if you sight some sort of European
ship, find out from it[s crew] what the coast is called and write
it down; go ashore yourself and obtain accurate information;
locate it on the map and return here. (Kushnarev 1990:9–10;
Semyonov 1954:166, 1963:143, 150; Polevoi 1992)
In January 1725 Peter handed these orders to Admiral Fedor Aprak-
sin, saying, “We are dealing here with a passage through the north-
ern Arctic to China and India. . . . During my last journey I heard in
conversations with scholars that such a discovery is possible. As our
fatherland has now been secured from its enemies, we must make an
effort to increase the state’s fame by pursuing the arts and sciences.
Shouldn’t we be luckier in finding such a way than the Dutch and
the English, who have investigated the American coasts so often?”14
For this expedition Peter commissioned Vitus Jonassen Bering
(1681–1741), a Danish navigator who had worked for the Russian navy
since 1703. Together with the Danish lieutenant Martin Spangberg,

the Russian lieutenant Aleksei Il’ich Chirikov, and 155 sailors, sol-
diers, carpenters, and blacksmiths, Bering traveled overland to the
Sea of Okhotsk and then sailed across to the Kamchatka Penin-
sula. Continuing on land by sleds, they reached the peninsula’s east-
ern coast, where they built a shipyard and two ships. In 1728 Bering
sailed northeast until winter set in, convinced that there was no
land bridge connecting northeastern Asia and northwestern Amer-
ica.15 He wintered on Kamchatka. The following summer, he tried
to cross the strait that was later named after him but, owing to fog,
had to return to St. Petersburg without actually having seen Amer-
ica’s West Coast.
Apart from Bering’s reports and maps and the logbooks of Chirikov
and Midshipman Petr Avramovich Chaplin (Fedorova et al. 2010), the
First Kamchatka Expedition did not yield scholarly results. Schol-
ars did not take part in the expedition, which was purely a naval
operation. Supervised by the Admiralty and the Senate, the First
Bering Expedition aimed to clarify geographical issues and chart
the empire’s eastern parts (Golder 1922–25; Fisher 1977; Kushnarev
1990; Urness 2003). Whether ethnographic artifacts were collected
during this expedition is unknown. However, Chaplin (1729) pro-
duced a map of the itinerary, illustrated with Siberian individuals,
that betrays an ethnological interest (map 2).
Several copies of this map were made with variations (Efimov 1964).
Bering added a stylized version to his 1730 report to the Admiralty.
The Russian physician Georg Thomas Baron von Asch donated a
similar copy to his alma mater, the University of Göttingen (map 3).16
Chaplin’s illustrations portray representatives of ethnic groups
in traditional attire. On the upper row are drawings of (from left to
right) a Samoyed wearing snowshoes and carrying a harpoon (not
on map 2); a Yakut with a white horse (on map 3: a female Yakut);
a female and a male reindeer Tungus, both on a reindeer (indicat-
ing their nomadic lifestyle); a Koryak wearing snowshoes and car-
rying a bow; a Kurile with bow and arrows; and a Chukchi holding
a bird of prey. The middle row shows a male Kamchadale seated
on a dogsled. On the bottom row are a male Tungus with bow and
arrows holding a bird and a female Tungus with a large fish (both
representing non-nomadic Tungusic speakers). The map also depicts
animals important to Siberian people, such as wolves, dogs, horses,

Map 2. Petr Chaplin’s map of the itinerary of the First Kamchatka
Expedition (1729). Courtesy of the National Library of Sweden,
Stockholm, KoB St.f. E 50 nr 610, 1350x580 mm.
foxes, and fish. It presents a cooking pot; a boat, light enough to be

carried by two people; a pair of snowshoes; and two different burial
customs: exposing the corpse in open landscape and cremation (both
occurred on Kamchatka). The map is clearly coded and represents
the encounter of “savage” (wild) and “civilized” (Christian) people
during the expedition (Hintzsche and Nickol 1996b:7–8).
After his return in March 1730, Bering submitted a report to the
Admiralty and another one to Tsarina Anna Ivanovna. The Admi-
ralty received his report with reservations. Conceding that it was
likely that Asia and America were divided by water (named the Ber-
ing Strait by James Cook much later), the naval staff thought the
Dane had not sailed north enough. Bering was prompted to sug-

gest a second expedition. In November 1730 he submitted a plan for
developing eastern Siberia and another one for a much larger expe-
dition to settle the issue of a land bridge between Asia and America
(Golder 1914:166–167). The Russian Empire’s highest state organs—
the Senate, the Admiralty, and the Collegium for Foreign Affairs—
approved both plans (Hintzsche 2004:xxvii–xxviii). Bering’s plans
became the basis for the Second Kamchatka Expedition. The empress
issued a decree to dispatch this expedition in April 1732. Unlike the
First Kamchatka Expedition, Bering’s second expedition included
scholars from the Academy of Sciences, commissioned to describe
Siberia’s nature and native population.
The goals of the Second Kamchatka Expedition, also known as
the Great Nordic Expedition or the Second Bering Expedition, were
to find the Northeast Passage through the Arctic Ocean to China,
explore and chart America’s northwestern coast and any possible

Map 3. Stylized version of Chaplin’s map of Siberia (1730). Courtesy of
the Göttingen State and University Library (sub) Göttingen,
Cod.Ms.Asch 246, 1370x595 mm.
islands between Asia and America (like the legendary Joao da Gama
Land or the island Jezo), chart the Russian Empire’s Arctic coastline,
and ascertain a southern sea route along the Sea of Okhotsk toward
the Amur River delta (Golder 1922–25; Semyonov 1963; Okhotina
Lind and Møller 2001, 2009).17 The expedition’s general objective
was to continue the exploration of the sea between Kamchatka and
America, establish Japan’s exact geographical position, and investi-
gate whether the Northern Ice Sea provided a faster trade route to
Kamchatka than overland routes (Müller 1890:253).18 Thus the expe-
dition members had to examine the Northeast Passage again, map
Siberia’s northern and northeastern coastlines, find sea routes to
Japan and America, and explore opportunities for trade with Japan

and America.19 All of these aims were secret. A major geopolitical
motive for mounting this expedition was, of course, to occupy more
land and prepare it for colonization and exploitation.
Like its precursor, Bering’s second expedition was set up as a naval
operation, and the general organization was again in the hands of
the Admiralty and the Senate. However, the Academy of Sciences
acted as an adviser on academic matters, which led the expedition’s
aims to extend far beyond its primary geopolitical, cartographic,
and commercial goals.
The Second Kamchatka Expedition consisted of several contin-
gents, including a maritime party (or sea command) in three groups,
led by Bering and his deputies, Spangberg and Chirikov, which
carried the parts for the vessels that were to be built to chart the
Siberian and American coastlines. Added was an “academic party,”
consisting of the academy contingent, which was to conduct explo-

rations on land. All in all, the expedition involved about three thou-
sand people; it was the largest scientific expedition ever to venture
into Russia.20 Participants included officers, sailors, soldiers, sur-
veyors, scholars, students, interpreters, draftsmen, copyists, ship-
wrights, craftsmen, and assistants. The expedition was so huge that
it departed from St. Petersburg in three stages: the first maritime
group, under Spangberg, departed in February 1733; the second mar-
itime group, commanded by Bering, followed in April; the academic
group left in August.
The academic party included three professors from the Imperial
Academy: the French astronomer Louis Delisle de la Croyère (1687–
1741), brother of the renowned Parisian geographer Guillaume Delisle
and the astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, also an academy mem-
ber since 1726; the German natural historian Johann Georg Gmelin
(1709–55), academician since 1727; and Müller. Six Russian students
accompanied the professors, including Stepan Petrovich Krashe-
ninnikov (1713–55) from Moscow. Two of the students, Il’ya Petro-
vich Yakhontov and Aleksei Petrovich Gorlanov, were to serve as
translators. The professors shared the following draftsmen: Johann
Christian Berckhan (painter), who traveled with Gmelin and later
accompanied Steller to Kamchatka; and Johann Wilhelm Lürsenius
(draftsman), who accompanied Müller and Gmelin. As the prime
recorders of the expedition’s results on paper and in watercolors,
these artists played a vital role. In addition, there were four Russian
surveyors and one Russian instrumental apprentice, as well as copy-
ists, servants, and for protection, Cossacks, consisting of twelve sol-
diers and a drummer, commanded by a corporal.21
Two German-speaking academicians joined later: the natural
historian Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709–46) and the German histo-
rian Johann Eberhard Fischer. They were accompanied by the art-
ist Johann Cornelius Decker, who traveled with Steller but later
replaced Berckhan. Berckhan then joined Steller and the Swedish
translator-cum-scribe Jacob Johann Lindenau (1706–94), who ini-
tially traveled with Fischer but later separated from him.
The plan was for the main groups to travel overland through
Tobolsk, the gateway to Siberia, to Tomsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, and
Okhotsk. Smaller parties would travel overland, follow the three
main Siberian rivers (Ob, Yenisei, and Lena) to their deltas, and then

travel east and west to explore Siberia’s northern coast and make an
inventory of everything dead or alive that could be beneficial to the
Russian Empire or the advancement of science. At Okhotsk ships
would be built to chart Siberia’s shore and sail to America.
Despite enormous difficulties these aims were met. Bering and
Chirikov found America, that is, Alaska. Spangberg charted Japan’s
northern coastline and established that Japan was exclusively made up
of islands. Siberia’s northern coast from Arkhangelsk to the Kolyma
River was mapped. Yet the Second Kamchatka Expedition yielded
even more than had been planned. This can be attributed to the exten-
sion of the expedition’s aims before its departure. It is worthwhile
to discuss the recruitment of the academic participants as this sheds
light on the expedition’s preparations and its widening ambitions.
Müller’s Recruitment and Preparation

The Second Kamchatka Expedition was initially planned as a naval
operation. Bering requested two surveyors (geodesists) to accom-
pany him, foreseeing that he and his officers would have neither
the time nor the expertise to prepare accurate maps and determine
locations by means of astronomical observations (Müller 1890:260).
The academy’s astronomers Delisle and Delisle de la Croyère were
to train these surveyors in advance. The Senate, however, decided in
June 1732 that an academy professor should accompany these survey-
ors to oversee the observations, produce a geographical description
of the traversed areas, and collect, investigate, and describe every-
thing pertaining to natural history. The expedition members should
join of their own free will and be paid a good salary, to prevent any
absconding during the expedition. The academy recommended Delisle
de la Croyère for the astronomical and cartographic survey but sug-
gested that a second professor, Gmelin, be added to study nature’s
three realms (tria regna naturae: regnum minerale, regnum vegetabile,
regnum animale). After this proposal had been accepted, the Senate
invited twelve students from Moscow to complete their training in
the Academy of Sciences and the Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg.
The most suitable of them would accompany the expedition profes-
sors as assistants (Müller 1890:260–262).
When academy members drew up instructions for the partici-
pants, Müller contributed a guide for their historical research. This

November 1732 instruction bore the title “De historia gentium” (On
the history of peoples). With it Müller probably reacted to a senate
order to the academy of June 1732 requesting a “description of the
peoples and their manners” and a study of “the fruits of the earth”
since the expedition headed to vast “unexplored regions.”22 Müller
defined ten points of interest for “the history of peoples.” He sub-
mitted the directive spontaneously (ohne das es verlangt wurde) from
a personal “desire that during a journey so remarkable and long the
history of country and peoples (die land- und völkergeschichte), the
antiquities, and the manners and customs of peoples, etc. would not
be neglected.”23
Müller presented these points to Bering in the hope that a nat-
ural scientist would execute them. Gmelin agreed to keep a journal
and pay attention to Müller’s instruction (Müller 1890:263). That
winter, however, Gmelin’s health weakened, and in January 1733
he withdrew his offer to participate. Since no successors in natu-
ral history were available, it was suggested that a historian replace
him. Müller talked to Bering, who increased the historian’s inter-
est in the expedition. Bering mentioned Müller’s name to Kirilov,
who urged Müller to apply (Müller 1890:270–271). Müller wrote,
“It was then, in the beginning of 1733, that I offered my services to
describe Siberia’s civil history, its antiquities, the manners and cus-
toms of the peoples, as well as the events of the voyage, which was
then approved by the ruling high Senate.”24
Kirilov, first secretary of the Senate, oversaw the expedition
together with Heinrich Ostermann (Andrei Osterman), vice chan-
cellor and leader of the ministers who ran the Senate. Ordered by
Peter the Great to supervise the mapping of the Russian Empire,
Kirilov managed both the Second Kamchatka and the First Oren-
burg Expedition (1734–37). He planned an “Atlas of the entire Rus-
sian empire” in three volumes, consisting of 120 maps. Between
1726 and 1734 he produced over thirty maps. This project was inter-
rupted when Kirilov was sent to the southern Urals to build the city
of Orenburg, from which he was to increase Asian trade and explore
the Urals (L. Berg 1954:183–184). In 1727 Kirilov composed the first
description of the Russian Empire’s provinces (published in 1977), in
which their natural resources, population, trade and industry, reli-
gion, and historical events were outlined (P. Hoffmann 1988:170). In

1734, under his supervision and with the assistance of Joseph-Nicolas
Delisle, the first Russian-made general map of the Russian Empire
was issued. The Kirilov map presented the Russian Empire’s enor-
mous territory stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific, extending
southward to the Crimea and the Caucasus, to Mongolia in cen-
tral Asia, and to China in the Far East (Bagrow 1937; Novlianskaia
1964). This was a precursor of the “Atlas of Russia” published in 1745.
The proposal to appoint Müller was presented to the Senate in
February 1733.25 When Gmelin, after “befriending one or two bot-
tles of the finest Rhine wine,” recovered and rejoined the expedition
in June, Müller’s contract was not rescinded. In this way, as Müller
(1890:271) noted, “not one but three professors joined the Kamchatka
expedition and each of the Academy’s three divisions [mathematics,
physics, and humanities] was represented.”
In concert with the Admiralty, Kirilov was the driving force behind
the expedition’s preparation. Hoffmann (2005:72) notes that it was
especially at Kirilov’s instigation that the “aims of the expedition
were expanded with scholarly inquiries into the geography of Sibe-
ria, her flora and fauna, her inhabitants and their way of life.” It was
at Kirilov’s urging that the Academy of Sciences became involved
in the Second Kamchatka Expedition.
As we have seen in chapter 3, Müller became interested in Sibe-
ria during the 1728 sessions when academy scholars were cataloging
Messerschmidt’s collections. The richness of these collections, includ-
ing Messerschmidt’s journals and manuscripts, probably inspired
Müller to specialize in Siberia and apply Messerschmidt’s system-
atic approach to the field of history. Whereas Messerschmidt was
a naturalist trained by Hoffmann and Wolff in Halle, Müller was
trained as a historian by Mencke in Leipzig. Wolff’s teachings were
notoriously ahistorical (Mühlpfordt 1952a:35). By contrast Müller’s
education was deeply historical. Moreover, Messerschmidt’s eth-
nography had been preparatory. By focusing on an investigation of
Siberia’s history, which included a description of the Siberian peo-
ples, Müller apparently strove to surpass Messerschmidt’s tentative
efforts in this field.
The time given for preparation was short. Müller was appointed
in March 1733, and he departed in August. His readings before
departure were nevertheless extensive. Of diplomatic and trade mis-

sion reports, Müller read Herberstein (1549), Olearius (1647, 1656),
Kaempfer (1727), Ides (1696, 1704), Brand (1698a), Lange (1721, 1723),
and Unverzagt (1725). He perused the travel accounts of Isaac Massa
(1612), Jean Chardin (1686), and Cornelis de Bruyn (1711) and those
published by Samuel Purchas (1613). 26 He studied the work of Wit-
sen (1692, 1705), Remezov, Novitskii, Strahlenberg (1730), Messer-
schmidt, and J. B. Müller (1720) as well as Tatishchev’s unpublished
historical work (see chapter 3). Müller also knew travel accounts about
other parts of the world, citing them in the third volume of his Sam-
mlung Russischer Geschichte (1758). He took Lafitau’s 1724 compara-
tive work on American natives with him.
During the expedition the academicians had access to a traveling
library of about 270 titles (Hintzsche 2004:440–483). Most of the
books dealt with the natural sciences and medicine, as well as with
history, but 10 percent of them were travel accounts and geograph-
ical works about foreign countries (Hintzsche 2010:xvi).
Even before being signed up as an expedition member, Müller had
scrutinized Witsen’s Noord en Oost Tartarye, especially its second,
enlarged edition of 1705. This book was among the first that Mül-
ler consulted for in-depth knowledge of the peoples and places in
Russia’s Asian possessions. Bakhrushin (1999:27) claims that Müller
began his studies by taking notes from Witsen’s monograph, which
served as his guidebook on the trip. Müller indexed the book before
his departure (Müller 1733b, 1733c) and, despite his critique that Wit-
sen had not presented his data in a systematic way (see chapter 3),
made good use of the work. He repeatedly referred to it in his field
notes. Of equal importance was Messerschmidt’s work. Müller was
“an arduous reader of Messerschmidt’s notes, always with a pen at
hand” (Winter and Figurovskij 1962:18). In March 1733 Müller asked
the academy for a copyist to reproduce parts of Messerschmidt’s
manuscripts and Witsen’s work (Hintzsche 2004:256). In addition,
he studied Strahlenberg’s 1730 historical-geographical description
of Siberia with a critical eye.
Müller also consulted maps. Dahlmann (2009:105–107) surveys the
early maps of Siberia produced by cartographers like Mercator (1569)
and Ortelius (1570) and travelers like Herberstein (1549), Massa (1612),
Witsen (1687), and Strahlenberg (1730). Chaplin’s 1729 map of Bering’s
itinerary depicted Siberian peoples. Remezov’s collection of maps,

with which the cartography of Siberia began, included a description
of Siberian peoples. This work has survived only in fragmentary form
but may have been more complete in Müller’s day. Müller may have
also studied Kirilov’s 1727 description of Russian provinces. How-
ever, the Russian maps were not drawn to scale and did not provide
accurate locations of the Asian and American continents.
Itinerary and Results

The maritime and academic parties of the Second Kamchatka Expe-
dition traversed Siberia on vessels along the main rivers or in horse-
drawn carriages or sleds by land. But the groups had been assigned
different tasks and made their way independently of each other.
Bering and his deputies, Spangberg and Chirikov, aimed for the
Kamchatka Peninsula, the Northern Ice Sea, Alaska, and Japan.
The academicians’ party split up at Tobolsk. Beginning in 1734 Mül-
ler and Gmelin made their way (mostly together) from Tobolsk to
Tomsk, Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk at Lake Baikal (see
map 4). After having investigated the Transbaikal region up to
the Chinese border, they passed through Kyakhta to Nerchinsk
and Argunsk, where Müller investigated the Amur River’s upper
reaches (1735– 36). Returning to Irkutsk, Müller and Gmelin sub-
sequently traveled down the Lena River (i.e., northward) toward
Yakutsk in eastern Siberia, where they worked for almost a year
(1736– 37). Logistical problems prevented the two researchers from
continuing to Kamchatka. Neither the authorities at Yakutsk nor
Bering’s sea party was able to provide the necessary provisions
(Büsching 1785:23). During the summer of 1737, therefore, Müller
and Gmelin dispatched their student Krasheninnikov to Kamchatka
via Okhotsk. They traveled up the Lena to winter in Irkutsk (1737–
38) before moving on to Yeniseisk (1738– 39). Müller and Gmelin
slowly made their way back to western Siberia, investigating the
lower reaches of the Lena, Yenisei, and Ob Rivers. After having
traveled as far north as Mangazeya (1739), as Messerschmidt had
done, they returned to Yeniseisk and reached the region south of
Krasnoyarsk, where Messerschmidt had investigated ancient tombs.
After having wintered in Krasnoyarsk, Müller and Gmelin sepa-
rated.27 From February 1740 on Müller traveled through Tomsk and
sailed down the Ob to Surgut and Berezov in the north, returning

Map 4. Müller’s itinerary during the Second Kamchatka Expedition, 1733–43. Cartography by Jutta Turner. Route after J. G. Gmelin 1751–52;
Black and Buse 1989; and Dahlmann 2009. Base map: esri® Data and Maps. © Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale.
to Tobolsk in September 1740. The next two years, Müller resided
in Tobolsk, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, and other places east of the
Ural Mountains. In December 1742 Müller and Gmelin left Siberia
and, together with other members of the academic party, arrived in
St. Petersburg by February 1743. (Some members returned in 1747,
others as late as 1749.)
Several expedition members separated from the main group of
academic explorers. The astronomer Delisle de la Croyère parted
ways with Müller and Gmelin in Tobolsk (March 1734) and again
in Yakutsk (July 1737). He sailed down the Lena with a small group
including two surveyors. Traveling to Irkutsk, the Transbaikal area,
Yakutsk, and Okhotsk, Delisle de la Croyère sailed to Kamchatka.
He boarded a ship commanded by Chirikov in search of the fabu-
lous Joao da Gama Land, indicated on a map by his brother Joseph-
Nicolas Delisle (Fisher 1992). He saw the American continent from
the ship before dying from scurvy in 1741.
Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov, the expedition’s best-known
Russian student, left Müller and Gmelin in July 1737 for Kamchatka,
accompanied by elaborate instructions from both Gmelin (his men-
tor) and Müller. Working on the peninsula from September 1737 to
June 1741, Krasheninnikov penned a “Description of the Land of
Kamchatka” (Opisanie zemli Kamchatki, 1755) that would be trans-
lated into English, French, Dutch, and German. According to the
Russian historian Semyonov (1963:139), it is “still the best ever writ-
ten on Kamchatka.”
The naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller (Stöller, 1709–46) also wrote
a description of Kamchatka, published in 1774. Steller was an academy
adjunct from February 1737 on and Gmelin’s assistant beginning in
January 1739. Leaving St. Petersburg in December 1737, he traveled
with the artist Decker through Tobolsk to Yeniseisk, where they met
up with Gmelin and Müller in December 1738 (Hintzsche 2001:24).
In a February 14, 1739, report, Müller explained that Steller headed
for Irkutsk and from there to Yakutsk, Okhotsk, and Kamchatka.
Apart from studying natural history, he was to “conduct all inves-
tigations relating to the history of peoples, as he has the necessary
skills and desire to do so.”28 Exploring the Irkutsk and Transbaikal
region in 1739–40, Steller traveled to the trading point Kyakhta to
buy Chinese paper for preserving botanical specimens. An ardent

botanist, he amassed substantial collections, including materials for
a Flora Irkutiensis, which described 1,152 plants.29 Leaving Irkutsk
in March 1740, accompanied by Berckhan and the student Gorla-
nov, he reached Okhotsk in August 1740 and in September sailed
for Kamchatka. There Krasheninnikov handed Steller the research
reports he had composed since 1737.
After he had carried out field studies in southern Kamchatka for
several months, Steller was invited by Bering to accompany him to
the strait and America. Departing in June 1741, Chirikov and Ber-
ing sighted the coast of America. Steller became the first European
scholar to set foot in Alaska on July 20, 1741. Being a prodigious
explorer, he collected 160 plants during the six hours he was given
on Kayak Island (Jäger 2000) and found artifacts indicating a rela-
tion between the inhabitants and the people of Kamchatka. A tell-
ing example of Steller’s precision is that he described eight ways of
catching a seal (Steller 1753, cited in Scurla 1963:120–121).
On the return voyage to Asia, Bering’s ship was wrecked and his
crew had to pass the winter of 1741–42 on an island. Bering died of
exhaustion, but Steller survived thanks to his familiarity with the
environment. He prescribed for the crew botanical cures for scurvy,
knowledge of which he had procured on Kamchatka. He dissected
and described the gigantic sea cow that was later named after him
(Steller 1751, 1753). Steller continued his studies in Kamchatka for
two more years (August 1742–June 1744) and assisted the Itelmens in
several ways. In January 1744 he received the September 1743 Senate
decree to end the expedition. He set out for home in August 1744,
accompanied by Berckhan and Gorlanov, transporting sixteen cases
of acquisitions and manuscripts. Investigating other parts of Siberia
along the way, including, with Grigorii Demidov, the Perm area,
Steller died on November 12, 1746, in Tyumen, west of Tobolsk, prob-
ably of pneumonia. He might never have caught the disease were it
not for the long delays caused by the Siberian authorities’ harass-
ment; they were irritated by Steller’s critique on the harsh treatment
of the Itelmens and his efforts to protect them. Steller’s observations
stand out in the history of explorations, botany, zoology, and eth-
nography (discussed later in this chapter).30
Another scholar contributing to the second expedition was Johann
Eberhard Fischer. After he had fallen ill, Müller requested to be

replaced in 1737, but by the time Fischer arrived, Müller had recov-
ered to continue the journey. Fischer was a historian with linguis-
tic interests. He had been working at the St. Petersburg Gymnasium
and became an academy adjunct in 1738. Supposed to replace Müller
by the summer of 1740, Fischer traveled with Lindenau as an inter-
preter. Fischer’s itinerary and labors during the expedition have not
been the subject of a separate study (Gulya 1995:12). Many schol-
ars, including Müller, evaluated his contributions as disappoint-
ing. Yet Fischer’s scholarship may have been unfairly neglected: he
published a two-volume history of Siberia (1768), based in part on
Müller’s historical work, and compiled an important comparative
linguistic manuscript, “Vocabularium Sibiricum” (sub Göttingen,
Fischer n.d.).
Apart from detailed maps, the Second Kamchatka Expedition
resulted in large collections of flora, fauna, and minerals and numer-
ous findings important to Siberia’s geography, history, archaeology,
linguistics, and ethnography. The Second Kamchatka Expedition
not only reached its geopolitical goals, formulated in cartographic
terms, but yielded a large scholarly harvest. Contemporaries did not
perceive these results as such. In 1743 the Russian Senate decided to
end the Second Kamchatka Expedition because it had been “fruit-
less” (Semyonov 1954:190).
By contrast the expedition’s results were substantial. Wendland
(1990:368) provides a list: A beginning was made with the system-
atic exploration of Siberia and the Pacific. The expedition discovered
northwestern America, the Aleutian Islands, and the Kuril Islands;
rediscovered the Bering Strait, proving that Asia and America were
not connected by land; dismissed the legend of a landmass in the
northern Pacific; charted most of the northern coast of Siberia, as
well as Kamchatka, the Sea of Okhotsk, and Japan; and investi-
gated large parts of Siberia, describing the three realms of nature
(plants, animals, and minerals). On a more general level, the expedi-
tion inspired existing fields of science and introduced new branches
of learning in Russia.
Wendland’s list omits two important results. First is the study
of Siberia’s inhabitants. This is surprising as the Swiss physician
Albrecht von Haller credited Gmelin in a 1751 poem with discov-
ering “a new world . . . where unknown animals served peoples not

yet named, where unknown ore awaited future artists and never
observed plants grew.”31 Contemporaries like Haller knew full well
that the description of “still unnamed peoples” was high on the
expedition’s agenda. This was evident not only from Gmelin’s travel
account but also from Krasheninnikov’s and Steller’s descriptions
of Kamchatka. Second, the expedition resulted in the expansion of
the Russian Empire in the northern Pacific and the colonization of
both Siberia and Alaska. Only the Chukchi, in the northeast, con-
tinued to resist the Russian grip and in 1778 forced the authorities
to a treaty, momentarily safeguarding their autonomy. As news of
a route to America spurred a fur rush, the expansion had all sorts
of consequences. It led to the decimation of fur species, the extinc-
tion of the sea cow, the impoverishment of native populations, and
attempts to settle nomadic peoples (Hintzsche and Nickol 1996a).32
Müller was the leading expedition member to work on ethnography
but hardly published on this part of his research. The neglect of the
expedition’s ethnographic results can be traced to the academic par-
ty’s reception in St. Petersburg after the long journey through Siberia.
After the Expedition

Müller brought enormous amounts of material with him to St. Peters-
burg. The scope of his labors can be grasped from this summary:
His completed and catalogued collections included forty-two books
of documents on the history and geography of Siberia, four books of
Siberian and Kazan chronicles, ten books of descriptions of Siberia
prepared by Müller himself, three books prepared by students and
overseen by Müller and a large quantity of maps, documents and city
plans. He . . . delivered fifteen books of reports, documents, letters,
orders and other forms of communication between his group and
St. Petersburg between 1733 and 1743. Müller promised soon to hand
over the journals of his and Gmelin’s voyages, a history of Siberia, a
geographical description of Siberia and its provinces, corrected maps
of Siberia and a detailed account of the trade, administration, soci-
ety and customs of contemporary Siberia. (Materialy 1885–1900, vol.
8:211–212; summarized in Black and Buse 1989:18)
Erich Donnert described these materials as an “inexhaustible source

[of knowledge] on Siberia’s history, ethnography, and geography.” 33

The very size of the collections was one of the reasons why the pro-
cessing of the expedition’s findings became a slow and complicated
process.
Müller published works on Siberia’s history (1761–63), trade (1760a),
and geography (1761), as well as reports on the northern expeditions
(1758b, 1761) and the academy’s history (1890). He also produced sev-
eral maps. Yet only a minor part of his research on Siberian peoples
appeared in print during his lifetime. Müller’s most important eth-
nographic writings were only recently published: his ethnographic
notes (published in 2003), which provided the basis for his compar-
ative manuscript, “Description of Siberian peoples” (Müller 2009,
2010d). Gmelin published two volumes of his Siberian flora (1747–
49) and a well-known travel account.
Müller was not the only expedition member to conduct ethno-
graphic research in Siberia. At least six of them made ethnographic
observations: Müller, Gmelin, Steller, Krasheninnikov, Fischer, and
Lindenau. Gmelin’s 1751–52 travel report contained many ethno-
graphic data.34 Steller’s description of Kamchatka, published twenty-
eight years after his death, provided information on the peninsula’s
geography, climate, and geology, as well as on the “native peoples of
the region, including their customs, names, ways of life and man-
ners” (Steller 1774).35 Krasheninnikov’s description of the peninsula
and its inhabitants (1755) appeared in an abbreviated English trans-
lation as The History of Kamtschatka and the Kurilski Islands (1764).36
Fischer published four articles of ethnological interest (1770, partly
published earlier) and wrote a long introduction to a history of Sibe-
ria (1768), which contained his rendition of Siberia’s principal peoples
in addition to the Mongols, Manchus, Chinese, Greeks, Russians,
and Persians. Lindenau produced “historical-ethnographic mate-
rials on Siberian and northeastern peoples” in his “Description of
Siberian peoples” that was published much later (Lindenau 1983).
He later worked for the Sibirskii Prikaz and wrote the first ethnog-
raphy of the Yakuts (Sakha).
Most of these works were published posthumously largely because
of the policy of secrecy in Russia. The circumstances at the academy
in the 1740s and 1750s made it difficult to disclose any of the expedi-
tion’s data. The Russian government maintained strict confidential-
ity about its Asian colonies. Expedition members had been obliged

to sign a contract not to publish without the naval and academic
authorities’ approval.37 This policy had prevented Messerschmidt from
publishing, and Müller’s publication record was likewise impeded.
Ironically, after his return to St. Petersburg, Müller experienced
the same kind of cold reception as Messerschmidt had. Owing
to changes at the top of Russian society, there was no longer any
interest in the Kamchatka expeditions. In 1740–41 Anna Ivanovna
had been succeeded by Ivan Antonovich and Elizaveta Petrovna,
Peter the Great’s daughter, who ruled Russia between 1741 and 1762.
Elizaveta restored some of her father’s policies but exiled the most
unpopular of her German advisers, including Ostermann, and no
longer allowed Germans in the government. Intrigues between Rus-
sian and foreign scholars erupted at the academy. The elite ruling
Russia was torn between the autocracy’s demands for continued
Petrine Westernization and the desire to return to a heroic Slavic
past, dominated by the Orthodox Church and the traditional boyar
aristocracy. The tension between these ideals, reflected in shifts of
power at the court, would resurface in the nineteenth century as
the dispute between the Westernizers and the Slavophiles. In the
mid-eighteenth century the Academy of Sciences was turned into
a battlefield. Mikhail Vasil’evich Lomonosov (1711– 65) became one
of Müller’s fiercest critics.
Lomonosov’s name is attached to the University of Moscow, which
was founded as Russia’s first university in 1755, partially on his ini-
tiative. Acclaimed as Russia’s first native-born scientist, historian,
grammarian, and poet, Lomonosov is today an icon of Russian sci-
ence and culture. After having studied at the universities of Mar-
burg and Freiburg, under Wolff’s supervision, Lomonosov in 1745
was appointed professor of chemistry at the Academy of Sciences,
where he remained active until his premature death. A versatile tal-
ent, he produced the first modern grammar of Russian in 1757 (also
translated into German) and a history of Russia in 1760.
The rivalry between Müller and Lomonosov became apparent in
1749, when Müller’s lecture Origines gentis et nominis Russorum (On
the origins of the Russian people and their name), intended for a fes-
tive academy meeting, was pilloried by Lomonosov before its deliv-
ery. Lomonosov attacked Müller for tracing the origins of the first

state on Russian soil to the foreign “Varangians”: Swedish and pos-
sibly Danish Vikings. Following Bayer (1734, 1741), who based his
work on Byzantine sources and the Russian chronicler Nestor, Mül-
ler argued that these Vikings (Væringjar, Waräger) founded Novgorod
(862) and Kiev (864).38 This led to the notorious “Normanist con-
troversy,” in which Müller was discredited.39 The lecture was never
delivered, and its Latin and Russian copies were destroyed (Müller
1749).40 Subsequently, Müller’s history of Siberia was censored and
published in a truncated version.41 The academy’s xenophobic bicker-
ing accounts for Müller’s curtailed history of Siberia (P. Hoffmann
2005:95–115), including the conflict with Lomonosov, who stated in
a review that Müller had no right to write Russia’s history because
he preferred to chronicle its failures rather than its successes.
Russian patriotism was a sensitive issue for the German-speaking
officials running the academy. Pekarskii (1870– 73) gives a vivid impres-
sion of fruitful debates informed by humanist traditions, but there
were also disputes between Russian and German scholars, as well
as between scholars like Bayer and Müller and the despotic Schu-
macher. Müller and Gmelin had difficulty collecting the monies
they were due. Gmelin became so fed up that he, after having seen
the first volume of his Flora Sibirica through the academy’s press in
1747, returned to Swabia to publish his travel account and accept a
professorship in medicine. Müller was demoted in 1750–51. Apart
from intrigues in the academy’s administration, Müller, Messer-
schmidt, Gmelin, Steller, and Fischer invited trouble by criticiz-
ing elements of Russian conquest, especially the atrocities against
locals. Such reservations were considered detrimental to the state’s
interests and hurt Russian national pride. Gmelin’s travel account
was translated into French and Dutch but not into Russian because
“it contained uncomplimentary observations and comments on Rus-
sians” (Egerton 2008:3). Thus attempts by the German academicians
to publish rare and unknown materials from the Siberian expedi-
tion were not exactly welcomed.
The Kunstkamera, Ethnography, and the Art of Illustrating

By 1728 the academy’s collections were divided into several sections.
The Naturalia Department exhibited minerals from Gottwald,

together with flora and fauna items and anatomical specimens mostly
from the Ruysch and Seba collections. The department was located
on the western wing’s first and second floors. The Coin Collection
contained the numismatic collection from Lüders. The Scientific
Instruments, bought from many different masters, were displayed
in a separate chamber. Peter’s Gallery contained memorabilia per-
taining to Peter the Great’s life and work. The department of “arti-
facts” (Kunstsachen) had objects from all over the world on display
in a gallery and stored in several third-floor chambers of the west-
ern wing (see fig. 1, in chapter 2).
Exhibited in this latter section were garments of Siberian peo-
ples, peoples of “other provinces of the Russian Government,” and
foreign peoples. They included “magic men’s costumes” as well as
“shaman or witch gongs and idols of the heathen peoples of Rus-
sia.” Other showcases contained portraits and wax figurines, vessels,
luxury articles, items from Asian peoples, and carved objects shaped
on a turning lathe made of wood, stone, and ivory. All displays were
arranged symmetrically on molded shelves and brackets. They had
captions describing the objects, the material they were made of, and
the peoples from which they derived (Staniukovich 1970:26–27).
Müller distinguished between objects from the natural world
(Naturalien) and objects from material culture (Seltenheiten).42 This
distinction stemmed from the Renaissance separation of Natura
and Artes. Despite its name (Chamber of Arts), the majority of the
Kunstkamera’s collections were of a scientific nature, relating to
biology, geology, anatomy, science, and technology. Nevertheless,
the Kunstkamera had a considerable collection of artifacts. In 1741
the ethnographic objects from the Russian Empire were kept in two
chambers, whereas objects originating from other parts of the world
were stored separately in two other chambers.
Natural or art “curiosities” were highly valued in eighteenth-
century Russia. Peter the Great had issued an ukaz (decree) to send
all “remarkable” objects to St. Petersburg, and this decree was obeyed
more often than not. In 1715 the Siberian manufacturer Nikita Demi-
dov gave Catherine, Peter’s wife, “golden objects from the Scyth-
ians,” which were displayed in the Summer Palace (Neverov 1996,
2005). The largest share of the Siberian archaeological collection was

assembled in 1715–18 under the supervision of the Siberian gover-
nor, Prince Matvei Gagarin. It included two hundred ancient gold
artifacts. In 1716–17 Lorenz Lange acquired an important collec-
tion of objects in China, to which he added during his second trip
in 1719–22, when he stayed in Beijing as Russia’s first agent for two
years, and his third in 1727– 28. Bayer described them in his 1730
Museum Sinicum.43 In the late 1720s the Messerschmidt collections
and those acquired by Buxbaum in West Asia and Astrakhan were
added. The beautiful watercolors of plants that Buxbaum and his
artist produced were sent to St. Petersburg, where Aleksei Zubov
engraved and Dorothea Maria Gsell hand-colored them. While the
plates were published in Buxbaum’s Plantarum minus cognitarum
centuria (1728–40), one of the first books to be printed at the acad-
emy’s press (Sytin 2003, 2005), the original watercolors were stored
in the Kunstkamera.
Thus, together with Ruysch’s and Seba’s anatomical and natural
history collections, the Kunstkamera held the results of Lange’s expe-
dition to China, Schober’s to Persia, Buxbaum’s to Minor Asia, and
Messerschmidt’s to Siberia (Winter and Figurovskij 1962:12). They
formed the foundation for the Kunstkamera’s anatomical, natural
history, and ethnographic collections.
The objects collected during the Second Kamchatka Expedi-
tion were regularly forwarded to St. Petersburg (Hintzsche 2004,
2006). Some of these items were used in an “ethnographic mas-
querade” during a mock wedding at the so-called Ice Palace on the
Neva in February 1740. Imperial orders had decreed all corners of
the empire to send a pair of typical male and female costumes. In
addition, the committee preparing the festivities asked the acad-
emy to supply the national costumes of the Mordvins, Cheremis,
Chuvash, Votiaks, Lapps, Samoyeds, Tungus, and various other
Siberian peoples. The academy was requested to produce a detailed
report on “the Asian peoples that are subject to His Majesty” on the
basis of the “Kamchatka Files” (Kamtschatkasche Acten), including a
description of their clothing, accessories, means of travel, and pack
animals. The request also entailed a depiction of the peoples of the
four continents (Europe, Asia, America, and Africa). The academy’s
Drawing Chamber had to produce drawings of several costumed

figures. The masquerade was a delight to the empress Anna, but
some of the costumes were lost or damaged from the performance
(Russow 1900:10–12, 32– 34).
The professors and their students participating in the Second
Kamchatka Expedition had orders to collect materials for the Kunst-
kamera. Müller made a special point of this in his instructions to
expedition members (discussed later). While some of Gmelin’s and
Steller’s acquisitions went missing en route, most of the group’s mate-
rials ended up in the academy’s museum.44 Müller, Gmelin, Steller,
and Krasheninnikov all contributed to the collections, although some
gathered more than others. These shipments were quite extensive.
Before January 1741, Müller collected 108 pieces of clothing from the
Samoyeds, Ostyaks, Yakuts, Yukagirs, Lamuts, Koryaks, and Tun-
gus. He also sent archaeological objects to St. Petersburg (Materialy
1885–1900, vol. 8:210). Highly interested in historical remains, he had
Lürsenius draw prehistoric burial objects (P. Hoffmann 2005:211–
214). The Kunstkamera contained many pieces of shaman clothing
and paraphernalia collected in Siberia between 1741 and 1743. One
year after his return, Müller commissioned Decker to draw cos-
tumes of Siberian peoples and antiquities, as well as copies of Sibe-
rian town plans (Stetskevich 2005:70). In 1777 Johann Bacmeister
reported that Müller and Gmelin had brought together “so many
rarities from Asian countries and peoples . . . that no other Cabinet
in Europe could exhibit such a supply.” 45
We hear so little today about the Kunstkamera’s early collec-
tions because most of them went up in flames. The fire of Decem-
ber 5, 1747, inflicted heavy losses on the collections and destroyed the
museum’s central tower, which had to be rebuilt. The ethnographic
objects suffered the most (Potapov 1966:152). Lomonosov suggested
that all ethnographic collections were lost in the fire (“the anatom-
ical objects, as well as the entire gallery with Siberian and Chinese
objects”), but Russow (1900:16) doubts this as the museum records
do not mention it.46 He writes that what was saved from the fire was
stored in the adjacent house of Demidov. The Siberian and Chinese
galleries displayed the surviving ethnographic objects again when
the Kunstkamera reopened in 1766. Müller presented the academy
with “his collection of gold, silver, copper, and iron antiquities from
Siberian graves” in 1748, and Lange’s heirs sent a large number of

Chinese and Tatar objects from Irkutsk in 1754 (Russow 1900:16–17).
But it was only with the Academic Expeditions of 1768– 74, carried
out by Pallas and others (see chapter 6), that new collections were
added to replace those lost in the fire.
This partly explains why we hardly find evidence of the important
early collections. Recent catalogs (Its 1989; Ilyina 2009) provide lit-
tle information concerning the Siberian objects collected during the
eighteenth century.47 Its (1989:7) confirms that, thanks to the Sec-
ond Kamchatka Expedition, the number of ethnographic objects
was greatly augmented during the 1730s.
A Latin catalog, titled Musei Imperialis Petropolitani (M I P) (1741–
45), allows us to approximate Müller’s and his colleagues’ yield. This
catalog, published in two volumes containing seven parts, was built
on a 1727 Russian catalog (Potapov 1966:150) prepared after Mess-
erschmidt’s return. Objects of nature, namely, human anatomy and
zoology (1742), plants (1745), and minerals (1745), as well as books
(1742), are listed in the first volume. Part 1 of the second volume (1741)
lists the art objects (res artificiales); part 2 (1745), ancient coins; and
part 3 (1745), recent coins. The volumes treating plants, animals, and
ancient coins are the most extensive. Volume 2, part 1, concerned
with curiosities, including scientific instruments, sculptures, paint-
ings, drawings (Icones pictae rerum), objects of peoples, and precious
objects, is the least extensive. Moreover, the catalog’s section deal-
ing with curiosities appeared in 1741—too early to include all objects
Müller and his colleagues sent from Siberia.
However, a list of the items lost in the fire has been preserved.48
This inventory, dated 1748, together with the M I P , Schumacher’s 1741
museum guide (see also J. Bacmeister 1776, 1777), and a substantial
series of drawings, make it possible to reconstruct the Kunstka-
mera. These drawings resulted from Tsar Peter’s decision to have all
objects kept in the Kunstkamera documented on paper, in drawings,
in watercolors, or in print. More than two thousand such drawings
have been retraced in Russian museums and archives by thirteen
Russian curators and three Dutch (art) historians, as well as his-
torians of science, who collaborated in the Paper Museum project.
The total number of these Icones pictae counts well over five thou-
sand, all dating from the period ca. 1725–60. The results of this proj-
ect were published in Russian and English editions (Kistemaker et

al. 2003–4, 2005).49 These highly accurate drawings were contained
in the museum boxes 37– 38, “Icones operum artificisorum,” and 41–
44, “Icones operum Chinensium” (M I P 1741–45, vol. 2, pt. 1). Thus, the
ethnographic objects were not listed under a separate category such
as Müller was simultaneously developing in Siberia. The M I P does
not give any indication of the new terminology Müller created in
the field. Instead, it reverts to the earlier category of “art objects or
antiquities” (kunst-sachen oder antiquiteten). In fact, the Kunstka-
mera’s division was regional, distinguishing “Siberian and Volga
artifacts” (Pavlinskaia 2005) from “Chinese and Oriental objects”
(Menshikova 2005), rather than distinguishing Siberia’s ethnogra-
phy from that of China.
The Russians valued the scientific reproduction of natural and
artistic objects to such an extent that they hired artists and engrav-
ers. The most influential was Georg Gsell, a painter from Switzer-
land who was working in Holland when he was recruited to teach
Russian draftsmen. Peter the Great had met Gsell during his sec-
ond trip to western Europe. When Gsell came with his wife, Doro-
thea Maria, to St. Petersburg in 1717, they were given studios in the
Kunstkamera and the Academy of Sciences. Gsell expanded the pio-
neering work of Mikhail Avramov, who had set up a small school
inside the Petersburg Printing House to train Russian students in
copying drawings. Gsell and his wife professionalized these efforts
in 1725–43. Scientific illustrating, etching, engraving, and painting
were taught at the academy in a master–pupil setting. An engrav-
ing chamber was installed in the academy so that accomplished
masters could fulfill the academy’s need for scientific illustrations
(Stetskevich 2005).
Dorothea Maria Gsell was the youngest daughter of the celebrated
artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), a flower painter renowned
for her studies of insect metamorphosis (Wettengl 1997). The daugh-
ter’s St. Petersburg contract of September 1723 stated that she would
draw all the Kunstkamera’s objects, design the objects’ display, and
give tours to visitors. She had to depict the objects in four domains
(animals, plants, artifacts, and antiquities) “true to life” (nach dem
Leben). No copies of her work were to leave the Kunstkamera.50
Gsell, likewise, taught drawing from nature as accurately as pos-

sible. He contributed to plans, developed by Avramov, Andrei Nar-
tov, and others, to erect a drawing school in the Kunstkamera, but
these came to naught. However, in 1726, when the Academy of Sci-
ences provided tuition to the Gymnasium, several of the almost forty
students chose “scientific illustration.” Gsell, his wife, and these stu-
dents collaborated in reproducing all of the Kunstkamera’s objects.
The significance of this new art form was so great that the Acad-
emy of Sciences was renamed the “Academy of Sciences and Arts”
in 1747. It combined the arts of collecting and painting, of describ-
ing and representing, until a separate Academy of Arts was estab-
lished in 1757.
Gsell drew the objects Messerschmidt acquired and was the author
of instructions for the artists active in the Second Kamchatka Expe-
dition: Berckhan, Lürsenius, and Decker (Hintzsche 2004:523–529).
After the expedition these three were employed to illustrate the
academy’s publications and document the Kunstkamera’s collec-
tions. Gmelin’s Flora Sibirica (1747–69), published in St. Petersburg,
included 297 drawings of plants.
This artistic blossoming came to an end in 1766, when Count
Vladimir Orlov was made the Academy of Sciences director. Clos-
ing the Chancellery and the studios, he discharged the draftsmen,
painters, and engravers. In this way a unique experiment in the his-
tory of arts and science was terminated. Characteristic had been the
combination of research and education, theoria cum praxi, that served
as Leibniz’s motto. The tsar’s Paper Museum resulted in an encyclo-
pedic system of illustrations, a visual database facilitating internal
research of the collections and providing the basis for reproductions
to be published or included in scholarly correspondence.
An in-depth study would be needed to assess the Second Kam-
chatka Expedition’s ethnographic results. A list of field sketches
(Materialy 1885–1900, vol. 5:604, vol. 8:194–212) helps identify the
artifacts acquired (Stetskevich 2005:70– 71). Pavlinskaia (2003:210)
mentions that some two hundred artifacts representing Siberian cul-
tures and those of the Volga basin, of which many are recorded in
drawing, were kept in the Kunstkamera before the 1747 fire. Many
of these artifacts had been collected by Müller and his colleagues
for the “Kunst-Kammer.”51

Müller’s Instructions
As one of the leaders of the Second Kamchatka Expedition’s aca-
demic contingent, Müller wrote several research instructions. Part
of his workload entailed the supervision of Russian students and
assistants, including their research activities. Müller wrote numer-
ous instructions, for instance, for the artists and assistants, but five
of them stand out: two for the historians—Müller (1732) and Fischer
(1740), two for the naturalist Krasheninnikov (1737, 1738), and one
for the naturalist Steller (1739). They are important for studying the
genesis of ethnography.
The earliest was an instruction for historical research, “De histo-
ria gentium” (On the history of peoples), consisting of ten points.52
Reflecting Müller’s views of November 1732, before he knew he
would be participating in the expedition, the instruction formu-
lates what he wanted to know “about the peoples to be encoun-
tered by Captain Bering during the journey to Kamchatka.” The
instruction is an example of ethnic history, a field related to the
study of civil (or political) history (historia civilis). Civil history was
distinguished from natural history (historia naturalis), as evidenced
in the division of labor between Müller and Gmelin, who spoke
about “political” and “natural history.”53 Political history studied
past human activities primarily in terms of politics, whereas nat-
ural history studied the formation of the natural world, includ-
ing the nature of human beings. Ethnic history, or the “history of
peoples,” was an altogether new perspective on the field of history.
In German contemporary literature it was designated as Völkerge-
schichte. 54 I propose to translate this term as “ethnic history,” even
if Herbert Butterfield (1969:49) translated it as “national history.”
The Slovak historian Matthias Bel (Mátyás Bél), who studied in
Trnava and Halle, used the identical term historia ethnica in a 1718
letter outlining his later Notitia Hungariae novae historico geograph-
ica (1735–47). 55
In “De historia gentium” Müller first requested the researcher
to demarcate each people’s lands: he asked about their boundaries,
their territory’s climate, and the intermingling of peoples of differ-
ent character (unterschiedlicher Art). Second, he inquired about the
origins of each people according to their own tradition: What did

they say about their ancestral settlements, migrations, achievements,
and so on? Religion was the third topic to be studied: What was the
“natural belief ” of each people, how did they represent their God
or gods, how did they try to secure their spiritual welfare, and what
were their sacred ceremonies? Müller’s fourth area of investigation
concerned the everyday “manners and rites” (Sitten und Riten) of
each people: their domestic life, marital traditions, and so on. As a
fifth point he wanted to find out about a population’s economics—
the commerce, agriculture, harvest yields, and artisanry— as well
as its military skills and political orientation. The sixth cluster of
questions involved the language and script of each people: examples
should be provided in the form of a translation of the Lord’s Prayer
into the local language and lists of numerals and commonly used
nouns (later, an inquiry about literacy and calculation was added).
A seventh set of questions asked for the names of the country, riv-
ers, and towns of each people, adding wherever possible their pro-
nunciation and etymology.56 Furthermore, each town’s history was
to be rendered by relating when, by whom, and on what occasion it
was built and, if it previously had been ruled by others, when and
for what reason it had been conquered. The penultimate questions
focused on a description of the relics, ancient monuments, old and
recent vessels, idols, and outlook of the more important towns. These
should be sketched accurately and brought back to St. Petersburg,
if possible. Finally, “individuals of both sexes from each people and
tribe” were to be painted in customary dress, while clothing samples
should be taken to St. Petersburg (Müller 1732, published in Hintz-
sche 2004:145–146).57
Müller’s ten points aimed at producing a minimum of informa-
tion about the Siberian peoples. The Academy of Sciences adopted
them, but in April 1733 the Senate, responding to a request from
Lorenz Lange, vice governor of Irkutsk, added one item. Phrased
differently from Müller’s queries, it reflected a foreign-policy pri-
ority and called for attention to “the origin, morals, customs and
so on of people living on the north side of the Amur River.” The
Amur area, an ill-defined frontier area between the Russian and
Chinese empires, had been a source of controversy since the Treaty
of Nerchinsk (1689). The point was underscored by claims that “the

Russian nation once had numerous settlements there as well” (Hintz-
sche 2004:510).
Müller’s original instruction made no reference to “the Russian
nation.” Initially, Müller was primarily interested in Siberia’s indig-
enous peoples, not in the Russian conquerors or colonists. Likewise,
his first instructions did not mention the yasak, or tribute, which
the Russians exacted from their subjects. The only interest Müller
expressed in the toll levied on Siberians was in regard to the “har-
vest yields” (item 5). During the expedition this changed, however,
and Müller became the first historian to draw attention to the Rus-
sians and Cossacks living in Siberia and their often-violent interac-
tion with the native Siberians (Elert 2003).
In later instructions Müller developed more elaborate schemes.
He first expanded his ideas in a June 1737 instruction for Krashe-
ninnikov. When the Russian student left for Kamchatka, Mül-
ler and Gmelin handed him an instruction of eighty-nine points,
eleven of which were of an ethnographic nature (Hintzsche 2001:25,
n. 19; Bucher 2002:79–82). Krasheninnikov was to study the his-
tory, languages, religion, settlements, diet, and diseases of the Tun-
gus (Evenks), Lamuts (Evens), and Gilyaks (Nivkh) near the Sea
of Okhotsk and of the “Kamtschadalen” (Itelmens), Koryaks, and
“Kurilen” (Ainu) on Kamchatka, and also to collect their dress. Mül-
ler added an extensive manuscript, titled “Geography and constitu-
tion of Kamchatka,” based on his archival work and 1737 interviews
in Yakutsk, in which he summarized everything he knew about the
peninsula (Müller 1774).58 One of the students, Yakhontov, trans-
lated the manuscript into Russian. In 1774 J. B. Scherer found Mül-
ler’s summary important enough to append it to Steller’s description
of Kamchatka.
In March 1738 Müller sent Krasheninnikov an additional instruc-
tion (Zusatz), exclusively dealing with Kamchatka. Titled “Fragen
zur Beschreibung der Völker, ihrer Sitten und Gebräuche” (Ques-
tions on the description of peoples, their manners and customs),
this supplement consisted of 219 queries (Bucher 2002:85–87).59 It
provides a key link between Müller’s first instruction and his 1740
instruction to Fischer (discussed later). After having processed all
available information in the Siberian archives, Müller summarized
everything he wanted to learn about the natives of eastern Siberia

(the Itelmens, Ainu, Chukchis, Koryaks, and Lamuts) that could be
accomplished only by field research. This document was so funda-
mental that the Russian historian Aleksandr Andreev concluded that
Gmelin had used it to frame his own travel account (Elert 1999b:24;
Bucher 2002:88 n. 292).
A fourth instruction was written for Steller on February 28, 1739,
just before his departure for Kamchatka.60 As Steller was to replace
Gmelin, the latter wrote most of the fifty items, focusing on natu-
ral history. Müller contributed only two instructions, both related
to ethnography. Steller was to observe the way of life of the Buryats
(Bratzki) in the Irkutsk area and the Tungus and Yakuts along the
Lena and around Yakutsk; describe their behavior, religious ideas,
and political history; commission the artist Berckhan to draw them
in front of their homes (yurts), both with kitchen and shamanistic
tools; and collect their costumes (item 18). The same instructions
applied to communities in the Okhotsk area, where Steller was to
study the Lamuts, Koryaks, Tungus, and Gilyaks (item 32). In addi-
tion, Steller was instructed to supervise Krasheninnikov’s studies
on Kamchatka and ensure a complete “natural and political his-
tory” of the peninsula (item 37). He received a copy of Krashenin-
nikov’s instructions (Kosven 1961:200) and, upon his arrival, would
review the Russian student’s investigations, take him under his
command, and draw up a plan for the remaining research (Hintz-
sche 2001:85, 94).61
Müller’s fifth instruction was directed to Johann Eberhard Fischer,
his supposed successor.62 Müller gave Fischer a lengthy manuscript
when they briefly met at Surgut in June 1740. It was the most elab-
orate instruction of all, in which Müller outlined everything that
ought to be investigated in relation to Siberia’s history and geogra-
phy, including archaeology, ethnography, and linguistics. The archival
document contains six parts, of which the final part deals exclusively
with the description of (Siberian) peoples (spb aras, Müller, n.d.
[1740]).63 In about 220 pages Müller outlined the following activi-
ties mandatory for “a historian devoted to a description of the geog-
raphy and history of Siberia”: (1) keep a journal (20 paragraphs); (2)
make geographical descriptions (75 paragraphs); (3) study the con-
temporary situation of towns and their surroundings (88 paragraphs);
(4) consult archives and describe Siberia’s history (22 paragraphs);

(5) describe antiquities (100 paragraphs); and (6) describe the man-
ners and customs of peoples (923 paragraphs). Müller concluded his
instructions with three appendixes— on maps (63 paragraphs), on
drawings (30 paragraphs), and on the collection of objects for the
Imperial Kunst-Kammer (16 paragraphs)—as well as a “Vocabu-
lary on the basis of which the languages and dialects of the peoples
should be collected.”
Thus far, only the sixth part, the appendixes, and the vocabulary
have been published (Müller in Russow 1900:37–83, 84–99, 99–109).64
The sixth part, titled “Von Beschreibung der Sitten und Gebräuche
der Völker” (On the description of manners and customs of peo-
ples), was by far the largest. Of the 1,287 paragraphs, 923 were con-
cerned with what Müller summarizingly called a Völker-Beschreibung
(description of peoples). Russow (1900:37) termed this sixth part “eth-
nographic,” which is appropriate, even if Müller did not use this term
himself. Müller’s instructions appeared in a numerical order with-
out any headings. Table 2 gives a list of the headings under which
Russow (1900:v–vi) grouped them.
All in all, the sixth part of these instructions presented a compre-
hensive program for the ethnographic study of Siberia. Having devel-
oped the specifics on the basis of his own field research since 1733,
Müller intended them to be a model for further research in Siberia.
Andreev noted in 1937 that two centuries later Müller’s ques-
tions had not been fully answered (Bucher 2002:12). The only Rus-
sian author to discuss Müller’s 1740 instruction in detail, historian
Mark Kosven, concluded, “Müller’s program is an outstanding eth-
nographic document. There is no doubt that it could be fruitfully
used in modern ethnographic fieldwork even today” (Kosven 1961:182;
Elert 1996b:41; Bucher 2002:106).
Müller’s list of ethnographic items to be studied in Siberia is sys-
tematic and exhaustive. It moves from “external” (visible) items, such
as outward appearance, clothing, and housing, via languages and
physical constitution, to “internal” (invisible) items, such as indige-
nous knowledge, beliefs, and so on. In between were subjects such
as war and economy, rites of passage, and the education of children.
Müller apparently favored the empirical observation of “external”
things and discussed “internal” things only in the final paragraphs

Table 2. Müller’s ethnographic instructions to Fischer, 1740
Paragraphs Headings
1 Introduction
2–9 Ethnic Classification (Gruppirung der Völker)
10–16 Languages
17– 49 Physical Constitution
50–71 Body Care and Adornment, etc.
72–94 Clothing
95–112 Housing
113–117 Utensils
118–135 Disposition and Mental Development
136–147 Time Reckoning
148–166 Medicine
167–169 Religious Paintings, Drawings, Book and Image Printing
170–171 Morality
172–175 Political Constitution
176–185 Judiciary, Oath, Documents
186–187 Measurements and Weights
188–196 Social and Personal Interaction
197–217 Conduct toward Violence and Warfare
218–227 Commerce, Crop Cultivation
228–290 Animal Husbandry
291–325 Transportation overland
326–336 Transportation by water
337– 408 Hunting
409– 433 Fishery
434– 452 Manufacturing
453–549 Cooking, Victuals, and Stimulants
550–559 Amusements and Pastimes
560– 656 Marriage, Child Rearing
657–701 Life Span, Illness, Death, Burials, Inheritance Laws
702–712 Religious Representations
713–778 Pagan Peoples, Shamanism
(Heidnische Völker, Schamanenthum)
779–829 Islam (Muhammedanismus)

830–905 Lamaism (Lamaismus) [Buddhism]
906–914 Christianity (Christenthum)
915–921 Suggestions for Communicating with the Natives
(Eingeborenen)
922–923 Suggestions for Processing the Collected Material
on religious representations (paragraphs 702–914). His manner of

proceeding was clearly inspired by Francis Bacon’s (1620) empiri-
cism. Müller was convinced that the precise description of observ-
able facts was a precondition to theorizing. One of the models for
Müller’s scheme was Robert Boyle’s “General Heads for a Natu-
ral History of a Countrey, Great or Small” (published in the Phil-
osophical Transactions of 1665), which followed Baconian principles.
However, whereas Boyle distinguished “External Productions of the
Earth” from “Internal Productions of the Earth,” Müller focused
on “the outward appearance and the inner condition of peoples.”65
At the end of his instructions, Müller added words of advice for
“communicating with the natives” (paragraphs 915–921, discussed
later). Then he concluded his extensive list with two important sug-
gestions for processing the collected material. In the first of these,
he used the term Völker-Beschreibung to summarize a description of
peoples, arguing that any description of the peoples of Siberia had
to be drafted in such a way that comparisons would become possi-
ble with other peoples in Asia, Africa, and America:
To improve understanding in such a description of peoples (Völker-
Beschreibung), one needs to consult all authors and travel accounts
reporting on the manners and customs of the other Asian, Afri-
can and American peoples and compare them at all levels. (Müller
1900[1740]:83, paragraph 922)66
In turn, such a comparison would facilitate the broader “description

of peoples”: “The detailed treatise is to present all peoples as inter-
connected (in Zusammenhang vorzutragen). The advantage is that,
because in many respects many peoples are so much alike, repeti-
tions can be avoided and their similarities and differences become
clearer than when each people would be described individually”
(Müller 1900[1740]:83, paragraph 923).67
After seven years of intensive research in Siberia, Müller had

advanced from a “history of peoples” outlined in his first instruc-
tion (“De historia gentium,” 1732) to a comparative “description of
peoples” (Völker-Beschreibung) presented in the fifth (1740). The goal
was a systematic and comprehensive science. The plural Völker (peo-
ples) indicates that first a description of each Siberian people was
needed. A series of such descriptions would then be synthesized into
a Völker-Beschreibung. Since many Siberian peoples displayed similar-
ities, connecting peoples to one another in a systematic comparison
would reduce the number of descriptions. This comparison should
be conducted internally, within Siberia, but also externally, by draw-
ing on reports about foreign peoples. This would eventually result in
a new science: a “general description of peoples” (allgemeine Völker-
beschreibung), as Müller explained in a recently published preface to
his article about the peoples in the vicinity of Kazan (Müller 2010a).
In this way, inspired by ethnographic practice in the Siberian field,
Müller invented a systematic, comprehensive approach to a study that
had not yet been named. By using the term Völker-Beschreibung for
such a study, Müller suggested that ethnography should deal with
the world’s national diversity (what Germans today call Völkerviel-
falt) and that it should be descriptive (i.e., empirical) and compar-
ative. In so doing he widened Leibniz’s ethnolinguistic program of
a comparative study of the world’s languages to elucidate the early
history of peoples. A generation after this program had first been
articulated, scholars like Messerschmidt, Strahlenberg, and Mül-
ler himself had made substantial progress in describing the peo-
ples of Siberia. In pursuing this agenda, Müller developed a wholly
new study.
Müller’s Ethnography
Müller’s program for ethnographic research was ambitious. To answer
his many questions about each Siberian people would have required
a team of anthropologists. Several subjects were so sensitive that
they would have mandated the separate questioning of women and
men. It is not surprising that Müller’s substitute, Fischer, could not
perform to Müller’s high standards. But Müller’s program was not
unrealistic, as his studies during the expedition demonstrate.
The most important results of Müller’s ethnography, apart from
his instructions to Krasheninnikov in 1737 and 1738 and Fischer in

1740, can be found in five articles (Müller 1759a, 1759b, 1759c, 1760b,
1773) and two manuscripts: the ethnographic “Nachrichten über
Völker Sibiriens” (Notes on Siberian peoples), drafted in the field
(Müller 2003), and the comparative “Beschreibung der sibirischen
Völker” (Description of Siberian peoples), written after his return to
St. Petersburg (Müller 2010c). These publications prove that Müller
not only instructed his colleagues to conduct ethnographic research
but also executed his program to a large degree himself.
Müller’s road toward full-fledged ethnographic research can be
traced through his writings. As noted in chapter 3, Müller’s earli-
est interest in ethnography dates back to February 1728, when he
helped sort Messerschmidt’s collections. He composed two smaller
studies on the “Land of Kamchatka” (Müller 1729, 1731) and studied
Witsen’s “North and East Tartary” (Müller 1733b, 1733c) as well as
Messerschmidt’s notes and Strahlenberg’s 1730 work. In 1731 Müller
considered writing a history of the Kalmyks, including their polit-
ical and natural geography, religion, “literature and language,” and
“life and morals” (vitae et morum gentis) (Müller 1733a). That same
year, he worked on the Samoyeds (Dahlmann 2003:160). He was
also inspired by the many reports on nations he encountered in the
histories of Snorri Sturleson, of Theodosius of Kiev (Müller 1733d),
and of Nestor, the reputed author of the Primary Chronicle.
In the expedition’s early stages, Müller expanded on these ideas
and in 1733 drafted a description of the Cheremis, Chuvash, Votiak,
and other “pagan peoples” in the Kazan region (Müller 1759a). By
1736 he had collected so many ethnographic notes on Siberian peo-
ples that he began to order them in the sequence in which he had vis-
ited them in a manuscript later titled “Nachrichten über die Jakuten
und ihre Schamanen, etc.” (published as Nachrichten über Völker
Sibiriens (1736–42) in 2003). After his return he used this manu-
script to begin a description according to subjects, “Beschreibung
der sibirischen Völker,” dated ca. 1743–45 (Müller 2010c). A Russian
translation of Müller’s “Beschreibung” appeared in Moscow (Elert
and Hintzsche 2009); the German original was published in Halle
(Müller 2010d). These writings; Müller’s instructions to Krashen-
innikov (1737, 1738), Steller (1739), and Fischer (1740); his prefaces to
his 1759 article and that to his “Beschreibung” (all three published

in 2010) illustrate that Müller’s interest in a description of peoples
became ever more systematic.
During his lifetime Müller published only a few ethnographic
articles. These included the aforementioned article on “three pagan
peoples living in the vicinity of Kazan” (Müller 1759a), three short
articles on “whale hunting around Kamchatka” (Müller 1759c), “the
use of food among foreign peoples that we abhor” (Müller 1759b),
and “the origins of the Cossacks” (Müller 1760b), as well as a lon-
ger one on “peoples inhabiting Russia from ancient times on” (Mül-
ler 1773, 1782).
The most extensive was his “Report on three pagan peoples, the
Cheremis, Chuvash and Votiak [Udmurt], living in the vicinity of
the city of Kazan.” Written in 1733, it was not published until 1759
in Müller’s Sammlung Russischer Geschichte. The article was based on
his research in Kazan, a Tatar city on the Volga, halfway between
Moscow and the Ural Mountains, where Müller had stayed for two
months, and on subsequent observations during the journey from
Kazan to Tobolsk (Müller 1759a:305). Discussing his methods, Mül-
ler stated that his report was based on observations “with his own
eyes” and on “repeated questioning” (öfteres Nachfragen) of these
peoples’ representatives who knew Russian or through interpreters.
The article included a twenty-eight-page vocabularium harmonicum,
in which words of the region’s three languages were listed along-
side their German, Kazan-Tatar, Mordvinian, Permian, and Zyri-
anian counterparts.
In a letter written in Kazan in December 1733, probably addressed
to Ostermann, Müller reported on the academicians’ progress in
the early stage of their research. About his own studies he wrote, “I
have occupied myself predominantly with unbelieving nations like
Tatars, Cheremis, Chuvash, Votiaks, and Mordvins living here, of
whose way of life, religion, customs, language, etc., I composed an
extensive description to which I added a harmonic vocabulary of all
these languages.”68 Müller noted further that he included only the
vocabulary in his report to the Senate as he was hoping to “perfect
the description [itself] during the voyage from Kazan to Siberia”
(Hintzsche 2004). Together with the vocabulary, this ethnographic
description was ultimately published in Müller’s 1759 article as well
as (in Russian) in the Monthly Compositions of 1756.

The 1759 article was published again in 1791, with an expanded
title revealing of Müller’s scope: Description of the Heathen Peo-
ples Inhabiting Kazan Gubernia, Such as the Cheremis, Chuvash and
Votiaks, Indicating Where They Live, Their Political Institutions, Cor-
poreal and Spiritual Abilities, Clothing, Diet, Trade and Industries,
Languages, Arts and Sciences, the Natural and Heathen Laws They
Have Devised, as well as Their Rituals, Mores and Customs, Sup-
plemented by Many Words from Seven of Their Languages, Including
Kazan-Tatar, Cheremis, Chuvash, Votiak, Mordvinian, Permian and
Zyrianian, with Translations of the Lord’s Prayer into the Cheremis
and Chuvash (Müller 1791).69
Müller initially classified the Siberian peoples into categories, or
“classes,” on the basis of their way of life. For example, he divided
the Tatars of Kazan and Astrakhan into three classes: the seden-
tary Tatars living in towns and villages, the nomadic Tatars living
on the steppes, and the Bashkirs who were “really Tatars, as dem-
onstrated by both their language and way of life” (wie sowohl ihre
Sprache als Lebensart bezeuget). He later differentiated his point of
view, using language as an organizing principle, coupled with way
of life, economy (farming, cattle raising, hunting, and fishing), and
differences in environment (steppe, taiga, and tundra). In addition,
he used manners and customs to distinguish between neighboring
groups (P. Hoffmann 2005:256).
As Müller noted in the preface to his article about the peoples in
the Kazan region, he planned to publish that article, together with
his instructions to Fischer, in the hope they could serve as an exam-
ple of his own future work on “the description of Siberian peoples”
and as a model for “a description of all peoples,” respectively.70 This
plan never materialized, but the preface, “Allgemeine Beschreibung
der sibirischen Völker” (General description of Siberian peoples),
dating from ca. 1744–45 and written before Fischer’s return (June
1747), was intended for the Russian version of Müller’s article on
the peoples of Kazan (which ultimately became Müller 1791). The
preface was listed in Müller’s bibliography at the end of his Istoriia
Sibiri (History of Siberia) (1937–40) but has only recently been pub-
lished (Müller 2010a). In this programmatic preface Müller set out
his ideas about “a most general description of peoples”:

A most general description of peoples of the earth, thus far largely
resting in poor hands and still not ascribed to the domain of true sci-
ence by anybody, represents a not unimportant part of historiography
as well as an example of the first principles of a science of manners
(Sittenlehre) that would moreover be entertaining. (Müller 2010a)71
The Kazan article was the first result of Müller’s ethnographic

research, conducted in what is now Tatarstan before he even entered
Siberia. Although he was not entirely satisfied with the results (Mül-
ler 2010a:6), it provided the baseline for his subsequent research in
Siberia.
In another preface to his “Beschreibung,” Müller declared, “One
of the foremost intentions during my ten-year trip through Sibe-
ria [has been] to become acquainted with all peoples living there as
thoroughly as possible and record what I have partly seen myself or
partly heard reliably narrated by others.”72 He expressed his grati-
tude not only to the authorities and his colleagues Gmelin, Steller,
and Krasheninnikov for carrying out research in places he could not
reach, but also to the local population. “The friendly contact with
many peoples” had helped him to “develop almost amicable relations,”
especially if he could stay longer. Being pleased about this, “they
showed me all and told me many things.” Without this approach, it
would have been impossible “to see and record all ceremonies and
further aspects of their pagan superstition.”73
Using his experience, Müller developed methods for collecting
data and described them in his instructions. His advice was “to visit
the pagan and other non-Russian peoples at home, in order to per-
sonally observe their way of living, manners and customs, and reli-
gious ceremonies.” The observer should win the informants’ trust
by “hugging, mingling, donating vodka and tobacco, and giving
small presents.” To observe “marriage and burial rites, shamanis-
tic and other religious ceremonies,” informants should be visited on
such special occasions, or if that would be impossible, they should
be invited to talk about and perform them “by way of example.” The
most suitable informants would be “old, experienced, abiding, and
honest.” Especially noteworthy was Müller’s suggestion to inter-
view informants who also knew Russian. In such a way the use of
an interpreter could be avoided. This was important not only because

an interpreter often misrendered the narratives, but also because
“the people are usually much more open to us foreigners than they
are in the company of interpreters, selected from the Cossacks,
who are very much feared on account of their repression of these
peoples” (spb ar as, Müller, n.d. [1740]; Müller 1900[1740]:82–83,
paragraphs 915–21; cf. Herzog 1949:128). He also stipulated precisely
what maps should be made, which objects drawn, and what mate-
rial culture should be collected for the Kunstkamera (ibid., Müller
1900[1740]:84–99, Anhang).
Research by Aleksandr Elert (1996b, 1999a, 2002, 2005a) has shown
that Müller conducted ethnographic research in an entirely system-
atic manner. In Siberia he carried out research on an unprecedented
scale, traveled to Siberia’s remotest corners, visited most of the dis-
tricts (uezdy) and towns, and investigated the archives and antiq-
uities. He made ethnographic inquiries about almost all Siberian
peoples, interviewed important informants, attended shamanistic
sessions, requested ethnographic objects and customary clothing to
be drawn, assembled ethnographic collections for the Kunstkamera,
and kept detailed journals. Wieland Hintzsche (2010:xvii) adds that
Müller visited the people and their dignitaries in their local com-
munities as well as on special occasions like marriages and burials;
he concludes that Müller’s methods correspond to “modern ethno-
logical fieldwork to a large degree.”
Five of Müller’s expedition journals (Expeditionstagebücher, Polevye
dnevniki) have been preserved, totaling twenty-five hundred pages.
They are Müller’s original unedited records in German of his obser-
vations during the expedition, either from labors in the Siberian
towns’ archives or from conversations with indigenous people whom
he visited or invited for interviews, Cossacks, Russian tax collec-
tors, hunters, and so on. Elert (1996b:40) writes that these journals
contain “many notes on ethnic items, the relations between Rus-
sians and indigenous peoples, interethnic conflicts, religious repre-
sentations and rites, manners and customs of Siberian peoples.” The
journals constitute a precise log of Müller’s research, notably his eth-
nographic investigations.
These journals provided the basis for Müller’s ethnographic “Nach-
richten” (Notes) about the “Yakuts and their shamans, Yukagirs,
Ostyaks, Tungus, Samoyeds and . . . Tatars” (rgada, Müller, n.d.

[1736–42]). Müller began this manuscript, published as Nachrichten
über Völker Sibiriens (1736–1742) and edited by Eugen Helimski and
Hartmut Katz (Müller 2003), during his winter sojourn at Yakutsk
in late 1736 and ceased work on it at the end of 1742 (Hintzsche
2010:xxii). The manuscript, totaling 356 pages, is incomplete, as the
opening pages are missing. Yakutsk was the easternmost Siberian
town that Müller visited. He stayed there from September 1736 to July
1737.74 The “Nachrichten” first presents notes on the Yakuts (Sakha)
and their neighbors, the Tungus (Evenks), Yukagirs (Nivkhs), and
Lamuts (Evens) (manuscript pages 1– 73; Müller 2003:13–83). Müller
continued with notes on the Buryats in the Irkutsk region, where he
stayed from March 1735 to January 1736 and again from September
1737 to August 1738 (manuscript pages 73–87; Müller 2003:83–98). He
intermixed his account with data on Kalmyks and Bukharans that
he probably collected from central Asian merchants visiting Irkutsk.
Then follow notes on the Ostyaks (Khanty), Samoyeds (Nenets),
and Tungus in the Yeniseisk area, where Müller stayed from August
1738 to August 1739, intermitted by a trip to Mangazeya (manuscript
pages 87–111; Müller 2003:98–124). These are followed by accounts of
small communities of “Kamassen” (Kamasins), “Taiginzen” (Mator),
“Chakasen,” and “Katschinzen” (Khakasian) in the Krasnoyarsk
region, where he labored from August 1739 to February 1740 (man-
uscript pages 111–122; Müller 2003:124–134). Müller then described
the customs of the Ostyaks, Samoyeds, and Voguls (Mansi) in the
Ob and Irtysh area, which he visited in the summer of 1740 (manu-
script pages 122–157; Müller 2003:135–169). He concluded with notes
on Muslim Tatars in Tobolsk and Tyumen and on newly baptized
Tatars in the Turinsk area east of the Ural Mountains, collected dur-
ing the final years of the expedition, in 1740–41 and 1742, respec-
tively (manuscript pages 157–178; Müller 2003:169–193). The topics
discussed range from language, marriage customs, and religious rep-
resentations (including magic, shamanism, and mortuary rituals) to
the interior of dwellings, the use of hunting gear, the processing of
food, and cures for diseases.
Müller’s “Nachrichten” were a first attempt to systematize his
field notes. Elert (1996b:40, 1999b:56) views them as “a preliminary
version” of Müller’s “Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker” (Müller
2009, 2010c).75 Müller’s “Beschreibung” is a systematically arranged

text of about 530 manuscript pages that deals with the manners and
customs of Siberian peoples in a comparative fashion. The connec-
tion between these manuscripts is that Müller copied sections from
his “Nachrichten” into his “Beschreibung” and in the first manu-
script crossed out the sections he had included in the second (Hintz-
sche 2010:xxi). He used the ethnographic manuscript to compose the
comparative manuscript. Elert (1999b:56) notes that about a third of
the “Nachrichten” (113 pages) landed in the “Beschreibung”; these
borrowings derive exclusively from the first 108 manuscript pages
of the “Nachrichten.”
Müller’s “Beschreibung” is much more elaborate than his “Nach-
richten.” His “Beschreibung” represented his attempt to synthesize
all his ethnographic data. The analysis follows the principles out-
lined at the end of Müller’s instructions to Fischer for presenting
“all peoples as interconnected.” Accordingly, the material in Mül-
ler’s “Beschreibung” is organized by topics rather than peoples, as
in the “Nachrichten.” The full scope of Müller’s ethnographic inter-
ests becomes clear in table 3, listing the contents of Müller’s descrip-
tion of Siberian peoples.
Müller (2010d) includes two prefaces (the second one in two vari-
ants), a preliminary table of contents (Summa Capita), thirty chapters,
and two appendixes. The first appendix contains a list of references
with Müller’s notes on various customs mentioned in the literature;
the second an extract from Charles Marie de La Condamine’s travel-
ogue to South America (1745), copied from the journal Hamburgische
freye Urtheile und Nachrichten (1746).
Müller did not complete the “Beschreibung,” as is evident from the
lack of certain categories. He included these as “Chapter 13, Death,”
“Chapter 14, Natural Religion,” and “Chapter 15, Pagan Religion” in
the Summa Capita (Müller 2010c:35–36). As we saw, religion was the
third topic on Müller’s list in his 1732 instructions. Elert (1996b:41)
suggests that Müller wanted to add sections on burial rites and reli-
gious representations, including pagan, Muslim, and Buddhist belief
systems, because these subjects were discussed at length in his field
notes and in his “Nachrichten,” which among other things dealt
with “Yakuts and their Shamans.” Hintzsche and Elert argue that

Table 3. Müller’s “Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker”
(Description of Siberian peoples)
Part 1 of the manuscript contains the following chapters:
Summa Capita [Preliminary table of contents of 3–9

chapters not included in this manuscript]
Chapter 1. On the Origin of Peoples 10
(Vom Ursprunge der Völker)
Chapter 2. On the Language of Peoples 16
(Von der Sprache der Völker)
Chapter 3. Political Organization of Peoples 19
Chapter 4. On the Learning of Peoples 23
Chapter 5. On Peoples’ Way of Measuring Distance 38
Chapter 6. On the Physical Constitution of Peoples 40
Chapter 7. On the Clothing of Peoples 43
Chapter 8. On the Character of Peoples 70
(Von der GemüthsBeschaffenheit der Völker)
Chapter 9. On Judicial Practices of Peoples 83
Chapter 10. On Oath of Peoples 86
Chapter 11. On the Dwellings of Peoples 91
Chapter 12. Household Tools of Peoples 105
Chapter 13. Display of Friendship and 110
Honor among Peoples
Chapter 14. On Swear words of Peoples 113
Chapter 15. Trade and Commerce of Peoples 114
Chapter 16. On Crop Cultivation of Peoples 116
Chapter 17. On Animal Husbandry of Peoples 117
Chapter 18. On Reindeer 124
Chapter 19. On Dogs 130
Chapter 20. On Camels 131
Chapter 21. On the Traveling of Peoples 132
Chapter 22. On the Nutrition of Peoples 145
Chapter 23. On Preparing Food 151
Chapter 24. On Manufacturing, Arts, and 161r–169v
Other Forms of Work among Peoples

Part 2 of the manuscript contains the following chapters:
Chapter 25. On Hunting [illustrated with 2

drawings of bows and arrows]
Chapter 26. On Fishing 24
Chapter 27. On Games and Drills 28
Chapter 28. On Waging War among Peoples 33
Chapter 29. On Matrimony 37
Chapter 30. On Childbirth and Rearing of Children 73r–86v
Müller obviously intended to insert sections on these topics into his

“Beschreibung.” Therefore, they plan to include Müller’s “Nachrich-
ten” in a second volume of his “ethnographic writings,” indicating
the sections that Müller copied into his “Beschreibung” (Hintzsche
and Elert, forthcoming).
Although the manuscript of the “Beschreibung” has no title, Hintz-
sche added one based on other references, especially the academy’s
Protokoly. Müller submitted the first part of a work with this title to
the academy’s General Assembly on April 22, 1745, but it was never
printed.76 He wrote the programmatic preface “Allgemeine Beschrei-
bung der sibirischen Völker” (Müller 2010a) in the same period. In
1752 he informed the academy’s Chancellery that he needed Fischer’s
assistance for his work on Russian history, as he wanted to concen-
trate his efforts on the “description of peoples” (Hintzsche 2010:xxvii).
He continued to work on the “Beschreibung” and kept adding nota-
tions until 1754 (Hintzsche 2010:xxii–xxiii). In the second preface
to his “Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker,” Müller prophesized,
A considerable part of historical scholarship [Geschichts-Kunde], the
comprehensive elaboration of which can be desired rather than hoped
for, consists of a general description of peoples (einer allgemein[en]
Völker Beschreibung), or a systematic account of the manners and
customs of all our world’s peoples, both in ancient and in mod-
ern times, in which people’s living conditions are to be organized
into certain groups [Classen], everything of each people needs to
be mentioned, each must be compared with the others, while use-
ful conclusions should be drawn in order to improve manners. The

difficulties hindering such a work, however, are known all too well.
(Müller 2010e: 17–18)77
Thus Müller’s research practice differed little from the one devel-
oped by Messerschmidt, but he moved beyond it in the final anal-
ysis. As we have seen in chapter 3, Messerschmidt identified three
steps in his work: (1) observatio, (2) annotatio, and (3) relatione elab-
orata. Müller’s field notes in his journals represent the first step of
observation, his “Nachrichten” the second step of annotation, and his
“Beschreibung” the final step of elaborate correlation. While Mül-
ler intended to publish the results of his analysis, Messerschmidt
never got that far in processing his ethnographic field notes. Messer-
schmidt processed his notes on Siberian natural history in a syn-
thetic manuscript (“Sibiria perlustrata”), which does not contain his
notes on Siberian peoples and their languages. By contrast, Müller
did make that final step and wanted his data on Siberian peoples
to be part of a “most general description of peoples” within a com-
parative framework.
Until recently, Müller’s contributions to Siberia’s ethnography
were known only to a limited group of scholars. The only scholars to
hint at the ethnographic dimension of Müller’s work were historians
from Russia (Aleksandr Pypin, Petr Pekarskii, Aleksandr Andreev,
Mark Kosven, Sergei Tokarev), East Germany (Peter Hoffmann,
Ulrich Grabosch, Erich Donnert), or Canada (Joseph Black). Apart
from Andreev (1937, 1960–65), Tokarev (1966), and Kosven (1961),
few scholars have studied Müller’s ethnographic manuscripts. Mül-
ler had taken his manuscripts to Moscow, but his “Beschreibung
der sibirischen Völker” was not included in the batch of his papers
at the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (rgada) in Moscow
(Hintzsche 2010:xxix). In 1939 the ethnographer Leonid Potapov
found it elsewhere at the rgada and encouraged a translation into
Russian, which, however, remained in draft. Sergei Tokarev valued
Müller’s contributions to Russian ethnography. During lectures in
Berlin (1951–52), he stated, “We find the first reliable account of [a
certain] nationality with Müller.”78 Discussing Müller’s work in his
history of Russian ethnography, Tokarev concluded, “Müller’s eth-

nographic studies for the most part still await publication” (Toka-
rev 1966:85).
Things changed only when Aleksandr Christianovich Elert, a
historian from Novosibirsk, began to specialize in Müller’s work
(Elert 1990, 1996a, 1996b, 1999a, 1999b, 2002, 2006). The translation
inspired by Potapov directed Elert to Müller’s “Beschreibung.” He
used the draft Russian translation as the basis for his own transla-
tion (Elert 1996b, 1999b, 2005a). At about the same time, soon after
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Wieland Hintzsche from Halle
began to study the documents relating to the Second Kamchatka
Expedition in Russian archives. His efforts resulted in an interna-
tional conference on Steller at Halle in 1996 (Hintzsche and Nickol
1996a, 1996b; Donnert 1997–2008) and the publication of a series of
primary documents on the history of Siberia and Alaska from Rus-
sian archives. At first Elert and Hintzsche worked independently
from each other; later they cooperated in editing projects. As noted,
they recently published Müller’s “Beschreibung” in a joint publica-
tion: Elert and Hintzsche 2009 provides Russian translations of the
German manuscripts, whereas their edited volume Müller 2010d
includes the German originals or German translations from Rus-
sian originals. They will continue to edit Müller’s most important
Ethnographische Schriften (Ethnographic writings) (Hintzsche and
Elert, forthcoming).
There are two principal reasons for Müller’s neglect in history.
First, key parts of his ethnographic work remained unpublished for
a long time. Although his name was Russified as “Fedor Ivanovich
Miller,” Müller continued to be seen as a foreigner in Russia. He
felt discouraged from publishing his ethnographic material because
there was no interest in such a subject at the time (Elert 1999b:59; P.
Hoffmann 2005:254). Second, Müller left his ethnographic observa-
tions out of his history and geography of Siberia because he wanted
to publish them separately (Elert 1996b:38; Bucher 2002:132, 153).
Hintzsche (2010) confirms that Müller planned to write three books
about his Siberian research: a history, geography, and ethnography
of Siberia. However, as there was no real interest in a work on Sibe-
rian peoples, he felt no need to prepare his comparative synthesis
for publication. This also applies to his Siberian geography, which
remains unpublished.

Consequently, only a few scholars from Halle and Novosibirsk
have identified the Second Kamchatka Expedition’s second-largest
research field to be ethnography—the first being natural history.79
Russian ethnographers, for instance, have remained largely unaware
of Müller’s pivotal role because they know only Müller’s publica-
tions on Siberian history. However, the space allotted to ethnogra-
phy in his history of Siberia was small because Müller deliberately
left his ethnographic observations out of his Siberian history in order
to publish them separately.
Today, after 270 years, Müller’s “Description of Siberian Peo-
ples” unveils his ethnographic project in full detail. Together with
his instructions, “Nachrichten,” early articles (Müller 1729, 1731,
1733a, 1733b, 1733c), and articles based on fieldwork during the expe-
dition (Müller 1759a, 1759b, 1759c, 1760b), the “Beschreibung” pres-
ents a detailed account of Müller’s ethnographic work in the 1730s
and 1740s. The primary sources published thus far undeniably dem-
onstrate that Müller pioneered a new field: the ethnography (Völker-
Beschreibung) of Siberia. He distinguished this field from Siberia’s
history and geography, realizing that ethnography was linked to but
separate from these fields. He supplied the first comprehensive list
of what had to be minimally learned about the Siberian peoples,
drafted a program for ethnographic and comparative research, and
executed it to a large degree.
Müller’s Geography and History

Müller made a sharp distinction among Siberia’s history, geogra-
phy, and ethnography, but he strove for an overall picture (Gesamt-
bild) and considered them to be interrelated (P. Hoffmann 2005:218,
220, 247). In the years 1743–54 he worked intermittently on Sibe-
rian geography and ethnography and then shifted to Siberia’s his-
tory. Müller considered geography to be the foundation for history.
He was familiar with his colleagues’ work and deployed maps for
his own historical research. Immediately after his return Müller
started work on a “new general map of Siberia,” which, according to
his friend Anton Friedrich Büsching (1785:160), the best informed
German geographer of the era, was finished in 1745–46 but never
engraved in copper. Müller’s map was a prototype of the map the
Academy of Sciences published in 1758. This Nouvelle Carte, or

“new map of the discoveries of Russian vessels on the unknown
coasts of western America and surrounding areas,” covered Amer-
ica’s western and Siberia’s eastern parts. It included details from
the First and Second Bering Expeditions and the 1648 voyage of
Dezhnev. The “new map” was included in the English and French
translations of Müller’s “Nachrichten von Seereisen” (1758b, 1761,
1766). With these works Müller attempted to correct the Delisle–
Buache map of 1750, which presented fictitious landmasses north and
east of Japan, and to document the results of Bering’s, Chirikov’s,
and Spangberg’s discoveries in the northern Pacific. The map was
regarded as so important that Schlözer reproduced it in his Allge-
meine Nordische Geschichte (1771a, facing p. 391). The Academy of
Sciences published a second edition of this map in 1773, with cor-
rections and additions by Jacob Stählin, which, however, dissatis-
fied Müller (Büsching 1785:160).
Müller turned to mapmaking on several occasions. In the early
1750s he produced two maps of Kamchatka that were published in
Krasheninnikov’s (1755) description of the peninsula, which Müller
edited (Büsching 1785:133). Previously, Müller had collaborated on
the Atlas Russicus (Delisle et al. 1745), the first topographical atlas of
the Russian Empire (P. Hoffmann 1959:170). It contained a general
map of Russia, together with nineteen detailed maps, and appeared
in Russian, Latin, German, and French editions (Cracraft 1997:278).
Work on the atlas was initially directed by Kirilov and later coordi-
nated by Joseph-Nicolas Delisle at the Geographical Department,
founded in 1735 and, at the request of Tatishchev and others, part
of the academy from 1739 on (Grau 1963:171). Owing to the Russian
atlas’s slow development, astronomical measurements and carto-
graphic details collected during the Second Kamchatka Expedi-
tion and other Russian expeditions could be included (Polevoj and
Hintzsche 1996:130).
Although not a trained mathematician, Müller exhibited a last-
ing interest in cartography. The work by Delisle de la Croyère, the
expedition’s astronomer, proved disappointing to Müller (1753a,
1753b, 1754, 1890:263) but was compensated by a competent sur-
veyor. Mathematicians corrected the maps Müller, Gmelin, and
other expedition members had made of rivers and regions (P. Hoff-
mann 2005:218–219). According to Peter Hoffmann (1959:173), the

early maps of Siberia and the Russian atlas, drawn to scale, were
accurate thanks to astronomers and mathematicians. From 1727
until his departure for Berlin in 1741, Leonhard Euler, the brilliant
Swiss mathematician, worked on calculations for the Russian atlas.
As maps were Russian state secrets, the Geographical Department
was ridden with strife. Lomonosov took over its lead from 1757 until
his death in 1765. After Müller’s departure for Moscow and Euler’s
return to St. Petersburg in 1766, Euler was appointed head of the
Geographical Department, concluding years of struggle (P. Hoff-
mann 2005:222–224).80
Müller was also involved in the Postcharte, a map of the Russian
Empire’s European parts, intended for Western travelers. It was pub-
lished only in 1772, mainly because it took that long to provide cor-
rect drawings of the relative positions of Astrakhan and the Caspian
Sea. Two other maps on which Müller had worked, of the region
between the Caspian and the Black Sea and of Orenburg District,
were never published (Büsching 1785:160).
Müller’s interest in cartography was primarily of a historical nature.
Nineteenth-century geographers would make a distinction between
“physical” and “political” (or social/human) geography. Müller was
more interested in the correct names of peoples and places than in
coordinates. His main contribution was to historical geography, and
his most important work in this regard was a history of the Russian
Empire’s land and sea maps. It remained in manuscript but formed
the basis for a Russian work published in 1810 as well as for Fried-
rich von Adelung’s “Über die ältesten ausländischen Karten von
Rußland” (1841). An indication of the Geographical Department’s
cumbersome procedures is Büsching’s remark that Müller’s review
of Russian-produced maps, totaling 108 pages, concluded with a list
of twenty-six maps printed at the academy that were never released
(P. Hoffmann 1959:176).
Unable to see his Siberian geography and ethnography in print,
Müller was more successful as imperial historiographer. On his rec-
ommendation the Department of History, which Müller was to
lead, was established at the Academy of Sciences in 1748. Müller was
instructed to finish his history of Siberia and then begin work on
a history of Russia (P. Hoffmann 2005:101). Although demoted in
response to his never-presented lecture on the “Origins of the Rus-

sian people,” he was rehabilitated and became standing secretary of
the Imperial Academy in 1754. From then on Müller focused pri-
marily on Russian and Siberian history. He edited the St. Peters-
burg Monthly Compositions (in Russian) between 1755 and 1764. His
historical work suffered less from a lack of interest than his geog-
raphy and ethnography. Even so, when his “Sibirische Geschichte”
(History of Siberia) was finally published in his Sammlung Rus-
sischer Geschichte (Müller 1761–63) and translated into Russian (Mül-
ler 1763–64), both versions were incomplete, containing only ten of
the twenty-three planned chapters (Elert 1996b:37).
Fischer’s History and Vocabulary of Siberia

Müller’s historical and linguistic work had a deep impact on Johann
Eberhard Fischer (1697–1771), sent out to succeed Müller during
the expedition. Following Müller’s plea to be replaced, the Acad-
emy of Sciences appointed Fischer as an adjunct in May 1738 and
selected him as Müller’s successor in July 1739. Fischer had served
as a teacher and rector at the academy’s Gymnasium. Ten years older
than Müller, Fischer never worked with him, neither in Siberia nor
later in St. Petersburg. In June 1740 Müller briefly met Fischer in
Surgut on the Ob and handed him the extensive set of instructions
that were to frame Fischer’s work in Siberia (Müller 1900[1740]).81
From Surgut, Müller continued his journey down the Ob to Ber-
ezov in the north.82 Fischer’s itinerary has never been the subject of
a detailed study (as Gulya [1995] notes), but he did not return to St.
Petersburg until 1747.
As we have seen, Müller’s instructions to Fischer were divided
into six parts relating to Siberia’s history and geography, a broad
field including both ethnography and linguistics. Of these four top-
ics, Fischer primarily covered two, namely, history and linguistics.
Fischer published several treatises on Russian history (1768, 1770).
After Müller’s own history of Siberia had appeared, Fischer’s Sibirische
Geschichte complemented it in 1768. This was a two-volume work
largely based on Müller’s research. A Russian edition appeared in
1774. In the foreword to the German edition, Müller’s role was men-
tioned, but his name did not appear in the Russian edition. Fisch-
er’s history of Siberia depicted the period between 1499 and 1662.
Its first volume contained a description and linguistic comparison

of commonly used terms in various Siberian languages. Two maps
showed the Siberian peoples’ settlements. It also described Sibe-
ria’s conquest by Yermak and his Cossacks and the suppression of
Kuchum’s revolt. The second volume discussed numerous indigenous
uprisings in the early years of Russian colonization, the founding
of forts and towns, and the cruelties perpetrated by the conquerors.
The book’s scope was wide. Anachronistically, its content can be
classified as addressing seven fields: history, ethnography, linguis-
tics, geography, archaeology, statistics, and physical anthropology.
Fischer’s ethnography is preserved in a 174-page introduction ren-
dering his synthesis of Siberia’s “principal peoples” in addition to the
Mongols, Manchus, Chinese, Greeks, Russians, and Persians.83 In
a review Schlözer emphasized that the introduction was the intel-
lectual property of Fischer, as Müller had collected everything else
and Fischer had “only cast it into a form.” Fischer’s introduction dis-
cussed “the principal peoples of Siberia and those at its borders in a
critical way, showing he was widely read.”84
Despite the book’s importance, especially that of its ethnographic
introduction, Fischer’s role in the Second Kamchatka Expedition is
controversial. Black and Buse (1989:xi n. 3) claim that “Fischer never
got to Kamchatka and contributed nothing of note to the Kam-
chatka Expedition.” The geographer Büsching (1785:144) admits that
Fischer added “an introduction of renowned peoples in Siberia” but
doubts Fischer’s authorship of the “Vocabularium Sibiricum” (Sibe-
rian vocabulary). Hintzsche and Peter Hoffmann share this skepti-
cism. The Russian encyclopedia repeats this negative view. Linguists,
in contrast, award Fischer more fulsome praise.
Müller’s comparative word lists and his linguistic instructions
to Fischer resulted in a fascinating “Vocabularium Sibiricum” (sub
Göttingen, Fischer, n.d.). Fischer donated a copy of this manuscript
to the Historical Institute in Göttingen at August Ludwig Schlöz-
er’s request. Schlözer befriended Fischer during his St. Petersburg
stay in 1762 and took the manuscript to Göttingen when he returned
there for a study leave in 1765.85 Schlözer treasured the manuscript
because it allowed him to study the affinity of Siberian peoples
along the lines indicated by Leibniz. Schlözer also edited Fisch-
er’s Quaestiones Petropolitanae (1770) and reviewed it in the Göt-
tingische Anzeigen (Schlözer 1770a).86 This ethnographic-historical

work contains four articles, written in the 1750s, discussing the ori-
gins of the Hungarian and Tartar peoples, as well as dynasties rul-
ing China and the peoples of the North (“Hyperborean”). Three of
them had originally appeared in the St. Petersburg Monthly Com-
positions, edited by Müller.
The “Vocabularium Sibiricum” that Fischer donated to the Göt-
tingen Historical Institute contains linguistic material from thirty-
four Siberian languages. Another copy is held at St. Petersburg, in
the archives of the Academy of Sciences. Like most of Müller’s lin-
guistic material, this vocabulary has never been published. János
Gulya, the Hungarian linguist from Göttingen, studied both ver-
sions of the “Vocabularium.” He claims that Fischer completed the
original manuscript (now at the Göttingen University Library) in
1747 (the year of his return) and then began a new, extended version
(now in St. Petersburg) that he finished in 1767, after he had inves-
tigated various historical and linguistic topics (Gulya 1995:13, 20, 22;
J. E. Fischer 1768:161).
The Göttingen manuscript’s title is “Vocabularium continens tre-
centa vocabula tringinta quatuor gentium, maxima ex parte Sibiri-
carum” (sub Göttingen, Fischer, n.d.). Divided into four parts, it
contains a title page and ninety-nine numbered folio pages. This copy
is followed by four pages with German comments and preceded by
nineteen pages in Russian. I cite the table of contents from the orig-
inal, kept at Göttingen, in the order suggested by Gulya (1995). The
vocabulary contains 2,432 words from forty languages, including six
non-Siberian languages, divided into four groups of ten languages
each. Of each language the “Vocabularium” presents 307 key words,
ranging from God (Deus) and Devil (Diabolo) to numerals, listed
in ten columns. These conform to the list of words Müller added
to his 1740 instructions to Fischer (Müller 1900:99–108). Some of
the columns are remarkably complete; others are less so because of
lack of data (indicated by the term “defunct”). In table 4 the main
Latin categories of the “Vocabularium Sibiricum” are followed by
currently used German terms (taken from Gulya 1995:16; see also
Wink ler 1997:282), and current or older English terms.
According to Gulya (1995:47), the languages discussed in Fischer’s
“Vocabularium Sibiricum” can be subdivided into nine families, six
of which are specific for Siberia:

Table 4. Vocabulary of Siberian languages compiled by Fischer, ca. 1747
Latin German English

From Fischer 1747 From Gulya Current (older)
1995:16 terms
Part 1: 1– 24
1. Latine Lateinisch Latin
2. Chalmyccice Kalmückisch Kalmyk or Kalmak
Tatar
3 Bucharicae Bucharisch Bukharan Tatar
(extinct)
4. Tatarice (Tatarorum ad Tschulym- Chulym (Siberian)
Obium et Tschulim fluvios türkisch Tatar
degunt)
5. Tatarorum Tschatzensium Tschattatarisch Chat Tatar (extinct)
6. Ostiakorum Tomensium s. Selkupisch Selkup
Narymensium (Ostyak-Samoyed)
7. Siraenorum Syrjänisch Komi (Zyrianian)
8. Ostiakorum Jeniseensium Ketisch Ket (Yenisei
Ostyak)
9. Tungusorum as Tungus- Ewenkisch (A) Evenki (Tungus)
cam fluvium
10. Assanorum/Assanensium Assanisch Assanskii (extinct)
Part 2: 25–50
11. Graece Griechisch Greek
12. Finnice Finnisch Finnish
13. Wotiakice Wotjakisch Udmurt (Votiak)
14. Tscheremissice Tscheremissisch Mari (Cheremis)
15. Tschuwaschice Tschuwaschisch Chuvash (Volga
Bulgar)
16. Tatarorum Casanensium Kasantatarisch Volga Tatar
17. Morduanice Mordwinisch Erzia and Moksha
(Mordvinian)
18. Samojedice Mehensium Nenzisch (A) Nenet (Samoyed)
19. Grusice Georgisch Georgian
20. Hungarice Ungarisch Hungarian (Magyar)
Part 3: 51– 76
21. Russice Russisch Russian

22. Tatarorum Tobolensium Toboltatarisch Ob Tatar (extinct)
23. Wogulice Wogulisch Mansi (Vogulic)
24. Polonice Polnisch Polish
25. Suedice Schwedisch Swedish
26. Permice Permjakisch Komi-Permiak
27. Ostice (Osteakorum ad Ostjakisch Khanty (Ostyak)
fluvium Irtysch)
28. Manshurice Mandschu Manchurian
29. Sinice Chinesisch Chinese (Mandarin)
30. Samojedarum Jugrensium Nenzisch (B) Selkup (Ugrian-
Samoyed)
Part 4: 77– 99
31. Mongolice Mongolisch Mongolian
32. Tungusice (in provinciis Ewenkisch (B) Even (Lamutian)
Selenginsk et Nertschinsk)
33. Tangutice Tibetisch Tibetan (Tangut
language)
34. Tatarice (dialect, est eo- Schorisch Shor
rum, q. degunt ad Tomum,
Jeniseam et alios fluvios, ad
limites Mongalorum)
35. Teleutice Teleutisch Teleut Altaic
36. Tatarice (Kaczensium et al. Chakassisch Khakasian
in provincia Krasnojarensi)
37. Ariorum Arinisch Arynian (extinct)
38. Kottorum et Kaibalorum Kottisch/Koj- Khakasian (Kaibal-
balisch ian)
39. Kamaschorum Kamassisch Kamasian (extinct)
40. Buratice sive Brattice Burjätisch Buryat (Bratsky)
1. Uralic, including thirteen Uralic languages (nine Finno-

Ugric and four Samoyed);
2. Indogermanic, or the Indo-European language family;
3. Turkish-Tataric, considered part of the proposed Altaic lan-
guage family;
4. Mongolic, considered part of the proposed Altaic language
family;

5. Tungusic, a subfamily of the Altaic language family spo-
ken in eastern Siberia and northern Manchuria that includes
Evenki and Manchu, also known as Manchu-Tungus;
6. Yeniseian, or the Yenisei-Ostyak language family, spoken
in central Siberia;
7. Semito-Hamitic, a branch of the Afroasiatic family of
languages;
8. Caucasian, or languages spoken in and around the Cauca-
sus Mountains; and
9. Sino-Tibetan, comprising the Chinese and the Tibeto-
Burman languages.
The etymological-comparative parts of Fischer’s “Vocabularium”
have been published only recently (Gulya 1995). Yet, just like Messer-
schmidt’s manuscripts, they played a vital role in eighteenth-century
scholarly exchange. Thanks to the perusal of the copies in Göttingen
and St. Petersburg, the vocabulary was discussed in debates about
Eurasian languages. Schlözer (1768a, 1771a) and others consulted
Fischer’s manuscripts in St. Petersburg and Göttingen. Especially
linguists studying Finno-Ugric languages profited from the mate-
rial outlining this family.87
The intellectual ownership of the “Vocabularium Sibiricum” has
led to confusing statements. Contemporary authors like Schlözer and
Gatterer ascribed the manuscript to Fischer. But Büsching played
down Fischer’s ownership by writing in 1785: “The vocabularies that
were sent under his name to the Historical Institute in Göttingen
were not collected by him, but requested by Tatishchev from the com-
manders in the [Siberian] towns who had them collected by ignorant
scribes. These [vocabularies] do not deserve any credibility, not a sin-
gle historical proposition or proof can be drawn from them.”88 This
passage in Büsching’s biography of Müller probably derived from
Müller’s comments in letters to Büsching.89 Likewise, the Russian
historian Vasili Barthold (1925) doubted Fischer’s authorship of the
vocabulary. He assumed that Fischer mainly worked with materi-
als from Tatishchev and Müller: “At the same time as the histori-
cal material collected by Gerhard Friedrich Müller came into the
hands of Fischer, he received the linguistic material assembled dur-

Map 5. The Kamchatka Peninsula and surrounding regions.
From Steller 1774 (facing p. 13). Courtesy of the Göttingen State
and University Library (sub) Göttingen.
ing Peter the Great’s lifetime by Tatishchev, the administrator of

the Ural mines. Accordingly, the Vocabularium is older than 1725
[the year Tsar Peter passed away].”90 This dating is mysterious, as
Tatishchev continued to request linguistic material from Siberian
administrators as late as 1736– 38 (see chapter 3). Yet Gulya confirms
that the “Vocabularium” included material submitted in response to
Tatishchev’s questionnaries.91
Because Müller and other expedition members collected linguistic
data on a large scale, it is probably correct to assume that the vocab-
ulary’s entries resulted from the efforts of many scholars, includ-
ing Messerschmidt, Tatishchev, Müller, Gmelin, Krasheninnikov,
Steller, Fischer, and Lindenau. Gulya (1995:17) notes that “field mate-
rial collected under the responsibility of Müller” provided the basis
for the “Vocabularium Sibiricum.” Thus Fischer served as its main
editor. The vocabulary was composed in Latin, and Fischer was

well versed in Latin (Schlözer 1802:187). He even deserves credit
for compiling two versions, during and after the expedition. Gulya
(1995:12, 19) remarks that Fischer worked on Siberian vocabular-
ies before his departure and concludes that he in any case added
the Ostyak (Khanty) words, for the respective column contains the
largest number of diacritical signs and is the most detailed. Fisch-
er’s material on the Tatar languages has also been favorably evalu-
ated (Adamović 1981; Winkler 1997).
Therefore, the assessment that Fischer “did not accomplish any-
thing substantial” and that his assistant Lindenau was more produc-
tive has to be revised.92 Büsching and Barthold were not qualified
to evaluate Fischer’s linguistic achievements. Historians like Mühl-
pfordt and linguists like Benfey, Gulya, and Helimski provide a
more convincing opinion. Mühlpfordt (1997:115) lauds Fischer’s lin-
guistics and claims that Fischer recognized the affinity between
the Finno-Ugric peoples of northern Eurasia and the Hungarians.93
Fischer’s entry in Herbert E. Brekle et al.’s (1992–2005) handbook
of German-speaking eighteenth-century linguists runs over four
pages. Gulya (1995:20) views Fischer’s vocabulary as “a historical-
etymological dictionary” and observes that Fischer, pursuing collatio
linguarum (1995:11), compared the etymological words in Leibniz’s
manner. Milan Adamović (1998:41, 60) refers to the manuscript as
one of the most precious of Göttingen University’s library that can
still be profitably consulted, noting that it is the only source avail-
able for six Siberian languages now extinct.
At the same time Müller’s input in this ethnolinguistic project
should not be underrated. His entry in Brekle et al.’s handbook cov-
ers only two and a half pages, obviously owing to lack of published
information. While Fischer circumscribed the Finno-Ugric language
family, he was able to do this at least partly on the basis of Mül-
ler’s distinctions between three groups of Ostyak speakers (Selkup,
Khanty, and Ket). As noted previously, both Müller and Fischer
could build on the work of Messerschmidt and Swedish scholars
like Strahlenberg and von Wreech. Moreover, Müller pointed out
the close relationship between Mongolian and Buryat and discov-
ered that the Yakut language had adopted elements from both Tur-
kic and Mongolian (P. Hoffmann 2005:262–263).
In any case the Siberian vocabulary underlines how Fischer,

Müller, and Messerschmidt were fascinated by the combination of
sciences Leibniz had turned into historical etymology. Leibniz’s
program to study the world’s languages by collecting language sam-
ples led to key findings during the Second Kamchatka Expedition
of 1733–43, extended till 1747. Fischer was highly Völker-conscious.
He shared Müller’s and Messerschmidt’s ethnological perspective
and like them paid much attention to the historical and linguistic
relations among Siberian peoples. A French translation of Fisch-
er’s Siberian history appeared as late as 1801, demonstrating that
there was still an interest in a study of Siberia’s “principal nations”
and their neighbors.
However, having an ethnological perspective is different from
developing an ethnological program. In this latter regard Müller’s
work stands out as pioneering.
Steller’s and Krasheninnikov’s Ethnography of Kamchatka

Müller’s 1740 instructions to Fischer, exclusively about Siberia’s non-
Russian population, demonstrate Müller’s determination that others
pursue the “history of peoples” in Siberia as well. His influence can
also be observed in the ethnographic work carried out on Kamchatka
by two other expedition members. As Steller’s description of Kam-
chatka contains many ethnographic observations, Bucher (2002:89)
concluded that they derived from his personal interest. Yet, as we
have seen, Müller wrote in February 1739 that Steller was expected
to “conduct all investigations relating to the history of peoples, as
he has the necessary skills and desire to do so.” Two weeks later,
Steller was instructed to make investigations in both fields: natural
and political history.94 Accordingly, his Beschreibung von dem Lande
Kamtschatka, completed in 1744 but published in 1774, contains two
parts: one dealing with physical subjects (chapters 1–18) and the other
with ethnographic topics (chapters 19– 37). Although Steller did not
use the term “ethnography” or its German equivalent, he described
the culture and social life of the Itelmens, Koryaks, Chukchi, Evens
(Lamuts), and “Kuschi” or Kuriles (Ainu) in detail.
The extent of Steller’s ethnographic research becomes apparent
from a map accompanying his description of Kamchatka (map 5).
This map was also published in Krasheninnikov (1764, 1766) and was
based on Müller’s Nouvelle Carte of 1758. Another map, not repro-

duced here, presented the Kuril Islands, situated between Kamchatka
and Japan, which Steller also investigated, albeit less extensively.
Krasheninnikov’s “Description of the Land of Kamchatka” (1755)
was composed differently from Steller’s Beschreibung. In four parts
Krasheninnikov reported on the geographical, economic, ethno-
graphic, and political-historical situation. In the twenty-two chap-
ters of part 3, “On the Peoples of Kamchatka,” he discussed the
peninsula’s history, its name, villages, dwellings, utensils, division
of labor, clothing, eating and drinking habits, travel with dogsleds,
use of weapons, shamanism, feasts, friendship, hospitality, marriage,
parenting, diseases and their treatment, mortuary rituals, and dia-
lects of the Kamchadals (Itelmens) and the Koryaks and Kuriles
(Krasheninnikov 1972:191–297). His overall description amounted to
an encompassing geography that included an ethnography of more
than one hundred pages.
Müller guided Krasheninnikov’s work and added two chapters and
a map to his monograph. The fact that Krasheninnikov’s description
of Kamchatka contains so many ethnographic details was a direct
response to Müller’s instructions, especially the lengthy supplement
(Zusatz) about the ethnological situation on Kamchatka that Müller
sent him in 1738. As we saw, these instructions were also made avail-
able to Steller when he departed for Kamchatka. Krasheninnikov
profited from Steller’s notes. The Zusatz also influenced Gmelin
when he wrote his travel account. Interestingly, Fischer kept Stell-
er’s journal in his possession until his death.95
Both Steller and Krasheninnikov spent a long time on Kam-
chatka. While Steller worked for more than two and a half years
on the peninsula, Krasheninnikov stayed there almost a year longer.
Their descriptions of Kamchatka are comprehensive and mutually
complementary. Just as Steller consulted Krasheninnikov’s journals
upon his arrival, Krasheninnikov studied Steller’s manuscripts at
the academy’s order after the latter’s premature death. They both
did what they were instructed to do: describe the land and peo-
ples of Kamchatka. The marked difference was Steller’s sympathy
for the Kamchatka natives, which was negligible in Krashenin-
nikov’s report. Steller’s efforts to protect the Itelmens from Cos-
sack and missionary abuse were courageous. He also assisted them
by organizing basic education and reopening a bicultural school

in Bolsheretsk (Stejneger 1936:230; Frost 2003:274). Steller’s last-
ing contribution was his description of their customs and festivals,
which is valued today by Itelmens revitalizing their cultural heritage
(Kasten 2013a, 2013b).
Ethnography and Travel Accounts

Müller was the key figure pursuing ethnography during the Sec-
ond Kamchatka Expedition. He carried out ethnographic research
and inspired others to do the same. His interest was remarkable for
none of the other German scholars working in Russia at the time
shared his dedication to pursue ethnography to the same extent.
Still, as noted previously, Müller was not the only scholar interested
in Siberian peoples. His Russian colleagues Kirilov and Tatishchev
displayed a similar albeit less pronounced interest. This list may also
have included Areskine, the Scottish-born sponsor of science who
organized the tsar’s first scientific expeditions.
The German scholars Messerschmidt, Müller, Gmelin, Steller,
Fischer, and later Pallas found their Russian counterparts in Remezov,
Kirilov, Tatishchev, Petr Rychkov, Fedor Soimonov, Krasheninnikov,
and Ivan Lepekhin. Müller occupied a pivotal position in this schol-
arly network. Scientific endeavor was as dedicated on the “Russian”
side as it was among the German-speaking scholars. Apart from Are-
skine and historian Tatishchev, Kirilov played a key role. A driving
force during the preparations of the Second Kamchatka Expedition,
Kirilov supervised the academic party dispatched by the Academy
of Sciences. One year after the expedition’s departure, he was sent
to Orenburg District to lead the First Orenburg Expedition (1734–
37) to explore the region south and southwest of the Ural Moun-
tains up to the Caspian Sea and to intensify commerce with central
Asia (Hintzsche 2010:xviii). In the wake of this expedition, the city
of Orenburg was founded. After Kirilov’s death, the expedition was
renamed the Orenburg Commission and Tatishchev replaced Kirilov,
leading the commission from 1737 to 1740.
Petr Ivanovich Rychkov (1712– 77) published the most important
report of this expedition, Topografiia Orenburgskaia (1762). He also
wrote an Istoriia Orenburgskaia (1759). This topographical study was
remarkably Völker-minded. In chapter 4 of its first part (“On the vari-
ety of peoples inhabiting the Orenburg District, in their past and

present condition”), he discussed no less than eleven peoples living
in the Orenburg District, together with a number of Asian nations
who had recently migrated there and at least five neighboring peo-
ples.96 Among them were Russians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Meshche-
riaks, Kalmyks, Kyrgyz-Kaisaks (or Kyrgyz), Karakalpaks, Mordvins,
Cheremis (Mari), Votiaks (Udmurt), and Chuvash. Rychkov also
penned an “Attempt at a history of Kazan” (Versuch einer Historie
von Kasan) in 1762.97
Müller helped Rychkov with publishing his work. After the expe-
dition Rychkov, who was not a scholar, chose to retreat to his estate
in Samara rather than pursue the research. Müller corresponded with
him and convinced him to report his results (Pekarskii 1867). Tatish-
chev’s and Müller’s recommendations that Rychkov be appointed
an honorary member of the academy were turned down (Black and
Buse 1989:31). It was left to Müller to publish Rychkov’s work in the
Monthly Compositions. This became Rychkov’s Istoriia Orenburgs-
kaia (1759) and Topografiia Orenburgskaia (1762). Whether Müller
had a hand in shaping Rychkov’s ideas in an ethnological direction
is an open question. But we do know that Müller edited Rychkov’s
work and shortened its baroque title into the more prosaic “History
of Orenburg.”98
Besides encouraging Rychkov’s research and publishing extracts
from works on the Ural Mountains by Tatishchev and the north-
ern Caucasus by Johann Gustav Gärber, Müller published studies
by Fischer, reprinted in the latter’s Quaestiones Petropolitanae, and
Fedor Soimonov, a Russian geographer who produced hydrographic
maps and descriptions of the area around the Caspian Sea between
1755 and 1764 (Black and Buse 1989:31). These studies all dealt with
the history and geography of the Russian Empire and displayed a
strong ethnographic interest.
Müller’s Völker-Beschreibung was a major improvement on Reise-
Beschreibungen, the traditional genre of travel accounts. Renowned
examples were Adam Olearius, Offt begehrte Beschreibung der Newen
Orientalischen Reise (1647, 1656); Johann Albrecht von Mandelslo,
Morgenländische Reyse-Beschreibung (1658); Jürgen Andersen and Vol-
quard Iversen, Orientalische Reise-Beschreibunge (1669); and Eberhard
Isbrand Ides, Travels from Moscow Overland to China (1696, 1704).
Going back to the early fifteenth century, these and other travel

reports turned into a rich tradition of reflection on “the Other and
the Self ” (Harbsmeier 1994, 1995, 2002). The genre was so popular
that a series of travelogues appeared, including the sixty-volume His-
toire générale des voyages of Antoine-François Prévost d’Exiles (1746–
61) and the Hakluyt Society series (from 1846 on). Bibliographical
inventories were made, as many of these travel reports were trans-
lated, extracted, and reprinted.99 The curator of the University of
Göttingen, Gerlach Adolf von Münchhausen, urged the library
as early as 1748 to collect as completely as possible “all voyages and
travel accounts” (alle Voyages und Reise Beschreibungen) (Eck 1986:12,
n.7). As a result, the University of Göttingen has an extensive series
of these itineraria. The best-known scholars to study these accounts
became Blumenbach and Meiners, who mined Reiseberichte for infor-
mation about peoples and customs around the world. By the end of
the eighteenth century, travel accounts were predominantly consid-
ered part of geography, especially of the new category “geography
and ethnography” (Länder- und Völkerkunde).
Müller, however, was critical about this tradition. In the preface
to his 1759 article, Müller (2010a) called the travel reports by Brand
on the inhabitants of Livonia and Estonia, by Johannes Scheffer on
the Lapps, by Olearius on peoples in the Volga region, by de Bruyn
on the Samoyeds, by J. B. Müller on the Ostyaks, and by Ides and
Strahlenberg on various peoples of Siberia “incomplete” (unvollstän-
dig).100 He knew from personal experience that these accounts could
be partial, fragmentary, and even contradictory or false. The trav-
elers had been in foreign territories for only a short period, neither
knew the local languages nor the history of the region, had been led
astray by informants, lacked reliable interpreters, and recorded only
what they saw or had heard about.
A series of Völker-Beschreibungen, argued Müller, was superior to a
series of Reise-Beschreibungen, especially when placed in a comparative
perspective. In the preface to his 1759 article, Müller explained that
a “most general description of peoples” (eine ganz allgemeine Völker-
beschreibung) would have to be based on all available travel accounts
as well as on “descriptions of separate peoples.” He intended to
move beyond travel accounts and establish a novel discipline focused
entirely on comparative descriptions. However, since such descrip-
tions “had not yet been brought to perfection and many peoples had

not been described in such a way,” it would be useful if “learned
scholars of all empires would bring together their views on peoples
of which they have information” and “provide detailed instructions
to all travelers to foreign and distant lands.” It would be beneficial
if such scholars joined forces in “a prospective most general descrip-
tion of peoples” (eine zukünftige allgemeinste Völkerbeschreibung) and
each of them would compare contemporary peoples with those of
antiquity, as Lafitau did.101
This preface (written ca. 1744–45) and the final paragraphs of his
1740 instructions to Fischer indicate that Müller’s ethnological pro-
gram consisted of three steps: first, ethnographic descriptions, as
detailed as possible; second, a systematic comparison, both among
contemporary peoples and between such peoples and their ances-
tors; and finally, a “most general description of peoples” or a “most
general description of peoples” in time to come (Müller 2010a:5).
Ten years later, Rousseau exclaimed that “the whole earth is cov-
ered by nations we only know by name— and we dare to judge the
human species!”102 While Rousseau was reflecting about peoples
known only by name, Müller had actually studied such peoples in
Siberia. Questioning their names, usually given by their neighbors
or conquerors—the actual ethnonyms were often very different—he
had described many of them in the framework of a comparative study
of peoples worldwide.
Rejecting the uncritical reception of travel literature, Müller pro-
posed to move toward a new academic study: the systematic and
comprehensive description of peoples that allowed for a compar-
ative analysis. By following the Early Enlightenment tradition of
Weigel, Pufendorf, Leibniz, and Mencke and by building on Lafit-
au’s comparative work, Müller launched a new academic study. His
ethnological program aimed at a series of systematic ethnographies,
all composed through an empirical and comprehensive method, to
enable internal and external comparison, ultimately leading to a
“most general description of peoples.”
Müller and Comparative Ethnology

Müller invented Völker-Beschreibung (ethnography) as an academic
study in the 1730s and 1740s. Yet he had important predecessors in the
Siberian field, including Witsen, Strahlenberg, and Messerschmidt.

Of other scholars Müller reserved special praise for Joseph-François
Lafitau (1681–1746). The French Jesuit had written a two-volume
book, Moeurs des sauvages Amériquains, comparées aux moeurs des pre-
miers temps (1724). Müller took a copy with him on the expedition.103
Referring favorably to this book in the preface to his 1759 article,
he called Lafitau’s “description of North American peoples . . . an
excellent example” of his own endeavor.104
Lafitau’s work was the culmination of the rich tradition of “Jesuit
Relations” in New France, which included French, Latin, and Ital-
ian documents written between 1610 and 1791 (Thwaites 1896–1901).
Having lived among Canada’s First Nations for nearly six years,
Lafitau compared the customs of native Americans with those of
peoples of classical antiquity, conducting a “study of the manners
and customs of various peoples” that he found “useful and excit-
ing.”105 Religiously motivated, he tried to prove “the necessity and
realness of religion” by pointing to the universal idea of a supreme
being “among all peoples” (Lafitau 1752:3).
On account of Lafitau’s discovery of the matrilineal kinship sys-
tem and the important role of women among the Iroquois, Sol Tax
(1955a) described him as a forerunner of the “study of social organi-
zation.” William Fenton (1969) presented him as a “Precursor of Sci-
entific Anthropology,” and Anthony Pagden (1986) claimed Lafitau
as the founder of comparative ethnology. In a new chapter to his
book The Fall of Natural Man (1986), Pagden traced a connection
between theological discussions on the “American Indian” and the
origins of what he labels “comparative ethnology.” He argued that
Lafitau’s comparative work was built on that of José de Acosta, the
Spanish Jesuit who wrote Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Nat-
ural and moral history of the Indies, 1590). The “Plinius of the New
World,” as Acosta was known, focused on the Caribbean and Cen-
tral America. By adding information about North American nations,
Lafitau was able to compare the customs of various groups of “sav-
age Americans,” both among them and with the Greeks of antiq-
uity. Pagden claimed that “comparative ethnology” commenced with
early Spanish and French studies of American natives. He regarded
Lafitau as Acosta’s successor and concluded that Acosta and Lafitau
made it possible “to see that every explanation of alien cultures had
to be securely grounded in that local and empirical study of behav-

iour which, in the nineteenth century, came to be called ‘ethnol-
ogy’” (Pagden 1986:209).
Given Müller’s achievements, Pagden’s dating of ethnology’s emer-
gence misses the mark by a century. The present book makes clear
that ethnology was born in the second half of the eighteenth cen-
tury (see chapter 6) but was preceded by a stage in which ethnog-
raphy was practiced as a “description of peoples.” While Lafitau
was concerned with a comparison of customs, his subject was the
“manners and customs of peoples,” an old formula, in use since Boe-
mus’s Omnium gentium mores, leges et ritus (1520). This work by the
sixteenth-century German humanist Johann Böhm was translated
into French with the subtitle “les particulières moeurs, loix et caer-
emonies de toutes nations & peuples” (Boemus 1536). In an attempt
to collect in one place the rituals, practices, and customs of ancient
and modern peoples in Africa, Asia, and Europe, the book grew
with each edition as more information became available. Regarded
as the initiator of the “history of manners” or morals in early mod-
ern Europe, it has been called “the first scientific approach to eth-
nography available in English.”106
Andreas Motsch (2001) analyzes Lafitau’s work as contributing
to “the emergence of an ethnographic discourse” (see also Duchet
2005), testing the theses by Blanckaert (1985) and Pagden (1986) of
a relation between the birth of anthropology and diverse European
(Christian) missions in the Americas. Both Boemus and Lafitau had
an ethnological perspective, a way of thinking in terms of peoples
(Völker), but unlike Müller, Lafitau did not develop a program for
an interrelated series of ethnographies.
Yet Lafitau’s “method of reciprocal illumination” and his empha-
sis on “describing cultures in terms of themselves” (Fenton 2000)
were very valuable to Müller, who intended to do for Siberia what
French and Spanish authors had done for the Americas. Müller’s
philosophical dream was that “an experienced person” would com-
pile “a most general description of peoples” and that, from this, “a
certain new science would be founded” (eine gewisse neue Wissen-
schaft begründet werden möge). This would be “beneficial to posterity
forever” (Müller 2010a:5).
The phrase “new science” recalls the Italian historian Giambattista
Vico (1668–1744), who is generally seen as the founder of the modern

philosophy of history (e.g., Löwith 1949). Vico wrote the voluminous
book Principii di una Scienza Nuova d’intorno alla natura delle nazi-
oni (1725). Presenting a historical study of the “nature of nations,”
Vico paid attention to the world’s peoples and suggested that the
rise and fall of nations attested to a cyclical pattern in history. His
thought may have influenced Montesquieu and Rousseau. Johann
Georg Hamann transmitted Vico’s ideas to his disciple Herder. The
first disseminator of Vico’s views in Great Britain was Samuel Tay-
lor Coleridge. Vico’s ideas reached a wider audience through a Ger-
man translation by W. E. Weber in 1822 and a French translation
by Jules Michelet in 1824. The latter was widely read and caused a
new appreciation of Vico in France. More recently, Edmund Leach
(1976, 1982) has reclaimed Vico as founding father of structural and
cognitive anthropology. Isaiah Berlin (1976) interpreted Vico and
Herder as philosophers of history who reflected on the world’s peo-
ples. However, as Vico was hardly read outside Naples before 1770
and Herder belongs to a later generation in the German Enlight-
enment, neither influenced Müller.
In contrast, Lafitau provided Müller with a model for conduct-
ing comparative research. Müller collected all sources that could
shed light on Siberia’s peoples for the purpose of comparing them
to other peoples. French studies like Lafitau’s provided examples
for the German scholars in Russian service, treading into relatively
unexplored territory. Aware that few had preceded them geograph-
ically, they knew that others had succeeded in describing the West
and East Indies’ populations. Messerschmidt, Müller, Gmelin, and
Steller must have felt like they were successors to the New World’s
explorers, investigating terra incognita Siberia.
The Genesis of Ethnography in Siberia

Müller’s ethnological program—his methods, instructions, and
descriptions— support the thesis that ethnography, or Völker-
Beschreibung, arose from the colonial setting of German scholar-
ship in Russia and Asia. This is why my article on “Anthropology in
Colonial Contexts” had the following conclusions: “These data suggest
that ethnography as Völker-Beschreibung came forth from the colonial
practice of German scholars working in the Russian empire, both in
Siberia, the Caucasus and the Volga area (1733–1767) and was then

generalized into Völkerkunde or ethnologia in the academic centres of
Göttingen and Vienna (1771–1783). As a result, ethnography in colo-
nial Russia flowered early and abundantly, to such an extent that the
institutionalisation of the discipline in Russia occurred much ear-
lier than in Western Europe or the usa” (Vermeulen 1999:29). The
German historian of ethnology Werner Petermann (2004) endorsed
this view in his handbook on the history of ethnology but added
an interpretation and an important supposition.107 In Petermann’s
words, these Völker-Beschreibungen were “very concrete ethnographic
collections of materials and monographs” that had little to do with
“generalizing reflections” by philosophers of history like Vico and
Herder. This is correct. Petermann (2004: 285) also speculated that
the ethnographies produced by German scientists at the Academy
of Sciences were “desired by the state” (staatlich gewünscht). Evidence
for such a conjecture, however, was not included in my 1999 article.
Did the Russian authorities feel a need to make inventories of their
empire’s peoples? There is indeed evidence for such a suggestion. As
we have seen in chapter 3, Peter the Great hired Messerschmidt to
undertake an expedition as part of Areskine’s plan to send out sci-
entific expeditions in all the empire’s directions from 1710 on. In 1718
Messerschmidt’s instructions included a study of the encountered
peoples and their languages. The Blumentrost brothers drafted these
instructions. Johann Deodat Blumentrost, head of the Medical Col-
legium and Areskine’s successor, supervised Messerschmidt. Earlier
even, Vinius and the Sibirskii Prikaz had commissioned Remezov to
collect information on Siberia, measure distances from one place to
another, record where the peoples lived, and indicate whether they
were nomadic or sedentary.
Mapmaking was high on the Russian government’s agenda, as
indicated by Remezov’s “Siberian Sketchbook” (1699–1701), Chap-
lin’s map (1729), and Kirilov’s description of Russian provinces (1727).
Maps are never neutral. In the Foucauldian approach they are a
form of knowledge that facilitates the hegemonic exercise of power
(Edney 1997; Harley 2001). This certainly applied to the Russian
Empire, an expanding central state with control over internal “col-
onies” (Bakhrushin 1999:21) and territorial claims on neighboring
regions. The location of peoples, viewed as part of a nation’s wealth,
was indicated on such maps. Major examples of maps locating indig-

enous peoples are Chaplin 1729 and two maps in J. E. Fischer 1768.
On one of the versions of Chaplin’s map, held in Sweden’s National
Library, it is indicated not only whether peoples were nomadic,
but also whether or not they were taxpayers.108 The same applies to
Remezov’s maps.
Müller drafted his 1732 instruction “on the history of peoples” to
ensure that during the expedition the “history of country and peo-
ples, the antiquities, and the manners and customs of peoples, etc.
would not be neglected.” Müller was probably taking his cue from
the Russian Senate’s decision that a “description of the peoples and
their manners” and a study of “the fruits of the earth” should be car-
ried out in the regions traversed by the Second Bering Expedition.
The Senate sent an order to this effect to the Academy of Sciences in
June 1732. Müller reacted with his instructions for an expedition his-
torian in November 1732. He probably acted in concert with Bering,
for whom he had worked as an interpreter; Kirilov, the secretary of
the Senate who coordinated the Second Kamchatka Expedition and
especially its academy contingent; and possibly, Ostermann, who as
vice chancellor took an active part in organizing the expedition until
his dismissal in 1741 (Rychalovskii 2003). Areskine, Kirilov, Oster-
mann, and Blumentrost were all highly placed authorities represent-
ing the Russian state.
Did they commission Müller to make a study of the Siberian peo-
ples, or was it his own initiative? The available sources are not con-
clusive in this respect. As we have seen, Müller mentioned that he
had not been invited to write an instruction for a “history of peo-
ples” but had acted on his own account (ohne das es verlangt wurde).
But in the preface to his 1759 ethnographic article he stated, “When
my dispatch to Siberia . . . had been effected in 1733, I was ordered
by the highest Imperial ukaz to describe the manners and customs
of all peoples I was to encounter during the voyage.” He added,
“Although this task was imposed on me additionally (zusätzlich),
I can say that I worked on it with such pleasure that it served as a
recuperation (zur Erholung) for me during the ten-year journey, even
if I had other very important things to do.”109 This seems to indicate
that, on top of his other duties, Müller was ordered “to describe the
manners and customs of all peoples” he would encounter. Yet the
text of the official decree of June 1733 only mandated Müller to work

on the history of Siberia: he was appointed as a “professor of geog-
raphy and of old and new history.”110 In the specific instructions for
the three professors drafted by the academy in July 1733, Müller was
ordered to deal with “De historia gentium”;111 in their general instruc-
tions, he was also charged with treating geography and chronicling
the voyage’s events.112 In a February 1734 report from Siberia, Mül-
ler summarized his assignment as to “study and describe the history
and geography of all areas through which our journey was to lead
us, as well as the manners and customs of the unbelieving peoples
of the Russian Empire.”113 Thus, although Müller before the expe-
dition had voluntarily offered his services, he after the expedition
stated that he “was ordered” to describe the Siberian peoples’ man-
ners and customs.
This raises the question, What was the Russian state’s interest
in the peoples of their empire? In the seventeenth century Russian
society consisted primarily of a small elite of servitors and a large
majority of peasants, most of them serfs, all serving the state. Yuri
Slezkine (1994a) suggests that in pre-Petrine Russia social distinc-
tion was made on the basis of religion. The Cossacks’ view of the
Siberians was not that they were barbarians but nonbelievers; they
never designated the Siberian people as “savages,” but as strange,
incomprehensible people who had to be forced to pay taxes (Slezkine
1994a:40; Bucher 2002:155). A similar view of peoples as inovertsy
(people of a different faith) prevailed with Tatishchev (see chapter 3).
However, this attitude changed during the Petrine reforms. In
the early eighteenth century, an official interest in a description of
peoples in the Russian Empire was developing, apparently related to
economic and political interests. As we have seen, the main motives
for the Russian expansion into Siberia were the colonization and tax-
ation of peoples (previously paying tribute to the Tatars and Mongols),
the stimulation of trade, and the exploitation of natural resources.
These policies had partly been implemented in the pre-Petrine period,
when Siberia was seen as a “colony, its peoples as willing providers
of taxes and furs” (Schorkowitz 1995:331). Under Peter the Great the
Russian Empire was extended and its power consolidated. The tax
system (yasak) was maintained, but the development of trade was
actively sought. Both were combined with an exploration of Sibe-
ria and Russian Asia, including the search for natural resources.

As a result, Siberia was incorporated into the Russian state system.
Thus Russian ethnographic interest increased through economic
motives, as part of a utilitarian effort to increase the exploitation of
the tsar’s subjects. The peoples (narody) had to be described in terms
of population size, location, and lifestyle in order to impose taxa-
tion and incorporate them into the state. Remezov’s assignment to
report on the population size, location, and economic situation of
Siberian peoples (1699–1701) and Kirilov’s geographical work in the
1720s reflect this.
Until 1725 all of these decisions were backed by Peter the Great.
As we have seen, the first aim of Siberia’s exploration was utilitar-
ian: “to investigate the economic power of the colonies” (Bakhrushin
1999:21); the Siberian peoples were seen as part of that system. Sus-
tained interest in both subjects is encountered in the Senate’s just-
cited orders of June 1732, to make a “description of the peoples and
their manners” and a study of “the fruits of the earth” during the
Second Kamchatka Expedition, and in the April 1733 additional
instruction to Müller to also pay attention to “the origin, morals,
customs and so on of those people living on the north side of the
Amur River,” because “the Russian nation once had numerous settle-
ments there as well” (added as an eleventh item to Müller’s instruc-
tions, “De historia gentium”).
The shift from the view of peoples as nonbelievers (inovertsy, peo-
ple of different faith) or as foreigners (inozemtsy, people of different
origin) to that of inorodtsy (people of different birth) and narodnost’
(peoples or nationalities) requires further study.114 The latter two
terms surfaced in the eighteenth century. Their common root is
naród (people), meaning “something that originates from the same
genus.” The Russian word rod means “to give birth.” The concept of
multiple nations (narody) making up the Russian Empire replaced
the medieval one of naród versus vlast, the people versus the mon-
arch. Up until the twentieth century, narodnost’ would continue to
be used as the Russian term for peoples in the sense of nationalities.
The development seems to have been from a distinction based on
religion (Tatishchev and others) to one based on language (ethnos,
naród), and finally to one based on economy (Speranskii).115
In the early eighteenth century, the Russian authorities exposed
a clear economic and geopolitical interest in the peoples under their

control. However, as Hintzsche suggests, the ethnographic descrip-
tions presented by Remezov and Kirilov were brief and for Müller
too unsystematic.116 According to Müller, it was precisely at the level
of methodology that a historian could make new contributions to
the expedition’s labors. Against the haphazard manner of data col-
lection by Russian scholars, he stressed systematic research; against
the incompleteness of the travel accounts, he emphasized compre-
hensiveness of the descriptions.
The conclusion seems warranted that Müller added a scholarly
agenda to the Russians’ utilitarian interest in the peoples of their
empire. He widened the subject matter, linked it to research on man-
ners and customs, and developed Völker-Beschreibung as a compre-
hensive research program. Müller’s work presents the first outline
of a study of peoples that was soon called ethnographia (see chapter
6). His ethnological program for Siberia, advocating a series of eth-
nographies to be used for inter-ethnic comparisons, was not influ-
enced by Hume’s empiricism, Montesquieu’s environmental theory,
Linnaeus’s binomial nomenclature, or Buffon’s varieties of human-
kind, for Müller’s breakthrough preceded their famous treatises. But
Müller’s ethnological program was influenced by Early Enlighten-
ment rationalism and empiricism and followed the example of com-
parative studies set by Lafitau in 1724.
Did Müller turn into an ethnographer during the expedition?
Müller’s biographer Peter Hoffmann (2005:94) presents Müller as an
autodidact and views the Siberia expedition as turning into a proper
university for him. It is possible that Müller obtained his first interest
in a historical study of peoples at Leipzig. His teacher was Mencke, a
professor of general history (historia universalis), that is, world history,
which included a history of peoples (Völkergeschichte). Mencke’s teach-
ings probably included references to Leibniz’s historical-etymological
work on the relevance of linguistics to the study of peoples’ prehis-
tory. But Müller studied at Leipzig for only two years, and Mencke
did not compose any ethnological works. Therefore, although Müller
had an ethnological interest before the Second Kamchatka Expedi-
tion, it is certain that he developed his ethnological perspective— a
way of thinking in terms of peoples or nations— during the expe-
dition into an ethnological program.
From Siberian praxis Müller arrived at an encompassing view

about a study that had not yet been named and did not exist as
such. He repeatedly stated that “a general description of the world’s
peoples” had not been produced “by anyone in a rigorous and suffi-
ciently detailed” way, but, if carried out properly, would turn into a
“new science,” or a “scholarly discipline.”117
Inspired by Russia’s ethnic diversity, Müller declared that “it would
be difficult to find an empire with such a large number of peoples [as
the Russian],” especially in Siberia, where “the differences between
the peoples are so large” (Müller 2010a:5, 2010b:13, 2010e:18).
During the expedition Müller broadened his focus by shifting
from his 1732 proposal, a Völkergeschichte (a history of peoples) as
part of history, to a 1740 Völker-Beschreibung (a description of peo-
ples) as a sequel to history. Müller saw history not as a preconceived
scheme but as an empirical description of facts. In translating the
Latin formula into German, he made clear that he was concerned
with ethnic history, rather than political history. The latter only partly
applied to Siberia as the majority of Siberian peoples did not have
a state, while most of them had been or were dominated by others.
The multiplex relationships between nations and states were one of
the topics of natural law. Müller thus shifted from political history
(historia civilis) through ethnic history (historia gentium) to ethnog-
raphy (Völker-Beschreibung) as such.
Distinguishing between Siberia’s (political) history, geography,
and ethnography, Müller saw them as separate but linked. To my
knowledge, Müller was the first scholar to make such a fundamen-
tal distinction. Gmelin, Steller, Messerschmidt, Strahlenberg, and
Tatishchev—none treated this trio as separate fields of study. As far
as we know, Müller did not yet use the term “ethnography.” How-
ever, his 1740 instructions to Fischer and the prefaces to his 1759
article and “Beschreibung” demonstrate that he saw this study as a
separate subject, distinct from history and geography. In these pref-
aces from the 1740s, he called it “a very general description of peo-
ples of the earth” (eine allgemeinste Völkerbeschreibung des Erdkreises)
or “a most general description of peoples” (eine ganz allgemeine Völk-
erbeschreibung) (Müller 2010a, 2010c).
Völker-Beschreibung was a German-language forerunner to the
concept of ethnography that surfaced as early as 1740 in Müller’s
instructions and reappeared 1776–80 in Johann Gottlieb Georgi’s

work, 1781–96 in Peter Simon Pallas’s journal, and 1786 in Johan Peter
Falck’s account (see chapter 6). Reflecting Siberia’s enormous cul-
tural diversity, the term emphasized the importance of descriptions
for so many “peoples” (Völker) in this vast area, next to the descrip-
tion of their history, natural and mineral resources, and geography.
Ethnography thus emerged as a complement to already existing
disciplines in the context of Siberia’s early colonization. Its founding
father was Müller, who, while in Siberia, produced a shift from the
study of “manners and customs” (Sitten and Gebräuche) as character-
istic for peoples to a new and more inclusive study of peoples: Völker-
Beschreibung. His “description of peoples” functioned in the context of
a comparative science to be built on a series of Völker-Beschreibungen,
in addition to earlier travel accounts (Reise-Beschreibungen) that he
found “incomplete.” Müller regarded Völker-Beschreibung as empir-
ical, critical, and comprehensive.
The fundamental reason for this paradigmatic shift lay in poli-
tics as well as methodology. Müller separated “ethnic history” (his-
toria gentium) from “political history” (historia civilis). Whereas he,
in 1740, stated that ethnography’s benefit for history was to display
“the affinity of peoples from their common manners and languages”
(Müller 1740, in Russow 1900:37), he later agreed with Leibniz and
Strahlenberg, and eventually Schlözer, that the basis for ethnic clas-
sification was “not mores and customs, not food and economic pur-
suits, and not religion, for all these may be the same in peoples of
different tribes and different in peoples of the same tribe. The only
foolproof standard is language: where languages are similar, there
are no differences among peoples” (Müller 1937–40, vol. 1: 31, cited
in Slezkine 1994a:55; see fig. 5.)118
Müller’s Legacy
Müller’s influence on the genesis of ethnography was manifold.
He developed an ethnological program and partly carried it out
himself; inspired ethnographic research in others both during and
after the Second Kamchatka Expedition; wrote instructions for
Krasheninnikov, Steller, Fischer, and other expedition members;
edited Krasheninnikov’s 1755 work on Kamchatka; added an arti-
cle to Steller’s 1774 description of Kamchatka; and edited the work
of Rychkov (1759). Initiating a trend by encouraging ethnographic

Fig. 5. Gerhard Friedrich Müller (Miller). Courtesy of the
State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russian Federation,
Dashkov Collection.
work, he introduced Völker-Beschreibung to the scholarly agenda

in Russia. In developing methods, such as interviewing infor-
mants without the use of interpreters and writing detailed instruc-
tions to colleagues and students, Müller transmitted the idea of a
comprehensive ethnography to many scholars. He corresponded
with Büsching, the leading German geographer to whom he sent
detailed information about Russia; J. D. Michaelis, the initiator of
the Danish-German Arabia Expedition in Göttingen; and possibly
also J. R. Forster, who studied the Germans inhabiting the Volga
region in 1765– 66. He was a leading consultant to Pallas, the orga-
nizer of the academic expeditions of 1768– 74 that were carried out

by Pallas, Georgi, Falck, Lepekhin, and other naturalist-explorers
(see chapter 6).
The ethnography evident in the work of Messerschmidt, Mül-
ler, Gmelin, Steller, and Krasheninnikov resulted from the interface
between German-language and Russian scholars in the context of
Russia’s colonial explorations of Siberia. It was an empirical study of
national diversity—a phenomenon German anthropologists nowadays
call Völkervielfalt. As noted, Müller was an autodidact who turned
into an ethnographer during the expedition. However, even before
joining it, Müller expressed his ethnological perspective in “De his-
toria gentium,” a Völkergeschichte, or “history of peoples.” Translat-
ing this into German as Völker-Beschreibung, Müller indicated that
such a history would have to be an empirical “description of peoples.”
Some scholars value Steller’s approach more highly than Mül-
ler’s. Known as a Pietist “friend of the people,” Steller’s sympathies
were with the oppressed Itelmens, the original inhabitants of Kam-
chatka, rather than with the Russian conquerors (Matthies 1986:56).
He described their customs, language, economy, festivals, and reli-
gion, as well as their conquest, oppression, exploitation, enslavement,
and destruction by Cossacks. Gmelin (1751–52, vol. 3:177) portrayed
Steller as a fieldworker avant la lettre: he had no need for luxury,
wine, a cook, or a wig; instead, he cooked his own food, knew how
to survive in difficult circumstances, adapted well to local condi-
tions, and traveled as lightly as possible. The geographer Hanno
Beck calls Steller “a scholar and a traveler” in contrast to Gmelin and
Müller, whom he characterizes as “scholars rather than travelers.”119
However, this is a distorted picture because Müller’s ethnographic
studies have been published only recently. Müller has usually been
evaluated solely on the basis of his historical and geographical pub-
lications, but these deliberately omitted most of his ethnographic
research, which he had intended to publish separately.
Steller, Müller, and Gmelin traveled under the expedition’s rela-
tively safe umbrella, with the help of its resources. Steller may have
been a superior fieldworker in his abilities to adapt to local circum-
stances, especially on Kamchatka, where he toiled in a harsh envi-
ronment for several years. Yet Müller and Gmelin managed to collect
huge quantities of material in the realms of civil and natural his-
tory and survived to publish at least parts of them. Müller traveled

as far as Nerchinsk, the upper Amur basin, Yakutsk, and Berezov,
visiting most Siberian districts and towns to unravel Siberia’s his-
tory. He studied more Siberian peoples than any other member of
the Second Kamchatka Expedition. While Steller’s labors were eth-
nographic, Müller designed an ethnological program that aimed for
descriptions within a comparative framework.
Müller’s ethnological ideas were adopted by other members of
the Second Kamchatka Expedition, including naturalists like Gme-
lin, Steller, and Krasheninnikov. His ideas indirectly influenced
the Russian reformer Mikhail Speranskii, who based his “Code of
administration of Siberian peoples” (1822) on Georgi’s work.120 The
latter’s description of “all Russian nations” (Georgi 1776–80) was,
in fact, structured around Müller’s research (see chapter 6). While
Georgi and Müller discussed several ways of classifying the peoples
living in Russia—linguistic, religious, and economic—Speranskii
chose the latter principle. He divided the Siberian peoples into three
groups: “wandering” (brodjachie), for example, the Tungus (Evenks)
and the small peoples, that is, small in number, of the North (hunter-
gatherers); “nomadic” (kochevye), for example, the Buryats and Yakuts
(Sakha); and “sedentary” (osedlye), for example, the Siberian Tatars,
the Khanty, and the Mansi (Dahlmann 2009:150). As governor-
general of Siberia (1819–21), Speranskii drew up a governing scheme
that split Siberia in two (creating Eastern Siberia as a new province,
with Irkutsk as its center), established advisory councils to curb the
governors’ powers, modernized the tax system, encouraged peasant
settlement, tried to contain officials’ misuse of their power, clarified
the status of the Cossacks, and delegated greater authority to indig-
enous elites. To this end, Speranskii ordered the collection of mate-
rials on indigenous customary law and ways of life.121 Considering
that Siberia was already a Staatsgemeinschaft, Speranskii wanted it
to also become a Kulturgemeinschaft (Raeff 1956:112). In pursuing an
“organic” Russification, Speranskii was careful not to destroy the
traditional pattern of native life (Raeff 1956:134). Following Hegel’s
philosophy of law, Speranskii believed that every people should have
a law that corresponds to its nature. Therefore, laws should be dif-
ferent for each group of people. As a result of these 1822 reforms,
Siberia ceased to be an exploited colony of Russia and became an
integral part of Russia’s economic, social, and political life (Dahl-

mann 2009:167–169). Speranskii was one of the greatest Russian
reformers during Alexander I’s reign (Raeff 1957), but his efforts to
protect Siberia’s native peoples from exploitation were largely nulli-
fied by later rulers. Only larger peoples like the Buryats and Yakuts
profited from the administrative reforms.
Anthropology and Colonialism

Here, at last, is a clear indication of the relationship between anthro-
pology and colonialism, between empire and ethnography in Russia.
In the 1820s Speranskii based his reforms on Georgi’s ethnographic
work from the 1770s, which in turn was based on that of Müller in
the 1730s and 1740s. Speranskii’s reform policies evidently profited
from the ethnographies of indigenous peoples that had been made
available during the preceding century. Speranskii also initiated new
research to support his policies.
By contrast, not much attention had been paid to the scholars’
findings in the preceding period. According to Peter Hoffmann,
one of the best-informed scholars of eighteenth-century German–
Russian relations, the results of the Second Kamchatka Expedition
were “purely scientific and had no immediate impact on administra-
tive practice.” Hoffmann states, “The officials of the Siberian Depart-
ment, the Sibirskii Prikaz, took no interest in the scholarly results
and saw the expedition as a burden without any practical use.”122 He
does add that this may have been different in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, which indeed it was.123
The lack of official interest in the Second Kamchatka Expedi-
tion’s scholarly results is surprising because the Russian Senate had
ordered the Academy of Sciences in June 1732 to have Siberia’s nat-
ural resources and native population investigated during the expedi-
tion. The Senate’s interest explains why Müller offered his services in
November 1732, why he instructed the expedition members to con-
duct ethnographic research and collect for the Kunstkamera, and why
naturalists like Steller and Krasheninnikov included so much eth-
nography in their work. All scholars investigating Siberia described
the peoples they encountered because they had been instructed to do so.
They had written their own instructions, but these had been approved
by both the academy and the Senate. Their brief was to study Sibe-
ria’s natural and political (civil) history (Vermeulen 2013).

Considering the utilitarian motives behind such a large-scale
exploration, it is puzzling that the scholars’ reports were not studied
by the administrators. This neglect may have been related to changes
in the top of Russian society, which saw Anna Ivanovna being suc-
ceeded by Elizaveta Petrovna, who ruled Russia between 1741 and
1762. Restoring some of her father’s policies, Elizaveta exiled the most
unpopular of her German advisers and no longer allowed Germans
in the government. Domestic policies and foreign affairs dominated
her agenda, which directed attention away from the expeditions in
Siberia and their results.
Moreover, the Senate had delegated the elaborate results of the
Second Kamchatka Expedition to the Academy of Sciences. The
academy, however, found no time for an evaluation and dutifully
filed all results in its archives, safeguarding the material for future
use. But why did administrators not use the information on natural
resources and native peoples? Given the corrupt state of the colo-
nial regime in Siberia (see, e.g., Forsyth 1992), it is conceivable that
the scholars were not even debriefed on their return. If local offi-
cials considered the expedition to be a burden, they may have failed
to understand its profitable results. Nevertheless, the scholars also
periodically sent reports, and these—if written in Russian—would
have been easier to use by the Senate; the Sibirskii Prikaz, rees-
tablished in 1730 but abolished in 1763; and the centers of Siberian
administration in Tobolsk, and later also in Irkutsk.
Whatever the reasons, the Russian administrators’ neglect to use
the scholarly reports seems to support Talal Asad’s interpretation
(cited in chapter 1) that “the role of anthropologists in maintaining
structures of imperial domination has, despite slogans to the con-
trary, usually been trivial; the knowledge they produced was often
too esoteric for government use and even where it was usable it was
marginal in comparison to the vast body of information routinely
accumulated by merchants, missionaries and administrators” (Asad
1991:315). Indeed, the Russian administrators compiled lists of peo-
ples to be taxed. The Sibirskii Prikaz collected data on peoples to
be subjected to yasak and natural resources to be exploited, whereas
“people in the service of the state, hunters for fur, and Cossacks”
sent reports to their supervisors (Schorkowitz 1995:334– 335). If the
Russian administrators did not bother to study the scholars’ reports,

they may have considered the foreign scholars’ data to be superflu-
ous. If so, the new discipline’s impact on colonial practice in Sibe-
ria was nil, at least during the eighteenth century.
In that case Asad’s second point could also be underscored: “If the
role of anthropology for colonialism was relatively unimportant, the
reverse proposition does not hold. The process of European global
power has been central to the anthropological task of recording and
analysing the ways of life of subject populations, even when a seri-
ous consideration of that power was theoretically excluded” (Asad
1991:315). The Russian context of the expeditions was beneficial to
the genesis of ethnography because the Russian Senate requested
the members of the Academy of Sciences to describe Siberian peo-
ples during the Second Kamchatka Expedition.
Thus there is a curious paradox between the interest before and
after the scientific expeditions. Scholars were hired at great expense
to conduct research, but after their return their reports were filed in
the academy’s archives and the objects stored in the Kunstkamera.
Apparently, either the administrators in the Russian Senate and the
Siberian chancelleries were too preoccupied, or the information was
too complex to be applied easily.
Nonetheless, it becomes evident that the best and most thorough
ethnographic descriptions could occur only in regions that had been
pacified for a duration of time. Some form of colonial stability was
a prerequisite for descriptions extending beyond mere travelogues.
This confirms an earlier point by Asad (1973:17) that the “colonial
power structure made the object of anthropological study accessible
and safe.” In Müller’s case ethnography became possible in a mini-
mally safe situation that was provided by postconquest colonial rule.
Were German scholars like Müller, Gmelin, and Steller accom-
plices of the Russian colonization of Siberia? Müller charted Rus-
sia’s ethnic or national diversity in the service of the Academy of
Sciences. He and other expedition members were not part of the
Russian colonial administration. Academy members did not have
a rank in the Russian bureaucracy (P. Hoffmann 2005:133). Their
requests for support during the expedition were frequently ignored.
Whether they gave advice to Russian administrators in their period-
ical reports has not been investigated. Moreover, Gmelin and Steller
were critical of the ruthless treatment of indigenous peoples. When

Steller tried to protect the Itelmens on Kamchatka, local authorities
harassed him. Although Müller supported the cause of Russia, his
role in the Russian state on the local level in Siberia was rudimen-
tary. In the first part of his career, his position in the academy was
contested. After 1754 his position was strengthened, but his work
remained scholarly in nature.
The Russian colonial project was conducive to the genesis of eth-
nography because authorities like Kirilov requested descriptions of
Siberian peoples. The tsar’s government needed a description of the
empire’s peoples to impose taxes, convert those peoples, and inte-
grate them into an expanding state. As Siberia’s exploitation was for
the state’s benefit, the leading motive was utilitarian. Yet ethnog-
raphy’s genesis in Siberia was the result of several factors; scholarly
curiosity (Stagl 2002b) added to state interests. By focusing on the
description of Siberian peoples and linking that to a comparative
study of peoples worldwide, Müller opened a new scholarly discourse
about the plurality of peoples. The ethnological program Müller
called Völker-Beschreibung was inspired by scholarly and Russian
demands. It resulted from an interaction between science and colo-
nial practice. If Müller collected ethnographic information for the
Russians, he primarily intended to provide data for larger scholarly
debates about peoples worldwide. He launched Völker-Beschreibung
as an empirical study of peoples or nations that should be compre-
hensive, critical, and historical. Müller stated repeatedly that such
a study did not yet exist.
It is possible that the Russian view of the peoples (narody) inhabit-
ing their empire and the German view of these same peoples (Völker)
differed. In any case the interaction between these views was of
importance for the formation of ethnography in the Russian colo-
nial context. German and Russian views on the necessity of a study
of peoples reinforced each other.
Although ethnography has elements that belong to both practice
and discourse, Müller underlined its scientific dimensions. To him,
history was an empirical description of facts. By emphasizing that a
series of ethnographic descriptions must be followed by a compara-
tive stage, in which the Siberian peoples were to be compared with
others elsewhere, Müller indicated that ethnographia (as the subject
was called in 1767– 75) and ethnologia (a term surfacing in 1781–87) were

part of a future science (Völkerkunde) that needed to be developed: a
“prospective most general description of peoples” (Müller 2010a:5).
These are all scholarly formulations without any reference to colo-
nial practice. Thus the colonial relation goes only so far in explaining
the emergence of ethnography in early eighteenth-century Rus-
sia. The colonial context was conducive to the birth of ethnography
because the authorities sought inventories of the peoples in the Rus-
sian Empire, but the main research questions derived from a schol-
arly agenda set by Leibniz, Lafitau, and (later) Linnaeus.
The genesis of ethnography in Siberia was an important stage in the

history of anthropology. It was continued in the academic centers
of northern Germany and Austria, where historians August Lud-
wig Schlözer and Adam František Kollár converted Müller’s Völker-
Beschreibung into a general study of peoples, Völkerkunde (1771– 72)
or ethnologia (1781–83). After Schlözer had arrived in Russia in 1761,
Müller inspired him to conduct historical and linguistic research.
My theory is that Müller’s ethnological program influenced Schlözer,
who brought the idea of ethnography to Germany. While Schlözer
largely adopted Müller’s views, he transformed the latter’s (descrip-
tive) Völker-Beschreibung into a (general) study of peoples he pre-
ferred to call Völkerkunde. Historians like Schlözer and Gatterer
theorized about the subject and in the 1770s processed Völkerkunde
and Ethnographie into their outlines of world history (Weltgeschichte)
and geography (Erdkunde). They were the first two German schol-
ars to utilize Müller’s Siberian observations, draw conclusions about
the development of human society across the globe, and introduce
the new discipline in their University of Göttingen lectures. Kollár
extended Schlözer’s ideas and gave the study of ethnologia its first
definition (see chapter 6).
Historians like Müller, Schlözer, and Kollár were the first to for-
mulate a science of peoples and invent names for it. However, they
did this in the context of an international interest in peoples that
prevailed as much in eighteenth-century Russia as anywhere else.
In the empire of Peter and Catherine the Great, ethnography was
conducted both by historians like Müller, Rychkov, and Fischer and
by naturalists like Messerschmidt, Gmelin, Krasheninnikov, Steller,
and Pallas. It is, however, no coincidence that historians formulated

the concepts for a new science of peoples. Historians paid fuller and
more concrete attention to the peoples of the world and especially
to ethnic variety and diversity, than did philosophers.
Before discussing the foundation of Völkerkunde at the University
of Göttingen around 1770 and its extension as ethnologia at Vienna
in the early 1780s, we must examine another expedition, also under-
taken on a multidisciplinary basis. This expedition, organized in both
Copenhagen and Göttingen, explored parts of the Middle East (see
chapter 5). The apparent lack of a colonial context of this expedition
will give us occasion to further comment on the relation between
ethnography and empire. Although the expedition to the Orient
produced valuable ethnographic results, its contributions to ethno-
logical discourse were much less pronounced than Müller’s Siberian
venture—a contrast that requires elucidation.

five
Anthropology and the Orient

C. Niebuhr and the Danish-German Arabia Expedition
Omnes gentes, plaudite manibus / All ye nations, clap your hands.

—Vulgate, Psalm 46:2
O
rientalism is often seen as the intellectual appropriation of
a region or, in the words of the late literary critic Edward
Said (1978:3), “a Western style for dominating, restructur-
ing, and having authority over the Orient.” Drawing primarily on
literary sources, Said saw Orientalism as a political doctrine designed
to help Western colonial powers control, exploit, and dominate the
East. Yet, as the Danish-German Arabia Expedition to Egypt and
Yemen (1761–67) demonstrates, the Orient was not only imagined
but also explored. Orientalism, as manifested in this scientific expe-
dition’s organization, led to intellectual exploration: Could con-
temporary customs and places in the Middle East shed light on the
Bible? The expedition’s aim was to learn if languages and inscrip-
tions could enlighten obscure passages in the Holy Scriptures writ-
ten centuries earlier. This is an entirely different perspective on a
region than implied in Said’s definition.
Said argued that Western historians gathered knowledge in order
to conquer and impose imperial rule on Oriental “others.” However,
my research finds that scholarly curiosity drove the Danish-German
Arabia Expedition more than any desire to advance Western impe-
rialism. The East was not merely “a career,” as Benjamin Disraeli
would have it, but also a sentiment, an incitement for study, and a
motive for traveling. Opposing Said, Robert Irwin (2006) and Urs
App (2010) defend the orthodox view that Orientalism was and is
the study of Eastern languages, history, culture, and religion. It was
in this latter sense that scholars taking part in the Danish-German
Arabia Expedition conducted their work.
This expedition was planned in Göttingen and Copenhagen and
carried out by a multinational and multidisciplinary team of travel-
ers. The expedition represented a new form of scientific practice—
the well-prepared scientific expedition (Forschungsreise) or “scientific
travel” (Sörlin 1989)—and is regarded as the first modern European
expedition in pursuit of exclusively scientific aims (Lohmeier 2002:17).
Its sole survivor, Carsten Niebuhr, is presented as “the first explorer”
or “the first modern explorer” because he entered into “a dialogic
relationship” with the population and adapted to local traditions,
nutrition, and dress codes.1 Indubitably, the Danish-German Arabia
Expedition was the first scientific expedition to Arabia (U. Hübner
2002:398). But, as we have seen, the Second Kamchatka Expedition
(1733–43) and the First Orenburg Expedition (1734– 37) also consti-
tuted scientific expeditions, even if their aims included geopolitical
goals (see chapter 4). While Niebuhr was able to adapt to foreign
countries and survived to publish most of the expedition’s results, it
is misleading to call his efforts “pioneering.” This would disregard
earlier German travelers like Engelbert Kaempfer, who explored
Japan, or Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, Gerhard Friedrich Mül-
ler, and Georg Wilhelm Steller, who explored Siberia.
There were other important precedents to the Danish expedition.
In the 1660s and 1670s Jean-Baptiste Colbert organized a series of
learned travels to the Orient to collect antiquarian objects for Paris,
including coins and manuscripts.2 In 1700–1702 the French bota-
nist Tournefort undertook an expedition to Anatolia, Georgia, and
Armenia. Beginning in 1745 the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus dis-
patched pupils to study natural history in remote regions and issued
instructions for “traveling naturalists” that included the observation
of manners and customs of the local population. From German aca-
demic centers in Halle, Göttingen, and Gotha, expeditions to Africa
(Abyssinia, Egypt) and the Middle East (Yemen) were undertaken to
explore the Orient and decipher the Bible through “scientific travel.”
Since the Danish-German Arabia Expedition also produced eth-
nographic results, we need to compare it to research in the Russian
Empire. What was ethnography’s position in the Arabia expedition?
To what extent did it differ from ethnography conducted during the
220 Anthropology and the Orient

Second Kamchatka Expedition? Like its Russian predecessor, the
Danish expedition’s membership was multidisciplinary and interna-
tional. Unlike the expedition to Kamchatka, the results of the expe-
dition to Arabia were mostly published, by Niebuhr. I shall focus on
the expedition’s aims, the selection of its participants, the context in
which its original ideas were formulated, its results, and their evalu-
ation by the expedition’s initiator, Johann David Michaelis, profes-
sor of Oriental languages at the University of Göttingen.
The Arabia Expedition and the University of Göttingen

The Danish-German expedition to Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula,
and Yemen was dispatched from Copenhagen but organized in Göt-
tingen. Göttingen, a university town in northern Germany, belonged
to the Electorate of Hanover. The University of Göttingen, founded
in 1734 and inaugurated in 1737, was Hanover’s answer to the Univer-
sity of Halle in Brandenburg-Prussia.3 While Early Enlightenment
and Pietism characterized the University of Halle, the formative
influence on the University of Göttingen became Christian Wolff’s
High Enlightenment. Pietism was not accepted in Göttingen. The
university’s curator, von Münchhausen, appointed young professors
and encouraged the introduction of new fields, notably the study
of “statistics” (Statistik or Staatenkunde) next to the study of law, of
linguistics alongside philology, of ethnology and history alongside
geography, and of physical anthropology alongside natural history.
Most of the first-generation professors of Göttingen were educated
in the universities of Halle, Leipzig, and Jena; a third came from
Halle and Leipzig (Mühlpfordt 2008:13–14). The University of Göt-
tingen maintained ties with the British Empire through the elector
of Hanover (who was also king of Great Britain and Ireland) and
the Russian Empire through Catherine the Great.4 Liberal lending
policies of the university library, filled with the latest acquisitions
in a variety of fields, including travel accounts, marked the univer-
sity’s status as a research institution rather than a school. Göttingen
developed into the Holy Roman Empire’s most modern university
after 1763, during the Late Enlightenment.5
The Danish crown financed the Arabia expedition, which in Den-
mark was known as the Arabiske Rejse (the Arabian Voyage). Two
of its six participants were German by birth; three members were
Anthropology and the Orient 221

trained in Göttingen. Moreover, the ideas behind the expedition and
its instructions were formulated at Göttingen University. I therefore
prefer the more accurate name of Danish-German Arabia Expedi-
tion (Vermeulen 1999), notwithstanding that the collections went
to Copenhagen, where most of the expedition’s findings were pub-
lished as well.6
The initial plans for the Danish-German Arabia Expedition went
back to 1753, when Johann David Michaelis (1717–91), educated at
Halle and professor of Hebrew and Arabic at Göttingen, delivered
a lecture about the scholarly promise of a voyage to Palestine and
Arabia (J. D. Michaelis 1753). In 1756 Michaelis suggested sending
a well-prepared scholar from Tranquebar, the Dänisch-Hallesche
Mission on the Coromandel Coast in southeast India, to Arabia
Felix (Yemen) to collect Oriental manuscripts. These texts were nec-
essary for Michaelis’s scholarly pursuits, particularly his critical edi-
tion of the Bible. Arabic codices were available in academic centers
like Leiden, Paris, and Oxford, but the German lands owned such
manuscripts only in the universities of Helmstedt, Heidelberg, Jena,
and Leipzig. A new university like Göttingen lacked valuable “Ori-
ental manuscripts,” as Michaelis realized when he wanted to pub-
lish the medieval geography of Abulfeda (Abu’l-Fida).7
The itinerary for the Danish-German Arabia Expedition was
decided after previous research voyages to the Orient had been eval-
uated. The detour by sea via Tranquebar was proposed from fear of
the plague raging in the parts that had to be crossed in the Middle
East. Michaelis invoked the memory of Fredrik Hasselquist, a Lin-
naeus student who in 1749 traveled through Palestine, Syria, Ara-
bia, Egypt, and other regions to die near Smyrna in 1752.8 Another
reason for proposing an expedition from the Danish mission station
was that it would cost less and the Pietist network could be used for
communications with Europe.9
Ninety years earlier, Hiob Ludolf in Gotha had trained the Ger-
man theologian Johann Michael Wansleben (1635– 79) for an expedi-
tion to Ethiopia to learn Abyssinian. After he had published a pirate
edition of Ludolf ’s Lexicon Aethiopico-Latinum and his Grammat-
ica aethiopica at London in 1661, Wansleben departed for Abyssinia
but went no farther than Cairo (Rupp-Eisenreich 1987). As part of
the learned travels to the Orient organized by Colbert, Wansleben

undertook another attempt in 1672– 73 and traveled in Egypt for a
year. Upon his return he wrote a description of Egypt, which was
published after his death, in addition to a “New description of a
voyage to Ethiopia” (1677) in French and a work on Coptic religion
(Histoire de l’Eglise d’Alexandrie, 1677).
The “French Geodesic Mission,” carried out by French and Span-
ish scientists in 1735–44, was the first international scientific expedi-
tion by sea. It went to the Spanish territory of Quito (now Ecuador)
to measure the earth’s roundness and the degree of a meridian arc
near the equator. To settle these matters, Louis XIV dispatched
two expeditions: one to Lapland, near the North Pole, led by the
French mathematician Pierre Maupertuis and the Swedish physi-
cist Anders Celsius; the other to the equator, including the French
astronomers Louis Godin, Pierre Bouguer, and Charles-Marie de
La Condamine and the Spanish naval officers Antonio de Ulloa and
Jorge Juan y Santacilia. Their work resulted in an accurate determi-
nation of the earth’s size and the conclusion that its shape was not
round but oblate, that is, flattened at the poles. The accounts by Bou-
guer, La Condamine, and (later) the Spanish officers publicized the
wealth of South America’s flora, fauna, and landscapes. The Arabia
surveyor Niebuhr knew about the Franco-Spanish equator expe-
dition and seems to have been familiar with the French reports.10
The Danish naval officer Frederik Ludvig Norden’s 1737– 38 voy-
age to Egypt and Nubia served the Danish-German Arabia Expedi-
tion as a direct model. On the order of King Christian VI, Norden
traveled up the Nile, until he reached the first cataract near Aswan,
where he was forced to return. Michaelis cited this journey, among
others, for the problems that arose because Norden did not have a
command of Arabic. On the basis of his notes and drawings, Nor-
den’s Voyage d’Égypt et de Nubie (1755) was posthumously published
at Copenhagen in two volumes. Translations appeared in English
(1757) and German (1779). The voyage’s purposes had been carto-
graphic and commercial, to establish trade between Denmark and
Ethiopia (Wiesehöfer and Conermann 2002:10). While the latter
goal failed, Norden’s trip yielded descriptions, maps, and depictions
of people and places, especially of the Pyramids, that proved help-
ful for the Arabia expedition’s preparation.11
A few years before the Arabia expedition, the University of Göttin-

gen dispatched a traveler whose endeavors bore little fruit. Renowned
physician Albrecht von Haller organized an expedition to the Amer-
icas in 1752, shortly before he left Göttingen for Berne. Funds had
been raised by a group of European bankers and merchants for this
expedition. However, Christlob Mylius (born 1722), the expedi-
tion’s executor, pilfered away the funds. He died in March 1754 in
a house for the poor, after having celebrated in Berlin and London
before the expedition’s departure (Eck 1986:17). Reimer Eck, who
studied this expedition in the context of the Danish-German Ara-
bia Expedition, suggests that the Mylius expedition suffered from
a lack of communication between Haller and Mylius. Johann Beck-
mann noted that Linnaeus concluded from Mylius’s correspondence
that the man had insufficient knowledge of Naturalien (natural his-
tory) and added that Mylius had found a powerful reason to remain
in London: “a beauty, who kept him from a speedily departure until
he finally died there.”12
From the outcome of these trips, Michaelis concluded that the
Arabia expedition had to be well prepared, the personnel should be
selected on the basis of scholarly criteria, and the funding had to
be adequate. His first proposal to the Danish court, of May 1756,
was modest. Michaelis asked permission for a scholar to sail on a
Danish ship from Tranquebar to Yemen. Frederik V, king of Den-
mark and Norway, and his foreign minister, Johann Hartwig Ernst
von Bernstorff, responded in the affirmative. Frederik V, who had
founded the Danish Royal Academy in 1754, was expanding his cos-
mopolitan sponsorship of arts and sciences. He was patron to Italian
musicians, French artists, and German poets like F. G. Klopstock.
Expecting to gain further prestige as a benefactor of science and
the arts, Frederik jumped at the opportunity; his foreign minister
requested a detailed plan and a budget from Michaelis.13 Von Bern-
storff hailed from Hanover, had studied in Göttingen, and shared his
monarch’s enthusiastic support. The swift response came unexpect-
edly, as Michaelis had mentioned the plan merely in passing, hop-
ing to find funds in Sweden or Russia. In his August 1756 detailed
response, he suggested a physician and servant accompany the sin-
gle scholar.
Denmark at the time was a middle-sized state with extended
commercial networks and several colonies. It enjoyed a reputation in

mid-eighteenth-century Europe for remaining neutral in most armed
conflicts that pitted European powers against each other. It stood
aside from the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), a bitter colonial strug-
gle on a global scale. Beginning in North America with the French
and Indian War (1754–63), the conflict between France and England
soon spread to Europe, Africa, and Asia. In Europe Maria Theresia’s
Habsburg Empire, siding with France and assisted by Russia and
Sweden, confronted Prussia under Frederick the Great, who allied
with Britain. Once again large regions of the Holy Roman Empire
were devastated. Göttingen, being part of Hanover, was occupied
by French troops in the summer of 1757, as was Halle, part of Prus-
sia, two years later. Although the University of Göttingen was still
functioning during this period, communication with the outside
world was restricted, hampering the expedition’s negotiations. How-
ever, Michaelis had good relations with the French military officers,
so his own letters were usually dispatched (J. D. Michaelis 1793).
The perception of the Ottoman Empire in decline influenced the
political context of the Arabia expedition. Through an intricate net-
work of beys and deys the sultan’s government controlled the Islamic
regions of Asia and North Africa. In Europe the Turks were on the
defensive in their century-old conflict with the Austrian Habsburgs.
Along the Black Sea and in the Caucasus they were facing ever more
powerful Russians. In Asia they were under attack by the Persians.
In Egypt they would soon be struck by the French. But Denmark’s
neutrality and its 1756 Treaty of Trade and Friendship with the Sub-
lime Porte ensured that the expedition could obtain passes from the
Danish consulate in Constantinople (Istanbul).
The science of archaeology, initially applied to classical and Celtic
antiquity, also influenced the Arabia expedition.14 Reimer Eck (1986)
suggests that Michaelis adopted the idea of an expedition to Yemen
from the Society of Dilettanti, founded in London in 1733. This soci-
ety sponsored a voyage by Robert Wood (1717– 71) and his friends to
Asia Minor in 1750–51 in order to retrace Homer’s steps. Wood’s Ruins
of Palmyra (1753) and Ruins of Baalbec (1757) were well read, as was his
Essay on the Original Genius of Homer (1769).15 Excavations at Her-
culaneum and Pompeii in Italy had begun in 1738 and 1748. Rumors
of the findings, as well as rough sketches, circulated in Europe until
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68) observed some of the stat-

ues in Dresden. After he had visited the sites in 1758, Winckelmann
publicized the findings in his Sendschreiben von den Herculanischen
Entdeckungen (1762) and Nachrichten von den neuesten Herculanischen
Entdeckungen (1764). These studies are regarded as the first archae-
ological reports. Winckelmann’s major work, Geschichte der Kunst
des Alterthums (1764), shaped European views about the aesthetics
of Greek art. The archaeology of classical antiquity, founded with
Winckelmann, influenced the work of Lessing, Goethe, and Chris-
tian Gottlob Heyne, a classical scholar and director of the univer-
sity library at Göttingen (Heyne 1778; Marchand 1996).
However, as we shall see, the most significant influence on the
Arabia expedition’s preparation was Linnaeus’s 1759 instructions for
scientific travelers.
The Expedition Members

The initial objective of the Arabia expedition was to collect Arabic
and Hebrew manuscripts in the Orient. A single scholar would be
sent to Arabia, equipped with instructions drawn up in consultation
with Europe’s scholars (J. D. Michaelis 1762:[9–12]). Gradually, this
plan became more ambitious. Frederik Christian von Haven (1727–
63) was chosen over A. L. Schlözer and J. J. Reiske to be the travel-
ing scholar. A Danish philologist who had been studying Oriental
languages and theology at Göttingen since 1751, von Haven had
attended Michaelis’s lectures on the Book of Job (J. D. Michaelis
1762:101). He received a royal stipend to continue his studies in Göt-
tingen and Rome at the Collegio Maronitico (a Maronite-Christian
college) to learn spoken Arabic. However, since Michaelis wanted to
solve questions about the Bible’s natural history, in 1756 von Bern-
storff suggested also including a botanist.
Peter Forsskål (1732–63) was selected to work on natural history.
This Swedish naturalist of Finnish origin had studied natural history
and theology and was well versed in Oriental languages. A clergy-
man’s son, Forsskål enrolled at Uppsala University at a young age in
1742. After a period in which he continued his studies on his own in
Finland, he re-matriculated at Uppsala in 1751, completing a theo-
logical degree later that year. In Uppsala he was a student both of
Linnaeus and of the Orientalist Carl Aurivillius. The latter’s con-
tacts with Michaelis were probably why Forsskål entered the Uni-

versity of Göttingen in 1753.16 He studied Hebrew and Arabic with
Michaelis and completed his doctorate there in 1756. He wanted to
study economics in Uppsala, but the Swedish Hat government cen-
sored his 1759 dissertation, “De libertate civili” (On civil freedom),
which advocated freedom of the press. In 1760, on Michaelis’s rec-
ommendation and with Linnaeus’s approval, Forsskål was appointed
to join the expedition to Arabia. During the journey Forsskål col-
lected botanical and zoological specimens, while also studying Ara-
bic dialects and the local economy.
To settle geographical matters, von Haven requested the addition of
a mathematician. This position was offered to Carsten Niebuhr (1733–
1815), a Göttingen student of mathematics and geography. Wanting
to become a surveyor, Niebuhr trained in Hamburg for a year and
then matriculated at the University of Göttingen in April 1757. His
teachers were Abraham Gotthelf Kästner, an applied mathematician
and poet (Baasner 1991), and Tobias Mayer, a “pioneer of enlight-
ened science in Germany” (Forbes 1980, 1993; Eck 1985). The idea of
joining the Danish expedition was proposed to Niebuhr during the
summer of 1758, when Kästner asked him whether he “would like
to travel to Arabia.” Niebuhr dryly replied, “Why not, if somebody
is paying for the costs!” To which Kästner responded, “The Danish
king will cover your expenses.”17 That same evening, Niebuhr vis-
ited Mayer for private instruction to prepare for the expedition. He
was appointed a team member in October 1758.
Selection of the expedition members transpired in 1758– 60.
Michaelis corresponded with scholars throughout Europe to decide
the journey’s itinerary and discuss the members’ instructions. Deter-
mined shortly before the expedition’s departure (Niebuhr 1772:vii),
the route avoided the detour via Tranquebar by having the party
travel overland through Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula. This had
the advantage that research could be done in Egypt and the Red
Sea could be explored. After investigations in Yemen, the return trip
would head overland through Basra, at the mouth of the Euphrates
and Tigris, a region also promising discoveries.
Among the scholars von Bernstorff consulted in Copenhagen were
the Orientalist Johan Christian Kall, the zoologist Peter Ascanius,
the botanist Georg Christian Oeder, and the physicist Christian Got-
tlieb Kratzenstein. The first three advocated adding a physician and

a draftsman. Kratzenstein, who had studied medicine and physics at
Halle, was a member of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg
in 1748–53 and a professor of experimental physics at Copenhagen
University after 1754. He was a major adviser about the expedition’s
mathematical and physical goals (Rasmussen 1990a:46–58).
In sum the one-man journey that Michaelis had originally envi-
sioned had grown into a veritable expedition consisting of three
scholars, a physician, a draftsman, and a servant. The final partici-
pants were (1) Professor Frederik Christian von Haven, der Philologus,
expertise in philology and theology; (2) Professor Peter Forsskål, der
Physicus, specializing in natural history and Oriental languages; (3)
Ingenieur-Lieutenant Carsten Niebuhr, der Mathematicus, trained in
cartography and astronomy; (4) Dr. Christian Carl Cramer (Kramer,
1732–64), der Medicus, or “physician”; (5) Georg Wilhelm Bauren-
feind (1728–63), der Mahler, or draftsman; and (6) Lars Berggren (d.
1763), a Swedish dragoon who was assigned to be the group’s orderly.18
A division of labor was outlined in handwritten instructions dis-
tributed among the team members shortly before their departure on
December 15, 1760. They were to travel to Arabia Felix to make “as
many discoveries for science as possible.” All members had to keep
a journal, in which everything observed was to be recorded. And
if two or more travelers recorded the same event, all the better: “It
would be pleasing if, for example, each [expedition member] reports
what he has noticed about the people’s manners and inclinations
[Sitten und Neigungen des Volks]. If the philologist elucidates words
occurring in natural history, the natural scientist explains the Bible
in terms of natural history and the mathematician also pays atten-
tion to physical aspects, none of it should be regarded as a breach
of each other’s authority” (J. D. Michaelis, Fragen 1762:[43]).19 The
other duties were specified in articles included in the instructions.
These were printed, in abbreviated form, as “Instruction” in Michae-
lis, Fragen 1762 (38–68) and reprinted, in a complete form, in Ras-
mussen (1986:59– 78). The natural historian Forsskål was to occupy
himself with botany and zoology, in addition to languages, and with
finding evidence to support a number of Linnaeus’s theses (“Instruc-
tion” 1760, paragraphs 16–22). Physician Cramer was to treat his col-
leagues, as well as “prominent Arabs” (vornehme Araber), in case of
illness. In addition, he was assigned to study the history of diseases

and their cures, particularly the cure for smallpox; collect materials
relating to medical science (materia medica); and assist with research
into zoology (paragraphs 23–26). The mathematician Niebuhr was
to focus on geography and cartography, which involved calculating
heights and distances, establishing latitude and longitude of strategic
locations, comparing these with the data provided by Abulfeda, and
sketching a new map of Arabia. In addition, he had to concentrate
on contemporary facts that could elucidate Arabia’s classical geog-
raphy and advance the historical part of geography (paragraphs 27–
34). The philologist von Haven was to concentrate on (early) history
and philology, the collection of Oriental manuscripts, the transcrip-
tion of inscriptions discovered en route, the observation of the use of
Arabic, and the clarification of obscure biblical passages (paragraphs
35–42). The draftsman and engraver Baurenfeind was assigned the
task of drawing natural objects, scenic views, costumes, and so forth
on behalf of all the expedition members (paragraph 43).
This was a multinational team: von Haven and Cramer were Dan-
ish; Forsskål and Berggren came from Sweden; Niebuhr was Ger-
man, born in the duchy of Hadeln, a territory in northern Germany,
south of the Elbe estuary that belonged to Hanover.20 The drafts-
man Baurenfeind was German by birth but had been working in
Copenhagen for some time. Two participants were sons of vicars
(von Haven, Forsskål), while three of them had studied at the Uni-
versity of Göttingen (von Haven, Forsskål, Niebuhr). Von Haven
and Forsskål, academically trained theologians, were both awarded
the title of professor for the expedition’s duration. Niebuhr saw him-
self as a “pragmatic surveyor” and refused such a title; he departed
with the modest designation of ingenieur-lieutenant of the Danish
engineering corps. Michaelis called the group’s international com-
position a “happy” coincidence (J. D. Michaelis 1762:[16]), but the
group became plagued by nationalistic antagonisms and rivalries.21
Aboard the man-of-war Grønland, the expedition left Copenhagen
on January 7, 1761. Of the sextet, only Niebuhr was to return alive,
arriving in Copenhagen on November 20, 1767.
One year before the departure, Michaelis placed advertisements in
a number of journals requesting scholarly advice.22 Responses came
from scholars in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and several places in
the Holy Roman Empire. The European learned public followed the

expedition with great interest. Its subject matter was topical, and
it conformed to a new practice of scientific traveling that was (per-
ceived to be) a Swedish invention.
Scientific Travelers and Linnaeus’s Apodemics

A new attitude developed during the eighteenth century regard-
ing research travel. These voyages had to be scientifically prepared,
accompanied by detailed instructions, and funded by a royal patron,
academy, or state. Following the German term Forschungsreisen, I
call these new forms of scholarly traveling “scientific expeditions”
(see chapter 3) because fundamental research became these voy-
ages’ prime target.
Carolus Linnaeus (1707– 78), the Swedish “king of flowers,” played
a key role in the establishment of this new form of travel. Linnaeus
is credited with having introduced the practice of sending out expe-
ditions with purely scientific aims, rather than a combination of geo-
political and scientific aims (Conermann 2002:412). While Linnaeus
did not invent this practice, he developed and transmitted it. One
of his predecessors was John Ray (1627–1705), the father of English
natural history. Ray’s Historia plantarum (1686–1704, 3 vols.) was an
important step toward modern taxonomy. In the first volume Ray
introduced a modern biological definition for species. He traveled
extensively in western Europe between 1663 and 1666 and described
about six thousand species of plants.
Even more influential was the French botanist Joseph Pitton de
Tournefort (1656–1708), whose system of plants remained popular
even after Linnaeus’s 1737 improved system. 23 Tournefort also trav-
eled in western Europe, particularly the Pyrenees. As a member of
the French Academy of Sciences, he undertook a scientific expedi-
tion to the Orient in 1700–1702, supported by the Abbé Bignon and
paid for by the French crown. The botanist Andreas Gundelsheimer
and the painter Claude Aubriet, one of the best botanical artists of
the times, accompanied Tournefort. The aim was to identify plants
mentioned in ancient works, discover new plants and plant species,
and collect as much information as possible about the geography,
history, customs, and religions, as well as commerce and industry,
of the regions visited. Tournefort’s account, Relation d’un voyage du
Levant (1717), turned into a classic that was translated into Dutch

(1737), English (1741), and German (1776– 77). Far more than a mere
description of the region’s nature, it was a vivid eyewitness account
of the Ottoman Empire around 1700. Composed in the form of let-
ters, so as to present a chronological overview, the account is regu-
larly dispersed with descriptions of cities, history, and religious and
other customs, as well as plants and seeds collected on the way. It
was illustrated with plates of plants (and some animals) as well as
of sites and harbors, maps, secular and religious costumes, build-
ings, and ancient inscriptions. The same breadth of subjects is pal-
pable from a list of Tournefort’s collections, which included dried
plants (his herbarium is preserved at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle
in Paris), shells, fossils, minerals, costumes, weapons, and objects
of practical use (Troelstra 2003:23, 34). Both Tournefort’s taxonomy
and his travel account presented models for Messerschmidt, Gme-
lin, and Linnaeus.
Linnaeus himself traveled in Sweden as well as in other parts
of Europe. While still a student, he explored Lapland in search of
new plants. From May to October 1732, Linnaeus traveled through
subarctic Lapland and Finland, at the time an uncharted part of
northern Europe. He collected over one hundred plants from the
northern forests and the tundra. He not only took detailed notes of
the plants he collected but also described the customs of the Sami
(Lapps) and established how these indigenous people used plants
for food and medicine. Traveling lightly, he lived with the people he
met, ate the same food, and adopted their clothing. For this reason
Linnaeus is regarded as the first scientist to conduct ethnobotani-
cal fieldwork. His style of traveling influenced subsequent explor-
ers of flora and fauna in uncharted regions. Linnaeus’s journey to
Lapland, notable for adventurous episodes, led to his Flora Lappon-
ica (1737). His travel journal was published later as Iter Lapponicum
(1889) and contains notes about all encounters of interest. Already
on his first trip, Linnaeus proved himself to be a cameralist: he was
interested in “economy” (Oeconomica), or how people exploit their
natural resources (Koerner 1999). His work was meant to serve use-
ful purposes.
In 1735 Linnaeus began an academic journey (peregrinatio aca-
demica) through the European continent, spent mostly in the Dutch
Republic. After having received his doctorate from the University

of Harderwijk, he published his first treatise on classification (Sys-
tema naturae, 1735) and several works on botany in Leiden, including
Fundamenta botanica (1736), Critica botanica (1737), Genera planta-
rum (1737), and Classes plantarum (1738). By developing ideas on the
sexuality of plants presented in Sébastien Vaillant’s Sermo de struc-
tura florum (1718), Linnaeus established a foundation for botanical
taxonomy: classifying plants into groups according to the number
of their stamens and stigmas. He traveled to England and France
before returning to Sweden in 1738. After he had settled as a physi-
cian in Stockholm, Linnaeus, together with colleagues, founded the
Swedish Academy of Sciences (1739). Following a trip of three and
a half months through Ötland and Gotland in 1741, he accepted a
professorship in medicine and botany at the University of Uppsala.
His inaugural lecture of October 1741 argued for the necessity of
research trips in Sweden. Such trips served a utilitarian purpose by
benefiting both medical research and the economy. Five years later,
in June–August 1746, Linnaeus traveled to the Swedish province of
West Gotland for research on natural history, medicine, and local
economy. In April–August 1749 he was similarly preoccupied in
Schonen, the most southern part of Sweden (Goerke 1989:60, 64, 67).
A prolific tutor, Linnaeus was successful in transmitting these
principles to students. Stafleu (1971) estimated that Linnaeus pre-
sided over 186 theses during his 1741– 76 teaching career in Uppsala.
Sandermann Olsen (1997) claims that he supervised 331 pupils.
In 1746 Linnaeus successfully obtained from the Swedish East
India Company an annual free return passage for one of his stu-
dents (Beaglehole 1966:4–5). His “apostles,” as Linnaeus called them
affectionately, were dispersed thereafter around the world.24 A list
of seventeen apostles trained and instructed by Linnaeus is pre-
sented in table 5.
At least eight of these apostles had departed before the Danish-
German Arabia Expedition. The first one was Christopher Tärn-
ström, who died during the outward voyage on an island in the China
Sea. Fredrik Hasselquist traveled through Palestine and Egypt in
1749–52, as we saw. Linnaeus published Hasselquist’s journal under
the title Iter Palaestinum (1757). Pehr Löfling traveled to Spain and
Venezuela. After his 1756 death, Linnaeus published Löfling’s jour-
nal as Iter Hispanicum (1758).

Others were fortunate enough to live to see their work published.
Thus Pehr Kalm, who traveled through Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
and New York, up the Hudson River over the Great Lakes to Can-
ada (1748–51), achieved acclaim by his studies of North America.
Pehr Osbeck traveled to China via the Cape of Good Hope and
Java. His journal, published in 1757, was translated into English by
J. R. Forster in 1771. In 1770– 79 Carl Peter Thunberg had traveled
in France and Holland before embarking for Japan via the cape
and Java. He published his report before succeeding Linnaeus on
the Uppsala chair in 1784. Two of Linnaeus’s pupils accompanied
James Cook on his famous voyages exploring the South Seas: Dan-
iel Carlsson Solander was on Cook’s first voyage (1768– 71); Anders
Sparrman joined his second voyage (1772– 75). The first traveled on
the Endeavour together with Joseph Banks, the expedition’s leading
botanist; the second sailed on the Resolution, together with Johann
Reinhold Forster and his son, Georg. The latter had persuaded Sparr-
man, engaged in research in the Dutch Cape Colony, to join them
on the journey with Cook.25
Linnaeus instructed his students on what to look for before their
departure. The apostles sent him letters and botanical specimens
and usually gave him a selection of anything collected upon their
return. Linnaeus was highly influential; he inspired Joseph Banks
to inaugurate the tradition of British research ships having a natu-
ralist aboard. A portrait of Linnaeus, dressed in a Lappish costume,
boosted his public image in Europe.
On the basis of the instructions given to his students, Linnaeus
wrote a more general “Instruction for traveling naturalists.” This
Instructio peregrinatoris, first published in 1759 as Erik Nordblad’s
dissertation, was soon reissued under Linnaeus’s name and cited as
such in the questionnaire for the Arabia expedition’s members (J. D.
Michaelis 1762:[49]).26 Its roots went back almost two decades, for,
as noted, upon accepting the chair of medicine at Uppsala in 1741,
Linnaeus delivered an inaugural lecture calling on young Swedes
to explore their own country (patria). This exhortation to explore
the native country, rather than take the customary European grand
tour, was inspired by Linnaeus’s own travels through parts of Swe-
den and Norway. While the Oratio contained suggestions for trav-
eling, the Instructio presented a program for gathering medical and

Table 5. The Linnaeus apostles, 1745–1796
234
Area Name (dates), nationality Years of study Regions studied Publicationsa
Arctic Anton Rolandsson Martin (1729– 1758, 1759– 60 Sweden, Spitsbergen, 1881
85), Swedish, born in present-day Norway
Estonia
Siberia Johan Peter Falck (1732–74), 1768–74 Siberia, Kazakhstan 1785–86, ed. Georgi
Swedish
The New World Pehr Kalm (1716–79), Finnish 1747–51 England, North America 1757– 64, 1770–71
Pehr Löfling (1729–56), Swedish 1751–56 Spain, Venezuela 1758, ed. C. Linnaeus
Daniel Rolander (1725–93), 1754–56 Suriname, St. Kitts
Swedish
Middle East and Fredrik Hasselquist (1722–52), 1749–52 Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Pales- 1757, ed. C. Linnaeus
North Africa Swedish tine, Lebanon
Peter Forsskål (1732– 63), Swedish, 1761– 63 Malta, Turkey, Egypt, 1775a, 1775b, 1776,
born in present-day Finland Arabia, Yemen ed. C. Niebuhr
Göran Rothman (1739–78), 1773–76 Tunisia, Libya
Swedish
West Africa Andreas Berlin (1746–73), 1772–73 Guinea, Sierra Leone
Swedish
Adam Afzelius (1750–1837), 1789–92, 1794–96 England, Sierra Leone, 1967
Swedish Guinea

South Africa, Asia, Christopher Tärnström (1711– 46), 1745– 46 Java, Vietnam (China) 2005
and Oceania Swedish
Pehr Osbeck (1723–1805), Swed- 1750–52 Spain, Java, China 1757
ish
Olof Torén (1718–53), Swedish 1750–52 India, China In Osbeck 1757
Carl Fredrik Adler (1720– 61), 1753– 61 India, China, Java
Swedish

Daniel Carlsson Solander (1733– 1768–71, 1772 Pacific (Cook 1), Iceland
82), born Swedish, changed (with Banks)
citizenship to English
Anders Sparrman (1748–1820), 1772–76, 1787 South Africa, Pacific (Cook 1783–1818
Swedish 2), Senegal
Carl Peter Thunberg (1743–1828), 1770–79 South Africa, Java, Japan, 1784–1805, 1788–93,
Swedish Java, Sri Lanka 1794–1813
Source: Based on L. Hansen 2007–12.

a
All journals and reports have been translated in L. Hansen 2007–12.
235
scientific information worldwide, including on the population’s cus-
toms and way of life (Stagl 1983:67–68, 1994:85). Indeed, Linnaeus
recommended his apostles to report on every aspect of the people
they were to meet. He also gave advice on how the traveler should
conduct himself when meeting people from different backgrounds.
However, not all Linnaeus apostles reported on the manners and
customs of the people they encountered. The majority restricted
themselves to their main object: to collect and classify (medicinal)
plants. Only six of the seventeen apostles (Kalm, Forsskål, Falck,
Afzelius, Sparrman, and Thunberg) paid attention to ethnographic
matters in any detail.
Justin Stagl, in his groundbreaking study on “the art of traveling”
(Stagl 1995b, 2002b), considered Nordblad’s dissertation, inspired and
written by Linnaeus, to be a “watershed between the classical apo-
demics and the modern methodology of research travels” (Stagl et
al. 1983:79). Apodemica was an old genre of travel advice. Stagl ren-
dered the same verdict about the Fragen published by Michaelis in
1762 (Stagl et al. 1983:73). Linnaeus and Michaelis, he noted, were in
close contact during the Arabia expedition’s preparations. Both schol-
ars corresponded about Forsskål, who joined the Danish-German
Arabia Expedition as a naturalist. Moreover, the Instructio peregri-
natoris was published two years before the Fragen, during the time
they were being formulated.
Preparations for the Expedition

The scholarly basis for the Danish-German Arabia Expedition was
detailed in Michaelis’s Fragen an eine Gesellschaft Gelehrter Män-
ner, die . . . nach Arabien reisen (Questions to a company of learned
men . . . traveling to Arabia). Published in 1762, this questionnaire
had been prepared from 1760 on by a team of Göttingen scholars
presided over by Michaelis, including Christian Wilhelm Franz
Walch, theologian; Johann David Heilmann, theologian and phi-
losopher; Johann Georg Röderer, physician; and Christian Wilhelm
Büttner, natural historian, collector, and linguist (J. D. Michaelis
1762:[24]). Other professors at Göttingen, like Mayer and Kästner,
who had recommended Niebuhr to Michaelis, rendered assistance.
Unfortunately, the vicissitudes of the Seven Years’ War delayed the
publication of the Fragen. Niebuhr (1772:xvii ) received the printed

version as late as August 1764 in Bombay, India. Handwritten copies
reached the expedition members en route, in Constantinople, Egypt,
or Yemen (Niebuhr 1772:xvi). Von Haven mentions them in his jour-
nal’s second volume (Rasmussen 1990a:316). Niebuhr (1772:xvi) writes
that he and his colleagues had received only “two very short ques-
tions” from Michaelis before their departure. At the end the Fra-
gen played a relatively minor role in the expedition.27
Of more concern were the instructions, totaling thirty-one pages
and dated December 15, 1760. Signed by King Frederik and Count von
Bernstorff, they had been drawn up by Michaelis and von Bernstorff
(“Instruction” 1760; see also Rasmussen 1990a:59–84). An early draft
of the Fragen was discussed in the Académie des Inscriptions et des
Belles Lettres in Paris. The académie responded with a thirty-nine-
page essay on Arabia’s history, geography, and languages.28 A copy
of the French submission was provided to the expedition members,
together with questions and suggestions from other scholars, before
the expedition’s departure. Among these was a long submission by
Kratzenstein that focused almost entirely on science with discus-
sions about botany, zoology (especially marine biology), and navi-
gational astronomy.29 Johann Tobias Köhler translated the French
academy’s submission into German, and the translation was added
to the Fragen when they were finally published in 1762.30 Niebuhr
took the French memoir seriously during his research.
Even though the Fragen from the Göttingen scholars did not play
a direct role during the expedition, they are important for under-
standing the scope of Michaelis’s research program. Translated into
French as Réceuils des questions (J. D. Michaelis 1763), they became
a model for Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s instructions when he
departed for the South Seas in 1766.31
The one hundred Fragen, sometimes small essays, totaling 349
pages, were divided into categories Niebuhr summarized as philol-
ogy, physical science, medical science, and geography.32 Formulated
as biblical philology (philologia sacra), natural history (Naturkunde),
medical science (materia medica), and geography (Erdkunde), the four
subjects were to be treated respectively by von Haven, Forsskål, Cra-
mer, and Niebuhr.
However, there was a fifth subject, unevenly divided among the
categories of the other questions, namely, the description of what

Niebuhr called “the way of life, the manners and customs of the
Arabs.”33 This topic of “manners and customs,” eventually ethnog-
raphy’s main object, was also included in Müller’s and Linnaeus’s
program. Niebuhr mentioned that he began writing down facts relat-
ing to this category only after his companions had died because the
topic had been assigned to his “two oldest” companions, von Haven
and Forsskål. But this was overly modest, for he had collected eth-
nographic information in Egypt when they were still alive. Still,
Niebuhr deplored that he had omitted to note every detail of this
subject from the expedition’s beginning. He regretted this once he
realized that “the manners of the Levantines differ from those of
the Europeans”; he had become so accustomed to their way of life
that he had failed to notice “many things that a newly arrived Euro-
pean would have found most odd (sehr fremd).”34 Since the majority
of the Fragen were germane to disciplines other than those he ded-
icated himself to, no exhaustive answers to these questions should
be expected from him.
The “Instruction” mentioned the subject of “manners and cus-
toms” in paragraph 8, in which it was pointed out that each expedi-
tion member should report “on the manners and inclinations of the
people all he has observed.” As noted, it was not to be regarded as a
breach of each other’s authority “if the philologist elucidates words
occurring in natural history, the natural scientist explains the Bible
in terms of natural history, and the mathematician also pays atten-
tion to physical aspects.” However, in paragraph 35, the subject was
clearly designated to von Haven, who, as the philologist, should
“mark the manners and customs of the country, especially those that
shed light on the Holy Scriptures and Mosaic Laws.”35
The Candidacies of Schlözer and Reiske

One of the candidates for the Arabia expedition had been August
Ludwig Schlözer (1735–1809), a Michaelis student who became a
well-known world historian and political scientist at the Univer-
sity of Göttingen (see chapter 6). Schlözer studied with Michaelis
in the academic year 1754–55 and made plans for a trip to the Ori-
ent. Schlözer’s mention of this plan has intrigued his biographers.
Indeed, after his studies in Göttingen, Schlözer accepted a position
in Sweden, where he worked from 1755 to 1758, both in Stockholm

and in Uppsala; he later resided for a short time in Lübeck, all with
the aim of raising money for his travels to Asia.
In his article on Niebuhr’s travels, Reimer Eck (1986:20) sug-
gests it was Schlözer who was to embark on the one-man journey
Michaelis planned in 1755. For this journey the Swedish or Russian
monarchs were to be asked as sponsors. Michaelis indeed formu-
lated such a proposal, but Schlözer was developing his own plans.36
Schlözer’s letters to Michaelis between May 1756 and August 1757
outline his ideas for travel but contain no reference to the collection
of texts (Buhle 1794–96, vol. 1:172–186). One year later, Michaelis
inquired after Schlözer’s knowledge of Arabic and his ability to
copy Arabic manuscripts in a readable hand.37 Schlözer replied that
he had taken Michaelis’s courses for a year but did not dare con-
sider copying Arabic manuscripts as he had “not sufficiently mas-
tered the language.”38 He could therefore hardly have qualified as a
serious candidate for the one-man journey Michaelis had in mind.39
A more suitable candidate for the Arabia expedition was Johann
Jacob Reiske (1716– 74), an Orientalist from Leipzig who—like
Michaelis—had studied at the Francke Foundations in Halle, as
well as in Leiden. Reiske was so proficient in the language that he
was on the brink of publishing several works in Arabic. He corre-
sponded with Michaelis in the years preceding the expedition.40 In
the final letter of this exchange, Reiske spoke about the “good pros-
pects” with which Michaelis had presented him. The proposal “to
send me on a journey” (mich auf Reisen gehn zu lassen) clearly appealed
to him (Buhle 1794–96, vol. 1:62, 72). But Michaelis began to con-
sider Reiske as a rival and never repeated his offer. He passed the
final team member’s name (Niebuhr) to the Danish court on July
10, 1758 (Buhle 1794–96, vol. 1:363). This, concomitantly, meant that
Schlözer arrived too late in Göttingen. When he returned there
from Sweden in April 1759, the expedition members had been pre-
paring for over a year.
Schlözer nevertheless tried to join the expedition even after his
return. His biographers have not paid sufficient attention to this
fact. In the midst of the French occupation of Göttingen during the
Seven Years’ War, Schlözer began studies with a scope as wide as
that of the expedition’s Fragen. In his fragment of an autobiography,
Schlözer stated that Michaelis had mentored him in Orientalia und

Naturhistorie.41 The latter subject drew him into the study of med-
icine. He followed courses in anatomy, physiology, and pathology,
as well as in ius publicum with Johann Stephan Pütter and Gottfried
Achenwall. Moreover, he gave private lectures in Hebrew, Ara-
bic, and Swedish to raise money for his own expedition. Although
Schlözer stated that this period lasted for a year, from Easter 1760
to March 1761, it must have been from April 1759 onward, that is,
for almost two years. In a letter to his friend Viereck, dated June 18,
1759, Schlözer indicated that he was trying to evolve from a theo-
logian into a physician—the latter profession would allow him to
investigate people’s lives. He described a frantic study program: “In
the morning I read osteology with Röderer, metaphysics with Beck-
mann, physics with Lowith and Kästner, in the afternoon chem-
istry with Vogel, botany and zoology with Büttner.” 42 The study of
anatomy was added during the winter term. In the summer Schlözer
spent long weekends in the fields surrounding Göttingen on excur-
sions in natural history together with Christian Wilhelm Büttner.43
One may surmise from these studies that Schlözer made an
extreme and ultimately vain effort to qualify for the Danish-German
Arabia Expedition. This conclusion is in line with a conjecture by
Schlözer’s son, but it remains unclear in what capacity Schlözer
hoped to join. He could not possibly expect to replace Forsskål for
his knowledge of natural history was clearly insufficient. In a letter
to Viereck, Schlözer declined any suggestions uttered in this direc-
tion by his friend (C. von Schlözer 1828, vol. 1:58–59). The range of
his studies indicates that Schlözer was preparing to substitute for
any member who might be forced to abandon the trip. His effort to
qualify as a physician was a response to Michaelis’s idea that a med-
ical specialist would be welcome in the Middle East.44 Schlözer cer-
tainly did not qualify as a cartographer. It is therefore likely that he,
being primarily trained as a philologist himself, hoped to replace
von Haven. Although von Haven was more senior and his knowl-
edge of Arabic more advanced, his character was causing difficul-
ties even before the journey’s outset.45 Another competitor for the
position was Reiske, who seemed an ideal candidate for the one-
man journey, except that Michaelis did not want him, while Reiske
himself remained ambivalent.46
In any case Michaelis was already committed to von Haven who

was, moreover, a Danish subject. Therefore, when the expedition
left Copenhagen, Reiske remained in Leipzig and Schlözer in Göt-
tingen, reading Haller’s Alpen to his future wife, Caroline Röderer.
A few months later, in August 1761, Schlözer, still wanting to visit
the Orient, now by means of Russia, departed for St. Petersburg to
work with the historian Müller (see chapter 6).
The Expedition’s Itinerary

After it had left Copenhagen in January 1761, the Arabia expe-
dition sailed via Gibraltar and Smyrna (Izmir) to Constantinople
(Istanbul), where passes were obtained and preparations were com-
pleted. The group departed for Egypt on a merchant ship in Septem-
ber 1761. After twelve months of research in Egypt, during which
Forsskål and Niebuhr were particularly active, the entourage left
Cairo in August 1762 with a caravan of pilgrims destined for Mecca.
One month later, von Haven and Niebuhr fruitlessly sought bibli-
cal inscriptions on a mountain in the Sinai Desert and were denied
entry to the important library at St. Catherine’s Monastery. Upon
reaching Suez, the expedition boarded a pilgrim ship for Jeddah in
October. On the other side of the Red Sea, they traveled overland
and reached Yemen in December 1763.
Disease began to take its toll on the expedition members in the
Yemeni towns of Loheia, Sanaa, Mokha, and Jerim: von Haven suc-
cumbed in Mokha in May 1763, and Forsskål followed in Jerim in
July 1763. These events shortened the sojourn in Yemen, which had
been planned to last two or three years, to just over six months. The
remaining members took one of the last opportunities that season to
sail from Mokha to recuperate in the British–Indian port of Bombay
(Mumbai) in August 1763. But the draftsman Baurenfeind and the
soldier Berggren died en route, as did Cramer in Bombay in Feb-
ruary 1764. Unbeknownst to them, malaria was the likely cause of
death (T. Hansen 1964:240; Rasmussen 1990a:110). Niebuhr (1772:ix)
thought that the reason was the members’ inability to adapt to local
dress and food.
After this unexpected turn of events, Niebuhr took particular care
of his companions’ notes and collections. These were sealed and dis-
patched to Copenhagen in three shipments: December 1762, August
1764, and December 1764 (Lohmeier 2002:30–31). Niebuhr decided to

Map 6. Niebuhr’s itinerary during the Danish-German Arabia Expedition,
1761– 67. Cartography by Jutta Turner. Route after C. Niebuhr 1774– 78;
T. Hansen 1964; and Griep 2006. Base map: http://www.lib.utexas.edu
/maps/world_maps/world_pol_2011_nov.pdf. © Max Planck Institute
for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale.
continue the expedition alone, persevering for another three years.

Ironically, the Arabia expedition turned into the one-man journey
Michaelis had envisaged. Niebuhr traveled from Bombay via Mus-
cat (Oman) and Persepolis (Persia) to Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul
(December 1764–February 1765). At Persepolis, the ancient city razed
by Alexander the Great, Niebuhr spent three weeks mapping and
drawing the ruins’ inscriptions, following a tradition of European
travelers like Jan Struys, Jean Chardin, and Cornelis de Bruyn. Near
Basra he inspected the ruins of Babylon. Continuing to Aleppo, he
sailed at von Bernstorff’s request to Cyprus to copy more inscrip-
tions. From Cyprus Niebuhr traveled to Palestine and visited the
holy city of Jerusalem. Proceeding north to Damascus and after a
brief respite in Aleppo, he joined a caravan crossing Anatolia to
reach Constantinople in February 1767. Via Bucharest, Lemberg
(Lwow), Warsaw, Breslau (Wroclaw), Dresden, Leipzig, Göttingen
(where he met Michaelis again), Hadeln, and Hamburg, Niebuhr
returned to Copenhagen (see map 6). There, Christian VII, succes-
sor to Frederik V, received him in November 1767.

During his voyage through the Middle East, Niebuhr traveled
in a well-adapted manner. Already at the outset the travelers had
changed into Oriental dress. Although Niebuhr’s command of Arabic
was less advanced than Forsskål’s, it was sufficient to communicate
with the imam and court members in Yemen. During the solo part
of his expedition, Niebuhr usually spoke Arabic. Adopting the name
“Abdallah,” he acted as an Arab Christian. Only in India and Iran
did he resort to interpreters. During the second half of his journey,
Niebuhr gathered a great deal of information about the peoples he
visited. After five years of travel in the Orient, Niebuhr had adapted
so well that he needed only three horses to transport his luggage, a
servant, and himself (Niebuhr 1774– 78, vol. 2:374).
Niebuhr received a warm welcome from von Bernstorff, the expe-
dition’s patron, who was delighted that at least one member had sur-
vived and the collections had safely arrived. He rewarded Niebuhr
with an annual stipend that enabled him to publish his own mate-
rial and, if possible, that of his fellow travelers. Soon, however, von
Bernstorff fell from grace and was ousted from his position (1770).
This reflected an unfortunate change in Copenhagen’s political cli-
mate in which patriotism replaced cosmopolitanism.
The changing Danish political climate also affected Niebuhr’s fate.
After he had published the expedition’s findings, Niebuhr retreated in
1778 to a quiet life as a notary in Meldorf (Holstein). He was offered
a job as a surveyor in Norway instead of a hoped-for trip through the
Sahara to Inner Africa. To avoid his perceived “exile” to Norway,
Niebuhr accepted a modest position in the country, where he lived
with his wife and two children. His son, Barthold Georg Niebuhr
(1776–1831), later rose to distinction as a Prussian politician in Copen-
hagen and Berlin and as a professor of ancient history in Berlin and
Bonn. Niebuhr’s wish for his son to succeed him as a traveler in the
Orient never materialized.47
The Expedition’s Results and Their Reception

Even if the Danish-German Arabia Expedition failed to reach many
of its aims, its yield was impressive. The expedition’s results were
primarily in the fields of botany and zoology (Forsskål), philology
(von Haven), cartography and ethnography (Niebuhr), and epigra-
phy (Niebuhr and von Haven). Apart from Forsskål’s natural history

collections and the cartographic and geographical measurements and
maps produced by Niebuhr, most of the expedition’s material con-
sisted of manuscripts, scripts, inscriptions, and coins.
Niebuhr published the main part of the expedition’s findings. They
included a geographical description of Arabia (Beschreibung von Ara-
bien, 1772), preceded by an introduction in which Niebuhr answered
the questions posed by Michaelis and the French academy, partly on
the basis of Forsskål’s notes. A few years later, Niebuhr published a
travel account in two volumes (Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–
78), with a posthumous third volume (1837). He also edited Forsskål’s
zoological and botanical observations (1775) and Baurenfeind’s illus-
trations of specimens from Forsskål’s natural history collections
(1776), all three in Latin. He paid most of the costs of these books,
while the Danish crown financed part of the engravings.48 Thus the
expedition’s printed yield consisted of Niebuhr’s own two books in
four volumes (Niebuhr 1772, 1774– 78, 1837), Forsskål’s two volumes
edited by Niebuhr (Forsskål 1775a, 1775b), and a volume of Bauren-
feind’s colored illustrations, also edited by Niebuhr (Niebuhr 1776).
Niebuhr also wrote seventeen essays.
All together, these seven volumes represented a considerable out-
put for a six-year expedition conducted by six men at the cost of
twenty-one thousand Rigsdaler (T. Hansen 1964:355). Neverthe-
less, some of the expedition results were published only much later
or not at all yet. Stig Rasmussen (1990a:117– 390, 2002:43–46) gives
an overview of both published and unpublished materials from the
Arabiske Rejse. Forsskål’s journal was published in Swedish in 1950,
and an English translation appeared in 2009. Von Haven’s rejsejour-
nal appeared partly in 2005.49 Forsskål’s natural history collections
withered in Copenhagen; the Latin versions of his work, edited by
Niebuhr, count numerous errors and omissions made by a Swed-
ish corrector. Unpublished material can still be found in the Uni-
versity Library in Kiel (Nachlaß Carsten Niebuhr, which includes
Niebuhr’s journals), the Royal Library in Copenhagen, the Royal
Archives in Copenhagen (Realia Arabiske Rejse), and possibly in
Paris. Michaelis’s literary collection at Göttingen also contains rel-
evant archival material.50
The philological material, the most important for Michaelis’s pur-
pose, has still not been published. It consists of 116 Arabic, Hebrew,

Turkish, Persian, Ethiopian, and Greek manuscripts, 108 of which
von Haven acquired in Istanbul and Cairo and 8 in Yemen. The
codices reside now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen. Michae-
lis, in Göttingen, never used this philological treasure the way his
colleague Benjamin Kennicott did for Hebrew studies. Rasmussen
published a review of the philological results in 1990.51
Perhaps the finest achievement of the Danish-German Arabia
Expedition was in the field of epigraphy. Many previously rarely
known scripts were accurately copied from inscriptions and manu-
scripts. Niebuhr’s precise drawings of the inscriptions at Persepolis
and Rustam, especially the trilingual ones, enabled Georg Friedrich
Grotefend to decipher the cuneiform script at Göttingen in 1802– 3
(Harbsmeier 1992a; Wiesehöfer 2002); Rasmus Christian Rask did
the same at Copenhagen in 1826.52 It is noteworthy that Niebuhr’s
sketches of these ancient Iranian inscriptions resulted from his per-
sonal interest and curiosity, not from any commissioning by the 1760
royal instructions or the Fragen.
Even though these results have lasting value, their reception by
Michaelis, the expedition’s Göttingen initiator, was underwhelm-
ing. He reacted with polite reservedness. If one reads Niebuhr’s
(1772) description of Arabia next to Michaelis’s (1774) review, both
men seem defensive, as if fearing critique. Niebuhr (1772:xvii) com-
plained that the Fragen had reached him only in Bombay, more than
a year after the death of the two companions for whom the major-
ity of the Fragen had been intended. Michaelis praised Niebuhr for
having done more than could have been expected, given his training
and instructions. He appreciated Niebuhr’s data but referred to two
books he had recently published, Spicilegium geographiae Hebraeo-
rum (J. D. Michaelis 1769–80, vol. 1) and Mosaisches Recht (J. D.
Michaelis 1770– 75, vol. 1), stating that Niebuhr’s observations con-
firmed his own conjectures.
This faint praise was not due to Niebuhr’s books appearing too late
to be of any use to Michaelis. According to Eck (1986:32), Michae-
lis did consult Niebuhr’s data because the latter had sent him a
rough draft of his description, which Michaelis declined to correct
(von Selle 1937:88; Niebuhr 1772:xix; Hartwig 2002:160). Moreover,
Niebuhr had presented a first report about the expedition during
a lecture for the Royal Society of Sciences at Göttingen and, once

back in Copenhagen, confidentially corresponded with Michae-
lis (Harbsmeier 1992a:35). To what extent Michaelis profited from
copies of the reports and journals is unclear. According to the royal
instructions, the expedition members were obliged to keep a journal
and send copies to Copenhagen, as well as copies of their answers
to Michaelis’s questions. Von Bernstorff forwarded copies of quite
a few items to Michaelis, letters both to and from the expedition
members concerning Michaelis’s questions.
Given that Niebuhr’s work is nowadays highly valued for his
cartography, geography, epigraphy, and ethnography, Michaelis’s
understated reactions are intriguing. In a volume on Niebuhr’s work
edited by Wiesehöfer and Conermann (2002), several authors describe
Michaelis’s behavior as “reserved” (zurückhaltend), lukewarm, and
barely polite. Hartwig (2002:160) finds Michaelis’s lack of enthusi-
asm “hard to understand.”
What was behind Michaelis’s lack of appreciation for Niebuhr’s
work? In addressing contemporary Arabia’s geography and contem-
porary Arabs’ manners and customs, Niebuhr wrote about matters in
which Michaelis was not particularly interested. Although nowhere
stated in so many words, the expedition’s results were probably a
disappointment to Michaelis. As we have seen, these findings were
mostly in botany, zoology, philology, cartography, epigraphy, and
ethnography. Michaelis, however, needed the Arabic and Hebrew
manuscripts collected by von Haven, but these were not available in
Göttingen. This brings us to the questions: What was it that inter-
ested Michaelis so much about these texts, for what purpose had he
designed the expedition, and above all why did it need to go to Yemen?
Michaelis’s Research Program and Albert Schultens’s Theories

Aside from the general advancement of science, the Arabia expedi-
tion’s original purpose was the elucidation of the Old Testament. 53
This is clearly indicated in Michaelis’s preface to the Fragen (1762),
as well as in the questionnaire itself. In February 1760 Michaelis
declared that the expedition’s results would be useful for biblical
clarification as well as for those scholars “studying Arabian natu-
ral historians.”54
This agenda suggests a connection to Oriental studies carried out
in the Dutch Republic. During the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-

turies, the University of Leiden was a center for Arabic studies. Its
reputation was so high that historian of Arabic scholarship Johann
W. Fück, based at Halle, concluded, “In the contest between the
European nations the Dutch held the lead for two centuries” (Fück
1955:59). Their fame derived from Thomas Erpenius’s grammatical
work, Jacob Golius’s lexical studies, Franciscus Raphelengius’s print-
ing of Oriental types, and Levinus Warner’s acquisition of manu-
script collections in the Levant.
The Danish-German Arabia Expedition was based on a pre-
sumption first formulated by a Dutch scholar of Hebrew and Ara-
bic, Albert Schultens (1686–1750), who maintained that the study of
Arabic would help explain obscure Bible passages. He first expressed
this idea in a thesis on the “Utility of the Arabic Language for the
Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures” at the University of Gronin-
gen in 1706. This treatise advocated using the so-called dialects to
advance Old Testament studies. These dialects consisted of Chal-
dean (Aramaic), Syriac, Ethiopian, Samaritan, and Arabic (Drewes
1970:20; Nat 1929:39). Arabic occupied a primary position among
them because it was believed to throw the best light on Hebrew.
Schultens’s view represented a marked departure from the estab-
lished methods of Old Testament interpretation. In the traditional
view Hebrew was the world’s oldest (and sacred) language and the
ancestor of all other languages (Borst 1960–61; Rossi 1984). In con-
trast Schultens argued that there was in principle equality between
Arabic and Hebrew, although Arabic was superior in that it had
conserved the ancient meanings of words better.
While the gist of these ideas spread in the late seventeenth cen-
tury (Juynboll 1931; van Rooden 1989), the German-born Johannes
Braun, Schultens’s supervisor at Groningen University, was a cata-
lyst in the theory’s development. A better understanding of Hebrew,
Braun suggested, could be achieved only through the study of kin-
dred languages (Nat 1929:33, 39). Schultens dedicated himself to Ara-
bic manuscripts in order to disclose the meaning of obscure Hebrew
words from 1706 on (Nat 1929:40). From Groningen Schultens went
to Leiden and Utrecht (to study under Salomon van Til and Adri-
aan Reland, respectively) and then back to Leiden, where he worked
on Arabic manuscripts in the Legatum Warnerianum. Ordained a
Protestant minister in 1711, he was appointed professor of Hebrew at

Franeker University two years later. In his inaugural lecture Schul-
tens called Arabic “the most splendid daughter of Hebrew” (Hebraeae
matris splendidissima). In his 1729 rectoral lecture at Franeker, made
just before he accepted a Leiden professorship (1732), Schultens stated
that Hebrew and Arabic were cognate sisters (intima ac sororia . . .
affinitate) (Nat 1929:41, 45; Schröder 1978:26).
Schultens had come to this innovative view by comparing both
languages over many years, but he tried to substantiate it through
the Bible’s genealogical tables (Gen. 10–12). After the Great Flood
the earth was populated again by the descendants of Noah’s three
sons. Japheth’s descendants populated the Near East, Scythia, and
Europe; Sem became the founding father of the Semites; and Ham’s
descendants moved to Abyssinia and Africa. Schultens interpreted
subsequent events as follows: from Noah’s son Sem came Heber,
after whom Hebrew was named. Heber begot two sons, Peleg, from
whom Abraham descended, and Joktan (in Arabic Kehtan), who was
the ancestor of the Arabs and founded a settlement (“colony”) in
Arabia Felix. This, according to Schultens, implied that Arabic and
Hebrew literally shared the same common root. This affiliation was
subsequently strengthened by the residence of Ismael and his family
in the Hejaz, while Abraham’s other son, Isaac, had moved to Pal-
estine (Nat 1929:45–46; Gen. 16). Schultens concluded that Arabic
and Hebrew were equal in principle. He believed that Arabic had
best maintained the original features because it had been isolated
and undisturbed, whereas Hebrew had undergone profound changes
owing to the Jewish people’s wanderings and more intensive expo-
sure to other languages. The study of Arabic was, therefore, a neces-
sity for interpreting unclear or corrupt passages in Hebrew texts.
This brings us back to the Danish-German Arabia Expedition’s pri-
mary destination of Arabia Felix. “Fortunate Arabia” as the Romans
called it, or “Jemen” as Niebuhr preferred, was selected by the expe-
dition organizers because the region had hardly been described, was
rich in natural history, and was less “insecure than the wilder and less
civilized Arabia.”55 Most important, it was believed that the purest
form of Arabic was spoken in Yemen, where the language had con-
solidated itself since Mohammed’s time (Nat 1929:46). In the Fra-
gen’s introduction, Michaelis explained it was time to study “Eastern
Arabic” because “Western Arabic” (Syriac, Palestinian) was already

known. The Arabic language was “the most reliable tool for explain-
ing Hebrew” and spoken “in a much purer form in Arabia’s interior.”56
Consequently, Michaelis intended to use the study of Arabia Felix
for elucidating the Old Testament in a similar manner to how Schul-
tens used Arabic for insights into Hebrew. Schultens and Michae-
lis were linked both directly and indirectly. Schultens was at that
time Europe’s most authoritative scholar of Oriental languages. His
writings were critically followed at the University of Halle, where
Michaelis had been educated.
As explained in chapter 3, biblical and Oriental studies were
practiced in Halle, both in the Francke Foundations and the Col-
legium Orientale Theologicum. This theological college, founded
in 1702, was directed by Johann Heinrich Michaelis (1668–1738) and
Christian Benedict Michaelis (1680–1764), respectively the great-
uncle and father of Johann David Michaelis. The former had stud-
ied Oriental languages at Leipzig. In 1692 he followed Francke to
Halle, where a university was to be founded. In 1694 he obtained
the title “magister” there. After having studied under Hiob Ludolf
at Frankfurt, who taught him Amharic and Ethiopian in 1698–99,
Johann Heinrich Michaelis was appointed professor of Greek and
Oriental languages at the University of Halle in 1699 and theol-
ogy professor in 1709. Christian Benedict Michaelis was one of his
students in Oriental languages, later his associate, and as of 1731,
his successor as theology professor. After eighteen years of work,
Johann Heinrich Michaelis published the “Hallische Bibel” (Biblia
hebraica) in 1720. This was—in Johann David Michaelis’s words—
the “first really critical edition of the Bible” (J. D. Michaelis 1771–91,
vol. 1:207) because it assembled five manuscripts and nine editions
of the Scripture in four volumes.57 The philological-critical method
was developed by classical philologists in Holland and England,
applied to biblical texts in Halle, and then adopted by Schlözer and
Gatterer in St. Petersburg and Göttingen to edit medieval Russian
and German chronicles.
Another direct connection between Johann David Michaelis and
Albert Schultens was Michaelis’s tutor in Halle, Johannes Simo-
nis (1698–1768). Studying the books of Schultens had taught Simo-
nis how to elucidate Hebrew from the affiliated dialects, especially
Arabic.58 His main work, Arcanum formarum nominum Hebraeae lin-

guae, appeared at Halle in 1735, in the midst of the young Michae-
lis’s study period there (1733–39).
In addition, Michaelis knew Schultens personally. After he had
finished his studies in Halle, he traveled to Holland and England in
1741–42 and visited Schultens in Leiden.59 Schultens had just published
the second volume of his Origines Hebraeae (1738), in which he ana-
lyzed the relationship among ancient Middle Eastern languages and
concluded that the Persian language was not etymologically related to
Arabic and Hebrew. Schultens also stated that the Turkish language
was not related to Arabic, Hebrew, or the Germanic languages; there-
fore, its cradle had to be sought in central Asia (Wensinck 1921:710).
These were suppositions also to be found in Leibniz’s work.
Thus Johann David Michaelis was in the midst of new develop-
ments both in historical-critical philology and in comparative lin-
guistics of the Semitic language family. As a follower of Deism and
an Aufklärer, Michaelis wanted to study the Bible, notably the Old
Testament, not as divine revelation, but as a book, that is, a prod-
uct of natural (human-made) religion.
Although Michaelis agreed with Schultens’s theories, he thought
that Schultens exaggerated and insisted on incorporating Syriac as
a dialect (Nat 1929:70– 71). Accordingly, the 1760 royal instructions
stipulated that the expedition’s philologist (von Haven) study “the
Arabs, Hebrews, and Syrians.” Michaelis’s main German competitor
in Arabic studies, Reiske, who had also studied at Halle as well as at
Leiden, was more critical of Schultens’s methods.60 In his 1783 auto-
biography Reiske declared, “The way in which Mr Schultens studies
and promotes Arabic is not the proper way. There are too many cob-
webs in his derivations, too much arbitrary, wobbly, emptiness that
does little or no good. If one wants to advance [the study of] Ara-
bic, it should not be pursued as theology, [but rather used] to explain
and enrich history, geography, mathematics, physics, and medicine.”61
This passage also implied a critique of Michaelis, who, to a large
extent, adopted Schultens’s views and also used biblical philology as
ancilla theologiae, a helpful servant to theology. Although this was
Michaelis’s main interest, he had widened his focus and, under the
influence of correspondence with scholars throughout Europe about
the expedition, had added the study of Arabic history, geography,
and medicine to the expedition’s objectives.

The results of the Arabia expedition proved disappointing to
Michaelis not only because five expedition members had died, includ-
ing two of his pupils (von Haven and Forsskål), but also because
many of Michaelis’s questions had not or had only superficially been
answered and primary expedition aims had not been reached. But
most of all, the expedition’s material results never reached Michaelis
because all of the collections were sent to Copenhagen.62 If Michaelis
had known what von Haven had collected, he might have reached a
different conclusion. The Oriental manuscripts ended up in Copen-
hagen. Even the original drawings, of excellent quality (see Rasmus-
sen 1990a), remained unknown to Michaelis or were made available
only in poor copies produced by Copenhagen engravers.
This helps explain why Michaelis’s reaction to Niebuhr’s work was
so muted. He was primarily interested in the historical-critical inter-
pretation of the Holy Scriptures (philologia sacra), in which Niebuhr
had no real interest. In his own work Niebuhr built on the jour-
nals and notes of Forsskål, but not on von Haven’s notes, which he
found “useless” (unbrauchbar) (Niebuhr 1774:xii; see also Hartwig
2002:166, n. 26). This may have piqued Michaelis, who had recom-
mended von Haven as the expedition’s philologist. Assigned exten-
sive tasks, von Haven had to concentrate on history, archaeology, and
philology; collect Oriental manuscripts; copy ancient inscriptions;
make observations on Arabic usage; throw light on obscure bibli-
cal passages; and “mark the manners and customs of the country,
especially those that shed light on the Holy Scriptures and Mosaic
Laws” (“Instruction” 1760, paragraphs 35–42). All of this was in the
context of biblical studies and philologia sacra, the research program
to which Michaelis subscribed.
Unfortunately for Michaelis, von Haven performed unevenly in the
field. He was a scholar rather than a fieldworker and failed to carry
out many of his assigned tasks. During the long sojourn in Egypt
and the Arabian Peninsula, he conducted little research and caused
trouble by competing with his companions. However, he did acquire
manuscripts in urban centers, and he kept a journal. Thorkild Han-
sen’s novel Det lykkelige Arabien: En dansk ekspedition 1761– 67 (1962)
is a captivating tale about the psychological and nationalist tensions
within the group that portrays Niebuhr and Forsskål as the expe-
dition’s heroes and von Haven as its loser. The novelist leaves out

many of the nuances and does not deal with the expedition’s aims.
Forsskål indeed performed admirably, writing botanical and zoo-
logical works as well as acquiring substantial collections. However,
his stay in Yemen had been too short to answer questions about bib-
lical natural history. Niebuhr was an excellent observer who accom-
plished much in the field of cartography, epigraphy, and geography.
But he did not know Hebrew, had not collected manuscripts, was
better versed in modern than in classical Arabic, and had not been
able to solve the problem of vocalization in Arabic. Such subtlety
could have been expected from von Haven, Reiske, or Schlözer.
Niebuhr was not a trained philologist but a cartographer. He called
himself a “travel writer,” and his son, Barthold, pointed out that his
father’s greatest interest was astronomy.63
There is deep irony in the fact that explorers like Messerschmidt
and Niebuhr, upon returning from long and dangerous research trav-
els, found their employers had lost interest. Niebuhr at least was saved
by the stipend arranged by von Bernstorff. Michaelis was impressed
by the expedition’s results but grieved the loss of its philologist and
naturalist, realizing that the expedition would not lead to philologi-
cally interesting findings. After having heard Niebuhr in Göttingen,
Michaelis wrote von Bernstorff a complimentary letter, admitting
“that the death of so many participants and the . . . lack of dedica-
tion by some” had greatly diminished his hopes.64 While Niebuhr’s
books are regarded as valuable contributions to Arabia’s geography,
they served Michaelis little in biblical history and sacred philology.
Niebuhr and Ethnography

Niebuhr’s work contains many ethnographic descriptions, and he
paid a great deal of attention to the manners and customs of “the
Arabians.” Niebuhr (1772:xvii) wrote in his preface that he focused
on this subject only after his fellow travelers had died and he had
received the Fragen in Bombay. But he was modest in presenting
this as an afterthought, for Niebuhr collected much information in
Egypt and Yemen as well as during the second part of his expedition
in the Near East. This raises the questions: How should Niebuhr’s
ethnographic work be evaluated, and how does it relate to that of
Müller, the founder of ethnography in Siberia?
An evaluation of Niebuhr’s ethnographic work is meaningful

only within the context of the Danish-German Arabia Expedition’s
aims and achievements. Evaluations by later generations matter to
a lesser degree. As we have seen, the expedition’s main purpose
was the elucidation of the Old Testament. A trip to Arabia Felix
(Yemen) would be promising from a philological, theological, and
natural history perspective because the Arabic language was seen
to be “the most reliable tool for explaining Hebrew” and held to be
“alive in a much purer form in the inner parts of Arabia” (U. Hüb-
ner 2002:376). Alongside the Bible research and the comparison of
languages, the expedition intended to contribute to natural history,
medical science, and geography. The first three were the goals of
Michaelis’s project, which aimed at biblical exegesis. Even the nat-
uralist’s duties were related to this purpose, for Linnaeus had sug-
gested that natural history could elucidate Old Testament passages.
As a surveyor Niebuhr had been trained for only one of these tasks,
namely, the cartography and (physical) geography of Arabia. Even
though topography and mapmaking were important objectives, as
they were for the Second Kamchatka Expedition or Norden’s expe-
dition to Egypt, they were but secondary to Michaelis’s concerns.
Only one of the Fragen related to the ebb and flow of the Red Sea:
Could a basis be found for the biblical Red Sea opening of a path
for the Israelites? Niebuhr was well equipped for this task, and his
maps of the Nile Delta, the Red Sea, and Yemen are impeccable.
After his colleagues had died, Niebuhr widened his focus to include
the historical aspect of geography originally delegated to von Haven
and Forsskål, namely, a description of the “manners and customs”
of the Egyptian and Arabian people. Niebuhr also adopted the epi-
graphic part of von Haven’s duties and, already in Egypt and the Sinai,
began reproducing inscriptions in the manner von Haven had been
instructed, namely, copying them exactly, especially if the inscrip-
tions could not be deciphered. Niebuhr transcribed these inscriptions
from curiosity, whereas von Haven had no interest. Niebuhr applied
the same principles in a region the expedition had not planned to
explore: the Persepolis ruins in Shiraz Province. He reported on
these Iranian inscriptions in both his description of Arabia and his
travel account.
By concluding his deceased companions’ tasks, Niebuhr obtained
lasting fame in the history of European scholarly travel. His name is

mentioned in all reviews of scholarship on Arabic countries (Hogarth
1905; Kiernan 1937; Bidwell 1976; Freeth and Winstone 1978) as well
as in major handbooks on the history of exploration (Henze 1978–
2004; Howgego 2003–13). His books continue to be reprinted (Henze
1968, 1969) and commented on. Thus Josef Wiesehöfer and Stephan
Conermann edited a volume of essays, Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815)
und seine Zeit (2002), that makes a large amount of scholarship on
Niebuhr available and contextualizes the expedition in the history
of science and travel.65 In their preface the editors outline unex-
plored topics regarding the expedition: historical cartography, Bau-
renfeind’s work as an artist, Niebuhr’s travels in Mesopotamia, the
development of Oriental studies during the eighteenth century, and
the availability of Niebuhriana in Paris.
Today, Niebuhr’s reputation rests in particular on the exact deter-
mination of geographical locations (proving the value of Tobias May-
er’s method of determining longitude) and on his contributions to
epigraphy and ethnography.66 In the literature on the Arabia expe-
dition, it is often overlooked, however, that Niebuhr was able to
accomplish so much in epigraphy and ethnography by adopting both
subjects from von Haven’s and Forsskål’s instructions.
In the first part of his Beschreibung von Arabien (1772), Niebuhr
presented a general report in sections on Arabian nobility, lan-
guage, religion, marriage, salutation, dining and drinking tradi-
tions, housing types, dress codes, polygamy, circumcision, castration,
ancient and secret scripts, poets and orators, chronology and astron-
omy, secret sciences and medicine, agriculture and horticulture,
and various animals of Arabia. The second part gave a topographi-
cal description that followed a geographical division. Niebuhr dis-
tinguished geographically among “Arabia, India, Persia, and Syria”
(5). The Arabian Peninsula for him consisted of regions or “land-
scapes” (Landschaften), like Yemen, Hadramaut, Oman, Lahsa (Al-
Ahsa), Nejd, or Hejaz (1). This is a geographical-political division that
reflected the Ottoman administrative division in eyalets (provinces).67
The term Landschaft was current in northern Germany and south-
ern Denmark at the time and, probably for this reason, adopted to
denote a region with some autonomy. The second part of Niebuhr’s
description of Arabia also discussed Mount Sinai and “several tribes
of Bedouin.” In his preface, part 1, and sections of part 2, Niebuhr

refers to Michaelis’s Fragen, supplying answers that were partially
based on Forsskål’s notes.
Niebuhr’s travelogue, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, followed the
expedition’s itinerary. The first volume (1774) documents the begin-
nings to Bombay; the second volume (1778), Niebuhr’s trip from
Bombay and Surat through Persia to Halab (Aleppo); the third
volume (1837), the trip from Syria through Palestine, Turkey, and
Europe to Copenhagen. The account followed Niebuhr’s journal
and was intermixed with sections about government; Egyptian arts
and trade; Egyptian antiquities; the manners of the “Orientals” in
general, particularly those of the Arabs near Suez; the religion and
character of the desert-dwelling Arabs; their manners and customs;
and the “language and sciences of the Arabians.” Niebuhr concluded
with chapters about the “agriculture of the Arabians” and Arabia’s
natural history.
The Beschreibung was a formal presentation, driven by the instruc-
tions, the questions from the French academy, and to a lesser degree,
the Fragen; the Reisebeschreibung was a personal account that fol-
lowed the travel route and added observations on a variety of sub-
jects. Both books presented a geographical description of Arabia
that included ethnographic data on the Arabs. Guided by a view
of Land und Leute, “the country and its inhabitants,” in the manner
of Strabo and other classical geographers, Niebuhr was sensitive to
regional differences and paid a great deal of attention to local his-
tory, religion, and language. He noted the differences between Sun-
nis and Shiites, gave details on religious sects and various schools
of Islamic law, and discussed dialects and linguistic boundaries in a
predominantly Arab-speaking world. Lawrence Baack (2014) views
Niebuhr’s work as a contribution to cultural geography.68 This term
is appropriate as it indicates how Niebuhr widened his work in phys-
ical geography and cartography to a cultural geography of Arabia.
Niebuhr’s focus on the manners and customs of the Arabs is com-
parable to the ethnographic interest of some of Linnaeus’s students
and the master himself. Linnaeus instructed his apostles to collect
everything of interest during their travels around the world. Although
they were trained naturalists, specializing in botany, these students
were instructed to study everything useful for the advancement of
knowledge and in the sphere of economics, or how people made use

of the natural resources at their disposal, a cameralist idea of utili-
tarian import. As a result, several of the apostles’ reports, especially
those by Kalm, Forsskål, Falck, Afzelius, Sparrman, and Thunberg,
abound with details on this subject.
Ethnography investigates another dimension in its study of arti-
facts, the human-made products that enable people to survive or
that have aesthetic value. The first volume of the Linnaeus apos-
tles’ journals and correspondence (L. Hansen 2007–12) has a section
detailing the artifacts and objects of daily use gathered during their
travels. Quite “a large number of ethnographically valuable objects,”
collected mainly by Afzelius, Hasselquist, Solander, Sparrman, and
Thunberg, were brought back to Sweden (Edberg 2010:330). Reflect-
ing the classical tradition, reshaped by humanists and Enlighten-
ment philosophers, this interest in how people make use of natural
and cultural resources is evident in Niebuhr’s work.
Just as Niebuhr viewed Arabic as one language, he saw the Arabs
as one people. In his first book he wrote about “the Arabic nation” (die
Arabische Nation) (Niebuhr 1772:a3, x, xii), thereby meaning one peo-
ple. In his travelogue Niebuhr also spoke of “a nation,” for example,
when referring to the Persians’ politeness toward European travelers:
The Persians are much more polite toward foreigners than the Turks
and the Arabs. In this respect, they have quite correctly been called
the French of the Orient. If other travelers described them as treach-
erous in trade and as a nation (eine Nation) that should not be trusted
too much for their word, they may also be right. However, I believe
that a European who is not a tradesman can travel among Persians
with much more pleasure than among Turks and Arabs. The most
disagreeable thing is that the Persians refuse to eat or drink with
a heathen from India, a fire worshipper, Christian, Jew and even
a Muslim of another sect, as they consider them all to be impure.
(Niebuhr 1778: 98)69
Niebuhr called the members of the population of Arabia Araber

and distinguished them from Persians and Syrians, who as Shi-
ites and Christians, respectively, practiced different religions. This
seems to indicate that Niebuhr had a religious-geographical view
of nations, primarily delineating them territorially. He saw “Arabia”
as a geographical unit, composed of several regions (Landschaften)

and referred to peoples as “nations.” For instance, after he had eval-
uated the reasons why his companions did not survive the journey,
he considered himself fortunate to have “seen many nations (viele
Nationen), regarded by the Europeans as uncivilized or even barbar-
ian . . . and learn to know them from their better side.”70 Or, writ-
ing about circumcision, “As circumcision has been accepted by so
many nations (so vielen Nationen), it must probably also have some
physical benefit.”71
Thus Niebuhr had a different conception of “nation” from Gerhard
Friedrich Müller, who consistently spoke about “peoples” in the plu-
ral and launched a research program he named Völker-Beschreibung.
Niebuhr’s view of peoples also differed from that of Michaelis, who,
after a long section on “impure birds” mentioned in Leviticus and
Deuteronomy, concluded his Fragen with the following remark about
collecting native concepts for birds: “I am generally very interested
in the classifications of birds by these peoples that are so different
from us.”72 Michaelis, like Müller, had an ethnological perspective
and saw the Middle East as inhabited by a multitude of peoples dif-
ferent from Europeans.73
Such a perspective is much less pronounced in Niebuhr’s work
than it is in Müller’s work. Niebuhr saw the Arabs as “one nation,”
divided in “tribes” and speaking various “dialects.” He was aware
of religious and linguistic diversity, but his view was not ethnolog-
ical, or at any rate, much less so than Müller’s. This may be related
to Niebuhr’s geographical view of peoples; he saw them as territo-
rially bound. His use of the term “nation” may also be related to
the political definition of peoples. Niebuhr’s view on the Arabische
Nation is not unlike the current view on the United States as one
nation, in which citizenship is based in core beliefs like the Con-
stitution rather than in ethnicity. The tragedy of the Arabic nation,
in his view, was that it was politically dominated by the Ottomans.
This geographical-political view is markedly different from that of
Müller, Michaelis, and Schlözer, who saw peoples as character-
ized first and foremost by their languages. Although Niebuhr paid
a great deal of attention to language and to the “manners and cus-
toms” (Sitten und Gebräuche) of the Arabs, he was far less Völker-
conscious than Müller was. Whereas Müller developed a “description
of peoples,” or Völker-Beschreibung (Völker in the plural), in Siberia,

Niebuhr’s work on the Arabs was principally a national ethnogra-
phy, or Volksbeschreibung (Volk in the singular).
The difference in perspective can only partly be attributed to the
two men’s academic background. Niebuhr was trained as a cartog-
rapher, Müller as a historian. Both were learned travelers, specially
trained and instructed. By widening his focus, Niebuhr overstepped
the limitations of his instructions and wrote down his observations
of contemporary Arabia. We value this nowadays, and Fück paid
tribute to Niebuhr for answering Michaelis’s Fragen, “still posed
under the spell of biblical exegesis,” in “a more superb way.” 74 Espe-
cially noteworthy are Niebuhr’s openness, impartiality, and research
methods. He was not judgmental, and his endeavor to not repro-
duce prejudices against Muslims is impressive (Lohmeier 2002:20).
Working like a modern participant observer, he allowed the infor-
mation to come to him naturally, rather than collect data as part of
a prescribed research design (Baack 2014). There was no asymmetry
of power, and Niebuhr had a dialogic relationship with his infor-
mants. Seeing himself as a describer (Beschreiber), rather than a her-
meneutic (Erklärer), he acted according to Bacon’s principle: what
one cannot understand can only be described.75 The main difference
between Niebuhr and Michaelis was that Niebuhr valued the Mid-
dle East and its people in their own right (fig. 6). Niebuhr’s main
contribution to the anthropology of the Orient was that he looked
beyond the blinders of contemporary theology.
Niebuhr is often praised for his contributions to the anthropology
of the Middle East. Historian of travel literature Wolfgang Griep
calls Niebuhr’s “a pioneering work of modern ethnography” rather
than a mere travelogue.76 This is only partly correct. Niebuhr indeed
produced qualitatively different books than the travel accounts that
resulted from diplomatic or trade missions. He had been instructed
to conduct research in geography and cartography and from intel-
lectual curiosity added ethnography, even if his observations do not
add up to Müller’s specifications. Likewise, in a postscript to the
Dutch translation of Hansen’s novel, Ronald E. Kon, specializing
in Yemeni studies, opined, “The expedition yielded ethnographic
results before ethnography even existed.” 77 Again, this is only half
true. While Niebuhr produced ethnographic descriptions, ethnog-
raphy as a “description of peoples” did exist before his departure:

Fig. 6. Carsten Niebuhr posing in the attire of a distinguished Arab in
Yemen, presented to him by the Imam of Yemen, drawn in Copenhagen.
From C. Niebuhr 1774– 78, table 71. Courtesy of the Göttingen
State and University Library (sub) Göttingen.
Müller’s program for a comprehensive ethnography of Siberian peo-

ples had been developed and partly executed during the 1730s and
1740s (see chapter 4). Apparently, none of this was known in Göt-
tingen or Copenhagen at the time. Bering’s two expeditions had
become known through the second edition of John Harris’s Collec-

tion of Voyages and Travels (1744–48) in the years when Müller was
drafting his manuscript on the comparative description of the Sibe-
rian peoples. But Bering’s second expedition is never mentioned as a
model for the Danish-German Arabia Expedition in the literature,
and Müller’s ethnography remained in manuscript.
In 1767, twenty years after the Second Kamchatka Expedition was
completed and the year of Niebuhr’s return to Copenhagen, Schlözer
returned from Russia with an ethnological program largely borrowed
from Müller. Schlözer had been away from Göttingen during the
same period as Niebuhr’s absence. That same year, the term ethno-
graphia appeared in a Latin text on the early history of Swabia written
by historian Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin, who was well acquainted
with Schlözer. In 1771 Ethnographie was employed by Schlözer and
Gatterer in Göttingen as an equivalent of Völkerkunde, a new disci-
pline dealing with “manners and customs” in the context of a com-
prehensive study of peoples and nations (see chapter 6).
Niebuhr did not mention any of these new concepts in his Beschrei-
bung von Arabien or Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien. In all my read-
ings of Niebuhr’s work, I have not come across a single reference to
the idea of a Völkerkunde as found in Müller’s and Schlözer’s work.
Apparently, as the result of his seven-year absence from Germany,
Niebuhr missed out on these innovative developments taking place
in Siberia and the German lands.
In his early work Niebuhr discussed the variety of “the Arabian
nation,” divided in landscapes, sects, and dialects, but not the Otto-
man Empire’s diversity of peoples. Only later did he publish an arti-
cle about the “nations and religious parties in the Turkish Empire”
(Niebuhr 1784) that resembles the ethnological perspective of Mül-
ler and, for instance, Fischer and Schlözer
Ethnography and Empire

During the first half of the eighteenth century, ethnography was
developed as a research program for describing all Siberian peoples.
Gerhard Friedrich Müller gave the study of peoples a discrete posi-
tion next to history and geography. He launched a program for the
ethnographic study of the Russian Empire’s northern parts, exclud-
ing it from his historical and geographical work in Siberia. By con-
trast, Carsten Niebuhr wrote ethnographic descriptions as part of

his geographical account of Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, thus
including ethnography in the study of geography. Moreover, whereas
Niebuhr’s ethnography was based on more or less coincidental obser-
vations, intermixed in his travel account, Müller’s ethnography was
purposeful: he systematically strove for a series of comprehensive
ethnographic accounts, of complete descriptions about all aspects
of all Siberian peoples.
The difference between Müller’s and Niebuhr’s ethnography can
only partly be explained by pointing to their respective training in
history and cartography. Both scholars participated in a multidis-
ciplinary, multinational exploring expedition: Müller as a member
of the Academy of Sciences in the Russian Empire, Niebuhr as a
Danish subject in the Ottoman Empire. Is it possible that the dif-
ferent imperial contexts of their expeditions influenced their per-
spectives? What was the impact of empire on their ethnographies?
Müller participated in the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–
43) as a professor of history and geography in Russian employment.
The expedition’s aim was to explore the Siberian landmasses, find a
connection between Asia and America, and begin trade with Japan.
However, Müller was given the additional task of describing “the
manners and customs of all peoples.” His “history of peoples” (his-
toria gentium) was written in response to the Russian Senate’s order
to the academy that a “description of the peoples and their man-
ners” and a study of “the fruits of the earth” be made during the voy-
age. Thanks to this short instruction (1732), the Second Kamchatka
Expedition also included a historical study of native peoples of Sibe-
ria. The study of human diversity was added to studies of the three
realms of nature. This augmentation occurred before Linnaeus rev-
olutionized natural history in his Systema naturae (1735).
Similar instructions had been given to the expeditions of Remezov
(1699–1701) and Messerschmidt (1719–27). The latter’s brief included
a description of the peoples and their languages. From 1710 on expe-
ditions were dispatched to all corners of the Russian Empire to
study the natural resources as well as the peoples. In most of them
descriptions of the land and the people were required. Whereas in
seventeenth-century Muscovy, peoples were distinguished in terms
of religion (Slezkine 1994a, 1994b), by the early eighteenth century
Russian authorities began to take a secular economic and political

interest in the peoples under their control. Siberia was seen as one of
the “colonies” (Bakhrushin 1999:21; Dahlmann 2009), and its peoples
were regarded as “providers of taxes and furs” (Schorkowitz 1995:331).
Exploration and exploitation followed the conquest of Siberia. This
policy reflected Tsar Peter’s reforms.78
From the state’s perspective, the research teams of the Second
Kamchatka Expedition and the First Orenburg Expedition (1734–
37) had to study the peoples (Völker, narody) of Siberia, the Ural
Mountains, and the Volga region for purposes of taxation. To this
end, their way of life had to be recorded. Much like Linnaeus in
Sweden, the naturalists in Russia studied natural history and “econ-
omy” to find out how people used the resources at their disposal.
This was the economic motive behind the expedition’s mandate to
study all things dead and alive in the huge empire acquired since
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In line with the cameralist
view about the use of science to increase absolutist states’ revenues
and a system of military fiscalism to optimize tribute, state officials
issued specific instructions to the expedition members. While the
academic expedition members had written these instructions, the
Academy of Sciences, led by Blumentrost and Schumacher, and the
Russian Senate, led by Kirilov, had approved them.
Müller took a neutral stand in suggesting to study the “history” of
the Siberian peoples. He found Remezov’s and Kirilov’s geographi-
cal studies unsystematic and previous travel accounts “incomplete.”
According to Müller, a historian could make a contribution only by
applying strict methodical rules. En route, he widened his focus and
translated his ideal of a “history of peoples” (1732) into a “description
of peoples” (Völker-Beschreibung, 1740). Making a distinction between
Siberia’s history, geography, and ethnography, he saw each as a sep-
arate discipline with a discrete subject matter. He planned to pub-
lish three different books, which were realized only partly. Müller
morphed into an ethnographer during the expedition, developing
methods for data collection in the field. By widening the subject and
linking it to earlier research, notably to Lafitau’s 1724 comparative
study of Native Americans, he developed Völker-Beschreibung as a
comprehensive, empirical, and systematic research program. Build-
ing on Witsen, Leibniz, Messerschmidt, and Lafitau, Müller added
a scholarly program to the Russian administration’s plans. Ethnogra-

phy as a comprehensive description of peoples developed in response
to Russian early eighteenth-century colonial practice.
As we have seen, Müller’s ethnological program consisted of two
stages: first a description, then a comparison. He wanted to sys-
tematize the descriptions of peoples to make internal and external
comparison possible. His ultimate goal was a general study of peo-
ples (eine ganz allgemeine Völkerbeschreibung). He carried out this
program to a large degree (Müller 2003, 2009, 2010d) by develop-
ing methods for ethnographic data collection and transmitting his
Völker-Beschreibung program to other expedition members. Gmelin,
Krasheninnikov, Steller, Fischer, Lindenau, and Rychkov profited
from Müller’s instructions.
On the basis of these achievements, Müller may be regarded as
the founder of ethnography, defined as a descriptive study of peo-
ples. However, he did have to position himself carefully between
the interests of science and politics. His history of Siberia, report-
ing on the Russian conquest and the brutal pacification of Siberians,
appeared truncated. Fearing there would be little interest, Müller was
discouraged from publishing his description of the Siberian peoples.
The conclusion seems warranted that Müller added a scholarly
agenda to the tsar’s interest in the empire’s ethnic subjects. Ethno-
graphic interest in the Russian Empire was strengthened by the eth-
nological perspective of German-speaking scholars in the Imperial
Academy of Sciences. For the Russians the Siberian peoples needed
description for taxation and administration, but for Müller their data
was prerequisite for a systematic comparison.
Thus Russian geopolitical and economic interests merged with
the scholarly agenda of the expedition’s academic members. Imperial
policies and science reinforced each other. The relative security and
financing provided by the expanding imperial power, the empirical
methodology provided by Early Enlightenment philosophers like
Locke and Leibniz, Lafitau’s comparative framework, and Müller’s
systematic mind all converged to formulate ethnography in Sibe-
ria. Both factors, the state’s economic motives and scholarly curios-
ity, faced with the large number of ethnic groups in Siberia as well
as the possible relationship between northern Asia and northern
America, resulted in a new scientific practice: Völker-Beschreibung.
While the imperial interest in ethnography was favorable for its

genesis, the state’s policies did not determine the scholarly agenda.
Many of the questions Müller posed on the origins and affinity of
peoples had no direct relationship to economy. They derived from the
theories of Leibniz, Lafitau, and others. The fact that many of the
scholars hired by the Russians were German-speaking academics,
trained at universities like Leipzig and Halle, influenced the schol-
arly agenda. Raised in central, northern, and eastern Europe, where
many nations had lived side by side for centuries, made them sensi-
tive to cultural diversity. Scholars like Messerschmidt, Strahlenberg,
and Müller came to the multinational Russian Empire equipped with
an ethnological perspective, a mentality accustomed to thinking in
terms of peoples or nations. This perspective was highly conducive
in generating the new discipline of ethnography.
The situation in the Danish case was very different. The Danish-
German Arabia Expedition (1761–67) was also an exponent of the
new way of scholarly travel that commenced during the Enlight-
enment, but its aim was theological: to find historical evidence for
passages in the Old Testament (philologia sacra). Set up in Copen-
hagen and Göttingen in a multidisciplinary way, the expedition’s
members sought traces of the biblical past. A new attitude toward
the Bible became manifest in the Arabia expedition’s organization.
In the tradition Johann Heinrich Michaelis and Christian Benedict
Michaelis began at Halle, the Old Testament was no longer seen as
a Book of Revelation but as human-made, a book compiled by sev-
eral authors. Johann David Michaelis adopted these ideas in Halle,
combined them with Schultens’s comparative study of Semitic lan-
guages and brought them to Göttingen.
Following Linnaeus’s ideas on the study of natural history by
well-prepared traveling naturalists, as well as a growing interest
in the study of “archaeology” in Italy and the Near East, Michae-
lis launched a project to investigate contemporary Arabia with the
Bible in mind. Research goals in natural history, geography, and car-
tography were added, as was the study of the population’s “manners
and customs.” After von Haven’s and Forsskål’s premature deaths,
Carsten Niebuhr adopted the latter task from their instructions,
salvaged their results, and brought the expedition to an impressive
close. Niebuhr’s survival is attributed to his ability to adapt to local
circumstances. Although Niebuhr tried to answer the Fragen pre-

pared under Michaelis’s chairmanship as best he could, Michaelis’s
biblical-philological needs were not met. Michaelis’s published con-
clusions made few references to Niebuhr’s official account.
While the Arabia expedition was well prepared, its objective was
even more difficult to realize than the exploration of the Northeast
Passage. The Arabia expedition was restrained by the assumption
that little had changed in Arabia for two thousand years. The thesis
of Schultens and Michaelis that Arabic as a “conservative” language
had kept features lost in Hebrew proved difficult to test. Neverthe-
less, the expedition yielded much material, and Niebuhr’s labors are
lauded as contributions to Arabia’s geography. A treasure trove of
ethnographic data, his account is valued as a report of contemporary
Arabic culture, including religion. Niebuhr was sensitive to cultural
distinctions and paid much attention to Arabian manners and cus-
toms. But his work does not amount to a comprehensive ethnogra-
phy in Müller’s sense and should be considered proto-ethnographic.
For Niebuhr ethnography was of secondary importance rather than
of central concern. This made his work resemble that of many trav-
elers and naturalists, including Linnaeus.
Moreover, Niebuhr applied a geographical-political definition of
nations, whereas Müller and his colleagues embraced a linguistic view.
Niebuhr did not have a Völker-perspective to the extent of Müller,
Fischer, Steller, and other Siberian explorers. Niebuhr depicted the
Arabian people as “one nation,” a single large group speaking the
same language. While noticing locally varying customs and dialects
and a multitude of religious sects, he regarded the Arabian Penin-
sula inhabitants as one and the same stock. This lack of an ethno-
logical perspective may have been the result of Niebuhr’s training
as a surveyor, with principal interests in geography and astronomy,
but it was also affected by the context in which he traveled.
The Ottoman Empire was divided into administrative provinces.
Sensitive to issues of religion, the authorities upheld the ideal of
ummah, the universal Islamic community of believers. They per-
secuted nonconforming Islamic groups and kept Arab Christians
and Jews under control. Niebuhr reported on religious diversity but
had to be careful. While the expedition members benefitted from a
firman provided by the Ottoman court, they were not protected by
armed Cossacks. The expedition to Egypt and Yemen was an ini-

tiative of European scholars, not of the Ottoman sultan. In com-
parison to the Russian expeditions, the Danish-German Arabia
Expedition lacked commercial or political interests— even if there
was at least one geopolitical dimension: Niebuhr’s descriptions of the
travel route through Arabia gave the British the idea of shortening
the postal route to India by using the Arabian overland connection.
The main difference between the Russian and the Danish expe-
ditions was that the Ottoman authorities showed no interest in a
detailed description of the peoples under their command. Niebuhr
never developed a program for describing the peoples of the Otto-
man Empire because he was not invited to do so. By contrast, Müller
and his colleagues were asked to do just that: describe all the peoples
in the Russian Empire. Thus different colonial contexts yielded dif-
ferent results. Ethnography as the empirical and comparative study
of peoples (plural) developed in the context of the Russian expedi-
tions in northern Asia, not in that of the expedition to Arabia Felix.
In the Russian case, colonialism was conducive to the formation of
ethnography. In the Danish case, there was no direct link to colo-
nialism, at least not on the part of the explorers.
Therefore, if there was an influence of empire on ethnography, it
was largely indirect. In Niebuhr’s case it is interesting that he focused
on religious and not on ethnic diversity, which was not an issue in
the society at large. In Müller’s case it is no coincidence that he and
his colleagues in Russia produced so many ethnographies: they were
indeed “desired by the state,” as Petermann (2004:285) suggested.
This explains why almost all reports by naturalists and historians in
eighteenth-century Russia contained so many ethnographic details.
The reason was not only that the humanist and classical traditions
of including humans in geographical or natural historical descrip-
tions were revived, but also that Russian administrators required
the information. Whether they did anything with these reports is
another matter.
German historians distinctly added a crucial new dimension to
science in the Russian Empire by stressing the importance of lan-
guage. Following Leibniz’s historical linguistics, scholars like Müller,
Fischer, and Schlözer suggested that the main criterion for distin-
guishing peoples was language. The Russian Empire initially distin-
guished between its inhabitants in religious terms. Basing themselves

on Leibniz, the German-speaking scholars introduced a new, “eth-
nic” principle, the classification of “peoples” according to their lan-
guages. This distinction was not found in Niebuhr’s work. He held
on to the traditional idea that peoples are distinguished by their
manners and customs. In calling the Arabs one “nation,” Niebuhr
applied a political conception of nation. Such a view was not con-
ducive to the formation of ethnography focused on ethnolinguistic
diversity and insisted on multicultural variation.
Edward Said may have been correct in seeing Orientalism as a
form of intellectual appropriation, turning a region into “a topos, a
set of references, a congeries of characteristics” (Said 1978:177). How-
ever, by ignoring the extensive body of eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century German and Russian Oriental studies, he overlooked how
the Orient was also explored.
We shall now examine how Müller’s ethnological program was
combined with Michaelis’s historical-critical views and integrated
by Schlözer into a grand historiographical vision that included both
Ethnographie and Völkerkunde.

six
From the Field to the Study

A. L. Schlözer and the Invention of Ethnology
Der Name ist Programm.

— German proverb
Der allgemeine Blick, der das Ganze umfasset

— August Ludwig Schlözer (1772)
T
he first scholar to use the term Völkerkunde, the German
equivalent of “ethnology,” was August Ludwig Schlözer
(1735–1809). A professor of history at Göttingen, Schlözer
is credited with having introduced the concepts Ethnographie and
Völkerkunde in books dealing with regional (1771) and world history
(1772– 75).1 While this is only partly correct, he was the first to ini-
tiate an “ethnographic method” into the study of history (1772). In
his early works Schlözer used these terms, together with ethnogra-
phisch (ethnographic) and Ethnograph (ethnographer), many times
and more often than anyone else in the contemporary literature. He
employed these concepts in strategic passages that were central to
his argument.
While Schlözer was probably the man who invented the term
Völkerkunde, I am less convinced that he coined the term Ethnog-
raphie. We have seen in chapter 4 that this concept, in the form
Völker-Beschreibung (description of peoples), went back to Gerhard
Friedrich Müller’s research in Siberia (1740). As far as we know, the
neo-Greek term ethnographia first surfaced in the work of Johann
Friedrich Schöpperlin in Swabia (1767); the Germanized form Eth-
nographie appeared in a review of this work by his colleague Albrecht
Friedrich Thilo (1767). Both references preceded Schlözer’s first use
of Ethnographie. Nevertheless, Schlözer may well have been the
intermediary linking these events, and he was the first to use the
term ethnographisch (ethnographic) in outlining an “ethnographic
method” of history. The ethnographic way of conducting historical
research remained central until Leopold von Ranke in the 1820s. As
we shall see, Schlözer held a key position in the international net-
work of scholars first applying the ethnos terms to designate a study
of peoples.2 He also influenced Adam František Kollár, a historian
from Slovakia, who coined the term ethnologia in 1781–83.
This case challenges historians like Joan-Pau Rubiés (2000, 2007),
who claim that Renaissance travelers and cosmographers contrib-
uted to a “history of early modern travel and ethnology.” In his view
ethnography refers to the “descriptive practices” of travelers, eth-
nology to their “interpretive practices.” While Rubiés is correct to
point to the rich tradition of travel accounts and their importance for
global connecting, his implicit claim that such accounts are identical
to “ethnology” is anachronistic. The material presented in the cur-
rent book demonstrates that the terms “ethnology” and “ethnogra-
phy” did not exist before the eighteenth century. By diluting these
terms and stretching their meaning beyond contemporary ones, one
runs the risk of projecting later epistemological views on the past.
Travel accounts relating to peoples and places around the world
go back millennia and are not a purely Western phenomenon. In the
course of the eighteenth century, however, European historians devel-
oped within that broader tradition of proto-ethnographic accounts a
scientific study of peoples, to be conducted in a systematic, empir-
ical, and comprehensive manner. Ethnography as a comprehensive
description of human groups was in many ways an alternative to
travel accounts. This type of ethnographic research was more nar-
rowly focused and involved fewer participants, preferring the schol-
ar’s private study rather than travel. Historians like Müller, Schlözer,
Gatterer, and Kollár forged an academic field that was taken up by
nineteenth-century scholars like Carl Ritter, Gustav Klemm, The-
odor Waitz, Adolf Bastian, Lewis Henry Morgan, Friedrich Rat-
zel, E. B. Tylor, Franz Boas, and many others.
Anthropology, then as now, is a large field that includes many
different approaches (see chapter 7). It included the study of the
human body; of the physical differences between humans on the
270 From the Field to the Study

one hand and between humans and other animals on the other; of
the human mind, spirit, and culture; of the organization of human
societies and their development, rise, or decline. Within this broad
field, eighteenth-century German-speaking historians started an
ethnological discourse to study the variety of peoples and nations.
Schlözer and World History

When Schlözer accepted a new chair in Nordic history at the Uni-
versity of Göttingen in 1770, he was already an honorary professor at
both Göttingen and the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Peters-
burg.3 A descendant of a family of ministers (both his grandfathers
and his father were Pfarrer), Schlözer studied theology as well as
Hebrew and Greek in Wittenberg (1751–54). As a follower of Wolff,
he wanted to continue his studies in Halle but switched to Göttin-
gen after one of his teachers in Wittenberg railed against Johann
David Michaelis in Göttingen (Schlözer 1828: 463). Schlözer stud-
ied theology with the university’s chancellor, J. L. von Mosheim;
Greek with J. M. Gesner; Hebrew and Arabic with Michaelis (1754–
55). His move to Göttingen represented a shift from Pietist theology
to Oriental philology in the service of a critical study of history. To
raise money for a trip to the Middle East, Schlözer accepted a job in
Sweden (1755–58). Staying in Stockholm with the dean of the Ger-
man Evangelical congregation, Andreas Murray, Schlözer worked
as a tutor, learned Swedish, continued his historical and Oriental
studies, and began to publish. His first writings included a history of
Swedish scholarship (1756–60), a collection of Swedish biographies
(1760–68), and a history of trade and seafaring in antiquity (1758 in
Swedish, German translation 1761). Studying in Uppsala during the
winter of 1756 to 1757, Schlözer met Linnaeus and learned Gothic, Old
Norse, and Icelandic with the philologist Johan Ihre (see Ihre 1769).
He also worked as secretary for a commercial agency, which aroused
his interest in Statistik, the comparative study of states (Schlözer
1828:464). After a brief sojourn in Lübeck, Schlözer returned to
Göttingen to resume his studies (1759–61). There he unsuccessfully
tried to qualify for the position of a medically versed philologist on
the Danish-German Arabia Expedition. As we have seen in chap-
ter 5, his studies included medicine, physics, natural history, Ori-
ental languages, and public law.
From the Field to the Study 271

Six months after the Arabia expedition had left, Schlözer departed
for St. Petersburg to work with the historian Müller at the recom-
mendation of the geographer Büsching. Müller needed an assistant
to help sort his historical collections. Büsching contacted Michaelis,
who recommended Schlözer. The historical-critical method of text
analysis Michaelis had taught Schlözer qualified him for the work
Müller had in mind. From November 1761 to May 1762, Schlözer
lived in Müller’s house as a tutor to his children and as an assistant.
However, because Müller never allowed him an overview of his
research materials (Winter 1961b:4), Schlözer separated himself from
Müller.4 Through Müller Schlözer became an adjunct at the Impe-
rial Academy of Sciences in July 1762. He was tasked with studying
Russian history and translating ukazes into German. Learning Rus-
sian quickly, Schlözer began to study Church Slavonic in order to
transcribe medieval Russian chronicles (Annalen). At the same time
he accepted a tutorship at the school of Count Razumovskii, where
he developed plans to study Russian history, Statistik, and univer-
sal history.5 After two years he had advanced to such a level that in
June 1764 he submitted a proposal “on the manner in which Rus-
sian history should be treated” (Winter 1961a:51–63). That same year,
Schlözer received the title of professor at the University of Göttin-
gen, a position arranged by Michaelis (Frensdorff 1909). His research
proposal, however, was not accepted by the academy; both Mül-
ler and Lomonosov rejected Schlözer’s plans. Through contacts at
Razumovskii’s school, Schlözer approached Catherine II, who ruled
Russia as an enlightened despot. Born in Germany, she was in favor
of foreign scholars.6 Petitioning the empress, Schlözer offered her a
choice between his making a trip to the Orient or working on Rus-
sian history. Enchanted by Schlözer’s style, she opted for the latter,
which ended Schlözer’s travel plans (Winter 1961b:9–10).7 In Janu-
ary 1765 he was appointed ordinary professor at the Imperial Acad-
emy to work on Russian history for five years.
After he had copied Nestor’s twelfth-century chronicle, known
to Bayer and Müller, Schlözer applied for permission to travel to
Germany. He needed Slavonic books to prepare a critical edition
of the codex and hoped to find these in Göttingen. Returning to
Göttingen from August 1756 to July 1766, he found many Russian
and Slavic books in the celebrated university library. He worked

on Slavonic scripts with Büttner; historian Gatterer invited him to
join the newly founded Historical Institute. After an extended stay
in his native Franconia, Schlözer received an honorary Magister
Artium degree in Göttingen on February 28, 1766. On the diploma,
the faculty’s dean, Kästner, lauded him as a scholar who was “illus-
trating the fate of peoples and languages in a philosophically inge-
nious manner” (fata gentium et linguas philosophico ingenio illustrans)
(Frensdorff 1890:571, 1909:16).
This motivation was based on work in progress. Schlözer wrote
the first chapter of his Probe Russischer Annalen (1768), a thesis on
the arrival of the Lech in Poland (winning a prize from the Dan-
zig Jablonowski Society in 1767), a review of Rychkov’s Topografiia
Orenburgskaia (1766c), an extract of the same book about the “peo-
ples and states on the east side of the Caspian Sea” (1766a), and a
review of volume 30 of the Allgemeine Welthistorie, about the history
of Poland, Lithuania, Prussia, and Sweden (1766b).
The Allgemeine Welthistorie (edited by Baumgarten and Semler at
Halle in 1744–66, 30 vols.), originally spelled Algemeine Welthistorie,
was the German translation of the Universal History (published by
George Sale and others in London , 1736–65, in 23 vols.).8 The Ger-
man translation, edited by Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten (1744–58,
vols. 1–17) and Johann Salomo Semler (1760–66, vols. 18–30), was con-
tinued well into the nineteenth century (Conrad 2010; Gierl 2012).9
Schlözer was highly critical of the project, especially because the
original articles were translated rather than edited. He scolded the
editor Semler for justifying his editorial work against an earlier cri-
tique, supplied a long list of historical and linguistic mistakes, and
was upset that these errors were the result of the British authors’
not being familiar with the latest Swedish publications “because
these have not yet been translated into English.”10 He asked, “Why
should the disgrace of the English authors also be immortalized in
Germany?” and suggested continuing the series as a sequel (Fortset-
zung) rather than as a translation (Übersetzung).11 Schlözer’s review
created a commotion at the next Leipzig book fair. The entire pro-
duction was stopped, and the series was later continued with origi-
nal German contributions (Wesendonck 1876:112).
In June 1766 Schlözer gave an important but unpublished lec-
ture on Slavic presence in the German territories. Delivered on the

occasion of Schlözer’s election as a foreign member of the Göttingen
Society of Sciences, “Memoriae Slavicae” dealt with a key issue of
his studies on German history (Göttingen Academy, Schlözer 1766).
Forecasting later work, Schlözer suggested that the Slavs were orig-
inal inhabitants (aborigines) of eastern Germany and central Europe
rather than immigrants.
Back in St. Petersburg, Schlözer devoted himself to Russian his-
tory, finding ten more codices of the Nestor chronicle, from the ninth
to the fifteenth century. In early 1767 he requested the assistance of
a translator to prepare “a critical edition of the annals” and, as an
example, published the Nikon codex, the youngest of the Nestor
chronicles (Schlözer 1767– 72, vol. 1). With the help of Fischer and
his “Vocabularium Sibiricum” (see chapter 4), Schlözer compiled a
“classification of Russian peoples according to their languages,” which
he included in his Probe Russischer Annalen, submitted to the pub-
lisher in July 1767 (Schlözer 1768a). He also worked on several publi-
cations in the field of Statistik, his NeuVerändertes Rußland (1767– 72,
2 vols.), and a statistical-demographical study of “Russia’s popula-
tion” (Bevölkerung) that appeared in 1768.
Returning to Göttingen in November 1767, after a detour via
Sweden with his friend Johann Beckmann, Schlözer carried two
folders with transcripts of Nestor’s Annalen, the original copy of
Fischer’s “Vocabularium Sibiricum,” and an ethnological program
largely borrowed from Müller.12 For the next five years, Schlözer
labored to integrate Müller’s ethnographic perspective with Michae-
lis’s historical-critical program into a view on general historiogra-
phy including both Ethnographie and Völkerkunde. The first elements
of this vision were published in a long book, Allgemeine Nordische
Geschichte (General history of the North), commissioned as volume
32 of the new German Allgemeine Welthistorie series, with original
contributions (Schlözer 1771a). As its title indicates, Schlözer dis-
tinguished “Nordic” Europe, including Scandinavia, Russia, and
Poland, from southern Europe, consisting of Greece, Italy, France,
and Spain. Eastern and western Europe were not yet distinguished
at that time (L. Wolff 1994).
Possibly because this fundamental work appeared as part of a
series, the monograph has not received the attention it deserves in
the secondary literature. Scholars like Stagl (2002a) and even Schlö-

zer’s biographer, Martin Peters (2003), underrate its significance.
Historians like Peter Hanns Reill (1969, 1975, 1985) and Horst Wal-
ter Blanke (1990) emphasize another of Schlözer’s early works: the
Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie (1772, 1773b, 1775). This is a text-
book providing the basis for a new way of conceiving world history.
Although his regional studies preoccupied Schlözer the most dur-
ing this period, he concomitantly worked on global history, adopting
incitements from his senior colleague, Johann Christoph Gatterer.
We shall pay attention to both books because Schlözer’s ethnolog-
ical views were first presented in these two works.
After his dismissal from the Petersburg Academy, Schlözer was
appointed ordinary professor at Göttingen in June 1769. He accepted
his professorship in 1770. Working at first as a world historian, he
added the subject of Statistik from 1773 on. After the death of Achen-
wall, the father of Statistik, Schlözer took over his lectures (Peters
2003:207; van der Zande 2010). Beginning in 1787 he also served as
professor of political studies (Politik) in addition to his professor-
ship in history. He undertook two more travels, the first to Paris in
1773– 74, the second to Rome in 1781–82. These trips and his extensive
correspondence allowed Schlözer to collect material for many publi-
cations that included influential journals, such as his Briefwechsel meist
statistischen Inhalts (1774– 75, 14 issues), Briefwechsel meist historischen
und politischen Inhalts (1776–82, 72 issues), and Stats-Anzeigen (1782–
93, 72 issues), all published in Göttingen.13 Consequently, Schlözer
became one of the best-known German historians and political sci-
entists of the Late Enlightenment.
In Göttingen Schlözer (fig. 7) is portrayed as a “historian and
political scientist” (Historiker, Staatswissenschaftler) or a “historian
and publicist” (Geschichtsforscher und Publizist).14 While these depic-
tions do justice to his later career, they ignore the importance of the
ethno-historical-linguistic studies he conducted during his forma-
tive period, 1754– 73.
The Introduction of Ethnographia, 1767– 75

After Gerhard Friedrich Müller had launched an ethnological pro-
gram in Russia in the 1740s, it took less than thirty years for the
term “ethnography” to surface in the German lands. Müller used
the word Völker-Beschreibung rather than its neo-Greek equivalent.

Fig. 7. August Ludwig Schlözer by an unknown artist, ca. 1778– 79.
Courtesy of the Art Collection of the University of Göttingen.
Photo: Kristina Bohle, Göttingen, Germany.
As far as we know now, the term ethnographia first appeared in 1767,

the year Carsten Niebuhr returned from the Orient and Samuel
Wallis landed on Tahiti. It occurred in a Latin text, a short history
of Swabia (Prolusio scholastica Sueviae veteris) by Johann Friedrich
Schöpperlin (1732– 72), head of the Gymnasium in Nördlingen, a Prot-
estant town in Swabia, west of Bavaria.15 Following a description of

the Swabian people’s history, Schöpperlin (1767) remarked that the
preceding “must rather be called the ethnography than the geogra-
phy of ancient Swabia.”16
The term reappeared in a German review of this text by his senior
colleague in Nördlingen, Albrecht Friedrich Thilo (1725– 72), who
stated that Schöpperlin “begins [his work] with ethnography.” 17
Schöpperlin implied that it would be more useful to begin such
a historical study with ethnography, rather than with geography,
because the ancient Swabians (Suebi) were migrants from their ori-
gins near the Baltic Sea and had not yet settled in the Swabia region
in what is now southwestern Germany. This made a geographical
description premature; ethnography had to precede geography. It
was an innovative idea because historical accounts usually began
with geography.
In 1770, in a journal he coedited at Nördlingen, Schöpperlin
referred to the parallelism: “In geography (Erdbeschreibung) proper,
as far as she is recently distinguished from ethnography (Völkerbe-
schreibung) . . .”18 This agrees with Hans Fischer’s (1970:170) interpre-
tation that the term Ethnographie was coined after Geographie (see
also Stagl 1998:522). Certainly, geography was one of the models for
ethnography. However, Schlözer contrasted Völkerkunde not so much
to Erdkunde (Geographie) as to Weltkunde, that is, Cosmographie.19
Gatterer, Schlözer’s colleague, began using the terms Völkerkunde
and Ethnographia in 1771. Contrasting them to Erdkunde and Geo-
graphia (Gatterer 1775), he set a pattern that was followed until the
end of the nineteenth century. The 1770 quotation from Schöpperlin,
meanwhile, indicates that the term Völker-Beschreibung, a prototype
of Ethnographie, had become familiar on a wider scale since Müller
introduced it in his Siberia investigations in 1740 (Russow 1900:83;
Müller 2010c). However, to be precise, Schöpperlin was composing
a Volksbeschreibung, that is, a description of a single people.
The term ethnographia combined the Greek words ethnos (peo-
ple, Volk) and graphein (to write, schreiben). Its introduction was an
important milestone, for names of sciences had to be coined in Greek.
Schöpperlin and Thilo used “ethnography” more or less in passing,
as if the term spoke for itself. Neither scholar claimed its inven-
tion. They did not define the term ethnographia, nor its equivalent

Völker-Beschreibung, which to German readers seemed equally self-
evident. We may assume that the German historians Schöpperlin
and Thilo used the neo-Greek term as a synonym for the German
word: ethnographia was Völker-Beschreibung, a description of peoples
(plural) or a description of a people (singular). In sum, ethnography
first appeared as Völker-Beschreibung in Müller’s manuscripts (1740–
45), then as ethnographia in Schöpperlin’s Latin text (1767), in a Ger-
manized form as Ethnographie in Thilo’s review (1767), and finally
as names for this newly defined discipline in the historical works of
Schlözer and Gatterer (1771– 75).
The context in which Schöpperlin and Thilo introduced the term
resembled that of its acceptance during the early 1770s. Schöpper-
lin and Thilo were classical philologists, Schlözer and Gatterer his-
torians. They were connected with secondary or higher education
institutions, the grammar school in Nördlingen (Swabia) and the Uni-
versity of Göttingen (Hanover), respectively. Protestants like Müller,
Schlözer, and Gatterer, they were equally involved in Enlightenment
historiography. Such similarities were no coincidence: the introduc-
tion of ethnography or Völker-Beschreibung reflected new develop-
ments in the field of history.
Important links can be traced through a series of references to
the development of what Stagl (1995a:234, 268; 1998:521) labels ethnos
terms. They demonstrate that, contrary to what has been assumed,
Schlözer, although he employed the term Ethnographie at an early
date, was not the first to use it. Therefore, he probably did not invent
the concept. In 1994 Klaus Schmidt, head of the Zeitschriften-Index
in Göttingen, discovered Schöpperlin’s earlier use of the term eth-
nographia.20 This was a surprising discovery, for Schöpperlin’s name
had never shown up in the literature about the origins of the eth-
nos terms, which focused on Göttingen, Schlözer, and Gatterer.21
However, as we shall examine, it is possible to connect these events
by suggesting a relationship between Müller in St. Petersburg and
Schöpperlin and Thilo in Nördlingen that runs through Schlözer
and his work.
Schlözer introduced the concepts Ethnographie, Völkerkunde, eth-
nographisch, and Ethnograph in his Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte,
published at Halle as part of the Allgemeine Welthistorie in 1771.22 In
this book Schlözer presented an outline of the history of the Euro-

pean and Asiatic North in an attempt to supplant earlier “myths”
with fresh new ideas on the origins, kinship, and migration of the
“Nordic nations.” Schlözer divided the population of the European
part of this enormous area into five main groups—language groups
in fact—that he regarded as “principal peoples and aboriginal peo-
ples” (Haupt- und Stammvölker). The quintet consisted of the Ger-
manic, Slavic, Lettish, and Finnish peoples as well as the Samoyeds.
The latter partly belonged to the European population owing to
their location west of the Ural Mountains, which Schlözer, follow-
ing Strahlenberg, Tatishchev, and Müller, suggested as the bound-
ary between Europe and Asia. For the Asiatic part of the northern
Eurasian landmass, Schlözer mentioned no fewer than twenty-two
peoples (Völker), which scholars nowadays would consider to be eth-
nic groups. He followed Leibniz and Müller in distinguishing these
peoples by their languages (Schlözer 1771a:292– 344, 391–436).
In this context of historical-linguistic reconstruction, Schlözer
introduced the concepts Völkerkunde (ethnology), Ethnographie
(ethnography), ethnographisch (ethnographic), and even Ethnograph
(ethnographer). He did not present a definition of Völkerkunde or
Ethnographie. Yet, from the manner in which he used these terms
and with the help of contemporary sources, we can surmise that
Schlözer regarded Ethnographie to be the equivalent of the German
term Völkerkunde (a study of peoples). He contrasted Ethnographie
to such terms as Kosmographie, Chronographie, Geographie, Biogra-
phie, Technographie, and Hydrographie. Ethnographie was a descrip-
tive study of peoples or nations (Völker). Thus, in Schlözer’s view
Ethnographie was an empirical description of peoples that should be
comprehensive and universal. If there was to be a study of peoples
(Völkerkunde), all peoples of the world should be included as well as,
in principle, all aspects of their existence (Vermeulen 1999, 2002).
Of special interest is the term ethnographisch (ethnographic), which
Schlözer introduced in his monograph on Nordic history (1771a) and
his textbook for students, Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie (1772,
2nd ed. 1775). In this Vorstellung Schlözer devised an “ethnographic
method” as one of four fundamental approaches to history (1772:98–
99; 1775:292–294). It analyzed world history from the vantage point
of each of its peoples. Schlözer introduced it as an alternative to the
“chronological,” “technographic,” or “geographical” arrangements of

historical events.23 He defined the “ethnographic method” of his-
tory in the following way:
(4) ethnographic: One divides the inhabitants of the world in large and
small groups, according to more or less coincidental similarities on
which a (certain) amount of people (Menschen) agree among them-
selves. On account of this similarity one regards the entire group as
a unity and calls it a people. (Schlözer 1772:99, 1775:294)24
This, of course, raised the question, What was a people, a Volk?

Realizing that the concept was ambiguous, Schlözer (1772:101–104,
1775:295–298) identified three conceptions of Volk: (1) geographical,
(2) genetic (historical), and (3) political (statistical). These distinc-
tions were presented in his Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte (1771a:118,
144, 210 n. A, 271 n. K) and recapitulated in his Vorstellung (1772:15,
1775:231). The conclusion was “Anyone with a dislike for Greek neol-
ogisms could say about peoples (Völker) conceived in the geographi-
cal sense: they belong to a category (Klasse [in the Linnaean sense]);
of those in the genetic sense: they make up a tribe (Stamm); of those
in the political sense: they belong to a state.”25 Schlözer found these
distinctions so essential that he stated, it “would be hard to imagine
how fertile and important these distinctions will be for a critique of
[ancient] ethnology,” that is, for a critical study of the knowledge
about peoples both in ancient and modern times.26
“Following the ethnographic method,” Schlözer continued, “world
history would have as many chapters as there are separate peoples”
(1772:101, 1775:295). In the preface to the second edition of his Vor-
stellung, Schlözer estimated that there were “between 150 and 200
peoples,” adding, “We need a description of each!”27 Earlier Schlözer
estimated the number of peoples in Europe and northern Asia to be
“at least 200” during the course of history, that is, for the past three
thousand years.28 This number is identical to the number of Euro-
pean, Asian, African, and American languages identified by Fritz
and Schultze in their Orientalisch- und Occidentalischer Sprachmeis-
ter (1748, 1769). Schlözer was probably familiar with Schultze’s work
through Michaelis or Büttner and their connections to the Halle
missionaries in India.
Presumably, Schöpperlin borrowed the idea of ethnography from
Schlözer. Schlözer was acquainted with both Schöpperlin and Thilo.

He was related to Thilo via his father’s family.29 Schlözer had stayed
with Thilo in Nördlingen before beginning studies at Wittenberg,
and Thilo gave him career advice (Schöpperlin 1772:429). Thilo was
a teacher of Schöpperlin. Moreover, Schlözer had been in close
contact with Müller, in whose house in St. Petersburg he resided
in 1761–62. Schlözer was probably the link between Schöpperlin in
Swabia and Müller in Russia. Schlözer adopted Müller’s program
of Völker-Beschreibung as a series of ethnographies and probably con-
veyed this idea to Schöpperlin and Thilo while visiting relatives.
Winter (1961b:12) writes that Schlözer traveled to his native Fran-
conia between October 1765 and February 1766 to visit his mother
and combine family affairs with studies. With Schöpperlin and
Thilo he may well have discussed his own findings on Russian his-
tory and Müller’s discoveries in Siberia, including Müller’s Sibe-
rian research program. Moreover, Johann Eberhard Fischer, whom
Schlözer befriended during his St. Petersburg sojourn and whose
work he edited and reviewed, may have acquainted Schlözer fur-
ther with Müller’s ethnological program. My theory is that Schöp-
perlin and Thilo suggested ethnographia as the Greek equivalent for
Müller’s Völker-Beschreibung.
As Schlözer’s elaborate correspondence has been only partially
preserved, there is no direct proof.30 Thus far no one has found con-
temporary discussions about this terminological shift. However,
apart from the personal connections outlined above, there is the-
oretical evidence. The historical problem Schlözer faced was iden-
tical to the one investigated by Schöpperlin.31 Both men shared an
interest in ancient and medieval history of an ethnically complicated
area. Schöpperlin’s Swabia discussion would have been familiar to
Schlözer, who had a similar challenge with Franconia, Germany
at-large, and the history of northern Europe and Asia in general.32
Schöpperlin paid due attention to the problem of how Swabia had
developed; both in his Suavia veteris (1767) and in his Suavia media
(1768), reprinted in the same volume as Suavia veteris in 1787, he
distinguished between “transdanubian Swabia” and “cisdanubian
Swabia,” dividing their history into three periods. The Celts, Mar-
comans, Raetis, and Romans had once inhabited the area, making
it difficult to establish its original inhabitants (aborigines). In a later
period Slavic peoples appeared in the region, and this would have

interested Schlözer, who made the Slavic presence in Germany a
key issue of his research.
Moreover, Schlözer was a master in inventing concepts. His prep-
aration for the Arabia expedition and knowledge of Michaelis’s work
influenced his ethnological sensitivities, and he remained interested
in the Middle East. In 1781 he coined the term Semitic language:
From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from Mesopotamia to
Arabia ruled one language, as is well known. Thus Syrians, Babylo-
nians, Hebrews, and Arabs were one people (ein Volk). Phoenicians
(Hamites) also spoke this language, which I would like to call the
Semitic (die Semitische). To the north and east of this Semitic lan-
guage and national district (Semitische Sprach- und VölkerBezirke)
begins a second one: With Moses and Leibniz I would like to call
it the Japhetic. (Schlözer 1781:161)33
The early medieval migrations of peoples in Europe, known as the

Great Migration or Völkerwanderung (ad 300 to 700), became a cen-
tral issue to eighteenth-century historians. Marking the transition
from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, this Great Migration
involved the Goths, Vandals, Franks, and other Germanic peoples,
as well as various Slavic peoples. This era is usually divided into two
stages. In the first (ad 300 to 500), Germanic peoples took control
of most areas that used to be part of the former western Roman
Empire. The Franks, encompassing various West Germanic tribes,
entered Roman territory in the fifth century, and the Frankish King-
dom became the predecessor of France and Germany. Meanwhile,
the Angles and Saxons conquered Roman Britain, and Visigoths
settled in Spain. In the second stage (ad 500 to 700), Slavic tribes
settled in eastern Europe. These migrations intensified owing to the
Huns’ incursions into Europe around ad 400, which in turn were
related to waves of Turkic migrations in central Asia.
Schlözer shared his contemporaries’ fascination for these murky
“Dark Ages,” even if he found the term Völkerwanderung (migra-
tion of peoples) misleading: “Migrating peoples are conquerors from
uncultivated regions that occupy territories cultivated by others.”34
The unfolding of these migrations caused so much confusion, espe-
cially in eastern and central European history, that they presented

a major historiographical challenge not to be solved for many years.
Schlözer’s analysis of this phenomenon was built on Leibniz’s his-
torical linguistics, to which he added Linnaeus’s taxonomic model.
Leibniz, Linnaeus, and Schlözer

Schlözer based his early historiographical works primarily on Leib-
niz, Bayer, and Linnaeus. He introduced the Linnaean perspective
in his Probe Russischer Annalen (1768a). In a section on Slavic peo-
ples, he wrote,
May I be permitted to introduce the language of the greatest of nat-
uralists in the history of peoples. I see no better way for solving con-
fusions about the older and middle [periods of] history than a system
of peoples (Systema populorum), grouped in classes and orders, genera
and species, constructed following Linnaeus’s method. It is a possi-
bility. Just as Linnaeus classifies animals according to their teeth and
plants according to their stamina, the historian could arrange peo-
ples according to their languages. This is what Leibniz so explicitly
and often insisted on, but to which almost no one listened because
the study of languages and the study of history are heterogeneous
[of different origins]. (Schlözer 1768a:72, n. 22)35
Schlözer returned to these propositions in a strategic section on the

names of peoples at the very beginning of his Allgemeine Nordische
Geschichte (1771a). Criticizing the practice of travelers, missionar-
ies, and geographers of classifying Cymru (Welsh), Basques, and
Germans under “Celts,” or Mongols, Manchus, and Kaibals under
“Tatars,” he asked, Should we continue the “lack of knowledge in
geography” while our knowledge of the world has made such great
advances recently and thereby avoid the mistake of bringing all such
different peoples under the same rubric? His answer was as follows:
The solution to this problem lies in Linnaeus’s Philosophia botan-
ica, because everything this great man has said about the systematic
introduction to and the naming of plants can be transferred to the
history of nations. The compilation of a systema populorum in classes
and orders, genera and species, is possible: languages would become
to the historian what stamina are to the botanist. But first it would
be necessary to arrive at a philosophy of ethnography (Philosophia

ethnographica) to prevent a Rudbeck, Pezron, or Becanus from ridi-
culing Leibniz’s great project. (Schlözer 1771a:210–211, n. A)36
Schlözer wrote in a related passage, “A whole welter of informa-

tion supplied by the Ancients about a certain people may often be
as useless to the systematic historian in ethnography (Völkerkunde)
as a page-long description of an Indian plant by Jürgen Anderson
[Andersen] to the systematic Linnaeus in botany (Kräuterkunde)”
(Schlözer 1771a: 271, n. K).37
Thus, according to Schlözer, the comparative study of languages
would be as important to the history of nations (Völkergeschichte)
as the study of stamens in botany had been to the study of natu-
ral history. Striking is the double reference to Linnaeus, who had
revolutionized botany by basing the classification of plants on their
sexual organs. Sébastien Vaillant, Tournefort’s successor in France,
had introduced this principle in 1718. Linnaeus carried it to its log-
ical conclusion and made it the basis for his system of nature (Sys-
tema naturae, 1735), which he expanded in his Species plantarum (1753).
Linnaeus’s binary nomenclature remained botany’s standard until
the second half of the nineteenth century. Schlözer wanted to arrive
at a “system of peoples” (Systema populorum), like Linnaeus’s system
for the arrangement of plants, by using comparative language study
as a tool for solid conclusions about the kinship and descent of peo-
ples. By classifying the world’s languages in classes, orders, gen-
era, and species, many mysteries in the history of nations could be
resolved, first and foremost regarding their names and migrations.
A “historical-genetic” manner of classifying ethnic groups was key.
However, to do that, a Philosophia ethnographica had to be developed
first, analogous to Linnaeus’s Philosophia botanica (1751). Only then
would it be possible to devise a Völkersystem based on the linguistic
relations between peoples.
By “Leibniz’s great project,” Schlözer meant nothing less than
the compilation of such a “system of peoples” (systema populorum),
that is, a classification of all peoples according to their languages.
Following Leibniz and Linnaeus, Schlözer attached great value to
the utility of language studies for determining the early history of
nations: “Languages would become to the historian what stamina are
to the botanist.” This historical-linguistic program was as advanced

for the eighteenth century as the international Human Genome
Diversity Project, studying human genetic diversity on the basis of
dna, is for our century.
In an important chapter of his Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, dis-
cussing the “Aboriginal peoples of the European North” (Von den
Stamm-Völkern des Europäischen Nordens), Schlözer (1771a:286–288)
expanded on these propositions. It was precisely in this context that he
introduced the concepts of Völkerkunde, Ethnographie, and Ethnograph.
If I may be allowed to suggest a general, reliable and powerful
instrument for solving the problem of bringing the peoples of sev-
eral parts of the world and of different epochs into a closed system,
in order to stop these upsurges of self-imagined omniscience and pre-
vent future historical geniuses from becoming afflicted by this dis-
ease? A look at the totality of our knowledge of peoples (das ganze
unserer Völkerkunde) is this powerful instrument. It discourages us
to the utmost, this broad view (dieser weite Blick), and allows us to
feel what unbelievable ignoramuses we are in the study of peoples
(Völkerkunde); we observe with embarassment how busily we move
around in a narrow circle of a few hundred peoples, flattering our-
selves by thinking that we know all or at least most peoples [of the
world]. (Schlözer 1771a:286)38
“In the entire Mosaic period, the first two millenniums after the
Flood,” Schlözer continued, “we know only fourteen peoples in
Europe and North Asia by name and origin but not by their history.”
In the following period of Greeks and Romans, “that may run from
Herodotus well into the Middle Ages, there is no shortage of names
for peoples (Völker-Namen), but many nations remained unknown
to these learned nations. Their ethnology could not reach beyond
their cosmology (Ihre Völkerkunde konnte nicht weiter als ihre Welt-
kunde gehen). They knew even fewer peoples historically, least of all
genealogically. The key source was closed to them, since they did
not want to indulge in learning barbaric languages.” Schlözer rec-
ommended cultivating one’s own garden first:
But we, citizens of the enlightened eighteenth century, we have no
doubt depleted the Völkerkunde of our and the preceding era and
there is no longer any nation, at least on the known earth, that we

do not know. Yes, if indeed we would know our small Europe, not
to mention much larger Asia [note P], Africa and America. Here, in
Europe, exist peoples and languages that we do not understand to
the present day and cannot investigate due to the absence of gram-
mars and similar resources, for instance the Epirots, Walachs, Sam-
oyeds, etc. Secondly, peoples that we could know thanks to the
richness of available resources, are unknown to the majority [note
R], partly because these materials are difficult to come by [note S],
partly because it has not been fashionable [note T] to study ethnol-
ogy in this manner (die Völkerkunde auf diese Art zu studiren), partly
because it is hard [note U] to investigate unknown languages in such
a way as to provide fruitful propositions to the ethnographer (dem
Ethnographen). (Schlözer 1771a:286–288)39
Schlözer enlarged on these theses in the footnotes to these passages.

In footnote P he noted how “in far-away Siberia dozens of peoples
have emerged, introduced by Fischer in his history of Siberia and
his unpublished Siberian vocabulary” (Schlözer 1771a:287, n.p.). In
his section on the state of ethnological knowledge in eighteenth-
century Europe, Schlözer lamented that it had not been fashion-
able to study ethnology in this manner (die Völkerkunde auf diese Art
zu studiren). The scholarly prejudice against uncivilized peoples was
elaborated in footnote T:
Our classical education has taught us to study only the so-called
learned languages; at the same time it instilled in us a distaste for
languages of nations that, even though they still exist, in obscurity
and have written or printed books in their national language (Landes-
sprache), are not regarded as having enhanced learned knowledge. If
one would not be able to protect (oneself) through the teachings and
examples of great men whose taste is as unsuspicious as their erudition,
like Leibniz, Witsen, Bayer and Ihre, one would hardly be permitted
to show that one studies Lappish, Samoyedic or Kalmyk. It is not
fashionable! Until now it was fashionable to look for the origins and
affinity of peoples (Ursprung und Verwandtschaft der Völker) in writ-
ers of annals. However, annalists, says Leibniz, neither the ancient
ones, nor those of the Middle Ages, are no sources of information
for these investigations; instead [we should use] only grammarians
and compilers of vocabularies. This leads to a complete change in

going about [this topic]; totally new points of departure [using] an
entirely different source of information, while the sources that thus
far have been customary can only be used additionally; and, conse-
quently, also [leads to] completely different conclusions. (Schlözer
1771a: 288, n. T)40
In footnote U Schlözer emphasized the importance of language

studies for ethnology:
In the entire field of historiography I do not know of any work as
difficult as the study of languages in the context of the study of peo-
ples (Sprachenuntersuchungen in Rücksicht auf die Völkerkunde). Gen-
eral propositions . . . cannot be abstracted from one or a few words;
otherwise one lapses into a crude Rudbeckianism and renders the
entire method ridiculous. They require an induction of a great deal of
examples; and to find these, collect and compare them, takes effort
and diligence and very often depends on coincidence. . . . To scrab-
ble about these foreign, or as the refined Greek used to say, barbaric
languages in a hasty manner, snatch a similar word here and there
and draw general conclusions from them, is not according to Leib-
niz’s method in ethnography (ist nicht Leibnizens Methode in der Eth-
nographie). (Schlözer 1771a:288, n. U)41
This was a direct reference to Leibniz’s method of utilizing lan-

guages to discover the origins of nations and his principles of “suf-
ficient reason” and of “continuity” (see chapter 2). There are so many
references to Leibniz in Schlözer’s Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte
(1771a:6, 107–108, 210–211, 221, 262, 288, 316–317) that it is safe to con-
clude that Schlözer in his early work wanted to continue Leibniz’s
research program (Vermeulen 1988:99). This ambition was related to
the “Leibniz revival” taking place in Göttingen during the 1750s and
1760s (Vermeulen 2011, 2012a). In those years, when Schlözer stud-
ied in Göttingen, a number of his teachers were immersed in Leib-
niz’s oeuvre. Not only Michaelis and Büttner, but also Kästner and
Gatterer worked on Leibniz’s linguistics. Michaelis utilized Leib-
niz in his Spicilegium geographiae Hebraeorum (1769), in which he,
according to Schlözer (1771a:265–266), caused “a fortunate destruc-
tion in all previous systems of the origins of nations” by demonstrat-
ing how most authors based themselves on Bochart rather than on

Moses. Michaelis (1760) also borrowed from Leibniz in his prize-
winning essay about the reciprocal influence of language on opin-
ions. In 1755 his nephew, August Benedict Michaelis, published
the correspondence between Leibniz and Ludolf. Ten years later, a
review of Leibniz’s Nouveaux Essais, which had just been published
in an edition by Raspe (1765), appeared in the Göttingische Anzei-
gen von gelehrten Sachen and may well have been written by Johann
David Michaelis (Aarsleff 1982:48–49). The philosopher and math-
ematician Kästner, who had recommended Niebuhr for the Arabia
expedition, wrote a preface to Raspe’s edition and delivered a lau-
datory lecture about Leibniz for the German Society at Göttingen
in 1769. Historian Gatterer reflected Leibniz’s ideas in an article on
the “Historical use of languages” (1770). In a section in his Einlei-
tung in die synchronistische Universalhistorie (1771), Gatterer wrote,
“The historian, guided by the philosophy of languages, draws con-
clusions from the affinity of languages about the affinity of nations
that speak them.” 42
Leibniz’s influence on the naturalist, collector, and linguist Chris-
tian Wilhelm Büttner, one of Michaelis’s advisers during the prepa-
rations of the Arabia expedition, was profound. Conducting extensive
linguistic studies, of which little has been published, Büttner (1771–
79) offered two slim printed volumes with comparative tables of
scripts of various peoples as a “harmonic outline of languages . . .
of the known peoples of the earth.” 43 His aim was summarized in a
review as follows: “Language studies can be very useful for determin-
ing the descent of nations and for correcting the history of ancient
peoples.”44 Büttner served as one of Schlözer’s main advisers dur-
ing his Göttingen study years (1754–55, 1759–61, 1765–66). In the lat-
ter year, Schlözer’s first period of leave from St. Petersburg, Büttner
not only helped him trace ancient Slavic and Russian books but also
compiled a chronological table of Slavonic scripts through the ages.45
Combining Leibniz’s principles of language comparison with Lin-
naeus’s principles for biological classifications, Schlözer (1771a:330–334)
classified Slavic languages into nine species: Russian, Polish, Bohe-
mian, Sorbian, Polabian, Windisch (Wends, in Austria), Croatian,
Bosnian or Serbian, and Bulgarian. He introduced this innova-
tion in his Probe Russischer Annalen and elaborated it in his Allgeme-
ine Nordische Geschichte, boasting, “I now insert my classification of

Slavic Principal Dialects, or, which is identical, of all Slavic Prin-
cipal Peoples.”46
In this passage Schlözer made a clear equivalence between lan-
guage and people (Sprache and Volk). Following the “natural way”
(1771a:291), outlined by Leibniz (1771a:262), “to retrace the Aboriginal
Peoples (Stammvölker) of the North by investigating the Principal
Languages,” Schlözer identified five principal peoples of the Euro-
pean North: Samoyeds, Finns, Latvians (Lets), Slavs, and Germans
(1771a: 288–344).47 He divided each of these Stammvölker (classes, in
the Linnaean sense) into Arten (species) and Varietäten (varieties):
the Samoyeds into four principal dialects (Hauptmundarten), the
Finns into twelve, the Latvians into three, the Slavs into nine, and
the Germans (Germanier) into three (Saxonian, Franconian, and
Gothic). The results of this part of Schlözer’s historical linguistics
are summarized in table 6.48
It is noteworthy that the association between peoples and lan-
guages was so strong that Schlözer used the names of the peoples to
indicate their languages in the first three categories, spelling “Sam-
oyeden” instead of Samojedic, “Finnen” instead of Finnish, “Letten”
instead of Lettish (now Latvian), and so on. In the last two catego-
ries, however, he used the names of the language (“Russian”) rather
than of the people (“Russians”). Perhaps this ambiguity was caused
by the fact that he had more information about the latter two fam-
ily groups.
Compared to Leibniz’s 1710 language classification (table 1 in chap-
ter 2), Schlözer’s classification was more advanced. While Leibniz
(following Witsen and Ides) posited a relationship between Finnish
and Hungarian, Schlözer gave this family twelve languages. Inno-
vative was Schlözer’s inclusion of the Samoyeds within the North
European Stamm-Völker, as they lived both to the west and the east
of the Ural Mountains. Nowadays, the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic
languages are joined together in the Uralic language family. While
the Samoyedic languages are now divided in North and South Sam-
oyedic, rather than in European and Asian, Schlözer’s division of
the Finno-Ugric language group was basically correct, even if the
languages are today placed in a different order. In addition, Schlözer
had nine “species” of Slavic languages, which is also basically accu-
rate even if incomplete. He insisted on making a distinction between

Table 6. Schlözer’s classification of North European languages, 1771
290
I. Nenetsa (Samojeden) II. Finns III. Latvians (Letten) IV. Slavs (Slaven) V. Germanic (Germanier)
(Finnen)
I. European I. Sámi or Saami I. Latvians (Letten) I. Russian I. Saxonian (Sächsisch)
Samoyeds (Lappen) (Rußisch)
1. Mesenian and Kanensian II. Finns (Finnen) II. Lithuanians (Littauer): II. Polish 1. Scandinavian:
(Mensenische and Kanensche) – Prussian (Polnisch) – Danish
– Polish – Swedish
– Norwegian
– Icelandic
2. Ugric, Pustoserian Pet- III. Estonians III. Prussian (Preussen) III. Bohemian 2. Lower Saxonian
shorian, Sakamenian and (Esten) Old Prussian, extinct since (Böhmisch) (Niedersächsisch)
Berosovian the late seventeenth century
II. Sibirian IV. Livonians or IV. Sorbian (Sorbisch or 3. Old Frisian (Alt-
Samoyeds Livs (Liven) Lausitzisch) Friesisch)
3. Tasian (Tasische) V. Komi V. Polabian (Polabisch) 4. Dutch (Holländisch)
(Syrãnen) Zyrien
4. Mangazeyan VI. Permians VI. Windian (Windisch) 5. English
(Mangasejische) (Permier) (Englisch)
VII. Mansi VII. Kroatian II. Franconian
(Wogulen) Vogul (Kroatisch) (Fränkisch)

VIII. Udmurt VIII. Bosnian III. Gothic
(Wotãcken) Votiak (Bosnisch) (Gothisch)
IX. Mari IX. Bulgarian
(Tscheremissen) (Bulgarisch)
X. Mordvin
(Mordwinen)
XI. Khanty

(Kondische oder
Irtyscher
Ost[j]aken)
XII. Magyar
(Ungern)
Source: Based on Schlözer’s descriptions in chapter 2, “Von den Stamm-Völkern des Europäischen Nordens” (Schlözer 1771a:292– 344).
a
Modern ethnonyms (Schlözer’s spelling of the names is placed between parentheses).
291
the Slavs and the Latvians, including the Lithuanians. The latter
two are nowadays combined with Slavic languages in the Balto-
Slavic language group. Finally, Schlözer identified the “Germanier”
as the northern, Germanic branch of what is currently known as
the Indoeuropean language family. In this group he included three
German dialects (Saxonian, Lower Saxonian, and Old Frisian), as
well as the Scandinavian, Gothic, Frankish, and Dutch languages,
as well as English, “to some extent.”
At the end of his section on aboriginal peoples of the Euro-
pean North, Schlözer noted, “Finally, there are three peoples left:
“VI. Kymren, VII. Galen, VIII. Basken.”49 He was referring to the
languages of the Cymru (Wales), Gaels (Scotland), and Basques,
respectively, peoples now considered to live in western and south-
ern Europe but at the time all classified as (northern) Celts. Accord-
ing to Schlözer, someone more knowledgeable had to fill this void.
After a history of the Slavs, a “principal people of the North,”
written by Müller’s assistant Johann Gotthilf Stritter (1771) using
Byzantinian sources, Schlözer (1771a:391–436) turned to the “Asiatic
North or Siberia.”50 In this chapter he described the language, reli-
gion, and lifestyle of a number of Siberian peoples, using research
by Witsen, Ides, Strahlenberg, Gmelin, Müller, Krasheninnikov,
Fischer, and several others. Opening with Müller’s Nouvelle Carte
from 1758, Schlözer referred favorably to the expeditions Peter I and
Anna Ivanovna had dispatched, which brought clarity to “the dark
and doubtful rumours” since Yermak’s conquest (391, n. 1). Although
his classification of Siberian peoples was less extensive than his clas-
sification of northern Europeans because less material was available,
most of Schlözer’s information was new to his readers. Following on
his chapter on the European North, which included a Samoyedic
vocabulary (297–300), he described the Siberian nations in geograph-
ical order. The southern or Mongolian peoples included the Mon-
gols, Buryats, Kalmyks, Oirats (Dsongaren), Teleuts, and Yakuts
(Sakha). The latter, in the center of East Siberia, were thought to be
either related to the Mongols or the Tatars (a connection explored
by Müller). While Yakut customs and religion were similar to those
of the Mongols, their language was Tatar, and this criterion proved
“decisive” (416). To the west, south, and east of the Yakuts lived the
Tungus (Evenks), enemies who saw the Yakuts as invaders. Char-

acterized as “cheerful, alert, and bright,” the Tungus were divided
in several groups according to their lifestyle, but they all spoke the
same language (Eine Sprache) and could “therefore be regarded as
one people (Ein Volk)” (417–418). Because of the similarities between
the Tungusian and Manchu languages, Schlözer assumed them to
descend from a common ancestor (418). Turning to West Siberian
peoples, the first to become known to the Russians, he discussed
the Samoyeds (Nenets and Enets); the Voguls (Mansi), related to
the Hungarians (Magyar); three kinds of Ostyaks, not related but
lumped in a category derived from a Tatar invective (Uschtak); the
Tatars, the original rulers of (parts of) Siberia; 51 and the Bukharans,
who emigrated to West Siberian towns from (current) Turkestan.
Before completing his survey with descriptions of the “Kurilen”
(Ainu), “Kamczadalen,” Koryaks, Lamuts (Evens), Yukagirs, and
Chukchis, Schlözer presented four tables with Ugrian words com-
pared with words from other Siberian languages (430–433). While
the information on the peoples living on Kamchatka or in its vicin-
ity was extracted from the Russian version of Krasheninnikov (1755),
most of this chapter came from Fischer.52
Thus, Schlözer’s main contribution in his early historical work
was a further development of what he called “Leibniz’s method in
ethnography” (1771a:288, n. U), that is, the idea that language com-
parison is a prerequisite for the early historiography of peoples. By
carrying Leibniz’s methods for historical linguistics (and his sym-
bolic logic) to their conclusion and by applying them to historical
material of great complexity, Schlözer was able to provide a vastly
improved analytical framework for the study of the origin, migra-
tion, and affinity of Nordic and Asian nations. Rejecting hypothe-
ses about national origins not based on grammars and vocabularies,
he proclaimed the division of the principal peoples of the Euro-
pean North into five main groups as his “non-plus-ultra.”53 Schlözer’s
implementation of Linnaeus’s taxonomical “system” and hierarchi-
cal “classification” in historical linguistics modernized historical ety-
mology on empirical grounds.
As Günter Mühlpfordt summarized in 1983, “Schlözer developed
the philological-critical method into an ‘ethno-critical’ method and
applied it especially to the history of the Slavic, Germanic, Baltic,
Eastern Romanic, Finno-Ugric and other Uralic peoples. Thereby,

he was epoch-making in the field of Russian, Slavic, and Hungar-
ian [history].”54
Since Schlözer extended Müller’s ethnological program by coining
the word Völkerkunde and by reinforcing the ethnolinguistic method
in historical research, it is puzzling that he rarely mentioned Mül-
ler’s work, neither his history of Siberia (1761–63) nor his contri-
butions to the “Vocabularium Sibiricum.” He referred favorably to
Müller’s historical work in his Probe Russischer Annalen (1768a:24, 38),
but Müller’s name was barely mentioned in his Allgemeine Nordische
Geschichte. Bucher wrote in 2002, “Schlözer utilized Müller’s mate-
rial copiously, often without specifying his sources, or only refer-
ring to the abbreviated version of Fischer’s history of Siberia.”55 This
assertion fails to acknowledge that Schlözer carefully specified his
sources in his Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte and that Müller left
his ethnographic descriptions out of his Siberian history in order to
publish them separately (see chapter 4). This is why Schlözer found
little of ethnological interest in Müller’s history, whereas Fischer’s
long 1768 introduction to his Siberian history was highly relevant to
Siberia’s ethnography and linguistics. Whether Schlözer had access
to Müller’s unpublished manuscripts, as Bucher assumed, is doubt-
ful.56 He had stayed in Müller’s house, and Müller had introduced
him to the study of Russian chronicles but never gave Schlözer “an
overview of his treasures” (Winter 1961b:4). Schlözer remained ambiv-
alent about Müller and had no reason for promoting his work, nor
did he have much published material from Müller at hand. Fischer
possibly kept silent about Müller’s linguistic contributions to the
“Vocabularium Sibiricum” so that Schlözer was not aware of them,
or not to their full extent.
The difference between Müller’s and Schlözer’s approach to eth-
nography was that Müller had an encompassing view, dealing with
all aspects, whereas Schlözer was primarily interested in the com-
parative study of languages as a tool for historical reconstruction.
He had a solid reason: a correspondence in customs could not count
as evidence for peoples’ relatedness (Schlözer 1771a:211). Müller had
drawn the same conclusion but in ethnography had to pay attention
to languages as well as customs, economy, and religion. Schlözer,
however, following Leibniz, maintained that chronicles written by
Annalisten could never serve as proof for the “origins and affinity of

peoples” (Ursprung und Verwandtschaft der Völker) (288, n. T). His
subject therefore was “the study of languages in regard to the study
of peoples” (Sprachenuntersuchungen in Rücksicht auf die Völkerkunde).
The Invention of Völkerkunde, 1771– 75

In addition to the term ethnographisch, Schlözer introduced the term
Völkerkunde in 1771. The latter word has been used as the discipline’s
name in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria ever since, although
it is increasingly being replaced by Ethnologie and social anthropol-
ogy. Schlözer used Völkerkunde in his monograph Allgemeine Nor-
dische Geschichte (1771) and his Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie
(1772, 2nd ed. 1775). Although ethnographisch became the most impor-
tant, and is by all means the longest lasting of these concepts, it is
clear that by coining the term Völkerkunde, Schlözer elevated Mül-
ler’s descriptive work to a higher level.
Völkerkunde means “knowledge of peoples” and Schlözer contrasted
it with Weltkunde, “knowledge of the world.” In his Allgemeine Nor-
dische Geschichte, he showed little respect for the Weltkunde of the
ancient Greeks and Romans: “Their ethnology (Völkerkunde) could
not reach beyond their cosmology (Weltkunde)” and their knowledge
of the world (Weltkunde) ended at the Rhine, Danube, Don, and
Tigris Rivers. In the same context Schlözer wrote about the “cos-
mological ignorance of the Greeks.”57
Inspired by Gatterer’s studies of world history, and taking a stand
against the British Universal History, Schlözer turned to the study
of global history. He favored the ancient Persians over the Greeks
because the former had founded the first world empire, which implied
“the first large state union of humankind.”58 The Persians had united
four principal peoples of the ancient world, bringing the kingdoms
of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Medes under their rule.
With the Romans, “history had become somewhat world historic”;
with Cyrus and the founding of the Persian Empire, “the world itself
had become world historic, that is, only since then did humankind
join in closer union and acquaintance.”59
This was an original aspect of Schlözer’s work. However, although
the object of Völkerkunde was all peoples, both in the past and the
present, only a selection of them could be discussed in a system-
atic world history that focused on the interconnection of peoples

and states. Like Müller, Schlözer believed that Völkerkunde should
describe all peoples of the world, but in practice he restricted the
analysis to “principal peoples” (Hauptvölker) (Schlözer 1772:106–
108, 1775:299– 301). These “principal peoples” had brought coherence
(Zusammenhang) to world history, and the problem of coherence and
interconnectedness represented Schlözer’s main interest in world his-
tory (Vermeulen 2008d). Following Pufendorf, Schlözer held peo-
ples that founded states to be more advanced than those without a
state. The former (Hauptvölker) were superior because they had con-
nected other peoples. The study of these “principal peoples” illu-
minated both the increased connection (Verbindung), which partly
occurred through conquests, and the world’s greater entanglement
(Verkettung), the process of increased linkage on a global scale that
we now call “globalization” (Wertheim 2002).
Schlözer was one of the first world historians to pay attention to
this process of increasing interconnectedness, and it is significant that
he introduced the concepts Ethnographie and Völkerkunde in this con-
text. The adjective “universal historic” to Schlözer encapsulated inter-
connecting peoples and states. Links were forged not only through
conquests, or the dissemination of culture, customs, and laws, but
also through inventions in the arts, sciences, and technology, as well
as by migrations of peoples, animals, plants, arts, and diseases. Such
interconnecting was optimal within a state unifying different peo-
ples and states. Peoples who had produced such a state were there-
fore called “principal nations,” that is, Haupt-Nationen (Schlözer
1775:279) or Hauptvölker (Schlözer 1772:106–108, 1775:299–301). These
peoples had brought coherence into world history and disseminated
“Enlightenment and Literature” (Schlözer 1775:118). They connected
other people and spread “culture” (Cultur), customs, laws, inventions,
sciences, and the arts around the world. Schlözer (1772:37, 1775:250)
used the term “world system” (Weltsystem) in this context and can
be seen as one of the first global historians, a veritable precursor of
Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, and William McNeill.
The problem of coherence and interconnectedness represented
Schlözer’s main interest in world history. It was his answer to the
natural law problem about the relations between peoples and states.
His historical views also revealed another, less original, dimension.
“Universal history,” wrote Schlözer, was “a history of humankind

and its stage-like improvement or deterioration.”60 World history was
“the analysis of the great world events in interconnection,” aimed
at answering questions such as, “Whence the progress of the one,
the stand still of another, the relapse of a third people (Volk)?”61 In
the same way it should address the causes of “progress of human-
ity among a people” and of blocking such progress among a second
people or modifying it in another.62
This perspective, articulated in the Enlightenment model of stage-
like progress, has been taken as characteristic of Schlözer’s world
history. But it was not his main achievement. The key word in his
theory of history was “interconnection” rather than “progress.” Fol-
lowing the section just cited, Schlözer added that these questions
would be answered by “universal history, or the study of great world
events in connection (im Zusammenhang).”63 This was Schlözer’s
main definition of world history. Acting under the assumption of
“an increasing unity among children of mankind primarily by con-
quests,” Schlözer proposed to focus on those global developments
contributing to humankind’s interconnectedness.64 In the preface to
the second edition of his Vorstellung, he clarified his view with the
following addition:
People become peoples (Prehistory). Several peoples, in western
Asia, northern Africa and southern Europe become large states (Old
World). Three continents, with the exception of southern Africa and
Northern Asia, become interconnected (Middle Ages). Finally, Diaz,
Columbus and Yermak bring all sons of Adam, with the exception
of southern Indians [Pacific] into a lasting acquaintance with each
other. (Schlözer 1775:viii)65
This statement summarized Schlözer’s view on world history, which

concentrated on the interconnectedness of historical events. Such an
analysis was his primary intention in world history. This goal was
overlooked when Horst Walter Blanke and Justin Stagl studied the
first edition of Schlözer’s Vorstellung and especially its first part, Ideal
einer Weltgeschichte. However, Schlözer’s interest in the interconnect-
edness of history is much more evident in the second edition of his
Vorstellung (1775) and in its first part, Summaries der Weltgeschichte,
which he elaborated in the third edition, WeltGeschichte nach ihren
HauptTheilen (1785–89).

The interconnectedness of world events was of such significance
to Schlözer that he developed analytical tools for its study. He made
important distinctions between (1) an “aggregate of world history”
and a “system of world history,” (2) a “real connection of events”
and “a chronological connection of events,” and (3) a “synthetical
arrangement of historical facts” and a “synchronic arrangement of
historical facts.”
Schlözer contrasted the concepts “ethnography” (Ethnographie)
and “ethnographic” (ethnographisch) to older terms, “chronography”
(Chronographie) and “synchronistic” (synchronistisch), respectively.
He adopted the latter term from Gatterer, who had introduced the
synchronistic method, a way of arranging world history accord-
ing to periods, and published synchronistic tables accompanied
by a textbook (Gatterer 1765, 1769, 1771). “World history,” wrote
Schlözer, should be more than “just a history of states and peo-
ples.”66 Helped by “the general view, that encompasses the total-
ity [of facts],” the historian “transforms the aggregate in a system,
brings all states of the earth to a single unity, humankind, and val-
ues the peoples only to their relationships with the big revolutions
of the world.”67 A reformed world history would no longer focus on
the “four monarchies” or the “four nations” (the Assyrian, Persian,
Greek, and Roman), which were the basis for world history’s subdi-
visions until sixteenth-century historians like Johannes Carion and
Philipp Melanchthon. Nor should it focus on the seventy-two lan-
guages making up the Jewish view of history (Borst 1960– 61:1474).
Instead, as we have seen, Schlözer proposed to deal with at least two
hundred Völker, including an unspecified number of states, which
should be studied with a variety of methods in order to deal with
the complexity of the interconnectedness.
Schlözer’s Vorstellung is regarded as a fundamental text in the the-
ory of history and, for this reason, was (partly) reprinted in a text-
book on theoreticians of German Enlightenment history edited by
Horst Walter Blanke and Dirk Fleischer (1990). The book’s first
part, Ideal einer Weltgeschichte, was the subject of an extensive analysis
by Justin Stagl (1974a; 1995a:233–268; 1998; 2002a), who interpreted
Schlözer’s Ideal as presenting an “Outline of ethnology” (Entwurf
einer Völkerkunde) (Stagl 1974a) and as “having launched the éthnos-
names” (Stagl 1995a:268). Blanke (1990:494, n. 48; 1997:*21*, n. 48)

sees Schlözer as the creator of the term ethnographisch. However,
by concentrating on the first edition of Schlözer’s Vorstellung, nota-
bly on its first part, and by largely ignoring his Allgemeine Nordische
Geschichte, these authors misunderstood Schlözer’s key object of study
and misrepresented the position of Völkerkunde and Ethnographie in
his historiographical views.68
Schlözer’s Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte was a regional (ethno-
graphic) history of northern peoples; his Vorstellung was a theoretical
study of world history. Accordingly, the terms Völkerkunde, ethnog-
raphisch, and Ethnographie appeared much more often in Allgemeine
Nordische Geschichte (eighteen times) than in the Vorstellung (five times
in the first edition, seven times in the second edition). By contrast,
the term Völkerkunde occurs only once in the latter book but twelve
times in the former (see table 7).
Thus the meaning of the terms Völkerkunde and ethnographisch
that Schlözer introduced in 1771– 72 was much more related to the
topic of his Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte than that of his Vorstellung
seiner Universal-Historie. Völkerkunde was the more general concept,
designating the comprehensive knowledge of peoples; ethnographisch
was a way of arranging historical material by focusing on peoples
rather than periods.
Schlözer’s two early books must be studied together because
they were written in the same period and built on each other. They
presented two original contributions to methodology: Schlözer’s
“ethno-critical method” (in Mühpfordt’s words) and his “ethnographic
method” of history (in his own words). There is an interesting con-
nection between these approaches. Just as Schlözer’s five “principal
peoples” of the European North provided his non plus ultra, beyond
which he could not pass with scientific certainty, he introduced the
idea that history could begin only with historical documents: “Before
[the existence of] written monuments, no history can be conceived.”69
Following Bayer, Tatishchev, and Müller, Schlözer concentrated
on the oldest Russian chronicles, which described events since the
“Varangians” (Væringjar or Waräger) founded Novgorod and Kiev
in 862–64. (This Normanist theory had led to the dispute between
Müller and Lomonosov in 1749–50; see chapter 4.) Schlözer thought
that these chronicles and their variants could be profitably analyzed
with the help of Michaelis’s historical-critical method, based on

Table 7. Ethnos terms in Schlözer’s early works, 1771– 75
1771 Allgemeine Nordische 18 times Ethnographie (2 times)

Geschichte Völkerkunde (12 times)
ethnographisch (3 times)
Ethnograph (1 time)
1772 Vorstellung seiner 5 times Ethnographie (1 time)
Universal-Historie, 1st Völkerkunde (1 time)
edition ethnographisch (3 times)
1773 Vorstellung, 2nd volume 15 times exclusively ethnographisch
1775 Vorstellung der Universal- 7 times Ethnographie (2 times)
Historie, 2nd edition Völkerkunde (1 time)
ethnographisch (4 times)
the philological analysis of biblical texts by Michaelis’s father and

uncle in Halle, who compared historical texts to establish a gene-
alogy of variants (see chapters 3 and 5). Thus historiography could
begin only when written sources were available. With this principle
Schlözer introduced modern chronology in German historiography
(see Schlözer 1771a:125–126, 285, 291, 1772: 52; cf. Klempt 1960:80–
89, 188). The editors of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica adopted
Schlözer’s philological-critical method of analyzing Russian chron-
icles and applied it to German manuscript material.
Schlözer’s “ethno-critical” method was also epoch-making, for
language comparison allowed him to reconstruct the prehistory of
medieval peoples and connect them to the contemporary inhabitants
of Europe and Asia. By combining Leibniz’s historical-comparative
linguistics with the philological-critical method of the Michae-
lis family in both Halle and Göttingen, Schlözer arrived at greater
clarity about the early history of northern European and Asian peo-
ples than predecessors who based their research on classical stud-
ies from antiquity.
Thus Schlözer’s research practice consisted of the methods of
Leibniz’s historical linguistics on the one hand and Michaelis’s his-
torical philology on the other. With the help of Linnaeus’s taxonom-
ical model, Schlözer transformed these into his own ethno-critical
method and the ethnographic method of history. The former aimed
at distinguishing peoples in early European and Asian history with
the help of historical-linguistic analysis and a critical study of the

first historical documents. The latter tried to provide a balanced pic-
ture of world history by analyzing the events twice, at first “ethno-
graphic” (by focusing on diachronic histories of peoples) and then
“synchronistic” (by focusing on parallel events in time).70 The first
approach resulted in a mere “aggregate” of world history, whereas the
second produced a “system” of world history. All subsequent histo-
rians used the distinction between the ethnographic and synchro-
nistic method of ordering historical events. Almost a century later,
the Dutch historian, geographer, and ethnographer Pieter Johannes
Veth still referred to the distinction, unaware that Schlözer had in
fact introduced it.71
These methods enabled Schlözer to arrive at innovative ideas
about the importance of ethnography for history and the need for
an “ethnographic method” of history. The overall purpose was to
arrive at a systema populorum, a system of peoples or Völker-System (as
Schlözer called it from 1767–68 on), organized in classes and groups,
each people assigned its proper place, just as in Linnaeus’s taxonom-
ical system. Only by combining historical and linguistic evidence
would it be possible to solve the historical problems of how peoples
were related, what their affinities were, where they had come from,
and how they had reached their eventual habitats during and after
the Great Migration.
As we have seen, Schlözer probably served as the intermediary
between Schöpperlin and Thilo’s ethnographia and Müller’s Völker-
Beschreibung. In my view Schlözer generalized the regional (eth-
nographic) views obtained while writing his Allgemeine Nordische
Geschichte by placing them in a wider historical perspective in his
Vorstellung. He was the first historian since Müller to take the new
study seriously. Schlözer transformed Müller’s Völker-Beschreibung into
Völkerkunde and incorporated Müller’s ethnography into the broader
domain of world history. Through his writings and his teaching in
Göttingen, Schlözer worked the concepts Völkerkunde, Ethnogra-
phie, and ethnographisch into academic discourse. By introducing an
“ethnographic method” as one of the four ways of conceiving his-
tory, Schlözer raised the level of discussion.
Yet, although Schlözer introduced Völkerkunde as an encompass-
ing term for a study that hardly existed outside Russia, he was pri-
marily interested in certain types of peoples. To him nations that

developed more complicated forms of government and became states
were the most important. This was characteristic of natural law the-
ories: it was considered progress if people achieved a higher level of
organization as (or within) a state. It was no accident that Schlözer
in later life concentrated on the comparative study of states (Statis-
tik) and continued Achenwall’s political studies in Göttingen after
the latter had died in 1772. He published one more ethnohistorical
study, on German settlers in Transylvania (1795–97, 2 vols.), and did,
at long last, deliver his edition of the Nestor chronicles (1802–9, 5
vols.). But in the second half of his career, he became more involved
in critically following political developments in Europe, Asia, the
Americas, and Africa. One of his best-known mottos was “Histo-
riography is continuous Statistik and Statistik is stationary histori-
ography.”72 Historiography represented the diachronic dimension,
Statistik the synchronic. Statistik, as noted, was a comparative study
of states, or more accurate, a comparative study of the material con-
ditions of European states.73
In his early years Schlözer had been absorbed in advancing the
study of peoples by concentrating on their languages. In his later
career he shifted his focus from “peoples in a state of development”
(werdende Völker) to the “principal peoples” (Hauptvölker) who united
others through conquest and civilization, that is, within a multina-
tional state.
Gatterer and the New Geography
Historian Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727–99), Schlözer’s senior col-
league, was the author of the second source employing Völkerkunde.
In his introduction to “a synchronistic world history” (Einleitung
in die synchronistische Universalhistorie), Gatterer (1771) included the
term in the same year as Schlözer.74 Having studied theology, phi-
lology, and history at Altdorf near Nuremberg, Gatterer became a
professor of history at Göttingen in 1759. Writing elaborate works
on world history (Universalhistorie) from 1761 on, he became known
for developing auxiliary disciplines of history, for example, chronol-
ogy, geography, heraldry, genealogy, diplomatics, and numismat-
ics. Founding an “institute for the historical sciences” at Göttingen
in 1764, he also edited two historical journals: Allgemeine historische
Bibliothek (1767– 71) and Historisches Journal (1772–81).75 In his Ein-

leitung Gatterer distinguished “Thracian ethnology of Herodotus”
from “Thracian history.” 76 He combined ethnology with anthro-
pology (Menschen- und Völkerkunde) and contrasted both to cos-
mography and geography (Welt- und Erdbeschreibung) (Gatterer 1771,
vol. 1:89). He also employed the terms Mosaisches Bevölkerungssystem
and Mosaische Bevölkerungskunde, which referred to how the world
was populated according to Moses.77 In 1771 Gatterer Germanized
Schlözer’s concept of systema populorum into Völkersystem, applied that
concept consistently in the second volume of his Einleitung, and, a
few years later, again studied the Mosaisches Bevölkerungs-System as
derived from Moses 1:10 (Gen. 10).78
In 1775 Gatterer used the combination Menschen- und Völkerkunde
once more but added a neo-Greek translation Anthropographia und
Ethnographia between brackets (Gatterer 1775:4–5). The terms occurred
in an overview of geography (Abriß der Geographie) that was pub-
lished in 1778, although the relevant sections appeared in passages
that were printed in 1775. At this moment the word Ethnographia
entered Gatterer’s work. His Abriß was the second source in which
Völkerkunde and Ethnographie appeared and the first in which they
were explicitly equated with each other. Gatterer spoke of “Menschen-
und Völkerkunde (Anthropographia und Ethnographia)” and gave the
subject a place in his classification of geographical sciences. He divided
geography into four chapters: physical geography (Gränzkunde), geog-
raphy proper (Länderkunde), political geography (Staatenkunde), and
ethnography (Völkerkunde). The latter category was combined with
anthropology (Menschenkunde), using the descriptive form for both,
Anthropographia and Ethnographia. Gatterer formulated his view on
the classification of geographical sciences as follows:
The entire description of the earth, with and without respect to
the division in ancient, middle and new [era], can, I think, conve-
niently be brought under four main parts or sciences: (1) the study of
boundaries [Gränzkunde (Horismographia)], (2) the study of regions
[Länderkunde (Chorographia)], (3) the study of states [Staatenkunde
(Poleographia or geographica Politice)] and (4) the study of people and
peoples [Menschen- und Völkerkunde (Anthropographia and Eth-
nographia)]. As we deal with geography here, it stands to reason
that these four artificial terms are to be taken in their geographical

meaning, not in their historical, political or statistical sense. (Gat-
terer 1775:4–5)79
This citation indicates that Gatterer ascribed a scientific status to

Völkerkunde, equated it with Ethnographie, and adopted this disci-
pline (Wissenschaft) into a scientific nomenclature. It is remarkable,
however, that Gatterer classified the new study in the domain of
geography, since Schlözer had assigned it to the field of history and,
as we have seen, even developed an ethnographic method as one of
history’s four methods.
In 1773 Gatterer and Schlözer engaged in a fierce debate about
priority of theory and competition over students (Gatterer 1773a;
Schlözer 1773a). The details of their polemic need not concern us
here, as others have written about it (von Selle 1937; Gierl 2012), but
there was one aspect of the debate that has relevance for our subject.
As noted, Gatterer classified ethnography in the domain of geog-
raphy, whereas Schlözer had given it a place in history. A probable
reason for this reordering was Gatterer’s awareness that some peo-
ples, including “wild peoples” (wilde Völker), did not have a writ-
ten history (Gatterer 1773b:16), making their treatment within the
discipline of history a problem. However, since Gatterer regarded
geography as an auxiliary discipline of history, it was to be expected
that the results obtained by ethnography—within the domain of
geography—would find their way back into the mother discipline
of history from which ethnography had just been separated.
Gatterer (fig. 8) was the first to present a table of contents for the
combined Menschen- und Völkerkunde. The discipline’s object was to
study people according to (1) the human body, in terms of both stat-
ure and color; (2) languages; (3) religions; (4) natural products; (5)
culture (Kultur); (6) trade; and (7) geography, that is, their distribu-
tion over the world (Gatterer 1775:xviii–xxxvi).
Schlözer and Gatterer were the first historians to use the term
Völkerkunde, not only in what later became Germany, but also inter-
nationally. The fact that the term Völkerkunde was coined in Göt-
tingen (1771– 75) as a successor to the descriptive study of peoples
introduced by Müller in Siberia (1740) is highly significant. As noted,
the University of Göttingen occupied a strategic position in the
Hanoverian state’s scholarly network, which, through its connec-

Fig. 8. Johann Christoph Gatterer by Friedrich Wilhelm Bollinger, 1799.
Courtesy of the sub Göttingen, Sammlung Voit: J. C. Gatterer, No. 1.
tion with the expanding British Empire, was truly worldwide. Göt-
tingen scholars connected western Europe and the Americas with
eastern Europe and Asia.
Gatterer initiated a new trend of linking geography and ethnog-
raphy, Länder- und Völkerkunde, which became dominant in Ger-
man academia from the 1780s on (discussed later). Although the idea
seems to have been introduced by Gatterer in Göttingen, this com-
bination of terms surfaced in the Netherlands East Indies in 1779,

when the German naturalist Friedrich von Wurmb (1742–81) cir-
cumscribed the field of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences
as including “geography and ethnography [Länder-Völkerkunde] and
especially natural history.”80 Other members of this learned soci-
ety, founded in Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1778 as an offshoot from
the Society of Sciences in Haarlem, linked geography and ethnog-
raphy in their descriptions of Indonesian islands (see the epilogue)—
without adopting von Wurmb’s terminology. Thus, ethnological ideas
from Göttingen surfaced in Southeast Asia soon after they had been
introduced in Germany. But elsewhere in Asia the same combina-
tion of geography, ethnography, and natural history was practiced.
Völker-Beschreibung in Russian Asia

During the reign of Catherine the Great, new expeditions were sent
out to all corners of the Russian Empire. The members of the Aca-
demic Expeditions (1768– 74) continued Müller’s ethnological pro-
gram. With the goal of observing the planet Venus’s transit in 1769,
these expeditions aimed to “serve the benefits of the Empire and lead
to an improvement of the sciences.”81 An additional aim was to make
new acquisitions for the Kunstkamera in both cultural and natural
history to replace losses from the 1747 fire. Inspired by Lomonosov
and supervised by Vladimir Orlov, the academy’s 1766– 74 director,
the Academic Expeditions included “astronomical” and “physical”
research teams. The former were astronomical-geographical and led
to the northern, eastern, and southern parts of the empire; the lat-
ter were carried out by natural historians and led to southern and
eastern Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, and the Caucasus. The natural-
ists were instructed to exploit natural resources and improve agricul-
ture but also to document the peoples’ manners and customs. Their
instructions stipulated the study of “(1) the nature of soil and waters,
(2) the possible cultivation of wild areas, (3) existing agriculture, (4)
diseases, also of cattle and cures that proved helpful, (5) animal hus-
bandry, especially sheep raising, bee keeping and silk cultivation, (6)
fishing and hunting, (7) minerals and mineral waters, (8) all sorts of
manufacturing, (9) beneficial plants.” In addition, they were asked to
contribute to the “improvement of geography (Erdbeschreibung)”; to
collect “information on the manners and customs, languages, tradi-
tions and antiquities”; and to describe “objects of nature” (Naturalien)

and have them drawn, prepared, and sent to the St. Petersburg Cab-
inet of Natural Curiosities (Naturaliencabinet).82 These instructions
were overseen by the academy and based on those drafted by Mül-
ler (see chapter 4), except that they were predominantly naturalist
and more utilitarian. The economic interests were strengthened by
the Free Economic Society, founded at St. Petersburg in 1765 and
presided over by Orlov (Wendland 1992, vol. 1:90).
The physicalische expeditions consisted of five teams led by Peter
Simon Pallas (1741–1811), Ivan Ivanovich Lepekhin (1740–1802), Johan
Peter Falck (1732– 74), Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (1744– 74), and Johann
Anton Güldenstädt (1745–81). Their destinations were the empire’s
southern and eastern parts, concentrating on the Orenburg, Astra-
khan, and Kazan Districts on both sides of the Volga. Accompa-
nied by a draftsman, hunter, preparator, and three Russian students,
Pallas traveled to the Ural Mountains, southern Russia, and west-
ern Siberia up to Lake Baikal. Lepekhin, Falck, and their assistants
and students headed for Orenburg, while Gmelin and Güldenstädt
explored Astrakhan. The chemist Johann Gottlieb Georgi (1729–
1802) was later added to the expeditions led by Pallas and Falck. One
of the astronomical expeditions was led by Georg Moritz Lowitz
(1722– 74) and focused on southern Russia (1769– 74).83
This time, thanks to improved research conditions, all the reports
were published. The first volumes of Pallas’s (1771– 76) travel account
were even printed during his expedition. These reports were amaz-
ingly Völker-minded, no doubt partly owing to Gerhard Friedrich
Müller’s influence. The now elderly Müller acted as a prominent
consultant for Pallas, who communicated with Müller before, dur-
ing, and after the expedition.84 From Moscow Müller followed the
expedition with great interest, generously sharing from his own field
material. He often acted as intermediary between the expedition
members in the field and the academy, transferring reports and ship-
ments of natural objects to St. Petersburg (P. Hoffmann 2005:160).
Significantly, the term Völker-Beschreibung resurfaced in this con-
text (Georgi 1776–80; Falck 1785–86) and was included in the title of
a journal Pallas edited from 1781 on (discussed later). Pallas’s travel
account was so rich in ethnographic content that three volumes with
extracts about several Siberian peoples appeared separately (Pallas
1773, 1777a, 1777b). In addition to his travel account, Pallas published

two volumes on “Mongolian tribes,” including Kalmyks and Bury-
ats (Pallas 1776–1801), based in part on materials from Samuel Gott-
lieb Gmelin and Müller (Vermeulen 2013).
The third volume of Falck’s report (Beyträge zur Thierkenntniß und
Völkerbeschreibung) offered short descriptions of thirty peoples from
Orenburg District. Falck described feasts, meals, marriage ceremo-
nies, religious beliefs, shamanism, houses, tents, clothing, weap-
ons, animals, and medical practices. He also provided vocabularies
in German, Finnish, Cheremiss, Votiak, Ostyak, Kazan Tartar,
Kirghiz, Bukharan, and Kalmyk.85 Following his instructions, and
inspired by his teacher Linnaeus, Falck presented lists of flora and
fauna, as well as data on the peoples’ socioeconomic conditions. After
Falck died, his companion Georgi edited his report and wrote in a
note about his deceased colleague that Falck had provided “excel-
lent reports on the nations he encountered.”86 The work had served
him “to recuperate” from his naturalist’s duties—this comment is
analoguous to Müller’s remark about his own ethnographic studies
thirty years earlier. Falck used Nazionen as a synonym for Völker,
not in the (later) political meaning.
The difference between the Academic Expedition members’
accounts and those of the Linnaeus apostles was that the latter rarely
reported on the manners and customs of the native inhabitants they
encountered. As detailed in chapter 5, only six of the seventeen apos-
tles reported on ethnographic aspects: Kalm, Forsskål, Falck, Afze-
lius, Sparrman, and Thunberg. By contrast all naturalists conducting
research in the Russian Empire included descriptions of the peo-
ples’ manners and customs in their reports—because they had been
instructed to do so by the academy (see Vermeulen 2013).
Consequently, Georgi could compose a four-volume Beschreibung
aller Nationen des Russischen Reichs (1776–80) or A Compleat Historical
Account of All the Nations Which Compose That Empire (1780–83). Doc-
umenting “their way of life, religion, customs, dwellings, clothing,
and other curiosities,” Georgi summarized all known data on the
Russian Empire’s peoples. The book amounts to an overall ethnog-
raphy of the empire’s sixty-five nations then distinguished. Using
his own observations and those of Müller, Gmelin, Krasheninnikov,
Steller, Fischer, Rychkov, Pallas, and other members of the Academic
Expeditions, Georgi proposed several classifications of Russia’s peo-

ples: linguistic, religious, and economic. (As noted in chapter 4, the
adminstrative reformer Speranskii adopted the economic classifica-
tion in his 1822 “Code of Administration of Siberian Peoples.”) The
engraver Christoph Melchior Roth illustrated Georgi’s Beschreibung
with ninety-five hand-colored copper plates. The illustrations also
appeared in a separate volume, titled Les Figures appartenantes à la
description de toutes les nations de l’empire de Russie (Georgi 1774– 76).
These plates had served as the original impetus for the Beschreibung,
as Georgi explained in his preface to the final volume.87
Georgi also published a two-volume report on his own travels
(1775) and an illustrated extract concerning “curiosities of various
unknown peoples of the Russian Empire” (1777). These works were
very much Völker-oriented in the direction Müller outlined in 1737–
40. Georgi’s main work was a summary of the Academic Expedi-
tions’ results in ten volumes (1797–1802). Focusing on a geographical,
physical, and natural description of the Russian Empire, Georgi had
an ethnographic perspective. But the primary basis for the classifica-
tion of peoples was language. Following Müller’s directives and the
linguistic material collected by Müller and other explorers of Rus-
sia, Georgi’s classification “corresponds remarkably well to the lin-
guistic groups defined by present-day ethnographers.”88
This classification was the result of the historical-comparative lin-
guistics initiated by Leibniz. The naturalist Pallas was ordered by
Catherine II to edit the extensive linguistic material assembled by
many expedition members. The resulting two volumes, Linguarum
totius orbis vocabularia comparativa (1786–89), listed 273 words and
12 numerals in 200 languages, 149 from Asia and 51 from Europe.
For the European languages Pallas had received help from Müller’s
former assistant, H. L. Chr. Bacmeister, who in 1773 had initiated
a linguistic project that went beyond Müller’s and Pallas’s compar-
ative work.89
The Academic Expeditions were the last overland expeditions in
eighteenth-century Russia. Subsequent expeditions were mostly sea-
borne, primarily to establish imperial claims in the North Pacific. The
first was the Billings–Sarychev Expedition (1785–94), with physician
Carl Heinrich Merck serving as naturalist-cum-ethnographer. Merck
was hired to replace the French naturalist Eugène Patrin, who had
explored Siberia for eight years. Pallas wrote Merck’s instructions.90

This “geographical and astronomical expedition” also had geopoliti-
cal and commercial aims. It charted the Bering Strait and the island
chain between Kamchatka and Alaska, including Unalaska and
Alaska’s northwest coast (Sarychev 1802; M. Sauer 1802). The expe-
dition made a census of the population of the Aleutian Islands and
reported abuse by Russian fur traders. Merck collected two hundred
bird skins, described by Pallas in Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica (Wannhoff
2008, 2011). He resided at Cape Chukotka for six months and wrote
extensively on the Chukchi. Merck found his ethnographic notes so
important that he kept a special journal for this purpose. This jour-
nal has recently been published (Merck 2014); an article by Merck
was posthumously published in 1814. Pierce and Dahlmann, Friesen,
and Ordubadi edited parts of Merck’s travelogue (Merck 1980, 2009).
Merck’s ethnographic collections were extensive. The Kunstkamera
obtained seventy-eight objects from the Billings–Sarychev Expedi-
tion. Georg Thomas Baron von Asch, the highest medical officer in
the Russian Empire, acquired another part of Merck’s ethnographic
collection and sent it to Göttingen (see Blumenbach 1797; L. Black
2004; Hauser-Schäublin and Krüger 2007).
In the first half of the nineteenth century, beginning with the
circumnavigations of Adam Johann von Krusenstern (1803–6) and
Otto von Kotzebue (1815–18, 1823–26), the Russians sent naval expe-
ditions around the world.91 Following the model of the Russian
overland expeditions since 1733 and the naval expeditions of Bou-
gainville and Cook since 1766, these expeditions included artists as
well as naturalists like Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, Wilhelm
Gottlieb Tilesius, and Adelbert von Chamisso. Ethnography was an
important component of these voyages. Other expeditions proceeded
overland to newly acquired regions such as the Caucasus, Mongolia,
the Crimea, the Ural Mountains, and the Altai. Stagl (2009:42–43)
presents a list of twenty-nine land and sea travels in Russia during
this period, nine of which were undertaken by a German-speaking
explorer. Petermann (2004:431–453) includes a list of seventy-eight
scientific expeditions with ethnographic relevance in the first half
of the nineteenth century, among which were Russian, German,
French, British, and Spanish expeditions. The relatively large per-
centage of German-speaking or German-trained naturalists and
linguists on these lists is remarkable.

These lists should be compared with Duchet’s inventory of travel
accounts used by the philosophes (Duchet 1971a:483–519), Marshall
and Williams’s (1982) global discussion, and Teissier’s (2011) analyses
of British travelers in the eighteenth century. Important reference
works for voyages of discovery continue to be Cox (1935–49), Henze
(1978–2004), and Howgego (2003–13). These studies should be inte-
grated to assess the originality of German-born explorers and the
reception of German programmatic ideas in the field of ethnogra-
phy. We can conclude at this point that, thanks to Müller, ethnogra-
phy had acquired a steady position on the Russian Empire’s research
agenda, which would be expanded in the nineteenth century.
Volkskunde and Folklore, 1776–1846

After the concepts Völkerkunde and Ethnographie had been introduced,
variants like Volkskunde and Ethnologie soon followed. The differ-
ence between Völkerkunde and Volkskunde was not fundamental. It
seems that the first term applied to the study of all peoples, whereas
the second applied to the study of one people only. The opposition
between “Western” and “non-Western,” with which the distinction
is usually explained, was not valid for the eighteenth century.
German scholars of folklore (Volkskundler) have long assumed
that Volkskunde dates from the nineteenth century, when its puta-
tive founder, Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, proclaimed it as an inde-
pendent science in his 1857 lecture “Volkskunde als Wissenschaft”
(Riehl 1858). Only recently has it been discovered that this study
commenced in the eighteenth century, when scholars began to deal
with this subject. In 1964 Helmut Möller, a folklore specialist from
the University of Göttingen, pointed to German-language studies
that had been part of an emerging ethnological and folklore dis-
course. Möller concluded that the term Volkskunde had originated
in the late eighteenth century and had been used, among others, by
Josef Mader, an Austrian legal scholar and professor of Statistik in
Prague, in a 1787 article on Bohemian Landes- Volks- und Staatskunde.
Subsequently, the term had been employed by the Statistiker of the
1820s in the sense of Bevölkerungskunde, a study of the population
of a state (Möller 1964:220–221). Gerhard Lutz (1969, 1971– 72, 1973)
from the University of Hamburg also pointed to a number of refer-
ences to Volkskunde and Völkerkunde in the late eighteenth and the

early nineteenth century. Uli Kutter, a student of Möller’s, discov-
ered an even earlier reference to the term Volks-Kunde in the jour-
nal Der Reisende (The traveler), published at Hamburg in 1782. It
was probably written by Friedrich Ekkard (1744–1815), a close asso-
ciate of Schlözer’s who worked at the university library in Göttin-
gen (Ekkard 1782). As editor of the short-lived weekly, Ekkard used
the concept in an anonymous section in which he urged travelers
to document folk feasts (Volksfeste) rather than court feasts (Kutter
1978, 1996). The term reappeared in the title of Mader’s 1787 article
and in a 1788 Stuttgart chronicle by the poet Christian Friedrich
Daniel Schubart (Möller 1964; Könenkamp 1988).
Surprisingly, the term volkskunde appeared even earlier in the Neth-
erlands, namely, in 1776 in the work of the Dutch physician and nat-
ural historian Johannes le Francq van Berkhey (1729–1812). Berkhey,
reader at the University of Leiden, used the word in the third vol-
ume of his natural history of Holland, in which he, at the end of a
chapter on children’s games, wrote, “The foregoing expositions will
suffice, I trust, to open up this subject. Its study still seems to lack
in our volkskunde [in the study of our people] and, in my opinion,
is here highly appropriate” (Berkhey 1769–1811, vol. 3, 1776:1457).92
Berkhey’s use of the concept was consistent, for he had employed the
terms volkskenner (1773) and volksbeschryving (1774) in previous vol-
umes (see Koolhaas-Grosfeld 2003, 2010; Vermeulen 2010b).
Students of Dutch folklore claim Berkhey as an ancestor, por-
traying him as “a Dutch ethnologist from the era of the Enlighten-
ment,” both for the substance of his ethnological work and for his
methods of collecting data through fieldwork and correspondence
(Meertens 1949, 1974). Pieter Meertens (1974) and Han Voskuil (1984)
canonized Johannes le Francq van Berkhey as “the patriarch of Dutch
volkskunde.” Willem Frijhoff (1994:259) sees “the birth certificate of
Dutch volkskunde” in parts 2 and 3 of Berkhey’s work, published in
1770– 76. Ton Dekker (2000:15) noticed that Berkhey was one of the
first to use the word volkskunde and displayed an “ethnological gaze”
(ethnologische blik). However, by emphasizing the cultural aspects of
Berkhey’s work these scholars tend to overlook its physical dimen-
sions. Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld (2010) corrects this view by plac-
ing Berkhey’s labors into Buffon’s tradition of the “natural history of
man” (on Buffon, see chapter 7). She stresses Berkhey’s anthropolog-

ical focus and recognizes Buffon and Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton
to be his two most important influences. Because Buffon’s Histoire
naturelle (1749–89) paid little attention to the Dutch Republic, Berkhey
wrote a comprehensive account of its western provinces, published at
Amsterdam and Leiden in nine volumes (1769–82, 1805–11). Berkhey
sought to write an illustrated description of the Hollandsche natie
(Hollandic nation) and its natural and cultural characteristics. He
distinguished the three aspects of such a description to be “natural,
moral, and medical” (natuurkundig, zedekundig, ziektekundig), all
attributes of his day’s anthropology (Koolhaas-Grosfeld 2010:75, 91).
In this case, too, there was a connection with Göttingen scholars.
Koolhaas-Grosfeld (2003:70) denies an influence from German his-
torians on Berkhey’s work, but he adapted a natural history for chil-
dren, Naturgeschichte für Kinder (1778), written by Georg Christian
Raff (1748–88), teacher of history and geography at the Göttingen
grammar school, for a Dutch readership (Berkhey 1781). Moreover,
Berkhey had an avuncular friend, Johann Christian Schutz, Ger-
man by birth and a true polyglot, who was his teacher of Greek and
Latin and often corrected his work (Arpots 1990:7, 23).
The nearest equivalent of the term Volkskunde in English was
“folk-lore,” introduced by William John Thoms in London in 1846.
Thoms (1846:862–863) used it to connote “the Lore of the People . . .
the traditional beliefs, legends and customs, current among the com-
mon people.” It may be noted that the meaning of “folk-lore” was
more limited than Volkskunde as the former referred to tales peo-
ple tell, a narrative tradition, oral history. In the eighteenth cen-
tury Volkskunde was not yet restricted to the study of the common
people. The first Folk-Lore Society was founded in London in 1878,
followed by the American Folklore Society in 1888. Currently, folk-
lore studies in the Anglo-American world are seen as the equivalent
of Volkskunde in Germany, which is increasingly being redefined as
European ethnology.
Although none of these authors defined Volkskunde, we can sur-
mise that its meaning was the same as Völkerkunde in the singular,
that is, a study of a (one) people, as opposed to the study of more
than one people or even of all peoples. According to Matti Bunzl
(1996b:685), Volkskunde literally means the knowledge of the people,
which he distinguishes from Völkerkunde, the knowledge of peoples.

Bunzl connects this distinction with an interpretation of the later
development of both studies. In the case of Volkskunde, “the intel-
lectual roots can be found in the Romantic valorization of the Ger-
man Volksgeist (the genius of the people).” Völkerkunde, on the other
hand, was “colonially inspired and developmentally oriented” and,
in the years after World War I, “remained a small discipline” (Bunzl
1996b:685). These interpretations are widely held but are inaccurate
for eighteenth-century developments. More helpful is Chris Hann’s
assessment. In the preface to a series of lectures on “four [national]
traditions” in anthropology, Hann (2005:viii) distinguished the com-
parative enterprise of Völkerkunde (ethnology) from Volkskunde, which
he defined as “the study of one’s own people.”
In the debate on the origins of folklore studies, two elements
have traditionally been emphasized: the “romantic movement” in
literature, which began with Herder’s Volkslieder (1778– 79), and the
development in administration policies, in which statistical surveys
of large parts of the state, including the people, were conducted in
late eighteenth-century France (Brückner 1987:224). Ekkard’s Volks-
feste and Berkhey’s natural and culture history of Holland present
additional data in this debate. The next step in the emergence of the
ethnos sciences was to advance from a purely descriptive study of peo-
ples toward a general science of peoples, ethnologia.
A. F. Kollár and the Shift from Ethnographia to Ethnologia, 1781–87

It has long been assumed that Alexandre-César Chavannes (1731–
1800), professor of theology in Lausanne, was the first to use the term
ethnologie in 1787. In his “Essay on Intellectual Education with the
Project of a New Science,” Chavannes defined ethnologie as “the his-
tory of peoples progressing towards civilization.”93 A more complete
definition is the “science of man considered as belonging to a species
dispersed over the world and divided in numerous bodies of soci-
eties, or nations, occupied with providing to their needs and tastes,
and more or less civilized.”94 Chavannes considered ethnology to
be a part of “anthropology or the general study of man.”95 The “new
science” he referred to in 1787 was anthropology, not ethnology. In
the nineteenth century Chavannes’s work became known through
the research of the English physician James Hunt and the French
anthropologist Paul Topinard on the origins of the terms “ethnol-

ogy,” “ethnography,” and “anthropology.”96 In their wake numerous
European and American scholars have cited Chavannes’s definition
of ethnology as the concept’s earliest occurrence.97 It has been widely
accepted in western Europe that Chavannes created the neologism
ethnologie (Berthoud 1992:257).
This claim can no longer be maintained. Chavannes’s definition
was neither the first nor the most distinctive. Gerhard Lutz pointed
out in 1973 that the German historian and geographer Johann Ernst
Fabri (1787) used the term Ethnologie in the same year as Chavannes.
Fabri took the term as an alternative of Ethnographie and saw it not
as a designation of Völkerkunde but as something larger, combining
both Völkerkunde and Volkskunde (Lutz 1973:24). A relation between
these scholars has to be excluded, since Fabri was educated in Halle,
whereas Chavannes had ties to the University of Göttingen (through
Isaak Iselin of Basel, who had studied at Göttingen) but never stud-
ied there himself. Lutz thought it probable that these authors had
independently arrived at the term Ethnologie by modifying the Eth-
nographie concept. He assumed incorrectly that the Germans had
invented the term Ethnographie, while the French subsequently trans-
formed it into Ethnologie.
The discovery of an earlier reference by Ján Tibenský, a histo-
rian from Bratislava, solved this issue in 1978.98 Tibenský found that
ethnologia had already surfaced in the 1783 work of Adam František
(Franz) Kollár (1718–83), a Slovak historian who served as imperial
librarian in Vienna (fig. 9). In his “Amenities of the History and
Constitutional Law of the Kingdom of Hungary” (Historiae iuris-
que publici Regni Ungariae amoenitates, 1783), Kollár used the term
ethnologia and provided a first definition. Using the term before
Chavannes and Fabri, Kollár supplied a definition that was differ-
ent from Chavannes’s but close to Schlözer’s (implicit) meaning for
Völkerkunde. Chavannes’s definition of ethnology as “the history of
peoples progressing towards civilization” or of “nations [being] more
or less civilized” fit well with the Late Enlightenment’s theory of
stage-like progress (Meek 1976). Four years earlier, however, Kollár
had defined ethnologia in quite a different way:
Ethnology, which I have mentioned occasionally above, is the science
of peoples and nations (notitia gentium populorumque), or, that study

by learned men in which they investigate the origins, languages, cus-
toms, and institutions of various peoples and finally their fatherland
and ancient settlements [sedes], in order to be able better to judge
the peoples and nations in their own times. (Kollár 1783, vol. 1:80)99
Writing in Vienna, the capital of a multilingual and multiethnic state,

Kollár generalized Schlözer’s view and extended ethnologia to “peo-
ples and nations” (gens and populus). The list of topics in this defini-
tion included the origins, languages, customs, (legal) institutions,
and “ancient settlements” of nations. In addition, ethnology had a
practical purpose: to improve evaluations of peoples and nations in
their own era. Previously, in his annotations to the second edition
of Vienna’s Imperial Court Library catalog by Petrus Lambecius
(Peter Lambeck), Kollár had written in 1781: “Beyond the Danube
and the Don, the Greeks noticed very little in geography and noth-
ing in ethnology (in ethnologicis).”100 This was the first occurrence of
the term ethnologia, as far as we now know.
Kollár’s comment about the limitations of Greek ethnology came
close to Schlözer’s view on their cosmological ignorance (Welt-
Unkunde) (Schlözer 1771a:286, 291). In fact, Schlözer’s Ethnographie
was similar to Kollár’s ethnologia because both concepts referred to
a historical description of peoples. However, Kollár added “nations,”
since he referred to ethnology as notitia gentium populorumque, that
is, “the study of peoples and nations,” or perhaps more suited to the
subtleties of the English language, “of tribes and nations.” One of
ethnology’s aims was to arrive at reliable information about “the ori-
gins of nations,” or as Schlözer phrased it, “origines gentibus.” While
this had been an old problem, the linguistic method of arriving at
information on the early (undocumented) history of peoples was
innovative. As explained in chapter 2, this was the ethnolinguistic
method introduced by Leibniz.
In translating notitia gentium populorumque as “the study of peo-
ples and nations,” we encounter a linguistic problem. A German
translation of notitia gentium populorumque is die Kunde/das Wis-
sen über Stämme und Völker, which in English would be “the study
of tribes and peoples.”101 However, since the plural “peoples” is not
often used in English, I opted for the plural “nations” (as a synonym
of “peoples,” i.e., nations in a nonpolitical sense). Moreover, the word

Fig. 9. Adam František Kollár by Josef Hauzinger, 1779. Courtesy of the
Hungarian National Museum, Historical Gallery, Budapest. Photo: Judit
Kardos, Budapest, Hungary.
“tribe” does not seem to be a proper translation for gens. I therefore
chose the phrase “peoples and nations” for the English translation
of Kollár’s definition of ethnology. Although Stagl translates gens as
“nation” and populus as “people,” as I did in 1995, I now tend to reverse
them.102 There is room for debate here. Is the Latin word gens prop-
erly translated into English as “people” (Volk)? The German equiva-
lent of gens is Sippe (kin, tribe, or clan), while in Gaelic gens might
be best translated as “clan.” So, an English translation of notitia gen-
tium populorumque could also be “the study of clans and nations.”
However, to argue about which is the better definition would be
to miss the point. By including both Latin concepts gens and popu-
lus in his definition of ethnologia (as a neo-Greek translation of the
German concept Völkerkunde), Kollár indicated that the problem of
gens versus populus, of tribe versus nation, of peoples versus nations
was part and parcel of the study of peoples and nations. What is the
difference between these phenomena? How do these terms relate to
each other? What groups of people do they refer to? How are these
groups related? In principle, at least until 1815, peoples and nations
were synonymous and used interchangeably in most Western lan-
guages. The key differences were scale and composition, for populus
was larger, combining people from different gentes, which included
distinguishing between a homogeneous unit (gens) and a heteroge-
neous one (populus).
However this may be, Schlözer’s and Kollár’s notions of Eth-
nographie and ethnologia were clearly of a different kind than Cha-
vannes’s notion of ethnologie. The Croatian ethnologist Vitomir Belaj
expressed the difference in the following way: whereas the defini-
tion given by Chavannes “puts an emphasis on the understanding
of the laws of the general development of mankind,” Kollár’s defi-
nition stresses “the ethnic characteristics of the culture of a certain
group of people (gens).” While Kollár’s “criteria are cultural” and his
orientation is historical, Chavannes’s “subject matter is ‘people’ as a
political, i.e., sociological category.” In addition, Chavannes’s “aim
is to reconstruct the universal cultural development of all mankind”
(Belaj 1989:15). Belaj also pointed to the different conceptions of Volk
implicit in these definitions of ethnology. For Kollár the “ethnic
characteristics” of a group of people are considered important; for
Chavannes “people” becomes a sociopolitical category or “another

word for a certain stage of development in the hierarchy of univer-
sal history” (Belaj 1989:15).
This distinction is consistent with Schlözer’s distinction among
a geographical, a genetic (historical), and a political conception of
Volk. The only complication is that Kollár used both gens and populus
in his definition. In my opinion Kollár was registering the problem’s
complexity by including both terms in his definition of ethnologia.
Ethnology as a general study of peoples was formulated in the
academy, whereas ethnography as an empirical description of peoples
was developed in the field. Ethnology arose in the study of the latter.
First Schlözer and Gatterer at the University of Göttingen and then
Kollár, the éminence grise of the historians in the Habsburg Empire,
incorporated the ethnological perspective that went back to Mül-
ler’s pioneering exploits into history. As head of Vienna’s Imperial
Court Library, Kollár occupied a strategic position with the broad-
est view on the past and present state of the Holy Roman Empire
of the German Nation and its past and present ethnic and religious
diversity. As historians of the Late Enlightenment, Schlözer and
Kollár had an open eye for the contemporary situation of peoples
in central and eastern Europe as well as in Asia. Kollár’s definition
clearly reflected this when he formulated ethnologia’s aim: “to be able
to judge the peoples and nations in their own times.”
Kollár knew and appreciated Schlözer’s work (Kollár 1783, vol.
1:81, 126, vol. 2:10, 102), and Schlözer cited an early study by Kollár
(1763) about the possible relation between Hungarian and Turkish
(Schlözer 1768a:98, 1771a:248, 241; also cited in Gatterer 1771:119).
Both Kollár and Schlözer focused on the peoples of northern, cen-
tral, and eastern Europe from a historical and a contemporary per-
spective. Kollár’s inspiration arose from the ethnic composition of
the two Pannonias, recently liberated from the Turks. Reflecting
on the ethnic diversity of this region, Kollár drew on Byzantine
chronicles to prove that the Slavic peoples of these territories were
“aborigines & autochthonae” (Kollár 1783, vol. 1:80–81). This topic
also appealed to Schlözer, who demonstrated in his Allgemeine Nor-
dische Geschichte that the Slavic peoples were autochthonous to Ger-
many between the Elbe and the Vistula and that the Slavs were a
Stamm-Volk of the European North (Schlözer 1771a:323–344).103 Stagl
(2002a:258–259) notes that Schlözer’s Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte

served as the prime example for Kollár’s book on the history and
constitutional law of the kingdom of Hungary. As we have seen,
Schlözer’s inspiration derived from the linguistic material on Sibe-
ria’s peoples that Fischer and Müller had provided, and he was fas-
cinated by the Scandinavian “Varangians” founding the first Russian
state in the ninth century. Thus Kollár and Schlözer were working
on the same research problem—the origins of peoples, nations, and
states—using the same material—namely, dictionaries, grammars,
and chronicles.
Chavannes’s perspective was shaped by different interests. As a
theology professor in Lausanne, the French-speaking part of Swit-
zerland, Chavannes had an interest in pedagogy. He designed pro-
grams for educating children in various stages of learning. Both
anthropology and ethnology had a function in his programs, even
if his main interest was in anthropology. Between 1766 and 1787
he penned a fifteen-volume manuscript on Anthropologie ou science
générale de l’homme, of which he published an abstract in 1788. Eth-
nology’s position in this framework should be studied to establish
how Chavannes saw the relation between anthropology and ethnol-
ogy. Reflecting the Late Enlightenment theory of stage-like prog-
ress, Chavannes arranged peoples according to their customs, or on
the basis of levels or stages of civilization. This was a key difference
between his work and that of the German scholars, who classified
peoples on the basis of their languages. Apparently, Chavannes built
on the “conjectural” research tradition, in which “savage” and “civi-
lized” societies were juxtaposed in order to find “a living image of our
ancestors” by studying “the history of wild peoples” (Kraft 1766).104
The Scottish Enlightenment scholar Adam Ferguson explained this
principle in 1767:
It is in their present condition [of Arabic clans and American tribes],
that we are to behold, as in a mirrour, the features of our own pro-
genitors; and from thence we are to draw our conclusions with respect
to the influence of situations, in which, we have reason to believe,
our fathers were placed. (Ferguson 1767, pt. 2, sec. 1)
The literature from this “conjectural” tradition is substantial and

includes such authors as Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, Anne-
Robert-Jacques Turgot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Antoine-Yves Goguet,

Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, and Nicolas de Condorcet in France;
Adam Ferguson, John Millar, Lord Kames, James Dunbar, Wil-
liam Falconer, and William Robertson in Scotland; Jens Kraft in
Denmark; Isaak Iselin in Switzerland; and Georg Forster in Ger-
many (Meek 1976; Krauss 1978:48–93). Although French-speaking,
Chavannes was well informed about German scientific develop-
ments, especially in Göttingen. Among his predecessors were Jens
Kraft, author of the “Short account of the chief institutions, man-
ners and customs of savage peoples: To explain the origins and rise
of humankind” (1760); historian Isaak Iselin, who studied at Göt-
tingen and published “Philosophical conjectures on the history of
humankind” (1764); and Michael Hißmann and Christoph Mein-
ers in Göttingen, who used the conjectural tradition contrasting
“savage” and “civilized” peoples to trace humankind’s development
(more on the “history of humankind” in chapter 7).
The conjectural tradition and its theory of three (or four) stages of
progress remained influential until the nineteenth century and stood
as the basis of social evolutionism. It was a different approach from
that of Leibniz, Müller, and Schlözer, who compared peoples on
the basis of their languages instead of their customs or institutions.
The ethnolinguistic approach inspired by Leibniz became a tradi-
tion in the German-speaking countries. It was less speculative and
less judgmental. The approach reflected on the world’s ethnic diver-
sity (Völkervielfalt) rather than judging a people’s way of life from a
moralistic high ground in which “civilized” was favored over “sav-
age” and “barbaric.” In contrast to the conjectural tradition, the tra-
dition of Müller, Schlözer, Gatterer, and Kollár was “ethnological,”
or “historical-genetic” in Schlözer’s terms. While we encounter the
terms Ethnographie and Ethnologie in the work of German-speaking
historians, they are largely absent from that of philosophers like
Herder and Kant.
The View of Herder
Apart from the view of Schlözer and Kollár on the one hand, and
that of Chavannes on the other, there was a third perspective on
ethnology. This relativist view was developed by the theologian,
philosopher, and historian Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803)
and particularly influential in northern and eastern Europe. In his

works on philosophy, history, and the origins of language, Herder
pointed to a number of subjects neglected by Enlightenment scholar-
ship, adding organic growth, “national identity” (Nationalcharakter),
and “national spirit” (Volksgeist) to its vocabulary. Of all the German
philosophers mentioned in the present book, he is the best known
(after his teacher, Kant), and his place in the history of anthropol-
ogy is secure. Herder’s ideas about the originality of the “folk-life,”
as expressed in the national songs (Volkslieder) he began to collect
in 1772, contributed to the rise of nationalism in the first half of the
nineteenth century. Franz Boas used Herder’s ideas in his successful
attempt to found modern anthropology in the United States (see the
epilogue). There is no doubt that Herder’s work was and is a major
source of anthropological reflection.105
Nevertheless, Herder entertained an ambivalent relationship with
ethnography owing to his ideas about peoples. While for Schlözer
Volk was a taxonomic unit, that is, a subgroup of the larger unit of
humankind, Herder understood Volk to be a natural and organic entity
in which humanity expressed itself. Schlözer was an adherent of the
Late Enlightenment, whereas Herder in some respects belonged to
that countermovement to the Enlightenment called Frühromantik.
He was among those who inspired the Sturm und Drang literary
movement (F. Barnard 1964, 1965; Fink 1993), resulting in Romanti-
cism proper (Hochromantik), especially in Jena from 1798 on. In other
respects, Herder was an Enlightenment figure, having studied with
Kant in Königsberg between 1762 and 1764. Although Herder was
critical of the Enlightenment’s universalism, especially after meet-
ing the philosophes in Paris, recently his work has been reevaluated
as part of the Enlightenment’s auto-critique.106
In 1772 Herder launched a forceful attack on Schlözer’s concept
of ethnographisch, which sounded “harsh” (hart) to him, as well as
on Schlözer’s theory of world history, which he found too mech-
anistic.107 Herder was especially critical of Schlözer’s assumption
that mankind was progressing through specific stages of civiliza-
tion toward a penultimate goal:
Where is that one great endpoint? Where is the straight way leading
to it? What does “progress of the human race” mean? Is it Enlight-
enment? Improvement? Self-perfection? Greater happiness? Where

is the yardstick? How are we to use data for measuring so many dif-
ferent periods and peoples, even with the best of outside informa-
tion? (Herder 1772:476)108
Schlözer reacted with a second volume of his Vorstellung (1773b), in

which he declared that he did not know if the term “ethnographic”
was new.109 He reiterated his argument against Herder’s main cri-
tique. While Herder had attacked his general Enlightenment model,
he failed to perceive Schlözer’s primary theme, the increasing inter-
connectedness of humankind.
Personal rivalry played a role in this debate. Götz von Selle (1937),
the University of Göttingen’s historian, observed that Herder dam-
aged himself by criticizing Schlözer, while Rudolf Haym (1877–85),
Herder’s biographer, interpreted it as revenge for Schlözer’s teacher
Michaelis blocking Herder’s professorial candidature in Göttingen.
As Schlözer (1773b) surmised, Herder was grinding somebody else’s
axe.110 Future reactions by Herder to Schlözer’s work were less neg-
ative. He appreciated Schlözer’s Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte and
positively reviewed the third edition of his world history.111
Herder was simultaneously writing his own world history. To this
project he contributed part of his travel journal (1769); a fragment on
the subject’s teaching (1773, unpublished at the time); his celebrated
essay Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit
(1774); his main work Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Mensch-
heit (1784–91); and Briefe zu Beförderung der Humanität (1793– 97).
Herder presented a relativist, almost pluralist vision of world history
in which Humanität (humaneness) was a core concept. He devised a
new teleological view of peoples unfolding toward humaneness. Peo-
ples were not objects in an “aggregate,” as the authors of the Brit-
ish Universal History suggested (a view also criticized by Schlözer),
but the “most noble part of humanity” (edelsten Teil der Menschheit).
Their specificity was not to be judged by their stage. Rather, a par-
ticularistic and holistic approach was necessary to do justice to the
inherent value of peoples and nations.
Herder’s four-volume Ideen constitutes an anthropology in the
widest sense. His ethnological views were deeply entrenched in his
anthropological understanding of humankind and of Völker as the
bearers of humanity. Although his work was ultimately teleological,

Herder aimed for an empirical foundation. He formulated a “pro-
gram of global ethnology” in the journal of his voyage to France,
Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769, published only in 1846 (Mühl-
mann 1968:64). The sixth and eleventh books of his Ideen presented
“an overview of ethnology according to the contemporary state of
knowledge.”112 They contain ethnographic descriptions of the peo-
ples of the world based on a large number of sources, including
eighty travel accounts.
Herder (fig. 10) seems to have avoided the term Ethnographie but
occasionally used the term Völkerkunde, although never again eth-
nographisch. Instead, he preferred poetic phrases such as a “painting
of nations” (Gemälde der Nationen) or “a painting of the diversity of
our species” (ein Gemälde der Verschiedenheit unsres Geschlechts). As an
alternative for the French term sauvages (Wilden, savages), Herder in
1774– 76 coined the word Naturvölker (natural peoples), that is, “peo-
ples living in the bosom of nature.”113 Naturvölker became a house-
hold term in anthropology.
John Zammito (2002) claims that Kant and Herder founded
anthropology during the late 1760s and early 1770s. Focusing on
the precritical Kant—before the 1773 “critical turn”—and on Her-
der’s reformulation of Kant, Zammito argues that anthropology “was
born out of philosophy.” This applies to anthropology as the phil-
osophical and physical study of humankind—not to ethnology as
the study of sociocultural diversity. Zammito (2002:344) concludes,
“Herder sought to bring all the modes of inquiry together into a ‘sci-
ence of man,’ into anthropology in the eighteenth-century sense. He
was, in that measure, the ‘complete anthropologist’ of that age.” In
Herder’s case the ethnological perspective was embedded in a broad
view of the anthropology of humankind.
Ironically, while rejecting Schlözer’s ethnographic method, Herder
contributed to the rise of nationalism in Europe. Schlözer, a patriot
(citoyen or Weltbürger), introduced the new science of peoples and
nations without any influence of nationalism, which developed later.
But Herder’s ideas about the originality of the “folk-life” and the
unicity of individual peoples and cultures were adopted in nationalist
programs during the early nineteenth century, particularly in Poland
and Bohemia (Ziegengeist, Graßhoff, and Lehmann 1978; Drews
1990). Nevertheless, Herder’s concept of Humanität, transcending

Fig. 10. Johann Gottfried Herder by Anton Graff, 1785. Courtesy of the
Gleimhaus Halberstadt. Photo: Ulrich Schrader, Halberstadt, Germany.
the national aspirations of peoples, was his “chief contribution to

the humanist tradition of the Enlightenment” (F. Barnard 1965:99).
The relation between “nation” and Volk is relevant in the context of
discussions on ethnicity as a more general phenomenon. Völkerkunde
entailed a reflection on the condition of peoples and nations, but it
developed before nationalism had reached the magnitude that it shone
on the world stage, after 1815 and especially 1848 (Gellner 1983; Dann
1993). This raises a question: How was it possible that the study of

nations dubbed Völkerkunde was conceived before the political move-
ment of European nation-states gained momentum?
State, Volk, and Nation

The linguistic criterion for defining a Volk (people, peuple, pueblo) was
a major innovation in the study of populations. Until the founding
of nation-states in the nineteenth century, the terms Volk and Nation
were used as synonyms in German. The word “nation” derived from
natus (the past participle of the Latin verb nasci, “to be born”). In the
eighteenth century Volk or nation usually referred to a group of peo-
ple who shared a common descent, homeland, history, and language.
However, the concept of Volk or nation was even then ambiguous.
As we have seen, Schlözer (1772:104, 1775:298) distinguished three
different types of Volk: (1) in the geographical sense, people belong
to a category (Klasse [in the Linnaean sense]); (2) in the genetic (or
historical) sense, they make up a tribe (Stamm); (3) in the political
sense, they belong to a state. These terms were applied to members
of a geo-historical unit (a country or Land); people with a common
heritage (gens); and those sharing a nationality or citizenship (in a
political sense, people subject to a state). In the first (geographical)
type, all Germans and Czechs living in Bohemia were members of
the “Bohemian nation.” In the second (genetic) sort, the people of
Swabia belonged to the tribe of the Schwaben. In the third (politi-
cal) type, Strahlenberg was of German descent, born in Pomerania,
but a citizen of Sweden; Niebuhr was of German descent, born in
Holstein, but a citizen of Denmark. However, both Strahlenberg’s
and Niebuhr’s mother tongue was Low German. Kollár described
himself as Hungarus, but his mother tongue was Slovak and contem-
poraries called him the “Slovak Socrates” (Tibenský 1983). Schlöz-
er’s fatherland was Franconia; he was known as a Franke, not as a
German. Although the idea of a German nation was well estab-
lished by 1808 (Fichte 1808), a German nation-state was born only
in 1871, when Otto von Bismarck created the German Empire. Until
then, students matriculating at a university were registered according
to their countries of birth (nationes): Michaelis, Halensis; Niebuhr,
Hadelensis; Schlözer, Franconia. These entries referred to territories
and were related to a political conception of Volk.
Kollár’s definition of ethnology (notitia gentium populorumque)

makes clear that Latin has two concepts: gens and populus.114 The first
can be translated as “tribe” (clan), the second as “people” (nation).
The difference is that the first term related to a homogeneous peo-
ple (related by descent), the second to people in a heterogeneous,
composite sense (consisting of different tribes or gentes). However,
eighteenth-century German speakers were inconsistent in this regard.
They usually opted for gens but sometimes used populus. The follow-
ing examples illustrate this. Müller’s first instruction was titled “De
historia gentium” (on the history of peoples), but it began with the
phrase “Ad promovendum studium historiae populorum,” that is, “to
promote the study of the history of peoples” (Hintzsche 2004:145).
However, Müller usually employed the term gens. In his lecture
“On the origins of the Russian people and their name,” written in
1749, Müller (1768) spoke about Origines gentis et nominis Russorum.
His colleague Fischer compiled a vocabulary that counted thirty-
four “Siberian peoples” (again, gentes). Leibniz had used the same
term for the origins of peoples (origines gentium). Schlözer (1771a)
also spoke of origines gentium but in his memoirs (1802) switched
to origines populorum.115 Jean Bodin (1566) envisioned a “scientia de
moribus et naturam populorum” (study of the manners and nature of
peoples). In addition, one finds Nationen (Niebuhr 1774– 78; Georgi
1776–80; Schlözer 1771a, 1772; Herder 1784–91) or Nazionen (Niebuhr
1784; Falck 1785–86; Lang 1809–17) in the contemporary literature.
The complexity of these semantic problems, and the sociopolit-
ical realities they referred to, spurred scholars throughout Europe
to study these phenomena. Nations are “imagined communities,” in
Benedict Anderson’s famous 1983 phrase. They are an abstraction,
impossible to observe. Yet they exist in people’s minds. Undoubtedly,
they were a factor to be reckoned with in the eighteenth century. The
data assembled in the present book demonstrate that the problem of
peoples and tribes, of nations and states, and their mutual relations,
preoccupied many eighteenth-century scholars. The larger question
is, whence derived these ethnological ideas? Where did German-
speaking scholars like Müller, Schlözer, and Kollár—founders of
ethnography and ethnology— obtain their ethnological perspec-
tive, and where did they receive the idea of a diversity of peoples
requiring description? Moreover, did the German-speaking scholars
invent something original, or were they building on ideas of others?

Of course, the idea of a multitude of peoples is prevalent in the
Bible. The “genealogical table” (Völkertafel) in Genesis traces all
known peoples back to Noah’s three sons: Sem, Ham, and Japheth.
To demonstrate their right to power, rulers of state wanted to estab-
lish a direct line to these ancestors. Historians assisted by producing
fictive genealogies that connected historical figures from biblical times
to the rulers of their own era. In the Holy Roman Empire, “imperial
history” (Reichsgeschichte) was important for making such claims; in
Russia, the tsar’s ancestry was traced to the Roman emperor Augus-
tus.116 Historians like Müller and Schlözer took a critical stand against
this practice and collected material for more accurate genealogies.
The Latin concepts gens, populus, and natio derive from Greek and
Roman works reintroduced by the Renaissance humanists who laid
the foundation for modern science. The fact that Kollár included
both gens and populus in his definition of ethnology is a case in point.
For the Greeks a people (ethnos) was primarily defined by its origins
and descent, including cultural traditions; the Romans adopted this
meaning as origo (gentis) (K. E. Müller 1972–80).
Principles from the study of “natural law” ( jus naturae) also found
their way into the new ethnological discourse. Developed by phi-
losophers from Aquinas, Hobbes, and Grotius to Pufendorf, Locke,
and Thomasius, natural law was an ethical theory positing the
existence of a law whose content was part of nature and therefore
had validity everywhere.117 Often opposed to the “positive law” of
a given political community, society, or state, it provided a stan-
dard by which to criticize human-made laws and served both the
Scottish Enlightenment and the American Revolution. Achen-
wall, who taught Statistik at Göttingen from 1748 until 1772, was
a legal scholar. Various interpretations of “natural law” and the
“law of nations” ( jus gentium, with which particularly Grotius was
associated) validated definitions of Volk and nation in the German
Enlightenment, thereby indirectly contributing to the formation of
ethnology. Of special interest to natural law studies was the com-
plex relationship between peoples and states, that is, nations with
and without a state. The former could not be studied in political his-
tory (historia civilis) and needed “ethnic history” (historia gentium),
as Bel (1718), Müller (1732), and Gatterer (1773b) made clear. Nat-
ural law concepts about the rights of minority peoples in the state

of which they were part played an important role. As a historian,
Müller paid attention to the customary or traditional rights of small-
numbered peoples and to the expanding Russian Empire’s viola-
tion of these rights (Elert 2003). The issue of collective rights also
preoccupied Schlözer. After the French Revolution, he demanded
in 1791 human rights (Menschenrechte) for Polish and Russian serfs
(Mühlpfordt 1983a:154).
The Holy Roman Empire’s cultural, linguistic, political, and reli-
gious diversity played a key role in ethnography’s emergence. The
empire consisted of more than three hundred sovereign entities, ruled
nominally by the emperor in Vienna (Schlözer 1775:207, 281). This
political division had been superimposed over the ancient division
of “tribes” (Stämme) that characterized Germania in Tacitus’s days.
In the Middle Ages Germany had been divided into four duchies:
Franconia, Saxony, Swabia, and Bavaria. Prussia and Austria were
later additions to the German-speaking lands. The Holy Roman
Empire had not had political unity since at least the sixteenth cen-
tury. Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German created
a common language, but the Reformation led to the Thirty Years’
War. This conflict between Protestants and Catholics was mainly
fought in the central European territory of the Holy Roman Empire
and involved most of the western and central European powers like
Spain, Habsburg Austria, France, Denmark, Sweden, and Holland.
Except for the recognition of the Habsburg emperor (elected by elec-
tors) as its head of state, the Holy Roman Empire (to which now
the phrase “of the German Nation” was added) lost its last vestige
of unity in 1648. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648, which ended the
Thirty Years’ War, introduced the idea of sovereign nation-states,
with their precise demarcations of borders and subjects.118 The trea-
ties of Westphalia began the era of dynastic absolutism in most of
the German lands as the rulers received unrestricted political power
over subjects in their states and statelets. In many of these, the ruler
decided what the main religion would be. The complexity of these
divisions influenced German thinking about the diversity of peo-
ples and their relation to the state.
During the eighteenth century, the feeling increased among
intellectuals that Germany was or ought to be a cultural unity,
a Kulturnation. Enlightenment philosophers in the central Ger-

man universities of Halle, Leipzig, Wittenberg, Jena, and Erfurt
strengthened the feeling of unity by promoting High German as
the national language (Mühlpfordt 2011, 2014). Most of the schol-
ars practicing ethnography had been educated at these universities.
From the 1770s on, this sentiment of cultural unity over political
and religious diversity was expressed in the German Movement
(deutsche Bewegung), which was seminal in promoting German lan-
guage and culture (Meinecke 1936; Antoni 1951; Nohl 1970). Ever
since Thomasius had begun to lecture in German and published
the first scholarly journal in German (1687–88), literary and aca-
demic circles increasingly used the German language. But if the
main criterion for the constitution of a Volk was language, schol-
ars in the German lands were faced with the coexistence of at least
two languages, Low German (Plattdeutsch, Niederdeutsch) and High
German (Hochdeutsch), in addition to numerous dialects. Whereas
Müller and Schlözer glosssed over such problems by employing a
single concept in German (Völker), Kollár in Vienna seems to have
recognized the problem’s full complexity by including both gens and
populus in his definition of ethnology.
The establishment of nation-states in the nineteenth century com-
plicated matters when the political conception of peoples became
dominant. Today, the United States, with a population descending
from many peoples (British, French, Spanish, German, Iroquois,
Delaware, to name but a few) and several “races,” is considered one
“nation.” Politicians refer to it as “the nation.” This nation is now
divided into fifty states and a federal district. But the Iroquois spoke
of themselves as “the Five Nations” and were considered a “tribe”
by eighteenth-century English and French colonists. How do these
various conceptions of “nation” relate to each other? All sorts of
questions related to scale, nationality, citizenship, and legal rights
play a role here.
In France, the nation-state emerged during the French Revolu-
tion (1789– 99), when the people’s cry “Vive la Nation” (long live the
people) replaced the traditional “Vive le Roi” (long live the king).
David Bell (2001) argues that nationalism emerged during the French
Revolution, when revolutionaries aimed to replace the old bind-
ing force of Christianity with patriotism and national sentiment.
In this context, the duality of state and nation became manifest to

German intellectuals, which was all the more apparent after Napo-
leon’s troops occupied most of the Holy Roman Empire in 1805– 6.
The progress of reason, aiming at the well-being of the state’s citi-
zens, or the “common good,” appealed to Enlightenment thinkers.
Few German-trained academics mourned Napoleon’s dissolution
of the empire in 1806. Nevertheless, in the debate between mod-
ernists and traditionalists about the birth of the modern nation,
I contend that the diversity of peoples and nations had become a
serious object of study for historians in both Russia and Germany
long before 1789.
The basic problem of political disunity versus multicultural diver-
sity was reflected in the German scholarly agenda. The various pat-
terns of development from tribe and nation to a territorial state and
the nation-state became an urgent issue for historical study. German
political disunity brought to the fore the notion that language was
a characteristic of people’s identity, that language was a marker of
ethnicity, and that a people (Volk) was especially, although not exclu-
sively, defined by its language (Sprache). These ideas were seminal
in German eighteenth-century scholarship. They formed the back-
ground to Leibniz’s thesis that the comparative study of languages
was the only reliable tool for tracing connections between peoples in
prehistory, that is, before written documents. This thesis fit well with
the Early Enlightenment’s emphasis on empirical observation. As
noted, German scholars primarily developed the historical-genetic
conception of Volk, characterized by language (Schlözer’s second
type). Leibniz’s program of historical etymology was carried out by
students from central Germany like Messerschmidt, Müller, Fischer,
and Schlözer in the Russian Empire. Strahlenberg learned the pro-
gram from Messerschmidt and transmitted it to Tatishchev. Pierre-
François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1766) and Benjamin Smith Barton
(1798) applied it to North America. The lexicographer Samuel John-
son referred to it while touring Scotland in 1773, explaining, “There
is no tracing the connection of ancient nations, but by language; and
therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost, because lan-
guages are the pedigree of nations” (Boswell 1785).
The linguistic conception of peoples was partly adopted by the
Russian government, which ruled a centralized empire (the oppo-
site of the Holy Roman Empire) in which Russian was the most

frequently spoken language, yet not the language of an overwhelm-
ing majority of the population. Around 1500 Muscovy had been a
Russian state between the Ural Mountains, Ukraine, the Cauca-
sus, the White Sea, and the Baltic coast. From territorial expan-
sion Tsar Peter inherited a vast empire with enormous cultural and
natural diversity. Although curiosity played a part in Peter’s inter-
ests, as evident by the founding of the Kunstkamera (1714) and the
Academy of Sciences (1724–25), the utilitarian exploitation of natu-
ral resources and the population remained the primary concern for
Russian rulers. Both factors, scientific and economic gains, were
present in the expeditions dispatched to all corners of the empire.
Müller, Pallas, and others were instructed to enumerate the eth-
nic mosaic.
As discussed in chapters 3 and 4, the Russian Empire consisted of
a large variety of peoples, and the authorities needed them described
for political and economic reasons. In the eighteenth century Sibe-
ria’s peoples were regarded as “providers of taxes and furs.” The Rus-
sian view of peoples was utilitarian: they were seen as resources that
needed to be tapped, contributing to the empire’s wealth in much
the same way as natural resources. Previously, the Russian view
of peoples had been determined either by religion (inovertsy, peo-
ple of different faith) or by foreignness (inozemtsy, people of differ-
ent origin). Under the Petrine reforms the idea of peoples (narody)
as a resource came to the fore alongside cameralist concerns about
how the state could profit from its inhabitants. German and Rus-
sian views of peoples or nations reinforced one another. The Rus-
sian need for a description of the empire’s peoples inspired German
scholars to initiate a scientific program for the empirical study of
peoples. This, in turn, led the Russian authorities to adopt cer-
tain principles and add a linguistic perspective of peoples to their
repertoire, even if the economic view remained dominant until at
least 1822, when Speranskii initiated reforms in the administration
of Siberian peoples.
In sum, the emergence of ethnography as an academic study was
related to the Enlightenment’s universalist and empirical tenden-
cies as well as to tsarist and Habsburg’s processes of state forma-
tion and empire building. An additional factor was the increasing
amount of knowledge about peoples in Siberia and other parts of the

world. The Völkervielfalt (national diversity) of the Russian Empire
attracted scholars like Messerschmidt, Tatishchev, Müller, Fischer,
Steller, Schlözer, Pallas, and others. This empire was a multina-
tional state that linked the European parts of Russia with the peo-
ples formerly under Tatar control and the small-numbered peoples
in the northern and northeastern parts of Eurasia. The accumulated
knowledge about the world’s peoples was incorporated into historical
and geographical studies at the University of Göttingen. Schlözer
and Gatterer processed field studies by Müller and others into their
own writings, prompting a theoretical level of analysis. They were
faced with a variety of questions that have occupied ethnologists ever
since, for example, How many peoples exist, what defines a people
(Volk), which peoples are to be included in the research, and what
aspects of these peoples should be studied? Kollár extended Müller
and Schlözer’s argument and generalized the problem, drawing on a
more pressing subject at hand: the management of ethnic or national
diversity in the Austrian parts of the Holy Roman Empire or, after
1867, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The past, present, and future
of central and eastern Europeans were thoroughly intertwined with
the politics of multinational states.
Ethnological Journals
From the 1780s on scholars inside and outside the Holy Roman
Empire adopted the ethnological perspective introduced by Mül-
ler, Schlözer, Gatterer, and Kollár. Evidently, the concepts served
a need. Preceding approaches concerning manners and customs
that originated with the humanists were continued under the new
labels. Ethnology, ethnography, Völkerkunde, or Volkskunde served as
rubrics to group earlier approaches and continue the research with
more precise understanding. The adoption first occurred in German
and Latin sources. In the 1780s and 1790s the study of Völkerkunde
(ethnology) usually appeared in combination with Länderkunde
(geography) but was also combined with Literaturkunde (the study
of literature), Naturkunde (the study of nature), Menschenkunde (the
study of humans, or anthropology), and Staatenkunde (the study of
states). These new concepts populated not only textbooks, encyclo-
pedias, dictionaries, and articles in journals or handbooks but also
served their titles.

In the final decades of the eighteenth century, more than twenty
journals were published with the combination Völker- und Län-
derkunde (or vice versa) in their title. In a mere decade, 1781–90, no
less than twelve journals had Völkerkunde in their titles. With a few
exceptions (H. Fischer 1970; Vermeulen 1988:218–220, 1994a:340–342,
2008a:235–237), modern scholars have largely neglected the phenom-
enon. I consider them to be the first ethnological journals.
The first one, Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde (1781–90, 14
vols.), was edited by Johann Reinhold Forster and Matthias Chris-
tian Sprengel, both working at Halle. Sprengel and Georg Forster
continued it as Neue Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde (1790–
93, 13 vols.). As far as we know, this was the first historic usage of
Völkerkunde in a journal’s title.119 A collection of Georg Forster’s essays
carried the same combination of subjects in its title: Kleine Schriften:
Ein Beytrag zur Völker- und Länderkunde (1789–97). It is significant
that the Forsters included ethnology in their journal’s title, for the
discipline had but recently received a name.
Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–98) and his son Georg (1754–94)
served as naturalist and draftsman, respectively, on James Cook’s
second voyage around the world (1772– 75). During this expedition
they made observations in the fields of “Physical Geography, Natu-
ral History and Ethic Philosophy” (J. R. Forster 1778) and acquired
valuable collections of plants, zoological objects, and artifacts. They
also made anthropological, ethnological, and linguistic inquiries and
described overseas peoples using the methods of natural history.120
As naturalists both father and son Forster were attentive to anthro-
pology (see chapter 7). However, the inclusion of Völkerkunde in the
title of their journal and publications so soon after their return has
not been noticed because few ethnologists, apart from Bastian and
Plischke, were aware of its novelty. There were close ties between the
University of Göttingen, where the word Völkerkunde was born, and
the ethnological publications by father and son Forster. Georg Forster
was lauded at the University of Göttingen in 1778– 81. Here he may
have become acquainted with the new study named by Schlözer and
Gatterer. The Forsters may also have heard about Völkerkunde from
Matthias Christian Sprengel (1746–1803), who had studied under
Gatterer and Schlözer and later married one of Georg Forster’s sis-
ters. Sprengel, a professor of history at the University of Halle since

1779, studied and translated travel accounts together with Rein-
hold Forster, who became professor of natural history at Halle in
1780. Alternatively, Reinhold Forster may have learned about Mül-
ler’s ethnographic work even before Cook’s departure. At Cathe-
rine the Great’s invitation, he had investigated colonies of German
settlers near Saratov on the Volga. Together with his son, Georg,
Forster visited six settlements and collected hundreds of botanical
and zoological specimens between May and October 1765 (Steiner
1968). While Müller himself had left for Moscow in 1765, and Pal-
las arrived in St. Petersburg in 1767, Forster was aware of the Aca-
demic Expeditions, preparations for which began in 1765. He had
access to the collections of previous explorers at the academy and was
in contact with many scientists in St. Petersburg, where he and his
son resided until August 1766 (Hoare 1982:18). Apart from these per-
sonal connections, four things are clear. First, the Forsters’ research
experience during their trip with Cook had been preceded by field-
work in Russia. Second, they adopted the new term Völkerkunde only
after their return from the Pacific. Third, as in Schlözer’s case, this
term was not defined but regarded as self-evident. And fourth, the
Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde attracted considerable atten-
tion, as evidenced by its twenty-seven volumes and its availability in
most European university libraries, including those in Great Brit-
ain and Ireland.
That same year, Peter Simon Pallas launched the journal Neue Nor-
dische Beyträge zur physikalischen und geographischen Erd- und Völker-
beschreibung, Naturgeschichte und Ökonomie in four volumes (1781–83),
continued as Neueste Nordische Beyträge . . . in three volumes (1793–
96). As noted, Pallas had participated in the Academic Expedi-
tions of 1768– 74 and published extensively on the natural history
of Russian Asia and its inhabitants. Like Reinhold Forster, he was
an experienced traveler and innovative naturalist. By including the
term Völkerbeschreibung in his journal’s title, Pallas remained faith-
ful to Müller’s concept of an empirical description of peoples rather
than adopting Schlözer’s Völkerkunde.
The next journal including Völkerkunde in its title was the monthly
Litteratur und Völkerkunde, edited by Johann Wilhelm von Arch-
enholtz (1782–86) and continued as Neue Litteratur und Völkerkunde
(1787–91), totaling eighteen volumes. Archenholtz, a former Prus-

sian officer and the author of historical works, had made many con-
tacts during his travels through Europe, to Britain, Italy, France, and
Scandinavia. He was one of the first to visit the Forsters upon their
return in London. Publishing articles submitted by correspondents,
he included many articles of his own in this successful, widely dif-
fused monthly. It was succeeded by the well-known historical and
political journal Minerva (1792–1898).
Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann’s first journal, Magazin der Erd-
und Völkerkunde (1783–84), was likewise set up as a monthly but saw
only two issues. Ehrmann was a jurist and translator, first working
in Strasbourg, then in Stuttgart and Weimar. He wrote the first
overviews of Völkerkunde (Ehrmann 1787, 1792, 1808a) and published
a large number of travel accounts that are relevant to the history of
geography and ethnography (more on him later).
From 1785 on, the term Völkerkunde became popular in the for-
mat of Länder-, Völker- und Staatenkunde, that is, in combination
with geography and (political) history. Primary examples are Ger-
hard Philipp Heinrich Norrmann’s Geographisches und historisches
Handbuch der Länder-, Völker- und Staatenkunde (1785–98) and Fried-
rich Gottlieb Canzler’s Allgemeines Archiv für die Länder-, Völker-
und Staatenkunde (1787). These publications were discontinued, but
others were more successful. For instance, Friedrich Schulz pub-
lished a quarterly on geographical, statistical, political, and ethical
Länder- und Völkerkunde in twelve volumes titled Auserlesene Auf-
sätze zur geographischen, statistischen, politischen und sittlichen Län-
der- und Völkerkunde (1786–97). Friedrich Karl Gottlob Hirsching
edited Allgemeines Archiv für die Länder- und Völkerkunde in two vol-
umes (1790–91). Johann Georg Friedrich Papst and Johann Gottlieb
Cunradi published Die Reisenden für Länder- und Völkerkunde in five
volumes (1788–91). And Ehrmann issued Unterhaltungen für Freunde
der Länder- und Völkerkunde in two volumes (1790).
If this data is correlated with the location and age of the editors
when they started their periodicals, it becomes apparent that the
editors of the later journals were relatively young (see table 8). In
contrast to longtime travelers like Forster, Pallas, and Archenholtz,
who matured during extensive travels, Ehrmann, Schulz, Canzler,
and Hirsching were members of a younger generation who had no
hesitation adapting to the latest trend.

Table 8. Work location and age of the editors of the ethnological journals, 1781–1790
Name (dates of birth and Location of work Title of the journal (dates of publication) Location of Age at jour-
death) publication nal’s first
appearance
Forster, J. R. (1729–98) Halle Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde (1781–84) Leipzig 52
Sprengel, M. C. (1746–1803) Halle 1. Beiträge (1781–90) Leipzig 35

2. Neue Beiträge (1790–93) 44
Forster, G. (1754–94) Mainz Neue Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde (1790–93) Leipzig 36
Pallas, P. S. (1741–1811) St. Petersburg Neue Nordische Beyträge (1781–96) St. Petersburg 40
and Leipzig
Archenholtz, J. W. von Dresden, 1. Litteratur und Völkerkunde (1782–86) 1. Dessau 39
(1743–1812) later Hamburg 2. Neue L. und Vk. (1787–91) 2. Dessau and 44
Leipzig
Ehrmann, T. F. (1762–1811) Strasbourg Magazin der Erd- und Völkerkunde (1783–84) Gießen 21
Schulz, J. C. F. (1762–98) Berlin and Weimar Aufsätze zur . . . Länder- und Völkerkunde (1786–97) Berlin 24
Canzler, F. G. (1764–1811) Göttingen 1. Allg. Archiv (1787) 1. Göttingen 23
2. Neues Magazin (1790) 2. Leipzig 26
Papst, J. G. F. (1754–1821), Erlangen Die Reisenden für Länder- und Völkerkunde (1788–91) Nuremberg 34
Cunradi, J. G. (1757–1828) Magdeburg 31
Ehrmann, T. F. (1762–1811) Stuttgart Unterhaltungen . . . Länder- und Völkerkunde (1790) Stuttgart 28
Hirsching, F. K. G. (1762– Erlangen, Fran- Allg. Archiv für die Länder- und Völkerkunde (1790–91) Leipzig 28
337
1800) conia
Pescheck, C. A. (1760–1833) Zittau and Breslau Lausizisches Wochenblatt (1790–92) Zittau 30
The locations where the editors worked and the places of pub-
lication demonstrate that the large majority came from northern
Germany. This confirms Hans Fischer’s (1970:181–182) observation
that ethnology first developed in northern Germany, in places like
Göttingen, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dessau, and Berlin. Göttingen
was the leading center of geography, ethnology, and anthropol-
ogy in the Late Enlightenment (Ackerknecht 1955). At least two of
these editors had studied at Göttingen under Schlözer: Sprengel
and Canzler. Only in the second half of the 1780s did Völkerkunde
appear in journal titles published in southern Germany such as
Nuremberg and Erlangen (Papst and Cunradi 1788– 91; Hirsching
1790– 91, 1792).
The editors and publishers of the ethnological journals had to
position their journals in an uncertain but expanding book market.
Their periodicals followed the example of Büsching’s and Müller’s
historical-geographical and Schlözer’s historical-political journals
and tried to copy their success. Periodicals were of course older than
the eighteenth century. The Journal des Sçavans and the Philosophi-
cal Transactions of the French and British academies had served the
Republic of Letters since 1665. Otto Mencke issued the first learned
journal in the Holy Roman Empire, Acta Eruditorum, in 1682, and
Christian Thomasius published the first scholarly journal in the Ger-
man language in 1688–90. Both appeared at Leipzig, the center of
the German book trade. In the eighteenth century, with the eman-
cipation of the Bildungsbürger, or “educated middle class,” periodi-
cals became important for satisfying the growing appetite for news
about Europe, the overseas world, and discoveries in the arts and sci-
ences. Papers, journals, books, maps, and other publications catered
to this hunger for diversion and information. The editors of the eth-
nological journals tried to plug in to this market. The senior editors
proved to be more successful than the younger ones, probably on
account of their name recognition.
The journal business peaked in the 1790s and then dwindled from
the French Revolution’s political reverberations. Ehrmann edited
the Bibliothek der neuesten Länder- und Völkerkunde: Für Geographie-
Freunde (1791–94), Hirsching issued Denkwürdigkeiten für die Län-
der- und Völkerkunde (1792), and Sprengel published an Auswahl der

besten ausländischen geographischen und statistischen Nachrichten zur
Aufklärung der Länder- und Völkerkunde (1794–1800). When the Napo-
leonic Wars swept over Europe (1803–15), the authors and publish-
ers of geographical and statistical textbooks could no longer keep
up with the political events and the rapidly changing borders (Kühn
1939:132).
Geography and Ethnography

Völkerkunde became a household term in the German book trade of
the 1780s and 1790s. This was mainstream ethnology in the German
tradition of the late eighteenth century. The journals just mentioned—
and there were many more—contained travel accounts, geograph-
ical descriptions, and abstracts from articles about “lesser known
countries and peoples” (Ehrmann 1790). Ehrmann (1791–94) classi-
fied the accounts discussing Völkerkunde as geography (Erdkunde),
and Gatterer and Forster would have agreed with this assessment.
As noted previously, the trend of linking geography and eth-
nography had been initiated by Gatterer. Implied was an epistemic
shift, as ethnography was relegated from the field of history to that
of geography. Including ethnography in a widening geography, the
combination Länder- und Völkerkunde (geography and ethnogra-
phy) became a new tradition (see table 9). It might have been better
to label this tradition “ethnographic” rather than ethnological. But
the Germans of the 1780s opted for the synthetic term Völkerkunde,
viewing their notes and abstracts as contributions to a new and pop-
ular field: the study of all peoples.
From the 1780s on, ethnography was usually combined with
physical geography and political geography (Länder-, Völker- und
Staatenkunde). This combination of subjects became a tradition
that lasted well into the nineteenth century (H. Fischer 1970).
Many geographers, including Ritter and Berghaus, contributed to
it. Rejuvenating the tradition of Strabo, the German program of
combining geography and ethnography was also adopted abroad.
In the Netherlands, for instance, scholars coined the term land-
en volkenkunde, which, from the 1840s on, developed into the tri-
partite taal-, landen volkenkunde with the inclusion of linguistics
(see epilogue).

Table 9. Classifications of geography and ethnography
Greek-Roman tripartition: Varenius (1650) tripartition:

1. Geographia (description of the 1. Mathematical geography
earth) 2. Physical geography
2. Chorographia (description of areas, 3. Political geography
including the inhabitants)
3. Topographia (description of places)
Büsching (1758) dualism:
Länder- und Staatenkunde
Gatterer (1775) fourfold partition: Norrmann (1785–98) three-plus-
1. Gränzkunde (mathematical and three partition:
physical) 1. Mathematical geography
2. Länderkunde (chorography) 2. Physical geography
3. Staatenkunde (political geography) 3. Political geography:
4. Menschen- und Völkerkunde (a) Chorography
(anthropographia and ethnographia) (b) Ethnography
(c) Topography
Tripartition in the German tradi-
tion of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century:
Länder-, Völker- und Staatenkunde
(geography, ethnography, study of
states)
Dualism in nineteenth-century From dualism to tripartition in
Germany: the Netherlands (early nineteenth
Länder- und Völkerkunde century):
(geography and ethnography) landen volkenkunde (1836)
(from the 1880s on): (geography and ethnography)
Physio- versus Anthropogeographie taal-, landen volkenkunde
(physical- versus anthropogeography) (1842–51)
(linguistics, geography, and
ethnography)
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

As a result of the abundance of expedition reports, historical and
geographical textbooks, and ethnological journals, ethnography came
to the attention of German encyclopedists. The eighteenth century
was the age of encyclopedism, and German scholars around 1800
incorporated Ethnographie in their work. Kant’s silence about the
new discipline (see chapter 7) was all the more glaring since the phi-

losopher Wilhelm Traugott Krug, who succeeded Kant at Königs-
berg, included it in his “systematic encyclopedia of sciences” (Krug
1796–97). To Krug Ethnographie and Anthropographie were related,
as he placed both within geography and defined them as “a descrip-
tion of humans and peoples who inhabit the earth, with respect to
their physical and intellectual characteristics, their industry, artis-
tic craftsmanship, trade, customs and way of life, and their literary,
aesthetic, and religious culture.”121
In 1808 Johann Ernst Fabri (1755–1825), professor at the Univer-
sity of Erlangen, gave the discipline a prominent place in his ency-
clopedia of the historical sciences. Fabri (1808:100, 355) classified
Geographie as a part of history and Ethnographie as “an indepen-
dent science.” He divided the “synchronistic historical sciences” into
Geographie (or Erdbeschreibung), Ethnographie (or Völkerkunde), and
Statistik (or Staatenkunde). Fabri had studied with both Gatterer and
Schlözer at Göttingen. In 1781, at the age of twenty-six, he began
to lecture on the “new geography according to Gatterer” in Halle.
Continuing to teach at the Francke Foundations as a Privatdozent
for the next five years, he succesfully edited a geographical maga-
zine (Fabri 1783–85) and wrote several textbooks for students. In his
spare time he deepened his geographical knowledge by attending
the lectures of Gatterer, Schlözer, Kästner, Lichtenberg, and Blu-
menbach. He also traveled to Berlin to talk to Büsching, the era’s
best-informed geographer. Fabri’s Geographisches Magazin treated
geography in an all-encompassing way and included the study of
peoples called Völkerkunde. Although he still classified ethnologi-
cal subjects under the old category of “manners and customs” (Sitten
und Gebräuche), Fabri employed the words Völkerkunde, Ethnogra-
phie, and Ethnologie in 1784 and 1787.122 In 1786 Fabri moved to Jena
to accept an extraordinary professorship in Geographie und Statistik.
A year later, he used the term Ethnologie to include both Völkerkunde
and Volkskunde (Lutz 1973). As a professor in Erlangen, Fabri (1808)
produced an “encyclopedia of the historical sciences,” in which he
presented an overview of ethnology, ethnography, and anthropol-
ogy in twenty pages, ending it with a bibliography of ethnographic
and anthropological works that commenced with Boemus’s Omnium
gentium mores, leges et ritus (1520).
Like Krug, Fabri saw Ethnographie and Anthropographie (Völker-

und Menschheits-Beschreibung) as an “independent” science usu-
ally connected with geography. Fabri, however, thought it would
be advantageous to several other scientific studies to see Ethnogra-
phie and Anthropographie as a separate historical science (Doctrin).
It should not be confused with ethnological and anthropological
history (Völker- und Menschheitsgeschichte), nor with a philosoph-
ical study of human beings (philosophische Menschenlehre) (Fabri
1808:354– 355).
In 1813 historian and political scientist Karl Heinrich Ludwig
Pölitz published an encyclopedic handbook of scientific literature to
continue Krug’s encyclopedia of sciences. He commented on Her-
der’s Ideen and other historical works contributing to Ethnographie.
Pölitz concluded that this study had not yet reached full maturity
as “an independent science.”123 There was a great deal of discussion
on its subject matter and the definition, classification, and prac-
tice of the new science, but it was clear that Pölitz—like Krug and
Fabri—saw ethnography as a science. In his own work Pölitz devoted
much attention to history, Statistik, geography, and Ethnographie.
He divided his history of the Kingdom of Saxony (Pölitz 1810) into
three sections of history, Statistik, and geography, as Schlözer had
done in his works of the 1770s.
Naval Expeditions and Popular Depiction

Subsequent to the success of the French Geodesic Misson to Ecuador
(1735–44), the first international scientific expedition in which French
and Spanish scientists cooperated, the governments of France, Brit-
ain, Austria, and Russia engaged in large naval expeditions. The best
known of these were the French and British expeditions to the Pacific
Ocean, led by Bougainville and Cook, respectively, which pursued
both political and scientific goals. While Bougainville departed in
a single ship in 1766, Cook introduced the custom of relying on two
ships. Between 1768 and his premature 1779 death, Cook captained
three circumnavigations of importance not only to geography and
natural history, but to ethnography as well. Since these voyages are
very famous, their results need not be described here.
Less than a decade after Cook’s death, Jean François de Galoup,
Comte de La Pérouse, explored the Pacific (1785–88). It was the best
prepared of all eighteenth-century research expeditions, with the

most detailed research program and instructions, officially issued
by Louis XVI. These instructions were comparable to those issued
to Bougainville and Cook and included the necessity of maintain-
ing friendly relationships with native populations. The Académie des
Sciences and the Académie de Médicine prepared questionnaires
relating to geography, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, medi-
cine, and ethnography (Bitterli 1976:33). Nevertheless, many things
went wrong. The main ship, commanded by La Pérouse, vanished in
March 1788 after departing Botany Bay, and its remains have never
been retrieved. A search party headed by the French admiral Joseph-
Antoine Raymond de Bruny d’Entrecasteaux (1739–93) followed La
Pérouse’s tracks unsuccessfully in 1791–94 to become stranded them-
selves on the Dutch-ruled island of Java. La Pérouse’s report was
compiled by the rest of the company and published as Voyage autour
du monde in three volumes in both French (1798) and English (1799)
editions. One of the surviving expedition members was Jean Bap-
tiste Barthélemy de Lesseps (1766–1834), who had disembarked in
Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka and traveled overland to Moscow; he
published his own travel account at Paris in 1790.
The Spanish king, Charles III, sponsored a scientific-political
expedition that visited nearly all Spanish possesions in America and
Asia throughout the Pacific Ocean. This forgotten expedition, com-
manded by Alessandro Malaspina, lasted five years (1789– 94) and
mapped most of America’s West Coast from the Gulf of Alaska to
Cape Horn. The Tlingit and Nootka peoples were encountered and
studied in the Pacific Northwest. After its members had explored
the Philippines for several months, the expedition visited New
Zealand, Australia, and Tonga. The scientific data collected dur-
ing this expedition may have surpassed all that were collected by
James Cook. Unfortunately, owing in part to the French Revolu-
tion, the political situation changed in Spain during Malaspina’s
absence, and he was imprisoned upon return. Malaspina’s expe-
dition’s reports and collections were locked away and his seven-
volume account of the expedition was suppressed. An abbreviated
version appeared only in 1885. Despite Krusenstern’s report and
some others, the Malaspina expedition’s findings remained buried.
Its importance was recognized only after Madrid’s Naval Museum
published the expedition’s results in nine volumes (1987–99) and

Malaspina’s diary was translated into English in 2001–5 (Fernández-
Armesto 2006:305– 307).
Such expeditions led to a series of illustrated publications in the
German lands. The publicist Friedrich Hempel and the artist Gott-
fried Geißler, for instance, cooperated on a book of “Depictions and
descriptions of tribes and nations (Völkerstämme und Völker) under
the Russian Emperor Alexander’s humane governance; or, the char-
acter of these nations” (1803). Illustrated with beautiful plates by
Geißler, who had worked as an illustrator for Pallas, this book was
one of the works trying to copy the success of Georgi’s “Descrip-
tion of all nations of the Russian Empire.” Five years later, the pub-
lisher Friedrich Justin Bertuch and the linguist Johann Severin Vater
cooperated in publishing an illustrated journal about “ethnography
and linguistics,” titled Allgemeines Archiv für Ethnographie und Lin-
guistik (1808), at Weimar. Although the journal disappeared after
its first issue, its object was clearly delineated:
An ethnographic journal studies the physical, moral, and intellectual
peculiarities of the peoples and their origins. It therefore excludes
all geographical and statistical subjects, with the exception of those
aspects that characterize the way of thinking (Denkungsart) of the
peoples, as humans, and the formation of their disposition (Anlage).
(Bertuch and Vater 1808b:3)124
One of this journal’s foremost authors was Theophil Friedrich

Ehrmann (1762–1811). Having edited two of the earliest ethnolog-
ical journals, Ehrmann made his living by publishing geographi-
cal works and travel accounts. He also wrote the first Völkerkunde
summaries.
Ehrmann’s Synopsis: General Ethnology and Regional Ethnography

At the end of the eighteenth century the study of peoples and nations
had developed into a calling for many scholars, especially in the Ger-
man lands. Everybody wanted to fill in the canvas of human develop-
ment by painting the smaller pieces of humanity, the gens. Meanwhile,
anthropology moved center stage, and the study of “races” drew much
attention away from the Völkerbeschreibung and Völkerkunde initiated
by Müller and Schlözer.
In 1808 the editor and translator Ehrmann synthesized the relation

between ethnology and ethnography on the one hand and between
ethnology and anthropology on the other. His work is the culmina-
tion of eighteenth-century German interest in contemporary peo-
ples and races, and presents a mainstream synopsis of ethnological
and anthropological discourse. Providing abstracts of primary works
and summarizing and editing a great number of travel accounts, and
historical and geographical studies, Ehrmann strove to arrive at an
allround picture of peoples, states, and races. He dealt with ethnog-
raphy specifically, but Herder’s and Blumenbach’s anthropology had
a profound influence on his work as well.
Ehrmann wrote the very first survey of Völkerkunde in 1787. In
summarizing the new subject’s aims and content, Ehrmann’s global
perspective suggested that peoples should be described according to
“physique, moral character and ways of living, customs, manners and
opinions” (Ehrmann 1787:241–258). The fact that Ehrmann published
this short seventeen-page essay in a journal for women (Magazin
für Frauenzimmer) indicates that the subject had become so topi-
cal that it could be popularized; it also attests to female emancipa-
tion in the late eighteenth century. Marianne Ehrmann (1755–95),
Ehrmann’s wife, founded the second women’s magazine in Germany.
Ehrmann published another such article, “On ethnology” (Über die
Völkerkunde, 1792), in one of his journals, in which he made a dis-
tinction between “general and particular ethnology” (allgemeine und
besondere Völkerkunde) to which he would return in 1808.
One year earlier, Ehrmann had produced Ethnographische Bilder-
gallerie: Eine Reihe von Sittengemälden aus der neuesten Völkerkunde
(1791), which was part of a series of illustrated works. This “ethno-
graphic picture gallery” was a compilation of travel accounts by Cook,
Sparrman, William Paterson, François le Vaillant, James Bruce,
Jean-Baptiste du Halde, Pierre Sonnerat, Jean-Baptiste Grosier,
Kaempfer, Thunberg, Bougainville, Forster, and others. The illus-
trations were fairly good cuts depicting people, their tools, and their
textiles. Ehrmann’s Bildergallerie was the second volume of a series
that he called Beytrag zu einer redenden Naturlehre und Physiognomik
der Menschheit (“Contribution to an instructive study of nature and
physiognomy of humankind”).125 In his preface Ehrmann explained
that the book was a response to one of Herder’s public incitements,
i.e., that a collection of “faithful paintings of the diversity of our

species” was needed to found “an appealing study of nature and
physiognomy of humankind.”126 But it was also a follow-up to Ber-
nard Picart’s (1723–27) illustrated descriptions of religious ceremo-
nies and customs. In a case study on the Dutch people, Ehrmann
(1791c) included illustrations based on prints by Picart.
Ehrmann’s picture gallery was to play an important role in con-
ceptual history. It has long been assumed that ethnographie first
appeared in France in the Atlas ethnographique du globe, composed
by the Italian geographer Adriano Balbi (1826a, 1826b).127 The Eth-
nographische Bildergallerie preceded this usage by thirty-five years.
Bastian (1881:15) mentioned it in his Vorgeschichte der Ethnologie, but
only a few scholars noticed the reference.128 World War II’s destruc-
tive effect on book collections and the subsequent Cold War divi-
sion of Europe made the book rare. In 1970 Hans Fischer came up
empty-handed when he requested it in an interlibrary loan: the book
could not be found in West German libraries. Only after the fall of
the Berlin Wall in 1989 was a copy located in the Deutsche Staats-
bibliothek in East Berlin. Moreover, since the Ethnographische Bil-
dergallerie was an anonymous publication, it was not known that
Ehrmann was its editor and prime author (Vermeulen 1994a:331, 337,
342). Nor was it realized that the Bildergallerie was part of a series
that had commenced in the same year as Ehrmann’s Beytrag. Con-
temporary sources prove that Ehrmann edited both books and that
they belong together, totaling 283 pages and 63 cuts. Ehrmann’s Bil-
dergallerie confirms Bastian’s supposition that in the years following
the Pacific exploration by Cook, Banks, and the Forsters (i.e., after
1779), “we hear the names ethnology or ethnography pronounced
with greater firmness, and works and treatises concerning this sub-
ject increase in quantity.”129
In 1808 Ehrmann contributed two articles to the promising journal
Allgemeines Archiv für Ethnographie und Linguistik, edited by Bertuch
and Vater in Weimar. The first article was a summary of “general and
particular ethnology” (allgemeine und besondere Völkerkunde) (Ehrmann
1808c). Ehrmann explained that Ethnologie referred to a general, com-
parative study of peoples whereas Ethnographie designated a descrip-
tive study of a people or of several peoples. This distinction evoked
the one that Bernhard Varenius made between general and particu-

lar geography in his Geographia generalis (1650).130 In making a sim-
ilar distinction, Ehrmann arrived at a solution of lasting value that
persisted until the 1920s. Völkerkunde would be the general name for
a study consisting of a theoretical part (Ethnologie) and a descriptive
part (Ethnographie). This fundamental distinction makes clear that
ethnology and ethnography were seen as two sides of the same coin:
Völkerkunde. In today’s verbiage ethnology refers to general anthro-
pology, ethnography to regional anthropology (cf. Poirier 1968a, 1972–
78). Ehrmann separated this subject from anthropology, to which he
devoted his second article in this journal (see chapter 7).
In 1801 the new terms Anthropologie, Cultur, and ethnographisch
were admitted in Joachim Heinrich Campe’s German dictionary of
loanwords.131 Ten years later Campe accepted the entry Völkerkunde
in his regular dictionary of German. He defined it in a rather mod-
ern way, emphasizing not only the historical and cultural, but also
the social and political dimensions:
Die Völkerkunde: the knowledge or study of peoples (Völker), not only
of their origin and history, but also of their political, civil or soci-
etal, and customary conditions. (Campe 1807–11, vol. 5:433–44)132
Müller, Schlözer, and Kollár, who had developed the concepts of

ethnography and ethnology in the 1730s and 1740s and the 1770s and
1780s, would certainly have approved this definition. Although the
names of these creators would be forgotten, their ideas were not.
Schlözer’s Legacy
When Ehrmann published his survey of general and particular eth-
nology and Fabri included Ethnologie and Ethnographie in his ency-
clopedia of historical sciences, Schlözer was reaching the end of his
career. Fabri repeated and expanded Schlözer’s distinction between
a people in a geographical, genetic, and political sense without giv-
ing him credit (Fabri 1808: 97–98, 352).133 Campe adopted Schlöz-
er’s 1772 distinction between a “chronological” and “ethnographical”
ordering of historical material, that is, between the synchronistic
and ethnographic methods of history.134 These are only two indica-
tions of Schlözer’s immediate influence.
In the United States “ethnological” surfaced as early as 1802 and

“ethnology” was included in Webster’s 1828 dictionary. The term
ethnographique first occurred in France in 1820, ethnographie in 1823,
ethnologie in 1829– 34, and ethnologique in 1839. In Britain “ethnog-
raphy” was accepted in 1834–36, “ethnology” in 1836 and 1842. In the
Netherlands volkskunde surfaced earlier than volkenkunde, in 1776 and
1830, respectively. The Dutch word volkenkundig appeared in 1794,
ethnographie in 1824 (see epilogue).
Schlözer’s defense of human rights and his contributions to liberal
theory in his critical journals and textbooks are of lasting interest
(Mühlpfordt 1982, 1983a, 1983b). The same holds for Schlözer’s world
history, even if his regional historiography requires wider recognition
and further study. The dramatist Friedrich Schiller adopted Schlöz-
er’s and Gatterer’s idea that the past and the present connect and that
lessons can be learned from history. Schiller taught this in lectures
on universal history at Jena in 1789. In most of the cases mentioned
previously, there was a connection with Schlözer and Göttingen.
Gatterer was Schlözer’s senior colleague; Herder his competitor.
Canzler and Sprengel were his students; Ekkard was his associ-
ate. Schlözer and Kollár knew each other’s work well and inspired
each other. Johann Samuel Ersch, a bibliographer who had stud-
ied at Göttingen and became a librarian and professor of geography
and Statistik at the University of Halle, also disseminated Schlözer’s
conceptions of Völkerkunde and Ethnographie. Together with Johann
Gottfried Gruber, Ersch published the important Allgemeine Ency-
clopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste in 167 volumes (1818–89) and
numerous other publications.
Another Schlözer pupil was August Christian Heinrich Niemann
(1761–1832), a professor at the University of Kiel and a statistician who
wrote Abris der Statistik und der Statenkunde, nebst Fragmenten zur
Geschichte derselben (1807). As noted, Statistik, a comparative study
of European states, of Land und Leute, “the land and the people,”
became Schlözer’s second specialization and the one with which
he achieved the greatest acclaim. Schlözer commented on polit-
ical and economic developments in Europe and abroad, reaching
a wide audience. His journals were read throughout Europe and
scrutinized in St. Petersburg and other court capitals. Some issues
of his StatsAnzeigen reached a print run of forty-four hundred cop-

ies (Frensdorff 1890:584)— a quantity even higher than Diderot’s
Encyclopédie.135
Schlözer’s lecture rooms in Göttingen were so crowded that his
turnout was compared to that of Wolff in Halle. Sometimes more
than a hundred students attended his lectures, one-eighth of Göttin-
gen’s total student population. The brothers Grimm and the broth-
ers von Humboldt sat in his audience. Schlözer inspired Wilhelm
von Humboldt to study the language of the Basques, Spain’s original
inhabitants (1820–21). Having studied at Göttingen in 1788–90, Wil-
helm von Humboldt read Schlözer’s Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte
in 1800 before undertaking his seminal journey to Basque country
in the spring of 1801 (Rousseau 2004).
Since Schlözer’s main contribution was his application of the
“ethno-critical method” to the history “of the Slavic, Germanic,
Baltic, Eastern Romanic, Finno-Ugric, and other Uralic peoples”
(Mühlpfordt 1983a), his greatest impact was in Russia, the Slavic and
Baltic countries, and Hungary. He had many students from Russia
and other eastern European countries. Historian Nikolai Karamzin
and novelist Nikolai Gogol admired him. Professors Mikhail Kache-
novsky and Mikhail Pogodin proclaimed themselves Schlözer’s fol-
lowers. Schlözer was enobled by Emperor Alexander I and made a
privy counselor in 1804. Retiring the following year, he continued
publishing his Nestorchronik until he died in 1809.136 The Russian
historian Sergei Soloviev concluded in 1854 that Schlözer had laid
the foundations for a science of history. Historians and politicians
active in national awakenings studied Schlözer’s work. In Prague
Josef Dobrovský, a bilingual scholar writing in Czech and German,
was well acquainted with Schlözer’s historical linguistics (A. Lauch
1968). As a supporter of Finno-Ugric studies, Schlözer inspired Sám-
uel Gyarmathi, who in 1799 produced his dissertation, “Grammatical
Proof of the Affinity of the Hungarian Language with Languages
of Finnic Origin.” Mostly owing to Schlözer’s labors, the University
of Göttingen became Europe’s center of Slavic studies in the eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth century (Lauer 1985, 1998, 2002, 2012).
During the 1810s and 1820s, ethnography was introduced in two
central European countries. In Hungary the Slovak scholar János
Csaplovícs employed etnográfia in 1811 and again in 1818, when he

wrote that nations (Völker) were to be distinguished “by language,
physical and moral disposition.”137 He published several ethnolog-
ical books in German, including one on “Slavonia and Croatia as
a contribution to ethnography and geography (Völker- und Län-
derkunde)” (Csaplovícs 1819) and an ethnographic study of Hungar-
ian national dress (Csaplovícs 1820). In 1822 Csaplovícs introduced
the term ethnográphiai in Hungarian in his “Ethnographic disserta-
tion on Hungary,” a series of articles published in the journal Tudo-
mányos Gyüjtemény (reprinted in 1990).138
In Bohemia Jan Svatopluk Presl used the term ethnographia and
its Czech equivalent, národopis, in the first volume of the journal
Krok in 1821; it was included in the Czech-German dictionary of
Jungmann in 1836.139 As noted, the term Volkskunde had appeared
in Prague in Josef Mader’s (1787) work. Two years later, the linguist
Dobrovský used the term Völkerkunde in reference to “all support-
ers of Slavic ethnology and language.”140 Dobrovský was an early
adopter of the concept and, with Jungmann, a leading figure of the
Czech national revival.
When the concept of ethnography reappeared in central Europe
during the 1820s, nationalism arose in many European countries,
partly because of political decisions made at the Congress of Vienna
(discussed later). In both the Czech and Hungarian cases, a new word
was coined to bring the concept into accordance with the national
language: ethnográphiai in Hungary and národopis in Bohemia (in
1822 with Csaplovícs, in 1821 with Presl). Csaplovícs had a schol-
arly and a political motive for his publication: he wanted to describe
the multitude of peoples in the Hungarian parts of the Austrian
Empire because there were so many of them and he wanted to use
the description to acquire basic rights for all these peoples. The lat-
ter motive was clearly related to a changed political mood in Europe
and the dawn of nationalism.
That Mader and Dobrovský used the terms Volkskunde and
Völkerkunde in Prague in 1787–89, before the heyday of nationalism
in Bohemia, Germany, and other countries, indicates that ethnol-
ogy in itself had no intrinsic connection with nationalism. But the
second wave of occurrences in the 1820s was clearly connected to
nationalist movements.

The Enlightenment that in its early stages carried such an opti-
mistic note with Leibniz’s ideas about harmony found its apex in
the French Revolution (1789) and ended with France’s Terreur (1793).
Napoleon Bonaparte divided Europe in new ways and gave the ter-
ritories he conquered a new form of constitutional law. The Napole-
onic Wars (1803–15) caused ruin in central and eastern Europe, which
hurt the Enlightenment’s core business, that of the printing press.
According to Jörn Garber (2006a), 467 German-language journals
dealing with history and geography appeared during the 1780s and
1790s; about a third of the articles discussed ethnography or eth-
nology in one form or another.141 The decline in print numbers and
the ultimate demise of these journals was due to the political fall-
out from France’s revolution and the havoc caused by the Napole-
onic Wars that divided or united Europe’s countries.
Concomitantly, a watershed occurred in the European academic
mind-set after the French occupation of Egypt (1798–1801), which
Osterhammel (1998) calls the “Oriental Fall.” The dominant outlook
became Eurocentric rather than universalist and comparative. Harb-
smeier (2002) observes that eighteenth-century travel accounts were
characterized by cosmopolitanism (Weltoffenheit) and impartiality
(Unbefangenheit), both largely absent in the nineteenth century. An
imperialist Orientalism replaced the Orientalism of the Enlighten-
ment. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars resulted in a
new self-satisfaction in Europe and increased Eurocentrism (Harbs-
meier 2002:63–64; Conermann 2002:406 n. 7).
This changed mentality also manifested itself in international
politics. After the defeat of Napoleonic France in 1813, the future of
Europe and its colonies was decided at the Congress of Vienna, which
took place from October 1814 to June 1815. The congress’s purpose
was to redraw the political map of Europe. Chaired by the Austrian
foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, the victorious four Great
Powers (Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain) attempted to
end the crisis heralded by the French Revolution. Spain, Portugal,
Sweden, as well as German-speaking Hanover, Bavaria, and Würt-
temberg were only sporadic participants in the discussions (Zamo-
yski 2007). Two of Schlözer’s students were present: Wilhelm von
Humboldt represented Prussia; Jacob Grimm attended the Con-

gress as secretary of the Hesse-Kassel legation. At the behest of
Tsar Alexander I, Metternich, together with Russia and Prussia,
formed the Holy Alliance for the purpose of containing Europe’s
revolutionary movement. A German Confederation of thirty-nine
states was created from the Holy Roman Empire’s previous three
hundred territories. The Congress of Vienna resulted in a new dip-
lomatic philosophy that visualized Europe as a shifting map of alli-
ances between nation-states. Strong armies and secret agreements
would maintain the equilibrium of power. This led to the forma-
tion of nation-states and the suppression of nationalist and liberal
movements in Europe. Given the amount of ethnographic and lin-
guistic knowledge at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth century, especially but not exclusively about Europe,
it is astonishing to see how this information was ignored. Political
conservatism blocked public recognition of peoples and their basic
rights. Elitist reactionaries were not concerned with eighteenth-
century ethnographic and linguistic research because their aim was
to impose order. The Vienna Congress signaled the victorious prin-
ciple of states over nations and the political point of view prevailed
over any ethnological perspective. This served only to motivate many
intellectuals, especially in central and eastern Europe, to advance
ethnological and linguistic research, and to start nationalist move-
ments to liberate their people.
The amount of material available about the peoples of the world
by the early nineteenth century enabled German historians and
geographers to teach the new subject. Arnold Heeren, Gatterer’s
successor, lectured on Länder- und Völkerkunde (geography and eth-
nography) at Göttingen beginning in 1803 (Urban 1987). Historian
Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Carsten Niebuhr’s son, repeatedly referred
to Ethnographie during his 1810–16 lectures at the newly founded
University of Berlin. He lectured on “the study of peoples and coun-
tries” (Die Kunde von Völkern und Ländern) at Berlin in 1810 and on
ancient Länder- und Völkerkunde at the University of Bonn in 1827–
28.142 Carl Ritter, one of the founders of modern geography, taught
Ethnographie and Geographie at the University of Berlin from 1820
on. All three taught the new discipline long before historians in

other countries and were followed by Anders Sjögren at St. Peters-
burg in 1837 (see epilogue).
These developments indicate that ethnography as a new study of
human diversity was a key focus in German science. Once the chaos
of the Napoleonic Wars had ebbed and the political situation stabi-
lized, German scholars and publishers took up the topic where they
had left it. One of the finest examples of the renewed interest in eth-
nography was Friedrich Alexander Bran’s journal, Ethnographisches
Archiv (1818–29), printed at Jena in thirty-nine volumes.
Schlözer’s ethnographic method remained part of the historical
paradigm up to Leopold von Ranke. Ranke was the founder of the
nineteenth-century German historicist school, who in contrast to
Hegel’s philosophy of history, emphasized empirical, source-based
historical research. He defined the historian’s task as to show “how it
really was” (wie es eigentlich gewesen). Ranke’s historical-philological
methods were based on those of Schlözer. Schlözer’s ethnographic
history influenced the young Ranke, whose first two books discussed
“Histories of the romanic and Germanic peoples” (1824) and “Princes
and peoples of southern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries” (1827–36). Schlözer’s impact was so profound that Ranke
called his early works “ethnographic.” Ranke concluded his career
with nine volumes on world history (1881–88) and hefty tomes about
European history, especially of Germany, Prussia, France, and Eng-
land. His way of writing history was in line with the nation-states
forming in the wake of the Congress of Vienna, especially after 1848.
Ranke was a contemporary witness to this process and, by study-
ing the history of the great powers shaping Europe, contributed to
the dominance of political history—which ultimately rested on peo-
ples and nations.
The emergence of ethnography and ethnology in the publica-
tions of Schlözer, Gatterer, Kollár, Ehrmann, Fabri, and others in
central and eastern Europe during the 1770s and 1780s (see table
10) was a unique historical development that has been overlooked
for generations. This new discipline, later called “ethnical anthro-
pology” (Dieserud 1908:17, 63), served as an umbrella under which
earlier contributions could be united, resulting in the field’s rapid
expansion.

Table 10. Ethnological discourse in Asia, Europe,
and the United States, 1710–1815
historia etymologica 1711–12 G. W. Leibniz, historian/linguist

(Hanover)
historia ethnica 1718 M. Bel, historian (Trnava, Slovakia/
(ethnic history) Halle, Prussia)
de historia gentium 1732 G. F. Müller, historian/geographer (St.
(a history of peoples; Petersburg, Russia)
Völkergeschichte)
Völker-Beschreibung (a 1740 G. F. Müller, historian/geographer
description of peoples) (Surgut on the Ob, Siberia)
ethnographia vs. 1767 J. F. Schöpperlin and A. F. Thilo, histo-
geographia rians/geographers (Nördlingen, Swabia)
Völkerkunde or 1771–72 A. L. Schlözer, historian/linguist
Ethnographie, ethno- (Göttingen, Hanover; 1761– 67 in St.
graphisch, Ethnograph; Petersburg, Russia)
eine ethnographische 1772–75 A. L. Schlözer (Göttingen): eine
Methode ethnographische Methode
critique on 1772–74 J. G. Herder, historian/philosopher
ethnographisch (Bückeburg, Weimar) Gemälde der
Nationen
Menschen- und 1775–78 J. C. Gatterer, historian/geographer
Völkerkunde (Göttingen)
(Anthropographia
und Ethnographia)
Länder- und 1779 F. von Wurmb, naturalist (Batavia,
Völkerkunde Java): Länder-und Völkerkunde, und
Naturgeschichte
Völker- und 1781–90 J. R. Forster (Halle) and M. C. Spren-
Länderkunde gel (Halle): Beiträge zur Völker-und
Länderkunde
Erd- und 1781–96 P. S. Pallas (St. Petersburg): Beyträge
Völkerbeschreibung zur . . . Erd-und Völkerbeschreibung, etc.
Volkskunde 1776–88 1776 Volkskunde: J. le Francq van
(or folklore studies) Berkhey (Leiden)
1782 Volks-Kunde: F. Ekkard (Göttin-
gen), 1787 J. Mader (Prague), 1788
C. F. D. Schubart (Stuttgart)
[“folk-lore” 1846 “the Lore of the People”: W. J. Thoms
(London)]

ethnologia 1781–83 A. F. Kollár, historian/librarian (Vien-
na) “Ethnologia . . . est notitia gentium
populorumque”
Ethnologie 1787 A.-C. Chavannes, theologian/
(as part of pedagogue (Lausanne, Switzerland)
Anthropologie) “l’histoire des progrès des peuples
vers la civilisation” (as part of
Anthropologie ou science générale de
l’homme)
Ethnologie 1787–1808 J. E. Fabri, historian/geographer (Jena):
Ethnologie
Völkerkunde 1787–91 T. F. Ehrmann (Strasbourg): Kurze
(Ethnographie) Übersicht der Völkerkunde;
Ethnographische Bildergallerie
Natur- und 1788 J. F. Blumenbach, anatomist/physiolo-
Völkerkunde gist (Göttingen);
anthropologia 1790–95 selected anthropology as name for “the
natural history of man”
“Tribes and Nations 1797–98 B. Smith Barton (Philadelphia): New
of America” Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Na-
tions of America
Anthropology 1799–1804 Société des Observateurs de l’Homme
(Paris, France)
Ethnological 1802–3 T. Jefferson (Washington) and/or B.
Information Smith Barton (Philadelphia): “Ethno-
logical Information Desired”
general ethnol- 1808 T. F. Ehrmann (Weimar): allgemeine
ogy (Völkerkunde) and Völkerkunde or Ethnologie; besondere
particular ethnology Völkerkunde or Ethnographie
(Ethnographie)
Völkerkunde 1811 J. H. Campe, lexicographer (Bruns-
wick): “Die Kunde oder Kenntniß von
den Völkern”
Völker- und 1815 B. G. Niebuhr, historian (Berlin): Die
Länderkunde Kunde von Völkern und Ländern (lecture
1810)
Although ethnography and ethnology emerged as an important new

research field during the eighteenth century, there were many other
contemporary attempts at defining humans and humankind, often
developed in parallel domains, as the following chapter makes clear.

seven
Anthropology in the German Enlightenment

Plural Approaches to Human Diversity
Verdiente etwa die menschliche Natur allein jene genaue

Aufmerksamkeit nicht, mit der man Tiere und Pflanzen zeichnet?
— Johann Got tfried Herder (1784)
I
n 1755 Dr. Samuel Johnson, the celebrated author of A Diction-
ary of the English Language, defined anthropology as “the doc-
trine of anatomy; the doctrine of the form and structure of the
body of man” (Johnson 1755, vol. 1). This limited view of anthropol-
ogy had been partly true for the preceding period. When the term
first arose in the 1500s, however, it had a broader scope and referred
to human beings as composite wholes, a topic requiring medical,
philosophical, and theological treatment (De Angelis 2010). Sub-
sequently, the subject was often reduced to its anatomical dimen-
sion. During the 1740s and 1750s, this narrow view of anthropology
was replaced by a broader one in which not only the human body
and mind but also their interrelation were studied (Zelle 2001b). The
fifth edition of Chambers’s Cyclopaedia defined anthropology as “a
discourse, or treatise upon man, or human nature, considered as in a
sound or healthy state” that included “the consideration both of the
human body and soul, with the laws of their union and the effects
thereof ” (Chambers 1741–43, vol. 1). The Encyclopaedia Britannica
defined anthropology as “a discourse upon human nature” (Smellie
1768– 71, vol. 1:327). Another indication of this broader view is Jean-
Baptiste-René Robinet’s 1778 definition: “the philosophical science
that allows us to understand humans under their various physical
and moral aspects.”1
Johnson’s and other contemporary definitions do not reflect this
shift. In mid-eighteenth-century France, anthropology was still
part of the vocabulary of medicine. The entry on anatomy in Dider-
ot’s Encyclopédie (1751) included this definition: “the study of human
nature is often called anthropology.”2 By contrast, the Encyclopédie
article on Anthropologie carried traces of an earlier, theological con-
notation. It referred to the anthropomorphic manner in which the
“sacred authors attribute parts, actions, and affections that only occur
among humans to God,” specifying that “in animal economy it is a
treatise on man.”3 The Encyclopédie cited the anthropologies of Teich-
meyer (1719) and Drake (1707) as examples of the latter view (Duchet
1971a:12–13; 1971b:7–8). These were the Anthropologia nova; or, A New
System of Anatomy by James Drake (1667–1707) and the Elementa
anthropologiae, sive theoria corporis humani by Hermann Friedrich
Teichmeyer (1685–1744), both physicians.4 Drake’s and Teichmey-
er’s books were manuals for students of medicine. Michèle Duchet
points out that the subject “animal economy” also appeared in Drake’s
work. It discussed the complex whole of body and soul, the “dou-
ble nature” (duplex natura) of humans. A century after the division
between mind and matter, expressed by Descartes (1637, 1644) as the
dualism of res cogitans versus res extensa, physicians and theologians
alike sought a renewed union of these contrasting aspects of “man.”
In 1740 the German theologian Johann Georg Walch defined
anthropology simply as “the study of man” (Lehre von dem Men-
schen) (Walch 1740, vol. 1: 106). But when forty years later the Swiss
theologian Alexandre-César Chavannes (1788) claimed anthropol-
ogy to be the “general science of man” (science générale de l’homme),
this definition was innovative (Duchet 1971a:229). Being attentive
to ethnology, Chavannes included this new subject in his anthro-
pology (see chapter 6).
A systematic analysis of the various conceptions of anthropology
practiced in eighteenth-century Europe would be necessary to detail
the differences and similarities between these approaches and eth-
nology, which were being developed in distinct scholarly networks.
Although such an assessment is not possible in the context of this
chapter, it is worthwhile to outline a history of this subject, mainly
based on German sources.5 The term “anthropology,” introduced in
the 1500s, obtained its modern meaning in the German lands of the
1790s, when it was used to label a study defined either as the “natural
358 Anthropology in the German Enlightenment

history of man” (Blumenbach 1790b, 1795, 1798) or as the “pragmatic
philosophy of humankind” (Kant 1798). This was a major innovation,
for before this decade anthropology had been part either of medi-
cine or of theology. As we shall see, the emergence of general, bio-
logical, and philosophical anthropology during the 1780s and 1790s
was a response to developments in philosophy and natural history
prepared since the 1740s in the field of medicine. As a result, major
changes in anthropology’s scope and definition occurred in the work
of German-speaking scholars in the second half of the eighteenth
century. German-speaking scholars invented not only the study of
Völkerkunde (Vermeulen 2006b) but the modern concept of race as
well (Eigen and Larrimore 2006).
A Conceptual History of Anthropology

When the Greeks inscribed the words Gnōthi seautón (know thy-
self) on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, they contributed a cen-
tral value: to avoid vanity and speculations about the unknowable
and, instead, study the empirical self. Alexander Pope alluded to
this invocation in his classic Essay on Man (1733– 34). When Lin-
naeus included humans in the realm of nature (1735), he too used the
motto “Nosce te ipsum” (study oneself) to characterize their destiny.
Thanks to Linnaeus and Buffon, the study of human beings occu-
pied a central place in eighteenth-century life sciences, long before
Darwin discovered the mechanism of evolution.
The Greeks never employed their word anthropos (human being)
to denote a science of human beings. Neither the term anthropology
nor ethnology was part of classical antiquity. Both are neologisms,
first occurring in Latin texts of the sixteenth and eighteenth centu-
ries, respectively. In Aristotle’s Ethica Nicomachea the word anthro-
pologos does crop up. It referred not to a “science of humankind”
but to a man of virtue who does not waste time on gossip (Aristo-
tle, Nic. Eth. 10.10). In his Athenaion politeia (On the constitution of
Athens), which deals with how people should live in the city (polis),
ethnos stands for the way in which people live in the country. In the
“History of animals,” part of his Physica, Aristotle placed all living
beings, including humans, on a scala naturae, a hierarchical “ladder
of life” or “chain of being.”
The word anthropologia (“study of man”) was invented by the
Anthropology in the German Enlightenment 359

Renaissance humanists. It was first used in Germany in 1501, France
in 1516, Italy in 1533, and England in 1593. The term was frequently
applied in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mainly in the
field of medicine, but also in natural history and even theology. Some
scholars assume that “anthropology” was originally a countercon-
cept to “theology” (Stagl 1981:15; Bödeker 1982).
The earliest known occurrence of the word anthropology was in
the title of Magnus Hundt’s popular account of medicine, Antropolo-
gium de hominis dignitate, natura, et proprietatibus. De elementis, par-
tibus, et membris humani corporis (1501).6 Born in Magdeburg, Hundt
(1449–1519) had studied medicine in Leipzig, where he received his
advanced degree (Magister Artium) in 1486. Appointed dean of the
philosophical faculty, he served as university rector in 1499. He later
earned a doctorate in theology and held a chair in this field at the
University of Meissen, near Dresden. Hundt’s Antropologium dis-
cussed anatomy and physiology in their premodern forms as well as
the religious and philosophical aspects of humans. Thomas Bendyshe
(1865b:352) called the Anthropologeion (sic) “purely an anatomical work,”
and Joseph Barnard Davis (1868:398) added it was “ornamented with
rude woodcuts, depicting gross inaccuracies.” But this misrepresented
Hundt’s holistic attempt to explain the dual nature of humans (body
and soul) from both an anatomical and a religious perspective. Con-
vinced that humans were created in the image of God (Homo est dei
imago secundum animam), Hundt regarded the spiritual component
to be more important than the material one. He wanted to show
people their dignity, as indicated in his book’s title, by expanding on
earlier views of humans at an intersection between the creator and
the creation (Homo est dei et mundi nodus) (Hundt 1501).
The term reappeared in 1516, spelled as entropologie. The French
poet Jean Boucher employed it in a section heralding rhetoric as the
science of sciences, including “natural and moral history, philoso-
phy and entropologie, geography, and philology” (Blanckaert 1989:13,
15). The theologian Robert Ceneau (Coenalis, 1483–1560) contrasted
“anthropology” with “chorography,” a term from classical geogra-
phy. The title of his Gallica historia in duos dissecta tomos, quorum prior
ad anthropologiam Gallici principatus, posterior ad soli chorographiam
pertinet (1557) translates as “The history of Gall in two volumes, the
first dealing with the French principalities according to their popu-

lation (anthropologiam Gallici) and the second presenting a descrip-
tion of the country as a whole (chorographia).”7
A fourth usage was in the title of a book by Galeazzo Flavio
Capella (1487–1537), a statesman in the service of the Duke of Milan.
In L’anthropologia (1533), Capella defined the study as “a discourse
upon human nature” (L’anthropologia overro ragionamento della natura
umana). Capella’s anthropological work was known to Bendyshe
(1865b:352). Benzenhöfer and Rotzoll (1991) erroneously attributed
“the earliest known usage of the term anthropology” to it.
In England anthropology surfaced in the 1593 work of the satirist
Richard Harvey, Philadelphus, or a Defence of Brutes and the Brutans
History (Petermann 2004:278)—in what sense is unclear. A direct
reference appeared in a 1655 treatise titled Anthropologie abstracted,
or, the idea of humane nature reflected in briefe philosophicall and ana-
tomicall collections, published in London. The unknown author of
this treatise used the term Anthropologie to mean “the history of
human nature,” which was divided into two parts, “the first enti-
tled Psychologie, the nature of the rational soul discoursed; the other
Anatomie, or the fabrick or structure of the body of man.”8 Antoine
Furetière made this same distinction in the 1727 edition of his Dic-
tionaire universel, adding that the study was also called Anthropog-
raphie, a descriptive form of anthropology.9
The German philosopher and theologian Otto Casmann (ca. 1562–
1607) similarly defined anthropologia as “doctrina humanae naturae.” A
liberal Protestant, Casmann published his Psychologia anthropologica
in two parts (1594–96), the second of which dealt with “the fabric of
the human body.” In it he commented on Rudolph Goclenius’s Psy-
chologia (1590), the first book with this word in its title. Like Hundt,
Casmann discussed physical and spiritual aspects of human beings.
Assuming body and soul to be characterizing human nature, Cas-
mann wrote, “Human nature is a twin-like part of worldly nature,
both spiritual and bodily, joined into a fundamental union.”10
Between 1603 and 1696 the word “anthropology” occurred in the
title of at least thirty-one printed books and an unspecified number
of doctoral theses (disputatio). This figure is derived from a list com-
piled by Roger Brisson (2009), with citations taken from WorldCat.
Three of these books were analyzed by Tanja van Hoorn (2006:129)
and entered into a “heuristic” model. Following Descartes’s dual-

ism, she distinguished between humans “as part of nature” (Mensch
als Naturwesen) and “as bearers of culture” (Mensch als Kulturwesen).
Although the terms Naturwesen and Kulturwesen are anachronistic,
and not valid before the nineteenth century, the idea of such a dis-
tinction is enlightening. In the first case the primary object was the
human body, in the second the soul. The study of the first object is
a “physical anthropology,” represented by Johann Sperling’s Anthro-
pologia physica (1647). Examples of the second approach, either a
“sacred anthropology” or a “moral anthropology,” include Balthasar
Meisner’s Anthrōpologia sacra (1616) and Georg Friedrich Blintzig’s
Anthropologia . . . moralis (1623). Meisner’s work stemmed from the
tradition of Wittenberg, the center of Lutheran Protestantism, and
dealt with the possibilities of redemption, the danger of corruption,
and the grace of God. Blintzig’s work discussed humans from the
perspective of moral philosophy and human ethics. Van Hoorn’s
analysis elucidates some of the subject’s complexities and could be
tested with the other thirty-odd sources mentioned by Brisson, espe-
cially from Catholic countries like France, Italy, and Spain. For the
seventeenth century we can conclude that, at least in the German
parts of the Republic of Letters, distinctions were made between a
“physical,” “sacred,” and “moral anthropology.”
During the eighteenth century the study of anthropology boomed
in an unprecedented way. The number of works with anthropology in
the title mushroomed to seventy-six, especially in 1770–1800, when
forty-three books were printed with some variant of the term “anthro-
pology” in their title (Brisson 2009). These numbers do not include
books that contain the subject but fail to cite the term “anthropol-
ogy,” or one of its derivatives, in their title. A prime example of such
a work is Blumenbach’s De generis humani varietate nativa (On the
natural variety of mankind, three editions), a fundamental anthro-
pology resource in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (dis-
cussed later).
While the breadth of the subject and the number of primary works
remain intimidating, van Hoorn again offered a model that helps to
make some preliminary observations. Limiting herself to German
sources, van Hoorn noticed two fundamental changes from the pre-
ceding period’s anthropology. First, several attempts were made to
overcome the Cartesian dualism between matter and mind, body

and soul. Already in 1716 Johann Melchior Vendries pointed to the
necessity of studying the interplay or “equilibrium between mind and
body,” the commercium mentis et corporis. The “reasonable physicians”
of the 1750s in Halle and other representatives of “medical anthro-
pology” (my term) took up these efforts (discussed later). Second, a
shift occurred in which attention increasingly focused on human-
kind as a species (die Gattung Mensch) rather than on the individ-
ual human being. As will become clear, this change, produced by
the naturalists Linnaeus (1735) and Buffon (1749–89, 1777), was even
more important than the first development, and its impact lasted
longer. Thanks especially to Buffon, the “varieties” of the human
species became a subject of interest to intellectuals in the second
half of the eighteenth century, eventually resulting in the modern
discourse of race.
On the basis of these distinctions, between human beings as “part
of nature” and “bearers of culture” on the one hand, and between
studies of individual human beings and of humankind as a species
on the other, van Hoorn distinguished six types of anthropologi-
cal studies for the eighteenth century. She organized them into the
model illustrated in table 11.
The first group of studies concentrated on individual human
beings (van Hoorn 2006:132–134). A “physiological” or “anatomical
anthropology” was discerned in Teichmeyer’s Elementa anthropolo-
giae (1719), mentioned previously. This type of “medical anthropol-
ogy” (as I would call it) was very similar to Sperling’s Anthropologia
physica (1647). Johann Gottlob Krüger’s Versuch einer Experimental-
Seelenlehre (1756) was characterized by a “psychological anthropology,”
which described various aspects of the soul, such as cognitive capac-
ity, perception, imagination, dreaming, and phantom diseases. This
work played a role in the formation of empirical psychology (Carus
1808). Karl Philipp Moritz, editor of an important journal, Gnōthi
sautón oder Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde (1783– 93), built on
Krüger’s work (Zelle 2001a). His work excited interest in psychol-
ogy among the educated middle class. Another type of study was
“theological anthropology,” represented by Gerhard Julius Coners’s
Versuch einer christlichen Anthropologie (1781). The third type of
individual-oriented studies was an anthropology developed by the
“reasonable physicians” (vernünftige Ärzte) in Halle. The students of

Table 11. Enlightenment anthropological studies
From van Hoorn (2006:131). Courtesy of the author, Tanja van Hoorn, Hanover, Germany.
Georg Ernst Stahl, known for his vitalist (“organic”) theories (Geyer-
Kordesch 2000, 2001), focused on the interaction between body and
soul (commercium mentis et corporis). They included Krüger, Johann
August Unzer, Ernst Anton Nicolai, and Johann Christian Bolten.
Unzer gave them the name vernünftige Ärzte; Carsten Zelle (2001b),
following Geyer-Kordesch, calls them Psychomediziner.11 Working
in the 1740s and 1750s during the High or Middle Enlightenment,
they launched an “anthropological turn” in medicine that resulted
in new ways of viewing the human “body and soul.”12 Ernst Plat-
ner, holder of a chair in medicine and one in philosophy at Leipzig,
continued the tradition of “philosophical anthropology” (Schings

1994) and published a popular textbook, Anthropologie für Ärzte und
Weltweise (Anthropology for physicians and philosophers) in two
editions (Platner 1772, 1790). Although Wübben (2006) noted dif-
ferences between the “reasonable physicians” (Stahl and his follow-
ers) and the “philosophical physicians” (Platner and others), there
were many similarities.13 Since they were all medical doctors, the
practitioners of “philosophical anthropology” might also be seen as
contributors to “medical anthropology”—a term proposed by his-
torians of medicine like Schipperges (1977) and Bauer (1984). In my
view Platner and the Halle physicians developed a holistic anthro-
pology, focusing on the “entire human being” (der ganze Mensch) (see
Schings 1994).14 Their goal was to develop an integrative approach
to the study of human beings, accounting for both moral and phys-
ical aspects (Zammito 2002:225).
The second group of studies focused on humankind as a species.
Van Hoorn again divided these anthropological studies threefold,
into those concerning “nature,” “culture,” or their interrelationship.
She called these studies “physical anthropology” (or Rassenanthro-
pologie), “cultural anthropology” (Kulturanthropologie or Ethnologie),
and the “history of humankind” (Geschichte der Menschheit), respec-
tively. As representatives of these three types of studies, van Hoorn
(2006:134–137) cited Blumenbach (1776a), Lafitau (1724), and Herder
(1784–91), as well as Meiners (1785). Blumenbach labored on a “nat-
ural history of man,” which he equated with Anthropologie by 1790–
95 (discussed later). Although he rarely used the word “race” in his
Latin works, Blumenbach distinguished four or five “varieties” later
considered to be races. Herder and Meiners were concerned with a
“history of humankind” on both natural and cultural bases, although
Meiners saw race as a dominant characteristic, while Herder did not.
The “history of humankind” presents an interesting case of cross-
overs in the contemporary literature, of attempts to bridge the divide
of mind and matter, natura and ars (discussed later). But the inclu-
sion of ethnology in van Hoorn’s model of anthropological studies
is not correct. When ethnology emerged during the Enlightenment,
it was not part of anthropology but part of history. Seeing “cultural
anthropology” (ethnology) as a product of the nineteenth century,
van Hoorn (2006:136) assumed that its roots lie in the eighteenth
century with Lafitau and others studying “culture.” This assump-

tion is correct, as we saw in chapter 4, but not for the reason given.
Lafitau worked on a comparative study of peoples, whereas culture as
an object of ethnology only emerged with Gustav Klemm’s cultural
history (Klemm 1843–52, 1855–58) and E. B. Tylor’s Primitive Cul-
ture (1871). Eighteenth-century ethnography and ethnology focused
not on culture but on ethnos, the diversity of peoples and nations (see
chapters 4 and 6). Lafitau’s work is often regarded as an early eth-
nological source, but Lafitau did not practice anthropology in the
eighteenth-century sense. As we have seen, the genesis of ethnog-
raphy with Müller was neither related to Montesquieu and Hume
nor to Linnaeus and Buffon. Ethnography and ethnology emanated
from a different domain, namely, from historia civilis, rather than
historia naturalis. The boundaries between these domains were strict
because scholars were trained in one of four academic faculties: theol-
ogy, law, medicine, or philosophy. It was only during the nineteenth
century that this format expanded when the Faculty of Philosophy
split up in the Humanities and Natural Sciences.
Thus, van Hoorn’s inclusion of ethnology in her model of anthro-
pological studies is presentist. Cultural anthropology is now part of
the four-field approach, but ethnology wasn’t part of anthropology
during the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, van Hoorn’s distinction
between anthropology as a study of individual human beings versus
anthropology as the study of the human species is useful. It allowed
her to identify five types of anthropology in the German Enlighten-
ment: (1) physiological or anatomical anthropology, (2) philosophical
anthropology, (3) psychological anthropology, (4) physical anthro-
pology, and (5) the “history of humankind.”
Anthropology as the Study of the Human Race / Human Races

The Judeo-Christian explanation for human variety was that every-
one descended from Noah through his three sons, as declared in the
Book of Genesis. The German historian Georg Hornius, working in
the Dutch Republic, expanded this account. In his Arca Noae (1666),
Hornius added skin color to history and mythology as a classifica-
tion principle: “The Japhetites became Whites, the Semites became
the Yellow Races, and the Hamites became Negroes” (in the words
of Poliakov 1974:143; based on Borst 1960– 61, vol. 3, pt. 1:305– 307
and Klempt 1960:113).

While the etymological origins of the word “race” remain unclear,
the word appeared in the Romance languages as razza in Italian,
raza in Spanish, raça in Portuguese, and raçe in French during the
thirteenth century and in English as “race” during the sixteenth cen-
tury. Initially, the term referred to the membership of and descent
from a family, or a noble house in the sense of a dynasty. It was also
used to characterize groups of domestic animals, like dogs and horses
(A. Sommer 1984:137–139). In the German lands Kant adopted the
term from the French, spelling it as Race, rather than Rasse, in 1764
and 1775 (discussed later in this chapter).
One of the first to apply the term “race” to human groups was
François Bernier, a French physician and traveler who spent time in
Poland, Egypt, and India (the Mogul Empire, 1656–68). In a short
article in the Journal des Sçavans, Bernier (1684:148) distinguished
“four or five species or races of men [Espèces ou Races d’hommes] whose
difference is so remarkable that it may be properly made use of as the
foundation for a new division of the earth.” He did not name these
groups “races,” but the first included Europeans, Egyptians, Hindus,
and American Indians; the second, Africans; the third, the Chinese
and Japanese; the fourth, the Lapps. The basis of the classification
was geographical and somatic: not only skin color, but also facial
traits such as the form and shape of the nose, lips, teeth, and hair.
While Bernier admitted almost complete ignorance about the Lapps,
his experience with Africans was limited to having observed them
in Turkish and Arabian slave markets. His racial classification car-
ried value judgments, intertwined with gender, beauty, and worth.15
Linnaeus was the first, since Aristotle, to incorporate humans
into the animal kingdom. In his Systema naturae (1735) he included
Homo sapiens (wise man) in the first class of the animal kingdom,
the Quadrupedia (four-legged ones). He made a racial classification
by subdividing the genus “Homo” into four species: Homo Europaeus
albescens (European man, white), Homo Americanus rubescens (Amer-
ican man, red), Homo Asiaticus fuscus (Asian man, brown), and Homo
Africanus niger (African man, black) (Linnaeus 1740). “Homo” was
placed with the “Simia” (apes) genus, subdivided into five species,
and the “Bradypus” (sloth) genus in the first order: “Anthropomor-
pha” (manlike animals). The second order, “Ferae,” included “wild
animals” like the bear, lion, tiger, and cat. In the tenth edition of

Systema naturae (1758–59), Linnaeus arranged Homo sapiens in four
subspecies he called varietates (varieties): Homo sapiens americanus,
Homo sapiens europaeus, Homo sapiens asiaticus, and Homo sapiens afer.
This fourfold division replaced the biblical threefold one, reflecting
the doctrine of the four humors and the four continents following
the discovery of the New World.
Being criticized for placing humans in the same order with apes,
especially by theologians, yet failing to find a criterion for their
demarcation, Linnaeus defended himself in a 1747 letter to Johann
Georg Gmelin:
It is not pleasing that I placed humans among the anthropomorpha
[primates], but man knows himself (homo noscit se ipsum). Let us get
the words out of the way. It matters little to me what words we use.
But I ask you and the whole world, [to show me] a generic differ-
ence between man and ape, one that is in accordance with the prin-
ciples of Natural History. I certainly know of none. If only someone
would indicate one to me! But, if I called man an ape, or vice versa, I
would have brought together all the theologians against me. It may
be that as a naturalist I ought to have done so.16
With these four varietates, previously labeled “species (Arten),” Lin-

naeus reinforced the idea of human “races.” Their distinction was
based on place of origin and on physical appearance, including skin
color, hair color, color of the eyes, and form of the nose and lips.
Linnaeus’s stereotypical characterizations derived in part from travel
accounts. Native Americans were described as reddish, stubborn,
and easily angered; Europeans were regarded as white, gentle, and
inventive; Asians were considered to be shallow, avaricious, and
easily distracted; Africans were supposed to be black, relaxed, and
negligent (Linnaeus 1766–68, vol. 1:28–29, 33). Linnaeus’s races were
clearly skewed in favor of Europeans and openly Eurocentric. His
influential classification would lead to various racial hierarchies in
which Europeans invariably landed at the apex.
Gunnar Broberg summarized Linnaeus’s accomplishments as
follows: He was “the first to place man in a system of biological
classification, among the primates.” He also “made the first serious
attempt to divide mankind in a number of races. [. . .] The science
of primates and the question of man’s origins began with Linnaeus”

(Broberg 1983:157). As a taxonomist and through his instructions for
scientific travelers, Linnaeus had a huge impact. Although his “apos-
tles” traveled around the globe specializing in botany, a few of them
also worked in the field of ethnography (see chapter 5).
Linnaeus is acknowledged to be a founder of physical anthro-
pology in the eighteenth century. He shares credit with Buffon,
Camper, Blumenbach, Hunter, Soemmerring, White, Cuvier, and
others.17 The French naturalist Buffon and the German anatomist
Blumenbach adopted Linnaeus’s “varieties” and improved his clas-
sification of human beings.
According to Michèle Duchet (1971b), Buffon founded anthropol-
ogy as a “general science of man” in his monumental Histoire naturelle,
générale et particulière (1749–89). Whereas anthropology was no more
than “one part of anatomy” in the Enclyclopédie, Buffon developed
it into a “science générale de l’homme” by making the transition from
the human individual to the human species. He thereby inaugu-
rated the study of “the natural history of man” (l’histoire naturelle de
l’homme). Buffon discussed not only “the nature of man” and the suc-
cessive stages individual human beings pass through in the course
of their lives, but also the “varieties of the human species” (variétés
dans l’espèce humain). This long essay, occurring in the third volume
of his natural history (Buffon 1749b), with an addition in his Sup-
plément (Buffon 1777), gave an impressive survey of the world’s peo-
ples. Buffon discussed how diversification from the original human
couple had been caused by the influence of climate, a classical idea
reintroduced by Montesquieu. He loosely distinguished four “vari-
eties” for Europe, Africa, Asia, and America.18 These “varieties” are
generally interpreted as an equivalent of “races,” which means that
Buffon identified four human races, also corresponding to the four
continents.
The commentator Thierry Hoquet has emphasized that Buffon’s
varieties were not fixed but “superficial and reversible,” as evidenced
by his hypothesis that Hottentots would eventually become white if
they lived long enough in Denmark’s climate.19 Buffon was not con-
sistent in his terminology about human variety. He spoke of “the
Tatar nation” (la nation tartare) but also of the “Tatar race” (cette race
tartare) (Duchet 1971b:228, 229, 232); of “the black race” (la race noire)
but also of the necessity “to divide blacks into different races” (de

diviser des noirs en différentes races) (Buffon 1749–89, vol. 3:176). These
examples illustrate the confusion between “nations” (peoples) and
“races” that was to ensue thereafter. The German naturalist E. A.
W. Zimmermann (1778:27, cited in Klatt 2010:20) complained that
one never knows if “Buffon speaks about Arten (species) or about
Geschlechtern (genus).”
Buffon’s initiative to focus on the human species as a biological
whole was historically significant.20 Buffon was the first to propose the
founding of a “general science of man,” directing “the entire think-
ing of the Lumières to the new science of man.”21 His natural history
especially influenced the German and Dutch life sciences; his vol-
umes were translated twice during the second half of the eighteenth
century in Germany and the Netherlands. His ideas had an impact
on Peter Camper (1722–89) and Berkhey in the Dutch Republic (on
the latter, see chapter 6).
Camper was a comparative anatomist and “the founder of anthro-
pology in the Netherlands.”22 Imitating his anatomy professor, B. S.
Albinus, in dissecting black people, Camper made precise measure-
ments for comparisons. By 1770 he devised the “facial angle” for draw-
ing “the heads of all kinds of people with certainty” (Camper 1791b;
Meijer 1997b). Camper’s lineup of protruding jaws in profile has been
easily misunderstood. He was preoccupied with laws of morphology
that accounted for the human head’s racial variation and disproved
the old notion, still repeated by Buffon, that foreign facial features
were artificially contrived by mothers or midwives. Racial physiog-
nomies were congenital; the diversity was produced by geometrical
correlations and constraints. Camper lectured about “the character
and variety of features of nations” at home and abroad. His labors
on “the natural difference of features in persons of different coun-
tries and periods of life . . . with a new method of sketching heads,
national features, and portraits of individuals with accuracy” were
published posthumously (Camper 1791b). A French translation was
immediately issued (1791) and was followed by a German transla-
tion by Soemmerring (Camper 1792) and an English one in 1794. In
opposition to the German surgeon, Johann Friedrich Meckel, who
concluded from the blacks he dissected in Berlin that they belonged
to “almost another species of man as far as their internal structure
is concerned,” Camper insisted that racial differences were superfi-

cial. They were always a matter of degree in shape or skin hue. He
exhorted Europeans to “hold out a fraternal hand to the Negroes and
to recognize them as the descendants of the first man to whom we
all look as to a common father” (Poliakov 1974:162; Meijer 1999:73).
Wealthy and well connected, Camper (1779, 1782) dissected many
simians, including the rare Indonesian orangutan he distinguished
from Buffon’s African jocko or chimpanzee. Establishing a bound-
ary between humans and anthropoid apes on anatomical grounds,
he found it “a matter of great importance not only to natural his-
tory (Natuurkunde) but also to anthropology (Menschkunde) to know
whether apes and in particular the Orang-utans, kept silent, that is,
did not speak, in order to outwit the civilized nations (de gepolyste
Natien) or from an imperfection in their structure and organic sys-
tem?” (Camper 1782:38; translated in Meijer 2004:70– 71). Conse-
quently, the eighteenth century has been called “the Age of the
Orang-utan” (Nijèssen 1927:1029; van Bork-Feltkamp 1938:9; Meijer
2004). Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch physicians, like
Jacob de Bondt and Nicolaas Tulp, were the best informed on great
apes because they had access to these exotic and elusive animals in
Borneo or Angola. When Camper published his 1782 monograph
on the orangutan, “he had had the opportunity of dissecting five
orang-utans, a pithecus, two cynocephali and various other tailed
simiae, but this was an exceptional privilege [in Europe at the time]”
(Dougherty 1996:92, 374– 375).
In Göttingen Johann Friedrich Blumenbach took up the chal-
lenge posed by Buffon. Having studied anatomy and physiology in
Jena and Göttingen, Blumenbach obtained an interest in anthro-
pology through Christian Wilhelm Büttner’s teaching, who began
his lectures on natural history by discussing “human beings,” illus-
trated with “pictures of distant peoples” from travel accounts in
his own library.23 These lectures inspired Blumenbach to write his
md thesis, De generis humani varietate nativa (On the natural vari-
ety of mankind), presented at Göttingen in 1775. Published in 1776
(2nd ed. 1781, 3rd ed. 1795), the book initially distinguished four
human “varieties.” Adopting Linnaeus’s division of Homo sapiens
into the American, European, Asian, and African varieties, Blu-
menbach rearranged them: Europeans (together with West Asians,
North Africans, Lapps, and Eskimos), Asians (especially East and

South Asians), Africans (excluding North Africans), and Americans
(excluding the Eskimos, who were transferred with the Lapps to the
Asiatic group in the third edition) (Blumenbach 1795:61, 290– 292;
1865:99). In 1779–81 Blumenbach revised the classification into five
varieties, making the “Malayan” (Austral-Asian) the fifth (Dough-
erty 1996:40). Bendyshe (1865a:viii) and Plischke (1938a:226) claimed
that Blumenbach (1781) used this fivefold division in his thesis’s sec-
ond edition, but this is incorrect. He introduced it in the first vol-
ume of his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte (Blumenbach 1779–80, vol.
1:63–64, cited in Dougherty 2006:vii, 292 n. 4) and published it again
in the first volume of his Beyträge zur Naturgeschichte (Blumenbach
1790b), together with five plates produced by the Berlin engraver
Daniel Chodowiecki. In December 1781 Blumenbach commissioned
Chodowiecki to cut five vignettes to illustrate the “five main races
or varieties” (fünf Haupt-Raçen oder Varietäten), stipulating that his
division was also based on the four “main ways of human food pro-
duction, namely agriculture, fishing, hunting and livestock breed-
ing.”24 It was only in 1793–95 that he named these varieties caucasia,
mongolica, aethiopica, americana, and malaica (previously they were
only numbered). Following the use of the term Caucasian by Meiners
(1785) and Georg Forster (1786a), Blumenbach applied it to Euro-
peans and West Asians (varietas caucasia).25 U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services continues to use this label for “white” people,
to the puzzlement of many Europeans.
Blumenbach based his division of human varieties on skin color,
and geographical and ethnographic considerations. In 1775–81 he
had not yet acquired exotic skulls.26 Thanks to James Cook’s three
circumnavigations of the globe, the shape and location of five con-
tinents were established. Cook’s second voyage (1772– 75) was espe-
cially important because it proved that the ancients’ terra incognita
did not exist: large landmasses in the Southern Hemisphere, other
than Australia, had not been found. It took some time before the
results of Cook’s second voyage became available to scholars. Gat-
terer held back the publication of his textbook Abriß der Geographie
until 1778, hoping to bring it up to date with the results of this jour-
ney. Blumenbach’s new classification was also based on the results
of Cook’s second expedition and especially on the rediscovery of
Australia. He wanted to include the newly discovered parts of the

Pacific, in accordance with the 1778 account of Reinhold Forster,
Observations Made during a Voyage Round the World (Blumenbach
1781, 1795). It is a mystery why Blumenbach labeled the fifth variety
“Malayan.” Perhaps he saw seafaring as characteristic of the South
Sea islanders, or he added a linguistic criterion, as Malay served as
the lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago up to New Guinea.
Most likely Blumenbach consulted Forster, even though there is no
evidence of a correspondence between them during the years 1773–
82 (Dougherty 2006).
Although Blumenbach introduced anthropology as a techni-
cal term (anthropologiae) in 1790– 95, he had used the term before.
In October 1775, one month after he had submitted his thesis, he
published a “sketch of anthropology” and a short article on “Diver-
sity in the human species,” including descriptions of drawings of
several human varieties (Blumenbach 1775b, 1775c).27 It took him
twenty years to decide that the biological study of the human spe-
cies was best circumscribed as anthropology. In the preliminary
remarks to his first Decas craniorum diversarum gentium, published in
1790, Blumenbach spoke about his apparatus anthropologicus.28 In the
April 11, 1795, letter to Sir Joseph Banks that Blumenbach included
in the third edition of his thesis, Blumenbach thanked Banks for
providing “unrestricted access to treasures relating to the study
of anthropology (ad studium anthropologiae),” mainly pictures and
drawings, in Banks’s library when he visited London in the winter
of 1791– 92 (Blumenbach 1795:vi). He added that, thanks to Banks
and his three-year circumnavigation, “a more accurate knowledge
of the nations who are dispersed far and wide over the islands of
the Southern Ocean had been obtained by the cultivators of nat-
ural history and anthropology.”29 He placed anthropology next to
natural history in general and zoology in particular and made it
the new name for the field Buffon (1749a) had called the “natural
history of man.” He also provided a list of his “anthropological col-
lection,” which included “skulls of various nations” (crania diver-
sarum gentium), fetuses, hair samples, anatomical specimens, and
“pictures of various nations” (imaginum diversarum gentium) drawn
to life “by the first artists.”30 In the opening of his fourth Decas cra-
niorum (published in 1800), Blumenbach mentioned how twenty
years had elapsed since he had begun to form his anthropological

collection, which implies that he started to collect during the late
1770s or early 1780s.
Through translations of the third edition of Blumenbach’s prin-
cipal work in German (1798), Dutch (1801), French (1804), and Eng-
lish (1865), the term “anthropology” in a biological sense passed into
other languages. (The term “biology” was introduced in Germany and
France during the years 1797–1802.)31 Blumenbach equated anthro-
pology with natural history three years before Kant codified a phil-
osophical meaning for anthropology in 1798. As mentioned, there
had been earlier attempts at defining anthropology in a medical and
philosophical way, notably by the Halle physicians, Platner (1772),
and Robinet (1778). Yet Blumenbach’s choice of “anthropology” as
the technical term for Buffon’s “natural history of man” was inno-
vative and influential. It inspired the British anthropologists Ben-
dyshe and Hunt to opt for the term “anthropology” over “ethnology”
in 1865. As the craniologist Davis (1868:397) phrased it three years
later, Blumenbach, “the founder of the science,” “had felt the need of
some general name by which to designate his collections, designed
to illustrate the Natural History of Man and had appropriated the
denomination ‘anthropological,’ which may have been employed in
different senses previously, to this purpose.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), whose three critiques founded tran-
scendental philosophy, also wrote on anthropology and invented “the
modern concept of race.”32 Racial ideas were of course much older
than Kant’s theories. Racial distinctions were depicted in ancient
Egypt. Benjamin Isaac (2004) traces racial ideas back to antiquity,
calling them “proto-racism.” Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra (2006) dem-
onstrates that the idea of racial distinctions reached Europe from
the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Yet Kant’s consciousness of
race was directly related to his fourth fundamental question, “What
is man?” (Was ist der Mensch?). It was important to know humans
from the inside and the outside, and to learn about the inner side
by studying their external characteristics (Kant 1798). Introducing
the word “race” into the German language in 1764, Kant (1775, 1785a,
1788) gave it a novel definition in three articles.33 In his first essay
on the “races of man,” he distinguished the “white race,” the “negro
race,” the “Hunnish race” (Mongol or Kalmyk), and the “Hindu or
Hindustani race” (Kant 1775), introducing a hierarchy by proclaiming

that humankind found “its greatest perfection in the white race” and
its lowest in “a part of the American tribes (Völkerschaften)” (Kant
1802).34 This was along the lines of Bernier and Linnaeus. Differ-
ent was that Kant saw racial traits as immutable and inheritable.
In his second and third essay on race (Kant 1785a, 1788), he defined
races as deviations that were constantly preserved over generations.35
The idea that human races are fixed and unchanging was central to
Kant’s racial theories.
Kant’s first essay on race was intended for his lectures about geog-
raphy. Lecturing in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) since 1755, he
introduced “physical geography” to its curriculum two years later.
After he had been appointed as professor of logic and metaphysics in
1770, Kant continued to teach physical geography along with lectures
on “anthropology.” He taught anthropology in the winter semester
from 1772– 73 until 1795– 96 and geography in the summer semester,
beginning in 1775. In the latter year he organized his thoughts about
race and published them, first in a brochure, then as an article. As
Kant wrote at the end of his first essay on race, he wanted to give
his students a “pragmatic” introduction to cosmopolitan “knowl-
edge of the world” (Kenntniß der Welt), that is, knowledge that has
practical implications, in order for them to relate to its two aspects,
“nature and man” (die Natur und der Mensch). These aspects were
the subject of his courses on physical geography and anthropology,
continued throughout his career (Kant 1912 [1777]:443). They were
later published as Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798) and
Physische Geographie (1802).36 Interestingly, Kant did not include his
theory of human races and the mechanism of heredity (Vererbung)
in his anthropology but in his geography. The latter lectures inte-
grated discussions of the peoples of all continents with accounts of
the physical geography of the earth, including the impact of cli-
mate on diversity.
Basic to the discussions among eighteenth-century naturalists
and philosophers was not only whether racial characteristics could
be inherited, but also whether there had been one or several cre-
ations and, therefore, one or more human species. The debate about
monogenesis (all humankind descended from a single pair created by
God) versus polygenesis (racial diversity was the result of two or more
ancestral types), introduced in the twelfth century, revolved around

Christian origin myths (Genesis) versus the heresy that human races
descended from several distinct creations (Slotkin 1965:x). Support-
ers of monogenesis defined anthropology as the study of the human
race (one species), whereas polygenesists defined it as the study of
human races (several species, several creations).
Whether “race” was equivalent to “species” was not easily resolved
because the debate was affected not only by theology but also by atti-
tudes toward slavery. While in the nineteenth century polygenesis
was widely used as an argument to defend slavery, monogenesis was
dominant in Enlightenment discourse. Camper and Herder employed
it in defense of blacks. Polygenesists were numerous in the nine-
teenth century but a minority in the age of Enlightenment. Only
Voltaire in France; David Hume, Lord Kames, and Charles White
in Britain; and Georg Forster and Christoph Meiners in Germany
supported polygenesis.
Blumenbach was a monogenesist and, like Buffon, believed that
climate was the main determinant of racial characteristics. Blumen-
bach objected to the idea of fixed human races until the end of his
life. To him, human varieties were mutable and gradations of one
another. Blumenbach saw his classification of human varieties as an
initial orientation. He argued for one species, in line with Christian
orthodoxy, and five races. The British physicians J. C. Prichard and
William Lawrence by and large adopted his conclusions in the early
nineteenth century and dedicated their major works to him (Prich-
ard 1826, 1836–47; Lawrence 1822).
The philosopher Herder went one step further and rejected the
idea of race entirely. He declared in 1785 that races “do not exist.”
Herder refused to apply the term to humans:
In short, neither four or five races, nor excluding varieties exist on
earth. The colors fade into each other, the formative forces (Bil-
dungen) serve the genetic character and on the whole everything
ultimately becomes shades of one and the same large painting that
extends through all spaces and time periods of the earth. It [the sub-
ject] does not belong so much to systematic natural history as to the
physical-geographical history of humanity. (Herder 1784– 91, vol. 2)37
While preserving the Christian dogma of the unity of humankind,

Kant introduced a vocabulary to distinguish between “varieties” and

“races” that remained stable through the generations. Robert Ber-
nasconi (2001b, 2002) argues that Kant invented the modern concept
of race with his theory of the existence of preformed germs (Keime)
under specific climatic conditions. According to Kant, “four germs
corresponding to the four races had been implanted by providence
in the original human beings to deal with differences of climate.”38
Curiously, Kant did not reflect on contemporary developments
in the field of ethnology. His knowledge of ethnographical sources
was scanty and the concepts ethnography and ethnology (or their
German equivalents) do not occur in his work. Eze (1997:66) sug-
gests that Kant employed the term ethnographisch when repeating
Herder’s call for “a collection of new ethnographic illustrations,”
but this is a translator’s error. In his review of the second volume of
Herder’s Ideen, Kant had written that Herder wished for “a collec-
tion of new illustrations of nations.”39 Kant also cited Herder’s call
for “an anthropological map . . . on which the diversity of mankind
should be indicated.”40 Both Kant and Herder were highly inter-
ested in anthropology (Zammito 2002), but Herder was much more
“culture-conscious” in Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s (1952:19) sense of
the term. Kant was well aware of Herder’s and Schlözer’s historical
work, and he had studied Gatterer’s geography. He could hardly have
overlooked the many references to the new study of peoples in the
German literature of the 1780s and 1790s. In fact, he cited Spren-
gel’s Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde.41 Therefore, the exclusion
of ethnography or ethnology from his philosophical work must have
been deliberate. Kant probably thought that the study of peoples
had no place in a philosophical account of “man.” Both the study
of peoples and the study of races should be part of geography. His
anthropology was really an alternative to contemporary psychology.
Anthropology and Psychology

The roots of both anthropology and psychology go back to the six-
teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Fernando Vidal’s his-
tory of psychology, Les sciences de l’âme, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (2006)
and The Sciences of the Soul (2011), demonstrates their codevelopment.
The origins of the term psychologia (from the Greek word psykhē,
“spirit, soul”) are unclear. Its first use is attributed to the Dalmatian
humanist Marko Marulić and the German humanist Philipp Mel-

anchthon, but both claims are uncertain (Vidal 2011:25–37). Rudolph
Goclenius, a philosopher at the University of Marburg, published a
Psychologia in two editions (1590, 1597). Casmann commented on it
in his Psychologia anthropologica (1594–96). Psychology was regarded
as a “physics of the soul,” drawing on natural philosophy and Chris-
tian anthropology. Redefined as a “science of the living being” in
the seventeenth century, it became the “science of the human mind”
during the eighteenth century. The Encyclopédie published several
articles about psychology and traced a direct relation between psy-
chology and anthropology. Vidal argues that the preservation of
the Christian concept of “the soul” was essential to psychology’s
development. Psychology claimed the three fields of metaphysics,
logic, and morals. Vidal (2011:317– 324) analyzes its object to be the
“psycho-anthropology of perfectibility,” concerned with the inter-
action of body and soul.
As noted, this was also the problem of the “reasonable physicians”
around Stahl and Krüger in Halle. Christian Wolff (1732, 1734) intro-
duced the concepts of “consciousness” (Bewusstsein) and “meaning”
(Bedeutung) into German philosophy. Following Wolff’s and Alex-
ander Baumgarten’s distinction between an “empirical psychology”
(psychologia empirica) and a “rational psychology” (psychologia ratio-
nalis), the Halle physicians developed a “physiological anthropol-
ogy,” conceived as the science of the relation between body and mind
and therefore also called a “psycho-physical anthropology” (Sturm
2009). But Kant, drawing a sharp distinction between metaphysics
and psychology, found both empirical psychology and physiologi-
cal anthropology unscientific. He wanted to develop an entirely new
discipline, a pragmatic anthropology based on a pragmatic study of
history. Kant’s conception of Menschenkenntnis amounted to a sys-
tematic study of practical knowledge about human nature, a general
psychology in sociological terms (Sturm 2009, 2011).
At the turn of the eighteenth century, psychology was taught
at the University of Leipzig both by Platner and Friedrich August
Carus (1770–1807). Carus developed an “empirical psychology” and
compiled a history of psychology, posthumously published in 1808,
in which he discussed the relation between psychology and the “his-
tory of humankind,” conceived by Herder and Meiners (discussed
later). Thus, in a bare two centuries, psychology had developed from

a “physics of the soul” into an empirical “science of the mind” (Vidal
2011)—long before Wilhelm Wundt institutionalized it as an exper-
imental study at Leipzig in 1879.
Physicians, philosophers, and literary authors of the following
generation continued to develop a holistic “study of man,” further-
ing the work of Platner. Romanticism and natural philosophy left
an imprint on a type of anthropology that has been characterized as
“romantic anthropology” (Wellmon 2010). Between 1800 and 1850 no
fewer than 515 monographs were published in the German-speaking
countries with “Anthropologie,” “Menschenkunde,” or their equivalents
in the title, excluding forty-three anthropological periodicals.42
It would be important to analyze such texts for connections
between anthropology and ethnology, two studies that are related
but were developed in separate domains of knowledge. The efforts
to link anthropology and ethnology during the eighteenth century
merit special attention. In what ways was ethnology related to med-
ical, physical, and philosophical anthropology on the one hand and
to the “history of humankind” on the other?
Anthropology and Ethnology

Ethnology as the study of peoples (Völkerkunde) and anthropology as
the study of human beings (Menschenkunde) developed on separate
tracks during the eighteenth century, but there were connections.
Explicit links between (physical) anthropology and ethnography can
be found in the work of Gatterer, Chavannes, Herder, and Mein-
ers, as well as in that of Berkhey, Blumenbach, and Georg Forster.
The first historian to pose a relation between anthropology and eth-
nology was Gatterer. As we saw, Gatterer wrote about “the study
of humans and peoples (anthropography and ethnography)” (Men-
schen- und Völkerkunde [Anthropographia und Ethnographia]). Link-
ing both studies, he gave them a joint place in his classification of
geographical sciences (Gatterer 1775). By using the descriptive forms
Anthropographia and Ethnographia, Gatterer referred to a “descrip-
tion of humans and peoples” (both in the plural). Kant also discussed
both peoples and races in his physical geography, thereby excluding
ethnography from his anthropology. His successor in Königsberg,
Krug, included Ethnographie in his systematic encyclopedia of sci-
ences (1796–97) and, like Gatterer, placed the subject together with

Anthropographie within the category of geography (see chapter 6).
This was innovative, because proto-ethnography had usually been a
category within history and anthropology a part of medicine. Now
they were linked as a subset of geography.
Kant and Hume focused on “human nature” and “national charac-
ter.” Hume’s early work, A Treatise of Human Nature, was “an attempt
to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral sub-
jects” (Hume 1739–40). Hume preferred not the term “anthropol-
ogy,” but its English translation, the “science of man,” claiming,
for instance, that “the science of man is the only solid foundation
for the other sciences” (Hume 1739–40, vol. 1:7). He wrote an essay
“Of National Characters” (1742) and An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding (1748), his main work, which awakened Kant from
his “dogmatic slumber.” Introducing Hume’s epistemology to Ger-
many, Kant (1798) examined human nature and “national character”
(Charakter des Volks) in his “pragmatic anthropology” (Anthropologie
in pragmatischer Hinsicht).
The concept of “morals” was of importance for the holistic study
of human beings, as well as for the transition to social principles.
“Moral philosophers” or “Scottish historians,” like Hume, Smith,
Ferguson, Kames, Robertson, Millar, and Monboddo, concentrated
on anthropological, social, and political problems, arguing that “man”
has an innate “moral sense.”43 Kames, Monboddo, and Smith wrote
on the origins of language. Kames and Monboddo discussed the
physical status of “man” and explored the boundaries between “man”
and “ape” (Wokler 1988). Monboddo saw the “ape” as a brother to
“man.” He described the Orang Outang (in fact, chimpanzees) as
“a speechless race of Man,” claiming in his Origin and Progress of
Language (1773–92) that speech is not a defining characteristic of
humankind (A. Barnard 1995b). Kames provided much ethnographic
material to demonstrate that humankind had originated in more
than one place at different times. His Sketches of the History of Man
(1774) has been hailed as “le premier ouvrage au caractère exclusive-
ment ethnographique” (Gollier 1905:12). But Stocking, in an article
on “Scotland as a Model of Mankind” (1975), argued that Kames’s
philosophical views of civilization were based on his Scottish High-
lands background. His polygenetic views served as a motivation
for both Kant’s and Blumenbach’s studies of race (Zammito 2006).

The connection between Menschen- und Völkerkunde also appeared
in Blumenbach’s work. Blumenbach being remembered as the father
of physical anthropology, few scholars realize that he was also the
keeper of the Göttingen Academic Museum’s ethnographic collec-
tions. During his long life Blumenbach combined this interest with
his main field of concern: comparative anatomy, physiology, and
anthropology. In 1786 he used the same phrase as Gatterer: Men-
schen- und Völkerkunde; two years later, the combination Natur- und
Völkerkunde.44 Blumenbach’s involvement with ethnography began
when he was asked to organize the naturalist C. W. Büttner’s collec-
tions and compile a catalog of the Academic Museum. Established in
1773, this museum integrated the objects of an earlier Kunst-Cabinet
(1754) and of Büttner’s natural historical collections. The 1778 catalog
also included a category “Kunst Sachen” (artifacts), totaling sixty-six
items (Institute of Ethnology, Blumenbach, n.d.).45 Once promoted
to ordinary professor of medicine at Göttingen in November 1778,
Blumenbach began to acquire additional ethnographic objects. In the
catalog he already expressed a desire to obtain “everything related
to the way of life [and] characteristic customs of foreign peoples.”46
In August 1781 Blumenbach wrote to the Hanover government,
asking for “some of the superfluous foreign natural curiosities” col-
lected during James Cook’s third voyage (1776–80).47 His modest
request was forwarded to the London court of George III, king of
Great Britain and Ireland and elector of Hanover, who had an assis-
tant compile a selection for the Göttingen museum in December that
year. Although Blumenbach had asked for some “natural curiosities,”
he received a “collection of natural and artificial products (Natur-
und Kunstprodukte) from the newly discovered islands in the South
Seas” (Urban 1982, 1991, 1998a, 1998b, 2001; G. Krüger 2005). These
350 objects, predominantly of ethnographic interest, were shipped
from London the same month. This unexpected high-quality gift
made the University of Göttingen a center for eighteenth-century
South Seas artifacts, inspiring Blumenbach’s lifelong interest in eth-
nography. Later, in 1799, a collection of 150 objects was purchased
from Reinhold Forster, the professor at Halle who had accompanied
Cook on his second voyage. The Cook/Forster Collection has been
preserved at Göttingen as a singular group of eighteenth-century
South Seas ethnographic art (Hauser-Schäublin and Krüger 1998).

Together with the Forster Collection in the Pitt Rivers Museum
of Oxford University (originally in the Ashmolean Museum), it is
regarded as the world’s most renowned Pacific collection (see also
Kaeppler et al. 2009).
In 1785 Blumenbach received the first of many letters from Georg
Thomas Baron von Asch (1729–1807), a physician who generously
donated specimens from Russia, Siberia, the Caucasus, and other
regions. Asch had studied medicine in Tübingen and Göttingen.
After earning a doctorate at Göttingen in 1750, Asch returned to St.
Petersburg to become a municipal physician. Catherine the Great
made him a member of the empire’s highest medical commission in
1765. Asch served as a physician general to the Imperial Army dur-
ing the fifth Russo-Turkish War (1768– 74). In 1771 he sent his first
donation of books and manuscripts to Göttingen.48 After his elec-
tion to the Göttingen Society of Sciences as a foreign member, he
increased his gifts to the university. In more than one hundred let-
ters to his lifelong friend, Christian Gottlieb Heyne, Asch listed
the donated items and explained the details of their transfer. He
bequeathed many rare materials, including books, manuscripts, and
hand-drawn or printed maps, as well as medals, minerals, plants,
skulls, clothes, and items of ethnographic interest.49 They now form
the core of the Göttingen University Library’s repository of East
European and Siberian material. The Asch collection is a record of
Russian expeditions from the second half of the eighteenth century
and reflects his Russian and Siberian contacts. It contains two hun-
dred ethnographic objects (Hauser-Schäublin and Krüger 2007).
Together, the Asch and the Cook collections make up the core of
the University of Göttingen’s ethnographic collection.
Although Blumenbach published little on ethnological topics, for
instance, an article on the “Abilities and manners of savages” (1782),
he maintained his position as head of the Göttingen Museum until
his death.50 Physician Johann Friedrich Osiander served as his assis-
tant during the last years of his directorate (Urban 1991:25). Fol-
lowing Linnaeus’s example, Blumenbach encouraged the dispatch
of learned travelers who brought back not only skulls for his crani-
ological collection but also ethnographic artifacts (Plischke 1937).
Here we find an initial answer to the question about the relation-
ship between anthropology and ethnology. Anthropology dealt with

“the nature of man,” human physique, physical appearance, body,
and soul; ethnology with peoples’ customs, their culture (in Tylor’s
sense), and their crafts. It was no accident that Blumenbach com-
bined an interest in the “natural history of man” (dubbed “anthro-
pology”) with one in artifacts. As noted, he was inspired to write his
doctoral thesis by analyzing “pictures of distant peoples” from travel
accounts that Büttner presented during his natural history classes
of the 1770s. Both Büttner and Blumenbach acquired extensive col-
lections of drawings to illustrate human diversity.
Natural and cultural diversity played a large role in the “history
of humankind.” The first German-language author to publish such
a study was the Swiss historian Isaak Iselin (1728–82). Having stud-
ied law and philosophy at Basel and Göttingen, Iselin wrote a broad
study of human history, Über die Geschichte der Menschheit (1764, 1768),
including a “map of humankind” (Charte der Menschheit). Starting
from the earliest human beginnings, he sketched humanity’s history
as the progressive development toward humaneness (Humanität).
Together with Voltaire (1765) and Ferguson (1767), Iselin is regarded
as having founded the “philosophy of history” (Im Hof 1967; Gisi
and Rother 2011), a term coined by Voltaire.
Herder and Christoph Meiners were the first German philosopher-
historians to follow Iselin’s example. As we saw in chapter 1, Kroeber
and Kluckhohn (1952:19, 145–146) noted that Adelung (1782), Herder
(1784–91), Meiners (1785), and Jenisch (1801) focused on the “customs”
of nations. Herder, especially, paid a great deal of attention to the his-
tory of peoples in his Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Mensch-
heit (1784–91). He saw peoples as the “most noble part of humanity,”
and his work has been called “a program of global ethnology” (Müh-
lmann 1968:64; see also Broce 1986; Zammito 2002; chapter 6).
Meiners’s contributions to ethnology are widely acknowledged.
Alexander Ihle (1931) devoted a book to the subject. Penniman
(1935:39–40) claimed that Meiners’s Grundriß der Geschichte der Mensch-
heit (1785) “laid the foundation of modern comparative ethnology.”51
Lowie (1937:5, 10–11) commenced his History of Ethnological Theory
with Meiners and saw his Grundriß as the earliest source of (com-
parative) ethnography. Mühlmann (1948:28– 39) discussed his eth-
nological work and believed that Meiners’s familiarity with travel
reports was even greater than Herder’s (Mühlmann 1968:64). Michael

Carhart (2007) writes how Meiners contributed to the spread of the
concept of culture in Göttingen from the late 1770s on.
Meiners wrote more than forty books and over 180 articles. He
coedited two journals, one of them with historian L. T. Spittler,
Göttingisches historisches Magazin (1787–91, 1792–94). In this journal
he published seventy-nine comparative-historical essays on various
aspects of the world’s peoples, that is, ethnological studies (Ihle 1931;
Rupp-Eisenreich 1983a). These essays dealt with the “nature of dif-
ferent peoples inhabiting the globe, attacking a novel idea in Euro-
pean political discourse: the idea of equality; Meiners argued against
a theoretical equality, the notion that all men were created equal”
(Carhart 2001:339).
In contrast to Herder, who rejected race, Meiners was very race-
minded. In the preface to his Grundriß, Meiners concluded, on the
basis of “all observations,” that humankind consists of two “princi-
pal tribes” (Hauptstämme): the “Tatar or Caucasian” and the “Mon-
golian.” He imposed a hierarchy by calling the latter “not only much
weaker in body and mind, but also much more ill mannered and
devoid of virtues” than the former. Dividing the “Caucasian tribe
into two races (zwo Racen),” namely, the Celtic and Slavic, he char-
acterized the Celtic as “the richest in spiritual gifts and virtues.”52
In the second edition of his Grundriß, Meiners reprinted the pref-
ace but revised the sentence including “the Tatar or Caucasian and
the Mongolian tribe” to read, “Present-day humankind consists of
two principal tribes, the tribe of fair and beautiful and that of dark-
colored and ugly peoples.”53 He now divided the “beautiful tribe” into
“three races” (drey Racen), namely, the Celtic, Oriental, and Slavic.54
The practice to speak in aesthetic terms about peoples was com-
mon enough. Buffon distinguished casually between beautiful and
ugly peoples. Meiners’s terminology was just as confusing and his
division among peoples, tribes, and races equally unsystematic. His
racial hierarchy, however, remained consistent and was clearly skewed
to favor the Celtic, and especially Germanic, peoples. In his ethno-
logical essays Meiners argued that there were fundamental differ-
ences among races, that “each race has its own laws.” In the wake of
the French Revolution, he argued that “Jews and Negroes,” because
they were different from Christians and whites, “could not demand
the same privileges and liberties.”55

The racism in these statements has led to reservations about Mein-
ers’s work. Few authors have paid attention to his racial hierarchy
and its relationship with the “history of humankind.”56 His ethnol-
ogy informed the Idéologues as Jauffret, the secretary of the Société
des Observateurs de l’Homme, excerpted and translated Meiners’s
ethnological essays (see epilogue). Meiners’s racialist theories were
cited by Arthur de Gobineau and the latter’s anti-Semitic transla-
tor, Ludwig Schemann, in 1931.57
Meiners defended the sharp division between nobility and burghers
of German corporate society as well as other social fault lines, includ-
ing slavery. He saw himself as a “researcher of the history of humans”
(Forscher der Menschengeschichte) (Meiners 1778:177) and compiled his
Grundriß for the “researcher of humans” (für den Menschenforscher)
(Meiners 1785:358). Hence Meiners adopted an anthropological per-
spective. Even if he never published under this label, Meiners saw his
work as contributing to anthropology—with political economy the
most innovative scholarly development of his day and age. In Mein-
ers’s understanding, anthropology was a physical and moral study
of humankind from its origins until the modern state. His main
examples were Iselin (1764), Henry Home or Lord Kames (1774), and
Falconer (1781). He also cited Ferguson (1767), Millar (1771), Dun-
bar (1780), Pagano (1783–85), Goguet (1758), Montesquieu (1748), de
Pauw (1768–69), Kraft (1766), and Herder (1784– 91) as sources for
the “study of ethnology” (das Studium der Völkerkunde), especially
in its early stages.58
Meiners’s ethnology was a comparative study of manners and
customs (Sitten und Gebräuche), comparable to what the French call
l’histoire des moeurs. This tradition went back to Boemus (1520) and
other humanists (see chapter 4). Enlightenment scholars like Meiners
and Herder tried to bring their studies up to date by reading contem-
porary travel accounts. Scholars working at Göttingen in 1760– 90,
like Heyne, Blumenbach, Meiners, Eichhorn, and Heeren, made
extensive use of the travelogues from expeditions around the world.
These were the main sources with information about the contempo-
rary world. To identify lines of progress in world history, Enlight-
enment scholars used the cumulating body of travel accounts with
data on les naturels, the French name given to people inhabiting
the world outside Europe. In 1795 the Scottish philosopher Dugald

Stewart significantly dubbed their work “theoretical or conjectural
history” (Meek 1976:232– 3). Travel accounts were readily available
at Göttingen, where philosophy was otherwise underrepresented.
The university’s founder, von Münchhausen, had deliberately cre-
ated a university that would not tolerate Schulphilosophie, the phi-
losophy Wolff taught at Halle (Zammito 2002:28). Together with
Johann Feder and a few others, Meiners transformed philosophy
into Popularphilosophie, commonsense or “popular” philosophy that
intended to inform a larger audience on more “useful” subjects than
the traditional academic abstractions. The reception of moral philos-
ophy, vital for the formation of the social sciences in England and
France, occurred in Göttingen most notably in the fields of law, phi-
lology, and cultural history (Carhart 2007).59
As noted in chapter 6, Meiners and his colleague Michael Hiß-
mann were part of the conjectural tradition that contrasted “savage”
with “civilized” peoples in order to trace humankind’s “progress.”60
Many scholars study the German branch of this tradition under the
label “anthropology,” defined as a broad interest in the “history of
humankind” and human development.61 What was new with Mein-
ers was that he used ethnological data to prove his anthropologi-
cal theories. He was convinced that racial traits, both physical and
moral, were inherited, and therefore, the racial hierarchy was of con-
sequence for basic human rights.
The fiercest critic of both Meiners’s and Kant’s racial theories was
Georg Forster. The basis of his critique was firsthand experience
with the natives of five continents. As we saw in chapter 6, Georg
Forster had traveled with his father, Reinhold Forster, first to Rus-
sia, to study German settlers on the Volga, and then to the Pacific,
accompanying Cook on his second circumnavigation (1772– 75). Like
his father, Georg Forster was primarily a naturalist but served on
board as a draftsman. Their Pacific findings led Blumenbach (1781,
1795) to accept the Malayan as a fifth human variety. However, Rein-
hold Forster (1778), in fact, divided that variety into two “races,” now
called the Polynesian and Melanesian culture areas.
After their return to England, Georg Forster and his father fre-
quented the Royal Society (the father had been elected a member
before their trip, the son afterward) and studied the literature in order
to reflect on the data collected during the voyage. During the sea

expedition they had spent 180 days on islands such as Tahiti, Tonga,
and New Zealand as well as on the new continent of Australia (van
Hoorn 2004). Georg and his father studied plants, animals, lan-
guages, and peoples; the son was even more interested in the latter.
Reinhold Forster had been hired as the expedition’s chronicler,
but his tactlessness soured his relationship with both Cook and the
Admiralty (Hoare 1976), and he was prevented from publishing
the official account. When Cook took the honor of writing it him-
self, Reinhold Forster printed his own account in 1778.62 Just weeks
before Cook’s version came out, Georg Forster published an unof-
ficial account of the second expedition in 1777. This book attracted
wide attention for its superior literary style and its presentation of
facts along with reflections inspired by reading the secondary liter-
ature (G. Forster 1777).
Traveling to Germany to seek a position for his father and himself,
Georg Forster arrived at Düsseldorf in November 1778. After having
met Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, a literary figure who introduced him
to members of the upper class, Georg contacted monarchs and aca-
demics. He lectured on the South Seas voyage, demonstrated and
donated artifacts that drew enormous attention, and visited Göttin-
gen, where he encountered his future wife, Therese, in the teahouse
near the Heyne Mansion. He secured a job for his father as professor
of natural history at the University of Halle; Reinhold Forster was
appointed in February 1779 to arrive there by July 1780. Georg Forster
became professor of natural history at Kassel (Hesse) in December
1778. After he had moved to Vilna (then Poland) for a similar chair
in 1784, he experienced another burst of creativity. He earned a doc-
torate in medicine from Halle in September 1785, married Therese
in Göttingen, and lectured in Vilna until 1788. He then accepted a
position as first librarian in Mainz, where he worked until his early
death in Paris in January 1794.
On June 8 and 23, 1786, Georg Forster wrote letters to Samuel
Thomas Soemmerring (1755–1830) about his displeasure with Blu-
menbach’s review of Soemmerring’s Über die körperliche Verschieden-
heit des Negers vom Europäer (1784, 1785), as well as his dissatisfaction
with Kant’s definition of race.63 Reacting to Kant’s suggestion to
replace the Linnaean term varietates with the French races (Ger-
man Arten), Forster (1786a:64– 72) argued that skin color was not a

viable indicator for race because it depended on climate. For Lin-
naeus color was a trivial aspect of plants and animals, insufficient
to distinguish genera or species. Since Linnaeus had defined vari-
eties as characterized by accidental and changeable traits, but spe-
cies by unchanging and fixed traits, Kant’s criterion of skin color as
a fixed characteristic for races moved the category “race” a scale up
the ladder and, in fact, substituted species by races (73–80). Forster
thus asked whether the physical differences between “negroes” and
“whites,” indicated by Soemmerring, marked a distinction between
two different species or “only” between two varieties of one species
(79), that is, had there originally been one or several “human tribes”
(Menschenstämme). His response was that it would not be “improb-
able or inconceivable” (161), even if that could never be an argu-
ment for maltreating black slaves. Repeating Camper’s affirmation
that “negroes” were human, Forster asked rhetorically whether “the
thought that Blacks are our brothers has ever anywhere even once
dropped the raised whip of the slave driver” (163).64
The clash between Forster and Kant reflected not only the debate
about monogenesis versus polygenesis but also the issue of slavery. An
antislavery movement had sparked in England in 1783, when Quak-
ers founded the first British abolitionist organization and petitioned
Parliament. Having witnessed the slave trade’s cruelty, Reverend
James Ramsay published An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion
of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies (1784). Kant knew it
through a translated extract in Forster and Sprengel’s Beiträge zur
Völker- und Länderkunde (1781–90, vol. 5).65 In 1785 Thomas Clark-
son was honored at the University of Cambridge for a Latin disser-
tation that was published as An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of
the Human Species, Particularly the African the next year. Along with
Josiah Wedgewood, William Wilberforce, and others, Clarkson in
1787 founded the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade,
which ultimately would result in the 1807 Slave Trade Act and the
1833 Slavery Abolition Act.
Georg Forster, with his firsthand experience with native inhabit-
ants, nations, and races around most of the globe, was aware of cur-
rent issues and, through Sprengel, his brother-in-law, well informed
about discussions in England. At the end of his critique of Kant,
Forster indicated that he intended to continue his work on “human

varieties” (Menschen-Varietäten). The following winter, in Decem-
ber 1786, he gave a course about “the natural history of humans” in
Vilna (Hominis historia naturalis) (G. Forster 2003). Ludwig Uhlig,
who has written two biographies of Georg Forster (Uhlig 1965, 2004),
studied these lecture notes (Uhlig 2008) and, using them, wrote a
detailed article about Forster’s anthropology (Uhlig 2011). In what
were in effect lectures on zoology, Georg Forster explicitly incorpo-
rated human beings, outlined their differences from animals, and
classified human varieties in more than fifty pages, that is, one-
fourth of the complete set (Uhlig 2011:166). Following the twelfth
edition of Linnaeus’s Systema naturae (1766–68), Forster made impor-
tant changes, leaving out “Monstrosa and Anthropomorpha” that
depended on questionable reports, and corrected the (lack of) dif-
ference between humans and apes by drawing a strict demarcation.
Forster rejected both Rousseau’s idealized homme naturel and Mon-
boddo’s Orang-Outang, supposedly a “barbarous nation, which has
not yet learned the use of speech” (Monboddo 1773–92; A. Barnard
1995a, 1995b), an issue on which he had already taken a stand in his
travel account. Following the second edition of Blumenbach’s thesis
(1781) and Herder’s Ideen (1784–91), Forster repeated that the unique-
ness of humans rested on their reason, language, ability to adapt to
different climates and ways of living, and bipedal erect gait (Uhlig
2011:168–179). Under the influence of Kames’s (1774) polygeneticism
and Soemmering’s racial dissections, Forster departed from Blu-
menbach, Herder, and Kant in considering the possibility of plu-
ral human species. Research conducted by Georg and his father in
the Pacific indicated that two “races” had populated the region, the
light-skinned Polynesians from the northwest and the dark-skinned
(later called) Melanesians from the west (J. R. Forster 1778, 1783; G.
Forster 1786a, 1786b). Ethnological and linguistic data supplied the
most important grounds for this theory (Uhlig 2011:195–201). Com-
bining cultural and naturalist data, Georg Forster arrived at a divi-
sion of humankind (“the one human species”) into seven categories
he called “exempla”: (1) Greenlanders and Eskimos (Arcticus); (2)
Americans (Americanus); (3) Scyths (Scytha), Mongols (Kalmyccus),
and Chinese; (4) Indians (Indus), including ancient Egyptians; (5)
Caucasians (Caucasius); (6) Africans (Afer); and (7) Australians (Aus-
tralis) (G. Forster 2003:1693–1701, summarized by Uhlig 2011:211).66

Forster’s anthropology rested on detailed knowledge about the
South Seas; he came to anthropology through ethnology. Georg For-
ster was immeasurably better informed about pigmentation diver-
sity than Kant and shared Herder’s humaneness and relativism. In
the first of his Kleine Schriften, containing contributions to Völker-
und Länderkunde, Naturgeschichte und Philosophie des Lebens, Forster
(1789–97, vol. 1) indicated that his main interest had been in “natu-
ral science in the broadest sense and especially anthropology.”67 Sur-
prisingly, he included neither his critique of Kant nor his lectures on
the natural history of humans in this volume. Perhaps he considered
them to be part of another discipline (i.e., anthropology) or feared
they would damage his reputation. Meiners, for instance, kept his
polygenetic theories hidden. His friend Feder published Meiners’s
final thoughts about the supposed “diversities of human natures”
posthumously (Meiners 1811–15).
As noted in chapter 6, Georg Forster edited the journal Neue
Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde (1790–93) together with Spren-
gel. This journal was the successor to Beiträge zur Völker- und Län-
derkunde, edited by Reinhold Forster and Sprengel in 1781–84 and
by Sprengel alone in 1784–90. It was the first journal with the word
Völkerkunde in its title. Georg Forster’s Kleine Schriften (1789–97)
employed the same combination of studies in their subtitle, Völker-
und Länderkunde. Reinhold and Georg Forster adopted the term
Völkerkunde a decade after the Göttingen historians Schlözer and
Gatterer had introduced it in the early 1770s. My theory is that Rein-
hold and Georg Forster learned the new vocabulary upon their return
from the Pacific and tied their work to the terminology recently
coined in Göttingen. Sprengel, who had studied with Schlözer and
Gatterer, may have been the intermediary.
Georg Forster returned to the subject of peoples and races once
more in a 1791 review, when he rejected Meiners’s superficial com-
parisons and proposed instead to “consider each people individually,
describe it in all its relationships, and study precisely how it fits the
place it occupies on the earth.”68 It would be interesting to analyze
the contributions of the Forsters to both ethnology and anthropol-
ogy. Most authors concentrate on only one of these, never on their
interaction. Few scholars are even aware of the synchronic develop-
ment of these studies during the eighteenth century’s final quarter.

Usually Georg Forster’s ethnology is not taken into account, even
though his work and that of his father reflected crucial developments
since the 1770s, when ethnography and ethnology, together consti-
tuting Völkerkunde, grew into a discipline that could be advanced
in relation to history, geography, anthropology, natural history, lin-
guistics, or Statistik.69 The case of Reinhold and Georg Forster was
unique in that they contributed to several of these at the same time.
Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann, the editor and translator of travel
accounts encountered in chapter 6, was also aware of the links between
these disciplines but separated them nonetheless. He was the first
to publish a survey of subjects the new study of Völkerkunde would
have to cover: the diversity in physique, moral character, and cus-
toms of the various peoples of the earth (Ehrmann 1787). In 1808,
when invited to write for Bertuch and Vater’s new journal, Allge-
meines Archiv für Ethnographie und Linguistik, Ehrmann contributed
two articles on ethnology and anthropology, respectively. Giving a
summary of “general and particular ethnology” (allgemeine und beson-
dere Völkerkunde) in the first (Ehrmann 1808c; see chapter 6), he pre-
sented an overview of the most important “varieties of humankind”
in the second.
The latter consisted of several paragraphs to supplement a map
of human races. In the title Ehrmann spoke of “the principal vari-
eties of peoples” (“based on skin color”), but in the map’s subti-
tle he referred to “human races” (Ehrmann 1808b). This confusion
reflected the discussion about Blumenbach’s varieties and Kant’s
races. Ehrmann’s hand-colored map distinguished five varieties fol-
lowing “Blumenbach’s system.” Europeans, excluding the Lapps and
Finns but including West Asians and North Africans (“Caucasian
variety”), were presented in pink. East and South Asians, exclud-
ing the Malays but including Finns, Lapps, Eskimos, Greenlanders,
and the inhabitants of America’s Northwest (“Mongolian variety”),
appeared in yellow. Africans south of the Sahara (“Ethiopian variety”)
were painted black. The Americans (“American variety”), exclud-
ing the most northern inhabitants of the continent, were rendered
in brown. Finally, the Malays from Malaysia and the Indonesian
islands, and the Australians (“Malay variety”) were represented in
red on Ehrmann’s map.
With this map Ehrmann responded to another one of Herder’s

calls: to produce an “anthropological map of humankind.”70 The map
demonstrated the eighteenth century’s triumph in completing the
world’s geographical exploration. All continents were placed with
fairly accurate locations. Africa was too small; the northern parts
of America, Asia, and Europe were too large; and while Oceania
was in place, the interior of many continents remained uncharted.
Meanwhile, a web of physical anthropological categorization was
woven across these geographical boundaries in which Lapps and
Finns were moved from the Caucasian into the Mongolian variety;
West Asians and North Africans joined the Caucasian family; con-
sequently the Ethiopian variety included a single people, the Afri-
cans. Innovative was the Malayan variety, separated from Asians yet
including Australian and New Zealand aborigines. All of this was
based on the classification Blumenbach detailed in the second and
third edition of his thesis.
Ehrmann’s articles provide us with the clearest evidence of how
ethnology and anthropology were formulated next to each other in
separate branches of learning. They also illustrate that these stud-
ies were related at the level of classification. If one divided human-
ity into five varieties, which peoples belonged to which variety? This
was a fundamental question for Ehrmann and Blumenbach as well
as for Kant and Meiners. Their work suggests a planet inhabited by
different groups of people named Völker (peoples) or Volksstämme
(tribes) as subcategories of humankind (Menschheit), a category that
could also be subdivided into human “races” (or “varieties”).
In the years to come, attention would be focused not only on
which peoples belonged to which race but also on which races were
represented in European peoples or nations (see the epilogue).
These questions—coupled with the larger one, What are peoples
or races?—led to confusion in the international scientific commu-
nity (e.g., Deniker 1900a, 1900b), as well as to frantic research on
the history of both ethnology and anthropology to help sort this out.
Thus, although anthropology and ethnology developed in sepa-
rate domains of learning during the eighteenth century, there were
several attempts to relate them. Historians like Gatterer, philoso-
phers like Herder and Meiners, theologians like Chavannes, anat-
omists like Blumenbach, and naturalists like Berkhey and Georg
Forster tried to bridge the gap. Many travelers and some natural-

ists, especially those working in the Russian Empire, contributed to
ethnography. Yet the distinction between civil (political) history and
natural history remained very much alive in the eighteenth century.
Conclusion
Enlightenment anthropology was not a “unified science of man,” such
as the Boasians developed in the early twentieth century. Instead,
the word “anthropology” was polyvalent and was used for diverse
approaches. Medical, physical (or biological), theological, and phil-
osophical approaches developed parallel to each other, often with-
out mutual influence. Anthropology in the eighteenth century was
a multifaceted field dealing with humankind; its diversity of peo-
ples, nations, and races; and its ethnic, moral (social), and physical
(racial) characteristics. The study of human varieties and races, of
the differences between humans and apes, was in flux and crystal-
lized in a number of directions. Pluralism remained in vogue until
the institutionalization and professionalization of ethnology and
anthropology in the nineteenth century.
With this summary of anthropological studies in the German
Enlightenment we have drifted far from our aim of studying the
genesis of ethnography and ethnology. Yet the discussion was useful
for illustrating the century’s variety of anthropological and ethno-
logical studies. While ethnological studies were systematically con-
ducted during the eighteenth century, especially in the Russian and
the Holy Roman Empires, anthropology in comparison was much
more widely practiced. Another lesson from this survey of German
anthropology up until the eighteenth century is that anthropology
was very different from ethnology. While anthropology focused on
human beings as individuals or as members of the human species,
ethnology dealt with particular kinds of human groupings, that is,
peoples and nations. The “science of humans” was a field of studies
developed by theologians, physicians, anatomists, philosophers, or
naturalists, whereas the “science of peoples” was practiced by histo-
rians, geographers, and linguists as well as, in some cases, natural-
ists. Compared to anthropology, first developed by the humanists,
ethnology was a new study, invented by Enlightenment historians.
The Age of Reason, so full of ethnological studies, closed on an
anthropological chord. This is demonstrated not only by studies

like Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Plan einer vergleichenden Anthropolo-
gie (written in 1795, published in 1903), Blumenbach’s third edition
of his De generis humani varietate nativa (1795), and Kant’s Anthro-
pologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798), but also by the founding of
a professional organization in France that explicitly focused on the
observation of human beings.

eight
Epilogue
Reception of the German Ethnographic Tradition
Nomen est omen.

— A belated reply to Stocking (1971)
T
he Société des Observateurs de l’Homme, founded in Paris
in 1799, was the world’s first anthropological society. Estab-
lished by the Idéologues, including Pierre-Jean-George Caba-
nis and Antoine Destutt de Tracy (who coined the term idéologie),
the society was inspired by their ideas on the interrelation of body
and soul, the “physical and moral” (homo duplex) (Cabanis 1802).1 It
aimed at “the study of man in its physical, intellectual, and moral
aspects” (Chappey 2002:487)—adding the “intellectual” dimension
to the program of the early seventeenth-century physicians (duplex
natura), the Halle and Leipzig physicians of the 1740s and 1770s, and
the anthropology defined by the French naturalist Robinet in 1778
(see chapter 7). The society was active for only a short time. It dis-
appeared in 1804, to be absorbed by the Société Philantropique. Yet
the Société des Observateurs de l’Homme, devoted to la science de
l’homme, has been seen as seminal in the history of anthropology.2
Anthropology, Ethnology, and Sociology in France

Many members of the Société des Observateurs de l’Homme were
physicians or naturalists; some were geographers or linguists. The
society published several monographs, collected objects for a muséum
anthropologique, and assisted in the preparation of an expedition to
Australia led by Nicolas Baudin (1800–1804). This expedition included
twenty-three scientists: astronomers, geographers, mineralogists, nat-
uralists, geologists, hydrographers, and a pharmacist. Portrait, nat-
ural history, and landscape artists also participated. Each academic
discipline had two or more representatives on one of the two ships.
Alexander von Humboldt had been offered a position on the team
but rejected the offer because he abhorred the fact that Baudin had
been involved in Caribbean slave trading. The naturalist Cuvier (1978)
added a note on the “anatomical differences between various races of
man” and one of his students, François Péron (1800), wrote Obser-
vations sur l’anthropologie, ou l’histoire naturelle de l’homme. Péron is
regarded as the “first official expedition anthropologist” (Hewes 1968;
Ducros and Ducros 1988). Together with one of the officers, he edited
the expedition’s report (Péron and Freycinet 1807–16). The society also
issued an extensive questionnaire compiled by the philosopher-cum-
linguist Joseph-Marie Degérando in 1800. Translated as The Obser-
vation of Savage Peoples (Degérando 1969), it is regarded as the first
questionnaire for conducting ethnographic fieldwork (Stagl 2002b:328).
Apart from the work of Péron and other expedition members, a direct
implementation of this questionnaire was a description of the west-
ern Xhosa by Captain Ludwig Alberti, working for the Dutch in
the Cape Colony. Written in German, but first published in Dutch
(1810) and French (1811), this book was recently hailed as the “first
ethnographic monograph” and an early example of applied anthro-
pology in a colonial context (Huigen 2006, 2007, 2009).
The Observateurs adopted some of the ethnographic, statistical,
and racialist theories developed in Göttingen, summarized as “ethno-
anthropology” by Rupp-Eisenreich (1983b). Manuscript notes from the
society’s secretary, Louis-François Jauffret, include detailed transla-
tions from Meiners’s history of humankind (1785) and his ethnolog-
ical essays in the Göttingisches historisches Magazin (Rupp-Eisenreich
1983a, 1983b).3 Degérando consulted Chavannes’s work (Blanckaert
1989:22) but was also influenced by Göttingen scholars (Dougherty
1990b, 1996). His “instructions read as though they were lifted, if
not word for word, then topic for topic, from Meiners’s Grundriß der
Geschichte der Menschheit” (Carhart 2007:277). Apparently, Meiners’s
ideas had become known in France through contact zones between
the French and German language areas, like Alsatia and Switzer-
land (Chappey 2002:274).
Despite the fact that the Observateurs adopted ethnographic ideas
from Göttingen and advocated ethnographic research in the field,
396 Epilogue
the terms ethnographie and ethnologie do not seem to appear in their
work. The society’s historian, Jean-Luc Chappey (2002:293), analyzed
their work under the label “anthropologie hybride” and used the term
ethnologie only when incorrectly citing Georges Hervé (1909b). The
latter would have called the society’s agenda “the first program of
ethnologie,” but Hervé, in fact, named it “the first program of anthro-
pologie.” The terms ethnographie and ethnologie do not seem to have
entered the society’s publications.4 Instead, its program was pri-
marily focused on the pursuit of anthropology— a fact unnoted by
commentators like Sera-Shriar (2013:56), who call the Observateurs
“French ethnologists.”
The earliest occurrence of the term ethnographique in France, as
far as we know, took place a generation later, in the Porte-feuille
géographique et ethnographique (Engelmann and Berger 1820). Written
by Godefroy Engelmann and G. Berger, this work was published at
Mulhouse (near Basel) at Engelmann’s expense (Engelmann served
as director of the Société lithographique de Mulhouse). According
to Blanckaert (1988:26), who traced this first use of ethnographique,
the work was ignored in France, and both authors are rarely encoun-
tered in the secondary literature.5
The term’s second use in France was more influential. The Atlas
ethnographique du globe (1826), composed by the Italian geographer
Adriano Balbi (1782–1848), was well known among specialists. This
comparative study presented “a classification of ancient and modern
peoples according to their languages,” together with seven hundred
(!) vocabularies of the world’s principal dialects; it further entailed
physical, moral, and political tables comparing population groups
across five continents (Balbi 1826a, 1826b). In the introduction to his
atlas, Balbi, viewing peoples as primarily characterized by their lan-
guages, defined ethnography as “a classification of peoples accord-
ing to their languages.”6 Hans Fischer (1970:177) has interpreted this
as a shift in meaning, but Balbi’s definition was close to Schlözer’s
view, stood in a tradition going back to Leibniz a full century ear-
lier, and was continued by the work of Pallas, Adelung, Vater, and
many other historians and linguists (see chapters 2 and 6).
The term ethnographie was first included in the sixth edition
of Pierre Boiste’s 1823 dictionary, then in the 1835 Dictionnaire de
l’Académie française, and subsequently, in the 1839 Complément du
Epilogue 397
Dictionnaire de l’Académie française.7 In the latter lexicon, the terms
ethnographie and ethnologie occurred with a definition, in both cases
referring to Ampère’s work (“dans la classification de M. Ampère”)
(Dictionnaire de l’Académie française 1839:373). During the years 1829–34
the physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) developed a classifi-
cation of the sciences in which both ethnographie and ethnologie fig-
ured prominently: in 1829–30, as part of “les sciences anthropologiques”
and in 1832– 34, as part of “les sciences sociales” (de Rohan-Csermak
1967, 1970a:674, 1970b:705; H. Fischer 1970:179). Ampère’s classifica-
tion of sciences played an important role in popularizing the words
ethnologie and sciences sociales in France and probably influenced the
founders of the Société ethnologique de Paris (sep) in 1839.
Alongside attempts to formulate an (anthropological) “science of
man” in France, most notably by Buffon (1749a, 1777), a comparative
study of peoples had been developed by Buffon’s friend, Charles de
Brosses, in Du culte des dieux fétiches (1760, reprinted in the Encyclo-
pédie) and Antoine-Yves Goguet in De l’Origine des loix, des arts, et des
sciences; et de leurs progrès chez les anciens peuples (1758). In both cases a
comparison of “ancient peoples” and of ancient and modern peoples
was made, as in Lafitau’s work. While Lafitau had compared ancient
Hebrews and Greeks with contemporary American Indians (mainly
Iroquois), de Brosses compared ancient Egyptian religion with con-
temporary African cults and Goguet contrasted Hebrews, Babylo-
nians, and Assyrians with Egyptians and Greeks (with an appendix
on Chinese historians). Influential too were Voltaire’s Essai sur les
moeurs et l’esprit des nations (1753–56) and Jean-Nicholas Démeunier’s
L’Esprit des usages et des coutumes des différens peuples, ou Observations
tirées des voyageurs et des historiens (1776). Voltaire’s work was known
across Europe, while Michael Hißmann translated Démeunier’s work
into German, naming it “Manners and Customs of Peoples” (1783–
84). Much later, Marvin Harris (1968:17) called Démeunier “proba-
bly the greatest ethnographer of the eighteenth century.”8 Antoine
Court de Gébelin’s Le Monde primitif analysé et comparé avec le monde
moderne (1773–82) was another comparative study on a grand scale. As
Edna Lemay (1970) has argued, these studies were part of a tradition
of studying manners and customs (l’histoire des moeurs) that began
with Ioannes Boemus’s Omnium gentium mores, leges et ritus (1520).
The subject of “manners and customs” also appeared in Gerhard
398 Epilogue
Friedrich Müller’s work, as we have seen in chapter 4. Müller’s eth-
nological program likely had little impact on French scholarship
because his ethnographic work remained unpublished for a long time.
The explorer and linguist, philosopher and Orientalist, Constantin-
François Chasseboeuf, Comte de Volney (1757–1820) represents a con-
nection between Göttingen historians and French scholars. Volney
had traveled through Egypt and Syria (1783–85) and then traversed
Corsica and the United States (1795–98). He issued instructions for
travelers in 1793 and discussed a theory of history in 1795 lectures.
Both the account of his travels to Egypt and Syria (Volney 1787) and
his questionnaire (Volney 1813, 2005 [1795]) distinguished between
a country’s “natural” and “political” conditions. The first category
included geography, climate, products of the earth, and nourishment
of “the country”; the second, “the people” in their social, ethnic, reli-
gious, and political dimensions. Volney’s classification played a role in
postrevolutionary France, which actively pursued the statistical study
of French districts. Volney formed a trait d’union between Paris and
Göttingen; he was influenced by Count Leopold Berchtold’s Patri-
otic Travellers (1789), and Georg Forster translated two of his books,
including Les Ruines (1791). In the preface to his Questions de Statistique
à l’usage des Voyageurs, Volney (1813) paid homage to German empiri-
cal research and to the Patriotic Travellers. Although Volney did not
know German, he learned about the Göttingen travel instructions
(apodemics) through Michaelis and Berchtold. And, most intriguing,
Volney knew Schlözer’s world histories and his travel instructions
(Stagl 2002b:307–318) as well as Meiners’s work (Marino 1995:110).
In 1801 statistics became important under Napoleon Bonaparte’s
rule when the first préfets du Consulat were ordered to visit each
département and record the number of inhabitants, the natural
resources, and the ways of living (Bourguet 1984, 1988). As part of
French attempts to construct a nation and reform the state, statis-
tique as a social science obtained a significance for a social context
in which utilitarian interests and scholarly curiosity merged, just
as they had in the Russian Empire of the 1740s (see chapter 4). The
French inventory was comparable to the Statistical Account of Scot-
land, a survey of all Scottish parishes compiled by the aristocrat Sir
John Sinclair in twenty-one volumes (1791–99). Sinclair introduced
in the English language the word “statistics,” based on the German
Epilogue 399
Statistik, a term he acquired while touring Germany in 1786 (van
der Zande 2010:421).
The shift from statistics to sociology took place in the 1830s. Par-
allel to the 1834 founding of the Statistical Society of London (now
the Royal Statistical Society), the Belgian astronomer Adolphe Que-
telet developed statistics as a social science, rather than as a study of
the state (John 1884). Quetelet (1835) called it physique sociale (social
physics), a term he borrowed from the French philosopher Auguste
Comte (1798–1857), a follower of Henri de Saint-Simon. Disagreeing
with Quetelet’s “social statistics,” Comte (1830–42, vol. 4:252) coined
the term sociologie as an equivalent of physique sociale in 1839, to dis-
tinguish his approach from Quetelet’s (Maus 1966:12).9 In coining
sociologie, Comte may have consulted Ampère’s (1833, 1834) classifica-
tion of sciences, in which ethnologie was a part of the sciences anthro-
pologiques and of the sciences sociales.10 Thus sociologie, with Comte,
may well have been coined in analogy to ethnologie. Recently, Jacques
Guilhaumou (2006) has noted that Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–
1836) used the word sociologie fifty years before Comte, in a manu-
script from the 1780s. In either case the term referred to a positive
science of society to serve administrators.
Ethnology, Philology, and Kinship Studies in the United States

For the advent of anthropological studies in the United States, Benja-
min Franklin, Samuel Stanhope Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben-
jamin Smith Barton have been singled out (Bieder 1972; Patterson
2001). In 1784 Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) published a remarkable
pamphlet, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America, satiriz-
ing Western ethnocentrism and arguing that in many ways these
so-called savages were more polite than white Americans.
Stanhope Smith (1751–1819), a Presbyterian minister who served as
president of Princeton University, published An Essay on the Causes
of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species (1787), in
which he criticized Lord Kames’s polygenetic Discourse on the Orig-
inal Diversity of Mankind. Opposing racial classifications by Lin-
naeus, Buffon, and Blumenbach, he expressed egalitarian ideas about
race and slavery (Dain 2002).
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) had an interest in American Indian
languages since childhood and collected their vocabularies. Like
400 Epilogue
Leibniz and Samuel Johnson, he assumed that the comparative study
of languages would help uncover “the affinity of nations.” As he
wrote to John Adams, “In the early part of my life I was very famil-
iar with the Indians and acquired impressions, attachment, and
commiseration for them which have never been obliterated” (Hal-
lowell 1960:7). Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration
of Independence (1776), drafted Virginia’s Statute of Liberty and
Religious Freedom, and served as the United States’ third president
(1801–9). A. F. C. Wallace’s Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate
of the First Americans (1999) discussed Jefferson’s “romantic fascina-
tion” with Indians, their traditions and languages, the excavation of
their burial mounds, and the first designs to appropriate their lands
for the young agrarian republic. Jefferson’s interest in Native Amer-
ican linguistics and archaeology is evident in his Notes on the State
of Virginia (1787), which included statistical tables and descriptions
of Amerindians in Virginia and her environs.11
Benjamin Smith Barton (1766–1815), a professor of natural history
and member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia,
published ethnological and linguistic material in his New Views of
the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America (1797, 1798). The title
of this book resembles Kollár’s 1783 definition of ethnology as the
study of peoples and nations. Barton was an avid admirer of Leib-
niz and quoted Strahlenberg (1736) on the importance of following
the advice of “this great Philosopher” to obtain knowledge about
“the Languages of North Asia” in order to elucidate “the Transmi-
gration of Nations” (Barton 1798:1; see chapter 3).
Leibniz’s influence was also obvious in the work of the Jesuit trav-
eler Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1682–1761). In his “Pre-
liminary Discourse,” Charlevoix (1766) mentioned that the question
of the origins of nations, especially that of the Native Americans (of
whom he had met quite a few during his travels in North America),
might be solved by studying their languages: “We have had and still
have Travelers and Missionaries, who have worked on the languages
that are spoken in all the provinces of the New World. It would only
be necessary to make a Collection of their Grammars and Vocab-
ularies and to collate them with the dead and living Languages of
the Old World that pass for Originals.” He continued, “Instead of
this Method, which has been neglected, they have made Enquiries
Epilogue 401
into the Manners, Customs, Religion and Traditions of the Ameri-
cans, in order to discover their Original.” In much the same way as
Schlözer did five years later, Charlevoix (1766) declared that schol-
ars were not following the “right Path” since the study of language
was the only way to arrive at a reliable picture of how the Americas
had been populated (Barton 1798:vii–xii). This method of linguis-
tic analysis encouraged Barton (1798:xii) to study “the Origin of the
Tribes and Nations of America.” Both he and Jefferson were con-
cerned with the “affinity of nations” (Jefferson 1787:162–165; Bar-
ton 1798:xviii–xix). Barton (1798:xxiii–xxiv) stated that his interest
in the “resemblance between the American and Asiatic languages”
had risen while he was studying medicine at Edinburgh in 1787, but
that he had not been able to pursue the matter until 1796, when he
received Pallas’s Vocabularia comparativa “through the hands of my
learned friend, Dr. Joseph Priestly.”
Edward G. Gray links these Americanist studies to linguistic
research in the Russian Empire, where Peter Simon Pallas was work-
ing on Catherine the Great’s project to compare key words from
two hundred languages (Pallas 1786–89). Meanwhile, even George
Washington became interested in this research. The future presi-
dent asked government agents in Ohio in 1786–88 to collect Indian
vocabularies, for they would “throw light upon the original history
of this country and . . . forward researches into the probable con-
nection and communication between the northern parts of Amer-
ica and those of Asia” (Gray 1999:112).
Ethnology as a discrete field of academic study was recognized
in the United States at least as early as 1802 or 1803, when President
Thomas Jefferson added an appendix to the instructions issued to
the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–6) titled “Ethnological Infor-
mation Desired” (Hallowell 1960:17). Following the Louisiana Pur-
chase (1803), which nearly doubled the size of the United States and
made it into an empire, Jefferson commissioned an expedition led by
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to chart the newly acquired
territory. The expedition’s mission was to explore the Missouri River
and to find a river that ran into the “Western Ocean . . . for the
purpose of commerce” (Jefferson 1962a:61). The real motive was to
advance the western frontier. With a party of twenty-five men, later
assisted by Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman acting as an interpreter
402 Epilogue
and guide, Lewis and Clark traveled to the Missouri River’s source,
across the Rocky Mountains, and down the Columbia River to the
Pacific Ocean. Living off the land, they explored the uncharted West
and tried to find a Northwest Passage.
There is some debate as to whether Jefferson himself wrote the
expedition’s appendix on “Ethnological Information Desired.” R. G.
Thwaites (1959:283–287) suggested that the instructions were writ-
ten by Jefferson in 1802, as did Joseph Henry (Darnell 1998:32), but
Patterson (2001:167) ascribes the appendix to Barton (1959[1803]).12
However, Patterson mentions that Jefferson corresponded with Bar-
ton about it in February 1803 and issued extensive instructions to
Lewis in June 1803. Jefferson and/or Barton requested that Lewis
and Clark also obtain “ethnological information” about the “Indians
of Louisiana,” including their “physical history and medicine, mor-
als, religion, traditions or national history, agriculture and domes-
tic economy, fishing and hunting, war[fare], amusements, clothing
dress & orniments [sic], customs & manners generally” (Thwaites
1959: 283–287; see also Patterson 2001:13).
The similarities between these instructions for the American explo-
rations and those for Siberia’s exploration by the Russians seventy
years earlier are remarkable. Lewis and Clark undertook inquiries
similar to those pursued by Müller and others in Siberia in 1733–
47. The list of subjects posed in the appendix is similar to Müller’s
1740 list of questions on Siberia’s peoples (see chapter 4, table 2),
albeit much briefer. The difference is that the Jefferson and/or Bar-
ton appendix was a program for future research, whereas Müller’s
instructions rested on seven years of research experience in Siberia.
An earlier American questionnaire had been the “Circular Let-
ter,” issued by a committee that Jefferson, as president of the Amer-
ican Philosophical Society, chaired in 1798. It sought information
about “the past and present state of this country” (Jefferson et al.
1799:xxxvii–xxxix). The fourth point requested an inquiry “into the
Customs, Manners, Languages and Character of the Indian nations,
ancient and modern, and their migrations.” There was also a query
relating to “researches into the Natural History of the Earth” and one
dealing with archaeological remains, such as “plans, drawings and
descriptions of . . . ancient Fortifications, Tumuli and other Indian
works of art.” In addition, the letter expressed the desire to “pro-
Epilogue 403
cure one or more entire skeletons of the Mammoth, so called and of
such other unknown animals as either have been, or hereafter may
be discovered in America.”13 This short list, following the old tradi-
tion of distributing questionnaires (see Urry 1973, 1993; Fowler 1975;
Stagl 2002b), was the first of its kind in the United States. The “Cir-
cular Letter” did not mention ethnology, but the idea of a study of
“nations, ancient and modern” was clearly included. Gilbert Chinard
(1943) regarded it as “the charter of American ethnology” (Hallow-
ell 1960:26). Therefore, the fact that Jefferson and/or Barton added
an appendix on “ethnological information desired” to the instruc-
tions of the Lewis and Clark Expedition four or five years later sug-
gests that these scholars somehow knew about the new field of study
developed in the German-speaking countries since the 1760s.
Two decades later, in 1828, Noah Webster’s An American Diction-
ary of the English Language adopted the term and defined “ethnology”
as “the science of nations.” As we have seen, ethnographie occurred
in France in Boiste’s 1823 dictionary, while ethnographie and ethnol-
ogie appeared in Ampère’s classification of sciences of 1829– 34. In
Britain the term “ethnology” “was still new to English usage” when
Richard King issued a prospectus to found an ethnological soci-
ety in London in 1842 (Stocking 1971:372). The term “ethnography”
first surfaced in Britain in the Penny Cyclopedia of 1834, in Cardinal
Wiseman’s work of 1836, and in that of James Cowles Prichard in
1836 (cf. Vermeulen 1995:53–54); ethnography also appeared in arti-
cles by Charles T. Beke (1835) and Thomas Hodgkin (1835). While
I have thus far found no early traces of “ethnography” in American
primary works, it is intriguing that ethnology was used earlier in
the United States than in France and Britain.
How the new discipline of ethnology found its way from St. Peters-
burg, Göttingen, and Vienna to Philadelphia and London remains
to be established. Diplomatic representatives may have been the
intermediaries. Benjamin Franklin was the first American ambas-
sador to France (1776–85); Thomas Jefferson and James Madison suc-
ceeded him. Even before the American Revolution, Franklin visited
Hanover and Göttingen and stayed in Michaelis’s house in July 1766.
He met several university professors, including Schlözer and Achen-
wall. The latter recorded his impressions in “Some observations on
North America and the British colonies from verbal information of
404 Epilogue
Dr. Franklin.”14 Franklin was enthusiastic about the new university
and probably influenced Jefferson in this respect. Jefferson, the sec-
ond American ambassador to France (1785–89), maintained contacts
with many French scholars but departed from Paris upon the French
Revolution’s eruption. Both Franklin and Jefferson were members of
the Masonic Lodge Les neuf soeurs, established in Paris in 1776, that
organized French support for the American Revolution. At the salon
of Madame Helvétius, or that of Baron d’Holbach, the Americans
encountered some of the brightest names of the Late Enlightenment,
including Buffon, Voltaire, d’Alembert, Diderot, Raynal, Condillac,
Condorcet, Volney, and Cabanis (Kilborne 1982; Blom 2010). Some
of them were members of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Jefferson
later corresponded with Volney, the Idéologues (Chinard 1923, 1925),
and Démeunier. But he was unfamiliar with German, as he con-
fessed when forwarding a copy of Vater’s 1810 work on the peopling
of America via the Bering Strait to Barton: “Not understanding a
word of German the book is lost on me.”15
In the aftermath of the American War of Independence, a treaty
signed by Britain and the United States opened diplomatic relations
between the Electorate of Hanover and the United States in 1783. One
of Göttingen’s star students, Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859),
was a link between German ethnology and American interest in the
field. After his studies in Hamburg, von Humboldt heard lectures in
Göttingen by Heyne, Blumenbach, Kästner, Gmelin, Lichtenberg,
and Spittler (1789–90). Impressed by Lichtenberg’s and Blumenbach’s
research methods, he contacted Georg Forster and traveled with him
down the Rhine through the Netherlands to England (1790). He
continued his studies at the Handelsakademie in Hamburg and the
Bergakademie in Freiberg (Saxony). Even if his studies in Freiberg
were of greater importance for his naturalist career, and his world-
view was formed by Goethe and Herder rather than by Schlözer, von
Humboldt held Göttingen in high esteem. He stated later that he
had received “the more noble part” of his education at “the famous
university of Göttingen” (Nissen 1962:85). After his South America
expedition with Aimé Bonpland (1799–1804), von Humboldt visited
Jefferson. Invited by the American Philosophical Society, he lec-
tured in Philadelphia, where he was celebrated as a model scientist.
American scholars were interested in the development of new
Epilogue 405
sciences in Göttingen and stayed in contact with European schol-
ars. Barton in Philadelphia, for example, corresponded with Blu-
menbach. Robert E. Bieder relates how Barton valued Göttingen
to such an extent that he even claimed he had acquired a doctoral
degree there. Although Barton’s admission to the University of Göt-
tingen cannot be substantiated, it is clear that he thought the qual-
ity of Göttingen’s education was superior to the one he enjoyed at
Edinburgh.16 Barton received an honorary doctorate in medicine
from the University of Kiel on Christoph Daniel Ebeling’s recom-
mendation in 1795. Through Ebeling in Hamburg Barton sent Blu-
menbach a skull of “an Illinois from Mississippi” two years later
(Dougherty 2012:415, 389).
American ethnology had another connection to European linguists
not necessarily related to Müller, Schlözer, or Göttingen. During the
American Revolution Albert Gallatin and Peter Stephen Du Pon-
ceau immigrated to the United States, where they became interested
in Indian languages. The Swiss Gallatin had grown up in Geneva
and knew Greek, Latin, and French in addition to German. Influ-
enced by Jefferson’s and Barton’s language collections, he published
A Table of Indian Languages of the United States in 1826. As secretary
of the treasury during the Jefferson and Madison administrations,
Gallatin sent out questionnaires and published two more works on
Native American languages (Gallatin 1836, 1848). The Frenchman
Du Ponceau was interested in languages already as a youth and
had served as secretary to historian and linguist Court de Gébelin.
Working with the Moravian missionary John Heckewelder in the
United States (Bieder 1986:27), Du Ponceau collected many vocab-
ularies on Jefferson’s suggestion during the 1780s and 1790s. He
eventually became president of the American Philosophical Society
in Philadelphia. Only the American– Canadian ethnologist Hora-
tio Hale, who served as philologist on the United States Exploring
Expedition (1838–42) and had traveled to Europe, could rival them.
All three scholars corresponded with European colleagues on lin-
guistics. Whether and to what extent they adopted the ethnological
terminology developed in Germany requires further investigation.
In 1842 Gallatin and others founded the American Ethnologi-
cal Society (aes) in New York City. This society copied the exam-
ple of the French ethnological society (1839) and was followed by
406 Epilogue
the Ethnological Society of London (esl), founded in 1843 (dis-
cussed later).
The American object of study—to ascertain “the affinity of nations”
by pursuing the comparative study of languages—resembled Europe’s
primary research issue in many ways. The object was part and par-
cel of American ethnology in the work of Jefferson, Barton, Gall-
atin, and others up until Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–81). Morgan
(1871) believed that his research into the “systems of consanguinity
and affinity of the human family” could help unravel the history of
peoples who had no written history and thereby assist philology in
deciphering the origins of nations. He proposed to study the ori-
gins of native tribes by analyzing their systems of kinship and mar-
riage. In 1846 he found that the Iroquois and Algonquin had similar
characteristics—and the hunt was on (Kuper 1988). He often returned
to his informants and attended native councils, publishing League of
the Iroquois in 1851 (Bieder 1986). Six years later, Morgan presented
to the Pundit Club at Rochester a paper on the “Laws of Descent
of the Iroquois” in which he argued that the Iroquois clan system or
“code of descent” in itself was “of very little importance” but seen in
the light of “the great problem” of the origin of the Indian nations
(“races”) became vitally important:
Can this code of descent, or any other original, well-defined, Indian
institution, be used as a test of the truthfulness of history? In the sec-
ond place, can it be employed as an instrument in the attempt to solve
the great problem of the origin of our Indian races? If it can be used for
either purpose, that fact invests it with a high degree of importance.
(Morgan 1858:139–140, cited in Tooker 1992:362, emphasis added)
After he had found the same classificatory system among the Tam-
ils of southern India in 1858, Morgan issued a circular letter in 1859
inviting comments (Hallowell 1960:49–50). His “belief in the iden-
tity of the Iroquois and the Dravidian kinship systems was basic
to his proof of the Asiatic origin of the American Indians” (Traut-
mann 1984). Building on the work of ethnologists like Gallatin and
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who were combining ethnology and phi-
lology, Morgan added kinship studies to the philologist’s method.
As Adam Kuper (1985:7) concluded, “The models of Gallatin and
other American linguists were taken over directly from the Indo-
Epilogue 407
Europeanists.” If Morgan’s approach was a continuation of Leibniz’s
early eighteenth-century program, he added an alternative method—
the comparison of kinship terminologies—to the old one of compar-
ative linguistics. If the methods had changed, the object remained
the same: the origin and descent of nations. By adding the gentes in
the tribes (clans) to the gens of peoples and nations, Morgan brought
more nuance to the picture.
In later life Morgan moved from the historical problem of migra-
tion to the evolutionist problem of descent. In Ancient Society (1877)
Morgan painted a view of humanity progressing “from Savagery
through Barbarism to Civilization,” a problem that had preoccupied
Enlightenment scholars since Ferguson. Already in his student days,
Morgan had studied the work of Lord Kames. The latter’s Sketches of
the History of Man set him on the way to social evolutionism (Stern
1931). With other legal scholars, like Johann Jakob Bachofen, John
Ferguson McLennan, and Henry Sumner Maine, Morgan laid the
basis for kinship and law studies. For this reason he has been hailed
as “the father of American anthropology” and “one of the great pio-
neers in the science of anthropology.”17 But Morgan would never have
considered himself as contributing to anthropology because he knew
that to be the subject of Samuel G. Morton, the father of American
physical anthropology (Bieder 1986). Thus it is more correct to say
that Morgan was a pioneer of Americanist ethnology, along with
Barton, Gallatin, and Schoolcraft.
Ethnography and Geography in Russia

In Russia ethnography flowered early, to such an extent that the
institutionalization of the discipline occurred earlier in Russia than
in western Europe or the United States. After the genesis of eth-
nography in Siberia with Messerschmidt, Müller, Gmelin, Steller,
Krasheninnikov, Rychkov, Pallas, Falck, Georgi, Lepekhin, and
others, no fewer than twenty-seven expeditions were undertaken
in the Russian Empire between 1803 and 1852, mostly by German-
speaking scholars (Kopelevich 2002; Donnert 2002; Stagl 2009). This
resulted in a huge amount of artifacts and other items in the Kun-
stkamera, the Academy of Sciences’s Cabinet of Curiosities. When,
in the 1820s and 1830s, the Kunstkamera’s collections were divided
between new museums, an “Ethnographic Museum” was established
408 Epilogue
inside the Kunstkamera. It became an independent museum, the first
with this title, in 1836 (Staniukovich 1964:45).18 It is the world’s old-
est ethnographic museum, preceding those of Leiden, established
in 1837, and Copenhagen, founded in 1841 (Avé 1980; Vermeulen
1999:29; see table 12).
The term etnografiia appeared in 1824 in the journal Sibirskii Vest-
nik and in 1825 in the Moskovskii Telegraf, edited by Nikolai A. Pole-
voi (Tokarev 1951–52, 1966:185). Polevoi later wrote a “History of the
Russian people” (1829– 33, 6 vols.). Already in 1802, the Russian–
American Company used “ethnographic” in one of its instructions
(Tokarev 1966:185, n. 89; Schweitzer 2001).
Another indication of the importance attached to ethnography
in Russia is the founding of a chair of etnografiia at the Academy of
Sciences in St. Petersburg. This chair, in the languages and ethnog-
raphy of Finnish and Caucasian peoples, was occupied by Andrei
Johan Sjögren (Shegren) in 1837 (Sternberg 1925:56; Herzog 1949:129).
Sjögren was a Finnish-born historian and linguist who undertook
expeditions to northern Russia in 1824–29, the Caucasus in 1835– 37,
and Livonia and Courland in 1846–52 (Stagl 2009:42–43). He served
as the Ethnographic Museum’s first director from 1844 on; its first
curator was Leopold Radlov.
The Russian chair was the earliest academic chair in ethnography,
preceding those of Adolf Bastian in Berlin (1871), Pieter Johannes
Veth in Leiden (1877), Daniel G. Brinton in Philadelphia (1884–86),
Frederic Ward Putnam at Harvard (1887–90), Frederick Starr in Chi-
cago (1892–95), Edward Burnett Tylor in Oxford (1896), and Franz
Boas in New York (1899).19 The first chairs in (physical) anthropol-
ogy were created for Armand de Quatrefages in Paris (1855), Dmitrii
Anuchin in Moscow (1880–84), and Johannes Ranke in Munich (1886).
The Imperial Russian Geographical Society, founded in St. Peters-
burg in 1845, also helped institutionalize ethnography in Russia.
This society had four divisions: physical geography, mathematical
geography, ethnography, and statistics. The navigator Fedor Petro-
vich Litke took the initiative, with the support of the naturalist Karl
Ernst von Baer and the explorer Ferdinand von Wrangel (Knight
1994:211–232). The Russian society followed the example of the geo-
graphical societies of Paris (1821), Berlin (1828), London (1830), and
Boston (1840). Unlike its predecessors, however, the Russian Geo-
Epilogue 409
graphical Society included an “Ethnographic Division” (Otdelenie
Etnografii) from the beginning. Von Baer wrote the proposal to add
it (Knight 1994:23, 230). The division’s longtime chairman was the
literary critic and folklorist Nikolai Ivanovich Nadezhdin. Whereas
von Baer saw ethnography as a science of empire, focusing on the
diversity of the human race (anthropology in Blumenbach’s sense),
Nadezhdin’s ethnography was a study of nationality (narodnost’),
concentrating on the Russian people rather than the peoples of Rus-
sia. In these opposing perspectives the conflict between Western-
izers and Slavophiles reared yet again (Knight 1994:92–119, 2009).
Thus, the institutionalization of ethnography in Russia proceeded
during the 1830s and 1840s with a museum, a chair, and a society.
The subject attracted attention thanks to its relevance to the admin-
istration of nationalities, the abundance of resource materials, and
the rise of romantic nationalism in Russia. Seen internationally, the
institutionalization of ethnography in Russia preceded that in most
European countries and the United States.
Ethnography, Geography, and Linguistics in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands (before 1795, the United Provinces), volkskunde,
the study of a people, surfaced earlier than volkenkunde, the study of
several peoples. As we have seen, the naturalist Johannes le Francq
van Berkhey, influenced by Buffon, used the former term at Leiden
in 1776 (see chapter 6). Two years later, the Batavian Society of Arts
and Sciences (kbg) was founded in Batavia (now Jakarta), the first
learned society in Asia. Adopting ideas from the Dutch and the Ger-
man Enlightenment, founding members like Willem van Hogendorp
and Jacobus Radermacher produced topographic and ethnographic
descriptions of Indonesian islands that were published in the soci-
ety’s transactions.20 This society put ethnography on the scholarly
agenda in the Netherlands East Indies by circulating questionnaires
about the “natural history, antiquities, manners and customs of the
peoples of the Indies,” setting up a museum, making a botanical
garden, and publishing (Effert 2008:4–5). As noted in chapter 6,
the society’s first secretary, the German naturalist von Wurmb,
circumscribed the kbg’s field in 1779 as “geography and ethnogra-
phy [Länder- Völkerkunde], and especially natural history.”21 This is
a remarkable example of the swift reception of ideas from histori-
410 Epilogue
ans like Gatterer and Schlözer in Göttingen (1771– 78) by German
scholars in the Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia.
A third instance of ethnology occurred as Volkkunde in the intro-
duction to a reprint of the second edition of Witsen’s Noord en Oost
Tartarye (1785) by Pieter Boddaert (1730–1796). Written at Utrecht
in 1784, Boddaert’s introduction upgraded the geographical knowl-
edge of Witsen (1692, 1705) on the basis of subsequent geographi-
cal, historical, and ethnographic studies. Eighty years of scholarly
development separated these men. Although Witsen included eth-
nographic details of Siberia’s peoples, his book was concerned with
“geography and topography” (see chapter 3). While Witsen began
with districts, rivers, islands, lakes, and so forth, and then narrated
everything “noteworthy” in these areas, Boddaert explicitly referred
to ethnology as a separate branch of learning, distinct from geog-
raphy. Since the age of Louis XIV, Boddaert (1785:i) explained, the
knowledge of geography (Aardrykskunde) had been augmented by
Cook’s circumnavigations and the expeditions across the northern
and eastern parts of the Russian Empire. Thanks to these exploits,
“new light has been thrown on the physical, geographical, political,
and ethnological contemplation of our terrestrial globe.”22 After hav-
ing mentioned Müller, Gmelin, Messerschmidt, Pallas, Laxmann,
Lepekhin, Georgi, Zimmermann, and Büsching, Boddaert provided
a geographical description of Siberia with notes on “the physique,
manners and customs of the Kalmyks and Mongolian peoples.”23
Presenting an introduction to the government and religion of the
Mongolian peoples that summarized their “geographical and ethno-
graphic history” (Land en Volkshistorie) (1785:xxi), he concluded with
a geographical and historical description of Tibet. Boddaert wrote
his introduction as a contribution to geography (1785:i) but ended it
on the note that it would help the reader to “expand his knowledge
of geography and ethnology” (Land en Volk-kunde).24 Having earned
his md at Utrecht in 1764, Boddaert translated Linnaeus’s, Pallas’s,
and Zimmermann’s treatises on botany and zoology, as well as works
by Thomas Shaw on the Orient and by John Hunter on anatomy. He
was thoroughly up-to-date and cited recent sources for history, natu-
ral history, and political studies. In this context he included the newly
introduced concepts. Boddaert spelled the word he adopted from
his German sources as Volkkunde or Volk-kunde, which would later
Epilogue 411
become volkenkunde (plural) or volkskunde (singular). This indicates
that, for Boddaert, the terms’ spelling in Dutch was not yet fixed.
The popular author Arend Fokke (1755–1812) used the word volken-
kundig (ethnological) in “a commercial and ethnological journey
across Europe.”25 He was well versed in literature and published
extensively. His travel account (1794–1806) contains many tales in
“a peasant-like style” and was dedicated to the Society Felix Mer-
itis in Amsterdam. The book remained incomplete, owing perhaps
to political changes when the Batavian Republic became the King-
dom of Holland in 1806 under Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.
After the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1813, the
British returned the Dutch colonies in the West and East Indies and
in Africa. These colonies then became important also to the aca-
demic world. In a report on Oriental studies in the Netherlands,
the Orientalist Joannes Willmet (1750–1835), professor of Arabic and
Hebrew in Amsterdam, used the term Volkskunde three times (Will-
met 1820).26 He used it in the singular, suggesting that volkskunde was
the science of a single people, as a counterpart to volkenkunde (the
Dutch spelling of Völkerkunde). Like Gatterer and Berkhey, Will-
met combined “Volkskunde” with “Menschkunde” (anthropology).
The fact that Willmet spelled these names of sciences with capital
letters illustrates a borrowing from German.
Pieter Weiland’s dictionary of neologisms introduced the term eth-
nographie in 1824. Defined as the “history of peoples” (geschiedenis der
volken), a circumscription that reflected Göttingen discussions from
the 1770s, its material object was a “study of morals” (zedenkunde).
Reinier Pieter van de Kasteele, director of the Royal Cabinet of
Rarities, founded in The Hague in 1816, delivered the first public
lecture about the new study, titled “On Ethnology” (Over de volken-
kunde), in 1830. Making a plea for a “general ethnology” (algemeene
volkenkunde), van de Kasteele contrasted this study with “particular
ethnology” (bijzondere volkenkunde) (Rijksmuseum, van de Kasteele
1830).27 As noted in chapter 6, Ehrmann had introduced this concep-
tual distinction in an article published in Weimar. To a large extent,
van de Kasteele’s 1830 lecture was a literal translation of Ehrmann’s
1808 article “Umriss der allgemeinen und besondern Völkerkunde.”
From 1830 on ethnography flourished in the context of a renewed
interest in the Dutch colonies. In 1836 a chair in “the geography and
412 Epilogue
ethnography (landen volkenkunde) of the Malay Archipelago” was
created for training military officers at the Royal Military Academy
in Breda. The term landen volkenkunde was a Dutch adaption of
the German Länder- und Völkerkunde, with land in the singular and
volken in the plural, because the Netherlands East Indies were con-
sidered to be one country with many peoples (Heslinga 1975:96–97).
The formulation “geography and ethnography” (landen volken-
kunde) also cropped up in the 1837 plans Philipp Franz von Siebold
(1796–1866) drew up for a “museum of geography and ethnography”
(Museum van Land- en Volkenkunde). A German physician employed
by the Dutch in Deshima, von Siebold had collected specimens and
artifacts in Japan. His plans marked the beginning of the National
Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, one of the world’s oldest ethno-
graphic museums (van Wengen 2002). Von Siebold’s ethnographic col-
lections, presented as a “Japanese Collection” in Leiden in 1837, merged
with the collection of the Royal Cabinet of Rarities into the National
Museum of Ethnography at Leiden in 1864 (Effert 2003, 2008).
In 1842, when a chair was founded at the Royal Academy for
Engineers in Delft, linguistics (taalkunde) was added to the earlier
formulation. This created the tripartite combination of “linguis-
tics, geography, and ethnography of the East Indies” (taal-, land-
en volkenkunde van Oost-Indië) (de Josselin de Jong and Vermeulen
1989:282– 284). The Netherlands was one of the first countries to
make “geography and ethnography” (landen volkenkunde)—together
with the study of languages, history, religious institutions, and sys-
tems of law—a compulsory subject for those serving in the colonial
administration. However, because ethnography had become part of
the civil service training programs at an early stage, general ethnol-
ogy had difficulty becoming established as an independent subject.
The first university chair was founded at Leiden University in 1877.
It rates as one of the earliest still-existing chairs in cultural anthro-
pology worldwide. Established as a chair in regional anthropology,
titled “geography and ethnography of the Netherlands East Indies,”
its first holder was Pieter Johannes Veth (1814–95), who served from
1877 to 1885. Veth made the ethnography of the Netherlands Indies
a respectable academic discipline (van der Velde 2000, 2006). In a
lecture held in 1864, Veth applied Carl Ritter’s theories about the
interaction between land and people to the Indonesian archipelago
Epilogue 413
and advocated a combined landen volkenkunde (geography and eth-
nography) as constituting geography in the widest sense: “an encylo-
paedic science that divides into a large number of subjects.”28 A year
earlier, Veth applied Schlözer’s ideas without mentioning the earlier
scholar’s name. In a book review Veth observed, “When dealing with
general history, one always finds oneself torn between the demands
of the synchronistic and the ethnographic method.”29 Thus, almost a
century after Schlözer had introduced this fundamental distinction
to the field of history, his methodological principles still mattered—
even if no one remembered who had initiated them.
By 1885 Veth’s successor, George Alexander Wilken, found his
predecessor’s views outdated. Seeking a connection with the theory
of evolutionism in England and France, Wilken thought that, as a
result of Darwin’s “development hypothesis,” ethnology, previously
“regarded as a part of geography,” had now become “an independent
and mighty science” (Wilken 1885:5–9). He redefined the discipline
as “comparative ethnology” (vergelijkende ethnologie). His statements
reflect the prestige British science had gained in the second half of
the nineteenth century. However, while Wilken remained faithful
to the German terminology and spoke of ethnology as an indepen-
dent science, the discipline had just been renamed anthropology in
Great Britain (1871). This change of name influenced the way the
subject was defined in the Anglo-American world and therefore
requires careful examination.
Ethnography and Ethnology in Great Britain

In Britain physical anthropology was introduced in 1775 with the md
thesis of John Hunter at the University of Edinburgh and again, in
1808, when James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848) presented his md
thesis “De generis humani varietate” to the same university. Pub-
lished as Researches into the Physical History of Man (Prichard 1813)
and reprinted with an essay by Stocking (1973), the book had several
editions (Prichard 1826, 1836–47). Prichard kept adding information
with each new edition. The final version appeared in 1843 and was
titled The Natural History of Man (Prichard 1843b, 4th ed. 1855). The
same year Prichard published six “Ethnographical Maps” (Prich-
ard 1843a, 2nd ed. 1861). Prichard’s main argument was based on
Blumenbach: monogenesis and diversity. The title of his thesis cop-
414 Epilogue
ied that of Blumenbach’s De generis humani varietate nativa (1775a,
1776a). Contrasting Blumenbach’s findings with anthropology prac-
ticed in Holland, Britain, the United States, and France, Prichard
discussed Camper, Hunter, White, Stanhope Smith, and Cuvier.
Unlike Blumenbach, Prichard added comparative linguistics, a
field in which many German scholars had been specializing since
Leibniz’s work. In 1831 he published a linguistic work, illustrating
the “Eastern origin of the Celtic nations” by comparing their dialects
“with the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Teutonic languages.” Know-
ing German, Prichard cited Adelung, Vater, Friedrich Schlegel,
Julius Klaproth, Franz Bopp, and other German scholars (Stocking
1973:lxvii). In this book Prichard combined insights from the com-
parative study of languages with data from his main field, the study
of “human varieties.” He saw it as a supplement to his Researches into
the Physical History of Man. Contending that peoples were charac-
terized by their languages, he related the study of languages to the
history of nations and both to the study of human races. Reflecting
his Quaker background, Prichard’s perspective was monogenetic.
However, Prichard was ambiguous in his conceptions of ethnog-
raphy and ethnology. Like Blumenbach, he distinguished between
species and genus, seeing races as including nations. But he often
used the plural “races” as another term for “peoples,” speaking about
African, American, or Germanic “races.”30 Accordingly, in the third
edition of his Researches, Prichard (1836–47, vol. 1:110–111) defined eth-
nology in physical terms: “a survey of the different races of men, an
investigation of the physical history, the ethnography, as it is termed,
of every tribe of the human family, undertaken and pursued in such
a manner as to enable us to determine what changes have actually
arisen in the physical characters of nations or human races.” In his
article “On the Extinction of Human Races” (1839:166), Prichard
defined ethnography as “the natural history of the human races.”
This definition departed from eighteenth-century German usage
of ethnography, emphasizing the manners and customs of peoples.
However, in The Natural History of Man, Prichard defined ethnol-
ogy in historical terms: “Our contemporaries are becoming more and
more convinced that the history of nations, termed ethnology, must
be mainly founded on the relations of their languages” (Prichard
1843b:132–133, cited in Huxley 1865:214 and Douglas 2008:53, n. 70).
Epilogue 415
George Stocking (1973:lxxvi) noted this shift from Prichard’s
Researches to his Natural History of Man: “The ‘historial’ portion of
his work was now spoken of as ‘ethnographic’ (or upon occasion as
‘ethnological’) and the ‘physical history of particular races’ was now
called ‘ethnography.’” He added, “These terminological changes were
not original with Prichard; they were reflected also in the formation
of ‘Ethnological Societies’ in France, England and the United States
during this same period.” Indeed, when Prichard, Thomas Hodgkin,
and others founded the Ethnological Society of London in 1843, they
followed the Société ethnologique de Paris, established in 1839, in
defining the society’s aims in accordance with an anthropological view
of humankind, seeing it as composed of human varieties, or “races.”
A decade earlier, when “ethnography” and Völkerkunde were intro-
duced to Britain in an article written by George Long (1834:97) for
the second volume of The Penny Cyclopaedia, these terms were trans-
lated as “nation-description” and “people-knowledge.” This literal
translation came close to the meaning of these terms in Germany
and avoided any confusion of peoples with races. In a lecture deliv-
ered in Rome in 1835, Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman (1836:9) defined
ethnography as “the classification of nations from the comparative
study of languages, a science born, I may say, almost within our mem-
ory.”31 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest cita-
tion of “ethnology” in English dates from 1842 (P. Wood 1997:157).
The term “ethnographic” appeared in an 1845 report, when the Brit-
ish Museum opened a new gallery “for the reception of the ethno-
graphical collections” (Braunholtz 1970:37– 38, n. 7).
When Richard King in July 1842 issued a prospectus to found
an ethnological society in London, ethnology was called “the most
important and interesting branch of knowledge” (King 1850[1842]:15).
In his first anniversary address as secretary of the Ethnological Soci-
ety of London, delivered in May 1844, King (1850[1844]:9) defined it
as “the Natural History of Man.” One of the esl members, the phre-
nologist Luke Burke, called ethnology the “science of human races,”
explaining, “The learned, indeed, are familiar with the term Ethnol-
ogy, but it has hitherto been used as synonymous with Ethnography,
or the Natural History of Man” (Burke 1848:1). Likewise, another
member of the esl, the physiologist William Carpenter, defined eth-
nology as “the science of races” (Carpenter 1848; Hunt 1865; Stocking
416 Epilogue
1973:ix–x). However, as we have seen, German-speaking historians
saw ethnology as a study of peoples, whereas Blumenbach proposed
“anthropology” as an equivalent of Buffon’s “natural history of man.”
The ethnologist Hans Fischer (1970:177) has identified this as a
“change in meaning,” locating ethnology in the domain of physi-
cal anthropology rather than in that of cultural anthropology. The
history of this transformation has not been written, but the change
has been noted in the literature.32 The shift from a nation-oriented
to a race-oriented ethnology seems to have begun in France and was
continued in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
Ethnological and Anthropological Societies

In 1829 the physiologist William Frédéric Edwards, future founder
of the French ethnological society, contacted Amédée Thierry, the
author of the popular Histoire des Gaulois (1828–45). Together with his
older brother, Augustin, Amédée Thierry founded “a new historical
school in which, more than previously, the character and disposition
of peoples was emphasized” (W. Schmidt 1906:146). Their problem
was the struggle between autochthonous and conquering peoples,
equated with the “Irish race” and the “Anglo-Normans” in Ireland,
and the Celtic (or Gallic) “race” versus the Germanic (Frankish)
“conquering race” in France (Conze 1984:156–157). In 1829 Edwards
directed his letter Des caractères physiologiques des races humaines con-
sidérées dans leur rapports avec l’histoire to Amédée Thierry, in which
he repeated the argument (first made by Kant) that human races
preserve their physical characteristics over centuries, and pleaded
for more cooperation between natural scientists and historians to
elucidate humankind’s early history. The ensuing discussions were
of such consequence that Edwards and others founded a society for
studying the origins of races and peoples (Leguebe 1982; Blanckaert
1988; A. Sommer 1990; Staum 2000).
The Société ethnologique de Paris was established in 1839 to study
“human races according to the historical tradition, the languages,
and the physical and moral characteristics of each people.”33 Dur-
ing the first session Edwards articulated the society’s mission: to
establish “what are, in effect, the various human races.”34 The soci-
ety published two volumes of Mémoires (1841, 1845) and one volume
of Bulletins. But it led a precarious existence. Briefly revived in 1847,
Epilogue 417
it vanished in 1848, when a revolution overthrew the French mon-
archy. The society’s demise, according to the anatomist Armand de
Quatrefages (1867:51), happened because it had not adequately prac-
ticed “natural history.”35
The French society inspired the foundation of ethnological soci-
eties in New York and London. However, the aim of the Ameri-
can Ethnological Society, founded in New York City in November
1842 by Albert Gallatin, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and others, was
rather different. Its purpose was to study “Man and the Globe he
inhabits, as comprised in the term Ethnology in its widest mean-
ing.”36 The predominant disciplines among aes members were his-
tory, archaeology, and philology. The aes had been established as a
substitute for the American Antiquarian Society (founded in 1812), to
complement the New York Historical Society, also founded at Gall-
atin’s instigation. The first publications of the aes were three vol-
umes of Transactions (1845, 1848, 1853) and several Bulletins (1859–63).
The aim of the Ethnological Society of London, founded in Feb-
ruary 1843 by Hodgkin, Prichard, King, and other members of the
Aborigines Protection Society (aps), was to study “the distinguish-
ing characteristics, physical or moral, of the varieties of Mankind
which inhabit, or have inhabited the Earth; and to ascertain the
causes of such characteristics.”37 The “ethnologicals,” as their adver-
saries called them, published a journal in four volumes (1848–56) and
seven volumes of Transactions (1861–69). The founders of the esl seem
to have adopted an intermediary position between the historical-
philological direction taken by the American ethnologists and the
anatomical-physiological-ethnological direction preferred by the
ethnologues. The double object of “physical” and “moral,” put on the
agenda by the French Idéologues (and, previously, by the Halle phy-
sicians and Platner in Leipzig), figured prominently in the British
society’s definition. The American aim of studying “Man and the
Globe he inhabits” returned in the esl’s mission of studying the
“varieties of Mankind which inhabit, or have inhabited the Earth.”
However, the English society was similar to the French society in
prioritizing the natural sciences: Hodgkin, Prichard, and King were
medical doctors, as were Edwards and de Quatrefages. By contrast,
Gallatin and Schoolcraft were linguists and historians.
A precursor of both the French and the British societies was the
418 Epilogue
aps. Founded by Thomas Buxton and Thomas Hodgkin in Lon-
don in 1837, the aps was part of the Evangelical and Quaker phi-
lanthropists’ crusade against the African slave trade and slavery in
the British Empire. Buxton was Wilberforce’s chosen successor as
leader of the parliamentary antislavery group, and he led the cam-
paign to abolish slavery (the Slavery Abolition Act passed in August
1833). Although the aps’s aim was humanitarian, some of its activ-
ities were anthropological. Society members encouraged the prep-
aration of an ethnographic questionnaire in 1841 (Urry 1973, 1993).
After Hodgkin’s visit to Paris, the French founded the sep with,
however, strictly scientific aims (Stocking 1971:369–372; Jorion 1980b).
Prichard was a key figure in both British scientific ethnology and
the antislavery movement (Hiatt 1996).
Phrenological societies also preceded the French and British eth-
nological societies. Phrenology attempted to relate skull features and
mental traits. The study evolved from physiognomy, revived by the
Swiss Protestant pastor Johann Caspar Lavater. His illustrated Phys-
iognomische Fragmente, published in four volumes (Lavater 1775– 78),
was popular. Phrenology was created by the Austrian physician Franz
Joseph Gall, who presented himself as a “teacher of skulls” (Gall 1805).
His 1808 report to the Institut de France on the nervous system and
his experiments made an enormous impression in Vienna and Paris.
Although Lichtenberg ridiculed Lavater in 1778, Gall’s student Johann
Caspar Spurzheim lectured at Harvard. A Société phrénologique was
founded at Paris in 1831; another at Edinburgh around the same time.
Several scholars have stressed Gall’s and Spurzheim’s influence on
the formation of the British ethnological society.38
While phrenology to some extent was a precursor of ethnology
in France and England, the aes was predominantly a combination
of history and archaeology, coupled with philology and ethnology in
the German sense, even if phrenology did play a role in the United
States from the 1830s on. A major difference between the French and
the British societies seems to have been the latter’s emphasis on the
role of linguistics, which carried great importance for Prichard. In
Germany linguistics was regarded as the sister science of ethnology.
French scholars combined anatomy, physiology, history, and eth-
nology to study the peopling of Europe and the racial makeup of the
French nation. In Edwards’s program race was the driving force of a
Epilogue 419
people. He wanted to study the “origins of peoples . . . and the moral
character of races forming a nation.”39 His aim was “to combine nat-
ural history and ethnical history” (Mühlmann 1968:78). The sep was
founded to give “a common ground” to the sciences naturelles and the
sciences historiques (de Quatrefages 1867:33). This view of ethnology
was so specific that contemporaries called it a “physical ethnology.”40
In France the ambition to combine “the physical and the moral,”
to unite the historical and the natural scientific traditions in a com-
mon program, was abandoned after the establishment of the sep’s
two twin daughters.41 The Société d’Ethnographie and the Société
d’Anthropologie de Paris were founded on May 14 and May 19, 1859,
respectively. These societies went their separate ways, although there
was some overlap (Williams 1994). As Stocking (1968:40) summa-
rized the developments, “Although the older ethnological tradition
survived in a Société d’Ethnographie, French anthropology for some
decades to come was in the first instance physical anthropology and
archetypically, racial craniology.”
The terminological confusion came full circle in Britain when
Prichard (1848:305) called Blumenbach “in reality, the founder of
ethnology” and again defined ethnology as “the history of human
races, or of the various tribes of men who constitute the population
of the world” (Prichard 1848:302; see also Davis 1868:396).
The debate reached a climax in the 1860s, when, after the pub-
lication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), heated discussions fol-
lowed about human descent, the unity of humankind, and the
possibility of several creations. Following the example of the Société
d’Anthropologie de Paris, founded by Paul Broca, the Anthropologi-
cal Society of London (asl) was established in 1863. Siding with the
physical anthropologists in France, the asl’s founder, James Hunt,
adhered to polygenism and anti-Darwinism. In 1864 the members
of the asl tried to gain access to the British Association for the
Advancement of Science. As noted in chapter 1, the “anthropo-
logicals” attempted to have the association’s Section E: Geography
and Ethnology renamed to include anthropology as a subject. This
attempt was prevented by Lubbock, president of the esl, who con-
tended that ethnology was “an older word and a prettier word than
anthropology” (Stocking 1971:381).
The infuriated anthropologicals conducted historical studies to
420 Epilogue
counter this claim. Hunt and Bendyshe concluded that anthropology
was certainly older, surfacing in 1501 in the work of Magnus Hundt
(Bendyshe 1865b:352, 1865c), while ethnography was supposedly first
used in 1807–12 by Campe and ethnology in 1839 by the sep (Hunt
1865:xcv–xcvi). The fact that Blumenbach had chosen “anthropol-
ogy” as the scientific equivalent of the “natural history of man” and
that Broca had selected it for the French society were the main rea-
sons for Bendyshe and Hunt to prefer “anthropology” over “eth-
nology” as the name of the British Association section. The section
became the British Association’s Anthropological Section in 1867.
The members of the esl and asl discussed the merits of their sub-
jects: the ethnologicals grouped around Prichard and Darwin, while
the anthropologicals embraced Broca and Hunt. The controversy
was especially fierce owing to Darwin’s theory of natural selection,
which seemed to confirm that humans and apes belonged to the same
line of descent. While the ethnologicals adhered to monogenism,
Hunt’s “cannibal clique” professed polygenesist views on human’s
descent (Stocking 1971). If there had been several creations, humans
and apes were probably not related.
As Thomas Huxley (1863) summarized the debate, what was ulti-
mately at issue was “man’s place in nature.” This subject is “etymo-
logically much more adequately expressed by the term ‘anthropology’
than by the term ‘ethnology’” (according to Stocking 1971:387). As
president of the esl, Huxley finally settled the issue during a meet-
ing with the anthropologicals: “I am convinced that ‘Anthropology’
is the right word and I propose that the amalgamated Society be
called the Anthropological Institute” (Cunningham 1908:12). As a
result, the controversy over the societies’ names was resolved, and
in January 1871 the esl merged with the asl to form the Anthro-
pological Institute of London (Stocking 1971), which later became
the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
The renaming process also took place in the United States, where
it began even earlier than it had in Britain. In New York the aes
was relatively successful until 1863, when the American Civil War
impeded development. In 1869 archaeologist E. George Squier (1821–
88) attempted to reorganize the aes and change its name. Squier
introduced Broca’s ideas to the United States. After he had visited
Paris in 1867, he suggested that the aes be reorganized along lines
Epilogue 421
similar to the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, “even to the extent
of trying to substitute anthropology, with its European emphasis
on physical rather than cultural research, for ethnology” (Bieder
1986:142). As the older aes members resisted such a change, Squier
and younger aes members founded the Anthropological Institute of
New York in 1871. The attempt occurred after the Civil War, which
ended slavery but paradoxically led to an increased struggle over rac-
ism among American intellectuals. Apparently, the polygenesists
felt that the term “anthropology” suited their racist ideology much
better than ethnology did.
When the Anthropological Society of Washington (asw) was
founded in 1879, ethnology was included as one of anthropology’s
four fields: “Archaeology, Somatology, Ethnology, and Philology” (de
Laguna 1960:94). The curator Otis T. Mason wrote the society’s con-
stitution. That same year, the Bureau of American Ethnology (bae),
led by the geologist John Wesley Powell, was founded in Washing-
ton dc (Darnell 1969; Hinsley 1979, 1981). The power struggle con-
tinued in the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(aaas), which formed a separate section, Section H: Anthropol-
ogy, in 1882. Six years later, the journal American Anthropologist was
launched by members of the asw.
From then on anthropology has been seen in the English-speaking
world as the superordinate subject and ethnology as the subordinate
one. Nevertheless, the aes was revived and is still in existence as an
independent society, participating in the American Anthropologi-
cal Association (aaa), established in Washington dc in 1902. Not
until 1973 were the ethnologicals strong enough to set up a separate
journal, American Ethnologist.
This process of name changing, also discussed in France (Topi-
nard 1876, 1885, 1891), implied imposing a new, holistic model: eth-
nology was subsumed within anthropology, which was considered
to be of a higher order, of more general import. Ethnology had been
originally conceived as an auxiliary discipline of history (Schlözer,
Gatterer, Kollár) that developed parallel to philosophical and biolog-
ical anthropology during the eighteenth century and had established
itself as a semiautonomous discipline by the end of that century. But
in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, ethnology became a subfield of (gen-
eral) anthropology in France, Great Britain, and the United States.
422 Epilogue
This holistic model, in which (general) anthropology had prece-
dence over ethnology, at least nominally, was gradually exported
throughout the world.
Ethnography and Ethnology in Germany

In nineteenth-century Germany, the ethnographic tradition expanded
in several directions. As noted in chapter 6, historians Arnold Heeren
and Barthold Niebuhr were the first to lecture on the subject at Göt-
tingen and Berlin in 1803 and 1810, respectively. The geographer Carl
Ritter taught Länder- und Völkerkunde in Berlin from 1820 on; he
focused on the interrelation between “land” and “people.” The Prus-
sian officer Albrecht von Roon included ethnography in his teach-
ings at the military school of Berlin and wrote a successful textbook
of “physical, national, and political geography” (1832). Linguists like
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Franz Bopp, and August Friedrich Pott
pointed out the manifold connections between language and people.
After 1815 several series of ethnographic accounts were published,
notably Friedrich Alexander Bran’s Ethnographisches Archiv (1818–29,
39 vols.) and Heinrich Berghaus’s Hertha. Zeitschrift für Erd-, Völker-
und Staatenkunde (1825–29, 14 vols.) and Annalen der Erd-, Völker-
und Staatenkunde (1830–49, 36 vols.). The geographer Berghaus edited
the series Allgemeine Länder- und Völkerkunde (1836–44, 6 vols.) and
penned a voluminous Grundlinien der Ethnographie (1849), includ-
ing an “ethnological table,” systematically arranged according to lin-
guistic, ethnographic, and geographical criteria, and a comparative
description of manners, customs, and usages. He also published an
anthropological and an ethnographic atlas (Berghaus 1850, 1852).
Berghaus’s handbook preceded five others of note: Moritz Lud-
wig Frankenheim’s Völkerkunde (1852), Maximilian Perty’s Grundzüge
der Ethnographie (1859), Friedrich Müller’s Allgemeine Ethnographie
(1873), Oscar Peschel’s Völkerkunde (1874, 7th ed. 1897), and Fried-
rich Ratzel’s Völkerkunde (1885–88, 3 vols.). These works served as the
first textbooks of the discipline, comparable in importance to Tylor’s
Anthropology (1881), the first textbook in the English-speaking world.
Historian and collector Gustav Klemm (1802– 68) published ten
volumes of a “General cultural history of humankind” (1843–52) and
two volumes of a “General science of culture” (1855–58) that influ-
enced both Tylor and O. T. Mason. As a librarian, Klemm (1843)
Epilogue 423
acquired important artifacts he presented in Dresden as part of a
future “museum for the cultural history of humankind.” His collec-
tion became the foundation stone of the Museum of Ethnology in
Leipzig (1869), the first ethnographic museum in Saxony.
The work of Theodor Waitz (1821–64), a professor of philosophy
and psychology at the University of Marburg (Hesse), was even
more influential. Waitz penned six volumes of Anthropologie der
Naturvölker (Anthropology of natural peoples), which were com-
pleted by the geographer Georg Gerland (Waitz 1859– 72). Trying
to counter the growing prejudices of a biological and racist charac-
ter, Waitz understood anthropology to be a “synthesis of the nat-
ural sciences and humanities that aimed at a common goal for all
humanity” (Streck 2007:vi). The first volume of his work was trans-
lated into English as Introduction to Anthropology, published for the
Anthropological Society of London (Waitz 1863). Inspired by Prich-
ard’s work, Waitz’s Anthropologie influenced both Tylor and Boas.
Lowie (1937:137) saw it as the source of Boas’s antiracist views, an
attribution endorsed by Stocking (1973:cix).
Inspired by Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt, the psycholo-
gist Moritz Lazarus founded the study of Völkerpsychologie. This term
translates as “mental ethnology” (Kalmar 1987) or “folk psychology”
(Bunzl 2003). Völkerpsychologie or ethnic psychology came to frui-
tion in the work of Wilhelm Wundt, who created the world’s first
psychological laboratory at Leipzig in 1879. Together with the lin-
guist Heymann Steinthal, Lazarus edited the Zeitschrift für Völker-
psychologie und Sprachwissenschaft (1860–90). Lazarus and Steinthal
further developed Herder’s concept of Volksgeist, a precursor of the
modern concept of culture (Kalmar 1987; Stocking 1996).42
The Swiss legal scholar, Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–87), broke
new ground. His 1861 study of matriarchy, Mother Right: An Inves-
tigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Matriarchy in the
Ancient World, had a historic impact. If Morgan’s theories developed
independently of Bachofen’s, the latter’s evolutionary ideas inspired
Friedrich Engels (1884). Morgan’s and Maine’s ideas directly influ-
enced Karl Marx (Krader 1972).
The founding father of modern ethnology in Germany was Adolf
Bastian (1826–1905), director of the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde.
424 Epilogue
Founded in 1868, the museum was opened to the public in 1873. Bas-
tian made nine collecting voyages and spent twenty-five years travel-
ing around the world, donating his collections to the Berlin Museum.
He formulated the influential concept of “ethnological culture cir-
cles” (ethnologische Culturkreise) in 1868 (see Bastian and Kiepert 1868).
His theory of the diffusion of culture elements was further devel-
oped by Friedrich Ratzel and others, to become characteristic for
German ethnology in the early twentieth century.
Together with the anthropologist Rudolf Virchow, Bastian in 1869
established the Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnolo-
gie und Urgeschichte, linking (physical) anthropology with ethnol-
ogy and (prehistoric) archaeology. With Robert Hartmann, Bastian
launched the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie that same year. It would be
important to detail the subjects individual scholars selected as aux-
iliary to their main field, but it seems that German scholars at least
at this stage preferred a horizontal ordering of these subjects.
Bastian’s global anthropology had great appeal in Imperial Ger-
many and beyond. Matti Bunzl (2007) argues that anti-Semitism
was invented in the late nineteenth century “to police the ethnically
pure nation-state.” Glenn Penny (2002, 2003, 2007) points to an
important countercurrent and shows that German ethnologists like
Bastian were not driven by imperialist desires or an interest in legit-
imating racial hierarchies but developed theories about the nature
of human beings through their museums’ collections. Bastian for-
mulated ideas on elementary structures of the human mind much
later made by Lévi-Strauss; they were both neo-Kantians, defending
the unity of humankind (Koepping 1983, 1995, 2005; Pfeffer 2007).
Bastian was the main representative of what Thomas Achelis
(1889) called “modern ethnology” (moderne Ethnologie). Bastian was
indeed a founding father of modern ethnology. From the 1870s on
German ethnologists distinguished their own brand of ethnology
from studies by Ritter, von Roon, Berghaus, and others, which they
regarded as premodern ethnography.
Table 12, based on various sources, including Darnell (1969, 1998),
illustrates the development of ethnographic museums in Europe and
the United States. It shows that most major ethnographic museums
were established in the nineteenth century.
Epilogue 425
Table 12. Ethnographic museums in the nineteenth century
St. Petersburg 1836 Ethnographic Museum becomes an inde-

pendent institution (and remains within the
Kunstkamera, founded in 1714)
Batavia (Jakarta, 1836 Plans for a separate department of the Mu-
Indonesia) seum of the Koninklijk Bataviaasch Ge-
nootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen
(kbg, established in 1778) (realized 1868)
Leiden 1837 Japansch Museum
Paris 1839 Plans for the Musée d’Ethnographie
(opened in 1879)
Copenhagen 1841 Etnografisk Museum (moved to a new
building in 1852)
Dresden 1843– 44 Privatsammlung Gustav Klemm (moved to
Leipzig in 1870)
London 1845 Opening of a large new gallery for the re-
ception of the Ethnographical Collections
at the British Museum (established in 1753,
opened to the public in 1759)
Washington dc 1846 Department of Ethnology opened at
Smithsonian Institution
Freiburg, i.Br. 1860– 65 Ethnographische Sammlung der Univer-
sität, since 1905 integrated in Adelhauser-
museum Natur- und Völkerkunde
Leiden 1864 Rijks Ethnographisch Museum (rem),
from 1883 also including the collections of
the KKvZ in The Hague (1816)
Cambridge ma 1866 Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology, Harvard University, receiv-
ing the archaeological and ethnological
collections of the Museum of Comparative
Zoology (founded at Harvard University in
1859) in 1871
Munich 1868 Königliche Ethnographische Sammlung
(Haus Wittelsbach) (now Staatliches Mu-
seum für Völkerkunde München)
Berlin 1868 First steps toward a Königliches Museum für
Völkerkunde (opened to the public in 1873)
426 Epilogue
Leipzig 1869 (Staatliches) Museum für Völkerkunde
(acquisition of the “culturhistorische
Sammlung” Klemm for 3,000 Mark in
1869–70 to found “a general anthropologi-
cal museum”)
New York ny 1869 American Museum of Natural History,
with an archaeological department, since
1873 an ethnological department, and
since 1889 an anthropology department
Budapest 1872 Néprajzi Múzeum (Ethnographic Mu-
seum), as part of the Nemzeti Múzeum
(National Museum) in Pest
Dresden 1875 Königliches Zool. und Anthropologisch-
Ethnographisches Museum Dresden (now
Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden)
Vienna 1876 Anthropologisch-Ethnographische
Abteilung des Naturhistorischen
Museums
Paris 1879 Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro (first
planned in 1839)
Hamburg 1879 Museum für Völkerkunde (previously
Ethnographische Sammlung or Sammlung
für Völkerkunde, 1867)
Washington dc 1881 U.S. National Museum, Department of
Ethnology, 1884
Rotterdam 1883 Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde
(opened in 1885)
Oxford 1884 University Museum (now Pitt Rivers
Museum)
Amsterdam 1887 Ethnographisch Museum (at the Zoo
Artis, founded in 1838)
Zurich 1889 Ethnographisches Museum (now
Völkerkundemuseum)
Philadelphia pa 1889 University of Pennsylvania Museum
Chicago il 1894 Field (Columbian) Museum of Natural
History
Berkeley ca 1901 University of California Museum of An-
thropology
Epilogue 427
Ethnography and Culture in Tylor’s Work
The founding father of anthropology in Britain, Edward Burnett
Tylor, curator of the University Museum (now Pitt Rivers Museum)
in Oxford, built both on the foundation laid by Prichard and on
the work of German scholars. Tylor was well aware of the progress
made in German science. The names of German scientists abound
in his reading lists for the years 1862– 63 (Leopold 1980). According
to Leopold (1980:facing p. 26) Charles Lyell, Alexander von Hum-
boldt, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and Gustav Klemm were the
major influences on Tylor’s early work.
Having observed indigenous people during his travels through
Mexico in 1856 (Sera-Shriar 2011), Tylor often referred to studies by
German ethnographers in his early books, Researches into the Early
History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization (1865) and
Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Phi-
losophy, Religion, Art and Custom (1871). In a note at the end of the
introduction to his Researches dealing with language, culture, myths,
and historical traditions, Tylor credited six people who assisted him
in writing the book. The first two were British, namely, his friend
Henry Christy, the archaeologist who invited Tylor to accompany
him on the journey through Mexico, and Dr. W. R. Scott, director
of the Deaf and Dumb Institute at Exeter, who had helped him write
about sign language. The other four were German or Swiss. Tylor
(1865:13) wrote appreciatively about them, especially about Klemm:
“I have to thank Prof. Pott, of Halle and Prof. Lazarus, of Berne,
for personal help in several difficult questions. Among books, I have
drawn largely from the philological works of Prof. Steinthal, of Ber-
lin and from the invaluable collection of facts bearing on the history
of civilization in the Allgemeine Cultur-Geschichte der Menschheit and
Allgemeine Culturwissenschaft, of Dr. Gustav Klemm of Dresden.”
In the Researches and in Primitive Culture, Tylor repeatedly used
the terms “Ethnography” and “Ethnology,” rather than “Anthro-
pology.” In the preface to his Primitive Culture, he acknowledged
his general obligation to “writers on ethnography and kindred sci-
ences, as well as to historians, travelers and missionaries,” adding,
“I will only mention apart two treatises of which I have made espe-
cial use: the Mensch in der Geschichte, by Professor Bastian, of Berlin
428 Epilogue
and the Anthropologie der Naturvölker, by the late Professor Waitz
of Marburg” (Tylor 1871:vi). Thus, Tylor knew full well that on the
European continent “anthropology” usually referred to physical or
philosophical anthropology and that the subject he was interested in
was called ethnology or ethnography, especially in German schol-
arly books. Nevertheless, when Tylor, a decade later, had to provide
a title for his textbook, he selected the term that had become estab-
lished as the name of the Anthropological Institute, namely, Anthro-
pology (Tylor 1881). But he needed a subtitle to clarify his subject: An
Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization.
Tylor used the same formulation in his introduction to the Eng-
lish translation of the second edition of Ratzel’s Völkerkunde (1894–
95). This book appeared not with the title “ethnology,” as could
have been expected, but as The History of Mankind (Ratzel 1896–98,
3 vols.). In this title the topic introduced by Iselin, Voltaire, Fergu-
son, Dunbar, Herder, and Meiners a century earlier surfaced once
again (see chapters 6 and 7). But Tylor did not mention these ear-
lier scholars and instead compared Ratzel’s work to that of Prichard
and Waitz, combining the anthropological and ethnological per-
spectives in a few sentences:
When the first edition of Ratzel’s Volkerkunde was published in 1885–
88 it at once took its position as a guide-book to the study of Man
and Civilization. To those beginning anthropological work it offered
the indispensable outline sketches of the races of mankind, espe-
cially of the savage and barbaric peoples who display culture in its
earlier stages, thus aiding the great modern nations to understand
themselves, to weigh in a just balance their own merits and defects
and even in some measure to forecast from their own development
the possibilities of the future. (Tylor 1896:vi)
Tylor’s fame in anthropology rests on his minimal definition of reli-

gion (“the belief in spiritual beings”) and his maximal definition of
culture. Many anthropologists have taken Tylor’s use of the word
“culture” in the title of his 1871 monograph as the point of depar-
ture for modern cultural anthropology. Historians of anthropology
and practicing anthropologists alike quote Tylor’s definition of cul-
ture to characterize their own work. However, Tylor’s usage did not
refer to the multiplicity of “distinctive cultures,” as is often assumed.
Epilogue 429
His definition was: “Culture or civilization, taken in its wide
ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowl-
edge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man as a member of society (Tylor 1871, vol. 1:1).
The word “culture” was new to British usage when Matthew Arnold
introduced it in his essays “Culture and Its Enemies” and “Anar-
chy and Authority” from 1867–68 and published in his book Cul-
ture and Anarchy (1869).43 The crucial word in Tylor’s definition, as
James Urry (1998:23) pointed out, was “civilization.” This term was
capitalized in the original but is frequently omitted in citations.
“Civilization” was much better known to contemporary English
readers than “culture,” which sounded like the German word Kul-
tur to them (Leopold 1980:115). By equating culture and civilization,
Tylor made clear that the concept of culture had to be read in rela-
tion to the older one, civilization. His concept of culture, as Urry
summarized, refers “to the unity of humankind involved in a com-
mon evolutionary process of becoming cultured or civilized.” Tylor’s
book was about “this total process which he believed historically had
advanced at different rates through a set of stages but which had not
necessarily ended” (Urry 1998:23). Humankind becoming “cultured
or civilized” was the crucial phrase in this theory. For this reason,
a pluralist view of the world as being composed of many “cultures”
was neither implicit in Tylor’s definition nor in his books.
Franz Boas and the Genesis of Modern Anthropology

The latter view entered American anthropology in the early twen-
tieth century through the labors of Franz Boas (1858–1942), who
heralded Herder’s view of peoples unfolding toward humanity and
becoming (more) humane (Boas 1904; Stocking 1974; Broce 1986).
Adopting Herder’s relativist approach to do justice to the value of
peoples and nations, Boas revived ethnology in the United States
and professionalized the Americanist four-field program (Darnell
1998). Boas began his work in ethnology, anthropology, and linguis-
tics during the 1880s. He first studied natural sciences (mathematics,
physics, chemistry, and geography) as well as philosophy at Heidel-
berg, Bonn, and Kiel between 1877 and 1881. At Kiel he came under
the influence of neo-Kantianism, offering a buffer against materi-
alism. After having concluded a PhD thesis at Kiel on the percep-
430 Epilogue
tion of the color of water, Boas conducted fieldwork on Baffin Island
(Canada) in 1883–84. His geographical research on the impact of the
physical environment on Inuit migrations led to his second disserta-
tion, Baffin Land (Habilitationschrift, submitted to the University of
Berlin in 1885), and his first monograph, The Central Eskimo (Boas
1888). To prepare for his fieldwork, Boas had among others studied
anthropometry with Rudolf Virchow in Berlin. On Baffin Island,
he developed an interest in ethnology. From September 1885 to the
summer of 1886, he worked as an assistant at the Berlin ethnographic
museum. Bastian, its director, was against environmental determin-
ism, arguing for the “psychic unity of mankind,” a neo-Kantian view
Boas adopted (Stocking 1965a). Boas studied the Jacobsen collec-
tion acquired along the American northwest coast and the culture
of Bella Coola Indians touring Germany as part of the Hagenbeck
shows. After he had passed his Habilitation in May 1886, he was a
Privatdozent for geography at the University of Berlin, but left that
summer for a visit to London. He then undertook a three-month
research trip to British Columbia to study Kwakiutl language and
myths and to collect artifacts to pay for the trip (Cole 1999:90–103).
Immigrating to the United States in 1886–87, Boas took the Euro-
pean concept of “culture” with him (Stocking 1996). In New York he
offered an article on “The Study of Geography” to Science (published
in 1887) and was hired as an assistant editor of this journal in January
1887 (Cole 1999:104). From 1888 to 1892 Boas worked as a lecturer in
anthropology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. His
first teaching job was in psychology, studying heredity in human
populations. He gave an important lecture in German on “The Aims
of Ethnology,” which was published in English in 1889. Resigning
from his post at Clark, Boas was appointed as chief anthropology
assistant, at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, to
Frederic Ward Putnam, director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard
University. He worked at the newly created Field Museum in Chi-
cago and in 1894 was appointed assistant curator of ethnology and
somatology at the American Museum of Natural History (amnh)
in New York (Freed 2012). In 1896 he became a lecturer in physical
anthropology at Columbia College in the same city.
From 1897 to 1902 Boas led the Jesup North Pacific Expedition,
organized by the amnh.44 Boasian anthropology started with research
Epilogue 431
on Native Americans but soon focused on northern Asia. Taking
up the line of inquiry of Grotius, Witsen, Leibniz, Müller, Vater,
Barton, and Morgan, Boas developed the historical dimension of
ethnography with an international expedition to study the peoples
of northeastern Asia and northwestern America. Two Russian eth-
nographers, Vladimir Bogoraz and Vladimir Iokhel’son, conducted
research in Siberia and Manchuria. Other expedition members,
including Boas, worked in Canada and the United States among the
Kwakiutl, Chilcotin, Haida, and Heiltsuk (Bella Bella). The peoples
studied on the Russian side of the Pacific Northwest were the Ainu,
Chukchis, Lamuts (Evens), Tungus (Evenks), Gilyaks (Nivkhs),
Koryaks, Yukagirs, Yakuts (Sakha), Kamchadals (Itelmens), and
Aleuts. Boas edited the expedition results between 1898 and 1930.
After the expedition Boas invited Lev Yakovlevich Shternberg
(1861–1927), a Ukrainian ethnographer, to come to New York. Shtern-
berg had been exiled to Siberia on account of political activities as
a member of the Populists (Narodniks). During his exile on Sakha-
lin Island, he had carried out research among the Gilyaks (Nivkhs),
Oroks, and Ainu. After his release from exile, he joined the Peters-
burg Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in 1899. Shtern-
berg published several papers, including one in German on “The
religion of the Gilyak” (1904–5). During Shternberg’s 1905 visit to
New York, Boas commissioned a monograph on The Social Organi-
zation of the Gilyak. Shternberg’s widow sent the manuscript to Boas.
The volume was not included in the Jesup Expedition publications
but appeared as late as 1999 in the series Anthropological Papers of
the American Museum of Natural History (see Kan 2009).
Boas was promoted to professor of anthropology at Columbia Uni-
versity in 1899, a position he held until 1936. Columbia’s Department
of Anthropology became independent with his full professorship
(Darnell 1998:158).45 Before he left the amnh, Boas had negotiated
with Columbia University to consolidate the various professorships
into a single department, which he would head. He set up a PhD
program in anthropology in 1902 and was the mentor of at least fifty
doctoral students at Columbia, beginning with Alfred L. Kroeber
and including Robert H. Lowie, Edward Sapir, Paul Radin, Ruth
Benedict, Margaret Mead, Ruth Bunzel, and Melville J. Herskov-
its (Bernstein 2002). Many of them were of German ancestry; per-
432 Epilogue
haps a third were Jewish. Boas encouraged the four-field approach
at Columbia and the American Anthropological Association. He
played a key role in reviving the American Ethnological Society
(1899) and in founding the aaa (Boas 1902; Stocking 1960b).
Boas published many studies of Native Americans and Ameri-
can immigrants, as well as theoretical studies. Being Jewish and on
the Democratic left, Boas was particularly sensitive about the issue
of racism in the United States. He rejected the idea that race deter-
mines ability. In his treatise The Mind of Primitive Man (Boas 1911),
he developed a theory of culture that was pluralist and antiracial,
concluding in its 1938 revised edition,
There is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of prim-
itive and civilized man. A close connection between race and per-
sonality has never been established. The concept of racial type as
commonly used in scientific literature is misleading and requires a
logical as well as a biological redefinition. (Boas 1938:v)
Two years before he passed away, Boas had published a collection of

essays under the title Race, Language and Culture (1940), combining
cultural relativism with historical particularism. One of Boas’s oppo-
nents was Madison Grant, a lawyer who wrote books on The Passing
of the Great Race (1916) and The Conquest of a Continent (1933). Grant
not only conflated race and nation, but also developed a hierarchy
in which the “Nordic race” was superior to both the “Alpine” and
the “Mediterranean” races in eastern and southern Europe. Using
a loose concept of race, Grant created a racial ideology designed to
keep immigrants out of the United States. His works generated sup-
port for immigrant restriction and eugenics laws in the United States
as well as in Nazi Germany. Grant tried to get Boas fired from his
chair at Columbia. Boas and his students had to struggle to retain
control of the aaa.
The fact that it was a German who professionalized American
anthropology is often emphasized in the secondary literature (e.g.,
Stocking 1973; H. Lewis 2001; Penny 2002; Penny and Bunzl 2003).
However, this fact has not been related to the German ethnographic
tradition because few seem to have realized how strong and con-
tinuous this tradition was. Not only were ethnography and ethnol-
ogy invented by eighteenth-century German-speaking historians,
Epilogue 433
but nineteenth-century authors as diverse as Karl Marx and Karl
May drew on or added to the ethnographic tradition. A clear expo-
nent was Johann Georg Kohl, whose Kitchi-Gami: Life among the
Lake Superior Ojibway was originally published in German in 1859
and translated into English in 1860. In the introduction to a recent
reprint, Robert E. Bieder (1985) praised Kohl for having written
the best ethnological study of Native Americans up until that time.
Bieder believes that Kohl was more objective than his American
colleagues because he had no ideological axe to grind. Combining
ethnography and geography, Kohl worked as a cultural geographer
in the tradition of Niebuhr and Ritter. This German interest in peo-
ples, tribes, and nations was part and parcel of Boas’s education (see
Boas 1887a, 1889, 1904).
Today, Boas is often seen as the founding father of anthropology
in the United States.46 His work has been interpreted as providing
a paradigm shift (Honigmann 1976) when, “after 200 years with-
out challenge, the evolutionary paradigm was replaced” (Darnell
1977:408). By 1910 Boas was already “regarded as one of the ablest,
if not the ablest American ethnologist.”47
George Stocking (1960a, 1962) has argued that Boas and his stu-
dents were the first to use the term “culture” in the plural. Stocking
found out that the “plural appears with regularity only in the first gen-
eration of Boas’ students around 1910” and inferred that “by this time
Boas sensed that the word culture was better reserved for the ‘cultures’
of individual human groups” (than the term civilization) (Stocking
1968:203). However, if Boas was the first to use the plural “cultures”
in English, he may well have borrowed the idea from German col-
leagues. The plural Kulturen surfaced in Germany during the 1880s,
among others in Ratzel’s Anthropogeographie (Kalmar 1987:682–684).
Kalmar found it “inconceivable” that Boas “would have invented the
pluralist idea of culture independently while it was so common in
Germany” (684). Noting that Boas never claimed that he invented it,
Kalmar alleged that Boas “simply introduced to the American pub-
lic an idea that was already widely and passionately held by liberal
anthropologists in Germany” (684). If this view is correct, the Amer-
ican pluralist use of culture was arguably an equivalent of the Ger-
man term Kulturen, which was seen as characterizing peoples (Völker).
There is thus ample reason for emphasizing the continuity in Boas’s
434 Epilogue
work. Coming from Europe, Boas took the specialties of geography,
ethnography, and anthropometry with him, adding linguistics during
his fieldwork. These specialties were already developed in the United
States (Bieder 1986; Darnell 1998), but Boas strengthened the four-
field approach (first implemented in 1879), professionalized holistic
anthropology (in the American sense of the term), and introduced
historical particularism as a research program.
In Boas’s work, the three strands characteristic of the German
ethnographic tradition—the focus on language, the historical rela-
tions between peoples, and the empirical or descriptive approach to
the study of human diversity—merged in an American context. With
Boas, the liberal (antiracist) Berlin school survived on the Ameri-
can side of the Atlantic (Pfeffer 2007:78). In response to evolution-
ism, ethnocentrism, and racism, Boas developed cultural relativism
in the United States. Focusing on culture, language, and race, he
initiated an antiracist anthropology (Pöhl and Tilg 2009; Schmuhl
2009a, 2009b) in a segregated country. Just as Bastian had founded
modern ethnology in Germany, Boas founded modern anthropology
in the United States.
This conclusion leads us to reflect on anthropology’s institutionaliza-

tion. Darnell (1969, 1970, 1971, 1974a, 1988) considers the profession-
alization of American anthropology to begin in Philadelphia with
Daniel G. Brinton (1837–99). Brinton played an important role in lec-
turing on ethnography as the science of “races and peoples” (Brinton
1890) and in developing ideas on the classification of the anthropo-
logical and ethnological sciences (Brinton 1892a, 1892b, 1892c, 1895)
that were received in Britain (Hicks 2013) and the Netherlands (Stein-
metz 1892). Yet Boas was a major force in institutionalizing the four-
field approach at American universities. The departmentalization of
anthropology is generally regarded as having launched anthropology
as a profession in the United States. The PhD program in anthro-
pology set up at Columbia enabled Boas and his students to acquire
major positions in American academia, which led to a higher degree
of professionalization earlier than in Europe.
Surveying the field from central Europe, Justin Stagl (2006:257)
divides the institutionalization of the ethnos sciences, that is,
Völkerkunde and Volkskunde, ethnography and ethnology, into three
Epilogue 435
stages: (1) they were named, (2) professional organizations and jour-
nals were founded, and (3) museums and endowed chairs were cre-
ated. While the first stage took place during the eighteenth century,
the second and third occurred predominantly during the nineteenth
century. Stagl (2006:257) argues that the scholarly societies and peri-
odicals of the second and third stage accompanied “the transition
from private to public science” and aimed at “focusing the new dis-
ciplines, guiding the state’s research policy, and distributing schol-
arly reputations.”
At this stage—as the United States went through a period of
rapid economic growth and the country was well on its way to
industrialization—Boas labored to professionalize American anthro-
pology. Against this backdrop Boas and his students developed
anthropology as a research program dealing with “the whole sci-
ence of man.”
436 Epilogue
Conclusion
Anthropology and ethnology did not emerge as recognizable

disciplines until the mid-nineteenth century.
— M arshall and Williams (1982:294)
Ethnologia . . . est notitia gentium populorumque.

— A dam Fr antišek Koll ár (1783, vol. 1:80)
E
nlightenment anthropology was a multifaceted field of studies
developing in numerous directions. Various forms of anthro-
pology (medical, theological, physical, philosophical) as well
as ethnography and ethnology evolved during the eighteenth cen-
tury. These fields developed alongside the study of morals, conjectural
history, the philosophy of history, the study of religion, historical
linguistics, and proto-sociology. References to such studies abound
in books on the history of the early modern social sciences such as
Slotkin (1965), Mühlmann (1968), Poirier (1969), Duchet (1971a),
Moravia (1973, 1980), Olson (1993), Stagl (1995b, 2002b), Fox et al.
(1995), and Wolff and Cipolloni (2007). Slotkin (1965:xiii) concluded
that “there were no students of ethnology” during the eighteenth
century. However, the material analyzed in the present book indi-
cates that both ethnology and ethnography did emerge during the
German Enlightenment. Historians and naturalists in eighteenth-
century Asia and Europe coined the terms to designate this new field
of study and carried out the associated research program.
The genesis of ethnography and ethnology during the eighteenth
century was an important but relatively neglected development
within this larger field. Because ethnology was the name of the dis-
cipline now known as social or cultural anthropology, and because
ethnography still is a vibrant subject, it is important to reconstruct
their early history. Three stages can be discerned: (1) the genesis of
ethnography as a descriptive study of peoples in the context of the
Russian exploration of northern Asia (Siberia) during the Early
Enlightenment; (2) the invention of ethnology as a general study
of peoples in academic centers of western and central Europe (Göt-
tingen and Vienna) during the Late Enlightenment; and (3) their
reception and further development by scholars in other European
countries and the United States. These stages make up the concep-
tualization of ethnography and ethnology as the study of peoples
and nations.
This inception process must be distinguished from the institu-
tionalization of ethnography and ethnology during the nineteenth
century, when specialized museums, societies, journals, chairs, and
departments were established. In their book on British Perceptions
of the World in the Age of Enlightenment (1982), just cited, the Brit-
ish historians Marshall and Williams refer to the latter stage, when
anthropology and ethnology indeed became more “recognizable.”
Their view is limited to sciences that have acquired disciplinary sta-
tus, leaving out sciences in the making. Academic disciplines can
be seen as branches of teaching, research, and the formation of a
professional identity (Heilbron 1990:13). In the eighteenth century,
however, new sciences such as ethnology were conceived as research
programs (in Lakatos’s sense). For this reason, I proposed the term
“studies” for the German term Wissenschaften, which arose during
the eighteenth century and evolved into academic disciplines dur-
ing the nineteenth century.
Historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller, participating in Bering’s
Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43), was the first to develop
a vocabulary and a methodology to deal with what we would now
call ethnic or national diversity. In 1732 Müller called his future field
a “history of peoples” (historia gentium), and by 1740 he had devel-
oped it into a “description of peoples” (Völker-Beschreibung) (Mül-
ler 1900, 2010d). Bering’s second expedition was a naval operation
to explore the seaways between Asia and America, but during the
preparations an academic contingent had been added to describe the
natural resources and the peoples of Siberia. Müller enlisted as a his-
438 Conclusion
torian and geographer but turned into an ethnographer during the
expedition. Investigating the history, geography, and ethnography
of Siberia, Müller studied most Siberian peoples, interviewed sha-
mans, and documented Siberia’s colonization. During ten years of
fieldwork and archival research, he launched a program for describ-
ing the peoples of Siberia in a systematic and comprehensive manner.
He actively transmitted this program to other expedition mem-
bers and Russian students during and after the expedition. Mül-
ler valued Lafitau’s 1724 comparative study of Native Americans
and emphasized the need to situate ethnographic research within
a larger comparative framework. His research program envisaged
a series of ethnographic studies of all Siberian peoples, followed by
their comparison with those of “other Asian, African, and Ameri-
can peoples.” If Lafitau’s work entailed a comparative program, Mül-
ler developed a detailed ethnographic program as a first step in that
direction. His dream was that “an experienced person” would com-
pile “a most general description of peoples” on the basis of which “a
certain new science would be founded.” This would be “beneficial
to posterity forever” (Müller 2010a:5).
Müller planned to publish three separate books on Siberia’s his-
tory, geography, and ethnography. Only the first of these material-
ized during his lifetime. His description and comparison of Siberian
peoples were published posthumously (Müller 2003, 2009, 2010d).
Seeing his ethnographic labors as going beyond the travelogues and
cosmographies that had been produced previously, Müller (2010a)
was critical of the work of Brand, Ides, Witsen, and others, find-
ing them unsystematic and “incomplete.” He also distanced him-
self from previous work done by Russian geographers like Remezov
and Kirilov. Müller developed methods in the field to acquire reli-
able information, deal with informants without the use of interpret-
ers, and collect artifacts for the Academy of Sciences’s museum, the
Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg. He built on his predecessor Mess-
erschmidt’s methods for recording and storing data.
In classifying ethnographic data Müller applied Leibniz’s histor-
ical linguistics. The latter’s historia etymologica, providing evidence
about the “origins of nations,” laid the foundations for ethnography.
Leibniz is often presented as the first scholar who attempted “to
arrange peoples on the basis of their languages.” This approach dif-
Conclusion 439
fered radically from the usual way of arranging peoples according to
their customs or to the levels or stages of their civilization. Thanks
to Leibniz, the comparative study of languages became an auxiliary
discipline to history (Aarsleff 1982). Guerrier’s study of the corre-
spondence between Leibniz and Peter the Great and their repeated
meetings in 1711–16 shows that Leibniz was consistent in his efforts
to induce Peter the Great to develop the arts and sciences in Russia
and collect vocabula gentis, even if his influence on the tsar remained
limited owing to various factors. Yet Leibniz’s language studies had a
profound impact on most German-speaking scholars in the Russian
Empire. His influence also extended into eighteenth-century North
America, where Charlevoix and Barton applied Leibniz’s linguis-
tic principles to the study of Native American languages. Not only
Thomas Jefferson but also George Washington encouraged the col-
lection of language specimens to ascertain the “affinity of nations.”
Leibniz’s ethnolinguistic program was arguably a precondition to
the formation of ethnography because the comparative study of lan-
guages was regarded as a better indicator for determining the “origins
and migrations of nations” than previous juxtapositions of manners
and customs (Vermeulen 2011, 2012a, 2012b).
The genesis of ethnography in the Russian Empire raises questions
about the relations between anthropology and colonialism. Müller
and his colleagues were under contract with the Academy of Sci-
ences in St. Petersburg to describe the peoples and natural resources
of Siberia. Under Peter the Great a major change in policy occurred
when the Russian authorities expressed a utilitarian and geopolitical
interest in Siberia and other parts of the empire. The idea of peoples
(narody) as a resource came to the fore alongside cameralist concerns
about how the state could profit from its inhabitants. This led to a
June 1732 order from the Russian Senate to the Academy of Sciences
that a “description of the peoples and their manners” and a study of
“the fruits of the earth” be made during Bering’s second expedition
to the empire’s northern and eastern parts. This aim was explicit in
the instructions for Messerschmidt’s expedition (1719–27) but not yet
in Bering’s First Kamchatka Expedition (1725– 30). Probably react-
ing to the 1732 Senate order, Müller wrote an instruction for the
compilation of a “history of peoples” (historia gentium). During the
expedition he wrote at least four such instructions, each containing
440 Conclusion
explicit directions for conducting research. In 1740 he produced a
veritable “Notes and Queries” of 923 ethnographic questions wait-
ing to be answered in Siberia.
The Second Kamchatka Expedition was a secret expedition. The
resulting manuscripts pertaining to the history, geography, natu-
ral history, linguistics, ethnography, and archaeology of Siberia,
Alaska, and Japan landed in the academy’s archives. The artifacts
were stored in the Kunstkamera, but many were destroyed dur-
ing a 1747 fire. Academic explorers granted access could study the
manuscripts. During the expedition Müller had been in contact
with Kirilov, the secretary of the Senate who extended the expedi-
tion’s aims by adding the academy contingent, and Ostermann, the
vice chancellor who supervised the expedition’s organization. Mül-
ler reported to the academy and to Ostermann. To what extent he
gave advice to Russian administrators is unknown; his periodical
reports have never been published. There is no indication that eth-
nographic information ever left the academy archives to be consulted
by administrators.
Müller and other academic members of the expedition were not
complicit in Russia’s colonization of Siberia. They had no position
in the colonial administration. In fact, because they had no rank in
the Russian bureaucracy, colonial administrators did not treat them
well and found their research to be a burden. The researchers had to
be careful in criticizing colonial practice, as Steller found out when
trying to protect the Itelmens. It is unlikely that their work influ-
enced colonial policies during the eighteenth century. The results
of the Second Kamchatka Expedition were “purely scientific and
had no immediate impact on administrative practice,” according to
Peter Hoffmann. At a later stage Müller’s program did influence the
administrator Speranskii’s reforms through Georgi’s Beschreibung
aller Nationen des Russischen Reichs (1776–80). However, while Mül-
ler described the Siberian peoples according to their language, polit-
ical, kinship, and economic systems and their religion, Speranskii
focused only on the economy when reforming Siberia’s administra-
tion in 1822.
Müller possibly adopted ethnological ideas from the Russians. In
seventeenth-century Muscovy ethnicity was hardly an issue; social
distinction was primarily made on the basis of religion. Müller’s
Conclusion 441
contemporary, the Russian historian Tatishchev, viewed peoples as
nonbelievers (inovertsy, “people of a different faith”) or as foreigners
(inozemtsy, “people of different origin”). The shift from this perspec-
tive to the eighteenth-century concept of narody (“peoples,” Völker)
and the nineteenth-century view of inorodtsy (“people of different
birth”) and narodnost’ (peoples or “nationalities”) would require fur-
ther study. Müller and the other academic members of Bering’s sec-
ond expedition to Kamchatka probably glossed over the differences
between the Russian and German terminology, opted for the word
Völker, and selected language as the main criterion for distinguish-
ing peoples. Müller’s position, in my view, was pragmatic: if the
Siberian peoples needed to be described, this had to be done in a
systematic way. Comprehensive descriptions of all of them had to
be made so that they could be compared, both internally (within
Russia) and externally. Inspired by scholarly and Russian demands,
Müller’s program resulted from an interaction between science and
colonial practice.
While Müller gathered information for the Russians, his ethno-
logical program was voiced in scholarly terms and written in Ger-
man. His stated aim was to provide data for scholarly debates about
peoples worldwide. In his Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker, Müller
underlined the scientific dimensions of such a work. To him, his-
tory was an empirical description of facts that should be conducted
within a comparative framework. He indicated that descriptions of
Siberian peoples were part of a “future” science (disciplin) that needed
to be developed, a “prospective most general description of peoples”
(Müller 2010a:5, 18). These scholarly formulations contained no refer-
ence to colonial practice—even if Müller operated in such a context.
Therefore, colonialism is only one factor for explaining the genesis of
ethnography in early eighteenth-century Russia. The colonial con-
text was conducive to the birth of ethnography because the author-
ities needed inventories of the peoples in the Russian Empire. Yet
the main research questions derived from a scholarly agenda set by
Leibniz and Lafitau.
Owing to the utilitarian interest of the Russian authorities,
the backing of the Academy of Sciences, and Müller’s systematic
approach, many peoples of the Russian Empire were described dur-
442 Conclusion
ing the eighteenth century. Messerschmidt’s expedition (1719–27),
the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43), the First Orenburg
Expedition (1734– 37), the Academic Expeditions (1768– 74), and the
Billings–Sarychev Expedition (1785–95) resulted in a series of eth-
nographies. The expeditions carried out by Messerschmidt, Mül-
ler, Gmelin, Steller, Fischer, Krasheninnikov, Lindenau, Rychkov,
Pallas, Falck, Georgi, Lepekhin, Merck, and others were essential
to the rise of ethnography in the Russian Empire (Tokarev 1966).
Müller was directly or indirectly involved in the first four of these
expeditions. Even if not all ethnographic studies were published,
the Russian Empire was probably the best described part of the
world at the time.
Interestingly, not only historians but also naturalists described the
peoples of Siberia, the Volga Region, and the Urals. Internationally
seen, this was exceptional. Of the seventeen “apostles” dispatched
by Linnaeus, only six undertook ethnographic work alongside their
botanical studies. By contrast, almost all naturalists employed by
the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted ethnographic studies
(Vermeulen 2013).
The second stage in the conceptualization of ethnology was the
invention of Völkerkunde, indicated by the emergence of the terms
ethnographia, Völkerkunde, and ethnologia. August Ludwig Schlözer,
Müller’s junior colleague, provided the link between St. Peters-
burg and Göttingen. Schlözer probably brought Müller’s program
to Göttingen. Müller’s Völker-Beschreibung was a clear prototype of
ethnographia, a term surfacing some thirty years later in the Ger-
man lands, first at Nördlingen (Swabia) by Johann Friedrich Schöp-
perlin and Albrecht Friedrich Thilo in 1767, then at Göttingen by
August Ludwig Schlözer and Johann Christoph Gatterer in 1771–
75. In both cases Schlözer was the intermediary. He had worked for
Müller in St. Petersburg in 1761–62 and was a relative of Thilo. He
was also a member of Gatterer’s Historical Institute and became
his competitor as a professor of history in Göttingen. Expanding
Müller’s Völker-Beschreibung into a Völkerkunde, Schlözer invented
an “ethnographic method” for history and was the first historian to
use the term Völkerkunde. He included these terms in his regional
monograph Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte (1771) and his textbook
Conclusion 443
Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie (1772– 75). Gatterer used them
in his textbooks Einleitung in die synchronistische Universalhistorie
(1771) and Abriß der Geographie (1775– 78). While Schöpperlin and
Gatterer contrasted ethnographia with geographia, Schlözer distin-
guished Ethnographie from Kosmographie and Völkerkunde from Welt-
kunde. The main problems Schlözer worked on were the origins of
nations (origines gentium) (Schlözer 1768a, 1771a) and the “intercon-
nectedness of historical events” (Schlözer 1772, 1775). The first was
the object of regional history; the second of “universal history, or the
study of great world events in connection.” In the first case he sug-
gested combining “Leibniz’s ethnographic method” with the tax-
onomic model of Linnaeus in order to arrange the peoples of the
European and Asian North into a systema populorum (a system of
peoples). Adopting language as a marker of historical relatedness,
Schlözer (1771a) distinguished five large groups in the European
North (Germanic, Slavic, Lettish, Finnish, and Samoyedic) and no
fewer than twenty-two peoples in the Asian North (which was sep-
arated from Europe by the Urals).
The “ethnographic method” was one of the four methods of uni-
versal history, the other three being the “chronological,” “techno-
graphic,” and “geographical” arrangements of events (Schlözer 1772,
1775). Following the “ethnographic method,” basically, a history of the
world according to peoples, world history would result in “as many
chapters as there are separate peoples.” Estimating that at least two
hundred peoples existed, Schlözer added, “We need a description
of each.” He was interested in the process of increasing intercon-
nectedness (Verbindung) between nations and states. Such connec-
tions were made by conquests; inventions in the arts, sciences, and
technology; and the migrations of peoples, animals, plants, arts,
and diseases. Interconnecting was optimal within a state unifying
different peoples and states. Schlözer (1775:118) called peoples who
had produced such a state “principal peoples” (Hauptvölker), having
brought coherence (Zusammenhang) into world history while dis-
seminating “Aufklärung and Literature.” They connected other peo-
ples and spread Cultur, customs, laws, inventions, sciences, and the
arts around the world. In this context he coined the term Weltsystem
(Schlözer 1772:37, 1775:250). The problem of coherence and intercon-
444 Conclusion
nectedness represented Schlözer’s main interest in world history. He
was one of the first global historians with an ethnographic interest.
Schlözer’s regional-historical work influenced the Slovak historian
Adam František Kollár in Vienna, who made the final step by coin-
ing and defining ethnologia in 1781–83. Kollár’s definition of ethnol-
ogy (notitia gentium populorumque) included “the origins, languages,
customs, and institutions of various peoples” as well as “their father-
land and ancient settlements.” Kollár (1783, vol 1: 80) provided an
important clue by adding that ethnology’s aim was “to be able bet-
ter to judge the peoples and nations in their own times.” Thus, the
“learned men” pursuing ethnologia were interested not only in the
past situation of peoples and nations, but also in their present con-
dition. Forty years earlier, Müller had expressed the same hope that
ethnography would provide useful knowledge.
Kollár’s inclusion of both gens and populus in his 1783 definition
indicates that he was aware of the difference between nations con-
sisting of one people (gens) and of several peoples, that is, between
homogenous and heterogeneous groups of people. As noted in chap-
ter 6, “tribe” or even “clan” could be inserted for the former, reserv-
ing “nation” for the latter, but no eighteenth-century scholar seems
to have made such a distinction. Schlözer (1771a, 1772) observed a
distinction between a geographical, a genetic-historical, and a polit-
ical conception of Volk. In the first case, Volk referred to a country,
in the second to a people characterized by a language, and in the
third to a state. For historical purposes, he argued, it was imperative
to distinguish between these conceptions. Nevertheless, Schlözer
and many of his contemporaries used the terms Völker and Nationen
interchangeably. The idea of a multiplicity of peoples and nations
(as distinguished from states) was inherent in Kollár’s definition of
ethnology.
Alexandre-César Chavannes in Switzerland and Johann Ernst
Fabri in central Germany adopted the term Ethnologie in 1787. Cha-
vannes defined ethnology as “the history of peoples (peuples) pro-
gressing towards civilization” and saw it as a part of anthropology,
or “the general science of man.” This definition fit well within the
conceptual scheme of the Enlightenment and its theory of stage-like
progress. Fabri saw Ethnologie as combining both Völkerkunde and
Conclusion 445
Volkskunde. A relation between these scholars could not be estab-
lished, although both had ties to Göttingen. While Halle had been
seminal in the German Early Enlightenment, its role was taken over
by the University of Göttingen in the Late Enlightenment. Göt-
tingen became a center of ethnological studies, radiating to schol-
ars in all neighboring countries the idea that there was or should be
a new science of peoples.
Justin Stagl (1995b, 2002b) identified three research methods before
the professionalization of anthropology and sociology: travel, ques-
tionnaires, and the acquisition of objects. Each of these played a role
in Göttingen. On the basis of data from Göttingen and Vienna, Stagl
(1998) concluded that the “ethnos-terms” (Ethnographie, Völkerkunde,
Ethnologie, and Volkskunde), which “stress human cultural diversity
over the fundamental unity of mankind,” were “coined by a group
of mutually known scholars in late eighteenth-century Germany,”
that is, within the context of the German Late Enlightenment. This
interpretation can be endorsed, even if the primary importance of
Müller’s research during the Early Enlightenment should not be
ignored. Neither Vermeulen (1994a, 1994b, 1995) nor Stagl (1995a,
1998, 2002a) mentioned that ethnography originated in the context
of the Russian exploration of Siberia. Müller’s manuscripts were still
being edited by Hintzsche in Halle and Elert in Novosibirk (Ver-
meulen 1999, 2006a, 2006b, 2008a, 2008b, 2008d).
Thus, ethnography and ethnology in a strict sense were invented
by eighteenth-century German-speaking historians. They consti-
tuted a research program designated by the technical terms Völker-
Beschreibung (coined by Müller in Siberia, 1740), ethnographia (used
by Schöpperlin and Thilo in Nördlingen, 1767), Ethnographie (intro-
duced by Schlözer in Göttingen, 1771– 75), Völkerkunde (introduced
by Schlözer and Gatterer in Göttingen, 1771– 78), and ethnologia
(defined by Kollár in Vienna, 1783). Völkerkunde was a successor of
Völkergeschichte, a “history of peoples” (or “national history”). Mül-
ler used its Latin form, historia gentium, in St. Petersburg in 1732.
Another form, historia ethnica (ethnic history), had been offered by
historian Matthias Bel in 1718. Both Völkergeschichte and Völkerkunde
are related to Völkerrecht ( jus gentium), the “law of nations,” a field
that had been developed by jurists and philosophers like Grotius,
Pufendorf, Leibniz, Thomasius, and Wolff.
446 Conclusion
The following model attempts to visualize these terminological
developments (see also table 10):
historia gentium (Völkergeschichte) 1732 Müller (St. Petersburg)

→ Völker-Beschreibung 1740–46 Müller (Surgut), 1781 Pallas
(St. Petersburg)
→ ethnographia 1767 Schöpperlin/Thilo (Nördlingen)
→ Ethnographie 1771– 75 Schlözer, Gatterer (Göttingen)
→ Völkerkunde 1771– 78 Schlözer, Gatterer (Göttingen)
1781– 93 Forster & Sprengel (Halle)
→ Volkskunde 1776–82 Berkhey (Leiden), Ekkard
(Göttingen)
→ ethnologia 1781–83 Kollár (Vienna)
→ Ethnologie 1787 Chavannes (Lausanne), Fabri
(Halle/Jena)
Surprisingly, the ethnos-terms were originally coined in German

and then translated into neo-Greek. One would have expected the
reverse. The translation of German terms into Greek neologisms indi-
cates the scholarly intentions of the historians using them. Names of
sciences had to be denoted in Greek. Historians Schlözer and Gat-
terer consistently spoke of Wissenschaften (sciences); Müller even of
a “new science” (neue Wissenschaft). Granting that the development
of ethnography as “an independent science” was “admittedly not yet
complete,” historian Pölitz (1813) likewise called Ethnographie a sci-
ence (Wissenschaft). As noted, this type of Wissenschaft in the pre-
disciplinal stage can best be regarded as a study.
That historians coined the new concepts ethnographia and ethno-
logia is significant. The new terminology was developed in the field
of history. Müller was the first to systematically distinguish his-
tory, geography, and ethnography. He came to formulate a Völker-
Beschreibung after having conceived a historia gentium. All these facts
indicate that ethnography emanated from history. Gatterer’s trans-
fer of ethnographia from the field of history to that of geography in
1773– 75 reflects the breaking up of “polyhistory” (Kühn 1939:86).
Historians made the comprehensive study of peoples a prime sub-
Conclusion 447
ject, surpassing philosophers or naturalists in this respect. Ethno-
graphic data were usually included in history, not only in the histories
of America by Acosta and Robertson, or those of Sumatra and Java
by Marsden and Raffles, but also in the conjectural history of Fer-
guson and Kames. Many peoples were becoming known to Europe
through travelers and scholars participating in scientific expeditions
(Duchet 1971a). In addition, their occurrence in historical sources
was perceived as a problem that could be solved only when apply-
ing proper methods.
In Russia the ethnographic descriptions increased during the
Academic Expeditions led by Pallas when the naturalist-explorers
published their accounts from 1768 on. Historians and philosophers
processed them in theoretical works. The main categories in France
were the history of morals and philosophy of history; in Scotland,
moral philosophy and conjectural history; in Germany, Universal-
geschichte and Popularphilosophie. The primary data also played a role
in natural history, increasingly paying attention to natural variety.
Apart from the ethnology of Schlözer and Kollár on the one hand
and of Chavannes on the other, there was a third view. Johann Gott-
fried Herder integrated a relativist study of the world’s peoples into
a “history of humankind” (Geschichte der Menschheit). Infusing Mon-
taigne’s relativism in the field of conjectural history, Herder’s Ideen
(1784–91) contained ethnographic descriptions of the world’s peoples
based on many sources, including eighty travel accounts. He occa-
sionally used the term Völkerkunde but avoided the term Ethnogra-
phie and criticized Schlözer’s concept of ethnographisch as “harsh.”
Instead, Herder favored more poetic formulations such as a “paint-
ing of nations.” Herder’s ethnological view was embedded in his
anthropological understanding (Zammito 2002). He saw Völker as
the “most noble part of humanity.” A particularistic approach was
required to do justice to their inherent value.
The third stage in the conceptualization of the new study was
characterized by the adoption of ethnography and ethnology in other
academic centers of Europe and the United States. The new vocab-
ulary first spread to centers of learning in the Holy Roman Empire,
where Völkerkunde was developed most intensively in combination
with geography (Länderkunde), but also with literary studies (Littera-
tur) or natural history (Naturkunde). From 1781 on the subject entered
448 Conclusion
the pages of the “ethnological journals” in Halle, Leipzig, Jena, or
Weimar in central Germany, as well as in St. Petersburg and later in
southern Germany. These journals often carried the combination of
Völker- und Länderkunde (or vice versa) in their titles and contents.
The first overviews of ethnology were published in these journals
(Ehrmann 1787, 1792, 1808a). From 1785 on, the term Völkerkunde
became popular in the form of Staaten-, Länder- und Völkerkunde,
that is, in combination with political history and geography.
Subsequently, the terms Völkerkunde and Ethnographie appeared
in countries like Switzerland, Bohemia, Hungary, the Netherlands,
France, the United States, and Great Britain. Although much of
this process is unknown, the adoption seems to have taken place
most rapidly in neighboring countries, where scholars had knowl-
edge of German or where German-speaking scholars lived. Göt-
tingen played a major role in this process because of its relations
with the Russian and the British Empires. Nevertheless, the recep-
tion of the new study was slow in Great Britain, possibly because
of the language barrier. As Stocking noted in 1971, “ethnology” was
still new to English usage when the Ethnological Society of Lon-
don was founded in 1843.
Apparently, knowledge of German was less rare in the United
States because the term “ethnological” appeared in 1802– 3, when
Jefferson and Barton included it in instructions for the Lewis and
Clark Expedition (1804–6). In this case the parallel between empire
and ethnography surfaced again: the expedition members had been
ordered to obtain “ethnological information” about the “Indians of
Louisiana” during or after the Louisiana Purchase (1803), which nearly
doubled the size of the United States and turned it into an empire.
Thus, the thesis that ethnography and ethnology resulted from a
scholarly interest in peoples and nations within a colonial context, is
confirmed not only by the case of the Russian Empire and the Holy
Roman Empire, but also by that of the United States, a democratic
state with a multitude of indigenous and immigrant peoples. In the
latter context the term “tribes” obtained scientific credibility (Fried
1975), adding to the multiplicity of peoples and nations.
At the turn of the century, the German ethnographic tradition
became more recognizable when the French Idéologues and early
American ethnologists embraced some of the ideas of German schol-
Conclusion 449
ars. In nineteenth-century Britain not only Prichard but also Tylor
borrowed from the German tradition. Ernst Dieffenbach, a German
physician who had worked in New Zealand, was invited to deliver
the first lecture on “The Study of Ethnology” at the Ethnological
Society of London in 1843 (Dieffenbach 1848; Herzog 1990). In 1888
Franz Boas presented the first lecture on the “Aims of Ethnology”
in New York (Boas 1889; Stocking 1974; Cole 1999).
When ethnology was received in the ethnological societies of Paris
and London, a curious transformation in its definition took place.
Whereas the German sources had specified that ethnology was a study
of peoples and nations, French and British scholars defined it as a
“study of races.” At the new definition’s basis lay Prichard’s tendency
to use the word “races” as another term for “peoples” and Edwards’s
1829–43 proposals to study the racial makeup of European nations by
combining history and physiology. This program for a “physical eth-
nology,” as contemporaries called it, influenced the aim of the eth-
nological societies of Paris and London. A paradigmatic shift from a
nation-oriented to a race-oriented ethnology took place, representing
a break with the German tradition. The program of these ethnolog-
ical societies was soon overtaken by the rise of physical anthropol-
ogy and Darwin’s evolutionism, coinciding in the same year, 1859. In
Paul Broca’s view of anthropology, prioritizing physical anthropology,
this type of ethnology was incorporated as one of the six subjects to
be developed under the label (general) anthropology.
While Enlightenment scholars drew no fundamental distinction
between peoples and nations, they saw a marked difference between
“peoples” and “nations” on the one hand and “varieties” or “races” on
the other. The naturalists Linnaeus and Buffon introduced the latter
terms in 1735 and 1749, respectively. The anatomist Blumenbach was
the first to explore the biological differences between humans, even
if he did not yet have a significant cranial collection when dividing
the human species into four, later five, “varieties” of humans (in 1775
and 1781, respectively). The philosopher Kant introduced the mod-
ern concept of race, which entailed a hierarchical ordering of perma-
nent traits that were inherited through the generations. In 1790–95
Blumenbach adopted “anthropology” as the new name for Buffon’s
“natural history of man.”
The latter was a major innovation, as previously anthropology
450 Conclusion
had been defined as a “science of man” or a “discourse on man.” For
this reason, anthropology in a general sense (the science of human-
kind) and anthropology in a specific sense (the biological approach to
humans) need to be distinguished. While anthropology first devel-
oped during Humanism, and physical anthropology received its object
(races) during the Enlightenment, ethnology also emerged during
the eighteenth century but its object (peoples) was an age-old phe-
nomenon described in ancient sources such as the Bible, Greek phi-
losophy, and the Qur’an.
In eighteenth-century Europe physical anthropology and ethnol-
ogy developed parallel to each other, in separate domains of knowl-
edge. Their objects were worlds apart but somehow related. When
these studies were first conceived and practiced, their adherents came
from distinct domains of science, either from medicine and natu-
ral history (historia naturalis) or from political history (historia civi-
lis) and geography. Despite obvious relations between anthropology
and ethnology, the scholars working in either of these fields differed
widely both in training and in subject matter: from physicians and
naturalists or philosophers on the one hand, to historians, geogra-
phers, and linguists on the other. As a result, the work of Blumen-
bach or Kant was quite dissimilar to that of Müller or Schlözer.
Only a few scholars posited a relation between both fields: in Ger-
many, Gatterer, Blumenbach, Herder, Meiners, and Georg Forster;
in Switzerland, Chavannes. The majority of German Enlightenment
scholars saw a fundamental distinction between anthropology (the
“natural history of man”) and ethnology (Völkerkunde), as the edi-
tor Ehrmann made clear in 1808 by devoting two separate articles
to these subjects.
Accordingly, no German Enlightenment scholar would have
defined ethnography as the “natural history of man,” as Prichard
(1836–47), Burke (1848), and Kennedy (1851) did. This shift has hardly
been recognized because the object and aim of the German tradition
of Völkerkunde or Ethnographie (as both Schlözer and Gatterer equated
them) has long remained unknown. Analyzing British and French
debates about the differences between “ethnology” and “anthropol-
ogy” between 1839 and 1871, Stocking (1971, 1984b) took a distanced
view, citing Shakespeare: “What’s in a Name?” But seen from the
European continent, where the German tradition had evolved, these
Conclusion 451
debates were utterly confused. With the help of these background
data, we can now better understand how Edwards’s race-oriented eth-
nology, adopted by physicians in Britain and elsewhere (in the Neth-
erlands, for example), implied a radical departure from the German
tradition of Völkerkunde. Therefore, we need to distinguish ethnol-
ogy in a general sense (a study of peoples and nations) from ethnol-
ogy in a specific sense (the physical ethnology of Edwards, Broca,
Lubach, and others). In the nineteenth century a power struggle
erupted between the adherents of (physical) ethnology and (phys-
ical) anthropology, not only in France and Britain, but also in the
United States. The debates centered on both substance and termi-
nology to denote their respective approaches and were heavily influ-
enced by pro or contra views about Darwinism, racism, and slavery.
At least four discontinuities can be discerned in the period dis-
cussed previously. The first was the shift from the biblical and patri-
otic genealogies of nations to the comparative study of languages as
an auxiliary discipline of history. Produced by Leibniz in 1691–1716,
this shift provided an ethnolinguistic basis for ethnography as a spe-
cialized study. The second was the shift from the study of “morals”
or manners and customs to a comprehensive study of peoples and
nations. Initiated by Müller in 1732–46, this shift resulted in an eth-
nological program for studying all peoples of the world. Whether or
not these shifts were of a paradigmatic character, in Kuhn’s (1962)
sense, is a matter of debate. Kuhn applied high standards to defining
a science. For him anthropology and other social sciences had not
even reached paradigmatic status during the twentieth century. By
contrast, Lakatos (1977) defined paradigms as research programs, an
approach that seems fitting for sciences in the making. In the latter
sense both shifts qualify as paradigmatic. Leibniz and Müller stip-
ulated methodical rules for carrying out their program, which were
transmitted to their colleagues and collaborators. Likewise, Schlözer
and Gatterer developed a methodology to argue that a new perspec-
tive on the study of peoples was required.
Since the Age of Discovery, coinciding with the Renaissance,
accounts of foreign countries had been presented under the category
“cosmography” (Hodgen 1964). Humanists like Boemus and Mün-
ster provided details about the “manners and customs” of numer-
ous nations around the world (Lemay 1970). A genre enjoying great
452 Conclusion
popularity, these accounts were given of peoples in Europe, Arabia,
Egypt, China, Mexico, Peru, and so forth. In this context the ques-
tion of otherness became important. The “second Age of Discovery,”
however, coinciding with the Enlightenment (Parry 1971), saw a new
way of traveling: scientific expeditions. Renowned are the expedi-
tions to the Pacific that led to geographical discoveries and sensa-
tional reports of Tahiti. The lesser-known expeditions to Russian
Asia were vital to the genesis of ethnography. In principle sharing
the same substance (manners and customs), the resulting descriptions
were written as part of a research program (in the sense of Lakatos)
to make a comprehensive inventory of the peoples of the world. Pre-
sented as contributions to a specialized field, and designated with a
new vocabulary (Völker-Beschreibung, Ethnographie, Völkerkunde, Eth-
nologie), they had been developed through a new scholarly practice:
the systematic observation and empirical description of the world’s
peoples and nations.
This insight allows us to make a distinction between (systematic)
ethnography, or ethnography in a strict sense, and “ethnographic
accounts,” or ethnography in a broad sense. While the latter accounts
abound in travelogues and include descriptions by Kolb, Ziegenbalg,
Cranz, Niebuhr, and others, the former includes systematic contribu-
tions to ethnography during the Second Kamchatka Expedition, the
First Orenburg Expedition, the Academic Expeditions, etc. Likewise,
the Russian historian of ethnography Tokarev (1966) distinguished
“ethnography as a science” from “ethnographic knowledge.” This dis-
tinction is useful for appreciating the difference between ethnogra-
phy as a programmatic study of ethnic or national diversity against
ethnographic accounts that have been called “proto-ethnography.”
The third discontinuity was the shift from a “science of nations”
toward a “science of races” during the 1830s and 1840s (discussed
above). Initiated by Edwards, this shift led to a remodeling of the
relations between ethnology and anthropology and the launch of
(general) anthropology as an overarching study in 1859.
The fourth shift was the Boasian revolution in American anthro-
pology (Stocking 1974; Honigmann 1976; Darnell 1998). The Boa-
sians drew a clear distinction between the cultural and biological
approaches to the study of humankind. They introduced theoretical
and practical elements that were part and parcel of twentieth-century
Conclusion 453
anthropology: antiracism, cultural relativism, historical particular-
ism, pluralism, and a focus on ethnography as anthropology’s pri-
mary method. With the Boasians, the holistic study of humankind,
including ethnology as one of its four fields, was reinforced. The dif-
fusion of the Boasian research program coincided with the profession-
alization of anthropology. Perhaps the most important innovation of
the Boasians was the development of a new concept of culture that
was no longer tied to the one people– one language concept of Leib-
niz, Schlözer, and others. Boas did not see cultures as tightly inte-
grated systems but as entities made up of bits and pieces, elements
accumulated through historical accidents, diffusion, and processes
of reintegration and reinterpretation. Yet Boas’s flexible view of cul-
tures did not preclude a sense that they did have certain character-
istics, even Volksgeist, a prototype of culture introduced by Herder,
Lazarus, and Steinthal (Kalmar 1987; Bunzl 1996a).
Thus, despite these shifts, there was considerable continuity
between eighteenth-century ethnography and ethnology and holis-
tic anthropology when Boas entered the arena. First of all, there was
continuity on the theoretical level. The German tradition formed
the background to Boas’s intellectual makeup when he immigrated
to the United States. Some of his ideas were European (Stocking
1996), including his views of ethnography and anthropology, his cul-
ture concept, and his antiracism. While Boas added more nuance to
these views, owing to research in various settings in North Amer-
ica, it would make sense to emphasize continuity in some aspects
and innovation in others (such as his insistence on the separation of
race, language, and culture).
Second, there was continuity on the formal level. Ethnography is
the root of anthropology, then and now. A systematic description of
peoples, cultures, or societies is still the distinctive feature of work
being done in sociocultural anthropology. Moreover, social and cul-
tural anthropology are the successors of the discipline of ethnology,
replacing it under new labels in Great Britain and the United States
during the 1920s and 1930s, respectively.
Anthropology has many roots, and other major sources of informa-

tion and writing about newly discovered peoples fed into anthropol-
ogy at large. The ethnological program outlined by the ethnos terms
454 Conclusion
represented only one strand of research in the eighteenth century.
Enlightenment science saw the development of plural paradigms.
Some were conducted under the label “anthropology,” the “science of
man,” l’histoire des moeurs, or “manners and customs”; other studies
searched for the “origins and migrations of peoples.” The list of pub-
lications with “anthropology” in their titles is long even if many of
them were not culture-conscious in Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s sense
of the term. Both physical and philosophical anthropology devel-
oped during the eighteenth century, in parallel domains.
Cosmography, geography, history, and natural history had all
profited from the expansion of the Spanish Empire. Ethnographic
accounts of Native Americans abound in the “histories” of Oviedo, de
Sahagún, Acosta, and Cobo. This great tradition, going back to the
Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs, was expanded in France,
Scotland, and Germany during the eighteenth century, when eth-
nographic data became important in theories about the progress of
human society. From the 1760s on a “history of man” developed that
was largely based on travel accounts and later regarded as conjectural
history (Wokler 1995). In this tradition, the concept of culture came to
the fore in the German Enlightenment (Carhart 2007). Not only Scot-
tish moral philosophers and French philosophes, but also antiquarians
and scholars of manners and customs, national character, and so forth
left their mark. Expeditions were dispatched to Spanish and French
America, the Middle East, Siberia, and the Pacific. The works pub-
lished in these traditions are of lasting importance for early modern
social science, and all fed into the anthropological tradition. But they
did not recognize ethnography as a separate field of scholarly inquiry.
Distinctive for the German ethnographic tradition was a special-
ized study of ethnic or national diversity. In some ways the German
tradition continued the tradition of Spanish and French descrip-
tions of the Americas. Müller explicitly linked his research pro-
gram to the comparative work of Lafitau. The incipient German
ethnographic tradition added to the accounts of extra-European
peoples that had been provided during the first Age of Discov-
ery. As an offshoot of history, the ethnographic tradition built on
some of the same sources. Yet in other respects, ethnography was
an innovation, a new development, both continuous and original.
One group of scholars, notably German-speaking historians, placed
Conclusion 455
the peoples of the world on the scholarly agenda. They felt the need
to study the world as a series of peoples that ought to be described
and compared within a single research program. None of the schol-
ars involved in the exploration of the Pacific or the Danish-German
expedition to Yemen developed a program for comprehensive eth-
nographic research. And none of them introduced the ethnos-terms
that were made available in Enlightenment studies connected with
Russia, central Germany, and Austria.
Characteristic of the German tradition was that ethnography
was set up as an empirical, systematic, and ultimately comparative
research program of peoples and nations. The latter were no longer
seen as distinguished primarily by their manners and customs but
by their languages. Leibniz, Müller, Schlözer, and their followers
rejected manners and customs as valid indicators of cultural affin-
ity. Their approach differed radically from that of arranging peoples
according to their customs or the stages of their civilization. Instead,
comprehensive descriptions of all aspects of all peoples were to be
made in order to enable worldwide comparison. The fact that this
program and the accompanying terminology was rapidly adopted
points to its fulfilling a widespread need.
Thus, if we speak of the genesis of ethnography and ethnology in
this specific, programmatic sense, their founding fathers were the
historians Müller, Schlözer, and Kollár. Ethnography was not born
from philosophy (Kant, Herder, the Scottish moral philosophers),
nor from natural history (Linnaeus, Buffon, Blumenbach), but from
history, assisted by linguistics. In the same historicist perspective,
ethnography and ethnology did not originate in maritime countries
such as Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, or Great Brit-
ain, but in continental empires such as Russia, colonizing overland,
and the Holy Roman Empire, including present-day Germany and
Austria. These empires were characterized by territorially continu-
ous polities with large indigenous populations. Russia, like Austria,
had to deal with a multitude of ethnic groups.
Two of anthropology’s central components, ethnography and eth-
nology, were developed into science by German-speaking Enlight-
enment scholars. They initiated and developed a major stream of
ethnography that fed directly into European and American ethnogra-
phy. Taken together, ethnography and ethnology (Völker-Beschreibung
456 Conclusion
and Völkerkunde) refer to a study of peoples and nations that was part
of a scholarly program developed by German-speaking historians
during the eighteenth century. In their view ethnography and eth-
nology were aspects of the same science. The distinction was well
expressed in 1808 by Ehrmann, who characterized ethnography as
a “particular Völkerkunde” and ethnology as a “general Völkerkunde.”
Accordingly, the best way to conceive of them is as the descriptive
and generalizing aspects of a single discipline. In today’s jargon,
in which ethnology is often seen as a part of (general) anthropol-
ogy, the field could be circumscribed as ethnological anthropol-
ogy (not unlike Dieserud’s “ethnical anthropology”). Ethnology
was the product neither of nineteenth-century evolutionism nor of
antiquity but resulted from a confluence of sociopolitical and intel-
lectual developments in Europe and northern Asia. Its object was
the world’s diversity of peoples and nations, rather than alterity,
culture, or society.
These results supplement claims about the “birth of anthropology”
in German biological and philosophical anthropology (Zammito
2002); in eighteenth-century British, French, or German studies of
the Pacific (Liebersohn 2006); or with Spanish missionaries (Pagden
1986), Scottish moral philosophers (A. Barnard 2000), and French
Idéologues (Chappey 2002). These traditions, all parallel develop-
ments, were clearly important for the development of anthropology
as a whole. Yet one contemporary research tradition, coined as “eth-
nography” and “ethnology” in eighteenth-century texts (1740–83),
has been neglected. Its genesis in the work of German or German-
speaking historians has been overlooked— owing to the language
barrier and the fact that crucial manuscripts remained hidden in
Russian archives during the Cold War.
This book invites scholars and students to verify the primary
material of their national traditions and reexamine the history of
ethnography, ethnology, and anthropology under the three aspects
selected here: their genesis, nature (identity, object, and scope), and
causes (prime movers). I argue that it is in anthropology’s best inter-
est to adopt a middle-range perspective on its history in which eth-
nology is no longer seen as either a “young” or an “old” science but
as a mature science emerging at the conjunction of the second Age
of Discovery (characterized by scientific expeditions) and the era
Conclusion 457
of the Enlightenment (emphasizing empiricism, rationalism, and
cosmopolitanism)—in the context of absolutism and empire building.
It is striking that even now, 275 years later, in dramatically changed
academic and sociopolitical circumstances, ethnography still is at the
heart of sociocultural anthropology. Its key problem was not alter-
ity or difference but diversity and coherence.
458 Conclusion
notes
1. History and Theory

1. Among the works advancing this view are Penniman 1935; Lowie 1937; Bur-
row 1966; Mercier 1966; Poirier 1968a, 1969; Service 1985; Trautmann 1987; Erik-
sen and Nielsen 2001. On anthropology as a “young” discipline, see Linton 1936;
Nadel 1952; Kardiner and Prebble 1963; Cerulli 1969; Feest and Kohl 2001.
2. On Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown as the founding fathers of social anthro-
pology, see, e.g., Lowie 1937; Kuper 1973, 1988; A. Barnard 2000. Alternative found-
ers of anthropological fieldwork include Frank Hamilton Cushing, conducting
research among the Zuni in 1879–84, and Franz Boas, working on Baffin Island
in 1883–84. Malinowski’s biographer suggested that his supervisors A. C. Had-
don and C. G. Seligman have as much right to the title of founder of long-term
fieldwork as Malinowski does and pointed out that Haddon introduced the term
“fieldwork” into anthropology (Young 2004:339).
3. For historians arguing that anthropology is an “old” discipline, see Momig-
liano 1966, 1977; Bitterli 1976, 1989; Liebersohn 2008. Anthropologists adopt-
ing this view include Mühlmann 1948, 1968; Hymes 1974; Darnell 1974b; Palerm
1974– 76; Voget 1975; Honigmann 1976; Streck 1987; Eriksen 1995; Petermann 2004.
On anthropology in classical antiquity up to the Byzantine era, see Marett 1908;
Myres 1908; Hoffman 1973; K. E. Müller 1972–80, 1997. Darnell 1974b and Gell-
ner 1981 point to Ibn Khaldūn.
4. This point was first made by Birket-Smith 1948:5; it was adopted by Claes-
sen 1976:9; Feest and Kohl 2001:xi; K. E. Müller 2010:15.
5. On Renaissance anthropology, see Cocchiara 1948; Hodgen 1964; Rowe
1964, 1965, 1966; Marschall 1990.
6. On Romanticism and anthropology, see Bitterli 1976; Fabian 1983; Stock-
ing 1989; Carey 2003.
7. For the Enlightenment’s importance for social or cultural anthropology, see
Bryson 1945; Evans-Pritchard 1962, 1981; Slotkin 1965; Foucault 1966; M. Harris
1968; Moravia 1970, 1973; Duchet 1971a; Firth 1972; Diamond 1974; Darnell 1974b;
Voget 1975; Copans and Jamin 1978; Llobera 1980; Littlejohn 1987; Wokler 1988,
1993; Fox et al. 1995; Faull 1995; A. Barnard 1995a, 1995b, 2000; Zammito 2002;
Liebersohn 2006; Wolff and Cipolloni 2007.
8. On medical, theological, and psychological anthropology, see chapter 7.
9. On folklore studies, or Volkskunde, see Cocchiara 1952, 1981; Möller 1964; Narr
and Bausinger 1964; Dorson 1968; Lutz 1969, 1971– 72, 1973, 1982; Kutter 1978, 1996;
Gerndt 1987; Zumwalt 1988; Könenkamp 1988; Linke 1990; Bendix 1997; Schip-
pers 1995, 2005; Dekker 2000, 2002; Weber-Kellermann, Bimmer, and Becker
2003; Kaschuba 2006.
10. The term “holism” was coined by J. C. Smuts (1926) and is frequently applied
to the four-field model.
11. Stocking 1971:381 cited Lubbock from a quote in the Anthropological Review
2, February 1864:296.
12. Broca defined anthropology as “l’étude scientifique des races humaines”
(Broca 1866, 1871); “l’anthropologie générale est la biologie du genre humain”
(Broca 1871:41; Blanckaert 2009).
13. Contributions to the discussion on the pros and cons of the four-field approach
include Stocking 1988; Winthrop 1991; discussions in the Anthropology Newsletter
of October 1992, December 1992, and January 1993; Moses 1997; Borofsky 2002;
Silverman 2002; Segal & Yanagisako 2005; Eidson 2008; Hicks 2013.
14. James George Frazer was the first professor of social anthropology, the
name he chose for the chair he inaugurated at Liverpool in 1908 (Frazer 1908;
Dumont 1960:33).
15. “l’étude des races humaines d’après la tradition historique, les langues et
les traits physiques et moraux de chaque peuple” (de Quatrefages 1867:30; Davis
1868:395; Broca 1869:26; Topinard 1885:119; Gollier 1905:16).
16. “Les principaux éléments . . . d’établir quelles sont en réalité les différen-
tes races humaines” (Broca 1863:xii; Bastian 1881:18; Tax 1955b:316; Heine-Geldern
1964:407). More on this in the epilogue of the present book.
17. For evidence of the shift, see, for instance, Topinard 1885; Brinton 1892b; W.
Schmidt 1906, 1924; Mühlmann 1948, 1968; H. Fischer 1970; Poliakov 1974; Her-
zog 1990. See also Vermeulen 1995:50–51, 53–54, 2008a:261– 267, and the epilogue.
18. On Balbi, see Hunt 1865:xcv; Broca 1866, 1876:221; Topinard 1876:201, 1885:119,
121; Gollier 1905:13; W. Schmidt 1906:144n4; Poirier 1968a:25, 1969:20; de Rohan-
Csermak 1970b:705; H. Fischer 1970:177; Bromley 1977:165. On Campe, see Hunt
1865:xciv–xcv; Topinard 1876:201, 1885:119, 1891:23; Gollier 1905:13; W. Schmidt
1906:144; Mühlmann 1968:78; de Rohan-Csermak 1970b:705; H. Fischer 1970:175;
Petermann 2004:284. On B. G. Niebuhr, see Bendyshe 1865c; Hunt 1865:xcii; Topi-
nard 1876, 1885:119; Gollier 1905:13; W. Schmidt 1906:144; Mühlmann 1968:78; Poirier
1968a:25, 1969:20; de Rohan-Csermak 1970b:705; H. Fischer 1970:174.
19. “l’histoire des progrès des peuples vers la civilisation” (Chavannes 1787, cited
after the 1886 partial reprint, p. 127).
20. On Chavannes and ethnologie, see Topinard 1888, 1891:4–5; Brinton 1892b:264;
Poirier 1968a:25, 1969:20; Gloor 1970; de Rohan-Csermak 1970a:674; H. Fischer
460 Notes to pages 5–11

1970:180; Duchet 1971a:12–13; Moravia 1973; Bromley 1977:166; Leguebe 1982; Streck
1987:10; Theye 1989:8; Berthoud 1992; Vermeulen 1994b, 1995.
21. The picture gallery was titled Ethnographische Bildergallerie: Eine Reihe von
Sittengemälden aus der neuesten Völkerkunde. Nürnberg 1791 (Bastian 1881:15). It was
edited by Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann (see chapter 6).
22. That Ehrmann wrote the article is indicated by his initials “T.F.E.” (Ehrmann
1808c:11). See chapter 6.
23. Schmidt (1906:144) gave neither specifics nor dates for Niebuhr and Campe.
A book by B. G. Niebuhr in which he used the term Ethnographie or Beschreibung
der Völker (Gollier 1905:13, based on Bendyshe 1865c; Topinard 1876) has not been
found. Poirier (1968a:25) suggested that Niebuhr used the term during lectures at the
University of Berlin in 1810 (repeated by H. Fischer 1970:175). The term Ethnographie
first occurred in the dictionary of J. H. Campe in 1811 (Campe 1807–11, vol. 5:434).
24. “Obwohl die materialen und erkenntnistheoretischen Vorbedingungen für
eine fachliche Ausbildung der Völkerkunde (noch nicht der Rassenkunde) mit
der klassischen Epoche gelegt waren, kam diese dennoch nicht zuwege” (Mühl-
mann 1948:71, 1968:67).
25. “der erste Beleg für das Auftauchen des Begriffes ‘Ethnographie’” (Mühl-
mann 1948:46)
26. “Die in der Literatur gelegentlich anzutreffende Zurückführung des Wortes
Ethnographie auf die Ethnographia mundi von Olorinus (=Johann Sommer, Mag-
deburg 1607, 1609) ist ein Aufsitzer: das betreffende Werk heißt Ethographia
mundi” (Mühlmann 1968:78).
27. See H. Fischer (1970:173– 74, 180) on Olorinus, Schmidt, and Guichard.
Mühlmann’s error is still repeated today. See the index maker of the Zeitschriften
der Aufklärung, hosted at the Bielefeld University Library website, where an arti-
cle on the history of German fashion during the sixteenth century, appearing in
a 1788 Journal von und für Deutschland, is accompanied by a keyword: “Sommer,
J. / Ethnographia mundi.”
28. The journal Beiträge zur Völker und Länderkunde is cited herein as Forster
and Sprengel 1781– 90 (see chapter 6). Kroeber and Kluckhohn owed the reference
to this early use of “Völkerkunde” to Hans Stoltenberg (1937:200).
29. On Georg Forster and Herder, see E. Berg 1982, 1990; L. Wolff 2007. On
Herder, see Mühlmann 1968; Pross 1987; Gingrich 2005; chapter 6. On Georg
Forster, see Guthke 2003; Uhlig 1965, 2004, 2010; chapter 7.
30. I owe the reference to H. Fischer’s 1970 article to an anonymous article
on “Völkerkunde” in the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, 17th ed., vol. 19, 1974:684– 686.
Fischer’s findings were inter alia adopted by Bromley (1977:165).
31. The Austrian historian Eduard Winter (1896–1982) emigrated via Vienna
to the German Democratic Republic. From 1947 on he educated students in east-
ern European history in both Halle (Saale) and Berlin. Among his students were
Günter Mühlpfordt, Erich Donnert, Ulrich Grabosch, Conrad Grau, Peter Hoff-
mann, Annelies Lauch, and Günther Jarosch.
Notes to pages 11–21 461

32. Klaus Schmidt’s findings on Schöpperlin were published in Vermeulen
(1996a, 1996b, 2000, 2002, 2006b) and adopted by Stagl (1998, 2002a:255); Bucher
(2002:210); and Schippers (2005:9).
33. Stagl introduced the term “éthnos-names” (Stagl 1995a:234), or “ethnos-terms”
(Stagl 1998:521), as a generic category for the names of disciplines dealing with eth-
nos (Volk): Völkerkunde, Volkskunde, ethnology, and ethnography.
34. The conference was called “‘Ungeduld und Verzweiflung’— Georg Wilhelm
Steller (1709–1746) und die Erforschung von Sibirien und Alaska.” It was organized
by Wieland Hintzsche at the Frankesche Stiftungen zu Halle (Saale), November
8–12, 1996. For the exhibition’s catalog, see Hintzsche and Nickol 1996a.
35. For ethnicity in the sociological sense, see Glazer and Moynihan (1975), a
volume deriving from a conference held in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1972 and
the National Association for Ethnic Studies (naes), founded in 1972 (http://ethnic
studies.org/).
2. Theory and Practice
1. Leibniz was a “universal genius” (Waterman 1978:ix), or Universalgenie (Borst
1960– 61:1475; Stewart 2006:90).
2. “Gott als ein Gott der Ordnung regieret . . .” in “Denkschrift über die Coll-
egien” (1711), attributed to Leibniz (Richter 1946:133; Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:364– 369).
3. Holland was one of the United Provinces, which was another name for the
Dutch Republic (1581–1795), now the Netherlands.
4. For an analysis of ecumenical dialogues in Europe, including Leibniz’s
efforts, see Scheib 2009.
5. See Alexander Pushkin’s poem “The Bronze Horseman” (1833). On St. Peters-
burg in the eighteenth century, see Figes 2002; P. Hoffmann 2003. The city was
known as Petrograd from 1914 to 1924, as Leningrad from 1924 to 1992.
6. On Peter the Great’s travels, see the biography by H. L. C. Bacmeister (1774).
For a detailed reconstruction of Peter’s itinerary during his first and fourth trip to
western Europe, see Luber (2003).
7. Some sources state that Leibniz was interested in Russia as early as 1685
(Schulenburg 1973:x).
8. Studying these documents in the 1860s, Vladimir Guerrier found that 244,
written between 1692 and 1716, pertained to Leibniz and Russia. However, Guer-
rier missed important documents, according to Liselotte Richter (1946:46, 67), who
worked in the Leibniz-Edition in Berlin for ten years (on Richter, see Vogt 2012).
9. “ansehnlich, wohl autorisirten Collegii”(Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:95–100; Rich-
ter 1946:62– 63, 148).
10. “zu verbesserung der Geographi, erkenntnis des Ursprungs der
Völcker”(Richter 1946:149).
11. It is not certain that this “Denkschrift über die Collegien,” published by
Guerrier (1873, vol. 2:364– 369) and attributed to Leibniz by Russian archivists
since academy director Orlov donated it in 1767 (Richter 1946:136), was written by
Leibniz. But Richter (1946:139) sees so many resemblances in content and style

with Leibniz’s other memoirs that she feels that if he did not write it, somebody
else did on the basis of Leibniz’s earlier work.
12. “Geheimer Justiz-Rath” (see Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:283, 324; Richter 1946:16, 51).
13. “Ob ich nun wohl oft in publiquen affairen, auch Justizwesen gebrauchet
worden und bisweilen von grossen Fürste darinn consultiret werde, so halte ich
doch die Künste und Wissenschaften für höher, weil dadurch die Ehre Gottes
und das Beste des ganzen menschlichen Geschlechts beständig befördert wird,
denn in den Wissenschaften und Erkenntnissen der Natur und Kunst erzeigen
sich vornehmlich die Wunder Gottes, seine Macht, Weisheit und Güthe: und
die Künste und Wissenschaften sind auch der rechte Schatz des mensch lichen
Geschlechts, dadurch die Kunst mächtig wird über die Natur und dadurch die
wohlgefassete Völker von den barbarischen unterschieden werden” (Leibniz to
Peter the Great, January 16, 1712, cited in Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:207, vol. 1:127;
Richter 1946:124).
14. “Car les vrais trésors du genre humain sont les arts ou les sciences” (Guer-
rier 1873, vol. 2:203; Richter 1946:17).
15. “denn ich nicht von den bin so auff ihr Vaterland, oder sonst auff eine
gewissen Nation, erpicht seyn; sondern ich gehe auf den Nutzen des gantzen
menschlichen Geschlechts; denn ich halte den Himmel für das Vaterland und alle
wohlgesinnte Menschen für dessen Mitbürger und ist mir lieber bey den Russen
viel Guthes auszurichten als bey den Teutschen und andern Europäern wenig”
(Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:208, vol. 1:128).
16. “je considère l’Empire du Czar comme pouvant établir une liaison entre
l’Europe et la Chine” (Leibniz 1707, cited in Richter 1946:62, 75).
17. “les sciences sont qui me touche le plus” (Richter 1946:61).
18. “Mein ganzer Ehrgeiz hat einzig darin bestanden, einen großen Fürsten zu
finden, der mehr als gewöhnliche Einsichten hat, und ich glaube, daß es in den
menschlichen Dingen nichts so Schönes und Edles gibt, als eine große Weisheit, die
mit einer großen Macht verbunden ist” (Leibniz, ca. 1676, cited in Richter 1946:45).
19. “Die Welt ist noch biss Dato in Zweifel ob Asien gegen Norden ganz
umbschiffet werden könne, oder ob es wie etliche vermeynen an America hange”
(Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:248, vol. 1:140). Leibniz repeated this idea in 1716 (Guerrier
1873, vol. 2:360).
20. This was quite timely: Cyclopaedia, or, An Universal Dictionary of Art and
Sciences published by Chambers appeared in London in 1728; Encyclopédie, ou Dic-
tionnaire raissoné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers by Diderot and d’Alembert
appeared in Paris in 1751– 72; Encyclopaedia Britannica appeared in Edinburgh
in 1768– 71.
21. Leibniz to Shafirov, June 22, 1716 (Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:344– 346, item 5:
“ob Asia an America fest, oder nicht”). See also Aiton 1985:324; Driessen-van het
Reve 2006:61.
22. “ob Asien gegen Norden zu umbschiffen, oder ob das äusserste Eiscap an
Amerika hange” (if Asia can be circumnavigated in the north, or if the extreme
ice cape is attached to America) (Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:344– 346).

23. “Denkschrift über die Verbesserung der Künste und Wissenschaften im
Russischen Reich,” cited in Black and Buse 1989:2, referring to the Russian edi-
tion of Guerrier 1873. See also Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:359– 360.
24. “Je ne saurois assez admirer la vivacité et le jugement de ce grand Prince.
Il fait venir des habiles gens de tous côtés, et quand il leur parle, ils en sont tout
étonnés, tant il leur parle à propos. Il s’informe de tous les arts mécaniques; mais
sa grande curiosité est pour tout ce qui a du rapport à la navigation; et par con-
séquent il aime aussi l’Astronomie et la Géographie. J’espère que nous appren-
drons par son moyen, si l’Asie est attachée à l’Amérique” (Leibniz to Bourguet,
July 2, 1716, cited in Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:360).
25. Leibniz to Areskine, August 3, 1716 (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:188–189, vol. 2:361–
362). Leibniz added that he was planning to write a short piece in Latin, in the
form of a letter addressed to Areskine, intended for publication in Acta Eruditorum.
On the dispute between Leibniz and Clarke, see Alexander 1956; Schüller 1991.
26. “Het is gelooffelijk, dat de groote uitsteekende hoek, in het Noord-oosten
van Asia gelegen, en by my Ys-kaep genaemt, dicht aen Amerika strekt . . . Men
vind aen deze hoek, te weten aen zijn begin Zuidwaerts, Menschen, die steentjes
en beenen in hunne wangen ingeboort dragen, en groote gemeenschap met de
Noorder Amerikanen schynen te hebben, van wien my alzulke steentjes in handen
zijn; zy zijn glinsterent blaeuw, lang drie duim, en breet een duim: zoo dat, miss-
chien, Amerika over dezen weg, of daer omtrent mede, bevolkt is geworden” (Wit-
sen 1705:158–159). See Müller 2010c:150n44, 181–182.
27. In 1860 the Russian Academy of Sciences published Wolff ’s correspon-
dence with the Russian Academy (Kunik 1860) in an edition dedicated to the Ber-
lin Academy of Sciences (Richter 1946:124).
28. Between 1700 and 1918 Russia used the Julian calendar, which during the
eighteenth century was eleven days behind the Gregorian calendar used in the
West (Golder 1922–25, vol. 1:50n6, 332n3; Bobrick 1992:11).
29. On the Kunstkamera, see J. Bacmeister 1776, 1777; Staniukovich 1953, 1964,
1970; Kurylev 1965; Troufanoff 1966; Potapov 1966; Its 1989; Buberl and Dücker-
shoff 2003; Kistemaker et al. 2005; Driessen-van het Reve 2006.
30. For Seba’s correspondence with Areskine and Schumacher, see Driessen-
van het Reve 1996a, 2001, 2006.
31. On Ruysch and his anatomical preparations, see Kooijmans 2004; Driessen-
van het Reve 2009.
32. For a list of Seba’s objects in the Kunstkamera, see Driessen-van het Reve
2006:290– 304. On Seba’s collections, see Driessen-van het Reve 2006; Bergvelt
and Kistemaker 1992:25, 35– 38. It appears that the “artificialia” in Seba’s collec-
tions were side products of interest to him mainly because of the materials from
which they were made. After he had sold his first collection, Seba began to assem-
ble a new one, which he catalogued extensively in 1734 (Russow 1900:38, 186).
After the fire of 1747 that destroyed parts of the Kunstkamera, some specimens
were replaced by new ones from Seba’s second collection (Driessen-van het Reve
2006:305, 306– 307).

33. The formulation “Kunst- und Natur-sachen” occurs in the title of the sec-
ond edition (Schumacher 1744).
34. See the contemporary illustration by Mikhail I. Makhaeva (1753) in Kopelev-
ich (1977:facing p. 64); Hintzsche and Nickol (1996a:34); Buberl and Dückershoff
(2003); Driessen-van het Reve (2006:163).
35. Since then the situation has somewhat improved. On Leibniz’s linguistics,
see one monograph (Schulenburg 1973), a dozen articles or book chapters (Water-
man 1963, 1974; Aarsleff 1969, 1975, 1982; Droixhe 1978, 1987, 1990, 2007; Gen-
sini 2000), and two edited volumes (de Mauro and Formigari 1990; Berlioz and
Nef 2005). Secondary sources include Benfey 1869; Neff 1870– 71; Danvillé 1909;
Arens 1955. Isolated remarks may be found in Mühlmann 1948, 1968; Borst 1960–
61; Semyonov 1954, 1963; Robins 1969, 1976; Poliakov 1974.
36. “Die Bearbeitung [der Reihe V: Historische und sprachwissenschaftliche
Schriften] wurde noch nicht aufgenommen” (Website of the Leibniz-Edition in
Berlin, Potsdam, Münster, Hanover, and Göttingen; see Leibniz-Edition, n.d.
http://www.leibniz-edition.de/Baende/ReiheV.htm, accessed November 12, 2014).
37. “Mettant la Sainte Ecriture à part, on ne laisse pas de voir de ce me semble
que les langues de l’Europe et de l’Asie viennent d’une même source, aussi bien
qu’une bonne partie de celles de l’Afrique. Il faut avouer pourtant que les langues
de l’Amerique, et les Extrémités de l’Afrique comme aussi la chinoise paroissent
très eloignées de toutes les autres” (Leibniz to Larroque, January 26, 1694, cited
in Waterman 1963:30).
38. The name “Scythia” already occurs on a map of Erathosthenes. See Bayer
1728. For Leibniz’s and Ludolf ’s views on Scythia, see their correspondence in
Waterman (1978:25, 28– 30, 57– 60, 63).
39. “Scythia is the portal [vagina gentium] through which it is reasonable to
assume that our Germans also passed on their way toward their historic home-
land” (Leibniz to Ludolf, April 1692, translated in Waterman 1978:25). Jordanes
referred to Scandia as “officina gentium” and “vagina nationum” in his history of
the Goths, the Getica (ad 551). Schlözer (1768a: 44) called Russia “diese wa[h]re
vagina gentium & officina nationum.”
40. “Muß auch in etwas Migrationes Gentium et Origines Linguarum
betrachten . . . Es ist sonst wunderlich daß die Persianer so viel wörther mit den
teütschen gemein haben. Ich glaube gänzlich daß die Harmoni der Sprachen das
beste mittel von ursprung der völcker zu urtheilen, und fast das einige so uns
übrig blieben, wo die Historien fehlen. Es scheinet daß in der that alle sprachen
vom strohm Indo an, bis an das Mare Germanicum von einem ursprung seyn . . .”
(Leibniz to Huldreich von Eyben, March 26, 1691, in Leibniz Sämtliche Schriften
und Briefe, ser. 1, vol. 61, no. 246 (1970): 442, partly cited in Aarsleff 1982:85, 95n4).
41. “Les langues sont les plus anciens monumens du genre humain, et qui ser-
vent le mieux à connoistre l’origine des peuples” (cited in Waterman 1978:59, 78n4).
On Leibniz’s contacts with Bignon, see Bléchet 2005.
42. “l’Harmonie qui serviront particulierement . . . à eclaircir l’origine des
Nations” (Leibniz 1962:286).

43. “Et je dis en passant que les noms des rivieres estant ordinairement venus de
la plus grande antiquité connue, marquent le mieux le vieux langage et les anciens
habitans, c’est pourquoy ils meriteroient une recherce particuliere. Et les langues en
general estant les plus anciens monumens des peuples, avant l’ecriture et les arts,
en marquent le mieux l’origine, cognations et migrations. C’est pourquoy les Ety-
mologies bien entendues seroient curieuses et de consequence” (Leibniz 1962:285,
partly cited in Aarsleff 1982:93; Meinecke 1936, vol. 1:41; Borst 1960– 61:1477).
44. “immer tiefer in die Wortforschung” (K. Müller 1973:x).
45. Grotius’s study was cited by Schlözer (1771a:212nB). Acosta was the first
to hypothesize that Latin America’s inhabitants migrated from Asia to America.
Grotius postulated that North, Central, and South America had been inhabited
by migrants from northern Europe, Ethiopia, and China, respectively (Polia-
kov 1974:142).
46. On early modern comparative language studies in the Low Countries, see
Van Hal 2010.
47. Some writers even call Leibniz “the first” to reject Hebrew as the primal
language (Mühlmann 1968:71), but others deny this (Borst 1960– 61:1478).
48. As August Ludwig Schlözer (1771a:265) summarized Michaelis’s ideas, set
out in his Spicilegium geographiae Hebraeorum exterae post Bochartum (1769–80).
49. A tinge of personal offence was included, as Bochart’s work lacked any dis-
tinction of the German language.
50. Borst 1960– 61:1465; Aarsleff 1982:89. Jacob Thomasius already used the
word erfunden. The question of the original language became an important issue
for later scholars like Vico and Herder (Berlin 1976, 1979).
51. The concept Celto-Scythian occurred in the work of Scrieckius (1614) and
Cluverius (Borst 1960– 61:1477).
52. “ces langues viennent toutes d’une source et peuvent estre prises pour des
alterations d’une même langue qu’on pourroit appeler la Celtique” (Leibniz 1962:280).
53. “Or toutes ces langues de la Scythie ont beaucoup de racines communes
entres elles et avec les nostres, et il se trouve que meme l’Arabique (sous la quelle
l’Hebraique, l’ancienne Punique, la Chaldeenne, la Syriaque et l’Ethiopien des
Abyssins doivent estre comprises) en a d’un si grand nombre et d’une convenance
si manifeste avec les nostres, qu’on ne sauroit attribuer au seul hazard, ny même
au seul commerce, mais plustost aux migrations des peoples” (Leibniz 1962:281).
54. Prinzip vom zureichenden Grund; Prinzip der Kontinuität. See Water-
man 1978:62; Aarsleff 1982:88.
55. “Et les langues en general estant les plus anciens monumens des peuples, avant
l’ecriture et les arts, en marquent le mieux l’origine, cognations et migrations. C’est
pourquoy les Etymologies bien entendues seroient curieuses et de consequence,
mais il faut joindre des langues de plusieurs peuples, et ne point faire trop de sauts
d’une nation à une autre fort eloignée, sans en avoir des bonnes verifications, où il
sert sur tout d’avoir les peuples entre deux pour garans. Et en general l’on ne doit
donner quelque creance aux etymologies que lors qu’il y a quantité d’indices con-
courans: autrement c’est Goropiser” (Leibniz 1962:285; cf. Aarsleff 1982:92– 93).

56. Waterman (1978:18, 57) used the term “ethnolinguistic” for the work of both
Leibniz and Ludolf.
57. “die Erkenntnis des Ursprungs der Nationen . . . aus Vergleichung der
Sprachen” (Leibniz, cited in Benfey 1869:253n1; cf. Peschel 1877:798n3).
58. Leibniz to Ludolf, December 1687, cited and translated in Aarsleff (1982:93,
99n37).
59. In his study of Semitic languages, Ludolf also paid attention to morphol-
ogy (Robins 1969:168; Benfey 1869:236). This principle was applied much later by
the Spanish Jesuit Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro in his Catálogo delle lingue conosciute
e notizia della loro affinitá, e diversitá (1785) and Catálogo de las lenguas de las nacio-
nes conocídas (1800–1805) (Benfey 1869:269– 71; Peschel 1877:799).
60. Leibniz to Bodo von Oberg (Vienna), first half of January 1695, in Leibniz
1923–, ser. 1, vol. 11, no. 125:176 (Michael Carhart, pers. comm., December 2011).
61. “Denkschrift Leibniz’s über Untersuchung der Sprachen und Beobachtung
der Variation des Magnets im Russischen Reichs,” September 1712 (cited in Guer-
rier 1873, vol. 2:239– 249 [p. 239]; Richter 1946:79–82 [p. 80]).
62. Second extended edition by Theodor Jankowitsch de Miriewo, in Russian,
4 vols. St. Petersburg, 1790– 91.
63. I am grateful to Michael Carhart (pers. comm., November 2010) for this
information.
64. Leibniz’s “Epistolaris de historia etymologica dissertatio,” written in 1711–12
(Leibniz-Bibliothek) is “the final and by far the most comprehensive of Leibniz’s
writings on etymology” and was intended as the introduction to his Collectanea
etymologica (Aarsleff 1982:87).
65. “wesentlich eine Classification der Völker nach ihren Sprachen und somit
zugleich eine Classification der Sprachen selbst” (Benfey 1869:246– 247).
66. Peschel’s assessment also occurs in Ferdinand Frensdorff (1890:592).
67. Linguistic studies that Leibniz published include “Unvorgreiffliche
Gedancken” (1697, 1717), “Dissertatio de origine Germanorum” (1697), “Brevis
designatio” (1710), and De origine Francorum disquisitio (1715).
68. The first volume of the history was finished in 1715; the second volume in
1716, just weeks before Leibniz’s death.
69. The Leibniz-Archiv/Leibniz-Forschungsstelle Hannover states on the
website of the Leibniz-Edition: “Der Nachlass von Leibniz umfasst etwa 50.000
Stücke, etwa 150.000 bis 200.000 Blatt. Dazu gehören etwa 205.000 Briefe von
und an etwa 1.300 Korrespondenten. Etwa 40% sind lateinisch geschrieben, etwa
35% französisch und der Rest überwiegend auf Deutsch. Der Nachlass wird von
der Handschriftenabteilung der Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek betreut”
(Leibniz-Archiv, n.d., http://www.gwlb.de/Leibniz/Leibhizarchiv/Einfuehrung/,
accessed November 12, 2014).
70. “die Umstände hatten ihm nur eine flüchtige Anregung auf den grossen
Reformator des Ostens vergönnt” (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:189, cf. 186).
71. “Urheber der Collegien-Verwaltung” (Guerrier 1873, vol. 1:186).

3. Enlightenment and Pietism
1. Classical studies of European overseas expansion and exploration include
Parry 1963, 1971; Bitterli 1976, 1989; Fernández-Armesto 2006. Reference works
include Cox 1935–49; Henze 1978– 2004; Howgego 2003–13.
2. This was already suggested by the Russian prerevolutionary historian Vasi-
lii O. Kliuchevskii (1841–1911).
3. Yugrians is the name the men from Novgorod gave to the people beyond the
“Iron Gate,” the Urals (Semyonov 1963:15). The current province with this name,
in West Siberia, includes Khanty-Mansiisk and the Yamal Peninsula.
4. Isker (Tatar: Qaşlıq or İskär) is the name of a former city on the conflu-
ence of the Irtysh and Tobol Rivers, southeast of present-day Tobolsk, West
Siberia. Founded in the eleventh or twelfth century, it became the capital of the
Tatar khanate of Kuchum in the early sixteenth century, when the empire of the
Golden Horde disintegrated. On the conquest of Siberia by Yermak and his band
of Cossacks, see the report from the Stroganov Chronicle of 1582 in Dmytryshyn,
Crownhart-Vaughan, and Vaughan, 1985–88, vol. 1:14– 23.
5. See the map of Siberia in the seventeenth century in Dmytryshyn et al. 1985–
88, 1:lxxxviii–lxxxix.
6. Further sources on the conquest of Siberia include Müller 1761– 63; Mül-
ler and Pallas 1842; J. E. Fischer 1768; Semyonov 1963; Scurla 1963; Armstrong
1975; L. Thomas 1982; Bobrick 1992; Forsyth 1992; Reid 2002; Ziegler 2005; Dahl-
mann 2009.
7. “Sibirien war Kolonie, seine Völker galten als willige Lieferanten von Steuern
und Pelzen” (Schorkowitz 1995:331).
8. On the Treaties of Nerchinsk (1689) and Kyakhta (1727), which regulated
the relations between Imperial Russia and the Qing Empire of China, see Sebes
1961; Lensen 1964; Mancall 1971; Perdue 2005.
9. Dmytryshyn et al. 1985–88, vol. 1, presents “a documentary record” of Rus-
sia’s conquest of Siberia, 1558–1700.
10. “Dienstleute (sluzhilye ljudi), Pelztierjäger (promyshlenniki) und Kosaken”
(Schorkowitz 1995:334– 335). See also Pypin 1890– 92, vol. 4:247– 254; Schweitzer
1991:33–50.
11. One of these maps of Siberia was published as a frontispiece in Dmytryshyn
et al. 1985–88, vol. 1. Kivelson 2006 reproduces several in color.
12. On Remezov’s life and work, see Goldenberg 1965, 1971; Boterbloem 2013.
13. On these questionnaires, see Andreev 1960– 65, vol. 2:89, 311– 328; Kos-
ven 1961:182–183; Potapov 1966:151; Grau 1963:119, 167–169; Schorkowitz 1995:338;
Knight 1994:26– 32; Bucher 2002:191; Hintzsche 2010:xviii.
14. See Popov 1861:664–667. This proposal was published in Tatishchev, Izbran-
nye trudy po geografii Rossii, Moscow: 1950 (Knight 1994:28– 29).
15. See Nathaniel Knight (1994:29), who contrasts inovertsy with inorodtsy (peo-
ple of a different ethnicity), the standard term for non-Slavic nationalities in
nineteenth-century Russia.
16. “der grosse Philosophus” (Strahlenberg 1730, Vorrede).

17. On Bayer’s Oriental and pioneering sinological work, see Babinger 1915
and Lundbæck 1986, respectively. See also Kopaneva, Koreneva, and Prokho-
renko 1996. The quotation is from the preface to Bayer’s Museum Sinicum (trans-
lated in Lundbæck 1986:92). His textbook was followed by Étienne Fourmont’s
Meditationes Sinicae (1737). In Russia the Chuvash missionary Iakinf Bichurin
(1777–1853) counts as one of the founding fathers of sinology and the first Rus-
sian sinologist. On the early history of sinology among the Jesuits in China and
Europe, see Mungello 1985.
18. “Dieser um die alte Geschichte Rußlands ganz ungemein verdiente Mann”
(Schlözer 1768a:24); “Vater der russischen Geschichte” (Schlözer, in a 1767 pro-
posal to print Tatishchev’s work, cited in Winter 1961a:191).
19. See the account by Atlasov, dated February 10, 1701, in Dmytryshyn et al.
1985–88, 2:3–12.
20. On Witsen and his work, see Naarden 2004, 2005, 2010. Witsen had his
predecessors regarding this part of the world, as his client Olfert Dapper already
compiled a description of Asia that included “Tartary” (see Wills 2009).
21. See Veder’s biography of Witsen in Nieuw Nederlandsch Biographisch Woor-
denboek 4, 1918:1473– 79.
22. Because Ides’s account was first published in Dutch, he is often taken for a
Dutch trader and Peter the Great’s ambassador to China, but he was baptized as
“Isebrands Ides Sohn. Nahme Eberhard” in Glücksstadt an der Elbe near Ham-
burg (Hundt 1999:1); he was not a German born in Livonia, as Winter (1962a:191)
suggested.
23. Witsen to Leibniz, Amsterdam, January 19, 1706: “cette Géographie Tar-
tarique” (in Guerrier 1873, vol. 2:60).
24. Richard James used maimanto (from Russian mámont) in a handwritten
Russian–English vocabulary of 1618–20 (Stachowski 2000:304). The reprint of Wit-
sen’s 2nd edition included drawings of a mammoth jaw (Witsen 1785, vol. 2:746).
The picture of the Tungus shaman appears in Witsen 1692, plate following page
663, and was reproduced in Vitebsky 2005:261 and Znamenski 2007:6.
25. Sixteen vocabularies appeared in Witsen’s Tartarye (2nd edition, reprinted
1785) in the following order: Korean (pp. 52– 53), Daurian (pp. 68– 73), Mongo-
lian (p. 266), Kalmyk (pp. 297– 304), Georgian or “Iberian” (pp. 506–515), Cher-
kessian (pp. 526–528), Crimea-Tartaric (pp. 578–583), Mordvinian (pp. 624– 627),
Ostyak (p. 633), Tungus (p. 654), Yakut (Sakha) (pp. 677–678), Lamut (Even) (p.
678), Yukagir (p. 687), Vogul (Mansi) (pp. 732– 733), Perm-Samoyedic (pp. 811–
812), and Samoyedic (pp. 890–892). List provided by Hintzsche (2004:800n10).
26. The Russian translation of Witsen’s Noord en Oost Tartarye was published
by a joint Dutch–Russian team supervised by Bruno Naarden in Amsterdam. The
translation was made by Wilhelmina G. Triesman (1901–82).
27. Actually, Naarden (2010:216) explains that both Witsen’s map and the first
and second edition of his book “were printed, but never reached the bookshops.”
28. Müller (2010c) also criticized Ides for many errors of facts, even in direct
observations during his travels.

29. Halle (Saale) was first mentioned as “Halla” in the Chronicon Moissia-
cence of 806 and celebrated its 1,200th anniversary in 2006. It was annexed by
Brandenburg-Prussia in 1680 under Frederick III of the Hohenzollern dynasty,
the elector of Brandenburg who crowned himself King Frederick I in Prussia in
1701. Until the early nineteenth century, Halle’s main source of income was the
harvesting of salt, from which it derives its Indo-European name. After 1949
Halle became a center of chemical industry in the German Democratic Republic.
Both Halle and Leipzig are now part of the region “Central Germany” (Mittel-
deutschland), uniting the three German states of Saxony (Sachsen), Saxony-Anhalt
(Sachsen-Anhalt), and Thuringa (Thüringen).
30. An earlier attempt to found a university in Halle, undertaken during the
Renaissance by Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg in 1531, failed because of
financial problems (Dreyhaupt 1749–50, vol. 2:1– 3).
31. On the history of the University of Halle, see Schrader 1894; H. Hübner
1977; Berg et al. 2002.
32. The characterization “Erzvater der deutschen Aufklärung” is from Günter
Mühlpfordt (1990:48, 2005:53).
33. Leibniz held Weigel in high regard, as both a mathematician and an edu-
cator. He wrote in 1716: “Es ist bekannt, daß Herr Weigelius, ein in Mathesi
sehr erfahrener und gelehrter Mann, und dabey ein ganz löbliches Absehen zum
gemeinen Besten führet, welches er sonderlich in seiner vorgeschlagenen Tugend-
schule zu erkennen gegeben, allwo er darauf treibet, daß die Jugend in den Schulen
nicht nur zu Verbal-, sondern auch Realwisenschaften, aber auch zu Tugenden
geführt werden möchte” (Richter 1946:107).
34. On Thomasius’s work and his impact, see Schneiders 1989.
35. “Sapere aude—wage es, dich der Vernunft zu bedienen” (Hor., Epist. 1.2.40).
36. On Wolff and his impact, see Mühlpfordt 1952a, 1956, 2005; Schneiders
1983. On German philosophy between Wolff and Kant (Popularphilosophie), see
van der Zande 1992, 1995.
37. On the history of the Franckesche Stiftungen, see Raabe 1995; Raabe et al.
1995, 1998; Obst and Raabe 2000; Obst 2002.
38. On the Halle Wunderkammer, see Storz 1962; Müller-Bahlke 1998.
39. Tranquebar was a Danish colony on the Coromandel Coast in southeast
India in 1620–1845. Spelled Trankebar or Trangebar in Danish, its name derived
from the Tamil Tharangambadi, meaning “place of the singing waves.”
40. On Sanskrit and its relation to other Indo-European languages, see Jones
1788 and Coeurdoux 1808 [1767]; also Benjamin Schul[t]ze 1760 (cited in Benfey
1869:261, 336–8).
41. On Francke’s Collegium Orientale Theologicum, see Fück 1955:96; Podc-
zeck 1958; Francke 2002.
42. J. B. Müller’s book was published at Berlin in 1720 and in Weber 1721; a
French translation appeared in 1721.
43. See Novitskii 1884. On Novitskii, see Pypin 1890–92, vol. 4:221– 224; Tok-
arev 1966:76– 78; Schorkowitz 1995:335.

44. I am grateful to Peter Hoffmann (pers. comm., May 2005) for this
information.
45. Histoire genéalogique des Tatars. French translation of the German translation
of the Segere-yi Türk manuscript by Strahlenberg and Schenström; the annota-
tions are ascribed to either Bentinck (Hintzsche 2010:9) or A. Lados. The German
translation by Messerschmidt appeared in Historisches Journal at Göttingen in 1780.
46. He received the title “Baron von Strahlenberg” in 1707 (Jarosch 1966b:216)
but learned of it only after his return (letter to von Wreech in 1723, cited in Winter
1953:472). Messerschmidt (1962– 77) calls him Tabbert. His hometown was Stral-
sund, but his mother tongue was German.
47. Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia also appeared in a smaller
edition under the title Historie der Reisen in Rußland, Sibirien, und der Großen
Tartarey.
48. German: Einleitung zur der Historisch-Geographischen Beschreibung des Nord-
und Ostlichen Theils von Evropa und Asia, in so weit solches das gantze Rußische Reich
mit Sibirien und der grossen Tatarey in sich begreiffet.
49. Comparing the maps of Witsen and Strahlenberg, the British scholar John
F. Baddeley concluded in 1919 that the palm should go to “the illustrious Dutch-
man rather than to his Swedish detractor, whose blunders are at least as great and
less excusable” (Naarden 2010:217n7).
50. “die Kalmuckische Nation . . . aus vier Haupt-Stämmen bestehet” (Strahlen-
berg 1730, Vorrede).
51. “zwey und dreyßigerley Arten Tatarischer Völcker Sprachen” (Strahlenberg
1730, Harmonia linguarum and title page). That Messerschmidt and Strahlen-
berg colloborated in linguistic research is confirmed by Bondar and Bischoff 2013.
52. German original: “Es ist zwar nicht ohne, wenn man eins und anders von
der Migration derer Völcker berühren will, daß solches eine schwere und deli-
cate Sache ist. Es würden aber auch viel Schwierigkeiten können gehoben werden,
wenn man sich des Raths des Herrn Baron Leibnitzens bediente, und sich die
Sprachen der Völcker in den Nord-Asien bekannt machete, welcher grosse Phi-
losophus wohl gesehen, daß man aus diesen Ländern ein vieles wegen der Migra-
tion herholen könte” (Strahlenberg 1730, Vorrede).
53. On Frisch, see Eichler 1967. A posthumous work of Frisch (1775) distin-
guished between Ordo (Ordnung), Gentes (Völker), Societates (Zünfte), Genera
(Geschlechte), and Species (Arten) (cf. Gatterer 1775).
54. “Franckes erster Sendbote in Russland” (Mühlpfordt 1998). See Winter
1953; Rosenfeld 1976.
55. Wieland Hintzsche, pers. comm. referring to Gnucheva 1940:23. According
to Müller (1762:1), the original of Schober’s report was sent to the Dutch Republic.
56. “Wegbereiter für die Erforschung Sibiriens” (Posselt 1976a).
57. This German edition is far from complete. Originally ten volumes had been
planned. See Tunkina 2013a.
58. The term “exploring expedition” can be found in at least two references:
Chamisso 1986; Joyce 2001.

59. On types of travelers and travel reports, see Griep 1991; Siebers 1992; Harbs-
meier 1994; Maczak 1995; Stagl 1995b, 2002b; Bödeker 2002b, 2004.
60. “erste moderne Forschungsreisende” (Wiesehöfer and Conermann 2002:12).
61. “Messerschmidt war der Erste, der eine wissenschaftliche Reise in das
innere Sibiriens unternahm” (Posselt 1969:66); “der Begründer der eigentlichen
Sibirienkunde” (Wendland 1996:68). See also Novlianskaia 1970.
62. The editors of Messerschmidt’s journals (Jarosch et al.) date his expedition
to 1720–27, and their edition begins with the journal he started in Tobolsk. How-
ever, they omit the first year of his travels, which included his journey to and across
the Urals to arrive at Tobolsk. Apparently, the journal of this first year was lost.
63. The tsar purchased the natural history collection of Christoforus Gottwald
in Danzig (J. Bacmeister 1777:86).
64. Jahn (1994a:217– 218) mentions that Areskine had also studied in Halle and
that he supported Messerschmidt’s candidature. Donnert (1983:99) writes that
Christoph Eberhard had recommended Messerschmidt to Tsar Peter. On Brey-
ne’s connections to Russia, see Grau 1966, chap. 6.
65. “Ms. Lange partira mardy étant expedié par le Prince de Gagarin avec Mr.
Gerbin pour Moscau” (Schumacher to Areskine, August 22, 1715, in Fond 1, Opis 3,
Delo 2, Listy 11–11v, spb ar as; Jozien Driessen, pers. comm., August 2011). As a
surgeon at the St. Petersburg hospital, Garvine was invited to the Manchu court.
Schumacher wrote Gerbin, Grau 1986 writes Garwin, the Chinese called him Har-
win, but his name was Garvine (Burgess 1975). Areskine’s instructions originally
appeared in French: “Le Sr Lange et Gausin [Garvine] envoyé en Chine l’an 1716
pour s’informer de l’état present de ce pays la et de ramasser tout ce qu’ils trouve-
ront de curieux tant ce qui appartient à l’histoire naturelle que de l’Antiquité . . .”
(Schumacher to Clermont, April 1, 1718, cited in Driessen-van het Reve 2006:72n57).
66. On Bell and other British travelers in eighteenth-century Russia and cen-
tral Asia, see Teissier 2011.
67. Based on a modern German translation from Pekarskii (1862:351): “Im unter-
zeichneten Vertrag verpflichtete er [Messerschmidt] sich nach Sibirien zu reisen,
um sich a) mit der Geographie des Landes; b) mit der Naturgeschichte; c) mit
der Medizin, mit Heilpflanzen und epidemischen Krankheiten; d) mit Aufzeich-
nungen über Sibirische Völker und mit Philologie; e) mit Denkmälern und Alter-
tümlichkeiten und f) mit allem, was bemerkenswert ist, zu beschäftigen.” Winter
(1953:318) has a slightly different translation: “nach Sibirien zu reisen und Fest-
stellungen zu treffen, 1. auf dem Gebiete der Geographie, 2. der Naturgeschichte,
3. der Medizin, 4. eine Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker und ihrer Sprachen
zu liefern, 5. Erinnerungen an die Vergangenheit und 6. alles Bemerkenswerte
zu sammeln.” See Pallas 1782:99; Pypin 1890– 92, vol. 1:83; Posselt 1969:67; Slez-
kine 1994a:54; te Heesen 2000a:381. Te Heesen translates “Siberian peoples” by
“description of the Siberian nation” (singular).
68. “Volksmedizin und Heilmittelkunde” and “Völker-und Sprachenkunde”
(Jahn 1989:109), based on Günther Jarosch, pers. comm.

69. “Messerschmidt, dessen Kontrakt schon explizit die Ethnographie, d.h.
die Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker und ihrer Sprachen, vorsah” (Schorko-
witz 1995:333).
70. “Rangierung der annotationum geographicarum, philologicarum,
antiquariarum-monumentariarum etc., mineralogicarum, botanicarum, zoologi-
carum, medicinalium et denique curialium” (Messerschmidt 1962– 77, vol. 3:194;
cf. Jahn 1989:125, 1995:213).
71.Te Heesen (2000b:383n5) based this evaluation on several sources, including
Siebers’s 1992 typology of early learned travels (Gelehrtenreise).
72. A report on Tabbert’s return trip, sent to von Wreech in July 1723, was pub-
lished in Winter (1953:467–472).
73. Messerschmidt 1962– 77, vol. 2:194–195, 202–203; Brentjes 1985–88:120. Messer-
schmidt’s fourteenth report was titled “Ossium diluvianorum animalis, vulgo dicti
Mammoth Sibiricum, . . . adumbratio ichnographica.”
74. Michael Wolochowicz, Niederschrift über die Ausgrabung der Mammut-
knochen am 18.1.1724. Irkutsk, 10.2.1724. Abschrift von Johann Philipp Breyne (in
Latin). Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Chart. A 875 Bl. 87v.
75. I am grateful to Aleksandr Evgenevich Anikin (pers. comm., September
2005) for this information. See Garutt 1964.
76. Based on a chronological list of early reports on the woolly mammoth or
woolly mammoth material compiled by Mike Reich, curator in the Geoscience
Center of the University of Göttingen, April 2007.
77. Further details on Messerschmidt’s zoological findings are held in the Breyne
archives in Gotha. See “Jacob und Johann Philipp Breyne: zwei Danziger Botan-
iker im 17. und 18. Jahhundert.” Nachlaßverzeichnis von Helmut Roob in Zusam-
menarbeit mit Cornelia Hopf. Gotha: Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, 1988, p. 88.
78. Flaherty (1992:48) writes that Messerschmidt’s findings were “so sensi-
tive . . . that the Academy of Sciences had him surrender his research materi-
als and remain silent about them.” She cites Donnert (1986:96– 97), but Donnert
(1983:99) states only that Messerschmidt had to surrender his materials, not that
they were “sensitive.”
79. Müller 1890:147, 150–151; Russow 1900:9; Winter and Figurovskij 1962:13.
80. The Gsell drawings were apparently lost in the 1747 fire in the Kunstka-
mera (Jahn 1994a:218).
81. The St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sci-
ences (spb ar as) plans an edition of Messerschmidt’s reports from Tobolsk in
Latin and German, with translations in Russian, to be edited by Ekatarina Basar-
gina (spb aras) and Werner Lehfeldt (Göttingen). In collaboration with Lehfeldt,
the spb ar as also plans to publish Messerschmidt’s main manuscript “Sibiria
perlustrata” that was completed in 1728.
82. See L. Berg 1946:79; Winter and Figurovskij 1962:15–16; Hintzsche 2010:xiii.
83. Pallas to J. A. Euler, November 1767, cited in Winter 1963:335; see also
Wendland 1992:88.

84. “ex tumulis sepulcralibus Siberiae” (see mip 1741–45, vol. 2, P. I:132 n54,
n56, n69, resp. 8th– 9th c., 8th– 9th c., 1st–5th c., drawn in the 1730s; 120 n113, 13
figurine plaques from Siberian barrows, antiquity, drawn in the 1730s). Irina V.
Tunkina (spb ar as) and Dmitrii G. Savinov (St. Petersburg State University)
are planning an edition of Messerschmidt’s archaeological drawings with mod-
ern scientific attribution of artefacts.
85. “die vorzügliche Art der Dokumentation Messerschmidts” (Brentjes 1985–
88:163; Winter and Figurovskij 1962:18).
86. Volume 5 of the original travel journal ends on December 31, 1726. The
itinerary of Messerschmidt’s expedition from Solikamsk through Moscow back
to St. Petersburg in 1727 is listed in his manuscript “Sibiria perlustrata.” Wieland
Hintzsche is planning a complete edition of Messerschmidt’s journal from 1726.
87. Jarosch inserted a note on the back cover of volume 5 (Messerschmidt 1962–
77): “Vorbereitet wird ein Sammelband: Die Bedeutung der Forschungsreise D.G.
Messerschmidts durch Sibirien in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte.” According to
Jahn (2002:888n5), “Durch das plötzliche Ableben von Dr. Jarosch (8.6.1991) gin-
gen die von ihm für diesen Kommentarband gesammelten Manuskripte verloren.
Die noch vorhandenen Bearbeitungen von Prof. Dr. Burchard Brentjes (Ethno-
graphie), Dr. Doris Posselt (Botanik), Dr. Hans Prescher (Mineralogie) und Dr.
Ilse Jahn (Zoologie) werden für die Veröffentlichung in den Acta historica Leopol-
dina neu zusammengestellt.” Such a publication is not known in the Leopoldina.
Peter Hoffmann notes that Jarosch died on January 16, 1993.
88. Vladimir Napol’skikh published a part of Messerschmidt’s journal from
December 21– 31, 1726, dealing with the Udmurt (Votiak) people in both German
and a Russian translation (Messerschmidt 2001).
89. Leibniz to Ludolf, December 1687, cited and translated in Aarsleff 1982:93,
99n37.
90. Pallas (1782:98) wrote that Messerschmidt was learned “also in oriental lan-
guages,” and the linguist Julius Klaproth was adamant about Messerschmidt in
his Asia polyglotta of 1823 (Winter and Figurovskij 1962:18). On Messerschmidt’s
linguistic research, see also Bondar and Bischoff 2013.
91. “Es übertraf alle erwartung, wie sehr die kaiser[liche] kunstkammer dam-
als mit inländischen naturalien und seltenheiten durch des hrn. Messerschmid[t]
s fleiss vermehrt worden” (Müller 1890:147, 150–151). Also cited in Russow 1900:9;
P. Hoffmann 1959:40; te Heesen 2000a:387.
4. Ethnography and Empire

1. Biographical sources on Müller include his history of the academy, written
in the 1760s (Müller 1890); Büsching 1785; Soloviev 2000[1854]; Pekarskii 1870–
73, vol. 1:308–430; Bakhrushin and Andreev’s introductions in Müller’s history
of Siberia (Müller 1937–40; 1999– 2005); Andreev 1959; Kosven 1961; Müller 1986,
2010d; J. Black 1986; Black and Buse 1989; Elert 1990, 1992, 1996a, 1996b, 1999a,
1999b, 2002, 2005a; Bucher 2002; P. Hoffmann 1959, 1983, 1995, 2005, 2008a, 2008b;
Ilizarov 2005, 2006; Elert and Hintzsche 2009; Hintzsche 2010; Tunkina 2013.

2. Also spelled Völkerbeschreibung (spb aras, Müller, n.d. [1740]; Müller 2010a,
2010b).
3. “der erste Ethnograph” (Elert 1999b; pers. comm., December 2003, Novem-
ber 2004); “der eigentliche Vater der wissenschaftlichen Ethnologie” (Hintzsche
2004:xxxiv). Schorkowitz (1995:338) characterizes Müller more narrowly as “der
akademische Vater der russischen Ethnographie.”
4. For this argument, see, among others, Gough 1968a, 1968b; D. Lewis 1973;
Asad 1973, 1979, 1991, 2002; Pels and Salemink 1994, 1999; Pels 2008.
5. On the history of the Russian Academy of Sciences, see inter alia Pekar-
skii 1870– 73; Müller 1890, Materialy 1885–1900; Vucinich 1963:75– 98; Kopelevich
1977; Donnert 1983:68–86; McClellan 1985:74–83; Kistemaker et al. 2005; Driessen-
van het Reve 2006.
6. “Man . . . muß . . . ein Gebäude errichten, durch das nicht nur der Ruhm
dieses Staates im Hinblick auf die Hebung der Wissenschaften in der Gegenwart
verbreitet wird, sondern auch künftig deren Lehre und Verbreitung dem Volk zum
Nutzen gereichen” (proposal to found an academy of sciences, January 22, 1724,
cited in Donnert 1983:71).
7. A painting of the group, seated around a table, depicted by Lydia S. Daviden-
kova, now adorns the halls of the University of St. Petersburg (Margolis and Tish-
kin 1988).
8. On Glück and his work, see Winter 1953:162–175; Glück and Polanska 2005;
Schiller and Grudule 2010.
9. The University of St. Petersburg evolved from the academy’s Gymnasium. It
was formally realized in 1747, when the academy received new regulations (Istoria
Akademii Nauk SSSR , vol. 1, Moscow: 1958, 148, 302ff.), but never really functioned
until the early nineteenth century.
10. The St. Petersburgskie vedomosti was the successor of an earlier newspaper
that ceased publication in 1727. The academy decided to fill the void with a new
newspaper that was published twice a week, with occasional supplements. Müller
was its editor from 1728 to 1730. Its views and contents were official; critical com-
mentary was not allowed. Between 1728 and 1742 the Monthly Historical, Genea-
logical and Geographical Notes to Vedomosti supplemented the newspaper. Müller
conceived of it to contain amusing, popular scientific and useful information
intended to reach a lay Russian audience, an innovation in the history of Russian
printing (Marker 1985:48–49).
11. Winter 1961b:3 calls this division between “Canzley” and “Conferenz” a
fundamental error (Grundfehler).
12. The reign of Anna Ivanovna is known as Bironovshchina, after Ernst Johann
von Biron, the tsarina’s favorite and one of the counts who rose to prominence
under Peter the Great.
13. The publication of Müller’s Sammlung Russischer Geschichte (9 vols.) pro-
ceeded with long delays. The first three issues of the first volume appeared under
Müller’s supervision in 1732– 35; its final three issues were published by his friend
Adolf Bernhard Cramer in 1734–35 but had been completed before Müller went on

the Second Kamchatka Expedition. Bayer published the first three issues of the
second volume (1736– 37). Müller only took up the Sammlung again in 1758, when
he began to publish some of the expedition’s results.
14. “Es handelt sich um den Weg durch das Nördliche Eismeer nach China
und Indien . . . Bei meiner letzten Reise habe ich in Gesprächen mit gelehrten
Männern gehört, daß eine solche Entdeckung möglich ist. Da nun das Vaterland
vor dem Feinde sicher geschützt ist, müssen wir uns bemühen, dem Staate durch
Künste und Wissenschaften Ruhm zu erwerben. Sollten wir auf der Suche nach
einem solchen Weg nicht mehr Glück haben als die Holländer und Engländer,
die schon so oft die amerikanischen Küsten untersucht haben?” (Peter I, cited in
L. Berg 1954:16).
15. Only much later did it become clear that a Bering land bridge had once
existed. Because of the Bering Strait’s shallowness, it is believed human migra-
tion from Asia to the Americas occurred as recently as about twenty thousand
years ago during the Ice Age.
16. The copy Georg Thomas von Asch donated to the University of Göttingen
in 1777 is in the Göttingen State and University Library (sub Göttingen, Cod.
Ms. Asch 246). See Bagrow 1948; Buchholz 1961; Kushnarev 1990; Hintzsche and
Nickol (1996a:72– 73). It was reproduced in Monumenta Sibiriae (Hintzsche and
Nickol 1996b), L. Black 2004 (plate 17), and Hauser-Schäublin and Krüger 2007.
An earlier version, excluding the Samoyed, is kept in Stockholm and reproduced
on the jacket of the present book as well as on that of Kushnarev 1990 (map 2).
See Efimov 1964 for an analysis of the different versions.
17. The literature on the Second Kamchatka Expedition is voluminous but frag-
mentary. The most helpful sources are J. Gmelin 1751–52; Büsching 1785; Steller
1793a; Pekarskii 1870– 73; Müller 1890; Golder 1922– 25; Gnucheva 1940; Semyonov
1954, 1963; Black and Buse 1989; Posselt 1990; Hintzsche and Nickol 1996a, 1996b;
Heklau and Hintzsche 1999; Møller and Okhotina Lind 2003; L. Black 2004;
Dahlmann 2009. Hintzsche (Hintzsche 2000a, 2000b, 2001, 2004, 2006; Müller
2010d) and Okhotina Lind and Møller (2001, 2009) published a series of primary
documents in German and Russian. The expression “Great Nordic Expedition” was
favored in the Soviet era. Authors like Kosven (1961), Scurla (1963), Posselt (1990),
and Hintzsche and Nickol (1996a) used it, while Howgego (2003–13) adopted it.
However, contemporary authors like Müller used Kamchatka Expedition(s). For
this reason the latter term is preferred here.
18. The exact location of Japan had preoccupied Western geographers for years.
Russian interest was drawn by the promise of trade and heightened by Peter the
Great’s conversation with Dembei, a sea drifter from Osaka who in 1702 was the
first Japanese ever to visit Moscow (Lensen 1959:29, 40, 84).
19. These plans eventually led to the establishment of the Russian–American
Company at St. Petersburg in 1779, a trading company that operated until 1867. Its
territories included Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, the Kodiak and Sitka Islands,
parts of the American northwest coast, and Fort Ross in California (see L. Black
2004).

20. The number three thousand is based on contemporary estimates by Sven
Waxell (Hintzsche and Nickol 1996a:199– 200; they calculate the total costs of
the expedition at 1.5 million rubles). P. Hoffmann (2005:77) presents numbers
suggesting that between 570 and 977 individuals participated (based on Berg and
Belov, respectively).
21. On the academic party, see J. Gmelin 1751–52; Black and Buse 1989:48;
Hintzsche and Nickol 1996a:78, 86– 91; Hintzsche 2006:18–19.
22. “in diesen unerschlossenen und bisher noch unbekannten Gegenden [sind]
viele Observationen auszuführen. Dazu gehört eine wahrhafte Beschreibung
der dortigen Völker und ihrer Sitten sowie der Früchte der Erde” (Beschluß des
Senats vom 12. Juni 1732 aus Sankt Petersburg, in Hintzsche 2004:24; Ukaz des
Senats an die Akademie der Wissenschaften vom 19. Juni 1732 aus Sankt Peters-
burg, in Hintzsche 2004:27).
23. “Ich trag auch dazu mein scherflein bei, ohne das es verlangt wurde. Ich
wünschte sehnlich, dass bei einer so merkwürdigen und weiten reise die land- und
völkergeschichte, die alterthümer, die sitten und gebräuche der völker etc. nicht
möchten unbemerkt bleiben” (Müller 1890:263). The German Sitten can mean
“morals” or “manners.”
24. “Darauf both mit dem Anfange des Jahres 1733 auch ich meine Dienste an,
um die bürgerliche Landesgeschichte von Sibirien, die Alterthümer, die Sitten
und Gebräuche der Völker, wie auch die Begebenheiten der Reise zu beschrei-
ben, welches denn gleichfalls vom hohen dirigierenden Senate beliebet wurd”
(Müller et al. 1758:140). See also Müller’s letter to the academy of February 10,
1733 (Hintzsche 2004:199– 200).
25. All documents relating to the expedition’s preparation have been published
in Hintzsche 2004 (see Hintzsche 2004:xxxiii).
26. See chapter 3; Bucher 2002 (mentioning most of these early contributions to
the ethnography of Siberia); P. Hoffmann 2005:70. See also J. Black 1986; Hintz-
sche 2004; Dahlmann 2009.
27. Gmelin’s itinerary was presented in his travel account (J. Gmelin 1751–52). See
also the abbreviated versions of this account in Posselt 1990 and Dahlmann 1999.
28. “Es ist anzunehmen, daß er alle zur Geschichte der Völker gehörenden
Untersuchungen ausführen wird, da er auch für diese Dingen die erforderliche
Fertigkeit und Lust besitzt” (Donoshenie von G. F. Müller und J. G. Gmelin an den
Senat in Sankt Petersburg vom 14. Februar 1739 aus Enisejsk, in Hintzsche 2001:25).
29. This Flora will be published by Wieland Hintzsche and Heike Heklau in
the series Quellen zur Geschichte Sibiriens und Alaskas aus russischen Archiven
in Halle: Verlag der Frankeschen Stiftungen.
30. Steller’s journal, long considered to be lost, was partially published by Hintz-
sche (2000a, 2000b, 2001, 2003, 2009).
31. “eine neue Welt . . . wo Thiere fremder Art, Noch ungenannten Völkern
dienten; Wo unbekanntes Erzt sich künftigen Künstlern spart, Und nie besehne
Kräuter grünten” (Albrecht von Haller, poem on the title page of J. Gmelin 1751–
52, vol. 1; reprinted in Posselt 1990:5).

32. Bering’s two expeditions became known through J. Harris 1744–48.
33. “unerschöpfliche Quelle zur Geschichte, Ethnographie und Geographie
Siberiens” (Donnert 1983:103).
34. See also a new, abridged edition of Gmelin’s account, edited by Dahl-
mann (1999).
35. Steller’s account was reprinted with an introduction by Hanno Beck in 1974;
a new edition was published in 2013; and it was translated into English in 2003.
36. An abbreviated English edition was published in 1764, a German edition
in 1766, and a French translation in 1767. More recently, an English translation
appeared in 1972, and the work was reprinted in St. Petersburg in 1994.
37. L. Thomas 1982:46; Dahlmann 1997:21; Bucher 2002:27, 31; Hintzsche
2004:487. Urness (1997:142) suggests that “Russians were not keeping secrets nearly
as much as has been thought,” but secrecy was endemic to Russian policy. All
materials resulting from the Second Kamchatka Expedition were treated as state
secrets (Grau 1963:169).
38. Nestor, an eleventh-century Kievan monk, was then considered the author
of the Povest’ vremeninykhu letu, usually called the (Russian) Primary Chronicle in
English (see Schlözer 1802– 9).
39. Büsching 1785:139–142; P. Hoffmann 2005:106–110. P. Hoffmann
(2008a:159–160) writes that the conflict was about principles rather than content.
Lomonosov criticized Müller for not presenting a clear overall view and pushed
him to express an opinion, which Müller was not prepared to give because he
wanted to present the facts, allowing others to draw their own conclusions. Hoff-
mann suggests that Müller was hardly a “Normanist” and agrees with Engel Petro-
vich Karpeev that Lomonosov was not an “Anti-Normanist.” Later generations
ascribed these labels to them (see also P. Hoffmann 2008b and Hoffmann’s 2011
biography of Lomonosov).
40. Müller, Origines gentis et nominis Russorum, 54 pp. Only available in
some archives. A German version was published in Johann Christoph Gatterer’s
Allgemeine historische Bibliothek (Müller 1768).
41. Of the planned twenty-three chapters, only ten appeared during Müller’s
lifetime (Müller 1761– 63).
42. “inländische naturalien und seltenheiten” (Müller 1890:147, 150–151).
43. See Shafranovskaia 1969, 1972; Mancall 1971. Lange’s report was published
in Weber 1721, vol. 1; an English edition appeared in 1723. A French report on his
second stay in Beijing appeared in 1726. A German edition of texts on Lange’s
first voyage to China dates from 1986. Reports about his 1727– 28 and 1736 trips
to Manchu China were published in Peter Simon Pallas’s Neue Nordische Bey-
träge (Lange 1781).
44. Pallas lamented the missing acquisitions in his travel report (M. Lauch
1987:380).
45. “so viele Seltenheiten asiatischer Gegenden und Völkerschaften eingeschickt,
dass kein Kabinet in Europa einen solchen Vorrath derselben vorzeigen konnte”
(J. Bacmeister 1777:99; Materialy 1885–1900, vol. 6:384, 409, 442; Russow 1900:10).

46. “die anatomische Objecte, sowie die ganze Gallerie mit den Sibirischen
und Chinesischen Sachen” (Russow 1900:16, referring to Pekarskii 1870– 73, vol.
2:xxxiii). Pavlinskaia (2005:232) also writes, “All . . . artefacts representing the cul-
tures of Siberia and the Volga perished in the fire.” See also Staniukovich 1970:29
and the reconstruction of the pre-1747 collection by Shafranovskaia 1965.
47. This also applies to the Kunstkamera’s websites, which offer no infor-
mation about the objects collected during the Second Kamchatka Expedition:
http://web1.kunstkamera.ru/collection/ruysch/eng/eframe.htm, http://www.kunst
kamera.ru/en/history/the_history_of_kunstkammer/, accessed November 12, 2014.
48. spb ar as, Razriad III, Opis’ 1, Delo 2247.
49. This project was a follow-up to Amsterdam exhibitions about “Cabinets
of Natural History and Cabinets of Curiosities” (Bergvelt and Kistemaker 1992)
and Dutch–Russian exchange relations under the title “Peter the Great and Hol-
land” (Kistemaker et al. 1996).
50. “Die N.N. Gesellin Blum Mahlerin verspricht I. alle diejenige Curiosa
die in Seiner Czarischen Majestäts Kunstkamer sind oder annoch darin gebracht
werden,— sie mögen aus animalibus, vegetabilis, kunst-sachen oder antiquiteten
bestehen– auf des Directoris gutachten mit waszerfarben nach dem leben ab zu
mahlen, und niemanden ohne dessen willen . . . Copie von dem was ihren zu
delinieren gegeben wird, zu kommen zulaszen” (Entwurfvertrag für Frau Gsell
wo in ihre Arbeit für den Kunstkammer bestätigt wird, St. Petersburg, Septem-
ber 1, 1723, Fond 1, Opis’ 3, Delo 2, Listy 161r–162v, spb ar as, cited in Driessen-
van het Reve 2001).
51. Russow (1900:97– 99) provides Müller’s 1740 instruction to Fischer to col-
lect for the Kunst-Kammer in his appendix 3.
52. This instruction by and for Müller was published in Hintzsche (2004:145–
148, see also 300– 301, 579–583).
53. “politische und natürliche Geschichte” (J. Gmelin 1751–52, vol. 3:180).
54. This designation appears in Gatterer 1767b:25, 1771; Schlözer 1768a:43–47,
1770b:70, 1771a:144, 210–212, 263, 1772:105, 1775, Vorrede, 244. Butterfield (1969:49)
translated Völkergeschichte as “national history.”
55. See Bel 1718:175 “historia ethnica.” I owe this reference to Mihály Sárkány,
who visited Halle in October 2011 and based it on a dissertation written by the
Hungarian historian Gergely Tóth (2007:42).
56. This was a clear reference to Leibniz’s thesis that the origins of nations can
be revealed by comparing the names of rivers, mountains, and other immovable
objects in the natural environment.
57. “De historia gentium” began “Ad promovendum studium Historiae popu-
lorum . . .” (p. 145) and was part of the instructions versed in Latin given to the
three professors and their students and draftsmen before their departure. A first
draft was titled “Instructions for the professors taking part in the Second Kam-
chatka Expedition, summarized by Georg Wolfgang Krafft, professor of mathe-
matics and secretary, St. Petersburg, 5 April 1733.” The instructions were finalized
in “Special instructions of the Academy of Sciences for the professors participat-

ing in the Second Kamchatka Expedition, St. Petersburg, 5 July 1733” (Hintzsche
2004:73–148, 295– 312, 491–510). An English translation was published in Black and
Buse 1989:48–49 as “About the History of Peoples.”
58. The manuscript was mentioned in a list of writings given to Steller on his
departure from Yeniseisk to Kamchatka in February 1739 (Hintzsche 2001:94).
59. The title of the instruction in German is “Fragen zur Beschreibung der
Völker, ihrer Sitten und Gebräuche, 1738.” Russian translation by I. P. Yakhon-
tov, R. I, Opis’ 13, Delo 11, Listy 128–133, spb ar as.
60. The instruction is titled “Instruktion, übergeben von den Professoren der
Akademie der Wissenschaften Gerhard Friedrich Müller und Johann Georg
Gmelin an den Herrn Adjunkten der Akademie der Wissenschaften Georg Wil-
helm Steller. Yeniseisk, 28. Februar 1739.” Russian translation by Aleksei Gorla-
nov, published in Hintzsche 2001:71– 90.
61. In October 1740, four weeks after Steller’s arrival on Kamchatka, Krash-
eninnikov handed him a fifty-seven-page report with his “observations” since the
end of 1737 (cf. Hintzsche 2000a:300, 302– 304, 311).
62. I owe the reference to this instruction to the dissertation of Rolf Herzog
(1949), who analyzed the text on pp. 126–129. A fuller analysis is provided in the
dissertation of Bucher (2002:89–126).
63. The spb ar as copy is slightly different from the one partly published in
Russow 1900.
64. The title of the instruction, provided by Russow (1900:v, 37), is “Instruk-
tion G. F. Müller’s für den Akademiker-Adjuncten J.E. Fischer: ‘Unterricht, was
bey Beschreibung der Völker, absonderlich der Sibirischen in acht zu nehmen.’”
65. The similarity between Boyle’s “External” and “Internal Productions of
the Earth” and Müller’s “das Äußerliche und die innerliche Beschaffenheit der
Völker” was noted by Bucher (2002:185–186).
66. “Zu mehrerer Erläuterung sind bey dieser Völker-Beschreibung alle
Scribenten und Reyse-Beschreibungen, welche von denen Sitten und Gebräuchen
derer übrigen Asiatischen, Africanischen und Americanischen Völker Nachricht
geben, mit zu Rathe zu ziehen, und allenthalben Vergleichungen anzustellen”
(paragraph 922, in Russow 1900:83).
67. “Die ausführliche Abhandlung ist von allen Völkern in Zusammenhange
vorzutragen. Man hat dabey den Vortheil, weil viele Völker in vielen Stücken
miteinander übereinkommen, daß man vieler Wiederhohlungen überhoben ist,
und siehet zugleich die Übereinstimmung und den Unterschied deutlicher ein,
als wenn man ein jedes Volk besonders zu beschreiben vornehmen wollte” (para-
graph 923, in Russow 1900:83).
68. “ich habe mich hauptsächlich mit den[en] hiesige[n] ungläubig[en] Nation[en]
als Tattar[en], Tscheremis[s]e[n], Tschuwasch[en], Wotiak[en] und Morduan[en]
unterhalt[en], von der[en] Lebens art, Religion, Sitte[n], Sprache u[nd] s[o] w[eiter]
ich eine weitläuffige Beschreibung Verfas[s]et, und selbigen ein harmonisches Vocab-
ularium in allen diese[n] Sprache[n] angehänget” (Müller, letter probably addressed
to Ostermann, in Hintzsche 2004:805).

69. This version was reprinted in Helimski 2005:111–169, with the 1759 Vocab-
ularium harmonicum on pp. 170–186.
70. Müller’s instruction to Fischer could be made into “eine allgemeine Instruk-
tion zur Beschreibung aller Völker,” the article an example of “der künftig von mir
zu erwartenden sibirischen Völkerbeschreibung” (Müller 2010a:7).
71. “Eine allgemeinste Völkerbeschreibung des Erdkreises, die bisher größtenteils
in schlechten Händen lag und noch von niemandem den wahrhaften Wissen-
schaften zugerechnet wurde, stellt einen nicht unbedeutenden Teil der Geschich-
tsschreibung und ein Beispiel für die Anfängsgründe einer zudem unterhaltenden
Sittenlehre dar” (Müller 2010a:3). On the dating of Müller’s manuscripts, see
Hintzsche 2010:xx–xxviii.
72. “auf meiner 10 Jahrigen Sibirischen Reyse eine mit Von meinen fürnehmste[n]
Absichten gewese[n] alle daselbst wohnhaffte Völker auf das genaueste kennen
Zu kernen und Alles was ich Theils selbst gesehe[n] Theils Von andern glaubhafft
erZehlen hören an Zumerken” (Müller 2010b:13).
73. “Durch freundlichen Umgang mit vielen Völkern erlangte ich dort, wo ich
mich einige Zeit aufhalten konnte, große Hilfe, da ich mit ihnen nahezu freund-
schaftliche Beziehungen entwickelte. Sie waren darüber sehr erfreut, ließen mich
alles sehen und erzählten mir vieles. Ohne diese Verfahrensweise wäre es mir nicht
möglich gewesen, alle Zeremonien und weiteren Umstände ihres heidnischen
Aberglaubens zu sehen und auch nichts darüber in Erfahrung zu bringen” (Mül-
ler 2010a:6).
74. The following is based on Müller 2003, Elert 1999b:55–57, Helimski 2003:4–
7, and P. Hoffmann 2005:346– 347.
75. Helimski (2003:7) sees them as Müller’s “ethnographic journal,” which he
kept parallel to other journals during the expedition and in which “he noted the
information in the order in which he received it (often probably in the course of a
conversation with one of his informants).” This is not very likely, as Müller noted
his data in his expedition journals.
76. “Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker” (P. Hoffmann 2005:98). Accord-
ing to the academy’s Protokoly (1897–1900, vol. 2:55–56), this was the first part of
a “Descriptiones generalis populorum Sibiriae,” which Müller wanted to be pre-
served in the academy’s archives “until the Academy would see fit to print it”
(Hintzsche 2010:xxv).
77. “Ein nicht geringschätziger Theil der Geschichts-Kunde, deßen Vollstan-
dige Ausarbeitung aber Mehr zu wünsche[n] als zu hoffe[n] ist, Bestehet in einer
allgemein[en] Volker Beschreibung oder Systematischen ErZehlung der Sitten und
Gebräuche aller Völker unseres ErdKrayses, sowohl älterer als Neuerer Zeiten,
da die LebensUmstände der Menschen in gewiße Claßen Zu Theilen, und Bey
einer jeden alles was sich Von jedem Volke sagen Läs[s]et, anZuführen, eines mit
dem ander[en] Zu Vergleichen, und Zu Verbeßerung der Sitten gewis[s]e nützli-
che Folgerungen Zu Ziehen sind. Die SchwierigKeiten aber, welche einer solche
Arbeit im Wege stehen, sind mehr als Zu Bekannt” (Müller 2010e:17–18, Von
den[en] Volker[n] uberhaupt, Vorwort/Einleitung, Variante b).

78. Tokarev during lectures in Berlin: “Die ersten zuverlässigen Mitteilungen
über diese Nationalität finden wir bei Gerhard Friedrich Müller” (P. Hoffmann
2005:247– 248). Hoffmann attended these lectures, also given in Leipzig.
79. Publications of Halle and Novosibirsk scholars on Müller’s ethnography
include Donnert 1983; Hintzsche and Nickol 1996a; Elert 1996b, 1999a, 1999b,
2005a; Heklau and Hintzsche 1999; Hintzsche 2004, 2006, 2010; Elert and Hintz-
sche 2009; Hintzsche and Elert 2010.
80. The academy’s Geographical Department continued to operate until 1799,
when it was abolished. Its work was taken over by the Russian Geographical Soci-
ety, founded in 1845 and including a division for etnografiia.
81. Hintzsche (2010:xx) writes that Müller’s instructions to Fischer were only
completed at the end of 1740 and refers to Andreev 1960–65, vol. 2:88ff., 286 ff.
for this information.
82. A group of about a hundred scholars from various disciplines repeated this
trip 265 years later, during a conference in Khanty-Mansiisk and Surgut, Septem-
ber 7–15, 2005 (Baranov et al. 2006).
83. The introduction is titled “Von den namhaften Völkern in Sibirien und an
dessen Gränzen” (J. E. Fischer 1768).
84. “Die Einleitung gehöret dem Verf[asser] eigenthümlich zu, da alles übrige
bereits von Hrn. Müller gesammlete Materie ist, welcher Hr. Fischer nur die Form
gegeben . . . In dieser Einleitung handelt er kritisch und mit vieler Belesenheit von
den vornehmsten Völkern in Sibirien und an dessen Gränzen” (Schlözer 1771c:855).
85. Schlözer (1802:187–188) writes that Fischer gave him “his original copy”
(willig gab er sogar sein Original) of the “Vocabularium” for the Historisches Insti-
tut in Göttingen, which was founded by Gatterer in 1764.
86. Fischer’s Quaestiones Petropolitanae (1770) contains four discourses: I. de
origine Ungrorum [1756]; II. de origine Tatarorum [1755]; III. de diversis Shina-
rum Imperatoris nominibus titulisque; IV. de Hyperboreis.
87. Among these linguists are Farkaš (1948, 1952); W. Sauer (1952); Herzog (1953);
Stehr (1957); Doerfer (1965); Gulya (1974, 1994, 1995); Winkler (1997); Adamović
(1998).
88. “Die unter seinem Namen an das historische Institut zu Göttingen gesen-
deten Vocabularia, sind nicht von ihm gesammlet, sondern Tatischtschew hatte
sie sich von den Befehlshabern in den Städten ausgebeten, und diese liessen sie
durch unwissende Schreiber zusammentragen. Sie verdienen gar keinen Glauben,
es kann gar kein historischer Satz und Beweis aus denselben hergeleitet werden”
(Büsching 1785:144).
89. Such comments could not be found in P. Hoffmann’s (1995) edition of
Büsching’s and Müller’s correspondence.
90. “es sei zugleich mit dem historischen Material, das Gerh. Friedr. Mül-
ler zusammengebracht hatte, auch das linguistische Material, das noch zu Leb-
zeiten Peters d. Grossen der Verwalter der Uralbergwerke Tatischew gesammelt
hatte, in die Hände Fischers gelangt. Demnach ist das Vocabularium älter als
1725” (Barthold 1925:215).

91. I am grateful to János Gulya (pers. comm., July 1992) for this information.
92. “Er richtete . . . nichts namhaftes aus” (Büsching 1785:143; repeated by P.
Hoffmann 2005:91; Bucher 2002:165).
93. “Das war die Geburtsstunde der Finnougristik. Daher kann Fischer als Ahn-
herr einer neuen Sprachwissenschaft und Geburtshelfer einer neuen Völkerkunde
gelten” (Mühlpfordt 1997:115). P. Hoffmann (2005:321) counters that the relation
between the Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples of northern Eurasia and the Hungarians
was possited in the lexicons of Zedler (1732–54, vol. 37) and J. Iselin (1743–45, vol. 4).
94. Steller stated his double brief in a letter to local authorities: he had been
ordered to investigate and describe everything relating to “die Naturgeschichte
und die politische Historie” on Kamchatka (Hintzsche 2000a:295).
95. For this reason, Steller’s journal of his trip from St. Petersburg to Yeniseisk
was archived under Fischer’s name and could be retrieved only in 2000 (Wieland
Hintzsche, pers. comm., June 2005).
96. “Über die Verschiedenheit der im Gouvernement Orenburg lebenden Völker
in ihrem früheren und jetzigen Zustand” (Rychkov 1983:46– 90).
97. On Rychkov and the First Orenburg Expedition, see Schlözer 1766c; Pekars-
kii 1867; Robel 1976, 1987; Anderle 1983, 1991; Fleischhauer 1986:90– 97.
98. I am grateful to Yuri Nikolayevich Smirnov (pers. comm., September 2005)
for this information.
99. For German inventories of travel reports, see Bernoulli 1781–87; Stuck 1784–
87; Beckmann 1807–10. The most extensive series in the German-speaking coun-
tries were edited by M. C. Sprengel and T. F. Ehrmann, including Bibliothek der
neuesten und wichtigsten Reisebeschreibungen zur Erweiterung der Erdkunde (1800–14).
100. “Jene Nachrichten, die bereits erschienen sind, und zwar von Brand [1698]
über die Liefländer und die Estländer, von Scheffer [1673, 1675] über die Lappen,
von Olearius [1647] über verschiedene Völker am [Fluß] Volga, von Bruijn [de
Bruyn 1711] über die Samojeden, von [J. B.] Müller [1720] über die Ostjaken, von
Isbrand [Ides] [1696, 1704] und dem unbenannten Verfasser der Anmerkungen
zum Geschlechtsregister des Abulgasi über zahlreiche sibirische Völker [anon-
ymous 1726] und des Strahlenberg [1730] über weitere in Rußland und Sibirien
lebende Völker können alle als unvollständig angesehen werden” (Müller 2010a:5).
101. “Mein mehrfacher Wunsch war es, daß eine erfahrene Person aus allen bis
zur heutigen Zeit vorliegenden Reisebeschreibungen wie auch aus den Beschrei-
bungen einzelner Völker nach den hier übermittelten Angaben den Versuch über-
nehmen möge, eine ganz allgemeine Völkerbeschreibung zu verfassen und daß
durch diese Materialien eine gewisse neue Wissenschaft begründet werden möge,
von der die Nachwelt einen ewigen Nutzen erwarten könnte . . . die gelehr ten
Leute aller Reiche ihre Auffassungen von den Völkern, über die sie Nachrichten
zusammenzutragen in der Lage sind, beifügen könnten und den Reisenden, die in
fremde und weit entfernte Länder fahren, ausführliche Instruktionen zu geben . . .
Sehr vorteilhaft wäre es, wenn sie ihre Werke mit einer zukünftigen allgemein-
sten Völkerbeschreibung vereinigen würden und jeder an seinem Platz so weit als
möglich einen Vergleich zwischen den Völkern zu jetziger Zeit und zu vergan-

genenen Zeiten anstellen würde, so wie dies der Jesuit Lafitte mit seiner Besch-
reibung der Völker Nordamerikas getan hat, in der er ihre Sitten mit denen der
ältesten bemerkenswerten Völker vergleicht. Dies mag den Nachfahren als vor-
treffliches Beispiel dienen” (Müller 2010a:5).
102. “toute la terre est couverte de nations dont nous ne connoissons que les
noms, & nous nous mêlons de juger le genre humain!” (J.-J. Rousseau 1755, the
famous footnote 10).
103. Müller brought “La Fitau” as one of several books on the Second Kam-
chatka Expedition (Hintzsche 2004:441). Hintzsche (2004:457n21) correctly iden-
tified the book as the comparative work of Lafitau.
104. “[Lafitau’s work] mag den Nachfahren als vortreffliches Beispiel dienen”
(Müller 2010a:5).
105. “l’étude des moeurs et coutumes des differents peoples” (Lafitau 1724:4), or
“die Kentnis der Sitten und Gewohnheiten verschiedener Völker” (Lafitau 1752:2);
“nützlich und reizend” (Lafitau 1752:2).
106. “l’histoire des moeurs” (Lemay 1970:39; Keane 2007:38). The first English
translations of books 1 and 2 appeared in 1554 and 1555; all three books were trans-
lated in 1611. See also Lach 1970:339; Stagl 1995b:115.
107. “Der niederländische Ethnologe und Wissenschaftshistoriker Han Vermeu-
len hat wahrscheinlich machen können, dass es die Tätigkeit deutscher Wissen-
schaftler, Historiker, Geografen und Naturforscher in Russland, insbesondere im
Umkreis der Kaiserlichen Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu St. Peters-
burg war, die im Rahmen der Erforschung Sibiriens–vor allem durch die 1. und
2. Kamtschatka-Expedition, unter Leitung des Dänen Vitus Bering (1725– 30 und
1733–43)— zu einer staatlich gewünschten Bestandsaufnahme mit systematischen
“Völker-Beschreibungen” führte, bei denen es sich diesseits aller generalisieren-
den geschichtsphilosophischen Betrachtungen . . . um recht konkrete ethnograf-
ische Materialsammlungen und Monografien handelte” (Petermann 2004:285).
108. Peter Ulf Møller (pers. comm., October 3, 2010) notes that the First Kam-
chatka Expedition resulted in lists of tax-paying and non-tax-paying peoples in
Siberia. See Fedorova et al. 2010.
109. “Als im Jahr 1733 meine Abfertigung nach Sibirien, und zwar in einen
solchen Teil des Russischen Reichs, in dem die Unterschiede zwischen den Völ-
kern sehr groß sind, erfolgt war, ist mir durch allerhöchsten Kaiserlichen ukaz
befohlen worden, die Sitten und Gebräuche aller Völker, die mir auf der Reise
begegnen, zu beschreiben. Obwohl mir diese Aufgabe zusätzlich auferlegt wurde,
kann ich dennoch sagen, daß ich mich während der gesamten zehnjährigen Reise
mit solch großem Vergnügen um diese Sache bemühte, daß mir diese, während
ich mich mit anderen sehr wichtigen Dingen beschäftigte, zur Erholung diente”
(Müller 2010a:5– 6).
110. Ukaz des Senats vom 22. Juni 1733 aus Sankt Petersburg (Hintzsche
2004:429); “Professor der Geographie und alten und neuen Geschichte” (Dono-
shenie [report] aus dem Senat, 4 June 1733, in Hintzsche 2004:378).

111. Spezielle Instruktionen der Akademie der Wissenschaften für die an der
2. Kamchatkaexpedition teilnehmenden Professoren vom 5. Juli 1733 aus Sankt
Petersburg (Hintzsche 2004:491–512).
112. Allgemeine Instruktion der Akademie der Wissenschaften für die an der
2. Kamchatkaexpedition teilnehmenden Professoren vom 5. Juli 1733 aus Sankt
Petersburg (Hintzsche 2004:485–488).
113. “die Geschichte und Geographie aller der Gegenden, durch welche uns
unsere Reise führen wird, wie auch die Sitten und Gebräuche der ungläubigen
Völker des Rußischen Reiches untersuchen und beschreiben soll” (Promemo-
ria by De l’Isle, Gmelin and Müller, February 4, 1734, from Tobolsk, in Hintz-
sche 2006:36).
114. According to Knight (1994:29) inorodtsy was the standard term for non-
Slavic nationalities in nineteenth-century Russia.
115. On these complicated developments, see Slezkine 1994a, 1994b; Kappeler
1992, 2009; Knight 1994, 2000, 2003; Dahlmann 2009:151–152.
116. I am grateful to Wieland Hintzsche (pers. comm., December 2010) for
sharing this information.
117. “Eine allgemeinste Völkerbeschreibung des Erdkreises, die bisher größtenteils
in schlechten Händen lag und noch von niemandem den wahrhaften Wissen-
schaften zugerechnet wurde” (Müller 2010a:3); “[. . .] daß durch diese Materi-
alien eine gewisse neue Wissenschaft begründet werden möge” (Müller 2010a:5);
“[eine allgemeine Volkerbeschreibung] dem noch Von Niemand gründlich und
umständlich genug Zu Verfaßen angefangen” (G. Müller 2010b:13); “dasjenige
was bis[s]her nur Von dene[n] Reyse Beschreibern Zur Lust und Ergötzung der
Leser Vorgetrag[en] worden, würde in eine Gelehrte disciplin Verwandelt werden”
(Müller 2010e:18).
118. Müller’s portrait is from a silhouette in the State Historical Museum, Mos-
cow, and the only known likeness (Black and Buse 1989: 30); also reproduced in
Müller, Istoriia Sibiri (1999), Elert 1999 and Helimski 2005. The picture repro-
duced in Dahlmann (1999: 218), obtained from the Landes- und Stadtbibliothek
Dortmund, portrays a man named Müller but does not necessarily concern Ger-
hard Friedrich Müller. In addition, according to Peter Hoffmann, the attire of the
latter picture is not eighteenth- but nineteenth-century (Biedermeier).
119. “eher Gelehrte als Reisende” (Matthies 1986:50). In the same partial way,
Anna Reid (2002:41) portrays Müller as “prudently factual, sticking to dusty
archives and to the minutiae of native ritual and dress.”
120. Speranskii, Polozhenie ob upravlenii Sibirskimi inorodtsami, “Code of Admin-
istration of the Siberian Aliens.” I am grateful to Kirill Istomin for information
about the connection between Speranskii and Georgi’s work.
121. These materials—in fact questionnaires to local administrators—were of
considerable interest to later ethnographers (Tokarev 1966:173– 74; Knight 1994:65).
122. I am grateful to Peter Hoffmann (pers. comm., May 24, 2011) for these
quotations.

123. Studies of the relationship between ethnography and Russian empire-
building in the mid-nineteenth century include Catherine Black Clay 1989, 1995
and Nathaniel Knight 1994, 2000. Francine Hirsch (2005) wrote about ethnography
and the making of the Soviet Union between 1905 and 1941; see also Slezkine 1994a.
5. Anthropology and the Orient

1. “der erste Forschungsreisende” (Beck 1971); “der erste moderne Forschungs-
reisende” (Wiesehöfer and Conermann 2002:12; see also Lohmeier 2002:17).
2. According to Martin Mulsow (2010), this series included travels by Monceaux
and Laisné in 1667– 75, Jean Foi Vaillant in 1670–84, Antoine Galland in 1670–89,
and Wansleben’s second journey to Egypt in 1672– 73. The practice was later revived
under the Abbé Bignon, who dispatched Paul Lucas in 1701–17 (see Omont 1902).
3. “Hannoversche Gegengründung” (von Selle 1937). On Halle and the Early
Enlightenment, see chapter 3.
4. The electors of Hanover were kings of Great Britain and Ireland between
1714 and 1809.
5. On the history of the Georgia Augusta, see Pütter 1765–88; von Selle 1937;
Marino 1975, 1995.
6. Sources about the expedition include (1) Fragen published by J. D. Michae-
lis (1762); (2) primary publications by Carsten Niebuhr (1772, 1774– 78, 1776, 1837)
and Forsskål (1775a, 1775b, 1950); (3) Buhle 1794– 96, vol. 1:297–492, vol. 2:1– 209;
(4) studies of Arabian exploration like Hogarth 1905, Kiernan 1937, Bidwell 1976,
and Freeth and Winstone 1978; (5) critical studies like Kühn 1939, Beck 1971, Eck
1985, 1986, and Harbsmeier 1992a; (6) a novel by Thorkild Hansen (1964), (7) Ras-
mussen 1986, 1990a; (8) an edited volume by Wiesehöfer and Conermann (2002);
and (9) the recent study of Lawrence J. Baack (2014).
7. “morgenländische Manuscripte,” Michaelis to Jacobi, December 24, 1755;
Jacobi to Michaelis, January 12, 1756 (in Buhle 1794–96, vol. 1:118– 33; 134– 36). See
also J. D. Michaelis 1762, Vorrede [12]. In his Lebensbeschreibung Michaelis (1793:49)
recounted the story of how during the French occupation of Göttingen he obtained
a copy of Abulfeda’s Takwim al Bodan through a French general. Michaelis pub-
lished the Egyptian part of this manuscript in 1776 (Abulfedae tabulae Aegypti).
Earlier, Reiske had published “Abilfedae Opus Geographicum” and “Abilfedae Tab-
ularum Geographicarum” in Büsching’s Magazin für die neue Historie und Geogra-
phie 5(1770):121–298; 6(1771):299–366. These apparently came to replace the edition
of Abu’l-Fida by John Greaves (Johannes Gravius), published at London in 1650.
8. Michaelis (1762:[19]) called Hasselquist’s case “deterring.” His collections
were recovered from the Ottoman authorities by the Swedish queen Louise Ulrike,
the younger sister of Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, for fourteen thousand
Taler in 1754. Linnaeus published Hasselquist’s notes and correspondence under
the title Iter Palaestinum eller Resa till Heliga landet (1757); the German edition is
titled Reise nach Palästina (1762).
9. Michaelis in his proposals to von Bernstorff, May–August 1756, in Buhle
1794– 96, vol. 1.

10. I am grateful to Lawrence J. Baack (pers. comm., May 2011) for sharing this
information. He adds, “It is unknown but unlikely that [Niebuhr] knew about the
important studies by Ulloa and Juan.”
11. Norden’s work was reviewed in the Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen,
no. 16 and 17, 1756 (see also Michaelis to von Bernstorff, August 30, 1756, in Buhle
1794– 96, vol. 1:323).
12. “eine Schöne, die seine schleunige Reise aufgehalten, bis er endlich das-
elbst gestorben” (Beckmann 1995:112).
13. Von Bernstorff to Michaelis, August 3, 1756, in Buhle 1794– 96, vol. 1:297–
298; Rasmussen 1990a:13.
14. Stagl (1995b:152) states that “archaeologia” was introduced in 1707 by Edward
Lhuyd (Lhwyd), curator of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford who explored the
Celtic regions of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Britanny to write a philological-
antiquarian description of the Celts, Archaeologia Britannica (1707). Park (2013:71,
175) refers to Thomas Burnet, Archaeologiae philosophicae: sive doctrina antiqua de
rerum originibus (1692).
15. Wood’s Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer appeared in 1769
as a prefix of his Comparative View of the Ancient and Present State of the Troade but
circulated privately after 1767 (see Heyne 1770; Hecht 1933; Eck 1986; Carhart 2007).
16. Bengt Hildebrand and Eero Mattinolli, Peter Forsskål, Svenskt Biografiskt
Lexikon, vol. 16, pp. 359– 362.
17. “Hätten Sie wohl Lust nach Arabien zu reisen? Warum nicht, wenn jemand
die Kosten bezahlt! Die Kosten soll Ihnen der König von Dännemark bezahlen”
(B. G. Niebuhr 1816:12–13; Beck 1971:99).
18. Instruction by Frederik V, 1760, in J. D. Michaelis 1762:[38]; T. Hansen
1964:14; Rasmussen 1990a:11, 59.
19. “So wird z.E. sehr angenehm seyn, wenn von den Sitten und Neigungen
des Volks ein jeder meldet, was er bemerket hat: und sollte der Philologus man-
che Wörte, die in die Naturgeschichte gehören, aus derselben erläutern, der Phy-
sicus aus der Naturgeschichte die Bibel erläutern, und der Mathematicus mit auf
die Physicalia merken, so ist dieses gar nicht für einen Eingriff in ein fremdes
Amt zu achten” (“Instruction” 1760:paragraph 8 [43]).
20. The nationality of Niebuhr, the only member to survive the Danish-German
Arabia Expedition, has led to controversies, as he is treated in Denmark as a
national hero, although he was born in the electorate of Hanover. This is under-
standable as the expedition was paid for by the Danish crown and Niebuhr, after
his return, worked in the service of the Danish state (H. Ehrencron-Müller, For-
fatterlexikon, omfattende Danmark, Norge og Island indtil 1814, vol. 6, Copenhagen
1929:77–81). Although he referred to himself as Danish and always traveled on a
Danish passport, his mother tongue was Low German, and he published in Ger-
man until the end of his life.
21. On the issue of fierce nationalism within the group, see T. Hansen
(1964:138–139).

22. For example, in the Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen, February 7,
1760, pp. 129–131.
23. Tournefort’s main work, Eléments de botanique, ou methode pour connoître les
plantes (1694), is better known through its expanded version Institutiones rei her-
bariae (1700), which served as the botanical standard for a long time.
24. On the Linnaeus apostles, see Goerke 1989; Troelstra 2003; and especially,
L. Hansen 2007–12.
25. On scholars traveling with Cook, see, for instance, Beaglehole 1966:6– 7;
Sörlin 1989; Bitterli 1991:222.
26. Nordblad’s fifteen-page dissertation was a disputatio with printed theses.
Linnaeus wrote most of the dissertations for his students. The Instructio was pub-
lished in Linnaeus’s Amoenitates Academicae (1760; 2nd edition, 1788) and trans-
lated into English (Linnaeus 2010). For the practical aspects of travel, including
instructions, see L. Hansen 2007–12, vol. 1.
27. The “Instruction” (1760:[48]) mentions that Michaelis was to forward the
Fragen to the expedition members. Michaelis (1762, Vorrede [37]) states that he
had not been able to oversee the book’s printing.
28. “Mémoire adressé au nom de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et des
Belles Lettres de France à Messieurs les Académiciens Danois qui se disposent
à faire le voiage de l’Arabie Heureuse”; with “Essai de tables chronologique des
anciens Rois de l’Yemen, dont les noms sont employés dans la liste de ces Rois,
publiée par [E] Pococke [1663]” (see “Instruction” 1760:paragraph 14).
29. Kratzenstein to von Bernstorff with “Vorschlag,” 20 pp., November 26, 1760.
RaK (Rigsarkiv København) ar (Arabiske Rejse), Case 3– 003, No. 80, with the
attached Vorschlag No. 80a (courtesy of Lawrence Baack).
30. German translation of the French memoir, “Anmerkungen, welche die köni-
glich französische Gesellschaft der Aufschriften und schönen Wissenschaften denen
dänischen Herren Academisten ertheilet, die eine Reise in das glückseelige Arabien
unternehmen wollen,” added to Fragen (J. D. Michaelis 1762:350–390), with “Anhang:
Versuch von Zeitrechnungstabellen der alten Könige von Yemen” (391– 397).
31. I am grateful to Britta Rupp-Eisenreich (pers. comm.) for this information.
See also Martin-Allanic 1964, vol. 1:475, cited by Stagl 1995a:86.
32. “Philologie, Naturkunde, Arzneywissenschaft, Erdkunde” (Niebuhr 1772:xvii).
33. “die Lebensart, die Sitten und Gebräuche der Araber” (Niebuhr 1772:xvii).
34. “worinn ich die Sitten der Morgenländer von der Europäer ihren, verschie-
den fand” (Niebuhr 1772:xvii).
35. “merket die Sitten und Gebräuche des Landes an: vornehmlich die, welche
der heiligen Schrift und den mosaischen Gesetzen ein Licht geben” (“Instruc-
tion” 1760:[64]).
36. Schlözer to Michaelis, August 11, 1757, in Buhle 1794– 96, vol. 1:178–86.
37. Michaelis to Schlözer, May 28, 1758, in Buhle 1794– 96, vol. 1:189–191.
38. “weil ich der Sprache so wenig mächtig bin” (Schlözer to Michaelis, July
30, 1758, in Buhle 1794– 96, vol. 1:193–197).

39. The possibility that Michaelis had Schlözer in mind for his initial plans of
1755 was not mentioned by Schlözer’s son, Christian. Christian von Schlözer was
familiar with Buhle’s edition of Michaelis’s correspondence and would certainly
have mentioned the fact if there had been any indication.
40. Reiske to Michaelis, April 4, 1749–December 20, 1756, in Buhle 1794– 96,
vol. 1:44– 72. See also Schlözer 1796.
41. Schlözer’s fragment of an autobiography about his studies in Göttingen dur-
ing the years 1754–55 and 1759–61 was published by his son, Christian von Schlözer,
in 1828. See C. von Schlözer 1828, vol. 1:463–465.
42. “Morgens höre ich Osteologie bei Röderer, Metaphysik bei Beckmann und
Physik bei Lowitz und Kästner; Nachmittags aber Chymie bei Vogel, Botanik
und Zoologie bei Büttner” (Schlözer to his friend Viereck, June 18, 1759, cited in
C. von Schlözer 1828, vol. 1:50–51).
43. The list that Schlözer gave himself was not yet complete. His son supple-
mented it as follows: Mosaisch Recht with Michaelis, Reichsgeschichte with Pütter,
Lehnrecht with Ricinus, Moral with Beckmann, Naturrecht with Hollmann, Wech-
selrecht with Selchow, Mathematik with Kästner and another professor [probably
Tobias Mayer], Politik and Statistik with Achenwall, and Physiologie with Röderer
(C. von Schlözer 1828, vol. 1:56–57). On Schlözer and Büttner, see C. von Schlözer
1828, vol. 1:50–51, 469–470; Warlich 1972:56.
44. “Ein Medicus kommt im Oriente überall durch, und wird da geliebt und
gesucht, wo andere nicht ohne Gefahr hinkommen können” (Michaelis to von
Bernstorff, August 30, 1756, in Buhle 1794– 96, vol. 1:317; see also “Instruction”
1760:[54–57]).
45. Von Haven was a Magister when Schlözer defended his philosophical the-
ses in Göttingen on October 15, 1754. Von Haven acted as one of three opponents
(C. von Schlözer 1828, vol. 1:21, 465–466).
46. See U. Hübner (2002:381– 382) on an incident that explains part of the later
animosity between Michaelis and Reiske (Fück 1955:119–120). In addition, Reiske
considered himself to be “too old, too dull and too moody” (zu alt, zu stumpf und
zu verdrossen) for the assignment.
47. “Nachfolger in Reisen im Orient” (B. G. Niebuhr 1816).
48. The costs of the engravings had been arranged for by von Bernstorff before
his dismissal, but thereafter the government paid less than 20 percent of the cost of
publication. Niebuhr had to go heavily into debt to cover the costs of the six volumes
(excluding the third volume of his travelogue) himself (courtesy of Lawrence Baack).
49. Only volume 1 of von Haven’s two-volume travel journal has been pub-
lished. Previously, only a small part was published as F. C. von Haven, Tage-Buch
über eine Reise von Suez nach dem Gebal Elmocattebeh und dem Gebal Musa, gethan
vom 6ten bis 25sten Septembr. 1762, in Buhle 1794– 96, vol. 2:117–192.
50. For the Michaelis–von Bernstorff correspondence and enclosures on the
expedition, see the Michaelis’s collection at Göttingen: Niedersächsische Staats-
und Universitäts-Bibliothek, Cod. Ms. Mich. 320, Bl. 319–445.

51. “Frederik Christian von Haven og de filologiske resultater” (Rasmussen
1990b:303– 338). The manuscripts are listed in Alhaidary and Rasmussen 1995.
52. Silvestre de Sacy profited from the “unsurpassable exactness” of Niebuhr’s
copies of the inscriptions in his Mémories sur diverses antiquités de la Perse (1793)
(B. G. Niebuhr 1816:62).
53. “Aufklärung des Alten Testaments” (von Selle 1937:88); “Neue Erkennt-
nisse für die Erklärung der Bibel, für die Naturwissenschaften und die Erdkunde”
(Kühn 1939:104); “the furtherance of knowledge and the more exact interpretation
of the Holy Scriptures” (T. Hansen 1964:56).
54. “die die Naturgeschichtsschreiber der Araber lesen” (Michaelis in one of
the advertisements, cited in Eck 1986:19).
55. “das glückliche Arabien . . . nicht so unsicher . . . , als das wildere und
ungesittetere Arabien” (J. D. Michaelis, Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen,
February 7, 1760, cited in Eck 1986:18).
56. “das sicherste Hülfmittel zur Erklärung des Hebräischen . . . und viel reiner
in dem innersten von Arabien lebet” (J. D. Michaelis 1762:[9]).
57. On the Hallische Bibel, see Rengstorf 1989.
58. C. Siegfried, Johann Simonis, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 34:379– 380.
59. In England Michaelis worked as an assistant to the German court pastor
Ziegenhagen in London. Studying in Oxford, he came into contact with Robert
Lowth, who was writing his De sacra poesi Hebraeorum (1753).
60. Reiske studied in Leiden between 1738 and 1746, whereas Michaelis resided
there only briefly, in 1741–42.
61. “Die Art des Herrn Schultens das Arabische zu betreiben und zu befördern,
die rechte Art nicht sey. In seinen Originationen sey zu viel Spinnengewebe, zu
viel willkührliches, schwankendes, leeres, das wenig oder gar keinen Nutzen
schaffe. Wolle man dem Arabischen aushelfen, so müsse man es nicht als Theol-
ogie treiben; die Historie, Geographie, Mathematik, Physik und Medicin daraus
erklären und bereichern” (Reiske 1783; Nat 1929:61).
62. According to the “Instruction” (1760:paragraph 9 [44]), all material was
to be sent to Copenhagen, to the attention of Adam Gottlob Graf von Moltke,
Obermarschall. See also U. Hübner 2002.
63. “Reisebeschreiber” (Niebuhr to Herder, January 18, 1788, cited in Wiese-
höfer and Conermann 2002:337– 338); “die Astronomie, seine eigentliche Wissen-
schaft” (B. G. Niebuhr 1817:55, cited in Lohmeier 2002:38).
64. Michaelis to von Bernstorff, October 12, 1767, Rigsarkiv København, Ara-
biske Rejse, Case 3– 004, No. 111a–b; Lawrence Baack, pers. comm., May 2011.
65. See Vermeulen 2006c for a review of this book.
66. In April 1761 Niebuhr sent his calculations from Marseille to Mayer, who
received them in February 1762, shortly before he died. They confirmed the use-
fulness of Mayer’s astronomical tables (Lohmeier 2002:25– 28).
67. The current view is that the Ottoman Empire joined twenty nations in three
continents (Asia, Europe, and Africa), which were organized in vilayets (prov-
inces) and before 1864 into eyalets (administrative divisions).

68. Cultural geography is a subfield of human geography that was first formu-
lated by Carl O. Sauer at Berkeley in the 1920s.
69. “Die Perser sind übrigens viel höflicher gegen Fremde, als die Türken und
Araber, und man hat sie in dieser Absicht ganz richtig die Franzosen des Ori-
ents genannt. Wenn andere Reisebeschreiber sie als betrügerisch im Handel,
und als eine Nation beschreiben, der man auf ihr Wort nicht viel glauben muß,
so können sie auch darin Recht haben. Indeß glaube ich, daß ein Europäer, der
kein Kaufmann ist, mit mehrerem Vergnügen unter Persern, als unter Türken
oder Arabern reisen werde. Das unangenehmste ist, daß die Perser mit keinem
indischen Heiden, keinem Feueranbeter, keinem Christen oder Juden, ja nicht
einmal mit einem Mohammedaner von einer anderen Sekte essen oder trinken
wollen, sondern alle für unrein halten” (Niebuhr 1774– 78, vol. 2:98, cited in B.
Hoffmann 2002:294). “Fire worshippers” was the name Europeans gave to Zoroas-
trians. When he spoke about “Persians,” Niebuhr was referring to Farsi-speaking
Shiite Iranians.
70. “Ist man gar so glücklich wieder zurück zu kommen, so ist es sehr angenehm
daß man viele Beschwerlich-keiten überstanden, viele Nationen gesehen die von
den Europäern für ungesittet ja wohl für Barbaren gehalten werden, und sie von
einer bessern Seiten kennen gelernt hat” (Niebuhr 1774– 78, vol. 1:455, cited in
Lohmeier 2002:32).
71. “Weil die Beschneidung von so vielen Nationen angenommen ist, so muß
sie vermuhtlich auch einen physicalischen Nutzen haben” (Niebuhr 1772:77).
72. “wie ich denn überhaupt auf die Eintheilungen der Vögel begierig bin, die
diese von uns so sehr verschiedenen Völker machen” (J. D. Michaelis 1762:349).
73. His pupil Schlözer referred to the Arabs as “a free people” and, like Michae-
lis, used the concept Volk, not the term “nation.” “Die Araber sind ein freyes Volk”
(Schlözer 1759, cited in Peters 2003:56).
74. “Die vielbewunderten ‘Fragen’ . . . stehen noch ganz im Banne der Bibel-
exegese, und es war nicht sein [Michaelis’] Verdienst, daß Carsten Niebuhr . . .
sie in einem viel großartigeren Sinne löste” (Fück 1955:119).
75. This contemporary distinction between describer and hermeneutic is dis-
cussed in Wiesehöfer and Conermann 2002:211, 237, 269, 281.
76. “Oft hat man später sein Buch als bloße Reisebeschreibung abgetan.
Tatsächlich aber ist es ein Pionierwerk der modernen Ethnografie” (Griep 2006).
77. “De expeditie boekte . . . al etnografische resultaten toen de etnografie nog
niet bestond” (Kon 2005:411). See also Jean Kommers (1982), who views Niebuhr’s
ethnography as an example of anthropology avant la lettre.
78. During Tsar Peter’s reign (1682/1696–1725) the exploration and taxation of
Siberia, as well as trade with China and Persia, were of vital importance to finance
Russia’s modernization and territorial wars. Writing in 1937, Sergei Bakhrushin
opined that the first aim of the expeditions was to “explore the economic poten-
tial of the colonies . . . to exploit their abundant resources for the benefit of the
ruling class” (Bakhrushin 1999).

6. From the Field to the Study
1. On the conceptual history of ethnography, see Stagl 1974a, 1995a, 2002a;
Blanke 1990:494n48, 1997:*21*n48; Blanke and Fleischer 1990, vol. 2:767nw.; Ver-
meulen 1988, 1992, 1994a, 1994b, 1995, 1999, 2006b, 2008a, 2008b, 2008d, 2009;
Fink 1995:63; P. Wood 1997:157; Kuper 2002; Zammito 2002:345; Guthke 2003:172,
2005:44).
2. Stagl introduced the term “éthnos-names” in 1995 as a generic category for
the names of disciplines handling ethnos (Volk, people, nation), changing it into
“ethnos-terms” in 1998 (Stagl 1995a:234, 1998:521).
3. For biographical details about Schlözer, see Schlözer 1802; C. von Schlözer
1828; Wesendonck 1876; Frensdorff 1890, 1892, 1909; Fürst 1928; Meinecke 1936; von
Selle 1937; Winter 1961b, 1962b; Warlich 1972; Stagl 1995a, 1998, 2002a; McClel-
land 1980; Mühlpfordt 1982, 1983a, 1983b; Kern 1987; Blanke and Fleischer 1990;
Peters 2003; Bödeker 2008b, 2011.
4. Müller later hired J. G. Stritter as an assistant to analyze material from Byz-
antine sources (Stritter 1771– 79).
5. Kirill Razumovskii was president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences from
1746 to 1766; his successor was Vladimir Orlov, director of the academy between
1766 and 1774.
6. Catherine the Great, or Catherine II (1729– 96), was born Sophie August
Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, in central Germany. She reigned from
1762 until her death and adopted a policy of enlightened despotism, not unlike
Frederick II, king of Prussia (ruled 1740–86), and Joseph II, king of Austria (ruled
1765– 90). Her reform policies were based on Wolff, Pufendorf, and Thomasius,
whom she read during her youth (Mühlpfordt 2011:181)
7. Schlözer probably hoped to reach the Middle East via Astrakhan on the west
coast of the Caspian Sea. The final blow to his Orient plans came by the outbreak
of the fifth war between Russia and Turkey (1768– 74).
8. The Universal History was compiled by George Sale, John Campbell, John
Swinton, Archibald Bower, George Psalmanazar, and others, but the initiative
had been taken by a group of London-based publishers (Conrad 2010).
9. New German edition by D. F. E. Boysen, Die allgemeine Welthistorie, 37
vols., Halle: 1769– 90. Dutch translation, Algemeene histori by Kornelis Wester-
baen, Amsterdam: 1735–55. French translation, Histoire universelle, depuis le com-
mencement du monde jusqu’à présent, traduite de l’Anglois, Amsterdam: 1742–88.
10. The review of Allgemeine Welthistorie about the history of Russia and
Poland (1765) in Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen, January 27, 1766, is
often ascribed to Schlözer (Schimpf 1982:48; van der Zande 2003:150; Conrad
2010:111) but was written by Büsching. See his Beyträge zu der Lebensgeschichte
denkwürdiger Personen, vol. 6(1789):315– 317 (Johan van der Zande, pers. comm.,
April 2011).
11. “Warum soll man die Schande der Englischen Verfasser auch in Deutsch-
land verewigen? . . . warum nicht lieber eine Fortsetzung, als eine in aller Absicht
unbrauchbare Übersetzung?” (Schlözer 1766b:348).

12. On Beckmann and Schlözer, see Lühmann-Frester 1999, 2003.
13. During his first period of leave, while in Lübeck in August 1765, Schlözer
had already planned a scholarly journal with the title Russische Bibliothek (Winter
1961a:90, 225). This plan materialized with his Beylagen zum Neuveränderten Ruß-
land (Schlözer 1769– 70), published under the pseudonym Johann Joseph Haigold.
14. The first acknowledgment occurs on a plaque near the university library,
where Schlözer’s house used to be; the second, on the street sign bearing his name
in the upper side of town.
15. A translation of the Latin title of Schöpperlin 1767: “A scholastic essay in
which the first outlines are drawn of Ancient Suevia [and] described according
to the time periods in order to supplement Spener’s note on Germany.” It was
reprinted as “Prolusio scholastica Sueviae veteris per temporum periodos descrip-
tae primas lineas exhibens. Ad supplemendam Speneri Notitiam Germaniae” in
Schöpperlin’s (1787) historical writings. A translation of the second title: “A scho-
lastic essay exhibiting the first outlines of Ancient Suevia, described according to
the time periods. To supplement Spener’s note on Germany.” “Prolusio” is an essay
in the literary sense; the addition “scholastica” makes it a first scientific attempt
to sketch the outlines of the ancient history of Suevia. Unfortunately, I have had
access only to the second edition (Schöpperlin 1787).
16. “Ethnographia haec potius dicenda est, quam geographia Sueviae veteris,
quam nunc brevissime subiicimus” (Schöpperlin 1787:439). See also Vermeulen
2000:27.
17. “Der V.[erfasser (Schöpperlin)] fängt mit der Ethnographie an” (Thilo 1767:47).
18. “Bey der eigentlichen Erdbeschreibung, so fern sie neulich von der Völker-
beschreibung unterschieden wird . . .” (Schöpperlin 1770:274).
19. See, for instance, the Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster (1544), distin-
guishing about forty peoples in Europe, Asia, and the New World.
20. The Zeitschriften-Index has been part of the Akademie der Wissenschaften
in Göttingen since 1976. It excerpts and analyzes eighteenth-century journals in
the German language. It has published the Index deutschsprachiger Zeitschriften
1750–1815 on twenty-eight microfiches and in ten volumes (K. Schmidt 1989). It
now handles German review journals of the eighteenth century (Index deutscher
Rezensions-Zeitschriften des 18. Jahrhunderts).
21. I reported Schmidt’s findings in several articles (Vermeulen 1996a, 1996b,
2000, 2002, 2006b), and they were subsequently taken up by others (Stagl 1998:522,
2002a:255; Bucher 2002:210n756; Schippers 2005:9).
22. For Schlözer’s use of Ethnographie and Völkerkunde, see Vermeulen 1988,
1992, 1994a, 1994b, 1995.
23. “Synthetische Anordnung der Weltgeschichte nach den Völkern. Hier lassen
sich . . . vier Methoden denken. Man ordnet die Facta 1. chronographisch, 2. tech-
nographisch, 3. geographisch, 4. ethnographisch” (Schlözer 1772, Kap. 4, paragraph
40:96– 99, 1775, paragraph 39:292– 294). See also Stagl 1974a, 1981, 1995a, 2002a.
24. “4. ethnographisch. Man teilt die Bewohner des Erdkreises in grosse und
kleine Haufen, nach gewissen mer oder weniger zufälligen Aehnlichkeiten, in

denen eine Menge von Menschen unter sich übereinkommen. Wegen dieser Aehn-
lichkeit denkt man sich die ganze Menge als eine Einheit, und man nennt sie Ein
Volk” (Schlözer 1772:99, 1775:294).
25. “Wer keine griechische Kunstwörter vertragen kan, der sage von Völkern,
die nur in geographischer Bedeutung als Ein Volk gedacht werden: ‘sie gehören in
Eine Klasse’; von denen in genetischer: ‘sie sind von Einem Stamme’; von denen in
politischer Bedeutung: ‘sie gehören zu Einem State’” (Schlözer 1772:104, 1775:298).
26. “Kaum sollte man glauben, wie fruchtbar und wichtig diese Unterscheid-
ungen in der Kritik der [alten] Völkerkunde werden” (Schlözer 1772:104, 1775:298).
27. “so möchten für das Ganze wol 150 bis 200 Völker nötig seyn. So viel einzelne
Völkergeschichten brauchen wir!” (Schlözer 1775, Vorrede [II–III]).
28. “aller dieser Nationen, alter und neuer, möchten doch wohl wenigstens 200
seyn” (Schlözer 1771a:285).
29. The name of Thilo’s mother was Schlözer: Thilo’s “Mutter ist eine gebohrene
Schlözerin, eine Anverwandte des berühmten Herrn Professor Schlözer’s zu Göt-
tingen” (Schöpperlin 1772:429). Courtesy of Klaus Schmidt.
30. Schlözer’s correspondence was taken to Moscow by his son, Christian, and
for the greater part was destroyed during the great fire after Napoleon Bonapar-
te’s Grande Armée entered the vacated city in 1812.
31. Schöpperlin and Schlözer were both members of the Historisches Institut,
founded by Gatterer in Göttingen.
32. “Wie repartire ich nun diese 200 Völker unter jene 14 Japhetiten?” (Schlözer
1771a:285).
33. “Vom Mittelländischen Meer an bis zum Eufrat hinein, und von Mesopota-
mien bis nach Arabien hinunter, herrschte bekanntlich Eine Sprache. Also Syrer,
Babylonier, Hebräer, und Araber, waren ein Volk. Auch Phönicier (Hamiten) rede-
ten diese Sprache, die ich die Semitische nennen möchte. Nun nordwärts über,
und ostwärts hinter diesem Semitischen Sprach-und VölkerBezirke, fängt ein
zweiter an: ich will ihn mit Moseh und Leibnitz den Jafetischen nennen” (Schlözer
1781:161). Eichhorn (1787:45) adopted the term (see Wesendonck 1876:214; Brock-
elmann 1908:1, 1916:15; Fück 1964:31; Smend 1997:220– 224; Baasten 2003). Pre-
viously, however, Schlözer (1771a:266nC, 281) had used the term Semiten, as did
Gatterer (1771, vol. 2:51, 68– 69, 79) in the same year.
34. “Wandernde Völker sind Conqueranten aus ungebauten Gegenden, die
fremde schon gebaute Länder einnehmen” (Schlözer 1772:165, with slight altera-
tions repeated in 1775:102)
35. “Man erlaube mir, daß ich die Sprache des Grössesten der Naturforscher
in die Völkergeschichte einführe. Ich sehe kein besseres Mittel den Verwirrun-
gen der ältesten und mittlern Geschichte auszuweichen, und ihre Dunkelheiten
aufzuklären, als ein nach Linnäischer Methode verfertigtes Systema Populorum,
in Classes & Ordines, Genera & Species, redactorum. Die Möglichkeit ist da. So
wie Linnäus die Thiere nach den Zähnen, und die Pflanzen nach den Staub-
fäden einteilt: so würde der Geschichtforscher die Völker nach den Sprachen
ordnen. Das war es, worauf Leibnitz so nachdrücklich und ofte drang; aber fast

niemand hörte ihn: denn Sprachkunde und Geschichtkunde sind Heterogenea”
(Schlözer 1768:72n22).
36. “Die Auflösung dieser Frage steht in Linnei Philosophia botanica: denn alles
was dieser grosse Mann von der systematischen Einleitung und Benennung der
Pflanzen sagt, läßt sich dem Wesen nach auch auf die Völkerge-schichte übertra-
gen. Es ist ein Systema Populorum in Classes et Ordines, Genera et Species, redactum
möglich: die Sprachen würden für den Geschichtforscher, was die Staubfäden für
den Kräuterlehrer seyn. Aber vorher wäre eine Philosophia ethnographica nöthig,
damit kein Rudbeck, kein Pezron, kein Becanus, dieses grosse Leibnitzische Project
durch eine verkehrte Ausführung lächerlich mache” (Schlözer 1771a:210– 211nA).
37. “Oft ist ein ganzer Schwall von Nachrichten, die uns die Alten von einem
Volk liefern, dem ordnenden Geschichtforscher in der Völkerkunde so wenig nütze,
als eine seitenlangen Beschreibung einer Indischen Pflanze von Jürgen Ander-
son dem systematischen Linnäo in der Kräuterkunde” (Schlözer 1771a:271nK).
38. “Darf ich ein allgemeines, sicheres, und kräftiges Mittel vorschlagen, diesen
Kitzel, die Völker mehrerer Welttheile und Jahrtausende unter sich in geschloss-
ene Systemen zu bringen, aus dem Grunde zu heben, diese Aufwallungen einge-
bildeter Allwissenheit niederzuschlagen, und historische Genien, die noch nicht
mit dieser Seuche behaftet sind, auch in Zukunft davor zu präserviren? Ein Blick
auf das ganze unserer Völkerkunde ist dieses kräftige Mittel. Er demüthiget uns
aufs äusserste, dieser weite Blick; er läßt uns fühlen, welch erstaunliche Igno-
ranten wir in der Völkerkunde sind; wir sehen beschämt, wie geschäftig wir uns
in einem engen Zirkel von ein paar hundert Völkern drehen, und dabey den
stolzen Wahn hegen, als kännten wir alle oder doch die meisten Völker [. . .]”
(Schlözer 1771a:286).
39. “Aber wir, Bürger des aufgeklärten 18ten Jahrhunderts, wir haben doch wohl
die Völkerkunde unsers und der nächstvorhergehenden Zeitalter erschöpft; und
nun ist doch wohl keine Nation mehr, wenigstens auf dem bekannten Erdboden,
die wir nicht kännten!—Ja, wenn wir nur vors erste unser kleines Europas känn-
ten: des weit grösseren Asiens [note P] Afrika’s und Amerika’s will ich hier gar
keine Erwähnung thun. Hier, in Europa, sind erstlich Völker und Sprachen, die
wir noch bis auf den heutigen Tag night kennen, und aus Mangel an Gramma-
tiken und dergleichen Hülfsmitteln, nicht einmal untersuchen können: z.E. die
Epiroten, Walachen [note Q ], Samojeden etc. Zweytens, auch Völker, die man
bey dem Reichthum vorhandener Hülfsmittel kennen könnte, kennt doch der
grosse Haufe [note R] nicht: theils weil diese auch vorhandene Hülfsmittel selten
zu haben sind [note S]; theils weil es bisher nicht [p. 288] Mode [note T] gewe-
sen, die Völkerkunde auf diese Art zu studiren; theils weil es mühsam [note U]
ist, unbekannte Sprachen so zu untersuchen, daß sie dem Ethnographen frucht-
bare Sätze liefern” (Schlözer 1771a:286– 288).
40. “Unsre klaßische Erziehung, die uns nur mit sogenannten gelehrten Sprachen
beschäftiget, flößt uns unvermerkt einen Eckel an Sprachen solcher Nationen ein,
die zwar itzo noch, aber in der Dunkelheit existiren, und falls sie auch in ihrer
Landessprache Bücher schreiben und drucken lassen, doch dadurch keine Bey-

träge zur Erweiterung gelehrter Kenntnisse liefern. Und könnte man sich nicht
mit den Lehren und Beyspielen notorisch grosser Männer, deren Geschmack
ebenso unverdächtig als ihre Gelehrsamkeit ist, eines Leibnizes, Witsens, Bay-
ers und Ihres, schützen: so würde man sichs kaum merken lassen dürfen, daß
man Lappisch, Samojedisch und Kalmuckisch studiere. Es ist einmal die Mode
nicht!—Die Mode war bisher, den Ursprung und die Verwandtschaft der Völker
in Annalisten zu suchen: aber Annalisten, sagt Leibniz, weder alte, noch spätere
des Mittelalters, sind keine Erkenntnißquellen dieser Untersuchungen, sondern
Sprachlehrer und Lexikonschreiber. Dies giebt eine totale Veränderung in der gan-
zen Art zu verfahren; ganz neue Puncte, vor denen man ausgehen soll, eine völlig
andre Quelle, wobey die andre bisher gewöhnliche nur neben her und hülfsweise
genützet wird; folglich auch ganz andre Folgesätze. Aber desto unbiegsamer ist
die Mode, wenn sie ihren ganzen Gang ändern, und in einen völlig ungewohnten
Weg einschlagen soll” (Schlözer 1771a:288).
41. “In der ganzen Geschichtforschung kenne ich, nach meinem Gefühl und
meiner Erfahrung, keine so saure Arbeit, als Sprachenuntersuchungen in Rücksicht
auf die Völkerkunde. Allgemeine Sätze, die man hier feste setzt, dürfen nicht von
Einem oder wenigen Wörtern abstrahiret werden, sonst verfallen wir in den gro-
ben Rudbeckianismus, und machen die ganze Methode lächerlich. Sie fo[r]dern
eine Induction van einer Menge von Beyspielen: und diese zu finden, zu sammeln,
zu vergleichen, kostet Mühe und anhaltenden Fleiß, einen Fleiß, dessen glückli-
cher Erfolg noch dazu sehr oft unter dem Zufall steht; denn der glückliche Blick,
der Aehnlichkeiten und Verschiedenheiten bemerkt, ist doch gemeiniglich nur ein
Werk der Conjuncturen, bey dem der Fleiß kein weiteres Verdienst hat, als daß
er diese Conjuncturen erschaffen, und solchergestalt zur Entdeckung den Weg
gebahnet hat. Flüchtig in diesen fremden, oder wie der feine Grieche sich auszu-
drucken pflegte, in diesen Barbarischen Sprachen herumwühlen, hie und da ein
ähnliches Wörtgen aufhaschen, und daraus allgemeine Sätze formiren, ist nicht
Leibnizens Methode in der Ethnographie” (Schlözer 1771a:288).
42. “Der Geschichtsgelehrte, von der Sprachphilosophie geleitet, schliest von
der Verwandtschaft der Sprachen zurück auf die Verwandtschaft der Nationen,
die sie reden” (Gatterer 1771:105).
43. “harmonischen Sprachenentwurf . . . von den bekannten Völkern des Erd-
bodens” (Büttner 1771– 79, pt. 1:4). Büttner’s manuscript “Designatio linguarum et
gentium quae ipsas loguuntur” could not be traced, not even in his Nachlaß in Wei-
mar. Its existence, however, is confirmed by an entry in the catalog of the Staats-
bibliothek Berlin indicating that it was bound with Büttner’s Vergleichungstafeln
(1771– 79), together with two other manuscripts: “De linguis Africanis et Ameri-
canis alio tempore agam” and “Excerptum e. litteris d. Dryandri.”
44. “Sprachenuntersuchungen können zu Bestimmung der Abstammung der
Völker, und zu Berichtigung der Geschichte der alten Völker sehr nützlich werden”
(Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen, February 16, 1771:161).
45. Schlözer, Rapport I/7, Göttingen, September 18, 1765, in Winter 1961a:109–110,
repeated in October, p. 131.

46. “Nun setze ich . . . meine Klaßification aller Slavischer Haupt-Dialecte, oder
welches einerley ist, aller Slavischen Haupt-Nationen her” (Schlözer 1771a:330).
47. “Neuer Weg, die Stammvölker des Nordens wieder zu finden, durch Erfor-
schung der Haupt-Sprachen” (Schlözer 1771a:4, 288– 344).
48. The names Samoyeds and Lapps are considered derogatory today. Schlözer
knew that the term “Samojed is unknown to this nation” (Schlözer 1771a:294) and
had been introduced by the Russians.
49. “Noch sind drey Völker übrig: VI. Kymren, VII. Galen, VIII. Basken”
(Schlözer 1771a:338).
50. Schlözer commissioned the chapter by Stritter in July 1769 and received it
in October that year (see Winter 1961a).
51. Schlözer (1771a:425) pointed out that the European spelling and accentua-
tion was incorrect: not Tártar but Tatár.
52. “Kap. IV. Allgemeiner Abriß des Asiatischen Norders, aus Fischer” (Schlözer
1771a, Summarische Einleitung:4); “So weit Hr. Fischer” (i.e., Johann Eberhard
Fischer) (433). Schlözer did not mention or was not aware that much of the mate-
rial compiled by Fischer had been collected by Müller and other explorers.
53. “Diese Stammvölker sind mein Non-plus-ultra. Ursprünglich sind sie freylich
anderswoher gekommen, aber woher? weis ich nicht. Ursprünglich stammen sie
vermuthlich alle von Einem Geschlechte [Gattung] ab: aber von welchem? weis
ich nicht. Auch die Zeit, wenn sie hereingekommen, auch die Wege, auf denen,
und die Anlässe bey welchen sie in diese Weltgegend gerathen sind, weis ich
nicht” (Schlözer 1771a:291– 292).
54. “Der Historiker Schlözer entwickelte die philologisch-quellenkritische
Methode weiter zur “ethno-kritischen” und wandte sie besonders auf die Geschichte
der slawischen, der germanischen, der baltischen, der ostromanischen, der finn-
ougrischen und der anderen uralischen Völker an. Dadurch hat er in der Ruß-
land-, Slawen- und Ungarnforschung Epoche gemacht” (Mühlpfordt 1983a:156).
55. “Schlözer . . . war auf den eigenen Erfolg bedacht und benutzte Müllers
Material ausgiebig, oft ohne mitzuteilen, worauf er sich bezieht oder sogar nur
in jener von Fischer angefertigten verkürzten Version der ‘sibirischen Geschichte’”
(Bucher 2002:207).
56. “Man kann also davon ausgehen, daß Schlözer nicht nur guten Einblick in
die unpublizierten Manuskripte [Müllers] hatte, sondern auch reichlich daraus
geschöpft hat” (Bucher 2002:209).
57. “Ihre Völkerkunde konnte nicht weiter als ihre Weltkunde gehen” (Schlözer
1771a:286); “Griechische Welt-Unkunde” (291).
58. “der erste große Statsverein im Menschengeschlechte” (Schlözer 1775:14, 276).
59. “Mit Rom wird zwar die Geschichte schon etwas universalhistorisch . . .
Aber mit Kyrus erst wird die Welt selbst universalhistorisch; d.i. seitdem erst
kommt das Menschengeschlecht in merere Verbindung und Bekanntschaft unter
sich” (Schlözer 1775:270– 271n*).
60. “eine Geschichte der Menschheit und ihrer stufenmäßigen Veredlung oder
Verschlimmerung” (Schlözer 1772:97, 1775:292– 293).

61. “Woher der Fortgang des einen, der Stillstand des andern, der Rückfall des
dritten Volkes?” (Schlözer 1772:7, 1775:224).
62. “Fortgang der Menschheit bei dem einen Volk” (Schlözer 1772:7– 8,
1775:224– 225).
63. “Universalhistorie, oder die Betrachtung der großen Weltbegebenheiten
im Zusammenhange (Schlözer 1772:8, 1775:225).
64. “der meist durch Eroberungen allmählich bewirkte grössere Verein unter
den Menschenkindern” (Schlözer 1775:[vii–viii]).
65. “Menschen werden Völker (Vorwelt). Merere Völker, in Vorder-Asien, Nord-
Afrika, und Süd-Europa, werden große Staten (Alte Welt). Drei Welttheile, nur
Süd-Afrika und Nord-Asien ausgenommen, kommen in Zusammenhang (Mittel-
Alter). Diaz endlich, Colom, und Jermak, bringen alle Adamssöhne, Süd-Indier
abgerechnet, in eine daurende Bekanntschaft mit einander” (Schlözer 1775:[viii]).
66. “die bloße Staten- und Völkergeschichte” (Schlözer 1772:30, 1775:244).
67. “der allgemeine Blick, der das Ganze umfasset: dieser mächtige Blick schafft
das Aggregat zum System um; bringt alle Staaten des Erdkreises auf eine Ein-
heit, das Menschengeschlecht, zurück, und schätzet die Völker bloß nach ihrem
Verhältniße zu den großen Revolutionen der Welt” (Schlözer 1772:18–19; 1775:234).
68. The tendency to ignore Schlözer’s groundbreaking monograph Allgemeine
Nordische Geschichte is widespread. Schlözer’s biographer Peters (2003) pays only
passing attention to the book.
69. “vor schriftlichen Denkmälern läßt sich keine Geschichte . . . denken”
(Schlözer 1771a:256; see also Vorrede p. 4 and p. 618). Schlözer was the first to
formulate this—now generally accepted—principle (Wesendonck 1876:219, 266).
70. “Ein richtiges Bild der Weltgeschichte zu gewinnen, hält er es für erfor-
derlich, die Ereignisse zweimal vorzuführen, erst ethnographisch, dann synchro-
nistisch” (Frensdorff 1890:574).
71. “Bij de behandeling der algemeene geschiedenis vindt men zich altijd
geslingerd tusschen de eischen der synchronistische en der ethnographische
methode” (Veth 1863:447).
72. “Geschichte ist eine fortlaufende Statistik und Statistik eine stillstehende
Geschichte” (Schlözer 1793:11, 1804:86; Frensdorff 1890:580).
73. Van der Zande (2010:411, 427) defines Statistik as “an empirical, descrip-
tive study of Land und Leute in various European states.” See also van der Zande
2003; Bödeker 2011.
74. In 1769 Gatterer published a new version of his “synchronistic tables” in
which he distinguished among “historia politica, historia ecclesiastica, historia
literaria” (Synopsis historiae vniversalis, sex tabvlis). He could build on the syn-
chronistic work of, among others, Theodor Berger (1728, 1767), who had studied
at Leipzig and Halle, probably under the historian Cellarius.
75. “Königliches Institut der historischen Wissenschaften zu Göttingen” or
“Historisches Institut” (Gierl 2012).
76. “Thracische Völkerkunde aus Herodot” versus “Thracische Geschichte”
(Gatterer 1771, vol. 1:Inhalt [14], vol. 2: 494–507).

77. “Mosaisches Bevölkerungssystem,” “Mosaische Bevölkerungskunde” (Gat-
terer 1771, vol. 2:64–103). For Statistiker using Bevölkerungskunde as the study of
the population of a state, see Möller 1964:220– 221n30.
78. Gatterer discussed the “Assyrisches Völkersystem, Perzisches Völkersystem,
Macedonisches Völkersystem, Römisches Völkersystem,” and “Partisch-Perzisches
Völkersystem” in his Einleitung (1771, vol. 2, zweites Zeitalter). He briefly returned
to these and the Mosaic problems in his review of Schlözer’s Allgemeine Nordische
Geschichte in his journal Historisches Journal 4(1775):64– 65.
79. “Die ganze Erdbeschreibung, mit, und ohne Rücksicht auf die Eintheilung
in alte, mittlere und neue, läßt sich, meines Erachtens, bequem unter 4 Haupttheile
oder Wissenschaften bringen: 1) Gränzkunde (Horismographia), 2) Länderkunde
(Chorographia), 3) Staatenkunde (Poleographia oder geographica Politice), und 4)
Menschen- und Völkerkunde (Anthropographia und Ethnographia). Es versteht
sich von selbst, daß, weil hier von Geographie die Rede ist, diese 4 Kunstwörter
in geographischer Bedeutung, nicht historisch, nicht politisch, nicht statistisch
usw. genommen werden” (Gatterer 1775:4–5; also cited in H. Fischer 1970:170n13).
80. “Länder- [und] Völkerkunde, und besonders Naturgeschichte” (Friedrich von
Wurmb, letter from Batavia, February 6, 1779, cited in Effert 2003:5n18; 2008:4n18).
81. “Die Hauptabsicht dieser Expeditionen ist zweyfach: der Nutzen des Reichs
und die Verbesserung der Wissenschaften” (H. Bacmeister 1772–89, vol. 1, cited
in Wendland 1992, vol. 1:91–92; Bucher 2002:168). Preceding the Academic Expe-
ditions was the abbé Jean Chappe d’Auteroche’s 1781 astronomical expedition to
Siberia, undertaken at the order of Louis XIV. His 1768 travel account included
unfavorable descriptions of Russian manners and customs, which outraged Cath-
erine II. Assisted by Müller, she wrote her Antidote (Catherine II 1772). On this
and other expeditions to observe the transit of Venus, see Bucher 2011.
82. The instructions, including the collection of “Nachrichten von den verschie-
denen Sitten, Gebräuchen, Sprachen, Traditionen und Alterthümern,” are cited
by Marion Lauch 1987:378– 379 (cf. Wendland 1992, vol. 1:91– 92).
83. On the Academic Expeditions, see Winter 1953, 1961a, 1962b; Donnert
1983:113–116, 1998, 2009; Wendland 1992, vol. 1:80–89; Bucher 2002:32, 167–170;
Dahlmann 2009:136–138.
84. The Pallas–Müller correspondence of 1768–83 is extensive; see Wendland
1992, vol. 2:874–879 (Fond Millera), 893– 913 for a list. On Pallas’s botanical and
zoological work, see also Sytin 1997; Egerton 2008.
85. He did so in a section titled “Beyträge zur Kenntniß der Nazionen Ruß-
lands” (Falck 1785–86, vol. 3:451–584).
86. “gute Nachrichten von den Nationen, die sein Weg berührte” (zur Erho-
lung) (Georgi 1775, vol. 2:804).
87. The second Russian edition of Georgi’s Beschreibung included the fourth
volume that had appeared only in the German edition. It contained a section on
the Russian people that was rewritten, by a different author, while Georgi’s clas-
sification of peoples was “completely reworked, much to its detriment” (Knight
1994:34n22).

88. Knight (1994:35), referring to Tokarev (1966:105–110) for an evaluation of
Georgi’s language classification.
89. On language comparisons in St. Petersburg, see H. Bacmeister 1773, 1787;
F. Adelung 1815; A. Lauch 1969; Wendland 1992; Winkler 2005.
90. On Patrin and Merck, see Dahlmann’s introduction to Merck’s journal
(Merck 2009:39–45).
91. On nineteenth-century Russian naval expeditions, see Tokarev 1966:143–
150; Donnert 2002.
92. Ton Dekker (2002:6) was the first to point out this earlier Dutch reference
to Volkskunde but incorrectly claimed 1773 for this quotation. Instead, Berkhey’s
third volume was published in 1776.
93. “l’histoire des progrès des peuples vers la civilisation” (Chavannes 1787, cited
after the partial reprint in Herzen 1886:127).
94. “Ethnologie ou science de l’homme considéré comme appartenant à une
espèce repandue sur le globe et divisée en plusieurs corps de sociétés, ou nations,
occupées à pourvoir à leurs besoins ou à leurs goûts, et plus ou moins civilisées”
(Chavannes 1787, cited in Duchet 1971a:12–13; incomplete in H. Fischer 1970:180).
95. “science générale de l’homme” (Chavannes 1788). This source is an abstract
of a lengthy manuscript on which Chavannes had worked since 1766 and which
included ethnology (Duchet 1971a:12–13).
96. On the conceptual history of ethnology, ethnography, and anthropology,
see among others Hunt 1865:xcii; Topinard 1876:200, 1885:59, 1888:200– 201, 1891:4–
5; Herzen 1886:10; Berthoud 1992.
97. On Chavannes as the earliest source for ethnology, see Brinton 1892a:264;
Poirier 1968a:25, 1969:20; Gloor 1970:265; de Rohan-Csermak 1970a:674; H. Fischer
1970:180; Duchet 1971a:12–13, 229, 522, 525, index; Moravia 1973:160; Panoff and
Perrin 1973:23; Berthoud 1992:257)
98. On Tibenský and Kollár, see also Urbancová 1970, 1980; Belaj 1989. Tiben-
ský’s reference was long neglected in western Europe and became known thanks to
Zmago Šmitek and Božidar Jezernik during the second biannual conference of the
European Association of Social Anthropologists (easa) in Prague, August 1992
(see Vermeulen 1995:57n2; Šmitek and Jezernik 1995). See also P. Wood 1997:157.
99. “Ethnologia, cujus supra ob iter memini, est notitia gentium populorumque,
sive est id doctorum hominum studium, quo in variarum gentium origines, idi-
omata, mores, atque instituta, ac denique patriam vetustasque sedes eo consi-
lio inquirunt, ut de gentibus populisque sui aevi rectius judicium ferre possint”
(Kollár 1783, vol. 1:80 [my translation]). The Wikipedia entry on Kollár (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_František_Kollár, accessed November 12, 2014)
cites my earlier translation (Vermeulen 1995:57) without providing the reference.
100. “Graecos ultra Istrum ac Tanaim in geographicis admodum parum, in
ethnologicis nihil omnino vidisse” (Adam František Kollár, ed., [Annotations],
Commentariorum de Augustissima Bibliotheca Caesarea Vindobonensis, rev. edition,
by Petrus Lambecius, Vienna: 1766–82, vol. 7:322nA). This reference was discov-
ered by Stagl (1998:523n15; 2002a:258).

101. Kunde (knowledge, lore) in German is related to erkunden (to explore),
erkennen (to discern), and erfinden (to invent). The latter word was also taken to
mean ausfindig machen (to detect), entdecken (to discover), neue Erkenntnisse gewin-
nen (to attain new cognitions) (Mühlpfordt 2007:19). Kenntnis means “cognisance.”
102. “die Kenntnis von den Nationen und Völkern” (Stagl 2002a:258; cf. Ver-
meulen 1995:57n3).
103. Schlözer (1771a:263) viewed a Stammvolk in a historical rather than an ety-
mological way and, following Leibniz and Bayer, defined “Aborigines, quos ali-
unde venisse nulla memoria est.”
104. Kraft (1766: 16), cited in Reim (1987: 53–54). On Kraft, see Birket-Smith
1960; Krauss (1978:65).
105. On Herder’s anthropology, see F. Barnard 1964, 1965; Mühlmann 1968;
Pross 1984, 1987, 2002; Broce 1986; E. Berg 1990; Stagl 1998; Zammito 2002; Eidson
2004; Gingrich 2005; Zammito et al. 2010.
106. “Selbstkritik der Aufklärung” (Günter Arnold, pers. comm., August 1994).
This view contradicts Isaiah Berlin’s portrayal of Herder as leader of the so-called
Counter Enlightenment (Berlin 1973, 1976, 1979). For a critique of Berlin’s posi-
tion, see Norton 2007, 2008; Zammito et al. 2010.
107. “Synchronistisch, Ethnographisch, und wie die harten Worte mehr heis-
sen” (Herder 1772:475).
108. “wo steht der Eine, große, Endpfahl? wo geht der gerade Weg zu ihm?
was heists, ‘Fortgang des menschlichen Geschlechts’? Ists Aufklärung? Verbesse-
rung? Vervollkomnung? mehrere Glückseligkeit? Wo ist Maaß: wo sind Data zum
Maaße in so verschiednen Zeiten und Völkern, selbst, wo wir die besten Nach-
richten der Aussenseite haben?” (Herder 1772:476; translated slightly differently
in Stagl 1998:530).
109. “ob ethnographisch neu sei, weiss ich nicht” (Schlözer 1773b:235– 236n*).
110. On the Schlözer–Herder debate, see Leventhal 1990; Fink 1993; Stagl 1998;
Zammito 2002; Gierl 2012.
111. On Herder’s appreciation of Schlözer, see Herder’s Ideen, 1784– 91, part 4,
book 6, chapter 2; 1989, pt. 4:687n8; and Stagl 2002a:281, referring to Haym 1958,
vol. 1:657ff., 643f., vol. 2:786f.
112. “Das Programm einer globalen Völkerkunde . . . Das VI. Buch der Ideen
bietet einen Abriß der Völkerkunde nach dem damaligen Stande der Forschung”
(Mühlmann 1968:64). This program also includes Herder’s book 11 (Broce 1986:152).
113. For Herder’s use of Völkerkunde, see e.g., “eine Art Völkerkunde” (Auch eine
Philosophie der Geschichte, 1774:31);“Die Karte der Menschheit ist an Völkerkunde
ungemein erweitert” (Von Ähnlichkeit der mittlern englischen und deutschen Dichtkunst,
1777, Werke in zehn Bände 2:560); “kritische Sprach-, Zeiten- und Völkerkunde”
(Adrastea, vol. 4, 2. Stück, 1802, reprinted in Herders Sämmtliche Werke 24:96). For
Herder’s use of the phrases “Gemälde der Nationen” and “ Gemälde der Verschie-
denheit unsres Geschlechts,” see his Ideen, 1784– 91, part 2, book 7, chapter 1 and
2:6, vii, respectively (Herder 1989, pt. 2:251, 250). For Herder’s Naturvölker, based
on the French term les naturels, see “Auch alle Naturvölker, die wir Wilde nen-

nen” (Älteste Urkunde, 1774– 76, vol. 1:72); and “Völker, die im Schoosse der Natur
leben” (ibid., vol. 2:22); ed. Johann Georg Müller, 1806, vol. 5 (1774):83; 1806, vol.
6 (1776):33; cf. Stagl 2002a: 281.
114. Greek also discerns polis and demos. The latter served as the basis of the
term démographie, which was coined by the French statistician Achille Guillard
(1855) in the mid-nineteenth century.
115. “Den Leibnitzischen Grundsatz, origines populorum nach ihren Sprachen
aufzusuchen, wußt ich schon lange” (Schlözer 1802:187). Schlözer (1771a:210–
211nA) also wrote, “Es ist ein Systema Populorum in Classes et Ordines, Genera et
Species, redactum möglich” (cf. Schlözer 1768a:72n22).
116. The last Holy Roman Emperor who had authority in all of the German
lands may have been Frederick I Barbarossa or Frederick II, who ruled in the High
Middle Ages. After this the empire dissolved into ever smaller political entities,
the rulers of which enjoyed virtually full sovereign power by the sixteenth century.
117. On natural law, see Bödeker 1985, 2008b, 2012; Hochstrasser 2000; van der
Zande 2003, 2010; Haakonssen 2006; K. E. Müller 2010:121–122.
118. On nationalism and the rise of the nation-state, see T. Locher 1947; F. Wag-
ner 1948; Lemberg 1950; Sagarra 1977; Vierhaus 1978; Gellner 1983, 1997; Hroch
1985; Hobsbawm 1990; A. D. Smith 1991; Dann 1993; D. Bell 2001.
119. Hans Plischke (1925:109) drew attention to this journal, stating that this
was the first occurrence of the concept Völkerkunde. In this respect he was cor-
rected by H. Fischer 1970, who pointed to Gatterer 1775; Stagl 1974a, who pointed to
Schlözer 1772; and Vermeulen 1995, who pointed to Schlözer 1771a and Gatterer 1771.
120. There is a large amount of scholarship on the Forsters, e.g., Uhlig 1965,
2004, 2008, 2010, 2011; Hoare 1976; Kelm and Heintze 1976; E. Berg 1982; Harp-
precht 1987, 2007; J. R. Forster 1996; G. Forster 2000;nThomas 2003; Garber 1997,
2000a, 2000b, 2006a, 2006b; Bödeker 1999, 2006; Guthke 2003, 2005.
121. “nennt Ethnographie auch Anthropographie, und bestimmt solche als eine
Abtheilung der Geographie, welche die Menschen und Völker, die die Erde
bewohnen, in Hinsicht auf ihre körperliche und geistige Beschaffenheit, auf
Industrie, Kunstfertigkeiten, Handel, Sitten und Lebensart, litterarische, ästhe-
tische und religiöse Kultur beschreibet” (Krug 1796– 97, vol. 1:58, as cited in
Fabri 1808:354).
122. Fabri used the term Ethnologie in a Kommentar in Fabri 1787. He also used
the term Völkerkunde in an article in his journal, Geographisches Magazin (no. 8, 1784,
p. 447), and the term ethnographisch in the same year (Stuck 1784–87, vol. 1:iv–v).
123. “die freylich als selbstständige Wissenschaft noch nicht vollendet ist”
(Pölitz 1813:53).
124. “Ein Ethnographisches Journal hat die physischen, moralischen und intel-
lectuellen Eigenthümlichkeiten der Völker, und ihre Abstammung zu seinem
Gegenstande. Es schliesst . . . also alles Geographische und Statistische (aus),
ausser in so fern sich dadurch die Denkungsart der Völker, als Menschen, und
die Ausbildung ihrer Anlagen characterisiert” (Bertuch and Vater 1808b:3; also
cited in Petermann 2004:434).

125. The first volume of Ehrmann’s Beytrag zu einer redenden Naturlehre und
Physiognomik der Menschheit also appeared at Nuremberg in 1791; it contained 103
pages of text and 36 cuts. The second volume, Ethnographische Bildergallerie, con-
tained 180 pages of text and 24 + 3 cuts.
126. “es (wäre) ein schönes Geschenk, wenn Jemand, der es kann, die hie und
da zerstreueten treuen Gemälde der Verschiedenheit unsres Geschlechts sam-
mlete und damit den Grund zu einer sprechenden Naturlehre und Physiognomik
der Menschheit legte” (Herder 1784– 91, vol. 2, bk. 6, chap. 7, 1989:250).
127. For references to Campe’s dictionary, see chap. 1n18 and 1n23.
128. Among those who noticed were W. Schmidt 1906:144n4; Plischke 1925:109;
Hirschberg 1965:472; H. Fischer 1970:176n36.
129. “Damals war es denn auch, wo wir den Namen der Ethnologie oder Eth-
nographie mit schärferer Bestimmtheit ausgesprochen hören, wo darauf bezügli-
che Schriften und Abhandlungen sich mehren” (Bastian 1881:4).
130. Varenius divided geography according to its formal object in general or
universal and particular or specific geography. This division existed previously,
but Varenius made it popular (Heslinga 1975:90, 58).
131. The term ethnographisch appeared in Campe 1801, vol. 1:340.
132. “Die Völkerkunde: die Kunde oder Kenntniß von den Völkern, nicht sowol
von ihrem Ursprung und ihrer Geschichte, als von ihrem staatlichen, bürgerlichen
oder gesellschaftlichen und sittlichen Zustande” (Campe 1807–11, vol. 5:433–434).
In 1968 Mühlmann still thought “Ethnographie scheint auf J.H. Campe zurück
zu gehen” (Mühlmann 1968:78).
133. Building on Schlözer’s distinctions, but without mentioning his name, Fabri
(1808:98) added (4) in a journalistic sense and (5) in the popular sense.
134. See Campe’s definition of ethnographisch: “Die Geschichte wird entweder
chronologisch, der Zeitfolge nach, oder ethnographisch, der Völkergeschichte
nach, das ist, so dass die Geschichte jedes einzelnen Volks besonders vorgetra-
gen wird, bearbeitet” (Campe 1801, vol. 1:340).
135. The Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raissoné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers,
par une Société de Gens de Lettres (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751– 72) went from 3,100
and 4,000 to 4,250 copies.
136. On Schlözer’s later career and his Nestorchronik, see Wesendonck 1876;
Frensdorff 1890, 1892, 1909; Mühlpfordt 1982, 1983a, 1983b.
137. According to János Csaplovícs, “Völker” are to be distinguished “durch
Sprache, physische und moralische Veranlagung.”
138. I am grateful to István Sántha and Mihály Sárkány for providing addi-
tional information. See de Rohan-Csermak 1970b:705; Podolák 1988:230; Ver-
meulen 1995:51–52.
139. See Presl 1821, vol. 1:10 and Jungmann 1834– 39, vol. 2, 1836, col. 611. I owe
these references to Václav Hubinger from Prague, who kindly supplied them in
1992 (see Vermeulen 1995:52).
140. “alle Liebhaber der slawischen Völkerkunde und Sprache” (1789, cited in
Krbec and Michálková 1959:12).

141. Garber mentioned these numbers during a 2006 lecture in Halle (Saale);
his main reference is to Pandel 1990.
142. For references to B. G. Niebuhr’s lectures, see chap. 1 notes 18 and 23.
7. Anthropology in the German Enlightenment

1. “la science philosophique qui nous fait connoître l’homme sous ses différens
rapports physiques et moraux” (Robinet 1778, cited in Gossiaux 1985:49).
2. “L’anatomie humaine qui est absolument et proprement appelée anatomie,
a pour objet ou, si l’on aime mieux, pour sujet le corps humain. C’est l’art que
plusieurs appelent ‘anthropologie’” (Diderot, Anatomie, 1751, cited in Duchet
1971a:12, 1971b:7).
3. Anthropologie: “manière de s’exprimer par laquelle les écrivains sacrés
attribuent à Dieu des parties, des actions ou des affections qui ne conviennent
qu’aux hommes . . . Dans l’oeconomie animale, c’est un traité de l’homme” (cited
in Duchet 1971a:12, 1971b:8). Blanckaert (1989:14) added that the article appeared
in the first volume of the Encyclopédie (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751–52, vol. 1:497),
signed by the abbé Mallet and Pierre Tarin.
4. The Encyclopédie referred to the second edition of Teichmeyer’s book (1739),
which was first published in 1719.
5. The literature on the history of medical, physical, and philosophical anthro-
pology is extensive: Dilthey 1904; Günther 1907; Dieserud 1908; Marett 1908;
Haddon 1910, 1934; R. Martin 1914; Scheidt 1923– 24, 1950; T. Benz 1932; Pen-
niman 1935; Sombart 1938a, 1938b; Mühlmann 1948, 1968; Gehlen 1961; Diem
1962; Marquard 1965, 1971; Foucault 1966, 1969; Stocking 1968; Moravia 1970,
1973, 1980; Duchet 1971a, 1971b; Linden 1976; Erickson 1976, 1991; Kemper and
Phinney 1977; Schipperges 1977, 1999; Krauss 1978; Bauer 1984; Verwey 1985;
Mann and Dumont 1985, 1990; Dougherty 1985, 1990a, 1990b, 1996; Spencer
1986, 1997; Wokler 1988, 1993, 1995; Blanckaert 1989, 1993, 1996, 2009; Maz-
zolini 1990, 1997; Pittelkow 1991; Benzenhöfer and Rotzoll 1991; Meijer 1991,
1999, 2004; Corbey 1991, 2005; Harbsmeier 1992b; Benzenhöfer 1993; Schings
1994; Riedel 1994; A. Barnard 1995a, 1995b; Corbey and Theunissen 1995; Hud-
son 1996; Brandt and Stark 1997; Brandt 1999; Funk 2000; Eidson 2000, 2004,
2008; Zelle 2001a, 2001b, 2004a, 2004b; Roede 2002; Zammito 2002; Garber
and Thoma 2004; van Hoorn 2004, 2006; Petermann 2004; Hoßfeld 2005; Car-
hart 2007; Kaasch, Kaasch, and Rupke 2007; Bödeker, Büttgen, and Espagne
2008; De Angelis 2010.
6. On Hundt’s Anthropologium, see Dieserud 1908:91; Diem 1962:360; Moravia
1970:77; Marquard 1971:364; Linden 1976:1; Dougherty).
7. Ceneau’s use of the term “anthropology” was unearthed by Roger Brisson
(2009) on his website.
8. The treatise is cited in Haddon 1910:6– 7, 1934:1. Haddon refers to to Bendyshe
1865:356, but this page number is incorrect. Brisson 2009 provides the publisher’s
name for the treatise: London, Printed for Henry Herringman, at the Anchor in
the lower walke in the New Exchange, 1655.

9. “Anthropologie . . . la science qui traite de l’homme. Elle a deux parties, la
Psychologie, qui traite de l’ame, et l’Anatomie, qui traite du corps. On l’appele aussi
Anthropographie” (Dougherty 1996:325).
10. “Anthropologia est doctrina humanae naturae. Humana natura est gemi-
nae naturae mundanae, spiritualis et carpareae [corporeae], in unum hyphistame-
non unitae particeps essentia” (Casmann 1594– 96).
11. Zelle (2001b) predated the origins of philosophical anthropology and located
the anthropological turn of the “reasonable physicians” (Vernünftige Ärzte) from
Halle in the Early Enlightenment. However, their efforts in the 1740s and 1750s
took place in the High or Middle Enlightenment of Wolff and his followers
(Mühlpfordt 2011).
12. On the anthropological turn in eighteenth-century Germany, see Schings
1994; Zelle 2001b; Garber and Thoma 2004; Bödeker et al. 2008, 2010.
13. On Platner’s anthropology and the differences between him and the Halle
physicians, see Košenina 1989, 1998, 2002; Nowitzki 2003, 2009; Naschert and
Stiening 2007; Wübben 2006, 2007; van Hoorn 2009.
14. Although the term “holism” was coined by Smuts as late as 1926, the idea
very much applies to the perspective of the Halle physicians, Platner, and their
successors around 1800.
15. On Bernier’s racial theories, see Banton 1987a; Jackson and Weidman 2004:14–
15; Stuurman 2000; Bernasconi 2001a, vol. 1.
16. Carolus Linnaeus to Johann Georg Gmelin, February 25, 1747: “Non placet,
quod Hominem inter ant[h]ropomorpha collocaverim, sed homo noscit se ipsum.
Removeamus vocabula. Mihi perinde erit, quo nomine utamur. Sed quaero a Te
et Toto orbe differentiam genericam inter hominem et Simiam, quae ex princi-
piis Historiae naturalis. Ego certissime nullam novi. Utinam aliquis mihi uni-
cam diceret! Si vocassem hominem simiam vel vice versa omnes in me conjecissem
theologos. Debuissem forte ex lege artis” (Plieninger 1861:55; also cited in Slotkin
1965:179–180; Broberg 1983:172; Corbey 2005:46).
17. On the beginnings of physical anthropology in the eighteenth century, see
Broberg 1983; Mann and Dumont 1985, 1990; Banton 1977, 1987a, 1987b; Dough-
erty 1985, 1990a, 1990b, 1996; Wokler 1988, 1993, 1995; Pittelkow 1991; A. Bar-
nard 1992, 1995a, 1995b; Blanckaert 1993; Spencer 1997; Meijer 1999; Niekerk 2005.
18. “L’homme, blanc en Europe, noir en Afrique, jaune en Asie, et rouge en
Amérique” (Buffon 1749–89, vol. 9:2).
19. “L’interprétation qu’en donne Friedrich Blumenbach [1804], selon laquelle
Buffon aurait défini par là quatre races fixes, est une interprétation fautive, qui ne
tient pas compte de la réversibilité des variétés humaines selon Buffon” (Hoquet,
n.d.). Hoquet states that Blumenbach misrepresented Buffon’s view of human vari-
eties by assuming that Buffon saw them as fixed but presents no evidence from
Blumenbach’s work.
20. See Roger 1963; Foucault 1966; Duchet 1971a, 1971b; Dougherty 1990a, 1996;
Blanckaert 1993; Sloan 1995; Miriam Claude Meijer on Buffon’s natural law of race
formation; Bernasconi 2001a; Klatt 2010.

21. “Le premier livre qui se propose de fonder une ‘science générale de l’homme’
est l’Histoire naturelle de Buffon. . . . Buffon oriente toute la pensée des Lumières
vers une nouvelle science de l’Homme” (Duchet 1971b).
22. Characterization by Bork-Feltkamp 1938:7. On Camper and his work, see
Meijer 1991, 1997a, 1997b, 1999, 2004.
23. The historian of Göttingen University Götz von Selle (1937: 143) wrote that
“Büttner . . . in seinen Vorträgen über Naturgeschichte vom Menschen ausgegan-
gen [war]” and that this had been new about his approach. Blumenbach stated
in a retrospective: “Da er [Büttner] mit dem Menschen anfing, den der Jena-
ische [J. E. I.] Walch in seinen Vorlesungen unberührt gelassen hatte, und aus
seiner zahlreichen Bibliothek eine Menge Reisebeschreibungen mit Abbildun-
gen fremder Völkerschaften herbeibrachte, so reizte mich das, meine Doctordis-
sertation de generis humani varietate nativa zu schreiben” (cited by his biographer
Marx [1840:5]).
24. “Hauptarten von Nährstand der Menschen nemlich Feldbau-Fischerey-
Jagd-und Viehzucht” (Blumenbach to Chodowiecki, in Dougherty 2006:289–
293). These vignettes were published in Beyträge zur Naturgeschichte (Blumenbach
1790b:fig. 9–13) and reproduced in Dougherty 1984:158–162.
25. Blumenbach first used the term “Caucasian” in December 1793 in the Ger-
man manuscript of his article “Von den Mumien,” sent to Joseph Banks, translated
and read in the Royal Society in April 1794, and published in the Philosophical
Transactions that same year and then, finally, in the third edition of his disser-
tation (1795).
26. Blumenbach received the first “skulls from exotic peoples” (Schädel frem-
der Völkerschaften) in 1784–85 in the course of his correspondence with Banks and
Asch; the sole exceptions were a skull from Switzerland and one from ancient
Egypt received in 1778– 79 (Norbert Klatt, pers. comm., November 2007).
27. The title “Skizze von Anthropologie” (Blumenbach 1775b) was later changed
to “Entwurf einer Anthropologie” (Blumenbach 1776b).
28. The following exposition owes a great deal to Klatt 2007, 2008, 2010.
29. “curatior cognitio historiae naturalis et anthropologiae” (Blumenbach 1795:ix;
Bendyshe 1865a:149–150).
30. “Index supellectilis anthropologicae auctoris” (Blumenbach 1795:xxi–xlii);
“Verzeichniß von dem anthropologischen Vorrathe des Verfassers” (Blumenbach
1798:xxvii, 1–16); “Index of the author’s anthropological materials” (Bendyshe
1865a:155–161). On the collection, see R. Wagner 1865.
31. The term “biology” was first used casually by the physicians Roose (1797)
and Burdach (1800) and then as the name of a discipline, Biologie oder Lebenslehre,
by Treviranus (1802– 22) and Lamarck (1802) (Jahn 2004:283–87).
32. This claim was made by Scheidt (1923– 24, 1950); Mühlmann (1968:57); Ber-
nasconi 2001b, 2002.
33. Kant, Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen, in
Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2, 1912; 2nd edition, Königsberg: 1766, p. 69; 3rd
edition, Riga: 1771, p. 69 (cited in Klatt 2010:19n35).

34. Kant 1775 was published as a twelve-page booklet to introduce Kant’s lec-
tures on physical geography that summer semester. A revised edition appeared in
J. J. Engel, Der Philosoph für die Welt, Berlin: 1777. See also Kant 2007.
35. In his 1785 and 1788 essays, Kant replied to Georg Forster’s critique of his
notion of race and the goal of natural science. Both were reprinted in Kant’s gesam-
melte Schriften, vol. 8, 1923. See also Kant 2007. Kant’s definition of race here is by
Bernasconi 2001a, vol. 3:vii. See Kant’s definition of race as “der Klassenunter-
schied der Thiere eines und desselben Stammes, so fern er unausbleiblich erblich
ist” (Kant 1785a:S. 99f.).
36. Kant’s Physische Geographie also appeared in an edition by Johann Jakob Wil-
helm Vollmer (Kant 1801–5), but the edition by Friedrich Theodor Rink (Kant 1802)
was reprinted in Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 9, Berlin: 1923 and is used here.
37. “Kurz, weder vier oder fünf Rassen, noch ausschließende Varietäten gibt
es auf der Erde. Die Farben verlieren sich in einander: die Bildungen dienen dem
genetischen Charakter; und im Ganzen wird zuletzt alles nur Schattierung eines
und desselben großen Gemäldes, das sich durch alle Räume und Zeiten der Erde
verbreitet. Es gehöret also auch nicht sowohl in die systematische Naturgeschichte,
als in die physisch-geographische Geschichte der Menschheit” (Herder 1784– 91,
vol. 2, bk. 7, chap. 1). I owe this reference to Roede 2002:1039.
38. On Kant’s racial theories, see Bernasconi 2001a, vol. 4:viii; Malter 1990;
Eze 1995, 1997; Lagier 2004; Kleingeld 2007. For a critique on Bernasconi 2001b,
see Banton 2010; for a rebuttal, see Bernasconi 2010.
39. “[Herder] beschließt die Beschreibung mit dem Wunsche einer Sammlung
von neuen Abbildungen der Nationen” (Kant 1785b).
40. “eine anthropologische Karte . . . , auf der nichts anderes angedeutet werden
müßte, als was Diversität des Menschen ist” (Kant 1785b).
41. In his 1788 reply to Georg Forster’s critique, Kant cited from two articles in
“Sprengels Beiträge,” that is, Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde, vols. 5 (1786) and
6 (1786). Reprinted in Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 8, 1923, p. 174, 488–489 nn.
42. These sources were inventorized and analyzed during a research project
under Manfred Engel and Uli Wunderlich at Saarbrücken, concluded in 2003. The
results are partly online at http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak4/fr41/Engel/Projekt
/RomAnthr.htm, accessed November 12, 2014.
43. On Scottish moral philosophy and anthropology, see, among others, Bryson
1932, 1945; Norman 1983; Oz-Salzberger 1995; Berry 1997; A. Barnard 2000; A.
Meyer 2006, 2008; Bührmann 2008.
44. Blumenbach (1786:85– 90) used the phrase “Menschen- und Völkerkunde”
in his Geschichte und Beschreibung der Knochen des menschlichen Körpers (Norbert
Klatt, pers. comm., April 2007). In 1788 he used the combination “Natur- und
Völkerkunde” in the “Vorrede” of his Sammlung seltener und merkwürdiger Reisege-
schichten, vol. 1 (1789).
45. Urban (1991:19) presents an analysis. See also nl, Büttner 1773– 96.
46. “auch alles, was die Lebensart, eigenthümliche Sitten fremder Völker-
schaften betrifft” (G. Krüger 2005:204).

47. “etwas von dem Überfluße ausländischer Natürlicher Merkwürdigkeiten”
(cited in Urban 1991, 1998a).
48. For these donations, see W. Meyer 1894, vol. 3:22– 75.
49. On the Asch Collection, see Plischke 1931, 1936; Buchholz 1955, 1961; Urban
1971; Rohlfing 1998.
50. He wrote regular reports on the Göttingen Museum (e.g., Blumenbach
1783, 1787–88, 1797).
51. Note that Pagden (1986) made the same claim for Lafitau (1724), with more
justice.
52. “Unter allen in diesem Grundrisse enthaltenen Beobachtungen, die ich als
die meinigen anzusehen das Recht zu haben glaube, scheint mir keine andere auf
so viele Zeugnisse und Facta gegründet und so reich an wichtigen Folgerungen
für viele Wissenschaften zu seyn, als diese: daß das gegenwärtige Menschenge-
schlecht aus zween Hauptstämmen bestehe, dem Tatarischen oder Kaukasischen,
und dem Mongolischen Stamm: daß der letztere nicht nur viel schwächer von Cör-
per und Geist, sondern auch viel übel gearteter und tugendleerer, als der Kauka-
sische sey: daß endlich der Kaukasische Stamm wiederum in zwo Racen zerfalle,
in die Celtische und Slawische, unter welchen wiederum die erstere am reichsten
an Geistesgaben und Tugenden sey” (Meiners 1785:[xx–xxi]).
53. “Daß das gegenwärtige Menschengeschlecht aus zwey Hauptstämmen
bestehe, dem Stamm der hellen und schönen, und dem der dunkelfarbigen, und
häßlichen Völker: daß der letztere nicht nur viel schwächer von Cörper und Geist,
sondern auch viel übel gearteter und tugendleerer, als der erstere sey: daß endlich
der schöne Menschenstamm wiederum in drey Racen zerfalle, in die Celtische,
Morgenländische, und Slawische, unter welchen wiederum die erstere am reich-
sten an Geistesgaben und Tugenden ist” (Meiners 1793:29– 30). Meiners explained
the change in phrasing on pp. 4– 6.
54. Klatt (2008:64, 101) notes that Meiners used the term “Caucasian” earlier
than Blumenbach, who first employed it in 1793 and 1795, but finds it unlikely that
Blumenbach borrowed the term from Meiners.
55. “Jede Raçe hat ihre eigenen Gesetze” (J. Schmidt 1999). “So wenig jemals
Unterthanen mit ihren Regenten, Kinder mit Erwachsenen, Weiber mit Männern,
Bediente mit ihren Herren, unfleissige und unwissende Menschen mit thätigen
und Unterrichteten, erklärte Bösewichter mit schuldlosen, oder verdienstvollen
Bürgern gleiche Rechte und Freyheiten erhalten werden; so wenig können Juden
und Neger, so lange sie Juden und Neger sind, mit den Christen und Weissen,
unter welchen sie wohnen, oder denen sie gehorchen, dieselbigen Vorrechte und
Freyheiten verlangen” (Meiners 1790).
56. Exceptions include Ihle 1931; Rupp-Eisenreich 1983a, 1983b, 1984, 1985a;
Lotter 1987; Dougherty 1990a, 1996; Vetter 1997; Zantop 1997; J. Schmidt 1999;
Carhart 2001, 2007; Gierl 2008; Park 2013.
57. Schemann (1928– 31, vol. 3) portrayed Meiners as the founding father of cul-
tural history on an anthropological basis (J. Schmidt 1999). Mühlmann (1968:57–

58) gave priority to Kant as “the founder of the modern concept of race” and to
Blumenbach as “the real father of human racial studies (Rassenkunde).”
58. Meiners (1785:xxv–xxx, 1793:34–40) lists these sources in the preface to his
Grundriß and added “gewiß wird er [Goguet] noch lange der sicherste Führer blei-
ben, der junge Leute in das Studium der Völkerkunde, besonders in die Geschichte
der alten Völker, einleitet” (Meiners 1785:xxx, 1793:40).
59. On British moral philosophy and Göttingen, see Warlich 1972; Kern 1987;
Oz-Salzberger 1995; Bödeker et al. 1999, 2008, 2010; Carhart 2001, 2007; Waszek
2003; van der Zande 2003, 2010.
60. Hißmann (1778:111–112) classified “Gebräuche der Völker” under “Philos-
ophie der Geschichte.”
61. For examples of this approach, see Garber 1983, 1999, 2004; van der Zande
1992, 1995; A. Meyer 2006, 2008; Carhart 2007, 2009.
62. After Cook’s first expedition, the account was written by John Hawkes-
worth, who had not even taken part in the expedition.
63. Blumenbach’s review appeared in the Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten
Sachen, February 22, 1786: 302– 303. On the debate between Blumenbach and Soem-
merring, see Dougherty 1985, 1996. Another critic of Kant’s theories of race was
his colleague Johann Daniel Metzger (1786, 1788), who opposed Kant’s specula-
tive philosophy and supported Blumenbach’s empirical approach (see Klatt 2010).
64. More on the Forster–Kant controversy in Weingarten 1982; Godel and
Steining 2012.
65. Bernasconi (2002:164–165) argues that Kant chose to cite another text in
the same issue of Sprengel’s Beiträge, written by James Tobin, who gave an unfa-
vorable account of freed slaves to counter Ramsay’s presentation of African slaves
as people who worked harder if they were treated well.
66. Forster assumed seven “points” of origin of the “principal exempla of the one
human species [Exempla praecipua in Hominis Specie unica]: (1) in Northamerica
north of the 60th degree, (2) in America around the northern parts of the Mexican
kingdom, (3) in the Altai Mountains of Asia, (4) in India along the Ganges, (5)
in the Caucasus Mountains, (6) in Guinea in Africa, (7) in the East Indies islands
of New Guinea” (G. Forster 2003:1692; see also Uhlig 2011:210– 211).
67. The title of this volume is “Die Naturwissenschaft im weitesten Verstande,
und insbesondere die Anthropologie war bisher meine Beschäftigung.”
68. “ein jedes Volk für sich zu betrachten, es nach allen seinen Verhältnissen
zu beschreiben und genau zu untersuchen, wie es an die Stelle hinpasst, die es auf
dem Erdboden ausfüllt” (G. Forster 1958–, vol. 11:245, cited in Mühlmann 1968:61;
Lotter 1987:62; Marino 1995:119; J. Schmidt 1999).
69. Scholars who have studied Georg Forster’s ethnology include Kelm and
Heintze (1976); E. Berg (1982); Rupp-Eisenreich (1984); Garber (2002); Bödeker
(2006); Uhlig (2010).
70. “eine anthropologische Karte der Erde, wie Zimmermann eine zoologische
Versucht hat” (Herder 1784– 91, vol. 2, bk. 6, chap. 7, 1989:250).

8. Epilogue
1. Cabanis 1802 further developed Robinet’s 1778 position (see chapter 7). See
Stocking 1964, 1968; Chappey 2002:308.
2. On the Société des Observateurs de l’Homme, see Gollier 1905; Hervé 1909a,
1909b; Bouteiller 1956; Stocking 1964, 1968; Degérando 1969; Moravia 1970, 1973;
Copans and Jamin 1978; Jorion 1980a; Kilborne 1982; Rupp-Eisenreich 1983b;
Chappey 2002; Stagl 2002b.
3. On Jauffret and Meiners, see Rupp-Eisenreich 1983a, 1983b, 1984, 1985a; Stagl
2002b:281– 282, 327– 328; Carhart 2007. Rupp-Eisenreich (1983a, 1983b) observed
that Jauffret’s manuscripts, bound together by Robert Reboul in 1870 and entitled
by him “Histoire physiologique des différentes races d’hommes, ou histoire du
genre humain,” are “precise and even well done translations” of Meiners’s Grund_
riß der Geschichte der Menschheit (1785) and his ethnological essays in the Göttin-
gisches historisches Magazin (1787–89). Apparently, they served among others to
prepare a course in “the natural history of humans” (Cours d’histoire naturelle de
l’homme, see Reboul 1875).
4. “Le livre de Chappey ne comporte aucune indication sur ce point [the use
of the concepts Ethnographie, Ethnologie, ethnographique or Ethnographe]” (Claude
Blanckaert, pers. comm., April 2006).
5. According to Blanckaert (pers. comm., April 2006), “Ces deux auteurs sont,
en tout cas, totalement ignorés dans la littérature ultérieure.” He added, “Depuis
vos publications, je n’ai pas rencontré le mot ‘ethnographie’ avant l’Atlas de Balbi
[1826], ce qui confirmerait la rareté de son usage en France.”
6. “une classification des peuples correspondra à une classification des langues”
(Balbi 1826b:61).
7. Boiste 1823 introduced the term Ethnographie in French dictionaries (accord-
ing to the dictionary Le Robert 1966). “Ethnographie, Partie de la statistique qui
a pour but l’étude et la description des divers peuples” (Dictionnaire de l’Académie
française 1835, vol. 1:689, 1839).
8. Démeunier’s work was rediscovered by Arnold van Gennep in 1910 and dis-
cussed by M. Harris (1968:17–18) and Lemay (1970). It was reprinted by the French
journal Gradhiva, with a preface by Jean Pouillon, in 1986.
9. The first three volumes of Comte 1830–42 dealt with physical sciences, vols.
4– 6 with “la philosophie sociale.” Comte included “physique sociale ou sociolo-
gie” in a synoptic table of his “Course in Positive Philosophy,” to be inserted at
the end of volume 1 (1830).
10. Ampère, Quetelet, and Comte published their works with the same pub-
lisher, Imprimerie de Bachelier in Paris.
11. Jefferson’s interest in comparative language studies was acknowledged by
Adelung (1815:189).
12. Thwaites added the following note in his 1959[1904– 05] edition of the jour-
nals: “From original ms . . . . The handwriting is that of Clark and apparently is
a transcript of instructions from Jefferson.”

13. As noted in chapter 3, the first complete woolly mammoth skeleton, found
in the Lena River delta by a Sakha hunter in 1799, was excavated by Mikhail F.
Adams in 1806. The Adams Mammoth is on display in Yakutsk.
14. This article was published in German in the Hannoversches Magazin in 1767
and reprinted in Frankfurt and Leipzig in 1769. It was translated by J. G. Rosen-
garten as “Achenwall’s Observations on North America, 1767” and published in
the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (Achenwall 1903).
15. Jefferson to Barton, October 1810, in Sowerby 1952–59, vol. 1:197.
16. Robert E. Bieder, visiting Halle (Saale) in March 2007, May 2008, and July
2009 and Berlin in May 2012.
17. “Morgan, Lewis Henry,” in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biogra-
phy 6(1896):192; Leslie A. White, “Morgan, Lewis Henry,” in David L. Sills, ed.,
Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 10(1968):496–498.
18. The collections were divided between the “Ethnography Museum, Museum
of Asia, Museum of Egypt, Anatomy Museum, Zoological Museum, Botanical
Museum, Mineralogical Museum and the Museum of Peter the Great’s Study
(decree of January 8, 1836 ‘Regulations and Personnel of the St. Petersburg Impe-
rial Academy of Sciences’).” See http://www.expresstorussia.com/guide/petersburg
-kunstkammer.php, accessed November 12, 2014.
19. The first academic chairs in ethnology and ethnography were founded, under
various titles, in St. Petersburg in 1837, Berlin in 1871, Leiden in 1877, Oxford in
1884, Philadelphia in 1884–86, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1887– 90, Chicago
1892– 95, and New York in 1899. Some qualifications are in order. Bastian was
associated with the University of Berlin from 1869 on and served as extraordi-
nary professor of ethnology during 1871– 75. Tylor was reader in anthropology at
Oxford beginning in 1884 and was promoted to professor in 1896. Boas was lec-
turer in anthropology at Clark University, 1889– 92; lecturer in physical anthro-
pology at Columbia College, 1896– 99; and professor of anthropology at Columbia
University from 1899 on.
20. Willem van Hogendorp and Jacobus Radermacher in Verhandelingen van
het Bataviaasch Genootschap der Kunsten en Wetenschappen, vols. 1–4, 1779–86 (see
Vermeulen 1996b; Vermeulen and Kommers 2002:4).
21. Friedrich von Wurmb to H.v.W. [Herrn von Wollzogen], February 6, 1779,
cited in der Kinderen 1879:13, referring to Friedrich Ludwig von Wurmb, ed.
1794:200–201. In the same letter the formulation “Länder- Völkerkunde und Naturge-
schichte” occurs (see F. L. von Wurmb 1794:205). (Courtesy of Rudolf Effert, Jan-
uary 2013). See also F. L. von Wurmb, ed. 1797.
22. “Natuurkundige, Aardrykskundige en Staats- en Volkkundige beschou-
wing” (Boddaert 1785:i).
23. “De gedaante, zeden en gewoonten der Kalmukken en Mongolische Volkeren”
(Boddaert 1785:xii).
24. “uitbreiding zyner kennissen in de Land en Volk-kunde” (Boddaert 1785:xxv).
25. “eene handel- en volkenkundige reis door geheel Europa” (Fokke Sz. 1794–
1806, vol. 1).

26. Willmet (1820:199, 209– 210) used the concept Volkskunde in combinations
such as “de Tijdreken- de Sterren- de Geschied- de Volks- de Lands- de Kruid-
kunde,” or “de Natuur- Mensch- en Volks-kunde.”
27. According to the archives of the Maatschappij voor Natuur-en Letterkunde
onder de zinspreuk Diligentiâ (Gemeentearchief, ’s-Gravenhage, Archief Dili-
gentia, inv. 7, notulen 1823–1841), van de Kasteele’s lecture was held in The Hague
on November 5, 1830. It counts as the first text on ethnology in Dutch (Vermeu-
len 1995:49).
28. Veth saw “landen volkenkunde” as (part of) geography in the widest possible
sense: “eene encyclopaedische wetenschap, die zich splitst in eene groote menigte
van onderwerpen” (Veth 1864:13–14; see also G. Locher 1978).
29. “Bij de behandeling der algemeene geschiedenis vindt men zich altijd
geslingerd tusschen de eischen der synchronistische en der ethnographische
methode” (Veth 1863:447).
30. In the second edition of his Six Ethnographical Maps, Prichard (1861) called
most peoples “races,” e.g., the “Hindoo race,” the “Chinese race,” and the “Kam-
skatkan race.” He subdivided the “Germanic Race” in “Low German Nations” in
the west, “Eastern German Nations,” and “Upper German Nations” in the south.
31. H. Fischer (1970:177) also called this a “change in meaning,” but in this case
he was mistaken. Wiseman’s definition was similar to Balbi’s definition and to
Schlözer’s view when the latter introduced Völkerkunde at Göttingen in 1771—even if
its scope was more limited than that of Müller’s 1740 holistic view on ethnography.
32. On the history of this shift, see Topinard 1885; Brinton 1892b; W. Schmidt
1906, 1924; Mühlmann 1948, 1968; H. Fischer 1970; Poliakov 1974; Herzog 1990;
Vermeulen 1995:50–51, 53–54, 2008a:261– 267.
33. “l’étude des races humaines d’après la tradition historique, les langues et
les traits physiques et moraux de chaque people” (formulated in the request for
authorization of the Société ethnologique to the minister of public instruction
from August 1839, duly approved with the permission of the minister of foreign
affairs, cited in de Quatrefages 1867:30; Davis 1868:395; Broca 1869:26; Topinard
1885:119; Gollier 1905:16).
34. “Les principaux éléments . . . d’établir quelles sont en réalité les différen-
tes races humaines” (Broca 1863:xii; Bastian 1881:18; Tax 1955b:316; Heine-Geldern
1964:407).
35. The founders of the Société anthropologique supplied a “definition natu-
raliste” in Paris in 1832. William Edwards was a “pivotal” member of this society,
which was apparently the predecessor of the Société ethnologique.
36. See Transactions of the American Ethnological Society I, 1845:ix; Hunt 1865:xcvii;
Bieder and Tax 1976.
37. Ethnological Society of London, Regulations. London: W. Watts, 1850:5,
cited in King 1850:16; Burrow 1966:122; Stocking 1971:372; Rainger 1980:713; see
also Augstein 1999.
38. On phrenology, see Davis 1868:395; Bastian 1881:11; Myres 1944:3; Jorion
1981; Leguebe 1982.

39. Edwards concluded his Mémoire sur les Gaëls in the following way: “L’utilité
de l’histoire naturelle de l’homme, c’est de connaître avec précision l’origine des
peuples et de distinguer le caractère moral des races qui forment une nation”
(Edwards 1845b, cited in Topinard 1885:119).
40. Lazarus and Steinthal (1860:13) distinguished a “physikalische Ethnolo-
gie” from a “psychische Ethnologie,” i.e., Völkerpsychologie (Kalmar 1987:674). A
physical ethnology also developed in the Netherlands, where the physician Douwe
Lubach (1863) published a “fatherlandic ethnology” dealing with “the inhabit-
ants of the Netherlands” and where the Dutch Society for Promoting Medicine
(Maatschappij tot bevordering der Geneeskunst) installed a “committee for eth-
nology” in 1865 (Bork-Feltkamp 1938:42–55).
41. Twin daughters, or “les deux filles jumelles,” as de Quatrefages (1867:45)
called them.
42. On the Leipzig school of Völkerpsychologie, see Wolfradt 2011. See also
Stocking’s edited volume Volksgeist (1996).
43. See Stocking 1962, 1968; Leopold 1980:13–14.
44. Recent studies of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition and the American
Museum of Natural History include Freed, Freed, and Williamson 1988; Cole 2001;
Krupnik and Fitzhugh 2001; Kendall and Krupnik 2003; Freed 2012.
45. The first chairs in ethnology in the United States were founded in Phila-
delphia in 1884 (at the Academy of Natural Sciences) and 1886 (at the University
of Pennsylvania), both held by Brinton; in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1887 and
1890 (both at Harvard University), held by Putnam; and in Chicago in 1892– 95,
held by Frederick Starr. The first Department of Anthropology was set up at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1894.
46. Sergei Kan (2009:119) calls Boas with more justice “the founder of profes-
sional American anthropology.”
47. Charles Walcott to Franz Boas, December 17, 1910, cited in Darnell 1998:129.

references cited
This document lists all works used while writing the present
book. The main distinction is (1) archival sources, (2) primary
works (mainly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources),
and (3) secondary works. The distinction between primary and
secondary works is similar to that between “texts” and “stud-
ies” (Rossi 1984). For practical reasons the last two categories
have been combined in one alphabetical list of references, also
including maps.
archival sources
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Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany

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—. 1767– 70. Correspondence with August Ludwig Schlözer, 5 letters,
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Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Van de Kasteele, Reinier Pieter. 1830. Over de volkenkunde. Lecture pre-
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jeden, Kamassen, Taiginzen, Katschinzen und die Tataren sowie über
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—. n.d., ca. 1743–45. Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker. ms, 530
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and Chast’ 2, Listy 1r-92v [from chap. 25 on]). (Title not from Müller
but provided by a Russian archivist. Published in Russian translation
in Elert and Hintzsche 2009 and in the German original as Müller
2010c.)
—. n.d., ca. 1744–46. Beschreibung der in Sibirien Lebenden und
Zunächst angräntzenden MancherLey Völker des Rußischen Reichs.
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St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of

Sciences/Sankt-Peterburgskii filial Arkhiva Rossiiskoi
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unter Hinzufügung von besonderen Nachrichten über die in der Umge-
bung von Kazan’ lebenden heidnischen Völker und mit Hinweisen
dazu, was bei der Völkerbeschreibung beachtet werden muß, verfaßt
von Gerhard Friedrich Müller, Professor der Kaiserlichen Akademie
der Wissenschaften. ms, 12 pp., Fond 21, Opis’ 5, Delo 6, Listy 1r-12r.
(Published as Müller 2010a.)

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index
Page numbers in italic indicate illustrations.
a a a. See American Anthropological reception of expedition scholars, 155–157;

Association (a a a) publications of, 475n10; role in Kamchatka
a a as. See American Association for the Expeditions, 143–146, 213–215, 440–441;
Advancement of Science (a a as) role in Russian state, 216; Schlözer’s work
Aarsleff, Hans, 69, 77– 78 at, 272, 274. See also Kunstkamera
aborigines, 274, 279, 281, 285, 289, 292, 319, Achelis, Thomas, 425
392, 501n103. See also principal peoples; Achenwall, Gottfried, 328
Stammvolk Ackerknecht, Erwin H., 15
Aborigines Protection Society (aps), Acosta, José de, 3, 71, 200, 466n45
418–419 Acta Eruditorum (journal), 82, 84, 102, 133,
Abulfeda [Abu’l-Fida], Ismail, 222, 229, 338, 464n25
486n7 Adamovic, Milan, 193
Academic Expeditions, 125, 161, 211, 306– Adams, John, 401
309, 335, 443, 448. See also scientific Adams, Michael Friedrich [Mikhail F.],
expeditions 122, 511n13
Academic Museum (Göttingen), 381– 382 Adams Mammoth, 122, 511n13
Académie de Médicine (Paris), 343 Adelung, Friedrich von (1768–1843),
Académie des Inscriptions et des Belles German-Russian linguist, 32, 79, 84, 98,
Lettres (Paris), 237 185, 383
Académie des Sciences (Paris), 343 Adelung, Johann Christoph (1732–1806),
Academy of Arts (St. Petersburg), 163 German philologist, 14, 79, 81
Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg): art Adler, Carl Fredrik, 235
studies at, 163; chair of etnografiia at, aes. See American Ethnological Soci-
409; directors of, 492n5; division of col- ety (aes)
lections in, 157–159; expedition instruc- Afzelius, Adam, 234, 236, 256
tions, 204–205, 262, 479n57; Fischer’s Age of Discovery, 3, 4, 87, 455
work at, 186; founding of, 57–58, 59, 62, Alberti, Ludwig, 396
134–136; geography department, 482n80; d’Alembert, Jean le Rond, 405
history department of, 185–186; images Alethophilus. See Eberhard, Christoph
of, 62; Leibniz’s impact on, 49–50, 57–58; Alexander I (1777–1825), Emperor of Rus-
and Messerschmidt, 122–124; and Mül- sia, 349, 352
ler’s research questions, 165–166; negative Alexander the Great, 210
Allgemeines Archiv (journal), 337 anthropology: academic chairs in, 409,
Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte (Schlözer), 413, 460n14, 513n45; Blumenbach’s role
21, 274– 275, 278– 280, 283– 287, 294– 295, in, 373– 374; Boas’s role in, 430–436; and
299, 301, 319– 320, 443–444 colonialism, 23– 28, 133, 214– 217, 440–
Allgemeines Archiv für Ethnographie und 442, 449; conceptual history of, 359– 366;
Linguistik (journal), 344, 346– 347, debated origins of, 1, 2–4; development
391– 392 of, 6–10, 437–438; Ehrmann’s map of
Allgemeine Welthistorie (Baumgarten and humankind, 391– 392; founders of field-
Semler), 273 work in, 459n2; four-field approach, 8,
Altaic languages, 111, 190–191 435, 460n10; in France, 395– 398; Herd-
“Amenities” (Kollár), 315– 316 er’s contributions to, 322, 324; institu-
America. See United States of America tionalization in America, 435–436; in
American Anthropological Association nineteenth-century Germany, 424–
(a a a), 422, 433 425; and psychology, 377– 379; relation-
American Association for the Advance- ship to ethnography, 303– 304, 454–458;
ment of Science (a a as), 422 relationship to ethnology, 347, 365– 366,
American Ethnological Society (aes), 379– 392, 393, 420–423, 451–452; shifts in
406–407, 418, 419, 421–422, 433 definition of, 357– 359, 450–451; Tylor’s
American Indians. See Native Americans “culture” and, 428–430; van Hoorn’s
American Museum of Natural History typology of, 363– 364; varied approaches
(amnh), 431–432, 513n45 during the Enlightenment, 393– 394;
Amman, Johann, 123, 125 varieties of, 4– 6, 270– 271
amnh. See American Museum of Natural Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter
History (amnh) (Asad), 24
Ampère, André-Marie, 18, 19, 398, 400 “Anthropology in Colonial Contexts”
Amur peoples, 165–166, 206 (Vermeulen), 25, 202
anatomical anthropology, 363, 364 antislavery movements, 388, 419
Ancient Society (Morgan), 408 Antropologium de hominis dignitate, natura,
Andersen, Jürgen, 197, 284 et proprietatibus (Hundt), 360
Anderson, Benedict, 29, 327 Anuchin, Dmitrii Nikolai’evich, 409
Andreev, Aleksandr, 167, 168 apes (simians), 367– 368, 371, 380, 393, 421
Anna Ivanovna (1693–1740), Empress of apodemics, 15, 22, 230– 236, 399. See also
Russia, 136, 140, 141, 156, 160, 214, 475n12 scientific expeditions(s); traveling, art of
antiracism, antiracial, 424, 433, 435, 454 App, Urs, 219
Anthropologia nova (Drake), 358 Apraksin, Count Fedor Metveyevich,
Anthropological Institute of Great Brit- 134, 138
ain and Ireland, 7 aps. See Aborigines Protection Soci-
Anthropological Institute of London, 421 ety (aps)
Anthropological Institute of New York, Aptekarskii Prikaz (Moscow), 46, 60, 61
422 Aquinas [Aquino], Thomas, 328
anthropological societies, 6–10, 14, 16, 35, Arabia Felix (Yemen), 222, 241, 248– 249
395– 397, 420–422 Arabia Expedition. See Danish-German
Anthropological Society of London Arabia Expedition
(asl), 6 Arabic language, 247– 250
Anthropological Society of Washington Aramaic (Hamito-Semitic) languages, 64,
(asw), 422 66, 73– 75, 247
Anthropologie abstracted (unknown), 361 Arca Noae (Hornius), 366
Anthropologie der Naturvölker (Waitz), 424 archaeology, 225– 226, 487n14
690 Index
Archenholtz, Johann Wilhelm von, 335– Barton, Benjamin Smith, 331, 401, 403,
336, 337 406, 440
Areskine, Robert [Erskine], 46, 55, 59– 60, Bashkirs, 174, 197
84, 113, 116–117, 118, 472n64 Bastian, Adolf, 2, 11, 32– 33, 346, 424–425,
Aristotle [Aristoteles], 359 431, 511n19; as founder of modern eth-
Armenian, 66, 70 nology in Germany, 424–425
Arnold, Matthew, 430 Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences
Arnold, Thomas, 9 (kbg), 306, 410
artificialia, 60, 464n32. See also Kunstsachen; Baudin, Nicolas-Thomas, 395– 396
naturalia Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb, 378
Asad, Talal, 24, 27, 214– 215 Baumgarten, Siegmund Jacob, 273
Ascanius, Peter, 227 Baurenfeind, Georg Wilhelm, 228– 229,
Asch, Georg Thomas Baron von, 139, 310, 382 241, 244
Ashley Montagu, Montague Francis, 31 Bayer, Gottlieb Siegfried [Theophilus
Asia, map of, 88 Sigefridus], 84, 94– 95, 107, 123, 124, 127,
asl. See Anthropological Society of Lon- 129, 135, 157
don (asl) Bayle, Pierre, 100
asw. See Anthropological Society of Becanus, Johannes Goropius [Jan van
Washington (asw) Gorp], 72, 73
Athenaion politeia (Aristotle), 359 Beck, Hanno, 114, 211
Atlas ethnographique du globe (Balbi), 397 Beckmann, Johann, 224
Atlasov, Vladimir Vasil’evich, 91, 92, 95 Beiträge zur Völker-und Länderkunde
Atlas Russicus (Delisle et al.), 184 (journal), 12, 15, 334, 335, 337
Aubriet, Claude, 230 Beke, Charles Tilstone, 404
Aurivillius, Carl, 226 Bekovich-Cherkasskii, Alexander, 116
Austrian naval expeditions, 342– 343 Bel, Mattthias [Matej Bel, Mátyás Bél],
Avramov, Mikhail Petrovich, 162 164, 328, 354, 446, 479n55
Belaj, Vitomir, 318– 319
Baack, Lawrence, 255 Bell, David, 330
ba as. See British Association for the Bell, John, 117, 472n66
Advancement of Science (ba as) Bendyshe, Thomas, 7, 360, 361, 372, 421
Bachofen, Johann Jakob, 2, 5, 424 Benfey, Theodor, 79–80
Bacmeister, Hartwig Ludwig Christian, Benz, Ernst, 55
135, 309 Benzenhöfer, Udo, 361
Bacmeister, Johann Vollrath, 160 Berchtold, Leopold Graf von, 399
Bacon, Francis, 51, 57, 95, 170, 258 Berckhan, Johann Christian, 144, 152,
Baddeley, John F., 471n49 163, 167
bae. See Bureau of American Ethnol- Berezov (1593), 91, 186, 212
ogy (bae) Berger, G., 19, 397
Baer, Karl Ernst von, 409–410 Berger, Theodor, 498n74
Bakhrushin, Sergei, 92, 148, 491n78 Berggren, Lars, 228– 229, 241
Balbi, Adriano, 10, 32, 346, 397 Berghaus, Heinrich Karl Wilhelm, 339, 423
Baldaeus, Philippus, 106 Bering, Vitus Jonassen, 57, 120, 138–145,
Banks, Joseph, 33, 233, 373 146, 149, 152, 204
Banton, Michael, 41, 44 Bering expeditions. See First Kam-
Barthélemy de Lesseps, Jean Baptiste, 343 chatka Expedition; Second Kamchatka
Barthold, Wilhelm [Vasili Vladimirovich Expedition
Bartol’d], 193 Bering Strait, 476n15
Index 691
Berkhey, Johannes le Francq van, 312– Blintzig, Georg Friedrich, 362
314, 410 Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich: ethno-
Berlin, Andreas, 234 graphic interests of, 381– 383; on human
Berlin, Isaiah, 202 variation, 30, 371– 374, 450; influence on
Berlin Society, 57 Prichard, 414–415; as a monogenesist, 376;
Berlin University, 511n19 naming of “anthropology,” 6, 421, 450;
Bernasconi, Robert, 377 natural history of, 9, 365; Plischke on, 12;
Bernier, François, 367 Prichard on, 420; use of term “Cauca-
Bernoulli, Daniel I, 136 sian,” 506n25; use of travel accounts, 198
Bernoulli, Johann III, 438n99 Blumentrost, Johann Deodat, 116, 118,
Bernoulli, Nicholas II, 136 121, 122
Bernstorff, Johann Hartwig Ernst Frei- Blumentrost, Laurentius, Jr., 105–106, 116,
herr von, 224, 227, 237, 243, 246, 252 118, 134, 135–136, 262
Bertuch, Friedrich Justin, 11, 344, 346 Blumentrost, Laurentius, Sr., 105–106
Beschreibung aller Nationen des Russischen Boas, Franz Uri, 430–436; academic posi-
Reichs (Georgi), 308– 309, 499n87 tions, 431–432, 511n19; anthropologi-
Beschreibung der sibirischen Völker (Müller), cal views of, 453–454; antiracist views of,
172–173, 175, 177–181, 183, 442 424, 454; at the Berlin museum, 432–433;
Beschreibung von Arabien (Niebuhr), 244, as founder of modern anthropology, 2,
254– 255, 256 4, 322, 430–435, 459n2; and the four-field
Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka model, 8; Herder’s influence on, 322; lec-
(Steller), 194–195 tures of, 450; students of (Boasians), 393,
Beyträge zur Thierkenntniß und Völkerbe- 432–433, 453–454
schreibung (Falck), 308 Bochart, Samuel, 72– 73
Bible: genealogies in, 328; Leibniz on, 64– Boddaert, Pieter, 411–412
65; Michaelis’s study of, 246– 250 Bodin, Jean, 327
biblical studies: accounting for human Bodinus [Bode], Gerhard, 133
variety, 366; human races and creation body and soul, 357– 358, 360– 361, 364, 378,
in, 375– 376; linguistics and, 64– 65, 246– 383, 395. See also commercium; duplex
250; Michaelis’s research, 246– 250, 264– natura; homo duplex
265; Schultens’s research, 246– 250 Boemus, Ioannes [Johann Böhm], 201,
Bichurin, Iakinf [Nikita Yakovlevich], 341, 385, 398, 452
469n17 Boerhaave, Herman, 45
Bidloo, Nicolaas, 46 Bogoraz, Vladimir Germanovich [Walde-
Bieder, Robert Eugene, 17, 406, 434 mar Bogoras], 432
Bignon, Abbé Jean-Paul, 67 Bohemia: ethnography in, 350, 449;
Bilfinger [Büllfinger], Georg Bernhard, nationalism in, 324
136 Bohemian language, 288, 290
Billings, Joseph, 309– 310 Bödeker, Hans Erich, 43, 96, 306
Billings-Sarychev Expedition, 309– 310 Böhme, Anton Wilhelm, 108
biological anthropology, 5, 7– 8, 32, 422. Böhme, Jacob, 73
See also physical anthropology Boineburg, Johann Christian von, 42, 43
biology, 506n31. See also natural history Boiste, Pierre-Claude-Victor, 397– 398
Biron [Biren], Ernst Johann von, 475n12 Bolten, Johann Christian, 364
Bismarck, Otto von, 326 Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon (1778–1846),
Black, Joseph Lawrence, 56, 187 French statesman, 412
Blanckaert, Claude, 18–19, 201, 397 Bonaparte, Napoleon (1769–1821), French
Blanke, Horst Walter, 275, 297, 298– 299 statesman, 351, 399
692 Index
Bondt, Jacob de, 371 Büsching, Anton Friedrich, 183, 185, 187,
Bonpland, Aimé, 405 191, 193, 211, 272, 486n7
Bopp, Franz, 423 Buse, Dieter K., 56, 187
Boreel, Jacob, 96 Butterfield, Herbert, 164
Borst, Arno, 72 Büttner, Christian Wilhelm, 80, 83, 84,
Boucher, Jean, 360 236, 288, 371, 381, 383, 496n43
Bougainville, Louis Antoine de, 237, 310, Buxbaum, Johann Christian, 117, 159
342, 343, 345 Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 419
Bouguer, Pierre, 223
Cabanis, Pierre-Jean-Georges, 395
Boulanger, Nicolas Antoine, 321
cabinets of curiosities. See Kunstkamera
Boyle, Robert, 118, 170
Cambridge University (ma), 511n19
Bran, Friedrich Alexander, 353, 423
cameralism, 52, 231, 256, 262, 332, 440. See
Brand, Adam, 96, 121, 148
also mercantilism; utilitarian
Braun, Johannes, 247
Campe, Joachim Heinrich, 10, 12, 347, 421,
Brekle, Herbert E., 193 461n23
Brentjes, Burchard, 126 Camper, Petrus, 5, 370– 371, 376
Breyne, Johann Philipp, 115–116, 118, 121 Canada, 200– 201
Brinton, Daniel Garrison, 409, 435, Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge, 374
460n17, 460n20, 500n97, 512n32, 513n45 Canzler, Friedrich Gottlieb, 336, 337, 338,
Brisson, Roger, 361, 362, 504n7, 504n8 348
Britain, see Great Britain Capella, Galeazzo Flavio [Galeazzo
British Association for the Advancement Capra], 361
of Science (ba as), 6– 7, 420–421 Carey, Daniel, 33
British Perceptions of the World in the Age Carhart, Michael C., 68, 384
of Enlightenment (Marshall and Wil- Carion, Johannes, 298
liams), 438 Carpenter, William Benjamin, 9, 416
Brius, Yakov Vilimovich [Jacob Daniel Carpini, Giovanni da Pian del [Joannes
Bruce], 46, 50, 53 de Plano Carpini], 3
Broberg, Gunnar, 368 Carsten Niebuhr (Wiesehöfer and Coner-
Broca, Paul, 6, 7–8, 10, 421 mann), 254
Brosses, Charles de, 398 Cartesian dualism, 358, 362– 363
Bruce, James, 345 cartography, 146–147, 183–185, 203– 204, 253
Bruyn, Cornelis de, 60, 97, 116, 148 Carus, Friedrich August, 378
Bucher, Gudrun, 95, 166–168, 182, 194, Casas, Bartolomé de las, 3
294, 477n26, 480n62, 499n81 Casmann, Otto, 361, 378
Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte Catherine I (1684–1727), Empress of Rus-
de, 5, 9, 313, 363, 369– 370 sia, 122, 134, 158
Bunzl, Matti, 17, 313– 314, 425 Catherine II [Catherine the Great] (1729–
Burdach, Karl Friedrich, 506n31 1796), Empress of Russia, 58, 92, 137, 272,
Bureau of American Ethnology (bae), 422 306, 309, 335, 382, 492n6, 499n81
Burke, Luke, 9, 416 “Caucasian” (term), 372, 506n25, 508n54
Burnet, Gilbert, 43 Cellarius, Christoph, 112
Burnet, Thomas, 487n14 Celsius, Anders, 223
Burnett, James. See Monboddo, Lord Celto-Scythian languages, 65– 66, 74,
(James Burnett) 466n51
Buryats (Buryat-Mongols), 129, 167, 177, Ceneau, Robert (1483–1560), 360
190, 193, 292 Chambers, Ephraim, 357, 463n20
Index 693
Chamisso, Adelbert von, 310 common good, 42, 47, 51– 52, 81, 331
Chanti. See Khanty comparative ethnology: debated origins
Chaplin, Petr Avramovich [Tschaplin], of, 3; in France, 397; Lafitau’s role in,
139–140, 148 200– 202; Müller’s contributions to, 439
Chappe d’Auteroche, Jean-Baptiste comparative linguistics: in American eth-
[l’abbé Chappe], 499n81 nology, 401–402, 407–408; and bibli-
Chappey, Jean-Luc, 397 cal studies, 247– 250; in ethnography,
Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon, 96, 148, 415, 416; Halle missionaries’ work in,
242 107; Leibniz’s contributions to, 71, 75–
Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de, 81, 288, 440; Messerschmidt’s impact
331, 401–402, 440 on, 128–129; Schlözer’s ethnographic use
Chavannes, Alexandre-César, 11, 19– 20, of, 283– 287; in Schlözer’s methodology,
314– 315, 318, 320– 321, 358, 445–446 288– 294, 300– 301
China, 3, 43, 48, 51, 56, 89, 97, 117, 159, 235 Comte, Auguste, 400, 510n9
Chinard, Gilbert, 404 conceptual history approach, 21– 23, 34– 35,
Chirikov, Aleksei Il’ich, 139, 143, 145, 149, 346, 359, 438–448, 492n1, 500n96
151, 152 Condamine, Charles Marie de La, 178,
Chodowiecki, Daniel, 372 223
Chomsky, Noam, 77 Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de, 405
Christy, Henry, 428 Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Car-
“Circular Letter” (questionnaire), 403–404 itat, marquis de, 14
civil (political) history, 164, 208, 209 Conermann, Stephan, 246, 254
civilization, 430 Coners, Gerhard Julius, 363
Clark, William, 402–403 Congress of Vienna, 351– 352
Clarke, Samuel, 55 “conjectural” research tradition, 320– 321,
Clarkson, Thomas, 388 386, 455
Clark University, 511n19 continuity, principle of (Leibniz), 76– 77
Cluverius, Philippus [Philipp Clüver], 73, Cook, James, 140, 233, 334, 342, 372, 381,
466n51 386– 387
Cobo, Bernabé, 455 Cook expeditions, 15, 233, 235, 310, 334–
Coeurdoux, Gaston-Laurent, 107 335, 342– 343, 372, 381, 386– 387, 411
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 52, 220 Copenhagen University, 251
Cole, Douglas, 32– 33 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 40
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 202 cosmography, 16, 97, 277, 295, 303, 439,
Collectanea etymologica (Leibniz), 80, 98 452, 455
Collection of Voyages and Travels (Harris), Cossacks, 89– 91, 144, 166, 173, 176, 187,
259– 260, 478n32 195, 205
colonialism: and anthropology, 23– 28, 133, Court de Gébelin, Antoine, 398, 406
215– 217, 402–403, 440–442, 449; and Cramer, Christian Carl [Kramer], 228–
ethnography, 261– 264, 266; and ethnol- 229, 237– 238, 241
ogy, 402–403, 449; as factor in Russian Cranz, David, 453
expeditions, 203– 207 Csaplovics, János, 349– 350, 350
Colonial Situations (Stocking), 25, 27 cultural anthropology, 3, 5, 8, 10, 14, 34,
Columbia University, 432–433, 435, 511n19 365– 366, 413, 417, 429–430, 438. See
Columbus, Christopher, 87 also social anthropology; sociocultural
commercium mentis et corporis, 363– 364. See anthropology
also body and soul; duplex natura; homo cultural geography, 255, 491n68
duplex cultural relativism, 433, 435, 454
694 Index
culture(s): Boasian concept of, 454; plu- Delisle [de l’Isle], Guillaume, 56– 57, 138
ralist view of, 434–435; Tylor’s definition Delisle [de l’Isle], Joseph-Nicolas, 123, 136,
of, 429–430 144, 147, 151, 184
culture-conscious, 14–15, 377, 455 Delisle [de l’Isle] de la Croyère, Louis,
cuneiform, 245 144, 145, 151, 184
Cunnison, Ian George, 24 Démeunier, Jean-Nicholas, 398
Cunradi, Johann Gottlieb, 336, 337 Demidov, Grigorii, 152
Cushing, Frank Hamilton, 459n2 Demidov, Nikita, 158
Cuvier, Georges, 5, 122, 396 Deniker, Joseph, 31
Cyclopaedia (Chambers), 357, 463n20 Denmark, 224– 225, 243
“Depictions and descriptions of tribes and
Dahlmann, Dittmar, 148
nations” (Hempel and Geißler), 344
d’Alembert, Jean le Rond, 463n20
De Quatrefages, Armand. See Quatre-
Dänisch-Hallesche Mission, 106
fages, Armand de
Danish-German Arabia Expedition:
De Rohan-Csermak, Geza, 18
compared to Russian expeditions, 266;
Descartes, René, 40, 77, 358
deaths of members, 241; division of
“Description of Siberian peoples” (Mül-
labor, 228– 229; itinerary of, 241– 242;
ler), 155
map of routes, 242; objectives of, 219–
“Description of the Land of Kamchatka”
220, 226, 228– 229, 253; original pur-
(Krasheninnikov), 151, 195
pose of, 246, 248– 249, 250; participants
Destutt de Tracy, Antoine, 395
in, 226– 229; precedents to, 220– 221, 223;
Det lykkelige Arabien (Hansen), 251– 252
preparations for, 221– 222, 224– 226; pro-
Dezhnev, Semen Ivanovich, 55– 56, 92
posed itinerary, 227; reception on return,
A Dictionary of the English Language
243, 245– 246, 251– 252; and Reiske, 239,
(Johnson), 357
240– 241; research instructions, 236– 238;
Diderot, Denis, 358, 463n20
results of, 243– 245, 252– 257, 264– 267;
Dieffenbach, Johann Karl Ernst, 450
and Schlözer, 238– 241
Dieserud, Juul, 10, 353, 457, 504n5, 504n6
Dapper, Olfert, 469n20
Disraeli, Benjamin, 219
Darnell, Regna, 1, 4, 14, 34, 36, 403, 422,
Dobrovský, Josef, 349, 350
425, 430, 432, 434, 435, 453
Donnert, Erich, 154, 472n64, 473n78
Darwin, Charles Robert, 7, 359, 414, 420,
Drake, James, 358
421, 450
drawings (Kunstkamera collection),
Darwinism, 420, 421, 450, 452
161–163
Das Nord-und Ostliche Theil von Europa
Driessen-van het Reve, Jozien J., 50– 51,
und Asia (Strahlenberg), 93, 110–111,
60– 63, 107
123–124
dualism, 340, 358, 362– 363. See also body
Daston, Lorraine, 17
and soul; commercium; homo duplex
Daubenton, Louis-Jean-Marie, 313
Duchet, Michèle, 18, ,201, 311, 358, 369,
Davis, Joseph Barnard, 360, 374
437, 448, 500n94, 504n2
De Angelis, Simone, 304
Dunbar, James, 321, 385, 429
Decas craniorum diversarum gentium (Blu-
Duplex natura, 358. See also body and soul;
menbach), 373– 374
commercium; homo duplex
Decker, Johann Cornelius, 144, 151, 160,
Durkheim, Emile, 2, 3
163
Dutch Republic. See Netherlands
De Gérando [Degérando], Joseph-Marie,
18, 396 Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and
Dekker, Ton, 312 Seventeenth Centuries (Hodgen), 16
Index 695
Ebeling, Christoph Daniel, 406 Erskine, Robert. See Areskine, Robert
Eberhard, Christoph, 109, 472n64 [Erskine]
Eck, Reimer, 224, 225, 239, 245 Eskimos. See Inuits (Eskimos)
Eckhart, Johann Georg [Eccard], 63, 80 esl. See Ethnological Society of Lon-
École d’Anthropologie de Paris, 7 don (esl)
Edwards, William Frédéric, 9, 417, 419– Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations
420, 450, 452, 453, 512n35 (Voltaire), 14
Effert, F. R., 410, 413, 499n80, 511n21 An Essay Concerning Human Understand-
Egypt, 221, 223, 227, 234, 241, 253– 255 ing (Locke), 40
Ehrmann, Marianne (née Brentano), 345 “Essay on Intellectual Education” (Cha-
Ehrmann, Theophil Friedrich, 336, 337, vannes), 314
338, 339, 344– 347, 391– 392, 412, 457, Ethica Nicomachea (Aristotle), 359
461n21 ethnic diversity, xiv, 30, 208, 266, 319, 321.
Ekkard, Friedrich, 312, 348 See also national diversity; Völkervielfalt
Elementa anthropologiae (Teichmeyer), 358 ethnic groups, 29, 31– 32, 139, 263, 279,
Elert, Aleksandr Christianovich, 22, 132, 284, 456
176, 177–180, 182 ethnic history, 164, 208, 209. See also his-
toria ethnica; historia gentium
Elizaveta Petrovna (1709–1762), Empress
ethnicity, xiv—xv, 257, 325, 331, 441,
of Russia, 156, 214
462n35; difference between race and,
emic behavior analyses, 34– 36
28– 32; language in classification, xv,
empire. See colonialism
209. See also ethnic diversity; national
empiricism/empirical, 14, 27, 35, 40, 44, 85,
diversity
99, 102, 115, 168, 170–171, 199– 200, 207–
ethnic psychology, 424
211, 262– 263, 270, 279, 293, 319, 324, 331–
ethnobotanical fieldwork, 231
332, 335, 353, 359, 378, 399, 435, 442, 453,
ethnocentrism, 87, 351– 352, 368
456, 498n73, 509n63
ethno-critical method, 299– 301
encyclopedias, 53–54, 60, 340– 342, 347,
ethnographia/ethnographie: first uses of
357, 379, 416, 463n20
term, 10, 260, 269– 270, 276– 283, 346,
Encyclopédie (Diderot), 349, 358, 378, 398,
461n23; Gatterer’s use of, 303– 304;
463n20, 503n135, 504n3
Schlözer’s use of, 260, 269– 270, 279, 285,
Enets. See Samoyeds (Enets, Nenets, 296, 299– 301; terminological develop-
Selkup) ment of, 446–447. See also ethnography
Engelmann, Godefroy, 19, 397 ethnographic method, 20, 231, 269– 270,
Engels, Friedrich, 424 279– 280, 299– 301, 324, 347, 353, 414,
England. See Great Britain 443–444
Enlightenment: anthropology during, Ethnographic Museum (St. Petersburg),
393– 394; beginning of, 100; ending of, 63, 408–409
351; ethnos-terms developed during, 446– ethnographic museums, 426–427
448; genesis of ethnography during, 22, ethnographic societies, 7, 8– 9, 420
437–438; German universities’ role in, ethnographic tradition, xxii, 23, 28, 37, 395,
99–104, 221, 322, 329– 330; natural law 423–425, 433–434, 435, 449, 455–456
theory in, 328– 329; in Russia, 59 Ethnographische Bildergallerie (Ehrmann),
epistemic shift, 9, 339. See also paradig- 11–12, 345– 346, 355, 461n21, 503n125
matic shift(s) Ethnographisches Archiv (journal), 353, 423
Erpenius, Thomas [Thomas van Erpe], Ethnographische Schriften (Müller), 182
247 ethnography: academic chairs in, 409,
Ersch, Johann Samuel, 348 511n19; Academic Expedition’s contri-
696 Index
butions to, 306– 309; classifications of, ethnological societies, 4, 6–10, 16, 35, 416–
340; and colonialism, 216– 217, 260– 264, 422, 450. See also individual societies
266, 440–442; early Russian contrib- Ethnological Society of London (esl),
utors to, 93– 95; early Swedish studies 6– 7, 407, 416, 418
of Siberia, 108–112; Ehrmann’s survey ethnology: academic chairs in, 511n19,
of, 345– 347; eighteenth-century devel- 513n45; American historical views of, 14–
opment stages of, 437–438; in France, 17; Boas’s work in, 430–435; and colo-
396– 399; and geography, 277; German nialism, 216– 217; conceptualization of
roots of, 202– 203, 207– 209; Halle mis- ethnos-terms, 443–448; debates on ori-
sionaries’ early work in, 106–107; Herd- gins of, 3, 10–13; developmental stages
er’s view of, 322; institutionalization of, 1– 2, 437–438; Ehrmann’s survey of,
of, 408–410, 435–436; Kant’s omission 345– 347; in France, 395– 399; German
of, 377; Leibniz’s contribution to, 79– roots of, 4, 203, 207– 209, 338; Herd-
81; Messerschmidt’s impact on, 115, 119, er’s relativist view of, 321– 325; historical-
127–130; Müller’s impact on, 131–132, 171, geographical approaches to, 111–112;
183, 209– 212, 262– 264, 438–442; Müller’s institutionalization of, 435–436; Kant’s
methodology, 164–170; and nationalism, omission of, 377; Leibniz’s contribu-
352– 353; in the Netherlands, 410–414; tions to, 85; Müller’s contributions to,
Niebuhr’s work in, 252– 260, 264– 267; 131–132, 199; and nationalism, 350– 351;
in the nineteenth century, 349– 353, and natural law theory, 328– 329; in the
423–425; portrayed in encyclopedias, Netherlands, 411–414; in the nineteenth
340– 342; relationship to anthropology, century, 349– 353; relation to ethnogra-
379– 392, 454–458; relationship to eth- phy, 319; relationship to anthropology,
nology, 319; relationship to geography, 6–10, 365– 366, 379– 392, 393, 420–423,
303– 306, 339– 340, 341– 342; role of diver- 451–452; relationship to geography, 339–
sity in emergence of, 329– 333; Schlöz- 340, 341– 342, 411, 413; renaming pro-
er’s influence on, 347– 349, 353; spread cess in, 420–423; research on the early
of German studies in, 448–450; stages history of, 17– 23; Russian contribu-
in formation of, 1– 2; Steller’s work in, tors to, 196–197; Schlözer’s influence on,
194–196; systematic distinct from broad, 347– 349, 353; spread of German stud-
453; and travel accounts, 198–199, 270; ies in, 448–450; and travel accounts, 270;
Tylor’s “culture” and, 428–430; unique- Tylor’s “culture” and, 428–430; unique-
ness of German tradition, 455–457; vary- ness of German tradition, 455–457; in
ing definitions of, 9, 10, 415–417. See also the United States, 400–408; varying
ethnographia/ethnographie conceptions of, 8–10, 415–417, 445–446,
ethnográphiai, 350 448, 450–458. See also comparative eth-
ethnolinguistics, 77, 321. See also Leibniz, nology; ethnologia/ethnologie
Gottfried Wilhelm; Schlözer, August ethnos (plural ethnē), xiv—xv, 22, 30, 79,
Ludwig 206, 277, 278– 280, 314, 328, 359, 366
ethnologia/ethnologie: Chavannes’s use and ethnos-terms, 22; development of, 34– 35,
definition of, 314– 315, 318; early usage of, 278– 280, 443–447, 454–456; in Schlözer’s
10; German roots of, 203, 207– 209; Kol- work, 270, 300; Stagl’s use of, 34– 35, 298,
lár’s use and definition of, 315– 321; ter- 435, 462n33, 492n2
minological development, 443–447; Ethographia mundi (Olorinus), 13, 461n26,
varying concepts of, 445–446. See also 461n2
ethnology etic behavior analyses, 34
ethnological journals, 334– 339, 344, etnográfia, 349
448–449 etnografiia, 409–410, 482n80
Index 697
etymology, 75, 78– 79, 467n64 Fischer, Johann Eberhard: criticism
Euler, Leonhard, 46, 136, 185 of Russian conquest, 157; expedition
Eurasia, map of, 88 research instructions, 167–170; his-
Eurocentrism, 351– 352, 368 torical work of, 186–187; influence on
Europe: development of ethnology in, Schlözer, 281, 294, 482n85; as Kam-
8–10; during the Seven Years’ War, 225; chatka expedition member, 144, 152–153;
nationalism in, 350– 352. See also specific Strahlenberg’s influence on, 111; work on
countries “Vocabularium Sibiricum,” 187–194, 191;
Evans-Pritchard, Edward, 3, 24 writings of, 155
Even language, 469n25 Fleischer, Dirk, 298
evolutionism: and comparative ethnology, Flora Sibirica (Gmelin), 163
414; and cultural relativism, 435; and Fokke Simonszoon, Arend, 412
founding of anthropology, 2, 5; intro- folklore, folklore studies, xiv—xv, 5, 311–
duction of, 7, 450 314, 354, 460n9. See also Volkskunde
Evreinov, Ivan, 57 folk-lore (concept), 313
expeditions. See Danish-German Ara- Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de, 82
bia Expedition; scientific expeditions; Forschungsreise. See scientific expeditions
Second Kamchatka Expedition; First Forschungsreise durch Sibirien, 1720–1727
Orenburg Expedition; Bougainville; (Messerschmidt), 126
Cook expeditions Forsskål, Peter, 226– 229, 234, 236, 237– 238,
Eyben, Huldreich von, 66 241, 244, 251– 252, 256
Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi, 377 Forster, Georg: criticism of Kant’s
racial theories, 386, 387– 388; division
Fabri, Johann Ernst, 315, 341– 342, 347, of humankind, 389– 390; ethnologi-
445–446 cal journal work, 334, 337; Pacific expe-
Falck, Johan Peter [Falk], 209, 234, 236, ditions, 233, 386– 387; as a polygenesist,
256, 307, 308 376; seven “points” of human origin the-
Falconer, William, 4 ory, 509n66; at the University of Göt-
The Fall of Natural Man (Pagden), 200 tingen, 15
Feder, Johann Georg Heinrich, 386 Forster, Johann Reinhold: ethnographic
Fenton, William, 200 contributions of, 390– 391; ethnological
Ferguson, Adam, 3–4, 320 journal work, 337; influence on Blumen-
Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, 114 bach, 373; Pacific collections of, 381– 382;
Finland, 231 Pacific expeditions, 233, 386– 387; use of
Finno-Ugric (Uralic) languages, 66, 193, Völkerkunde, 15, 286, 332; writings of, 334
290 Forster, Michael, 5
fire of 1747 (Kunstkamera), 160–161, Foucault, Michel, 18, 25, 77
464n32, 473n80, 479n46 four-field model (anthropology), xxiii,
“The First Appearance of the Term Eth- 8, 16, 17, 36, 366, 430, 433, 435, 460n10,
nologie” (de Rohan-Csermak), 18 460n13
First Bering Expedition. See First Kam- four-stage theory, 321. See also stage-like
chatka Expedition progress
First Kamchatka Expedition, 57, 138–141; Fragen an eine Gesellschaft Gelehrter Män-
maps of, 140, 141, 142, 143 ner (Michaelis), 236– 238
First Nations. See Native Americans France: anthropology and ethnology in,
First Orenburg Expedition, 196–197, 262 7–8, 10, 395– 399; during the Enlighten-
Firth, Raymond, 24 ment, 351; medical view of anthropology
Fischer, Hans, 19– 20, 277, 338, 346, 397, 417 in, 358; nationalism in, 330; naval expe-
698 Index
ditions of, 342– 343; use of ethnos-terms 304; image of, 305; Leibniz’s influ-
in, 348 ence on, 288; linking anthropology and
Francke, August Hermann (1663–1727), ethnography, 379; linking ethnogra-
German Pietist, 101, 104–106, 109, 113, phy and geography, 19, 447; synchro-
115 nistic method of, 298, 498n74; use of
Francke, Gotthilf August (1696–1769), Völkerkunde, 1, 20, 260, 277, 302– 305,
German Pietist, 108 339, 443–444
Francke Foundations, 104–106, 105 Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 58
Francq van Berkhey, Johannes le. See Gébelin, Antoine Court de. See Court de
Berkhey, Johannes le Francq van Gébelin, Antoine
Frankenheim, Moritz Ludwig, 423 Geißler, Christian Gottfried Heinrich,
Franklin, Benjamin, 400, 404–405 344
Frazer, James George, Sir, 460n14 General Heads for a Natural History of a
Frederick I Barbarossa, 502n116 Countrey (Boyle), 118, 170
Frederick II, the Great (1712–1786), King Genesis, 72, 328, 366, 375– 376. See also bib-
of Prussia, 103, 225, 502n116 lical studies
Frederick III of Prussia, Elector of Bran- Gens (plural gentes), xv, 29– 30, 316, 318,
denburg, became Frederick I, King in 327– 328, 408, 445, 471n53. See also naród
Prussia, in 1701, 43–44, 99, 102, 470n29 (people); nations (peoples); populus; Volk
Frederick William I (1688–1740), King in (people)
Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg, 103 Geographia sacra (Bochart), 73
Frederik IV (King of Denmark and Nor- Geographical Department (Russia), 184–
way), 106 185, 482n80
Frederik V (King of Denmark and Nor- geographical societies, 409
way), 224, 237 Geographisches Magazin (Fabri), 341
French Geodesic Mission, 223 geography: and anthropology, 379– 380;
French Revolution, 351 of the Arabia Expedition, 253; divisions
Friedrich, Johann, 42 of, 208, 303– 305, 340, 503n130; and eth-
Frijhoff, Willem, 312 nography, 277, 341– 342, 379– 380; and
Frisch, Johann Leonhard, 112, 471n53 ethnology, 339– 340, 411, 413; Müller’s
Fritz, Johann Friedrich, 32, 79, 107 Siberian work in, 183–185; in Russia,
Fück, Johann W., 247, 258 93, 139–143, 183–185, 306, 409–410; and
Furetière, Antoine, 361 travel accounts, 198
George III, King of Great Britain and
Gagarin, Prince Matvei (Matthew), 159 Ireland, 381
Galilei, Galileo, 40 Georgi, Johann Gottlieb, 208, 212, 307,
Galison, Peter, 17 308– 309, 441, 499n87
Gall, Franz Joseph 419 Georgian language, 469n25
Gallatin, Albert, 406, 407, 418 Gérando, Joseph-Marie de. See De
Gama, Vasco da, 87 Gérando, Joseph-Marie
Gärber, Johann Gustav [Gerber], 197 Gerland, Georg, 424
Garber, Jörn, 351 German ethnographic tradition. See eth-
Garvine, Thomas [Garwin, Gerbin], 117, nographic tradition
472n65 Germanic (Frankish) language, 64– 65,
Gascoigne, John, 33 68– 72, 290, 292, 330
Gatterer, Johann Christoph: connection Germany: cameralism in, 52; development
to Schlözer, 348, 443–444; and Cook’s of anthropology, 9–10; development of
expedition, 372; debate with Schlözer, ethnology in, 9–10, 352– 353, 423–425;
Index 699
Germany (continued) Great Nordic Expedition. See Second
diversity in, 329– 330; post-war isola- Kamchatka Expedition
tion of, 17; role of universities during Great Northern War (1700–1721), 47
Enlightenment in, 99–104. See also Holy Griep, Wolfgang, 258
Roman Empire Grimaldi, Claudio Filippo, 43, 48
Eine Geschichte der Neugier (Stagl), 22 Grimm, Jacob, 349, 351, 428
Gesner, Conrad, 73, 79 Grimm, Wilhelm, 349, 428
Gesner, Johann Matthias, 271 Grosier, Jean-Baptiste, 345
global history. See world history Grotefend, Georg Friedrich, 245
Glück, Johann Ernst, 134 Grotius, Hugo, 71, 101, 328, 432, 466n45
Gmelin, Johann Georg: collections from Gruber, Jacob W., 36
expedition, 160, 212; criticism of Russian Gruber, Johann Gottfried, 348
conquest, 157; expedition instructions, Grundlinien der Ethnographie (Berghaus),
137, 145, 146, 167; expedition itinerary, 423
149–151; as expedition member, 144, 147; Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit
expedition results, 153–154, 211– 212; and (Meiners), 14, 383– 385, 510n3
Linnaeus, 368; role in Russian colonial- Gsell, Dorothea Maria Henriette (née
ism, 216; work on Messerschmidt’s col- Graff), 124, 159, 162–163
lections, 123, 125; writings of, 125, 155, Gsell, Georg, 124, 162–163
157, 163 Guelf family, House of Welf, 42–43
Gmelin, Samuel Gottlieb, 307 Guerrier, Wladimir, 50, 55, 58, 68, 84, 440
Gobineau, Joseph Arthur de, 385 Guichard, Étienne, 13, 73
Goclenius, Rudolph, 378 Guilhaumou, Jacques, 400
Godin, Louis, 223 Guillard, Achille, 502n114
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 16, 107 Güldenstädt, Johann Anton, 307
Gogol, Nikolai Vasil’evich, 349 Gulya, János, 188–191, 192–193
Goguet, Antoine-Yves, 398 Gundelsheimer, Andreas, 230
Golius, Jacob [Jacob van Gool], 70, 96, 247 Gyarmathi, Samuel, 349
Gollier, Théophil, 10
Golovkin, Aleksandr Gavriilovich, 112, 134 Haafner, Jacob, 107
Golovkin, Gavriil Ivanovich, 50– 51 Habsburg Empire, 30, 43, 53, 225, 319,
Goodenough, Ward, 34 329, 332
Gorlanov, Aleksei Petrovich, 144, 152 Haddon, Alfred C., 31, 459n2
Göttingen, 221. See also University of Halde, Jean-Baptiste du, 345
Göttingen Hale, Horatio Emmons, 406
Göttingisches historisches Magazin (jour- Hale, Matthew, 71
nal), 384 Halle (Saale), 22, 42, 99–108, 363– 365,
Gottwald, Christoforus, 472n63 470n29. See also University of Halle
Graff, Anton, 325 Halle conference (1996), 22
Grand Tour (Bildungsreise), 44–45 Haller, Albrecht von, 153–154, 224
Grant, Madison, 433 Hallesche Berichte (periodical), 106
Gray, Edward G., 402 Halley, Edmund, 45, 57, 84
Great Britain: changing definitions of “Hallische Bibel,” 249, 490n57
ethnology in, 414–417; development Hallowell, A. Irving, 33– 34, 402, 404, 407
of ethnology in, 9, 10, 348, 404, 449; Ham (Cham), 65, 248, 282, 328, 494n33
founding of societies in, 6– 7; naval Hamann, Johann Georg, 202
expeditions of, 342– 343 Hamito-Semitic (Aramaic) languages, 64,
Great Migration, 282 66, 73– 75, 191, 247, 366
700 Index
Hann, Chris, 314 Hißmann [Hissmann], Michael, 321, 386,
Hansen, Thorkild, 251– 252, 258 398
Harbsmeier, Michael, 351 Histoire naturelle (Buffon), 313, 369– 370
Harris, John, 259– 260, 478n32 historia civilis, 28, 164, 208– 209, 328, 366,
Harris, Marvin, 34, 398 451, 479n53. See also political history;
Hartmann, Robert, 425 Statistik
Hartwig, Friedhelm, 246 historia ethnica, 164, 354, 446, 479n55. See
Harvard University (Cambridge ma), also ethnic history
409, 419, 426, 431, 511n19, 513n45 historia gentium, 171, 208– 209, 328, 354,
Harvey, Richard, 361 438, 446–447. See also ethnic history;
Hasselquist, Fredrik, 222, 232, 234, 256 Völker-Beschreibung
Haven, Frederik Christian von, 226, 228– “De historia gentium” (Müller), 146, 164–
229, 237– 238, 241, 244, 251– 252, 253 165, 171, 205– 206, 211, 261, 354, 479n57
Haym, Rudolf, 323 historia naturalis, 28, 164, 366, 389, 451. See
Hebrew language, 247– 250, 466n47 also natural history; biology
Heckewelder, John [Johann Gottlieb Historia plantarum (Ray), 230
Ernst], 406 historical etymology, historia etymologica,
Heeren, Arnold Hermann Ludwig, 15, 16, 79–80, 194, 293, 331, 354, 439, 467n64
352, 423 historical linguistics: classification result-
Heesen, Anke te, 115, 119, 120, 472n67, ing from, 309; Leibniz’s contribu-
473n71, 474n91 tions to, 79–81, 84–85; Messerschmidt’s
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 14 contributions to, 129; Müller’s use of,
Heilmann, Johann David, 236 439–440; in Schlözer’s methodology,
Heine, Heinrich, 107 288– 294, 300– 301
Helimski, Eugen A., 177, 481n75 historicism, historicist, 25, 33– 34, 36, 353,
Helvétius, Claude-Adrien, 18, 100 456. See also presentism, presentist
Helvétius, Madame (1719–1800), Anne- historicist-emic-paradigmatic approach,
Catherine de Ligniville, 405 35, 456
Hempel, Friedrich Ferdinand, 344 history: development of ethnography in,
Henry, Joseph, 403 208, 447–448, 456–457; ethnographic
Herberstein, Sigmund Freiherr von, 96, method of, 299– 301, 444–445; four
148 methods of, 444; Ranke’s historical-
Herder, Johann Gottfried von: “history of philological method, 353. See also histo-
humankind,” 11, 365, 383, 448; image of, ria gentium; ethnic history; “history of
325; influence of, 5, 430; as a monogene- humankind” study; world history
sist, 376; rejection of race, 376– 377; rel- A History of Anthropology (Mühlmann),
ativist view of ethnology, 321– 325; and 12–13
Schlözer, 20, 348; Vico’s influence on, 202 A History of Curiosity (Stagl), 22
Herodotus, 2, 5, 285, 303 History of Ethnological Theory (Lowie), 14
Hervás y Panduro, Lorenzo, 79 “history of humankind” study, 11, 365– 366,
Hervé, Georges, 397 383, 448
Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich, 11 The History of Kamtschatka and the Kurilski
Hesse, Hermann, 107 Islands (Krasheninnikov), 155
Heyne, Christian Gottlieb, 226, 382 The History of Mankind (Ratzel), 429
Hintzsche, Wieland, 22– 23, 93, 132, 176, Hobbes, Thomas, 40, 328
178, 180, 182, 187, 207, 327 Hodgen, Margaret Trabue, 16, 33, 452
Hirsching, Friedrich Karl Gottlob (1762– Hodgkin, Thomas, 404, 416, 418–419
1800), 336, 337, 338 Hoffmann, Friedrich, 102, 115, 147
Index 701
Hoffmann, Peter, 132, 184–185, 187, 207, Imperial Eyes (Pratt), 25
213, 441, 477n20, 478n39 imperialism. See colonialism
Hogendorp, Willem van, 410 Imperial Russian Geographical Society,
Holbach, Paul Thiry, Baron d’, 405 409–410
“holism” (four-field model), 460n10, India: Halle missionaries in, 106–107
550n14 Indians, see North American Indians
holistic anthropology, approach, study, Indo-European language family, 64, 71,
model, xv, xxiii, 6, 7, 8, 323, 360, 365, 379, 73, 190
380, 422–423, 435, 454, 512n31 Indonesia, 410, 412–414
Holland. See Netherlands Inner Eurasia, map of, 88
Holy Roman Empire: after the Congress inorodtsy, 206, 442, 468n15, 485n114
of Vienna, 352; biblical genealogies in, inovertsy, 94, 205– 206, 332, 442, 468n15
328; cameralism in, 52; diversity in, 29– inozemtsy, 206, 332, 442
30, 329– 330; end of, 502n116. See also Instructio peregrinatoris (Linnaeus), 233,
Germany 236
Home, Henry. See Kames, Lord International Union of Anthropological
homo sapiens, 367– 368, 371, and Ethnological Sciences (iuaes), 36
homo duplex, 395. See also body and soul; Inuits (Eskimos), 371– 372, 389, 391, 431
commercium; duplex natura Iokhel’son, Vladimir Ilyich [Waldemar
Hoorn, Tanja van, 361– 366 Jochelson], 432
Hoquet, Thierry, 369 Iroquois, 407
Hornius, Georgius [Georg Horn], 98, 366 Irwin, Robert, 219
Howgego, Raymond, 114 Isaac, Benjamin, 374
Huigen, Siegfried, 26 Iselin, Isaak, 14, 315, 321, 383, 385, 429
Hull seminar (1972), 24 Iselin, Johann Christoph, 483n93
human rights, 329, 348, 386 Isker, 468n4
Humboldt, Alexander von, 58, 396, 405 Israel, Jonathan, 100
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 13, 79, 349, 351, Istoriia Orenburgskaia (Rychkov), 196–197
423 Itelmens (Kamchadals), 152, 195–196, 211
Hume, David, 40, 376, 380 Its, Rudolf, 161
Hundt, Magnus, 7, 360, 421 iuaes. See International Union of
Hungary, 349– 350 Anthropological and Ethnological Sci-
Hunt, James, 6, 7, 314, 420, 421 ences (iuaes)
Hunter, John, 5, 411, 414 Ivan III Vasil’evich (Ivan the Great,
Huxley, Julian Sorell, 31 1440–1505), Grand-Duke of Muscovy,
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 421 89– 90
Hymes, Dell, 24 Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible, Ivan Grozni)
(1530–1584), Tsar of all Russias, 90
Ibn Khaldūn, 459n3
Ivan VI Antonovich (1740–1764), Emperor
Ice Palace (mock wedding), 159–160
of Russia, 156
Ideen (Herder), 323– 324, 448
Iversen, Volquard, 197
Idéologues, 385, 395, 418, 449, 457
Ides, Eberhard Isbrand [Isebrands] [Evert Jacob, Margaret C., 100
Ysbrants Ides], 96, 97, 121, 148, 197, Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 387
469n22 Jahn, Ilse, 114, 117, 124, 126, 472n64
Ihre, Johan [Iohannis], 271, 286 James, Richard, 469n24
Imperial Academy of Sciences. See Acad- Japan, 476n18
emy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) Japheth, 65, 74, 328
702 Index
Japhetic languages, 64– 66, 73– 75, 248, 282 [Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences]
Jarosch, Günther, 126, 127–129 (kbg)
Jauffret, Louis-François, 18, 385, 396, 510n3 Kennedy, John, 9
Jefferson, Thomas, 400–401, 402–405, Kennicott, Benjamin, 245
405, 440 Khabarov, Yerofei Pavlovich, 92
Jefferson and the Indians (Wallace), 401 Khan, Abu’l Ghazi Bahadur (ca. 1603–
Jena. See University of Jena 1663), Tatar Khan and historian, 110
Jenisch, Daniel, 14, 383 Khan, Batu (ca. 1207–1255), Mongolian
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 431–432 supreme chief, 89
Johnson, Samuel, 331, 357 Khan, Genghis [Chinggis] (1206–1227),
Jomard, Edme-François, 19 Mongolian supreme chief, 89
Jones, William, 75, 107 Khan, Ogedei (1227–1241), Mongolian
Juan y Santacilia, Jorge, 223 supreme chief, 89
Judaic and Muhammedan Institute, 108 Khanty language, 190, 193, 291
Jungmann, Josef Jakub, 350 Khantys and Mansis, 66, 110, 177, 190, 212,
468n3
Kachenovsky, Mikhail, 349 King, Richard, 9, 19, 404, 416, 418
Kaempfer [Kämpfer], Engelbert, 114, 148 kinship studies, 407–408
Kall, Johan Christian, 227 Kirilov, Ivan Kirilovich, 138, 146–147, 184,
Kalm, Pehr, 233, 234, 236, 256 196, 206, 207, 262, 441
Kalmar, Ivan, 434 Kitchi-Gami (Kohl), 434
Kalmyk language, 469n25 Klaproth, Julius, 474n90
Kalmyks (Oirats), 109, 128–129, 172, 177, Klatt, Norbert, 370, 505n20, 505n26,
197, 292, 308, 411 506n28, 507n44, 508n54
Kamchadals (Itelmens). See Itelmens Kleine Schriften (Forster), 390
(Kamchadals) Klemm, Gustav Friedrich, 14, 423–424,
Kamchatka, 151–152, 192, 194–196 428
Kamchatka Expeditions. See First Kam- Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 224
chatka Expedition; Second Kamchatka Kluckhohn, Clyde, 14–15, 383
Expedition Knight, Nathaniel, 95, 409–410, 468n15,
Kames, Lord [Henry Home], 4, 376, 380, 485n114
408 Kohl, Johann Georg, 434
Kant, Immanuel: conception of Men- Kohl, Johann Peter, 133
schenkenntnis, 378; critics of racial theo- Köhler, Johann Tobias, 237
ries, 386, 388, 509n63; physical geography, Kolb, Peter, 26, 453
379– 380; on race, 30, 367, 450; racial theo- Kollár, Adam František: connection to
ries of, 374– 375, 377, 388; role in founding Schlözer, 348; image of, 317; Schlözer’s
of anthropology, 5, 6, 324; silence on eth- influence on, 217– 218, 270, 445; use and
nographie, 340– 341; on Wolff’s motto, 102 definition of ethnologia, 1, 20, 30, 217–
Karamzin, Nikolai Michailovich, 349 218, 315– 321
Karpeev, Engel Petrovich, 478n39 Kon, Ronald E., 258
Kasteele, Reinier Pieter van de, 412 Königsberg, 375
Kästner [Kaestner], Abraham Gotthelf, Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap
80, 83, 227, 236, 273, 288 voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen (kbg),
Katz, Hartmut, 177 306, 410
Kazan, 58, 89– 90, 113, 172–175, 307– 308 Koolhaas-Grosfeld, Eveline, 312– 313
kbg. See Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genoot- Kosven, Mark, 168
schap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen Kotzebue, Otto von, 310
Index 703
Krafft, Georg Wolfgang, 479n57 Lapland, 223, 231
Kraft, Jens, 321 Lapps (Sami or Sámi). See Sami
Krasheninnikov, Stepan Petrovich, 144, Lausanne, 314, 320, 355, 447, 515
149, 151, 155, 160, 166–167, 195, 480n61 Lausizisches Wochenblatt (journal), 337
Kratzenstein, Christian Gottlieb, 227, 237 Lavater, Johann Caspar, 419
Kroeber, Alfred Louis, 14–15, 383 Lawrence, William, 5, 376
Krug, Wilhelm Traugott, 341, 379– 380 Laxmann, Erik Gustavovich, 411
Krüger, Johann Gottlob, 363, 364 Lazarus, Moritz, 424, 513n40
Krusenstern, Adam Johann von, 310 Leach, Edmund, 202
Kuhn, Thomas S., 35, 452 Lefort, François Jacques [Franz Yakovlev-
kunde, 501n101 ich Lefort], 48
Kunstkamera, 46, 58– 63, 85, 115–116, 136, Leguebe, André, 10
145, 157–163; aim of the Academic Expe- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: achievements
ditions, 306; Billings-Sarychev col- of, 39–40, 55–58; classification of lan-
lections, 310; division of collections guages, 64–66, 65, 73– 75; historical lin-
in, 158–159, 408–409; Ethnographic guistics of, 293, 439–440; image of, 82;
Museum in, 408–409; fire of 1747, 160– influence of, 80–81, 83–85, 111–112, 194,
161, 441, 464n32, 473n80, 479n46; images 287–289, 401; influence on Schlözer, 284–
of, 61, 62; Kamchatka collections, 160– 285, 287–289, 300–301; interest in “origins
162, 441; scientific illustrating of, 162–163; of nations,” 66–68, 71– 72, 76– 77; linguis-
Messserschmidt’s collections, 118–123; tic studies of, 40, 52, 467n67; methodology
Müller’s instructions to collect for the, of, 76–80; motives for linguistics studies,
163, 176; Seba collection, 464n32. See also 68– 72; and natural law theory, 29; para-
Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) digmatic shifts, 452; and Peter the Great,
Kunstsachen, 60, 158, 162, 465n33, 479n50 39–40, 47–51, 52–55, 56–58, 138, 440; philos-
Kuper, Adam J., 25, 36, 407–408 ophy of, 40, 41, 50–52; on protolanguages,
Kutter, Uli, 312 72– 76, 466n47; and Wolff, 102; writings of,
63–64, 80, 81, 83, 462n11, 467n64
Laboratoire d’Anthropologie, 7 Leiden, University of, 247, 413, 511n19
La Croze, Mathurin Veyssière de, 94 Leipzig, University of, 99, 103, 135–136,
Länderkunde, 303, 333– 335, 340, 350, 354, 378– 379
377, 388, 390, 448. See also geography Lemay, Edna, 398
Laet, Johannes de, 71, 98 Lepekhin, Ivan Ivanovich, 196, 307
Lafitau, Joseph-François, 3, 132, 148, 200– Lerche, Jakob Johann, 113–114
201, 202, 365– 366, 439 Leshchinskii, Filofei, 109–110
Lakatos, Imre, 35, 452 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 16
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste de, 506n31 Levaillant, François. See Vaillant, Fran-
Lambecius, Petrus [Peter Lambeck], 316 çois le
Lange, Lorenz, 96, 116, 117, 121, 148, 159, 165 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 3, 425
Langsdorff, Georg Heinrich von, 310 Lewis, Herbert S., 23– 25, 433
language(s): and classification of peoples, Lewis, Meriwether, 402–403
64– 66, 266– 267; Leibniz’s philosophy Lewis and Clark Expedition, 402–404
on, 40–41; Leibniz’s work with, 39–41; Lhuyd, Edward, 487n14
as marker of ethnicity, 32, 209, 331– 332; Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph, 341, 405,
of the Russian Empire, 331– 332. See also 419
etymology; linguistics Lindenau, Jacob Johann, 144, 155, 193
La Pérouse, Jean Francois de Galoup, Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia compar-
Comte de, 342– 343 ativa (Pallas), 309
704 Index
linguistics: in America, 406; in biblical Madison, James, 404, 406
studies, 247– 250; early Swedish stud- Magazin der Erd-und Völkerkunde (jour-
ies, 111–112; and ethnography, 413, 456– nal), 336
457; Halle missionaries’ early work in, Magazin für die neue Historie und Geogra-
106–107; Leibniz’s contributions to, 58, phie (Büsching), 486n7
84–85; Leibniz’s language studies, 63– Magellan, Ferdinand, 87
72; Leibniz’s program, 52, 72–81; Mess- magnetism, 50, 55, 58, 84
erschmidt’s contributions to, 128–129; Maine, Henry James Sumner, 2, 5
“Vocabularium Sibiricum,” 188–194. Malaspina, Alessandro, 343– 344
See also comparative linguistics; eth- “Malayan” (Blumenbach’s variety), 373
nolinguistics; etymology; historical Malinowski, Bronislaw, 2, 459n2
linguistics mammoth (mammut), 94, 97, 121–122, 404,
Linnaeus, Carolus [Carl von Linné]: eth- 469n24, 473n73–473n76, 511n13
nographic interests of, 255– 256; on Mandelslo, Johann Albrecht von, 197
humankind as a species, 359, 363; influ- Mangazeya (1601), 91, 119, 149, 177, 290
ence on Schlözer, 283– 284, 293, 300– 301; manners and customs, study of, xv, 5, 35,
on Mylius, 224; racial classification, 32, 85, 98, 109, 146, 166, 168, 170, 174–176,
367– 369, 388; role in scientific expedi- 178, 180, 200– 201, 204– 205, 207, 209,
tions, 220, 230– 236; writings of, 488n26 220, 236, 238, 246, 251– 253, 255, 257, 260–
Linnaeus apostles, 232– 236, 255– 256, 308, 261, 264, 265, 267, 306, 308, 321, 333, 341,
369, 443 385, 398, 410–411, 415, 440, 452–453, 455–
Litke, Fedor Petrovich, 409 456, 499n81. See also morals; Sitten
Litteratur und Völkerkunde (journal), 335– Mansi language, 66, 121, 190, 290, 469n25
336, 337 Mansis. See Khantys and Mansis
Liverpool, 460n14 maps: of Asia, 88; Danish-German Ara-
Locke, John, 33, 40, 68, 75, 100 bia Expedition, 242; First Kamchatka
Löfling, Pehr, 232, 234 Expedition, 140–141, 142–143; of the
Loizos, Peter, 24 Kamchatka Peninsula, 192; Second
Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasil’evich, 95, 156– Kamchatka Expedition, 150. See also
157, 160, 185, 306, 478n39 cartography
Long, George, 416 Marsden, William, 448
Louis XIV (1710–1774), King of France, Marshall, Peter James, 438
223, 343 Martin, Anton Rolandsson, 234
Lowie, Robert Harry, 14, 383, 424 Martini, Nikolaus, 118
Marulić, Marko, 377– 378
Lowitz, Georg Moritz, 307
Marx, Karl, 424, 434
Lowth, Robert, 490n59
Mason, Otis Tufton, 422
Lubach, Douwe, 513n40
masquerade (Ice Palace), 159–160
Lubbock, John, Sir, 6– 7, 420
Massa, Isaac, 96, 148
Lüders, Joann, 158
Maupertuis, Pierre, 223
Ludolf, Heinrich Wilhelm, 48, 113
May, Karl, 434
Ludolf, Hiob, 66, 70– 71, 222, 249
Mayer, Tobias, 227, 236
Lürsenius, Johann Wilhelm, 144, 160, 163
McLennan, John Ferguson, 2, 5
Luther, Martin, 99
Meckel, Johann Friedrich, 370
Lutz, Gerhard, 311– 312, 315
medical anthropology, 358, 363, 364, 365
Luzhin, Fedor, 57
Medical Collegium (Meditsinskaya Kol-
Lyell, Charles, 428
legiya), 116, 122
Mader, Josef, 311, 350 medical studies, 358, 360
Index 705
Meertens, Pieter, 312 211; publications of, 486n7; purpose
Megiser, Hieronymus, 79 for expedition, 222, 246, 248– 249, 250;
Meijer, Miriam Claude, 370– 371, 504n5, reception of expedition results, 245– 246,
505n17, 505n20, 506n22 251– 252; research goals of, 264– 265; and
Meiners, Christoph: in the classical Schlözer, 238– 241, 272, 300– 301; view of
period, 13, 14; and history of peoples, peoples (compared to Niebuhr’s), 257, 258
321, 365, 383; influence of, 396; as a poly- Michaelis, Johann Heinrich, 108, 249
genesist, 376, 390; racial hierarchy of, Michelet, Jules, 202
384; study of travel accounts, 198; use of Migrationes gentium (Leibniz), ), 63, 66,
term “Caucasian,” 508n54; writings of, 69, 465n40
510n3 migration of peoples: the Great Migra-
Meisner, Balthasar, 362 tion, 282; Leibniz’s study of, 66– 69, 71,
Melanchthon, Philipp, 377– 378 74, 76; and populating of the Americas,
“Memorabilia Russico-Asiatica” 466n45, 476n15; Schlözer’s study of, 284,
(Schober), 113–114 296, 444
Mencke, Johann Burckhard, 133, 207 Millar, John, 4
Mencke, Otto, 102, 338 The Mind of Primitive Man (Boas), 433
Menshikov, Aleksandr Danilovich, 46, missionaries, 105–108
47, 134 modern anthropology, 430–436
mercantilism, 52, 87. See also cameralism; modern ethnology, 424–425
utilitarian Moeurs des sauvages Amériquains (Lafitau),
Mercator, Gerardus, 148 200
Merck, Carl Heinrich, 309– 310, 443, Mokha, 241
500n90 Möller, Helmut, 311
Merian, Maria Sibylla, 162 Monboddo, Lord (James Burnett), 4, 380
Messerschmidt, Daniel Gottlieb: back- Mongolian language, 190, 193, 469n25
ground of, 115–116; criticism of Russian Mongols and Mongolia, 88–89, 96– 97,
conquest, 157; expedition goals, 117–119; 109, 128–129, 283, 292, 306– 308, 374, 384,
expedition instructions, 116, 203, 261; 389, 411
expedition itinerary, 119–120, 122; expe- monism, 40
dition preparation, 112; as a Forschun- monogenesis, 375– 376, 388, 414, 421
gsreisender, 113–114; impact of, 88, 94, 115, Montagu. See Ashley Montagu
124–130, 147, 148; influence on Müller, Montaigne, Michel de, 3
132, 148, 172; Leibniz’s influence on, 80, Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat,
84; methodology of, 120–122, 181; recep- baron de, 3, 13, 40, 202
tion on return, 122–124; recommended moral anthropology, 362
to Tsar Peter, 472n64; results of expedi- morals, concept of, 35, 380; study of, 29,
tion, 473n78; role in Russian colonial- 165, 172, 201, 378, 403, 412, 430, 437, 448,
ism, 26; writings of, 472n62, 473n81 452, 477n23. See also manners and cus-
Metternich, Klemens Wenzel von, 351, 352 toms; Sitten
Metzger, Johann Daniel, 509n63 Moravia, Sergio, 18
Michaelis, August Benedict, 70, 288 Morgan, Lewis Henry, 2, 5, 407–408, 424
Michaelis, Christian Benedict, 108, 249 Moritz, Karl Philipp, 363
Michaelis, Johann David: on Bochart’s Morosko, Luka Semenov, 92
thesis, 73; expedition instructions, 236– Morton, Samuel George, 408
238; expedition preparations, 224– 225, Moscow: Aptekarskii Prikaz, 46, 60, 61;
226– 230, 236; Leibniz’s influence on, Halle station in, 105; under Ivan III, 89;
80, 84, 287– 288; Müller’s impact on, Petrine reforms in, 45–46; Sibirskii Pri-
706 Index
kaz, 92; Slavonic Academy, 134–135; 198–199; use of gens and populus, 327;
University of Moscow, 135, 156 work on Messerschmidt’s collections,
Moscow School of Mathematics and 123; writings of, 137, 155, 172–175, 176–181,
Nativation, 45–46 182, 475n13, 481n75
Mosheim, Johann Lorenz (von), 271 Müller, Johann Bernhard, 109, 121, 148
Moskvitin, Ivan Yuryevich, 92 Muller, Kurt, 68
Mosul, 242 Müller, Max [Friedrich Max Müller], 107
Motsch, Andreas, 201 Münchhausen, Gerlach Adolf Freiherr
Mount Sinai, 254 von, 198, 221, 386
Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus, 108 Münster, Sebastian, 16, 452, 439n19
Mühlenberg, Heinrich Melchior, 108 Muscat (Oman)
Mühlmann, Wilhelm E., 12–13, 30, 383 Musée d’Ethnographie (Paris), 426, 427
Mühlpfordt, Günter, 193, 293– 294 Musei Imperialis Petropolitani (M I P ) (cata-
Müller, Friedrich, 423 log), 161–162, 474n84
Müller, Gerhard Friedrich [Muel- Museum für Völkerkunde (Berlin), 424–
ler]: background of, 133, 137; carto- 425, 426
graphic work of, 183–185; collaboration Museum für Völkerkunde (Dresden), 427
with Russian scholars, 196–197; com- Museum für Völkerkunde (Hamburg),
pared to Niebuhr, 257– 261; conflict with 427
Lomonosov, 478n39; criticism of Rus- Museum für Völkerkunde (Leipzig), 424,
sian conquest, 157, 329; critique of Wit- 427
sen’s approach, 99; development of Museum of Anthropology and Ethnogra-
methodology, 171–176; development of phy (St. Petersburg), 63, 432
Völker-Beschreibung, 262– 264; expedi- Museum of Ethnology (Leiden), 413
tion collections, 154–155, 158, 160–161; Museum of Ethnology (Leipzig), 424
expedition intinerary, 149–151; and expe- Museum Sinicum (Bayer), 94, 107, 159,
dition members, 144; expedition prepa- 469n17
rations, 98, 145–146, 147–149; as founder Mylius, Christlob, 224
of ethnography, 132, 252, 263, 327; as his-
torian, 185–186; at the Imperial Acad- “Nachrichten über Völker Sibiriens”
emy, 133, 136–137; influence on French (Müller), 172–173, 176–178, 180, 183
scholars, 399; influence on Pallas, 307– Nadezhdin, Nikolai Ivanovich, 410
308; inspiration for ethnographic work, Napoleon Bonaparte. See Bonaparte,
204– 205, 207– 209; Lafitau’s influence Napoleon
on, 201, 202; legacy of, 171, 181–183, 194, Napoleonic Wars, 339, 351, 353
195, 209– 212, 216– 217; Leibniz’s influ- naród (plural narody), 206, 216, 262, 332,
ence on, 80, 84; linguistic work of, 191– 440, 442
194; Messerschmidt’s influence on, 88, narodniks, 432
125, 129–130; methodology of, 175–181, narodnost’, 206, 410, 442
263; negative reception in Russia, 156– národopis, 350
157; and the Northeast Passage, 56; par- Nartov, Andrei Konstantinovich, 163
adigm shifts, 452; portrayals of, 210, natio (plural nationes), 326
485n118, 485n119; research instructions, national diversity, xiv, 28, 103, 171, 211,
164–170; role in founding of ethnogra- 216, 321, 333, 438, 453, 455. See also ethnic
phy, 1, 22– 23, 27, 131–132, 199, 438–442, diversity; Völkervielfalt
446–447; role in Russian colonization, nationalism, 324– 325, 330, 350– 352
26, 216– 217; and Schlözer, 272, 278, 281, national identity (Nationalcharakter), 322.
294– 295, 301, 443; on travel accounts, See also Volksgeist
Index 707
national spirit (Volksgeist), 314, 322, 424, Newton, Isaac, 40, 45, 53
454, 513n42 Nicolai, Ernst Anton, 364
nations (peoples): xiv–xv, 29, 67; concep- Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, 10, 243, 352,
tual development of, 326– 328; confusion 423, 461n23
with “races,” 29– 32, 370, 450, 512n30; Niebuhr, Carsten: background of, 227;
Niebuhr’s concept of, 257– 260; relation compared to Müller, 260– 261; ethno-
to Volk and state, 325– 333 graphic contributions of, 220, 252– 260,
nation-states, 29, 67, 326, 329– 331, 352– 353, 264– 267; expedition itinerary, 241– 242;
425, 502n118 expedition research instructions, 228–
Native Americans, 200– 201, 400–404, 229, 236– 238; as Forschungsreisende, 114;
407, 434 image of, 259; methodology of, 243;
natural history, xxii, 8, 28, 46, 62, 113, 115– nationality of, 326, 487n20; publications
118, 123, 137, 145–146, 151, 159, 164, 167, 181, of expedition’s results, 244– 246; recep-
183, 212, 221– 226, 228, 230, 232, 237– 238, tion of expedition results, 251– 252; writ-
240, 243, 253, 262, 264, 271, 284, 306, 312– ings of, 489n48
313, 334– 335, 342, 359– 360, 366, 368– 371, Niemann, August Christian Heinrich, 348
373– 374, 376, 383, 387, 389, 393, 401, 403, Noah (biblical figure), 16, 65, 73– 74, 248,
410–411, 414, 418, 420, 427, 441, 451, 455– 328, 366
456. See also historia naturalis; biology Noord en Oost Tartarye (Witsen), 56, 96–
natural history of man, xiv, 6, 9, 312, 365, 98, 411
369, 373– 374, 383, 389– 390, 414–417, 421, Nordblad, Erik Anders, 233, 236, 488n26
450–451. See also anthropology; physical Norden, Frederik Ludvig, 223
anthropology Norrmann, Gerhard Philipp Heinrich, 336
natural history of the human races, 415 Northeast Passage, 55–57, 138–139, 141–142
The Natural History of Man (Prichard), Northwest Passage, 403
414–416 Notitia Hungariae novae historico geograph-
naturalia, 45, 61. See also artificialia; ica (Bel), 164
Natursachen Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement humain
natural law (jus naturae), 302, 328– 329 (Leibniz), 67– 68, 74, 76, 80
Natursachen, 60, 465n33 Nouvelle Carte (Müller’s map), 183–184
naval expeditions, 310, 342– 344 Nouvelles de la République des Lettres
Nenets (previously Yuraks), 290 (Bayle), 100
neo-Kantianism, 425, 430–431 Novalis [Friedrich, Baron von Harden-
Nerchinsk treaty (1689), 92
berg], 107
Nestor, 157, 172, 272, 274, 302, 349, 478n38,
Novissima Sinica (Leibniz), 48, 81
503n136
Novitskii, Grigorii, 109–110, 148
Netherlands: during the Enlightenment,
100; ethnography’s development in, 410– The Observation of Savage Peoples (ques-
414; landen volkenkunde in, 339; Oriental tionnaire), 396
studies in, 246– 247; study of volkskunde Oeder, Georg Christian, 227
in, 312, 348; West and East Indies colo- Old Testament studies. See biblical studies
nies of, 412–414 Olearius, Adam, 96, 148, 197
Neue Beiträge zur Völker-und Länderkunde Olorinus, Johann, 13
(journal), 334, 337, 390 Olsen, Sandermann, 232
Neue Litteratur und Völkerkunde (journal), Opera omnia (Leibniz), 80
335– 336, 337 Orenburg, 196–197
Neue Nordische Beyträge (journal), 335, 337 Orenburg Commission, 196–197
Neues Magazin (journal), 337 Orenburg Expedition, 196–197, 262
708 Index
Orientalism, 25, 219– 220, 267, 351. See also Pels, Peter, 25
colonialism Penniman, Thomas Kenneth, 383
Oriental studies, 246– 250 Penny, H. Glenn, 17, 425
Oriental Theological College, 108 peoples. See nations (peoples); Völker;
Origines gentis et nominis Russorum (Mül- naród/narody
ler), 156–157 Péron, François, 396
Origines Hebraeae (Schultens), 250 Persepolis (Persia), 253
Orlov, Count Vladimir Grigor’evich, 135, Perty, Maximilian, 423
163, 306, 492n5 Pescheck, C. A., 337
Ortelius, Abraham, 148 Peschel, Oscar Ferdinand, 30, 80, 423
Osbeck, Pehr, 233, 235 Peter I [Peter the Great] (1672–1725),
Osiander, Johann Friedrich, 382 Emperor of Russia: and the Academy
Ostermann, Graf Heinrich Johann Fried- of Sciences, 112, 134–135; death of, 122;
rich [Count Andrei Ivanovich Oster- European tours, 44–45, 47, 97, 116; and
man], 135, 146, 204, 441 the First Kamchatka Expedition, 138;
Ostyak language, 469n25 Gottwald collection, 472n63; the Grand
Ottoman Empire, 225, 231, 265– 266, Embassy (journey), 44–45; and the Kun-
490n67 stkamera, 59– 61, 158; and Leibniz, 47–
Outer Eurasian map, 88 51, 52–55, 56–58, 83, 440; Messerschmidt
Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández de, 3 recommended to, 472n64; reasons for
Oxford University, 511n19 expeditions, 56– 57, 92, 97, 332; reforms
of, 45–47, 50, 59, 134–135, 205– 206, 332;
Pacific Ocean expeditions, 233, 342– 343, scientific interests of, 27
381– 382, 386– 387 Petermann, Werner, 23, 131, 203, 266, 310,
Pagano, Franceso Mario, 385 361, 484n107
Pagden, Anthony, 200– 201 Petrine reforms, 45–47, 50, 59, 134–135,
Pallas, Peter Simon, 88, 122, 125–126, 307– 205– 206, 332
308, 309, 335, 337, 402 Pezron, Paul-Yves, 72
Paludanus, Bernardus, 59 philological-critical approach, 299– 301
Paper Museum project, 161–163 philosophical anthropology, 5, 364– 365,
Papst, Johann Georg Friedrich, 336, 337 505n11
paradigm, xxi, 17, 35, 353, 434, 452, 455. See philosophie sociale. See sociology
also epistemic “philosophy of history,” 383
paradigmatic approach, 35. See historicist- phrenological societies, 419
emic-paradigmatic approach phrenology, 419
paradigmatic shift(s), xv, 9, 35, 209, 339, Physica (Aristotle), 359
417, 434, 450, 452–455, 460n17, 512n32 physical anthropology: academic chairs
paradigmatic traditions (Stocking), 16–17 in, 409; development of, 6, 30, 362, 451;
Parry, John Horace, 114, 453 founders of, 5, 369, 505n17; in Great
Paterson, William, 345 Britain, 414–415; in Göttingen, 221, 381–
Patrin, Eugène-Louis-Melchior, 309 383; links to ethnography, 379; in van
patriotism. See nationalism Hoorn’s model, 365
Pauw, Cornelius de [Cornelis; Corneille physical ethnology, 420, 450, 452, 513n40
de Pauw], 71, 385 physiological anthropology, 363, 364
Pavlinskaia, Larissa R., 163, 479n46 Picart, Bernard, 346
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Pietism: and Halle, 104–108; Tobolsk
Ethnography, 426 school, 108–110; and Wolff ’s expulsion,
Pekarskii, Petr Petrovich, 157 102–103. See also Protestantism
Index 709
Pike, Kenneth, 34 “principal peoples,” 155, 187, 279, 289, 292–
Plantarum minus cognitarum centuria 296, 299, 302, 444. See also aborigines
(Buxbaum), 159 Principii di una Scienza Nuova (Vico), 35,
Platner, Ernst, 364– 365, 378 202
Plischke, Hans, 12, 15, 334, 372, 382, principle of continuity (Leibniz), 76– 77,
502n119, 503n127, 508n49 287, 466n54
pluralism, 216, 393, 430, 434–435, 454. See principle of sufficient reason (Leibniz),
also national diversity 76– 77, 287, 466n54
Plütschau, Heinrich, 106 prisoners of war (Swedish), 108–112, 119
Pogodin, Mikhail, 349 Probe Russischer Annalen (Schlözer), 273–
Poirier, Jean, 461n23 274, 283, 288, 294
Polevoi, Nikolai Alekseevich, 409 progress. See stage-like progress
Poliakov, Léon, 71– 74, 366, 371, 460n17 Prokopovich, Feofan, 113, 124
political history (historia civilis), 14, 28, Prolusio scholastica Sueviae veteris (Schöp-
164, 167, 194, 208– 209, 328, 336, 353, perlin), 276– 277
393, 449, 451, 483n94. See also Statistik, Protestantism, 41, 43, 88, 99–100, 102–104,
statistics 106, 108, 135, 329, 362. See also Pietism
political history, 353 Protogaea (Leibniz), 63, 69, 121
Pölitz, Karl Heinrich Ludwig, 342, 447 Protokoly, 180, 481n76
Polo, Marco, 3 proto-ethnography, 106, 265, 270, 380, 453
polygenesis, 7, 375– 376, 388, 420–422 proto-language, 64, 70, 72– 76, 466n47,
Ponceau, Peter Stephen du, 406 466n52
Pope, Alexander, 359 proto-racism, 374
populus, 30, 316, 318– 319, 327– 328, 330, 445. proto-sociology, 437
See also gens; nations (peoples) Psychologia anthropologica (Casmann),
Porte-feuille géographique et ethnographique 361, 378
(Engelmann and Berger), 19, 397 psychological anthropology, 363, 364, 366
Posselt, Doris, 92, 114, 124, 126, 127 psychology, 11, 363, 377– 379, 424, 431
Postcharte (map), 185 psykhē, 377
postcolonial literary studies, 25– 26 Ptolemy, Claudius, 112
Potapov, Leonid, 181 Pufendorf, Samuel von, 101, 103, 137, 199,
Pott, August Friedrich, 423 296, 328, 446, 492n6
Powell, John Wesley, 422 Purchas, Samuel, 96, 148
Poyarkov, Vasilii Danilovich, 92 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich, 47
Pratt, Mary Louise, 25 Putnam, Frederic Ward, 409
Prescher, Hans, 126 Pütter, Johann Stephan, 240
presentism, presentist, 25, 33– 34, 36, 366.
Quaestiones Petropolitanae (Fischer), 187–
See also historicism; historicist
188, 197, 482n86
Presl, Jan Svatopluk, 350
Quatrefages, Armand de, 409, 418
Prévost d’Exiles, Antoine-François, 198
questionnaires, 22, 94, 233, 236, 246, 343,
Prichard, James Cowles, 5, 9, 376, 404,
396, 399, 403–404, 406, 410, 419, 446,
414–416, 419, 420, 450, 512n30; as
468n13, 485n121
founder of ethnology in Britain, 9
Quetelet, Adolphe, 400
Prikaz. See Sibirskii Prikaz
primal language (Ursprache), 64, 72– 76, race(s): Blumenbach’s fivefold division of,
466n47 371– 374; Boas’s views on, 433, 435; Buf-
primates, 368, 371, 380 fon’s concept of, 369– 370; Camper on
Primitive Culture (Tylor), 5, 366, 428 differences as superficial, 370– 371; con-
710 Index
ceptual development of, 30– 31; differ- Reland, Adriaan, 247
ence between ethnicity and, 29– 32; early Relation d’un voyage du Levant (Tourne-
uses of term, 366– 367; Forster’s critique fort), 230– 231
of Kant’s views, 386, 387– 388; Forster’s religion. See Protestantism; Pietism; sha-
divisions of, 389– 390; French scholar- man, shamanism
ship on, 8– 9, 419–420; Herder’s rejection Remezov, Semen Ul’ianovich, 93, 95, 148,
of, 376; Kant’s theories on, 374– 375, 377; 196, 203, 206, 207
Lennaeus’s fourfold division of, 367– Researches into the Early History of Man-
369; Meiners’s hierarchy of, 384– 385; ter- kind (Tylor), 428
minological confusion with “peoples,” Researches into the Physical History of Man
370, 392, 415–416, 417, 450, 512n30 (Prichard), 414–416
Les races et les peuples de la terre (Deniker), 31 Richter, Liselotte, 64, 68, 83–84
The Races of Man and Their Geographical Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich, 311
Distribution (Peschel), 31 Rivers, William Halse Rivers, 5
racism/racist/racialist, xxii, 14, 374, 385, The Rise of Anthropological Theory (Har-
396, 422, 424, 433, 435, 452. See also ris), 34
antiracism Ritter, Carl, 270, 339, 352, 413, 423, 425,
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred, 2, 3, 24 434
Radermacher, Jacobus Cornelis Mat- Robertson, William, 4
theus, 410 Robinet, Jean Baptiste René, 357
Radical Enlightenment, 100 Röderer, Caroline Friederike, 241
Radlov, Leopold [Lev Fedorovich Rad- Röderer, Johann Georg, 236, 240, 489n42,
lov], 409 489n43
Raff, Georg Christian, 313 Rolander, Daniel, 234
Raffles, Thomas Stamford, 448 Roon, Albrecht von, 423, 425
Ramsay, James, 388 Roose, Theodor Georg August, 506n31
Ranke, Johannes, 409 Roth, Christoph Melchior, 309
Ranke, Leopold von, 270, 353 Rothacker, Erich, 34
Raphelengius, Franciscus, 247 Rothman, Göran, 234
Rasmussen, Stig, 244– 245 Rotzoll, Maike, 361
Raspe, Rudolf Erich, 288 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 3, 13, 199, 202
Ratzel, Friedrich, 423, 429 Rubiés, Joan-Pau, 33, 270
Ray, John, 230 Rubruck, William of, 3
Razumovskii, Kirill, 492n5 Rudbeck, Olaus (Olof) (1630–1702), 69, 72
Readings in Early Anthropology (Slot- Rudbeck the Younger, Olof (1660–1740),
kin), 16 69
“reasonable physicians” (Halle), 363– 365, Ruge, Sophus, 80
378, 505n11 Rupp-Eisenreich, Britta, 18, 396, 510n3
Reboul, Robert, 510n3 Russian-American Company, 476n19
Reid, Anna, 485n119 Russian Empire: biblical genealogies in,
Reill, Peter Hanns, 275 328; cameralism in, 52; conquest of Sibe-
Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien (Niebuhr), ria, 89– 92; development of ethnogra-
244, 255, 256 phy in, 26– 28, 306– 311, 331– 333, 438–443;
Der Reisende (periodical), 312 early explorations of, 56– 57, 113–114;
Die Reisenden für Länder-und Völkerkunde under Elizaveta Petrovna, 214; found-
(journal), 337 ing of ethnology in, 202– 203, 207– 209;
Reiske, Johann Jacob, 226, 239, 240– 241, Geographical Department, 185; Halle
250, 489n46 missionaries in, 105–106; imperialist
Index 711
Russian Empire (continued) Schiller, Friedrich, 16, 348
aims of, 261– 264, 476n18; institution- Schiltberger, Johannes, 79
alization of ethnography in, 408–410; Schlegel, Friedrich, 107, 415
Leibniz’s impact on, 43, 49, 51, 55– 58, Schlözer, August Ludwig [since 1804 von
83–85; mapmaking of, 146–147, 184– Schlözer]: and the Arabia Expedition,
185; maps of, 140–141, 142–143, 150, 192; 226, 238– 241; and Cosmographie, 277;
Messerschmidt’s exploration of, 115, debate with Gatterer, 304; ethnologi-
116–119; motives for expeditions, 203– cal perspective, 316, 319– 321; expedition
207; naval expeditions of, 310, 342– 343; itinerary, 492n7; on Fischer, 187, 482n85;
Petrine reforms, 45–47, 50, 59, 134–135, at Göttingen, 489n45; Herder’s criti-
205– 206, 332; Petrine reforms in, 45– cism of, 322– 323; historical-linguistic
47, 50; policy of secrecy in, 155–157, 185, approach, 278– 283, 284– 287; on human
478n37; scientific expeditions in, 306– rights, 329, 348; image of, 276; influence
311, 408–409; Siberian exploration of, 1, 15, 347– 349, 353; language classi-
(post-conquest), 92– 95; social divisions fication, 288– 294; Leibniz’s influence
in, 205– 206. See also Peter I [Peter the on, 284– 285, 287– 289; Linnaeus’s influ-
Great]; Second Kamchatka Expedition ence on, 283– 284; methodology of, 278–
Russian Geographical Society, 409–410 283, 299– 301, 443–445, 452; and Müller,
Russian Senate, 165, 204, 206, 213– 215, 262 217– 218, 272, 281, 294– 295, 443–445; and
Russow, Fr., 60, 160, 168, 479n51 “principal peoples,” 296, 302; use of
Ruysch, Frederik, 45, 59, 60 ethnos-terms, 20– 21, 22, 260, 269– 270,
Rychkov, Petr Ivanovich, 196–197, 197 278– 281, 443–445, 447; use of gens and
populus, 327; use of Volk, 326– 327, 491n73;
Sacagawea, 402 world history work of, 271– 275, 295– 299;
Sahagún, Bernardino de, 3 writings of, 273, 274– 275, 493n13
Said, Edward W., 25, 219, 267 Schlözer, Christian von, 489n39, 489n41,
Saint-Simon, Henri de, 400 489n42
Sakha. See Yakuts (Sakha) Schmidt, Klaus, xix, 21– 22, 278, 493n20
Sale, George, 273, 492n8 Schmidt, Wilhelm, 12, 13, 460n17, 460n18,
Salemink, Oscar, 25 461n23
Saltykov, Fedor, 56, 138 Schober, Gottlieb, 112, 113, 159
Sami, 231, 367, 371– 372, 391– 392, 497n48 Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 407, 418
Sammlung Russischer Geschichte (Müller), Schopenhauer, Arthur, 107
98, 113, 137, 148, 173, 186, 475n13 Schöpperlin, Johann Friedrich, 22, 260,
Samoyeds (Enets, Nenets, Selkup), 109, 269, 276– 278, 280– 281, 443
128–129, 139, 160, 172, 176–177, 190, 279, Schorkowitz, Dittmar, 91– 93, 117, 205,
289– 290, 497n48 215, 262, 468n7, 468n10, 470n43, 473n69,
Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (Leibniz), 83 475n3
Sarychev, Gavril Andreevich, 309– 310, 443 Schottel, Justus Georg, 73
Sauer, Carl O., 491n68 Schubart, Christian Friedrich Daniel, 312
Sauer, Martin, 310 Schulenberg, Sigrid von der, 68
Scaliger, Joseph Juste, 73 Schulman, Karl Gustav, 119
Scharschmidt, Justus Samuel, 113 Schultens, Albert, 247– 250
Scheffer, Johannes Gerhard, 198 Schultze, Benjamin [Schulze], 32, 79, 107
Scheidt, Walter, 30, 504n5, 506n32 Schulz, Friedrich [Johann Christian
Schemann, Ludwig, 385 Friedrich Schulz], 336, 337
Scherer, Johann Benedict [Jean-Benoît Schumacher, Johann Daniel, 60– 62, 121,
Schérer], 166 123, 134, 135, 136–137, 262
712 Index
Schutz, Johann Christian, 313 143–144, 477n20; preparations for, 145–
scientific expedition(s): Areskine’s role, 149; research publication struggles, 155–
46, 84, 116–117, 126, 144, 196, 203; to 157; results of, 153–154, 478n37; Russian
Australia, 395– 396; and colonial- scholars in, 196; Steller and Krashenin-
ism, 261– 264, 266; development of, nikov’s research, 194–196
230– 236; French Geodesic Mission, Seligman, C. G., 459n2
223, 342; Haller in America, 223– 224; Selkup. See Samoyeds (Enets, Nenets,
of Jean Chappe d’Auteroche, 499n81; Selkup)
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 431– Selle, Götz von, 245, 304, 323, 486n3,
432; Leibniz’s impact on, 84; new way 486n5, 506n23
of traveling, 26, 46–47, 114, 127, 131, 144, Sem (Shem), 65, 248, 328
215, 220, 230, 310, 448, 453, 457; Pacific Semitic language, 64, 71, 73, 250, 264, 282,
Ocean expeditions, 233, 342– 343, 381– 467n59
382, 386– 387; role in genesis of eth- Semler, Johann Salomo, 273
nography, 220, 443, 453; of the Russian Semyonov, Yuri N., 151
Empire, 46, 116–117, 309– 311, 382, 408– sep. See Société ethnologique de Paris
409; Russian motives for, 56– 57, 203– (sep)
207; sixteenth-century, 222– 223. See also Seven Years’ War, 225
Baudin; Bering; Bougainville; Bux- Shafirov, Petr Pavlovich, 54
baum; Cook; Danish-German Ara- Shakespeare, William, 16, 451
bia Expedition; Gmelin; Forschungsreise; shaman, shamanism, 12, 97, 128, 158, 160,
Malaspina; Merck; Messerschmidt; 167, 169, 175–178, 195, 308, 439, 469n24
Müller; Linnaeus; Niebuhr; Pallas; Sec- Shaw, Thomas, 411
ond Kamchatka Expedition; Schober; Shegren, Andrei Mikhailovich. See
Steller; Tournefort Sjögren, Anders Johan
Scott, Dr. W. R., 428 shift(s). See paradigmatic shift(s), epis-
Scrieckius, Adrianus [Adriaen van temic shift
Schrieck], 73, 466n51 Shaw, Thomas, 411
Scythia (southern Russia), 65– 66, 71, Shternberg, Lev Yakovlevich [Leo Stern-
465n38, 465n39 berg], 432
Scythian, Celto—Scythian languages Siberia: development of ethnography in,
Seba, Albertus, 59, 60, 464n32 26– 28; early German explorers of, 99;
Second Bering Expedition. See Second linguistic studies in, 186–191, 193–194;
Kamchatka Expedition maps of, 140, 141, 142, 143, 150; Mess-
Second Kamchatka Expedition: cartogra- erschmidt’s exploration of, 115, 116–119,
phy of, 184–185; collections from, 154–155, 119–122, 124–125; Müller’s ethnographic
159–162; and colonialism, 440–443; com- study of, 164–170, 438–439; pre-Russian
pared to Arabia Expedition, 266; costs conquest, 88–89; reforms under Spe-
of, 477n20; economic motives for, 206– ranskii, 212– 213; Russian colonization
207; expedition instructions, 164–170, of, 205– 206, 440–443; Russian conquest
204– 205, 479n57, 483n94; Fischer’s role of, 87– 92; Russian exploration of, 92–
in, 187, 191–194; illustration of collections 95, 440–443; Schlözer’s classification of
from, 163; itinerary of, 149–153; lack of groups in, 292; Swedish studies of, 108–
interest in results of, 213– 215; map of, 112; Witsen’s research on, 96– 99. See also
150; Müller’s ethnographic research dur- First Kamchatka Expedition; Second
ing, 172–181, 438–439; Müller’s role in, Kamchatka Expedition
137, 211– 212; objectives of, 141–143, 144– “Siberian Sketchbook” (Remezov), 93
145, 261– 264, 491n78; participants in, Sibirische Geschichte (Fischer), 186–187
Index 713
Sibirskii Prikaz, 92, 214, 215 Sommer, Johann [Iohannes Olorinus], 13,
Siebold, Philipp Franz Balthasar von, 413 461n26, 461n27
Sieyès, Emmanuel-Joseph, 400 Sonnerat, Pierre, 345
Simonis, Johannes, 249– 250 soul, concept of, 378
Sinclair, John, Sir, 399–400 Spain, 343– 344
sinology, 469n17 Spangberg [Spanberg], Martin, 120, 138–
Sitten (manners), Sitten und Gebräuche, 35, 139, 143, 145, 149
80, 165–166, 168, 175, 209, 228, 257, 341, Sparrman, Anders, 233, 235, 236, 256
345, 385, 477n23. See also manners and Spener, Philipp Jacob, 104
customs; morals Speranskii, Mikhail Mikhailovich, 212–
Sjögren, Anders Johan [Shegren, Andrei 213, 441
Mikhailovich], 353, 409 Sperling, Johann, 362
Sjögren, Anders (Andreas) Johan, 353, 409 Spinoza, Baruch de, 100
slavery, 376, 388, 419 Spittler, Ludwig Timotheus, 384
Slavic languages, 65, 68, 288– 292 Sprengel, Matthias Christian, 12, 334– 335,
Slavic peoples, 95, 273– 274, 279, 281– 283, 337, 338, 348
293, 319, 349, 384 Spurzheim, Johann Caspar, 419
Slavonic Academy, 134, 135 Squier, Ephraim George, 421–422
Slezkine, Yuri, 205, 209, 261, 485n115 Staatenkunde. See Statistik
Sloane, Hans, Sir, 121 Stafleu, Frans Antonie, 232
Slotkin, James Sydney, 16, 376, 437 stage-like progress, 11, 297, 302, 314– 315,
Smellie, William, 357 320– 322, 383, 386, 408, 445, 455. See also
Smith, Adam, 52, 100, 380 four-stage theory
Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 400, 415 Stagl, Justin, 20, 22– 23, 26, 52, 216, 236,
Smuts, Jan Christiaan, 460n10, 505n14 274, 277, 297– 298, 310, 318, 360, 396, 399,
social anthropology, 2–4, 10, 14, 24, 408–409, 435–436, 446, 462n32, 487n14;
295, 438, 459n2, 460n14. See also cul- introduction of ethnos-terms, 34, 278,
tural anthropology; sociocultural 462n33, 492n2
anthropology Stahl, Georg Ernst, 115, 364– 365, 378
Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, 6, 7, Stählin, Jacob von, 184
420, 512n35 Stamm. See tribe
Société des Observateurs de l’Homme, Stammvolk, 279, 289, 497n47, 497n53,
395– 397 501n103
Société d’Ethnographie, 7, 420 Starr, Frederick, 409, 513n45
Société ethnologique de Paris (sep), 8– 9, statistics. See Statistik
416, 417–420, 512n35 Statistik, 221, 271– 275, 302, 311, 328, 341–
sociocultural anthropology, xv, 1, 4, 5, 342, 348– 349, 391, 399–400, 489n43,
454, 458. See also cultural anthropology; 498n73, 499n77
social anthropology Steinthal, Heymann, 424, 428, 454, 513n40
sociology, 400 Steller, Georg Wilhelm [Stöller]: criticism
Soemmerring, Samuel Thomas von, 5, 13, of Russian conquest, 157, 441; ethno-
387– 388 graphic research of, 151–152, 155, 194–
Soimonov, Fedor Ivanovich, 196, 197 196, 211– 212; expedition instructions,
Solander, Daniel Carlsson, 233, 235, 256 167, 483n94; as expedition member, 144;
Soloviev, Sergei Mikhailovich [Solov’ev], influences on, 88; and Krasheninnikov’s
349 research, 480n61; role in Russian colo-
Sommer, Antje, 367, 417 nialism, 216
714 Index
Sternberg, Leo. See Shternberg, Lev theological anthropology, 358, 360, 363,
Yakovlevich 364. See also biblical studies
Stewart, Dugald, 385– 386 Thierry, Amédée, 417
Stiernhjelm, Georg, 69 Thierry, Augustin, 417
Stocking, George W. Jr., 9–10, 16–17, 25, Thilo, Albrecht Friedrich, 269, 277– 278,
27, 32– 33, 380, 416, 434, 449 280– 281, 443
St. Petersburg, 47, 125. See also Academy of Thirty Years’ War, 41, 100, 329
Sciences (St. Petersburg); Kunstkamera Thomasius, Christian, 101–102, 328, 330,
Strabo, 2, 112, 255, 339 338, 446, 470n34, 492n6
Strahlenberg, Philipp Johann Tab- Thomasius, Jacob, 41, 101, 466n50
bert von: influence on Müller, 148, 172; Thoms, William John, 313
maps of, 471n49; name change, 471n46; Thunberg, Carl Peter, 233, 235, 236, 256
nationality of, 326; Siberian studies Thwaites, R. G., 403
of, 93, 94, 110–112; work with Messer- Tibenský, Ján, 11, 20, 315
schmidt, 119, 123–124, 126, 129; writings Til, Salomon van, 247
of, 123–124 Tilesius, Wilhelm Gottlieb, 310
Stritter, Johann Gotthilf, 292 Timmerman, Frans, 44
Stroganov family, 90 Tobolsk Pietist School, 108–110
Struys, Jan, 242 Tokarev, Sergei Aleksandrovich, 93, 131,
sufficient reason, principle of (Leibniz), 181–182, 409, 443, 453
76– 77, 287, 466n54 Topinard, Paul, 10–11, 18, 314, 422,
Surgut, 91, 149, 167, 186, 354, 447, 482n82 460n15–460n20, 500n96, 512n33, 513n39
Swabia, 281– 282 Topografiia Orenburgskaia (Rychkov), 196,
Sweden, 47, 108–112, 271 197
Switzerland, 2, 18, 135, 162, 295, 320, 396 Torén, Olof, 235
synchronistic method, 298, 301, 498n74 Tournefort, Joseph Pitton de, 120, 220,
Systema naturae (Linnaeus), 232, 261, 284, 230– 231
367– 368, 389 Tranquebar (India), 106, 470n39
Systema populorum (Schlözer), 21, 283– 284, travel accounts, 197–199, 270, 385– 386,
301, 303, 444, 494n35, 495n36, 502n115 452–453
Tabbert von Strahlenberg, Philipp traveling, art of, 15, 22, 236. See also apo-
Johann. See Strahlenberg, Philipp demics; scientific expedition(s)
Johann Tabbert von Treviranus, Gottfried Reinhold, 506n31
Tacitus, Publius (Gaius) Cornelius, 3 tribe(s) (Stamm, Volksstamm, Völkerschaft),
Tahiti, 12, 276, 387, 453 9, 64, 111, 128, 165, 209, 254, 257, 280, 282,
Takwim al Bodan (Abulfeda), 486n7 308, 316, 318, 320, 326– 331, 344, 375, 384,
Tärnström, Christopher, 232, 235 392, 401–402, 407– 08, 420, 434, 445, 449.
Tartarye (Witsen), 469n25 See also gens (gentes)
Tatar language, 111, 173, 189–190, 193, 292 Triesman, Wilhelmina G. [Trisman],
Tatars, 88–89, 90– 91, 109, 111, 173, 174, 384, 469n26
468n4 Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walther von, 101
Tatishchev, Vasilii Nikitich, 93– 95, 112, Tulp, Nicolaas, 371
124, 127, 184, 191–192, 442 Tungus-Manchurian languages, 469n25
Taubert, Johann Kaspar, 95 Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, 320
Tax, Sol, 200 Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 40
Teichmeyer, Hermann Friedrich, 358 Tylor, Edward Burnett, 2, 5, 409, 423,
Tentzel, Wilhelm Ernst, 66 428–430, 511n19
Index 715
Ugrians, 88, 468n3 University of Leiden, , 21, 45, 70, 73, 96,
Uhlig, Ludwig, 389 105, 135, 222, 232, 239, 247– 250, 312, 409,
Ulloa, Antonio de, 223 410–413, 511n19
Ulrich, Anton, 42, 53 University of Leipzig, 52, 94, 99, 101–103,
unesco Committee on Race, 31 133, 135–136, 378– 379
United Kingdom. See Great Britain University of Moscow, 135, 156
United Provinces. See Netherlands University of St. Petersburg, 135, 475n7,
United States of America: academic chairs 475n9, 511n19
in, 513n45; Boasian anthropology in, University of Wittenberg, 99–100, 271,
430–436; conceptions of “nation” in, 281, 330, 362
330; development of anthropology in, 8; Unverzagt, Georg Johann, 96, 148
early ethnological studies in, 400–408, Unzer, Johann August, 364
449; explorations of, 152, 343– 344; first Uralic languages, 110, 190, 289, 293, 349
uses of “ethnology” in, 347– 348; Halle Urness, Carol, 478n37
missionaries’ work in, 107–108; Haller’s Urry, James, 430
expedition to, 224; studies on history of Ursprache (primal language), 64, 65, 72–
ethnology in, 14–17 76, 466n47
universal history. See world history Uschmann, Georg, 126
University of Göttingen: Academic utilitarian, 26, 52, 95, 133, 206– 207, 214,
Museum, 381– 382; Asch collection at, 216, 232, 256, 332, 399, 440, 442. See also
382; Cook/Forster collection at, 381– 382; cameralism; mercantilism
Gatterer’s work at, 302– 303; and Haller’s “Utility of the Arabic Language” (Schul-
American expedition, 223–224; impact tens), 247
during Enlightenment, 100, 221, 338; influ-
ence on American ethnology, 405–406; vagina gentium (portal of peoples), 65, 72,
influence on Berkhey’s work, 313; influ- 465n39
ence on French anthropology, 399; “Leib- Vaillant, François le, 345
niz’s revival” at, 287–288; as origin of term Vaillant, Sébastien, 232, 284
Völkerkunde, 20, 21; role in Arabian Expe- Varenius [Varen], Bernhard, 503n130
dition, 221–222; role in German-Russian varieties. See races
exchange, 103; Schlözer’s influence on, Vater, Johann Severin, 11, 32, 71, 79, 81, 84,
271, 272–275, 348; scholarly impact of, 15, 344, 346
304–306, 338, 446; during the Seven Years’ Vendries, Johann Melchior, 363
War, 225; ties to the Forsters, 334– 335; Verelius, Olof, 69
travel accounts collection, 12, 198, 385– 386 Vermeulen, Han F., 20– 23, 28, 202– 203,
University of Halle: biblical studies at, 334, 359, 446
249; early attempts to found, 470n30; Vesalius, Andreas, 40
and Pietism, 104–108; psychology at, Veth, Pieter Johannes, 301, 409, 413–414
378; “reasonable physicians,” 363– 365, Vico, Giambattista, 35, 201– 202
378, 505n11; role in the Early Enlight- Vidal, Fernando, 377, 378
enment, 99–104, 446; work in Russian Vienna Congress, 351– 352, 353
Empire, 113, 135–136 Vincent, Levinus, 45
University of Jena: impact on Russia Vinius, Andrei Andreevich [Andries
Empire, 52, 99, 103, 113, 135–136; Messer- Winius], 93, 96, 203
schmidt’s research publications at, 126; Virchow, Rudolf, 425
Primary Enlightenment at, 41–42, 100– “Vocabularium Sibiricum,” 153, 186–194,
101; role in the Enlightenment, 99, 103, 274, 294
322, 330 Vogel, Rudolph Augustin, 240, 489n42
716 Index
Voguls (Mansi), 66, 109–110, 177, 190, 290, Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie
293, 469n25 (Schlözer), 20, 275, 279– 280, 297, 298–
Volk (people): conceptual development 299, 301, 444
of, 326– 328; differing conceptions of, Voskuil, Han, 312
318– 319, 445; relationship to “nation,” Voyage autour du monde (La Pérouse), 343
325; Schlözer’s concept of, 280. See also Voyage d’Égypt et de Nubie (Norden), 223
nations (peoples)
Waitz, Theodor, 14, 424, 429
volkenkunde. See Völkerkunde
Walch, Christian Wilhelm Franz, 236
Völker-Beschreibung: compared to
Walch, Johann Georg, 358
Niebuhr’s view, 257– 258; and the devel-
Wallace, A. F. C., 401
opment of ethnography, 443; early uses
Wallis, Samuel, 276
of term, 10; factors instigating, 216– 217;
Wansleben, Johann Michael [Vansleb],
German roots of, 202– 203, 207– 209;
222– 223
Leibniz’s linguistic contribution to, 79–
Warner, Levinus, 247
81; Müller’s development of, 132, 262– Washington, George, 402, 440
263; Müller’s use of term, 170–171; in Waterman, John T., 64, 68, 70, 74– 75
Pallas’s work, 307– 309; Schöpperlin’s Waxell, Sven Larsson, 477n20
use of, 277. See also ethnography Weber, Friedrich Christian, 470n42,
Völkerkunde: in academic journals, 334– 478n43
338; compared to Volkskunde, 311– 315; Weber, Wilhelm Ernst, 202
Ehrmann’s survey of, 345– 347; Gatter- Webster, Noah, 404
er’s use of, 302– 305; German roots of, 10, Wedgewood, Josiah, 388
15, 203, 207– 209; linked to geography, We Europeans (Huxley and Haddon), 31
339– 340, 341– 342; in the Netherlands, Weigel, Erhard, 41–42, 95, 100–101
410, 412–414; role in conceptualization Weiland, Pieter, 29, 412
of ethnology, 443; Schlözer’s use of, 269, Weltkunde (cosmology), 277, 295
279, 285, 295– 296, 299– 301; terminolog- Wendland, Folkwart, 117, 153
ical development of, 445–448. See also Westphalia treaty, 329
ethnology White, Charles, 5, 376
Völkerpsychologie (folk psychology), 424, Wiesehöfer, Josef, 246, 254
513n40, 513n42 Wilberforce, William, 388
Völker-System, Völkersystem, 21, 284, 301, Wilde, Jacob de, 45
303, 499n78. See also systema populorum Wilken, George Alexander, 414
Völkervielfalt, 28, 171, 211, 321, 333. See also Williams, Glyndwr, 438
national diversity; ethnic diversity Willmet, Joannes, 412, 512n26
Völkerwanderung (Great Migration), 282 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 225– 226
Volksgeist. See national spirit Winter, Eduard, 42, 94– 95, 99, 103, 112,
Volkskunde, xiv–xv, 21– 22, 311– 315, 341, 348, 123, 126, 127, 129, 281, 461n31, 469n22,
350, 354, 410–412, 435, 446–447, 460n9, 471n54, 472n67, 475n11, 499n83
512n26. See also ethnos-terms; folklore Winter School, 21, 461n31
studies; Völkerkunde; ethnology Wiseman, Cardinal Nicholas, 10, 404,
Volkslieder (national songs), 314, 322 416, 512n31
Volksstamm (Völkerstämme). See tribe(s) Witsen, Nicolaas Cornelisz, 45, 56, 71, 79,
Volney, Constantin-François Chasse- 96– 99, 110–111, 120–121, 148, 172, 199,
boeuf, comte de, 399, 405 262, 286, 289, 292, 411, 432, 439, 464n26,
Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de, 13, 469n20, 469n25, 471n49, 496n40
14, 18, 100, 376, 383, 398, 405, 429 Wittenberg University, 99, 362
Index 717
Wolf, Eric, 32 Yakut language, 193, 469n25
Wolff, Christian, 58, 82, 83, 101, 102–103, Yakuts (Sakha), 139, 155, 167, 176–177, 212,
115, 133, 147, 156, 221, 271, 349, 378, 386, 292, 432
446, 464n27, 470n36, 492n6, 505n11 Yakutsk, 91, 149, 177
Wood, Robert, 225 yasak (tribute), 166, 205– 206, 215
world history: ethnographic method of, Yemen, 222, 241, 248– 249
444–445; four methods of, 444; Herder’s Yermak Timofeevich, 89, 90– 91
relativist view of, 323– 324; Schlözer and Yugrians. See Ugrians (Oegriers)
interconnection in, 295– 299; Schlözer’s Yukagirs (Nivkhs), 469n25
ethnographic approach to, 271– 275, 279– Yuraks. See Nenets (previously Yuraks)
283; Schlözer’s influence on, 348; univer-
Zammito, John H., 5, 324, 365, 377, 380,
sal history, 20, 137, 272– 273, 275, 279, 288,
383, 386, 448, 457, 501n105
295– 301, 323, 348, 444, 492n8, 498n63
Zande, Johan van der, 275, 400, 470n36,
world system (Weltsystem), 296
492n10, 498n73
Wrangel, Ferdinand von, 409
Zedler, Johann Heinrich, 483n93
Wreech, Curt Friedrich von, 109, 110, 193,
Zeitschriften-Index, xix, 21– 22, 278,
471n46, 473n72
493n20
Wübben, Yvonne, 365, 505n13
Zelle, Carsten, 357, 364, 505n11
Wundt, Wilhelm, 379, 424
Ziegenbalg, Bartholomäus, 106, 453
Wurmb, Friedrich [Christoph Carl Fried-
Zimmerman, Andrew, 17
rich] von, 306, 354, 410
Zimmermann, Eberhard August Wil-
Yakhontov, Il’ya Petrovich, 144, 166, helm, 370, 411, 509n70
480n59 Zubov, Aleksei, 159
718 Index
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before boas

Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology

University of Nebraska Press

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Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

Mein mehrfacher Wunsch war es, daß eine erfahrene Person . . .

Die edelste Beschäftigung des Menschen ist der Mensch.

Toute la terre est couverte de nations dont nous ne

It is in their present condition, that we are to behold,

Ethnologia . . . est notitia gentium populorumque.

It is important to look at an age or country in its own point of view.

It is my opinion that the main object of ethnological collections

L’anthropologue est l’astronome des sciences sociales.

Ethnography is . . . the Anthropologist’s Muse.

The proper object of history is not the past

Each nation is basically a collection of immigrants.

1. History and Theory of Anthropology and Ethnology:

Ethnography is . . . that part of anthropology (in the English

xxii Series Editors’ Introduction

Series Editors’ Introduction xxiii

History and Theory of Anthropology

In the absence of history, men create myths.

Plural Views on Anthropology and Its History

2 History and Theory

History and Theory 3

4 History and Theory

History and Theory 5

Anthropology and Ethnology

6 History and Theory

History and Theory 7

8 History and Theory

History and Theory 9

Early Studies on the History of Ethnology

10 History and Theory

History and Theory 11

12 History and Theory

History and Theory 13

14 History and Theory

History and Theory 15

16 History and Theory

Recent Contributions to the Early History of Ethnology

History and Theory 17

18 History and Theory

History and Theory 19

20 History and Theory

History and Theory 21

22 History and Theory

Anthropology and Colonialism

History and Theory 23

24 History and Theory

History and Theory 25

26 History and Theory

History and Theory 27

Ethnicity and Race

28 History and Theory

History and Theory 29

30 History and Theory

Although well intended, this decision has increased the confu-

History and Theory 31

What’s In a Name? Methodology in the History of Science

32 History and Theory

History and Theory 33

34 History and Theory