Pallas paradox

On September 22, 2016, he marks the 275th anniversary of the birth of a wonderful scientist and traveler, a member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Peter Simon Pallas, 1741–1811). Already during his lifetime, he gained great international fame thanks to his scientific works in various fields of science, as well as two great travels in the vast expanses of the Russian Empire.

Nevertheless, one sad paradox is associated with Pallas. On the one hand, his name is easy to find in many encyclopedias or reference books and about the scientist, many articles and even books are written [1]. However, on the other hand, even in scientific circles they know little about him, and often they did not hear anything. Meanwhile, science historians sometimes compare Pallas with Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov, a symbol of our science of the second half of the 18th century, not without reason believing that Peter Pallas was the signs of our Academy of the last third century of education.

In the XIX and XX centuries, many outstanding scientists in Russia and abroad enthusiastically spoke about the contribution of Pallas to science. I’ll call only the names of the French zoologist and science historian Georges Kuvier, the German traveler and naturalist Alexander Humboldt, one of the founders of Russian ecology and zoogeography Nikolai Alekseevich Seversov. However, today many members of the Russian Academy of Sciences have (if they have) about their great predecessor a very vague representation. A number of Pallas’s works are considered fundamental, and what is written in them is now almost unknown, since they are not translated into Russian.

The path to science

The future "Akademicus" was born in Berlin in a wealthy family of a military surgeon-professor. Mother came from the French Huguenot diaspora. Germany as a single country did not exist then. Berlin was the capital of the ambitious and warlike Prussian kingdom, in which the Brandenburg dynasty of the Hohenzollerns reigned.

Peter was the third and last child. He received a good home education, which was reduced to the study of languages. As a result, the boy mastered, in addition to his native German and French (mother’s language), Latin, as well as ancient Greek and English, which were not in fashion then. At 13, his father gave the child to the Berlin medical and surgical collegium, which was distinguished by advanced views on medicine and natural science. In its likeness later, in Russia they created the Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg and Moscow (now the Military Medical Academy).

Of the natural sciences, the collegium was taught Botanik, which was necessary for medical purposes. There was no zoology as an academic discipline, and Peter, who was carried away by the study of animals, was engaged in it on his own. The father, who taught surgery at the collegium, wanted to make a practitioner from his son. After graduating from the collegium, Peter, as was customary among German students, went to increase his education at the universities of Galle and Gettingen, as well as to the Dutch Leiden, where at the age of 19 he defended the dissertation for the title of doctor of medicine. It was devoted to the study of parasitic worms and is considered the beginning of helminthology as a science. The recent student dared to correct Karl Linnaeus himself.

In the 1760s, Pallas lived in England and the Netherlands, where he met many famous collectors and naturalists. He visited the famous botanical gardens and studied the richest collections of “naturals”, as the objects of nature were called then. Then Peter decided to abandon the medical career and engage in natural sciences, which did not find support from his father.

Thanks to useful acquaintances with influential people, as well as his own knowledge of Pallas in June 1764, he was elected a member of the London Royal Society, and in November of the same year-a member of the Kaiser Leopoldo-Caroline Academy of Naturalists (briefly Leopoldin). The election of such a young naturalist who was not even 23 years old was, of course, with unheard of honor, especially if you take into account the lack of published works (not counting the dissertation).

Nevertheless, such a generous advance turned out to be justified. In 1766, in The Hague, Pallas printed two monographs at once. In the first of them (“Elenchus zoophytorum”) he gave a description of the then mysterious zoofites (“animal-plants”), that is, creatures attached to the soil (sponges, coral polyps, mhas), confirming their belonging to animals. The young naturalist, showing that there is no such fundamental border between plants and animals as the majority thought then, contrasted the kingdom of living organisms with minerals. In the 1920s, V. I. Vernadsky was highly appreciated in his book about the living matter in the 1920s.

Another book (Miscellanea Zooologica) contained a description of a wide variety of animals, from antelopes to lower creatures. In it, by the way, Pallas was the first to allocate guinea pigs into a separate clan Cavia . In the Netherlands, a beginner, but already famous naturalist dreamed of a distant expedition to one of the Dutch colonies: to the South of Africa or east to Asia. However, his dreams were interrupted by his father, who called his son home.

A conflict was brewing in the family. Peter was in full financial dependence on his father, but did not want to become a doctor. An unexpected offer came from Russia. On behalf of Catherine II Pallas Jr., they invited to work in St. Petersburg, the capital of a huge empire. He was promised the place of the actual member and professor of the natural sciences of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, as well as the leadership of a large expedition to Siberia. Having hesitated, Pallas accepted the invitation and already in the summer of 1767 he met at the Academy of Sciences. Pallas came to Petersburg not alone, but with a young woman whose name remained unknown. Later she became his wife, and they had a daughter.

Traveling in Russia

In the summer of 1768, Pallas, at the head of a detachment of seven people, left St. Petersburg, going on a long journey deep into an extensive unknown country. He passed the Volga region, the Urals, the Northern Caspian, Western Siberia and reached Transbaikalia (Dauria) in the east. His detachment was part of the so -called “physical” expeditions, which became one of the most glorious pages in the history of Russian science. According to the official instructions, in addition to “natural history”, the geography of the visited region, its natural resources, the economy, history and customs of local peoples should be described. In fact, these were complex expeditions with an unusually wide range of tasks, from physical and economic geography to folk medicine and beliefs.

The expedition was not easy. July 30 (August 10) 1774, having undergone many trials, hardships and deprivations of heavy nomadic life, having suffered losses among subordinates, the 33-year-old natural scientist returned to the banks of the Neva. He looked like a half -start -up hair exhausted by diseases.

During the long wanderings, Palace led a detailed diary, which was sent in parts to the Academy of Sciences. This diary was published under the name “Traveling to various provinces of the Russian Empire” in St. Petersburg in German (1771–1776), and then in Russian (1773–1788) in three parts and five books. This is an amazing work, reprinted in different languages ​​more than 20 times, put forward its author to the number of outstanding European scientists.

In fact, Pallas created the grandiose panorama of a huge, many -sided and then little studied country, outlining its diverse nature and numerous peoples from the Baltic to Transbaikalia and from the polar tundra to the Caspian desert. The “journey” has become a real encyclopedia of Russia in the second half of the XVIII century. It attracted the attention of not only various scientists (from botanists to orientalists), but also such remarkable writers and poets as Nikolai Gogol (when preparing him “dead souls”) and Osip Mandelstam [2]. Over the years, the scientific and historical value of this vast labor of Pallas only increases, since the information received by him about nature and the population allow when comparing with modern data to evaluate the changes that have occurred over the past centuries.

The mercy of the empress

After the expedition, Pallas lived in St. Petersburg for almost twenty years, leading the measured life of the scientist and fulfilling various instructions of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and other departments of the Russian Empire. He wrote numerous articles and books, edited the works of his colleagues, attended academic and other meetings, conducted extensive correspondence with Russian and foreign scientists, issued the publication Neue Nordische Beyträge (1781–1796), etc.

It should be noted his many voluminous books on ethnography, zoology, botany, entomology, “comparative dictionaries of all languages ​​and adverbs”, etc. In 1777, the academician put forward his concept of the structure and formation of the mountains and changes in the globe. In 1780, he made a public speech at the Imperial Academy of Sciences about the variability of animals, refuting the concept of Karl Linnei about the hybridization of species and views of the no less famous Georges Buffon about the influence of climate.

Gradually, Pallas became an increasingly important figure whose influence went beyond the limits of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Thanks to the patronage of Catherine II, he was accepted at court, taught natural sciences to her grandchildren Alexander (future emperor Alexander I) and Konstantin, was appointed historiographer of the Admiralty College.

However, the grace of the empress was not eternal, and the court ill -wishers of Pallas did not doze off. In the fall of 1792, he was released from the affairs of the Admiralty College and received the highest permission to travel to Crimea, annexed to Russia in 1783. In fact, he was sent to a distant link with honor. Although they call different reasons for disgrace, its real reason is unknown.

Pallas made his second big trip in 1793-1794 at his own expense. The Winter Way went through Moscow and the Volga to the south of Russia through the Caspius to the Crimea. He rode in wagons with his third wife Karolina Ivanovna and his daughter Albertina from his first marriage.

In 1795, a brief description of the Crimean Peninsula appeared in St. Petersburg in French and Russian, compiled by Pallas on behalf of the young favorite of the empress Count Platon Zubov. Over one decade (1796–1806), 11 reprints of Taurida in German and French followed. This was probably explained not only by curiosity, but also by geopolitical interests. Soon in German in Leipzig (1799–1801), a two -volume description of the journey of Pallas himself appeared “according to the southern governorship of the Russian state”, which was also repeatedly reprinted in Europe.

Catherine II generously endowed the academician with lands and a house in Crimea near Simferopol. Here Pallas lived for about 15 years (1795–1810), successfully combining the life of the landowner and scientist. In addition to classes of gardening and viticulture, he made up another botanical monograph and completed the main scientific work of his life “Zooographia Rosso-ASIATICA” (“Russian Asian Zoography”). Its three volumes printed in Latin in St. Petersburg (1811 and 1814) contained descriptions of 874 species of vertebrates.

In April 1810, an aged scientist with his widowed daughter and grandson returned to Berlin. The wife remained in the Crimea. On September 8, 1811, the great naturalist died of chronic enteritis, which suffered all his life (without having to live only two weeks before his 70th birthday). He was buried in the Jerusalem cemetery in Berlin.

The legacy of Pallas

The scientific heritage of Pallas is huge. If you do not take into account the reprints, then in 51 years (1760–1811) he wrote 20 books and 131 article, edited many manuscripts, and also translated 1 book and 7 articles. The most productive scientist was in St. Petersburg from 1776 to 1789.

If you sort his work in areas, it turns out that the researcher contributed to at least 14 sciences. In addition to zoology and botanists, these are geography, geology, paleontology, ethnography, oriental studies, religious studies (Buddhology), history and archeology. The scientist also owns printed works on linguistics, numismatics, archeology, meteorology, medicine, rural and forestry, mining, various crafts and technologies.

Pallas published several works even about Tibet, and the collection of Bozhkov-Burkhanov, who was bought by him in the Yaitsky town (Uralsk, now Kazakhstan), laid the foundation for the Buddhist Assembly of our Academy of Sciences.

A large ironcamous block brought by Pallas from Siberia (687 kg), known as Pallas Iron , turned out to be the first identified science of the celestial body. With the study of this “Aerolite” (then term), the beginning of scientific meteorics is associated, and meteorites of this type were called Pallasites .

In 1895, the naturalist and bibliographer Fedor Petrovich Köppen (1833–1908), who compiled a detailed list of Pallas works and stated his biography, proposed to erect a monument to this wonderful scientist in St. Petersburg, and also publish a complete collection of his works at the Academy of Sciences. In 1904, the railway station in the steppe Nizhny Volga region on the line leading to Astrakhan gave the name Pallasovka (city since 1967). In Soviet times, the only monument to the scientist and traveler appeared in Soviet times.

It would seem that the country should be proud of such a great researcher. However, the 275th anniversary of the birth of Pallas in Russia is unlikely to be celebrated at a high official level; At least the decisions of the Russian Academy of Sciences on this subject are unknown to me and my colleagues. Despite the obvious lack of interest at the top, enthusiasts, of course, will hold a series of Pallases in the regions. On September 22, in Berlin, German and Russian colleagues living in Germany plan to lay flowers on the grave of an outstanding scientist uniting both of our countries.

Of course, the lack of interest and understanding of the significance of Pallas in the leadership of science, as well as in the authorities, is very upset. It is pleased that his name is remembered and proud of scientists, local historians and teachers in various cities and villages of our vast homeland, especially in those areas where the expeditions of Peter Semenovich Pallas took place. It is also pleased that thanks to the modest provincial intelligentsia, his legacy is studied in schools and local museums.

The wise Vernadsky responded to Pallas’s works: “ They are still under the basis of our knowledge about the nature and people of Russia. It is inevitable, as a living source, a geologist and ethnographer, zoologist and botanist, geologist and mineralogists, statistics, archaeologist and linguist <...> are addressed to them. Pallas still has not taken in our minds that historical place that meets its real meaning . ”

I would like to understand this to both the leaders of science and power at its different levels.

Leo Borkin

1. Borkin L. Ya., Gannibal B.K., Golubev A.V. Roads of Peter Simon Pallas (in the west of Kazakhstan). St. Petersburg; Uralsk: Eurasian Union of Scientists, 2014; Sytnn A.K. Botanik Peter Simon Pallas. M.: T-in the scientific publications of the KMK, 2014; Wendland F. Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811). Materialen Einer Biographie. Teil I - Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992. XVIII+1176 S. (Veröffentlichungen Der Historischen Komission Zu Berlin, BD. 80/I - II); Borkin L. Ya. 2011. Additions to the bibliography of Peter Simon Pallas // Historical and Biological Studies. SPb. T. 3, No. 3. S. 130–157.

2. Sytin A.K. The living geography of Russia: N.V. Gogol studies the natural -historical works of P. S. Pallas // Nature. 2000. No. S. 93–96; Borkin L. Ya. Osip Mandelstam and P. S. Pallas (afterword) // Rodnik of Knowledge. SPb. 2013. No. 1 (8). S. 31–33.