Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay

Miklouho-Maclay was born in a temporary workers' camp in Borovichsky Uyezd, Novgorod Governorate, Russia, the son of a civil engineer working on the construction of the Saint Petersburg–Moscow railway. Miklouho-Maclay was partly of Ukrainian Cossack descent. His Ukrainian father, Nikolai Ilyich Myklukha, was born in 1818, which included the capture of the Ochakov fortress. His Cossack lineage was extensive and also included the Zaporizhian ataman Okhrim Myklukha, His paternal grandparents were friends of Gogol. About his origins, Miklouho-Maclay wrote: Nicholai's father graduated from the Nezhin Lyceum, after which he walked all the way to Saint Petersburg, where he enrolled in the Roadway Institute of Engineering Corps. He graduated from the institute in 1840 and became an engineer assigned to work on the construction of the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway. After becoming the first chief of the Moskovsky passenger railway station in Saint Petersburg, Myklukha moved his family there. He died in December 1857 from tuberculosis and was survived by his wife and five children. Before his death, Myklukha was fired from his job for sending 150 rubles to Taras Shevchenko. Nicholai's mother, Ekaterina Semenovna (), was of German and Polish descent (her three brothers took part in the January Uprising of 1863). After 1873, the Miklouho-Maclay family purchased and lived in a country estate in Malyn, northwest of Kiev in the Polesia region. One of Nicholai's brothers, Sergei, became a judge in Malyn where he eventually died. Another brother, Mikhail, became a geologist. A third brother, Vladimir, was a captain of the Russian coast defense ship Admiral Ushakov and participated in the Battle of Tsushima where he perished. Both Mikhail and Vladimir were members of the Russian revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya. Nicholai was baptised on 21 July 1846 by priest Ioann Smirnov at the Shegrinskaya Church of Nikolaos the Wonderworker. His godfather was Alexander Ridiger, a Borovichi landowner who was a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812 and a participant in the Battle of Borodino. == Education and studies ==

with his assistant, Nicholai Miklouho-Maclay, in the Canary Islands, 1866 In 1858, Nicholai enrolled into the third grade of a German Lutheran school at the Saint Anna Kirche in Saint Petersburg. During his studies at the Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium (1859–1863) along with his brother Sergei, he was arrested and kept for several days in the Peter and Paul Fortress for participating in student protests. The young students were saved by the Russian writer Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy who was a friend of Nicholai's father. In 1863, without finishing the gymnasium, Nicholai enrolled as a free listener at the St. Petersburg University but only spent two months there before being expelled in February 1864 and debarred from tertiary education in Imperial Russia for "breaking the rules". In March of the same year, with a forged passport, he moved abroad to complete his studies in German universities, which provided an opportunity to study and work with leading European scientists. He studied humanities at Heidelberg, medicine at Leipzig, and zoology at the University of Jena, where he came under the influence of the great German scholar Ernst Haeckel, who had a profound influence on his future. Miklouho-Maclay's brilliant student records attracted the attention of Haeckel, who made him his assistant as part of a field expedition to the Canary Islands in 1866. There, Miklouho-Maclay took an interest in sharks and sponges and discovered a new sponge species, which he named Guancha blanca, in tribute to the Guanches, the original Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands. He also became a close friend of the biologist Anton Dohrn, with whom he helped conceive the idea of research stations while staying with him at Messina, Italy. == Australia ==

, Australia. A typically posed shot from the period to emphasise the "explorer" persona — note the Eucalyptus leaves, and explorer "tools". Miklouho-Maclay left St Petersburg for Australia on the steam corvette Vityaz. He arrived in Sydney on 18 July 1878. A few days after arriving, he approached the Linnean Society and offered to organise a zoological centre. In September 1878 his offer was approved. The centre, known as the Marine Biological Station, was constructed by prominent Sydney architect, John Kirkpatrick. This facility, located in Watsons Bay on the east side of Greater Sydney, was the first marine biological research institute in Australia. He married Margaret-Emma, widowed daughter of the Premier of New South Wales, John Robertson. His residence, named Wyoming, is in the Sydney suburb of Birchgrove, and is now heritage-listed due to its association with him. == Anthropological work in New Guinea and the Pacific ==

Miklouho-Maclay lived in northeastern New Guinea for a two-year period in between 1871 and 1880, from which he also visited the Philippines, Malay Peninsula and Australia on a number of occasions. He returned to New Guinea again in 1883. Living amongst the native tribes, his comprehensive treatise on their way of life and customs was invaluable to later researchers. == Anthropological views ==

In scientific and anthropological circles during the 1850s and 1860s there was much discussion connected with the study of human races and the interpretation of racial peculiarities. There were some anthropologists, such as Samuel Morton, who tried to prove that not all human races were of equal worth, and that "white people" were predestined by "natural selection" to rule over the "coloured" races. Some scientists, such as Ernst Haeckel, a teacher of the young Miklouho-Maclay, relegated what they regarded as culturally "backward" people like Papuans, Bushmen and others to the role of 'intermediate links' between Europeans and their animal ancestors. While adhering to Darwin's theory of evolution, Miklouho-Maclay diverged from these concepts, and it was this question that led him to gather scientific facts and to study the dark-skinned inhabitants of New Guinea. On the basis of his comparative anatomical research, Miklouho-Maclay was one of the first anthropologists to refute polygenism, the view that the different races of mankind belonged to different species. == Opposition to slavery ==

The humanist views of Miklouho-Maclay led him to campaign actively against the slave trade and against blackbirding – carried on between the islands of Melanesia and plantations in Queensland, Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia. == Ill health and death in Russia ==

In 1887 he left Australia, returned to St Petersburg to present his work to the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and took his young family with him. Miklouho-Maclay was in poor health and, despite treatment from Sergei Botkin, Miklouho-Maclay died of an undiagnosed brain tumour at 41 in St Petersburg. He was buried in the Volkovo Cemetery and left his skull to the St Petersburg Military and Medical Academy. == Post-death ==

Miklouho-Maclay's widow returned to Sydney with their children. Until 1917 the scientist's family received an imperial Russian pension. The money was first allocated by Alexander III and then by Nicholas II. One of his sons, Alexander, married a daughter of R. E. O'Connor. His travel journals were not published until 1923, and an annotated five-volume collection of his works was published in 1953. == Commemoration ==

Internationally and in science Nicholai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay is commemorated in the scientific name of the New Guinea tree species Planchonella maclayana, in the banana species Musa maclayi, and in the land snail species Canefriula maclayiana which were some of the species he discovered. The weevil Rhinoscapha maclayi was first collected by Miklouho-Maclay and was then named after him by his friend William Macleay. Maklaj is the basis of the main character in the Esperanto historical novel "Sed Nur Fragmento" by Trevor Steele. Australia The Marine Biological Station in Watson's Bay, built and used by Miklouho-Maclay, was commandeered by the Ministry of Defence in 1899 as a barracks for officers. In the 1980s the Miklouho-Maclay Society unsuccessfully lobbied for the centre to be made into a historical landmark in memory of Miklouho-Maclay's scientific work. Today, although owned by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, the building is used as a private residence and is only open to the public on special occasions. The Miklouho-Maclay Society succeeded in naming a park in his honour in Snails Bay (Birchgrove), not far from a house where he lived in Sydney for a time. A bust of Miklouho-Maclay was unveiled in front of the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth. Miklouho-Maclay began using the term, defining it as extending for 150 miles between Cape Croisilles and Cape King William, and 30–50 miles inland to the mountains of Mana-Boro-Boro (Finisterre Mountains). However, this name is not in use today. The section of the coast from Cape Croisilles to Madang is referred to as part of the North Coast, the bay in which Madang is situated in called Astrolabe Bay, while the coast from Astrolabe Bay to Saidor is the Rai Coast, which in turn gives its name to Rai Coast District, an electorate returning an MP to the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea. In Madang, Papua New Guinea – not far from where the explorer stayed in the 1870s – a street has been named after him. In 2000 a monument was erected in New Guinea by Oleg Aliev. In 2013 a monument to celebrate the legacy of Miklouho-Maclay was erected near Bongu village in Madang Province, funded by "Valeria, Irma, and Valentina Sourin, Chief, Sir Peter Barter and volunteers from the Madang Resort and Friends of the Haus Tumbuna". Russia In Russia, there is an Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and a street in South-West Moscow (where the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia is situated) named in his honour. The district museum in Okulovka, Novgorod Oblast, is named after him. Malyn was visited twice, in 1980 and 1988, by the scientist's grandson Robert Micklouho-Maclay from Australia. In 1986, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the scientist's birth, a monument to him was unveiled in Malin. Since 1946, Lviv has had a . There is also a bust of him in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. In 2011, the Ukrainian Geographical Society declared the year of Nickolai Nicklouho-Maclay in Ukraine in connection with the 165th anniversary of his birth. ==Notes==