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Birhtday annivesary of Georg Wilhelm Steller, explorer of Siberia, Kamchatka and the Far Eastern islands, natural scientist
On March 10 (21), 1709 in Bad Windsheim (Germany), Georg Wilhelm Steller (Steller), a famous explorer of Siberia, Kamchatka and the Far Eastern islands, natural scientist, adjunct of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was born.
In 1729 Steller graduated from the gymnasium. In 1729-1734 he was educated at the universities of Wittenberg, Leipzig, Jena and Halle. He studied theology and natural sciences.
In November 1734 Steller arrived in St. Petersburg and became the family doctor of Archbishop Feofan (Prokopovich), an associate of Peter I and then was accepted as an adjunct in natural history of the Russian Academy of Sciences and assigned to the academic detachment of the Second Kamchatka Expedition.
In December 1737 Steller left St. Petersburg for Yeniseisk. His path lay through Moscow, Kasim, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Solikamsk, Tobolsk and Tomsk. In December 1738 he arrived in Yeniseisk, where he met with I. G. Gmelin and G. F. Miller and received instructions from them. From March 1939 to the beginning of 1740 he was in Irkutsk, making trips to Lake Baikal and Transbaikalia and was engaged in natural scientific study of the region. In September 1740 he arrived in Kamchatka via Yakutsk and Okhotsk, where he studied the geography, geology, flora and fauna of the region, the history and ethnography of the Itelmens and Koryaks.
In June 1741 on board of the St. Peter under the command of V. Bering Steller set off for the shores of America, becoming the first naturalist to set foot on the land of Alaska (Kayak Island). After the wreck of the ship on the way back, Steller and the surviving crew members spent the winter on the island, where he discovered and described a sea cow, later named after him.
In August 1742 Steller returned to Kamchatka, continued to study its nature and population, traveled around the peninsula and visited the Northern Kuriles. He summarized the results of his research in the work “Description of the land of Kamchatka”. In August 1744, Steller left the peninsula and arrived in Irkutsk in September 1745 via Okhotsk and Yakutsk. Here, for actions in defence of the indigenous population of Kamchatka and unauthorized release from custody of the Itelmens, he came under investigation, but was acquitted. In January 1746 he went further to St. Petersburg and in Solikamsk in August was again arrested by decree of the Senate, since the acquittal of the Irkutsk investigation in St. Petersburg was not yet known.
Under escort Steller was sent back to Siberia. When everything turned out, Steller was released in Tara, but on the way to St. Petersburg he fell ill and died on November 12 (23), 1746 in Tyumen. Steller was buried on the banks of the Tura River in Tyumen. In September 2009 a memorial sign to Steller with inscriptions in Russian and German was installed in Tyumen.
The richest collections and numerous manuscripts of Steller were delivered to the Academy of Sciences. Few of them were published immediately; others were released only after several decades and even centuries. Following the results of research in Russia and Germany, after the death of the scientist, several books were published - “From Kamchatka to America”, “On Marine Animals”, “Description of the Land of Kamchatka”, etc.
Steller made a great contribution to the study of Kamchatka. During his stay in Kamchatka, Steller managed to collect, study and describe a huge amount of data on natural science and ethnography. Steller's contribution to the study of animals is also great. Steller was the first in the world to give a scientific description of large marine mammals: sea cow, fur seal, sea lion and sea otter. Of particular value are the descriptions and measurements of a sea cow, which, 27 years later, was destroyed as a result of predatory fishing. Steller was the first in the study of the biodiversity of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, gave the first description of the flora and fauna of these territories, discovered dozens of new species of plants and animals.
Natural scientists highly appreciate the contribution of G. V. Steller to natural history. More than ten geographical objects bear his name. In addition to the sea cow, ten species and three genera of plants are named after Steller, as well as many species of animals living in the North Pacific Ocean and one mineral - a stellerite.
Until recently, few works devoted directly to Steller were published in Russia. Most of Steller's biographies published in Russia for more than two centuries are rather short articles in various encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries or in prefaces to publications of Steller's articles.
The growth of interest in Steller was facilitated by various round dates associated with V. Bering and the Second Kamchatka Expedition. The peak of interest in Steller's biography arose in the early 1990s. With the participation of scientists from Germany, Russia, the USA and Denmark, in March 1994, the Steller Seminar was held in Frankesh Stiftungen in Halle, and in May 1996 a grandiose exhibition “The Great Northern Expedition. A Lutheran explores Siberia and Alaska”. Of great importance was the large international Steller conference held on November 8-12, 1996 in Halle. Since the late 1990s in Frankesh Shtifugen, Russian-German conferences are held annually on various problems of studying Siberia in the 18th century.
Since 2004, the international scientific conference "Steller's Readings" has been organized at the Tyumen State University, which laid the foundation for the tradition of analyzing the joint contribution of Western European and Russian scientists to the study of Siberia. In addition, the attention of the participants of the conference is the problem of studying the "dialogue of cultures", the fate of Europeans in the Asian part of the country. As a result of the conference, a scientific and information collection "Aus Sibirien" is published.
Lit: Вакуленко А. А. Ученый-натуралист // Мое достояние. Тюмень 425 / гл. ред. Н. А. Завитневич. Тюмень, 2011. С. 98-99; Копылов В. Е. Помним Георга Стеллера : к 300-летию со дня рождения // Окрик памяти (История Тюменского края глазами инженера). Тюмень, 2009. Кн. 5. С. 14-22; Копылов В. Е. Стеллер Георг Вильгельм // Большая тюменская энциклопедия. Тюмень, 2004. Т. 3. Р-Я. С. 156-157; Огрызко В. Стеллер Георг Вильгельм // Отечественные исследователи коренных малочисленных народов Севера и Дальнего Востока : биобиблиографический словарь. М., 2013. С. 572-576; Падерин Д.. «Стеллеровские чтения»: погружение в тему // Тюменские известия. 2017. 1 ноября. С. 4; Полищук В. В. Стеллер Георг Вильгельм – российский учёный, Колумб, Робинзон // «Aus Sibirien – 2005» : материалы 2-ой международной научно-практической конференции «Стеллеровские чтения» (апрель 2005, г. Тюмень) : научно-информационный сборник / Российский фонд фундаментальных исследований. Тюмень, 2005. С. 11-13; Стеллер Г. В. Описание земли Камчатки. Петропавловск-Камчатский, 1999; Стеллериана в России. СПб., 2009; Татаренкова Н. А. Георг Вильгельм Стеллер: увековеченная память // Aus Sibirien - 2017 : научно-информационный сборник. Тюмень, 2017. С. 155-156; Элерт А. Х. Стеллер (Штеллер, Steller) Георг Вильгельм // Историческая энциклопедия Сибири. Новосибирск, 2010. Т. 3: С-Я. С. 184.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Берг Л. С. Открытие Камчатки и экспедиции Беринга. 1725-1742. Л., 1935;
Стеллер (Георгий) // Брокгауз, Ф. А. Энциклопедический словарь. СПб., 1901. Т. 31а. С. 588;
The material is based on the branch of the Presidential Library in Tyumen Region