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Birthday anniversary of Orest F. Miller, specialist in folklore and literary critic
July 23 (August 4), 1833 in the city of Hapsal, Governorate of Estonia (at present the city of Haapsalu) was born Orest Fedorovich Miller, future specialist in folklore, literary historian and publicist.
Miller's parents were Baltic Germans, Lutheran by confession, and at the birth the boy was named Oscar. At the age of three he became an orphan and was adopted by his uncle, an artillery officer, I. P. Miller, who lived in St. Petersburg. His wife, Catherine Nikolaevna, took an active part in the education of his nephew, especially trying to instill in him strong religious feelings.
The Millers often changed their place of residence due to the service needs of the head of the family. The boy passed his childhood and adolescence in Vilnius and Warsaw. At the age of fifteen Oscar changed the Lutheranism to the Orthodoxy, taking the name of Orestes. Having received a good education at home, he entered the History and Philology Faculty of St. Petersburg University in 1851. Almost immediately, Miller began to show himself in literature. In 1852, he published the poem "On the Death of Zhukovsky," and in 1854 his verse drama "The feat of the mother" was staged at the Mikhailovsky Theatre.
Orest’s scientific views were formed under the influence of the famous literary critic and censor, Professor A. V. Nikitenko. In 1856, after graduation, Miller started publishing his articles under the common title "Historical sketches of poetry" in the "Journal of the Ministry of Public Education." In 1858, Orest defended his thesis "On the moral element in poetry based on historical data. On the issue of the current direction of Russian literature" for the master's degree. The author tried to show that through the study of the ideal world of poetry, a man can know what it should actually be. Briefly covering a vast historical period of world poetry, Miller attempted to trace there the development of the moral.
Miller reinforced his too definitive conclusions by religious arguments and outdated ideas. After the defense and publication of this work, a number of editions and authors hit the thesis with critical reviews and articles. Liberal and democratic criticism completely denied that Miller's work had any scientific significance and violently rejected the ideas put forward by him, pointing to the superficial study of the material and the absence of the source base. The article by N. A. Dobrolyubov, published in the "Contemporary", was especially widespread. It was so severe that for a long time the scientific community and the reading public saw Miller only from the standpoint of the critical review of the popular publicist.
Not receiving a position at the university, in 1859, Orest Fedorovich became an official of the Ministry of Education, not quitting the science however. In the early 1860's he published a number of articles on English literature of the 18th century, as well as a lecture on "Belinsky as a teacher." Soon, upon the invitation of K. D. Ushinsky, Miller became a teacher of Russian literature at the Smolny Institute and the Mariinsky Institute. On the wave of interest in the study of folk poetry and Russian history Orest Fedorovich published in the "Teacher" a series of articles entitled "Essay of a historical review of Russian literature,” which was of great literary and pedagogical value at the time. In 1862, Miller's book "Conversations on Russian history" was issued earning a number of positive reviews in leading publications in the country.
At the end of 1863, Orest Fedorovich was appointed lecturer at St. Petersburg University and began reading a course of lectures on Russian folk literature. At the same time, he started a close and long-standing cooperation with I. S. Aksakov - one of the leaders of Slavophilism. Miller's doctoral thesis "Comparative critical observations of the composition of the layers of Russian folk epic. Ilya Muromets and epic heroes of Kiev," defended in 1869, embodied an ideal understanding of the basics of Russian national life. This work was an extensive study of the Russian epic, not unparalleled in terms of the scope of the collected material. For the first time in Russian literary criticism Miller widely applied the comparative-historical method of research. He made comparisons not only between Russian epic and the poetry of other nations, but also between different editions and variants of each epic.
In 1870-1880's, Orest Fedorovich lectured courses in Russian literature of the 19th century as a full professor of the University. During those years he published articles and monographs on A. S. Griboyedov, A. Maykov, A. K. Tolstoy, N. A. Nekrasov and other writers. The main Miller’s work of that period was the "Public Lectures of Orest Miller. Russian literature after Gogol (with the exception of dramatic)," published in 1874. The work passed through several editions, and after the third one, became known as the" Russian writers after Gogol." It included detailed essays on the works of Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Goncharov, Pisemskiy, Saltykov-Shchedrin, S.T. Aksakov, Ostrovsky and other writers.
Throughout his teaching career, Miller had repeatedly spoken against the concept of "state patriotism" that had nothing to do with the true Slavophilism. In the autumn of 1887, in his university lecture, later published in the "Russian Courier", Orest Fedorovich strictly criticized the position of the M. N. Katkov. The article provoked a storm of criticism from conservative publications such as the "Moscow Beulletin." Despite numerous letters of the faculty and students of the university in support of Miller, the disgraced professor was soon dismissed.
Orest Fedorovich Miller died on May 20 (June 1), 1889 in St. Petersburg, at the age of 55.
Lit.: Миллер О. Ф. Илья Муромец и богатырство киевское. Сравнительно-критическое наблюдение над слоевым составом народного русского эпоса. СПб., 1869; Он же. О нравственной стихии в поэзии на основании исторических данных. По поводу вопроса о современном направлении русской литературы. СПб., 1858; Он же. Русские писатели после Гоголя: В 3 тт. СПб., 1909-1910; Он же. Славянский вопрос в науке и жизни. СПб., 1865; Глинский Б. Б. О. Ф. Миллер: биогр. очерк. СПб., 1890; Миллер Орест Фёдорович // Русские филологи XIX века: Библиографический словарь-справочник / Авт.-сост. М. Е. Бабичева [и др].М., 2006; Шляпкин И. А. Очерк научной деятельности проф. О. Ф. Миллера. СПб., 1889.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Вестник Европы. Г. 13 1878, [т. 2], кн. 4, апрель. СПб., 1878;