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Miklouho-Maclay

Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay
Photograph of Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay
Born (1846-07-17)17 July 1846
Rozhdestvensk, Novgorod Governorate, Russian Empire
Died 14 April 1888(1888-04-14) (aged 41)
St Petersburg, Russian Empire
Residence Russian Empire, Australia, New Guinea and others
Nationality Russian Empire
Alma mater Heidelberg University, Leipzig University, Jena University
Known for anthropological work in New Guinea and the Pacific
Scientific career
Fields Ethnology, Anthropology, Biology
Influences Ernst Haeckel
Author abbrev. (botany) Mikl.-Maclay
Author abbrev. (zoology) Miklucho-Maclay

Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay (Russian: Николай Николаевич Миклухо-Маклай; 1846–1888) was a Russianexplorer, ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist who became famous as one of the earliest scientists to settle among and study a people in New Guinea who had never seen a European.

Miklouho-Maclay spent the major part of his life travelling and conducted scientific research in the Middle East, Australia, New Guinea, Melanesia and Polynesia. Australia became his adopted country and Sydney the home town of his family.

He became a prominent figure of nineteenth-century Australian science and became involved in significant issues of Australian and New Guinea history. Writing letters to Australian papers, Miklouho-Maclay expressed his opposition to the labour and slave trade ("blackbirding") in Australia, New Caledonia and the Pacific, as well as his opposition to the British and German colonial expansion in New Guinea. While in Australia, he built the first biological research station in the Southern Hemisphere, was elected to the Linnean Society of New South Wales, was instrumental in establishing the Australasian Biological Association, stayed at the elite Australian Club, became the intimate of the leading amateur scientist and political figure Sir William Macleay, and married the daughter of the Premier of New South Wales. His three grandsons have all contributed to the public life of Australia.

One of the earliest followers of Charles Darwin, Miklouho-Maclay is also remembered today as a scholar who, on the basis of his comparative anatomical research, was one of the first anthropologists to refute the prevailing view that the different 'races' of mankind belonged to different species.


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