Nikolai Miklukho-Maklai
| Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
17 July 1846 Rozhdestvensk, Novgorod Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 14 April 1888 (aged 41) St Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Residence | Russian Empire, Australia, New Guinea and others |
| Nationality | Russian Empire |
| Fields | Ethnology, Anthropology, Biology |
| Alma mater | Heidelberg University, Leipzig University, Jena University |
| Known for | anthropological work in New Guinea and the Pacific |
| 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 the first scientist to settle among and study people 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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