G. F. Müller and the Imperial Russian Academy

Gerhard Friderich Muller was born in Westphalia and studied in Leipzig. In 1725 he moved to Russia to teach as one of the first members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Muller's fifty-eight years with the institution were spent at or near the centre of intellectual and political activity in his adopted land. His writing interpreted Western culture to Russians and helped to create the West's image of its vast neighbour. Muller was a founder of modern Russian historiography. He explored and catalogued the resources -particularly historical -of Siberia during a remarkable decade-Iong expedition sponsored by the Russian Academy. He edited Russia's first popular journals, advised monarchs, helped to reform the school system, and acted as liaison between the Academy and its western European counterparts. Black's discussion of Muller's professional life as a historian and his descriptions of Muller's scholarly contacts, including battles with fellow academician Lomonosov, provide valuable insights into Russian social and political history. Muller is mentioned in almost every study of eighteenth-century Russian intellectual life, but this book is the first fuIl-Iength biography. His long association with the Academy of Sciences also provides the setting for a definitive account of the birth and growth of one of Russia's most important institutions.