Nicholas or Nicholai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay (; 1846 – 1888) was a Russian explorer and scientist<!--See MOS:NATIONALITY-->. He worked as an ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist. He became famous as one of the earliest scientists to settle among and study indigenous people of 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 hometown 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. 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 Margaret-Emma Robertson, the daughter of the Premier of New South Wales. His Ukrainian father, Nikolai Ilyich Myklukha, was born in 1818, which included the capture of the Ochakov fortress. His Cossack lineage was extensive and also included the Zaporizhian ataman Okhrim Myklukha, His paternal grandparents were friends of Gogol. He married Margaret-Emma, widowed daughter of the Premier of New South Wales, John Robertson. His residence, named Wyoming, is in the Sydney suburb of Birchgrove, and is now heritage-listed due to its association with him.

Anthropological work in New Guinea and the Pacific

Miklouho-Maclay lived in northeastern New Guinea for a two-year period in between 1871 and 1880, from which he also visited the Philippines, Malay Peninsula and Australia on a number of occasions. He returned to New Guinea again in 1883. Living amongst the native tribes, his comprehensive treatise on their way of life and customs was invaluable to later researchers.

Some scientists, such as Ernst Haeckel, a teacher of the young Miklouho-Maclay, relegated what they regarded as culturally "backward" people like Papuans, Bushmen and others to the role of 'intermediate links' between Europeans and their animal ancestors. While adhering to Darwin's theory of evolution, Miklouho-Maclay diverged from these concepts, and it was this question that led him to gather scientific facts and to study the dark-skinned inhabitants of New Guinea. On the basis of his comparative anatomical research, Miklouho-Maclay was one of the first anthropologists to refute polygenism, the view that the different races of mankind belonged to different species.

Opposition to slavery

The humanist views of Miklouho-Maclay led him to campaign actively against the slave trade and against blackbirding&nbsp;– carried on between the islands of Melanesia and plantations in Queensland, Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia.

Ill health and death in Russia

In 1887 he left Australia, returned to St Petersburg to present his work to the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and took his young family with him. Miklouho-Maclay was in poor health and, despite treatment from Sergei Botkin, Miklouho-Maclay died of an undiagnosed brain tumour at 41 in St Petersburg. He was buried in the Volkovo Cemetery and left his skull to the St Petersburg Military and Medical Academy.

Post-death

Miklouho-Maclay's widow returned to Sydney with their children. Until 1917 the scientist's family received an imperial Russian pension. The money was first allocated by Alexander III and then by Nicholas II. One of his sons, Alexander, married a daughter of R. E. O'Connor. His travel journals were not published until 1923, and an annotated five-volume collection of his works was published in 1953. in the banana species Musa maclayi, and in the land snail species Canefriula maclayiana which were some of the species he discovered. The weevil Rhinoscapha maclayi was first collected by Miklouho-Maclay and was then named after him by his friend William Macleay.

Maklaj is the basis of the main character in the Esperanto historical novel "Sed Nur Fragmento" by Trevor Steele.

Australia

The Marine Biological Station in Watson's Bay, built and used by Miklouho-Maclay, was commandeered by the Ministry of Defence in 1899 as a barracks for officers. In the 1980s the Miklouho-Maclay Society unsuccessfully lobbied for the centre to be made into a historical landmark in memory of Miklouho-Maclay's scientific work. Today, although owned by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, the building is used as a private residence and is only open to the public on special occasions.

The Miklouho-Maclay Society succeeded in naming a park in his honour in Snails Bay (Birchgrove), not far from a house where he lived in Sydney for a time.

A bust of Miklouho-Maclay was unveiled in front of the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth. Miklouho-Maclay began using the term, defining it as extending for 150 miles between Cape Croisilles and Cape King William, and 30–50 miles inland to the mountains of Mana-Boro-Boro (Finisterre Mountains). However, this name is not in use today. The section of the coast from Cape Croisilles to Madang is referred to as part of the North Coast, the bay in which Madang is situated in called Astrolabe Bay, while the coast from Astrolabe Bay to Saidor is the Rai Coast, which in turn gives its name to Rai Coast District, an electorate returning an MP to the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea.

In Madang, Papua New Guinea&nbsp;– not far from where the explorer stayed in the 1870s&nbsp;– a street has been named after him.

In 2000 a monument was erected in New Guinea by Oleg Aliev. In 2013 a monument to celebrate the legacy of Miklouho-Maclay was erected near Bongu village in Madang Province, funded by "Valeria, Irma, and Valentina Sourin, Chief, Sir Peter Barter and volunteers from the Madang Resort and Friends of the Haus Tumbuna".

Russia

In Russia, there is an Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and a street in South-West Moscow (where the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia is situated) named in his honour. The district museum in Okulovka, Novgorod Oblast, is named after him. Malyn was visited twice, in 1980 and 1988, by the scientist's grandson Robert Micklouho-Maclay from Australia. In 1986, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the scientist's birth, a monument to him was unveiled in Malin.

Since 1946, Lviv has had a . There is also a bust of him in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula.

In 2011, the Ukrainian Geographical Society declared the year of Nickolai Nicklouho-Maclay in Ukraine in connection with the 165th anniversary of his birth.

Notes

References

Sources

  • Greenop, F. S. (1944) Who Travels Alone, K.G. Murray Publishing Company, Sydney
  • Ogloblin, A. K. (1998) 'Commemorating N. N. Miklukho-Maclay (Recent Russian publications)', in Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia: Proceedings of the Conference, pages.487–502. 1998. . Partial view on Google Books.
  • Tutorsky, A. V., E. V. Govor, and Christopher Ballard. "Miklouho-Maclay’s Legacy in Russian-and English-Language Academic Research, 1992–2017." Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 47.2 (2019): 112–121.
  • Maclay Coast, Papua New Guinea on Google Maps.
  • Paper in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of NSW by N. Miklouho-Maclay vol. 8, 1883
  • Mikloucho-Maclay: New Guinea Diaries 1871—1883, translated from the Russian with biographical and historical notes by C. L. Sentinella. Kristen Press, Madang, Papua New Guinea