Gerhard Friedrich Müller

Gerhard Friedrich Müller ( Fyodor Ivanovich also Miller, born October 29, 1705 Herford, Westphalia, .. † 11 Oktoberjul / October 22 1783greg in Moscow ) was a German historian, geographer, Russia researcher and explorer. He is called " the father of Siberian history ."

Life and work

Müller first attended the Friedrichs -Gymnasium Herford, where his father was rector. He studied at the University of Rinteln and the University of Leipzig philosophy and history. 1725 he went to Saint Petersburg and was founded in the 1724/25 there Russian Academy of Sciences worked as a history and Latin teacher. At the age of 25, he was appointed professor at the Academy of Sciences in 1730, as before 1725, only one country man, the polymath Johann Peter Kohl.

In the research mission of the Academy, he traveled to Holland and England. After his return he was commissioned together with Johann Georg Gmelin of the Empress Anna Ivanovna with the management of historical and ethnographic work group of the Second Kamchatka ( 1733-1743 ). 1736 was Professor Müller in the archives of Yakutsk firm evidence that not Vitus Bering in 1728 as the first shot through the Bering Strait, but years earlier, the Russian fur traders Semyon Deschnjow.