Alexander von Middendorff
Encyclopedia
Baltic German
The Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in...
zoologist and explorer.
Early life
Middendorff's mother Sophia Johanson (1782–1868) was an EstonianEstonians
Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...
peasant girl who had been sent to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
for education by her parents. There she met with the future director of the St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, Theodor Johann von Middendorff (1776–1856), whose father was a Baltic German pastor in Karuse
Karuse
Karuse is a village in Hanila Parish, Lääne County, in western Estonia....
, Estonia
Governorate of Estonia
The Governorate of Estonia or Estland, also known as the Government of Estonia or Province of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.-Historical overview:...
. As the two young people came from different social ranks and were unable to marry each other, their daughter Anette (b. 1809) and son Alexander were born out of wedlock. Alexander was born on 18. August 1815, but could not be baptized until six months later in the Estonian Lutheran Congregation of St. Petersburg as the German Lutheran Congregation of St. Petersburg had not agreed to perform the baptism. In the accompanying paperwork, Middendorff's parents registered themselves as a married couple. In order to escape the attention of the public, the mother and son returned to Estonia where they settled at the Pööravere
Pööravere
Pööravere is a village in Halinga Parish, Pärnu County in southwestern Estonia....
Mansion. Only in 1824, when the young Middendorff was ready to go to school, was his status legitimized when his parents finally married.
Education
Middendorff received his early education from tutors in RevalTallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...
and at a gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. From 1832 he pursued a medical degree at the Imperial University of Dorpat where his professors included Georg Friedrich Parrot
Georg Friedrich Parrot
Georg Friedrich Parrot was an Livonian scientist. He was the first rector of the Imperial University of Dorpat founded in 1802.-Biography:Georges-Frédéric Parrot was born in Montbéliard, France...
, Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov, Hermann Martin Asmuss, and Alexander Friedrich von Hueck. Middendorff graduated in 1837 with a dissertation (written in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
) on polyps
Polyp (medicine)
A polyp is an abnormal growth of tissue projecting from a mucous membrane. If it is attached to the surface by a narrow elongated stalk, it is said to be pedunculated. If no stalk is present, it is said to be sessile. Polyps are commonly found in the colon, stomach, nose, sinus, urinary bladder...
in the bronchi
Bronchus
A bronchus is a passage of airway in the respiratory tract that conducts air into the lungs. The bronchus branches into smaller tubes, which in turn become bronchioles....
. He then undertook further studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
, and University of Breslau. In 1839, under the patronage of Karl Ernst von Baer
Karl Ernst von Baer
Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer, Edler von Huthorn also known in Russia as Karl Maksimovich Baer was an Estonian naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer, a founding father of embryology, explorer of European Russia and Scandinavia, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a...
, he accepted a job at Kiev University
Kiev University
Taras Shevchenko University or officially the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv , colloquially known in Ukrainian as KNU is located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is the third oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and Kharkiv University. Currently, its structure...
.
Explorer and scientist
In 1839, Middendorff became Assistant Professor of Zoology at Kiev University.In the summer of 1840, Baer asked Middendorff to join his second expedition to Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...
(the first one took place in 1837). Due to stormy conditions the expedition failed to reach Novaya Zemlya, but Baer and Middendorff explored Russian and Norwegian Lapland
Lapland (region)
Lapland is a region in northern Fennoscandia, largely within the Arctic Circle. It streches across Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula . On the North it is bounded by the Barents Sea, on the West by the Norwegian Sea and on the East by the White Sea...
, as well as the Barents
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...
and White Sea
White Sea
The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of...
s. Middendorff was tasked with crossing on foot the Kola Peninsula
Kola Peninsula
The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far northwest of Russia. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely to the north of the Arctic Circle and is washed by the Barents Sea in the north and the White Sea in the east and southeast...
and mapping the peninsula from Kola
Kola (town)
Kola is a town and the administrative center of Kolsky District of Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kola and Tuloma Rivers, south of Murmansk and southwest of Severomorsk. It is the oldest town of the Kola Peninsula. Population: 11,060 ; -History:The district of Kolo...
to Kandalaksha
Kandalaksha
Kandalaksha is a town in Kandalakshsky District of Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located at the head of Kandalaksha Gulf on the White Sea, beyond the Arctic Circle. Population: 40,564 ; -History:The settlement has existed since the 11th century...
while collecting zoological and botanical material.
From 1843 to 1845, on behalf of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, he travelled to the Taimyr Peninsula and then along the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk
Sea of Okhotsk
The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaidō to the far south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and...
and entered the lower Amur River valley (which at this time was Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
territory). He published his findings in Reise in den äußersten Norden und Osten Sibiriens (Travels in the extreme north and east of Siberia) in German (1848–1875), which included an account of the effects of permafrost
Permafrost
In geology, permafrost, cryotic soil or permafrost soil is soil at or below the freezing point of water for two or more years. Ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, but it frequently occurs and it may be in amounts exceeding the potential hydraulic saturation of...
on the spread of animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s and plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s. He also wrote Die Isepiptesen Russlands (1855), an account of bird migration
Bird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...
in Russia, and a monograph on molluscs, Beiträge zu einer Malacozoologia Rossica (1848–1849), in which he coined the term radula
Radula
The radula is an anatomical structure that is used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared rather inaccurately to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the esophagus...
.
In 1870 he visited the Baraba steppe
Baraba steppe
The Baraba steppe, also known as Barabinsk steppe, , is a grassland steppe and wooded flat plain situated in western Siberia.The steppe has an area of 117,000 km² and stretches between the Irtysh and the Ob Rivers. Barabinsk is the largest city on the steppe. The Baraba steppe also contains...
and in 1878 the Ferghana valley.
He died at Hellenurme in Livonia, nowadays in Valga County
Valga County
Valga County , or Valgamaa, is one of 15 counties of Estonia. Its capital is Valga, which is located on the Estonian-Latvian border. It is situated in southern part of the country and borders Põlva County and Võru County to the east, Latvia to the south and to the west, Viljandi County and Tartu...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
.
Middendorff's Grasshopper Warbler, Cape Middendorff (Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...
), Kodiak Bear
Kodiak Bear
The Kodiak bear , also known as the Kodiak brown bear or the Alaskan grizzly bear or American brown bear, occupies the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago in South-Western Alaska. Its name in the Alutiiq language is Taquka-aq. It is the largest subspecies of brown bear.- Taxonomy :Taxonomist C.H...
Ursus arctos middendorffi, and the Middendorff Bay
Middendorff Bay
The Middendorff Bay, is a deeply indented bay in the shores of the Taymyr Peninsula. It is located southwest of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago in the Kara Sea and it is open towards the west. This bay is limited on its eastern side by the Zarya Peninsula, named after Baron Eduard von Toll's ship Zarya...
(Taymyr Peninsula
Taymyr Peninsula
The Taymyr Peninsula is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of mainland Eurasia and Asia...
) are named after him.