Portrait of Miklukho Maklay. "Moon Man" Miklouho-Maclay: how the ethnographer lived with wild aborigines

A St. Petersburg resident, one of the relatives of the ethnographer Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay, intends to repeat the expedition of his ancestor and get to Papua New Guinea. There he plans to meet the descendants of the Papuans, among whom the 19th-century explorer lived, and, together with scientists, re-explore the region.

A descendant of the ethnographer, also named Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay, said "Paper", why you need to travel halfway around the world to listen to the legend of the Papuans, and what researchers want to learn about the tribes that lived in the “Stone Age” one and a half hundred years ago.

Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay

“At that time no one dared to visit this region: there were many cannibals there.”

We will get to Papua New Guinea by car and cross everything by ferry crossings. Of course, this is not the path of Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay; he traveled by sea. But we chose cars so that, while we were driving around Russia, we could carry out events related to increasing the ethnocultural literacy of the population. We want to show a multifaceted portrait of the country.

Among the three crews are professional travelers and scientists. We are supported by the Federal Agency for National Affairs: with them we will coordinate movements around Russia. Then we will go through China, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and reach the Maclay coast.

Miklouho-Maclay is actually the first ethnographer, and he showed that this is a really interesting science. Why Papua New Guinea? Nikolai Nikolaevich chose the second largest island on Earth because the region was unexplored by anyone and people lived there in the “Stone Age”. There are 700 small nationalities there. At the same time, one tribe speaks one language, but if we walk 5–7 kilometers, we will hear a different dialect, and if even further, then a different language. From a scientific point of view, this is unique.

Moreover, at that time no one dared to visit this region: there were many cannibals there. Many missionaries who tried to explore it disappeared without a trace. There were no cannibals in the tribe in which Nikolai Nikolaevich was, but, of course, there was danger. In his diaries, he wrote that his safety lay in his defenselessness. He said that he had no aggression towards the Papuans, so they did not try to kill him.

Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay is a Russian ethnographer, biologist and traveler who studied the indigenous populations of Southeast Asia, Australia, and Oceania. On his birthday they celebrate the professional holiday of ethnographers. Photo: Kahunapule Michael Johnson / Flickr

Miklouho-Maclay first went to Papua New Guinea in 1870 on the ship "Vityaz". On the island he lived among the natives, studying their customs and customs. Photo: Kahunapule Michael Johnson / Flickr

Part of the northeastern coast of the island of New Guinea is named Maclay Coast, as the ethnographer himself called it. Photo: DOI International Technical Assistance Program / Flickr

Miklouho-Maclay returned to St. Petersburg in 1882, after 12 years of wandering. Photo: Kahunapule Michael Johnson / Flickr

Photo: Kahunapule Michael Johnson / Flickr

“The tribes of Oceania have an exclusive right to the legend”

Most of his materials, which were donated free of charge by Miklouho-Maclay, and later by our family, are stored in the Russian Geographical Society, in the Kunstkamera and Moscow State University. Since then, expeditions have been periodically conducted in that region. Thanks to this, we will be able to conduct scientific research and trace the changes that have occurred over the past 150 years - starting from the “Stone Age” in which Miklouho-Maclay was, when there was not even writing.

To explore Papua New Guinea in detail, you need to immerse yourself in the process, merge with the culture, take some notes, that is, stay there for at least three months. To do this, scientists Andrei Tutorsky from Moscow State University and Arina Lebedeva from the Kunstkamera are going there.

We will take about 50 drawings and photographs of that region and will do a survey among the Papuans, see what has changed, what they use now. This will allow us to understand what situation the tribes are in now, how they were influenced by the environment, time or some external influence.

Native sanctuary. Drawing by Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay (1872)

In addition, we prepared a bas-relief on which Nikolai Nikolaevich draws the first Papuan he met, Tuya. And we will meet his descendant - Gasom, who keeps the legend of Maclay. In the tribes of Oceania, there is an exclusive right to tell a legend: only the family that knows it can tell it in full, but the other cannot, otherwise it will attract evil spirits. The legend of Miklouho-Maclay has been passed on for 146 years - so much time has passed since the first landing of Nikolai Nikolaevich on the island.

We will partially communicate in English, but I will also have to learn the language of the tribe, Bongu.

“Your surname is so interesting, was it named after the street?”

I will be in Papua New Guinea for two or three weeks, and then I will go to Australia to visit my relatives, we keep in touch with everyone. The fact is that Nikolai Nikolaevich married Margaret, the daughter of the Governor-General of Australia, they had two sons, and then the family moved to St. Petersburg. Here Miklouho-Maclay died, and Margaret took her sons back to Australia. This is how two branches appeared - Australian and Russian.

Of course, my family told me about the great traveler: I was born with it and knew many things about him since childhood. In our family there were not only ethnographers, but also geologists, orientalists, railway workers and excellent specialists in other fields. I and the entire Russian branch are from my older brother, Sergei Nikolaevich. He and Nikolai Nikolaevich were the same age, both were born in Okulovka, Novgorod region. Of the descendants who bear the surname in the male line, my father, I and my sons remain in Russia.

I am a telecommunications economist by training, have been involved in entrepreneurship for some time and have traveled a lot. At the end of 2016, the Miklouho-Maclay Foundation for the Preservation of Ethnocultural Heritage, of which I am the director, began operating. We opened it with the support of the scientific community, the Federal Agency for National Affairs and the Russian Geographical Society. The purpose of the foundation is to preserve the ethnocultural heritage of the peoples of Russia, strengthen the spirituality of society and promote science.

If earlier young people knew about Miklouho-Maclay, now, for example, when I arrive at a hotel in Moscow, they say to me: “Your surname is so interesting, was it named after the street?” Unfortunately, there is a lack of education. It is connected, perhaps, not only with people, but also with the fact that we ourselves forget to present information in the correct way. Our task is to fix this.

N.N. Miklouho-Maclay, Portrait of the artist A. Korzukhin, Mitchell Library NSW

To the 165th anniversary of his birth.

It is difficult to be Russian, live in Australia and not touch the name of Miklouho-Maclay. Well, only if you're not at all curious. Once you find yourself in the Southern Hemisphere, you search with interest and find information about Russian people whom fate brought to this part of the globe earlier. What did they do and what did they achieve?
And here is such a familiar name from school textbooks, and at the same time a mysterious name!
From school geography textbooks and the film of distant 1947, Miklouho Maclay seemed to me not a very real figure, mythical, distant, like Don Quixote...
And somehow it didn’t happen to come closer earlier. Chance helped.
I was asked to look at what letters from a Russian scientist were in the Sydney University Museum. Well, I, like many who were interested in the life of the traveler, was drawn in like a magnet by his unusual fate, the extraordinary, purposeful personality of a Citizen of the World.
What is most striking is his scientific obsession, full of Christian self-sacrifice. Much has been written about him, but the memories of his contemporaries have not yet been collected together, and not everything has yet been studied and verified. The image emerges as bright, talented, contradictory.

Dream of Black Russia
Nikolai Nikolaevich was born on July 17, 1846. His father, a railway engineer, then the first head of the Moscow station in St. Petersburg, died early, when Nikolai was 11 years old. Family legend says that the ancestor of the famous traveler, Cossack Miklukha from the army of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, captured the Scottish knight Michael Mac Lai, who fought in the Polish army of Potocki. The Scot took root in Miklukha’s family, married his sister, and the surname acquired a second part, which only Nikolai Nikolaevich and his family began to actively use.
The mother raised five children herself and gave them all higher education. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay studied in Europe, since he was expelled from St. Petersburg University for participating in student unrest. Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, then the Faculty of Medicine at the Universities of Leipzig and Jena. After graduation, Nikolai Nikolaevich traveled a lot, participated in several expeditions to collect zoological collections and study sponges and the brain of cartilaginous fish. Also interested in comparative anatomical work. This interest grew into a plan for an anthropological-ethnographic expedition to Oceania.
Why New Guinea? The choice was made, most likely, because in the 19th century it was one of the most unexplored countries, and for the anthropologist it was extremely interesting to confirm or refute existing hypotheses about the origin of the local Papuan tribes. For two years the scientist lived and worked in New Guinea among the Papuans. He studied their life, anthropological features, defended their social interests, developed a plan and tried to create a Russian settlement in New Guinea - Chernorossiya.

You’re simply amazed when you read how often, already unwell, with a fever, twice a year, he made what were then long sea journeys from Australia - Oceania to Russia, delivering research materials to the Geographical Society. How many cargoes, the results of many months of labor, were lost, lost forever. In a fire in Sydney, many of the scientist's works and documents were destroyed. And yet, a lot of collected materials remain. I haven't had time to process everything. He died in 1888 while preparing for the publication of two volumes with diaries and travel notes about his travels.

After his death, only in 1923, the famous scientist D.N. Anuchin managed to publish the first volume of notes and travel diaries of Miklouho Maclay. Then, in the 50s, employees of the Institute of Ethnography of the Miklouho Maclay Academy of Sciences prepared and published 5 volumes of his works.

Then we seemed to get acquainted with Miklouho-Maclay again, after the “varnishing” of his figure by the Stalin era. From the pages of the diaries, we saw a living, interesting, controversial person, fanatically devoted to science. Don Quixote of Science!
And by 2006, on the 150th anniversary of Miklouho-Maclay, 6 volumes of his works were published. The preface to this publication was written by historian and writer Elena Govor (Australia) http://www.elena.id.au

To Miklouho-Maclay's Sydney addresses
Nikolai Nikolaevich lived in Australia for 5 years. He came here to receive treatment after New Guinea at the invitation of his colleague, naturalist and member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, Sir William Macleay. But from the very first days he continued his scientific work, trying to implement his long-standing plans. Here he opened the first marine biological station in the Southern Hemisphere in the Watson Bay area. He studied marine flora and fauna, the life and anthropology of the Australian aborigines, measured the temperature of the earth in the deepest mine (Victoria) and from here continued to be interested in his beloved New Guinea, the land that he yearned for in separation...
Living in Sydney, it is easy to go to the addresses where Miklouho-Maclay lived and worked; the houses have been preserved. The Macleay House, where Nikolai Nikolaevich lived upon his arrival in Australia, now houses the Elizabeth Bay House Museum. The area also decorates the house near the water “Wyoming” in the current Birchgrove area (No 25 Wharf Road), where two sons were born into the family of Nicholas and Margaret Miklouho-Maclay.

Nikolai Nikolaevich married the daughter of the former Prime Minister of New South Wales, Sir John Robertson. Their love story will not leave you indifferent. I touched it as if it were a secret, looking at the photographs in the Mitchell Library. Encrypted inscriptions on the photo, and then on the tombstone at the Volkov cemetery in St. Petersburg. It was a deep feeling, protected from prying eyes.
Of course, the main materials and collections were transferred to Russia and are stored there. But many documents, letters, some collections, are stored in the University of Sydney Museum (Macleau Museum), in the Sydney University Library (Fisher LIbrary) and the State Library of NSW (Mitchell Library).

The story of one portrait
I really liked the Macleay Museum. Small but meaningful. Free admission. In the foyer there is a bust of Miklouho-Maclay by sculptor Gennady Raspopov, erected for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Nikolaevich. The museum is named after the founder of the museum, Sir William Maclay, an Australian scientist, colleague and friend of Miklouho-Maclay. Stands with a collection of materials collected by Maclay in New Guinea and Australia, photographic documents, drawings by Maclay, various utensils, and household items of the Papuans. Not everything is on display, of course; a lot is in storage. The catalog of the Miklouho-Maclay archive is impressive.
In the rare books department of the Sydney University Library (Fisher LIbrary), they told me that among the originals they only have the diary of Margaret Miklouho-Maclay, the scientist’s wife, for 1888, the year of the scientist’s death. And that, basically, papers, letters, photographs are stored in the State State Library (Mitchell Library).

The curator of the photographic archive, Allan Davies, previously worked at the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney and is familiar with the fate of the Miklouho-Maclay archives in Australia. Allan showed me the original photographs, which included a photo of Margaret Robertson, dated 1881, with a wedding ring on her hand and the inscription on the back: “I will never belong to anyone else.”

When you hold such a document in your hand, a piece of someone’s life, a secret, a feeling of belonging involuntarily arises, as if you are holding time by the hand. And we know that Nicholas received permission to marry Margaret from Tsar Alexander lll only in 1884. Margaret was a young widow, having married at eighteen and losing her husband 3 years later. Who was she writing to? Nicholas first appeared in Australia on July 18, 1878, but traveled a lot and was not in one place all the time. And so on July 14, 1882, on the way to Russia on the corvette Vestnik, he asked Margaret for her hand in a letter. So this inscription is for him and the ring is from him..?.
-Do you know, - Allan told me, - that we have the original of the magnificent portrait of Nikolai Nikolaevich, the work of Alexei Korzukhin?
Yes? And we went to the library basements... Apparently, Allan really really liked the portrait. He quickly found a place and a large, beautiful oil portrait of Nikolai Nikolayevich floated out of the darkness along the rails above. Again there was a feeling of time in my hands... I’m taking a portrait in the Tretyakov Gallery! And it's in the storerooms, in the basement of the Sydney library.
Alexey Korzukhin (1835 - 1894) was one of the founders of the famous Russian group of artists "Peredvizhniki". The artist was friends with Miklouho-Maclay, and when Nikolai was at his mother’s estate in Malin in 1886, he visited him. This portrait was painted there. In December 1886, Nikolai gave it to his wife. After her husband's death, Margaret donated this beautiful portrait to the state library.

Man is man everywhere...
In the memoirs of contemporaries, Miklouho-Maclay looks like a very gifted person, attractive in communication, and extraordinary. It is known how warmly he wrote and highly appreciated the activities of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Lev Tolstoy in a letter (September 1886): “As far as I know, you were the first to prove through irrefutable experience that man is a man everywhere, that is, a good open being, with whom one can and should enter into communication only with goodness and truth, and not with guns and alcohol. And you proved this with a feat of true courage, which is so rare in our society that the people of our society do not even understand it."

Many materials, articles, books have been written about the scientist by historians and writers Elena Govor, Alexander Massov, Wendy Payton and others. I knew Wendy. It's a pity that Wendy was no longer with us this year. She did a lot for the memory of Miklouho-Maclay both among Australians and in Russia. She wrote a very necessary book: “Nicholas and his connections with Australia,” which describes in great detail all the events of the scientist’s life and achievements, especially those related to his stay in Australia. There is also an extensive bibliography.

Ethnography, anthropology, geography, zoology, botany - all this interested N.N. Miklouho-Maclay. A brave Russian traveler, a scientist and encyclopedist of global scale, who gave his life to science, in the literal sense of the word, having lost his health in the difficult conditions of tropical Oceania for a European, he became the youngest Member of the Russian Geographical Society,
How can you accomplish so much in 41 years of life?

In his youth, Miklouho-Maclay met in Weimar with Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. He was then struck by the writer’s words about happiness: “When a person wants something, he cannot be happy.” And he decided that until his old age he would want something and would be happy with it.
In 1873, after his first trip to New Guinea, Nikolai Nikolaevich wrote to his friend A.A. Meshchersky: “...I’m walking - I won’t say along a well-known road..., but in a well-known direction, and I’m going to do anything, and I’m ready for anything. This is not a youthful fascination with an idea, but a deep consciousness of power.”

Read about the Australian relatives of the traveler in the article by Alla Mandrabi

Name Miklouho-Maclay It is well known to everyone: an outstanding ethnographer did a lot to study the life of the indigenous population of New Guinea. It seemed to ordinary people that his life was akin to a breathtaking adventure, but in fact the great traveler faced enormous difficulties in his work, he was constantly overcome by illness. How Miklouho-Maclay lived with the Papuans, and why they called him “the moon man” - read on.

Miklouho-Maclay lived only 41 years and since childhood he constantly fought for the right to life. At first he suffered from pneumonia, later malaria and fever, these diseases provoked constant fainting and bouts of delirium. Maclay's death was generally caused by a disease that doctors were unable to diagnose: the scientist had a sore jaw, one arm did not function, and there was severe swelling in his legs and abdomen. Many years later, during the reburial of Maclay's remains, studies were carried out, as a result of which it was established that Maclay had cancer of the jaw, and metastases had spread throughout the body.

Miklouho-Maclay also had an official wife, an Australian. The couple had two sons, Maclay moved the family to St. Petersburg, where they lived for 6 years. After the death of Miklouho-Maclay, his wife and children returned to Australia.

Read about modern life of Aboriginal people in our review.

Miklukho-Maclay Nikolai Nikolaevich (July 5 (17), 1846 (18460717), Yazykovo-Rozhdestvenskoye village, Borovichi district, Novgorod province - April 2 (14), 1888, St. Petersburg) - Russian ethnographer, anthropologist, biologist and traveler who studied the indigenous population Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania (1870-1880s), including the Papuans of the northeastern coast of New Guinea. This coast in Russian-language literature is called the Maclay Coast.

It is believed that Nikolai Nikolaevich was the first to describe the cuscus animal living in New Guinea.

... it is on this little-studied island that primitive people are least affected by the influence of civilization and this opens up exceptional opportunities for anthropological and ethnographic research. (from the article "Why did I choose New Guinea?")

Miklouho-Maclay Nikolai Nikolaevich

Author of about 160 scientific papers. He was a defender of the colonial peoples. He opposed racism and colonialism. He also called on the tsarist government to stand up for the natives of New Guinea, as he saw how terribly they were sometimes treated by the colonial troops of Germany, and made reports in defense of the peoples at the Russian Geographical Society.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay was born in the Novgorod province to the family of railway engineer N.I. Miklukha, a track engineer, builder of the Nikolaevskaya railway and the first head of the Moscow station. His father, Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha, was born in 1818 in Starodub, Chernigov province. Great-grandfather, Zaporozhye Cossack Stepan Miklukha, was given the title of nobility for heroism during the storming of Ochakov (during the Russian-Turkish war). Mother, Ekaterina Semyonovna, née Becker, is Polish by nationality. Until now, among the residents of the Starodub village there are bearers of the surnames Miklukha and Miklukhin. The second part of the famous traveler’s surname was added later, after his expeditions to Australia.

Later the family moved to St. Petersburg, where from 1858 Nikolai continued his studies at the Second St. Petersburg Gymnasium. After completing his gymnasium course, Miklouho-Maclay continued his studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University as a volunteer student. The study was not long. In 1864, for participating in student gatherings, Miklouho-Maclay was expelled from the university and he, using funds raised by the student community, left for Germany. In Germany, he continues his studies at the University of Heidelberg, where he studies philosophy. A year later, Miklouho-Maclay was transferred to the medical faculty of the University of Leipzig, and then the University of Jena. At the University of Jena, Nikolai meets the famous zoologist E. Haeckel, under whose guidance he begins to study the comparative anatomy of animals. As Haeckel's assistant, Miklouho-Maclay travels to the Canary Islands and Morocco. After graduating from university in 1868, Miklouho-Maclay made an independent journey along the Red Sea coast, and then, in 1869, returned to Russia.

The young researcher's horizons expanded, and he moved on to more general issues of natural science - anthropology, ethnography, geography. In these areas, Miklouho-Maclay managed to achieve certain successes. Particularly interesting is his conclusion that the cultural and racial characteristics of various peoples are determined by the natural and social environment. He also paid a lot of attention to the idea and practice of creating Zoological stations. Thus, in 1869 in Moscow, at the Second Congress of Naturalists and Doctors, Miklouho-Maclay spoke, calling for the creation of marine biological stations for the development of research in the seas. The congress supported him and decided to create the Sevastopol biological station.

Miklouho-Maclay makes another major journey. In 1870, he went to New Guinea on the warship Vityaz. Here, on the northeastern coast of this island, he spends two years studying the life, customs, and religious rites of the aborigines (Papuans). Miklouho-Maclay continues his observations begun in New Guinea in the Philippines, Indonesia, on the southwestern coast of New Guinea, on the Malacca Peninsula and the islands of Oceania.

In 1876-1877, the scientist again spent several months on the northeastern coast of New Guinea, returning to the tribe whose life he had observed earlier. Unfortunately, his stay on the island was short-lived and signs of anemia and general exhaustion forced him to leave the island for Singapore. The treatment took more than six months. Lack of financial resources did not allow Miklouho-Maclay to return to Russia, and he was forced to move to Sydney (Australia), where he settled with the Russian consul. Then Miklouho-Maclay lived for some time in the English Club, and then moved to the house of a public figure, zoologist and chairman of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, W. Maclay. Maclay helps Miklouho-Maclay realize the idea expressed by him at the Linnevsky Society to build an Australian Zoological Station. In September 1878, Miklouho-Maclay's proposal was approved and construction of a station began in Watsons Bay, designed by Sydney architect John Kirkpatrick, which was called the Marine Biological Station.

Exactly 130 years ago, on April 14, 1888, the famous Russian ethnographer, biologist, anthropologist and traveler Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay, who devoted most of his life to studying the indigenous populations of Australia, Oceania and Southeast Asia, including the North Papuans, passed away. the eastern coast of New Guinea, today called the Maclay Coast.

Portrait of Miklouho-Maclay by K. Makovsky. Kept in the Kunstkamera.

His research was highly appreciated during his lifetime. Taking into account his merits, Miklouho-Maclay’s birthday on July 17 is unofficially celebrated in Russia as a professional holiday - Ethnographer’s Day.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay was born on July 17, 1846 (July 5, old style) in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye (today it is Yazykovo-Rozhdestvenskoye, Okulovsky municipal district, Novgorod region) in the family of an engineer. His father Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha was a railway worker. The future ethnographer's mother's name was Ekaterina Semyonovna Bekker, she was the daughter of a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812. Contrary to a fairly common misconception, Miklouho-Maclay did not have any significant foreign roots. The widespread legend about the Scottish mercenary Michael Maclay, who, having taken root in Russia, became the founder of the family, was only a legend. The traveler himself came from the humble Cossack family of Miklukh. If we talk about the second part of the surname, he first used it in 1868, signing the first scientific publication in German “Rudiment of the swim bladder in Selachians.” At the same time, historians have not been able to come to a consensus on why this double surname Miklouho-Maclay arose. Discussing his nationality, in his dying autobiography the ethnographer pointed out that he was a mixture of elements: Russian, German and Polish.

Photo of Nikolai Miklukha - student (before 1866).

Surprisingly, the future ethnographer studied rather poorly at school, often missing classes. As he admitted 20 years later, at the gymnasium he missed classes not only due to ill health, but also simply from an unwillingness to study. He spent two years in the 4th grade of the Second Petersburg Gymnasium, and in the 1860/61 academic year he attended classes very rarely, missing a total of 414 lessons. Miklukha’s only grade was “good” in French, in German he received “satisfactory”, in other subjects – “poor” and “mediocre”. While still a high school student, Miklouho-Maclay was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress; he was sent there along with his brother for participating in a student demonstration, which was caused by the socio-political upsurge of 1861 and was associated with the abolition of serfdom in the country.

Ernst Haeckel and Miklouho-Maclay.

In Soviet times, the ethnographer’s biography indicated that Miklouho-Maclay was expelled from the gymnasium and then from the university for participating in political activities. But this is not true. The future famous traveler left the gymnasium of his own free will, and they simply could not expel him from the university, since he was there as a volunteer student. He did not finish his studies in St. Petersburg, leaving for Germany. In 1864, the future ethnographer studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, and in 1865 at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Leipzig. And in 1866 he moved to Jena (a university city in Germany), where he studied the comparative anatomy of animals at the Faculty of Medicine. As an assistant to the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel, he visited Morocco and the Canary Islands. In 1868, Miklouho-Maclay completed his studies at the University of Jena. During his first expedition to the Canary Islands, the future explorer studied sea sponges, eventually discovering a new species of calcareous sponge, calling it Guancha blanca in honor of the indigenous inhabitants of these islands. It is curious that from 1864 to 1869, from 1870 to 1882 and from 1883 to 1886, Miklouho-Maclay lived outside of Russia, never staying in his homeland for more than one year.

In 1869, he traveled to the Red Sea coast, the purpose of the trip was to study the local marine fauna. That same year he returned back to Russia. The ethnographer's first scientific studies were devoted to the comparative anatomy of sea sponges, the brain of sharks, as well as other issues of zoology.

Drawings and notes by Miklouho-Maclay.

But during his travels, Miklouho-Maclay also made valuable geographical observations. Nikolai was inclined to believe that the cultural and racial characteristics of the peoples of the world are formed under the influence of the social and natural environment. In order to substantiate this theory, Miklouho-Maclay decided to take a long journey to the Pacific Islands, here he was going to study the “Papuan race”.

Corvette "Vityaz" under sail.

At the end of October 1870, with the assistance of the Russian Geographical Society, the traveler got the opportunity to travel to New Guinea. He went here on board the military ship Vityaz. His expedition was designed to last several years.

Miklouho-Maclay with Papuan Akhmat. Malacca, 1874 or 1875.

On September 20, 1871, the Vityaz landed Maclay on the northeastern coast of New Guinea. In the future, this coastal area will be called the Maclay Coast. Contrary to erroneous beliefs, he did not travel alone, but accompanied by two servants - a young man from the island of Niue named Boy and a Swedish sailor Olsen.

Drawing by Miklouho-Maclay.

At the same time, with the help of the Vityaz crew members, a hut was built, which became not only housing for Miklouho-Maclay, but also a suitable laboratory. He lived among the local Papuans for 15 months in 1871-1872, and with his tactful behavior and friendliness he managed to win their love and trust.

Illustration for the diary of Miklouho-Maclay.

But initially Miklouho-Maclay was considered among the Papuans not to be a god, as is commonly believed, but quite the opposite, an evil spirit. The reason for this attitude towards him was an episode on the first day of our acquaintance. Seeing the ship and the white people, the islanders thought that it was Rotei, their great ancestor, who had returned. A large number of Papuans went on their boats to the ship in order to present gifts to the arrival. On board the Viking they were also well received and given gifts, but already on the way back, a cannon shot suddenly rang out from the side of the ship, as the crew saluted in honor of their arrival. However, out of fear, the islanders literally jumped out of their boats, threw gifts and swam to the shore, deciding that it was not Rotei who had come to them, but the evil spirit of Buk.

Tui from the village of Gorendu. Drawing by Miklouho-Maclay.

A Papuan named Tui, who was bolder than the other islanders and managed to make friends with the traveler, helped change the situation in the future. When Miklouho-Maclay managed to cure Tui from a serious injury, the Papuans accepted him into their society as an equal, including him in the local society. Tui remained for a long time the ethnographer’s translator and mediator in his relations with other Papuans.

In 1873, Miklouho-Maclay visited the Philippines and Indonesia, and the following year he visited the southwestern coast of New Guinea. In 1874-1875, he again traveled twice to the Malacca Peninsula, studying the local Sakai and Semang tribes. In 1876, he traveled to Western Micronesia (the islands of Oceania), as well as Northern Melanesia (visiting various island groups in the Pacific Ocean). In 1876 and 1877 he again visited the Maclay Coast. From here he wanted to return back to Russia, but due to a serious illness the traveler was forced to settle in Sydney, Australia, where he lived until 1882. Not far from Sydney, Nikolai founded Australia's first biological station. During the same period of his life, he toured the islands of Melanesia (1879), and also examined the southern coast of New Guinea (1880), and a year later, in 1881, he visited the southern coast of New Guinea for the second time.

Drawing by Miklouho-Maclay.

It is interesting that Miklouho-Maclay was involved in preparing a Russian protectorate over the Papuans. He carried out expeditions to New Guinea several times, drawing up the so-called “project for the development of the Maclay Coast”. His project provided for the preservation of the way of life of the Papuans, but at the same time declared the achievement of a higher level of self-government based on existing local customs. At the same time, the Maclay Coast, according to his plans, was to receive the protectorate of the Russian Empire, also becoming one of the basing points of the Russian fleet. But his project turned out to be impossible. By the time of his third trip to New Guinea, most of his Papuan friends, including Tui, had already died, at the same time the villagers were mired in internecine conflicts, and Russian naval officers who had studied local conditions concluded that the local coast was not suitable for placement of warships. And already in 1885, New Guinea was divided between Great Britain and Germany. Thus, the question of the possibility of implementing a Russian protectorate over this territory was finally closed.

Miklouho-Maclay returned to his homeland after a long absence in 1882. After returning to Russia, he read a number of public reports on his travels to members of the Geographical Society. For his research, the Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography awarded Nikolai a gold medal. Having then visited European capitals - Berlin, London and Paris, he introduced the public to the results of his trips and research. Then he again went to Australia, visiting the Maclay Coast for the third time along the way, this happened in 1883.

From 1884 to 1886, the traveler lived in Sydney, and in 1886 he returned to his homeland again. All this time he was seriously ill, but at the same time he continued to prepare for the publication of his scientific materials and diaries. In the same 1886, he transferred to the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg all the ethnographic collections he collected from 1870 to 1885. Today these collections can be seen in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg.

The traveler who returned to St. Petersburg has changed a lot. As people who knew him noted, the 40-year-old still young scientist sharply became decrepit, weakened, and his hair turned gray. Pain in the jaw reappeared, which intensified in February 1887, and a tumor appeared. Doctors could not diagnose him and could not determine the cause of the disease. Only in the second half of the 20th century were doctors able to lift the veil of secrecy from this issue. The ethnographer was killed by cancer localized in the region of the right mandibular canal. Exactly 130 years ago, on April 14, 1888 (April 2, old style), Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay died; he was only 41 years old. The traveler was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Drawing by Miklouho-Maclay.

The most important scientific merit of the scientist was that he raised the question of species unity and kinship of existing human races. It was also he who first gave a detailed description of the Melanesian anthropological type and proved that it is very widespread on the islands of Southeast Asia and Western Oceania. For ethnography, his descriptions of the material culture, economy and life of the Papuans and other peoples inhabiting the numerous islands of Oceania and Southeast Asia are of great importance. Many of the traveler's observations, distinguished by a high level of accuracy, still remain practically the only materials on the ethnography of some islands of Oceania.

Grave of N. N. Miklouho-Maclay (St. Petersburg).

During Nikolai Nikolaevich’s lifetime, more than 100 of his scientific works on anthropology, ethnography, geography, zoology and other sciences were published, and in total he wrote more than 160 such works. At the same time, not a single major work of his was published during the scientist’s lifetime; all of them appeared only after his death. Thus, in 1923, the Travel Diaries of Miklouho-Maclay were first published, and even later, in 1950-1954, a collected works in five volumes.

Papua New Guinea.

The memory of the researcher and ethnographer is widely preserved not only in Russia, but throughout the world. His bust can be found today in Sydney, and in New Guinea a mountain and a river are named in his honor, without taking into account the section of the north-eastern coast, which is called the Maclay Coast. In 1947, the name of Miklouho-Maclay was given to the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences (RAN). And relatively recently, in 2014, the Russian Geographical Society established a special Gold Medal named after Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay as the society’s highest award for ethnographic research and travel. The world recognition of this researcher is also evidenced by the fact that in honor of his 150th anniversary, 1996 was proclaimed by UNESCO as the year of Miklouho-Maclay, at the same time he was named Citizen of the World.