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Nikolay Danilevsky
Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (Russian: Николай Яковлевич Данилевский; 10 December [O.S. 28 November] 1822 – 19 November [O.S. 7 November] 1885) was a Russian naturalist, economist, ethnologist, philosopher, historian and ideologue of pan-Slavism and the Slavophile movement. He expounded a circular view of world history.
He is remembered also for his opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and for his theory of historical-cultural types.
Danilevsky was born in the village of Oberets in Oryol Governorate. As a member of a noble family, he was educated at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. After graduation, he went on to an appointment with the Military Ministry Office. Dissatisfied with the prospect of a military career, he began to attend the University of St Petersburg, where he studied physics and mathematics.
Having passed his master's exams, Danilevsky prepared to defend his thesis on the flora of the Black Sea area of European Russia but in 1849 he was arrested there for his membership in the Petrashevsky Circle, which studied the work of French socialists and included Fyodor Dostoevsky. Its most active members were sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Danilevsky was imprisoned for 100 days in the Peter and Paul Fortress and then was sent to live under police surveillance in Vologda, where he worked in provincial administration.
In 1852, he was appointed to an expedition, led by Karl Ernst von Baer, to assess the condition of the fishing industry on the Volga and the Caspian Sea. The expedition lasted four years, and Danilevsky was then reassigned to the Agricultural Department of the State Property Ministry. For over 20 years, he was responsible for expeditions to the White Sea, the Black Sea, the Azov Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The expertise that he gained from the expeditions led to the publication of his 1872 book, Examination of Fishery Conditions in Russia.
Aside from his work on fisheries and the seal trade, he was the head of the commission setting the rules for the use of running water in Crimea from 1872 to 1879. He ran the Nikitsky Botanical Gardens from 1879 to 1880, and he was part of a commission appointed to deal with the phylloxera epidemic in the 1880s. His papers on Russian climatology, geology, geography, and ethnology earned him a gold medal from the Russian Geographical Society.
Danilevsky died in Tbilisi, Tiflis Governorate, and was buried at his estate, in Mshanka.
Danilevsky's Darwinism: Critical research, which brings together more than 1,200 pages of arguments against Darwin's theory, mostly assembled from the literature that already existed at the time, was published in 1885. It was meant to be the first volume of a longer work, the second volume containing Danilevsky's own theories, which he characterised as "natural theology", but it was unfinished at his death. When it was published posthumously, it contained only preliminary studies.
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Nikolay Danilevsky
Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (Russian: Николай Яковлевич Данилевский; 10 December [O.S. 28 November] 1822 – 19 November [O.S. 7 November] 1885) was a Russian naturalist, economist, ethnologist, philosopher, historian and ideologue of pan-Slavism and the Slavophile movement. He expounded a circular view of world history.
He is remembered also for his opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and for his theory of historical-cultural types.
Danilevsky was born in the village of Oberets in Oryol Governorate. As a member of a noble family, he was educated at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. After graduation, he went on to an appointment with the Military Ministry Office. Dissatisfied with the prospect of a military career, he began to attend the University of St Petersburg, where he studied physics and mathematics.
Having passed his master's exams, Danilevsky prepared to defend his thesis on the flora of the Black Sea area of European Russia but in 1849 he was arrested there for his membership in the Petrashevsky Circle, which studied the work of French socialists and included Fyodor Dostoevsky. Its most active members were sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Danilevsky was imprisoned for 100 days in the Peter and Paul Fortress and then was sent to live under police surveillance in Vologda, where he worked in provincial administration.
In 1852, he was appointed to an expedition, led by Karl Ernst von Baer, to assess the condition of the fishing industry on the Volga and the Caspian Sea. The expedition lasted four years, and Danilevsky was then reassigned to the Agricultural Department of the State Property Ministry. For over 20 years, he was responsible for expeditions to the White Sea, the Black Sea, the Azov Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The expertise that he gained from the expeditions led to the publication of his 1872 book, Examination of Fishery Conditions in Russia.
Aside from his work on fisheries and the seal trade, he was the head of the commission setting the rules for the use of running water in Crimea from 1872 to 1879. He ran the Nikitsky Botanical Gardens from 1879 to 1880, and he was part of a commission appointed to deal with the phylloxera epidemic in the 1880s. His papers on Russian climatology, geology, geography, and ethnology earned him a gold medal from the Russian Geographical Society.
Danilevsky died in Tbilisi, Tiflis Governorate, and was buried at his estate, in Mshanka.
Danilevsky's Darwinism: Critical research, which brings together more than 1,200 pages of arguments against Darwin's theory, mostly assembled from the literature that already existed at the time, was published in 1885. It was meant to be the first volume of a longer work, the second volume containing Danilevsky's own theories, which he characterised as "natural theology", but it was unfinished at his death. When it was published posthumously, it contained only preliminary studies.
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