ROUND TABLE: Pallas ' Light of Knowledge in the Science of the Russian state

Abstract

Peter Simon Pallas (22. September 1741 - 8. September 1811). The great scientist of Biology in Russian state in 18-th century. Pallas stayed in Russia and published many works on different aspects of natural history and he eventually became the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Most fruitful was his expedition through provinces of southern Volga and the Crimea (1793–1794). As the result Pallas published two fundamental works and then for his efforts received a personal gratuity from the Catherine II. The fate of his collections was tragic. Most of his materials dealing with natural history had been presented to the Russian Academy of Sciences and exposed in special show exposition in the Botanic Garden, in Gorenki near Moscow built by Graf A. K. Razumovsky. They were destroyed in both places either because of the bad conservation conditions or by a fire of 1812. His rich library was granted to the University of Kharkov. And only his herbarium due to efforts of A.B. Lambert was transferred to the British Museum of Natural History (now The Natural History Museum in London) and has been kept there until now. A miserable part of his materials, primarily his library and bird carcasses that were taken by Pallas from Crimea to Germany occurred into zoological Museum of Berlin, but his type specimens of Insects were unknown to be kept there; most likely they were eventually lost during the Second World War. P. Pallas was buried on the Jerusalimer und Neuen Kirchen-Gemeinde cemetery in Berlin. A simple stone with a simple engraving: “Hier ruhet Peter Simon Pallas, alt 70 Jahr.

Speaker

Vasily V. Anikin
Chernyshevsky Saratov State University
Russia

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