User:Canesandpeace/Russian Academy of Sciences

History

In the Russian Empire

Creation of the Academy

The Academy was a culmination of Emperor Peter the Great's inspiration from his tours to Western Europe and its' higher education centers along with the beginning of his correspondence with Gottfried Leibniz, a philosopher, mathematician, and diplomat. Peter's Western European travels introduced him to the new inventions and ideas of the Enlightenment period. Leibniz was attracted to Peter's desire to promote education and science in Russia through modernization of the academic system as he had seen in Western Europe, although he couldn't get a meeting with Peter during Peter's first European tour. Leibniz did, however, begin correspondence with Peter's advisors where he discussed different plans to achieve the westernization of Russia. Leibniz suggested an education reform which divided schools, universities, and academies, as well as creating new academies and schools. Also, Leibniz suggested creating an arts and sciences institution with faculty consisting of leading foreign scholars. These letters led to Peter and Leibniz meeting in 1711, when Leibniz gave his suggestions directly to Peter.

Following Leibniz's advice, Peter founded the St. Petersburg Academy of Science just before he died in January 1724 and the Senate decree of February 8, 1724 implemented the Academy. It was modeled after the centralized structure of the Paris Academy and the Berlin Academy of Sciences. These model institutions had led to an educated society of philosophical men, something Peter wanted in Russia. In particular, the Berlin Academy of Sciences was founded by Leibniz, exemplary of the influence which Leibniz had on the creation of the St Petersburg Academy of Science. The Paris Academy was administered directly by the King, which inspired Peter to make himself the supreme head of the St Petersburg Academy of Science, although there could be an academy president.

Following Leibniz's instructions, Peter reached out to the German philosopher Christian Wolff, a correspondent of Leibniz, in the early 1720's and unsuccessfully offered him the Vice-Presidency of the Academy. While Wolff declined a position in the Academy, he did invite western scholars to work at the academy to improve higher education within the Russian Empire as outlined in Leibniz's letters. Foreign scholars invited to work at the academy included the mathematicians Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), Anders Johan Lexell, Christian Goldbach, Georg Bernhard Bilfinger, Nicholas Bernoulli (1695–1726) and Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782), botanist Johann Georg Gmelin, embryologists Caspar Friedrich Wolff, astronomer and geographer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, physicist Georg Wolfgang Kraft, historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller and English Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne (1732–1811).

Peter's widow and Empress Catherine I followed through with the establishment and formation of the Academy, opening it in December 1725. Mathematics, physical sciences, and humanities were the three departments which made up the Academy upon its' opening. The Academy also contained a university and secondary school, promoting higher education in Russia. As such, the initial 17 scholars had to teach and administer research. They were a portion of the 84 Academy staff in 1726. There were also student assistents who helped the scholars and taught in the secondary school. In addition, 112 students ages 5-18 made up the total first year enrollment in 1726. 76 of the 112 students were Russian while the other 36 students were foreign. The Academy didn't have an official charter until 1747. But Peter did lay out the goals for the academy in a document signed before his death called the "Project". In the document, Peter wished for the Academy to be a model for Russia.

Early Years of the Academy

Since the Academy was under the Tsar, the presidents, vice-presidents, directors, and vice-directors were all appointed by the crown. This started with Catherine I and was the precedent until 1917. The Academy hit hard times during Empress Anna's rule. A low of 6 students remained in 1744 and the teaching was in German, contrary to Peter I's wishes. The Academy did however turn out the first Russian scholar members, Stepan Krasheninnikov and Mikhail Lomonosov. The Academy's charter in 1747 brought some changed to the Academy's organization which stood until the end of the century. Among some of the changes were Russian and Latin as the official languages, a push to translate literature into Russian, and restrictive working hours for faculty. The charter also emphasized the hope for Russian Academy graduates to replace the foreign scholars in time. Surprisingly, most of the secondary school graduates went into civil service instead of continue to the university. The university part of the Academy gradually deteriorated and eventually died by 1767.

During Catherine the Great's rule, she enacted some Western reforms to improve the Academy for scholars. She created a commission of Academy faculty to lead the Academy instead of bureaucratic rule. In the second half of the 18th century, Russian scholars grew in number among the faculty of the academy. To heal the growing internal German versus Russian conflict of the faculty, Catherine the Great convinced Euler to return to St Petersburg and head the Academy in 1766, where he stayed until he died in 1783. Her son Paul I's short reign marked a decline for the academy as he cut funding for academic institutions and prohibited Russians from attending Western influenced institutions. In 1803, Alexander I reversed these policies and gave the Academy self-administration power in a new charter. The new charter came with a name change to the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

Expeditions to explore remote parts of the country had Academy scientists as their leaders or most active participants. These included Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition of 1733–1743, expeditions to observe the 1769 transit of Venus from eight locations in Russian Empire, and the expeditions of Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811) to Siberia. The expeditions led to the creation of an atlas of Russia and to research in astronomy, geography, and fauna and flora. From 1750 to 1777, the Academy published 20 volumes of their academic journal called Novi Commentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae. All of Russian scientific research in the 18th century was done by members of the Academy.