Everyone knows the rare Russian surname Miklouho-Maclay. Scientific activities of the outstanding scientist and traveler Nikolay Nikolayevich Miklouho-Maclay who devoted his entire life to the high ideals of good and humanism, made this name world famous.

An anthropologist and ethnographer, anatomist and physician, linguist and zoologist, botanist and geographer, writer, publicist and artist in one person, Nikolay Nikolayevich, like a comet,  raced through the sky of the scientific sphere of the whole world, leaving behind the works that have not lost their meaning up to this day! And first of all his family, his parents became the main source of moral gestures of the famous researcher. Unfortunately, there are almost no records about his ancestors, their names became oblivious, and this, despite the fact that it was the cream of Russian society of the stormy XIX century.

Few people know that all five children of the railway engineer Nikolay Miklouho, as well as his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, have made such a community of outstanding figures of the Russian State, which has been inspiring respect of the world for more than one and a half centuries.[vc_empty_space height=»22px»]

Nikolay Miklouho, the father of all the living Miklouho-Maclays, was an outstanding and charming person. He was born on October 12, 1818 in a noble family living in the city of Starodub in the Chernigov province (the city itself was founded in 1096, and today it is part of the Bryansk region). He inherited his name from his ancestors, known since the XVII century. According to family legend, in 1648, during the Battle of Yellow Waters, that in Ukraine, when the Cossacks of Bogdan Khmelnytsky were defeated by the avant-garde of the Polish hetman Pototsky,  the Scottish mercenary Mikael Mak-Lay, serving in the Polish army, was captured. Cossacks treated the prisoner in a kind way — they liked his powerful figure and complaisant disposition. The Scotsman stayed in Ukraine, grew roots, became Russified and married, and Mikael’s name was transferred to Miklouho. But until the 60s of the XIX century, the second part of the surname was used quite rarely.It is known that Stepan, one of the Miklouho-Maclay’s family, participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-1791, during which, in 1788, he distinguished himself at the Ochakov conquest. He was the first, at the head of hundreds of Cossacks, to climb the fortress wall and hoisted the Russian flag, for what he received the rank of the Cossack cornet, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir of the First degree and was given a noble rank. This allowed his family to purchase a farm near Starodub and ensure a good, for the time, residence and education for children.

For that reason, the son of the nobleman Stepan Miklouho-Maclay, Ilya Stepanovich, was able to study at the Nezhin High School, which was built in 1799 by the famous patron of arts Prince A. A. Bezborodko. One of the six children of Ilya Stepanovich, his son Nikolay graduated from this same gymnasium, in 1832, transformed into a physics and mathematics lyceum. Among the professors of the lyceum, the professor of pure mathematics Adolf Theodor Kupfer differentiated himself from others and had great authority among the pupils of the Lyceum. Apparently, it was Professor Kupfer who was responsible for Nikolay Ilyich’s excellent knowledge of mathematics, thanks to which, in 1834, he easily passed the competition upon admission to the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers in St. Petersburg, where, at the entrance exams, special attention was paid to the level of their physical and mathematical education.

[bsf-info-box icon=»Defaults-star» icon_size=»44″ title=»Informative note:» title_font_style=»font-weight:bold;» title_font_size=»desktop:33px;»]It is interesting that in the same lyceum, the educational background was received also by the outstanding engineer-pioneer, bridge builder Dmitriy Ivanovich Zhuravsky, who showed early inclination to mathematics, and was obliged, as remembered by him, to his older comrade Nikolay Ilyich Miklouho, who was friends with his brother Peter, and often came to visit the Zhuravsky. In 1838 D.I. Zhuravsky graduated from the same physics and mathematics lyceum, and as N.I. Miklouho,  entered the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers in St. Petersburg. Their friendship continued until the very death of Nikolay Ilyich. Among other things, D.I. Zhuravsky is the author of the project of the metal spire of the famous cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress.[/bsf-info-box][vc_empty_space height=»22px»]

In the 1830s, the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers, the first director of which was the famous Spanish engineer and world-class scientist Agustín de Betancourt, was a closed educational institution, modeled after the Cadet Corps. In 1834, a professor of descriptive geometry, Lieutenant-General Carl Pottier, a French engineer who graduated from the Polytechnic School and the School of Bridges and Roads in Paris and served with the consent of Emperor Alexander I, who was invited by Betancourt to Russia, hold a senior position of a director.  K. Potier replaced Lieutenant-General Peter Bazin, who was the second director of the Institute, an outstanding mathematician and mechanic, an honorary member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences and famous for his large engineering work in St. Petersburg. P. Bazin transferred the Institute to the jurisdiction of Karl Potier, who had earned high scientific authority among the higher technical educational institutions of the city (except for military universities, in those years in St. Petersburg such institutes as the Mining Institute, Technological Institute, Institute of Civil Engineers, The Royal School of Forestry trained specialists). At that time, the institute had a large library, physical, mineralogical, model and instrument rooms, a laboratory, various workshops, in addition, the institute had its own museum. There were 80 professors, teachers and other employees, and 347 students studied in this educational institution. On October 9, 1836, Major-General A.  D. Gotman, a student of the first institute graduate of 1813, a talented pupil of A.  Betancourt, who had shown himself in many engineering and construction jobs, was appointed to the position of the director of the institute. Professor A. Sevastyanov became the assistant of Gotman in the educational unit.  A. He graduated from the Institute in 1814. The pupils of the institute A. D. Gotman and Ya. A. Sevastyanov, during the first three or four years of their work, transferred the teaching at the institute from French into Russian and began to publish textbooks only in Russian, which greatly facilitated the training of students. Nikolay Ilyich Miklouho found restructuring in the work of the institute, studying first in French, and then in Russian. He took the course of lectures of many outstanding scientists — academicians of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences V. Ya. Bunyakovsky (advanced mathematics), M.V. Ostrogradsky (analytical mechanics and astronomy), G.I. Hess (chemistry), A. Ya. Kupfer, younger brother of Professor of Nezhin Lyceum (physics), as well as professors P. P. Jaco ( architecture), I. A. Sevastyanov (descriptive geometry), I. F. Yastrzhembsky (applied mechanics). Thanks to such wonderful teachers, Nikolay Ilyich  brilliantly graduated from the institute in 1840, losing only to Peter Sobko, who later became professor of the institute and was always interested in the fate of his peers. Having received the title of engineer-lieutenant, Nikolay Ilyich was placed under orders of the Corps of Railway Engineers and was assigned to work on connecting the rivers of the Volga and Moscow, carried out by the Third Circuit of Communications. But soon, on February 25, 1843, N.I.  Miklouho was transferred to the construction of the Petersburg-Moscow railway. Previously, in March 1841, a special committee was formed to draw up a preliminary draft of the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow, where the main role was played by P. P. Melnikov and N. O. Kraft. — Professors of the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers. It was them who prepared the reasoned feasibility studies of this outstanding project. And, as a result, Nikolay I issued a decree on the creation of the Committee of the Petersburg-Moscow Railway on February 1, 1842, which included the Construction Commission under the chairmanship of A. H. Benckendorff, with the participation of P.P. Melnikov, N.O. Kraft and other prominent specialists. P.A. Kleinmichel became the Chief Railroads Officer in August 1842,  and  the entire construction of the road was reassigned to him. The construction commission was abolished, and its functions were transferred to the Department of Railways, formed as part of the Main Directorate of Communications and Public Buildings. A technical commission was established at the department, which had to consider all projects and cost estimates for the railway. The commission included 6 people, among them P. P. Melnikov and N. O. Kraft. The construction of the road was entrusted to two directorates — Northern, under P. P. Melnikov, laying rails from St. Petersburg to the current station Bologoye, and Southern, under N.O. Kraft, working on the way from Moscow to Bologoye. P.P. Melnikov settled in Chudovo, and N. O. Kraft — in Tver. Investigations were carried out in the field for all summer and autumn in 1842, and many young graduates of the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers participated in them. The main prospecting works in the Northern Division were completed in December 1842, and in the Southern — in April 1843. The general direction of the road was mapped by May 1843, the road design was completed and submitted to the department for approval. The construction of the road began in the summer of 1843 after approval of the results of design and survey work. Each directorate was divided into 6 sections, and each section was responsible for construction at a distance of 10-12 km. Railway engineers were appointed at the head of the sections and distances, in total there were 79 people. At that time, under the general guidance of P. P. Melnikov, the work of Nikolay Ilyich Miklouho began as the head of the distance in the Northern Directorate. In July 1846, Nikolay Ilyich, as stated in his track record, was appointed «assistant to the head of the experimental track from the St. Petersburg passenger station, to the Aleksandrovsky Mechanical Institute of the St. Petersburg Railway», and the Railway engineer Pyotr Klokov was the chief of the experimental track. On May 7, 1847, a 27 km long experimental track was put into operation, and the working movement of freight and passenger trains opened on it (traffic on the highway began in parts as the individual sections were ready). This was the merit of Nicholay Ilyich as the first official to send trains from St. Petersburg. On March 6, 1848, Nikolai Ilyich was appointed head of the St. Petersburg Passenger Station of the Petersburg-Moscow Railway and, at the same time, the head of the station, whose construction had not yet been completed. The construction of the capital’s railway station was started in 1844 by the approved by the emperor project of the famous architect K. A. Thon. However, due to the departure of K.  A. Thon for 5 months abroad, the architect R.A. Zhelyazevich was involved  in observation over the construction — seven sheets of drawings for the construction of a passenger station in St. Petersburg, dated 1845 and signed by Zhelyazevich, have been preserved in the archives. Architect Thon had not been participating in the construction of the station from 1847. Nikolay Ilyich remained station master until August 1849. After that, on August 11, he was transferred to a more responsible job — under the supervision of N. O. Kraft, he became the head of the experimental track of the Petersburg-Moscow railway at the section of the Southern Directorate, between Vyshny Volochok and Tver. This experimental track was opened in October 1849. There, along the Mariinsky water system, locomotives were delivered in disassembled form. There they were assembled and put on rails. Therefore, the importance of the section to which Nikolay Ilyich was sent was especially important for the organization of the movement from Bologoye to Moscow. The movement of passenger trains was opened according to the schedule and with the sale of tickets in the same October 1849, on the section from Vyshny Volochok to Tver (this section had been ready for the movement of work trains by late August). Nikolay Ilyich wrote in December 1849: «The first train of the appointed correct (by the timetable — note of the author) passenger traffic on the railway between Vyshniy Volochkom and Tver departed from Tver in the morning at 10 o’clock and arrived in Volochek on the same day safely. There were no stops and delays on stations on the way. » The first Russian machinists on this experimental track were Ivan Plotnikov and Vasily Isayev. On November 1, 1851, the Petersburg-Moscow railway was put into permanent operation. In this connection, in September 1851, Nikolay Ilyich headed the VI, and in July 1852 — the IV branch of the first two-way main line of Russia (with residence in St. Petersburg). He became one of the first Railway Engineers in Russia, who mastered the operational direction in their practical work on rail transport. With the participation of all the chiefs of the road sections, including Nikolay Ilyich Miklouho, in 1854, for the first time in Russia, a train schedule was introduced within the entire trunk line. Engineer Miklouho initiated the device on the experimental section of the Petersburg-Moscow railway fence hedgehogs, to protect the road’s upper road from snowdrifts. In a letter to N. O. Kraft dated March 16, 1850, Nikolay Ilyich noted that «the rows of fir trees that were put up this winter in the experimental track along its entire length very well protected the road from snowdrifts. Fir trees were put where the road goes along a horizontal terrain or a small elevation or a lowering above it, as the road goes into and out of the ditch. It is required about 4 thousand fir trees on a verst ». The working conditions of N.I. Miklouho, especially at first, were extremely difficult. The length of the marshes in the area of the Northern Directorate, from St. Petersburg to Bologoye, was 36% of the total section, and the total length of marshes crossed by the railway reached 170 km. The builders, most of them bonds from Belorussia,  about 1,000 people on the N.I. Miklouho’s section, often worked in waist-deep water. About 100 million cubic meters of excavation work was performed by their hands, that is, 160,000 cubic meters per km. This colossal volume indicates an unbearable load of each worker. In addition, it must be taken into account that the workers lived on site in simple wooden barracks, in huts, in dugouts or in canvas tents. Dozens of workers had to live under one roof. Bad food, a lot of crowding, dirt, lack of baths and simple latrines, caused the spread of infectious diseases. Often, typhus and scurvy raged on the construction site, cholera cases were noted, which led to serious illnesses, and often to death. Only in January-February 1846, 357 people died on the sections of the Northern Directorate. 35,000 people worked on the whole highway, of which several thousand were killed by hunger and disease. Nikolay Ilyich was often among the workers, supporting them with his attention and care, providing them with necessary breaks for rest and changing clothes, negotiating with contractors to improve their working conditions. For this the workers responded him with love and respect. Nikolay Ilyich, with his family, always lived in the construction area, often in the same tents as the workers, worked without holidays and sometimes without days off. And this eight-year bivouac life could not but affect his health, it was sapped, and he began to get tired more. Only the support of his wife, and the joy of communicating with children, gave him the strength to work further. Nikolay Ilyich was a man with a spacious mind, and he took interest not only in technical literature — poetry and music always occupied a great deal in his soul. And acquaintance with the poet Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy was a significant event for him.  Tolstoy acquainted Nikolay Ilyich with N.A. Nekrasov and A.  I. Herzen. The Herzens were friends with the family of Nikolay Ilyich as well It is noteworthy that Nikolay Ilyich did not interrupt his correspondence with Herzen even after he emigrated to England, and this circumstance did not escape the attention of the police. N.I. Miklouho painfully experienced the arrest and exile of T.G. Shevchenko, whom he deeply respected as the author of «Kobzar» and other freedom-loving works. At the time when T. G. Shevchenko was languishing in exile in the Orenburg region, Nikolay Ilyich sent Shevchenko 150 rubles to Alexandrovsky Fort, very significant sum at the time. Police and even Alexander II himself did not appreciate it. And in 1856 Nikolay Ilyich was dismissed from the post of the head of the road section, because of the beginning of the investigation in the case of ties with the repressed T. G. Shevchenko. On December 20, 1857 (January 2, 1858 according to a new style), and not having celebrated his fortieth anniversary, in the prime of his creative powers, Nikolay Ilyich died of transient pulmonary tuberculosis. His wife left with five children — the oldest son was 12 years old, and the youngest only 1.5 year old. The engineer-captain was buried at Volkovsky Orthodox cemetery in St. Petersburg. In 1938, his ashes were reburied in the territory, which in 1885 was named «Literatorskie mostki». In 1867, at the station Lyuban, Nikolayevskaya railway, the stone Petropavlovsk church, built according to the project of K. A. Thon was consecrated and built on folk means and the donation of P. P. Melnikov, which was half of the amount necessary for the construction of the temple. The names of all engineers who built the road were carved on the marble plaque placed at the entrance to the church, including the surname of N.I. Miklouho. Unfortunately, this board was destroyed during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, when the church itself suffered greatly. In 1901, the board of management of the Nikolayev Railroad decided to consider the Peter and Paul Church at Luban station, as a memorial church of the Nikolayevskaya Railway. In 2000, after the completion of the restoration of the Peter and Paul Church destroyed in wartime, this temple was consecrated by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II. Restoration of the temple was held for charitable funds of workers of the October Railway, who supported the proposal of the road’s head and Minister of Railways A.  A. Zaitsev about the need for restoration of the church.

Nikolay Ilyich had an amazing family. His wife and five children went down in the history of Russia, just like N.I. Miklouho himself. In the spring of 1843, Semyon Ivanovich Becker, an old friend of Ilya Stepanovich Miklouho, who had known him from the time of the Patriotic War of 1812, came to the section of the road where Nikolay Ilyich worked, in connection with the prevention of plague. In the summer of 1843, Nikolay Ilyich returned to Moscow, visiting Becker, where he met Semen Ivanovich’s daughter, Catherine, who later became his wife. Becker had seven children, and the daughter Catherine was the fourth. Beckers themselves originated from Russified Germans who came to Russia under Catherine II. Catherine Semyonovna’s grandfather was the medical physician of the Polish King Stanislaw Poniatowski, to whose service he came from Prussia on behalf of the Prussian king, and her father was married to Polka Louise Shatkovskaya, who came from the city of Vilna and died in 1874 in Kiev.

Используется иллюстрация с выставки «От Миклухи до Маклая» смотреть подробности выставки.

Catherine Semyonovna herself was born on October 3, 1826, and died on the night of June 10, 1905, and was buried in the cemetery of the town of Malina in the Zhytomyr region, in Ukraine, where, by that time, her son Sergey and Sergey’s wife Anna Petrovna had already rested. Nikolay Ilyich and Catherine Semenovna had five children-sons Sergey (born in June 22, 1845), Nikolay (born in June 17, 1984 in the village of Yazykovo-Rozhdestvensky near Borovichi of the Novgorod province), Vladimir (born in May 19, 1853), Michael (born in March 31, 1856) and daughter Olga (born in April 29, 1849). The eldest son, Sergey Nikolaevich, graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, worked as a magistrate in the town of Malina, in the Kiev province, where he died in 1895. 

Sergey Nikolaevich had three sons and a daughter. Sergey Sergeevich (17.01.1890-16.03.1962) participated in the First World War, during the battles of which he was awarded orders and medals for courage and bravery, including the highest military award of the Russian Empire — the Order of St. George. In 1920, he emigrated from Russia to the then Yugoslavia, where his daughter Anna is now living in Macedonia. Yuri Sergeevich (1892-17.07.1918) studied at the gymnasium, went to the front as a volunteer in the First World War, and in July 1918 was killed by bandits in his house in the town of Malina. Dmitry Sergeevich (1894 — 2.01.1941). Since 1928 he had lived in Leningrad, where from 1938 he worked as the secretary of the editorial board of the Izvestia magazine of the All-Union Geographical Society.

Nikolay Nikolayevich Miklouho-Maclay, perhaps the most famous of the Maclays, restored his father’s full surname, after which all the relatives of Nikolay Nikolaevich officially accepted it. Nikolai Nikolayevich first studied at the University of St. Petersburg, but in 1864 he took part in student political meetings and was expelled from the university without an opportunity to enter any other academy in Russia. Nikolay Nikolayevich continued his education abroad, where: studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg, and at the medical faculties of Leipzig and Jena University, where he studied anatomy and zoology. Scientific works in these areas brought Nikolay Nikolaevich first fame in the scientific community. In 1866 N.N. Miklouho-Maclay went to the Canary Islands, where, together with his zoology teacher, renowned biologist, professor of the Jena University Ernst Haeckel, studied the animal kingdom of the  Lanzarote island. After traveling to Sicily and the coastal regions of the Red Sea, in the autumn of 1869, Nikolay Nikolayevich presented to the Russian Geographical Society his plan for a scientific trip across the Pacific Ocean and received support and approval. As a result, the corvette Vityaz, which circled around the world at that time, took Nikolay Nikolaevich on board and on September 20, 1871, he landed in New Guinea, in Astrolabe Bay, and the Vityaz team built a small hut for Nikolay Nikolaevich and his two companions on the shore of the bay. Thus began an amazing epic of life and scientific research of the famous scientist. In July 1878, Nikolay Nikolaevich opened the first marine biological station near Sydney. In 1882, Miklouho-Maclay visited St. Petersburg, where he asked Emperor Alexander III to protect the people of the Malay coast of New Guinea and establish a «free Russian colony» there. However, this proposal was not accepted, and Nikolay Nikolayevich went back to Sydney, where he put in order his extensive collections and diaries for two years. This material allowed him in 1886 to arrange an exhibition in St. Petersburg, which aroused genuine interest in scientific circles. Miklouho-Maclay’s articles were published in many publications and, above all, in Izvestia of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. In April 14, 1888, at the age of 42, Nikolay Nikolayevich died in St. Petersburg and was buried at Volkovsky Cemetery. In 1938, his ashes were reburied next to his father’s grave on the Literatorskie mostki.

Nikolay Nikolayevich Miklouho-Maclay was married to Margaret Emma Robertson-Clark (21.01.1855 — 01.01.1936), the daughter of the Prime Minister of New South Wales in Australia, with whom he had lived for almost two years in St. Petersburg, bringing his two sons to the homeland — Alexander (14.11.1884 — November 1951) and Vladimir (29.12.1885 — 19.02.1958). After the death of Nikolay Nikolaevich, his widow and children returned to Sydney. Until 1917, she received a pension for the children support from the Russian government. She gave her husband’s works and collections to the Russian Geographical Society, and now they are stored in St. Petersburg, in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after Peter the Great (Kunstkamera).

 

 

The name of the scientist is a section of the north-eastern coast of the island of New Guinea. The length of the Maklay Coast is about 300 km. In 1979, the N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Society was formed in Sydney, whose grandson Rob was elected president (29.10.1919 — 25.05.1994), Vladimir’s son, Doctor of Science, Head of the Department of Physics Sydney Pedagogical College. Two seats in the council of this society were provided to representatives of the Geographical Society of the USSR and the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In July 1978, in connection with the Miklouho-Maclay in Australia, the Council of the Sydney State Library, together with the Consul General of the USSR, with the participation of the descendants of the scientist living in Australia, organized a commemorative exhibition. The grandsons of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay attended at the opening of the exhibition, the children of Vladimir Nikolayevich — Rob and Kenneth (born 02.05.1912, the lawyer), and the son of Alexander Nikolaevich. — Paul (born 02.04.1916, journalist, commentator and spieler). In 1971, in connection with the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, Paul and his wife visited Leningrad. Paul has three children and four grandchildren. Rob, with his wife Alice, visited Leningrad five times (most recently in 1994) and even celebrated their Golden Wedding in Leningrad. In 1984, before retiring, Rob and his wife decided to visit their homeland again. They went to Ukraine, to Kiev; they visited the grave of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay in Leningrad, and then visited secondary school No. 232, where Nikolay Nikolayevich studied in the former Second St. Petersburg Gymnasium. Schoolchildren gave guests a portrait of N. Miklouho-Maclay, made by student Darina Karpova. Unfortunately, in May 1994, Rob died. In July 1996, Sydney’s public organizations and the Australia-Russia Friendship Society held a scientific conference in memory of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay. On the territory of Sydney University, in the presence of the Russian Ambassador to Australia and the employees of the Consulate General of Russia in Sydney, the bust of Nikolay Nikolaevich was opened, donated by the Russian government). A memorial event was dedicated to the collection of the Russian Historical Society in the premises of the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral, as well as a memorial evening in honor of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay, organized in the Russian club in Strathfield. The Museum of W.  Macleay, an associate of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay, hosted the guests in the building of the Elizabeth Bay House, where the Maklays family resided in the 19th century. In the Soviet Union, and later in Russia, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay’s scientific works were published, covering the entire period of active creative and scientific activity of the scientist. So, in 1999, the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology named after N.N.Miklouho-Maclay of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published the Collection of Miklouho-Maclay’s Works in 6 volumes. Earlier, a similar publication was published in 1950-1954 and in the 1990s. Numerous scientific articles and popular essays, monographs and dissertations have been devoted to N.N. Miklouho-Maclay. In 1989 the extensive work of the Australian researcher Grinope Frank Sydney in the Russian language was published  — «Who travels alone», first published in Sydney in 1944. In 1965, M. Kolesnikov’s book Miklouho-Maclay published in Moscow with a circulation of 115,000 copies, which absorbed numerous information about the life and creative search of a Russian scientist.

[vc_empty_space height=»18px»]

Nikolay Nikolaevich left a kind of testament to his children — the rules of his life:

1. Remember that every night we become poorer for one day.
2. Your rights end where the rights of another begin.
3. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.
4. Do not promise — once promised, try to fulfill.
5. Never repent of what you did, but if you realized that you have done badly, do not repeat it.
6. Do not try to get things done, not being sure that you will do it.
7. Once you start the work, try to finish it as best you can — do not alter it several times. Do not repeat the mistakes of the first work on the next one.
8. If you do not, when you can, you can not do it when you want.
9. People should be valued for the goals they set for themselves.
10. Everything where a person seeks is infinite.
11. «Tendo una palabra» — «Keeping one word». The last expression was the life motto of the genus of the hereditary noblemen Miklouho-Maclay (every hereditary nobleman had to have a generic motto in Russia).

[vc_empty_space height=»18px»]

Olga Nikolaevna Miklouho-Maclay, showed herself as a talented porcelain artist. She died in 1880 aborning. Her son Mikhail (born 31.01.1880) was brought up in the house of his grandmother in the city of Malina and bore the surname of Miklouho-Maclay. He graduated from Kiev University, where he served as a professor later. After graduating from the gymnasium in 1869 Vladimir Nikolayevich Miklouho-Maclay entered the Sea Cadet Corps and graduated with honours in 1873. Having received his first officer’s rank in the tsarist fleet, midshipman V. N. Miklouho-Maclay was sent to the Black Sea Navy Fleet, where during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, while serving on the cruiser, he earned the reputation of a brave officer. However, in 1879, in protest against the cruel orders on the tsarist warships, Vladimir Nikolaevich resigned and moved to the merchant marine. He studied the Pacific well while being a captain on the line Odessa-Vladivostok, which allowed him freely navigate in those waters in the future, during the war with Japan. In 1882, Vladimir returned to the navy and received the rank of captain of the 1st rank. Translated to the Baltic, in the autumn of 1902, Vladimir Nikolaevich became captain of the battleship of the coastal defense «Admiral Ushakov», in which  he had to take part in the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. At the end of the first day of the battle, the damaged battleship, behind other ships, quietly headed to Vladivostok, but along the way was seen by two Japanese cruisers. Rear Admiral Simamura demanded the surrender of the battleship, but Miklouho-Maclay preferred to fight. During the ensuing battle, the artillerymen of the battleship caused considerable damage to the Japanese Iwate cruiser, but the forces were too unequal, and the battleship constantly fired by the Japanese lurched and began to sink. The captain of the ship ordered to all surviving sailors to jump overboard, and to flood the ship. The captain himself flatly refused the place in the Japanese boat approaching, pointing to the sailor drowning next to the ship. So on the evening of May 15 (May 28, according to a new style) in 1905, Captain I Rank Miklouho-Maclay, died along with his ship, and with his comrades-in-arms. He was a true patriot of his homeland and one of the best sailors of the Russian fleet. He was only 52 years old. Vladimir Nikolaevich did not have any children. The feat of Vladimir Nikolayevich Miklouho-Maclay, was reflected in the memoirs of eyewitnesses, one of whom was captain II rank G. K. Graf, who wrote an article «In memory of the heroically killed officers and teams in the Tsushima battle » and which was published in the collection «With Admiral Rozhestvsky’s Squadron» (Publishers «Oblik», St. Petersburg, 1994), based on the book published in Prague on the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Tsushima. After the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905, in St. Petersburg, the memorial temple «The Savior on the Waters» in memory of all Russian sailors and lost ships was erected in one year and consecrated on July 31, 1911 . The mosaic icon of Christ the Savior marching through the sea and sending last blessings to the sinking seamen was surrounded by marble plaques with copper plates. The name of the ship — «Admiral Ushakov» was engraved on one of the boards, as well as the name of his legendary commander — «Vladimir Miklouho-Maclay». The memorial church, destroyed in 1932, was erected by the project of architect M.M. Peretyatkovich. Work on the construction of the church was headed by the railway engineer S.N. Smirnov. Recently, a decision has been made to  revive the «Church on the Waters». Mikhail Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay after graduating of the First Real School and the chemical and technical department of the additional class, in 1876 entered the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg. After graduating in 1882, he went to Germany, where he attended lectures at the University of Munich and worked under the direction of Professor R. Hertwig. In May 1886, Mikhail entered the Putilov factories Society, but on behalf of the Mineralogical Society he began to conduct geological investigations at the counties of Volhynia and later in the North-West of Russia — in the area of Olonets and the islands of the Ladoga Lake, located around Valaam, the basins of the rivers Sviri, Olonki, Tuloksy, Vidmetsy, as well as on the shore of the Ladoga Lake. These studies were used in the compilation of the first geological map of the European part of Russia. Mikhail Nikolayevich conducted a thorough revision of the «Diary of the Turukhansk Expedition of 1866» by the geologist and geographer I. A. Lopatin for the publication of this work in «Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.» Mikhail Nikolayevich, also took part in the work on compiling the «Russian Geological Library», published by S. N. Nikitin, a geologist and paleontologist, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Mikhail Nikolayevich worked for 7 years in the Museum of the Mining Institute, but he was more interested in practical matters, so he started geological research on the eastern coast of the White Sea, as well as the Khilov mineral springs. So he joined the work of the Geological Committee, today it is the All-Russian Geological Research Institute named after A. P. Karpinskiy. Mikhail Nikolayevich works on the exploration and description of the kaolin deposit in the region of Uman, silicate in the Kiev province, which is extremely necessary for the production of aluminum. In the late 1890s, he left Petersburg and moved to Malina, where he lived until 1923, after which he returned to Petrograd, to serve in the Geological Committee, where he continued to work on compiling the Russian Geological Library. On April 2, 1927, Mikhail Nikolaevich died and was buried at Volkovsky Cemetery, where his father, brother Nikolay and sister Olga are buried. Mikhail Nikolaevich had three children — Alexander (1887-1947), Seraphima (1889-1971) and Nikolay (1899-1956). Serafima married cousin  Dmitriy, the son of Sergei Nikolaevich. The names of the grandsons of Mikhail Nikolaevich and Sergey Nikolaevich are known in the Academe,  — Artem Dmitrievich (1908-1981) — a major geologist, graduated from the Mining Institute, candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences; Andrei Dmitrievich (1914-1965) — Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor of Leningrad University; Nikolay Dmitrievich (1915-1975) graduated from the eastern faculty of the Leningrad University, candidate of historical sciences, orientalist-Iranian. The descendants of the brothers Mikhail Nikolaevich and Sergey Nikolaevich live in our city. Their great-grandson Nikolay Andreyevich was born in 1940, graduated from the geographical faculty of Leningrad University and had been working for 35 years in the Central Scientific Research Geological Exploration Institute. Now he is retired. His son, the successor of the family name, great-great-grandson Nikolay Nikolaevich was born in 1973, he is the first full namesake of the great scientist, an economist by education, fond of research and travel.

Granddaughter Olga Andreevna, the younger sister of Nikolay Andreevich was born in 1949, worked as a responsible editor at the publishing house «Azbuka.» All of them use the famous name Miklouho-Maсlay. Thus, the descendants of the railway engineer N.I. Miklukho became an integral part of the history of Russia, dedicating all their works and talents to our Fatherland. Nikolay Ilyich and his descendants never aspired to fame or awards and titles. Everything they did in life was done for the prosperity of the Motherland. AP. Chekhov wrote  about such people: «…  One Przhevalsky or one Stanley are worth dozens of scholarly institutions and hundreds of fine books … and it’s not for nothing that on the roads where they passed, the peoples make up legends about them.» Petersburg State University of Communications is proud of its pupils, among whom Nikolai Miklouho occupies a special place in the memorial of graduates — railway engineers.

We are grateful for the information provided from the family archive to Karina Viktorovna Miklouho-Maclay (Raushenbach), Nikolay Andreyevich Miklouho-Maclay and Olga Andreyevna Miklouho-Maclay.

Granddaughter Olga Andreevna, the younger sister of Nikolay Andreevich was born in 1949, worked as a responsible editor at the publishing house «Azbuka.» All of them use the famous name Miklouho-Maсlay. Thus, the descendants of the railway engineer N.I. Miklukho became an integral part of the history of Russia, dedicating all their works and talents to our Fatherland. Nikolay Ilyich and his descendants never aspired to fame or awards and titles. Everything they did in life was done for the prosperity of the Motherland. AP. Chekhov wrote  about such people: «…  One Przhevalsky or one Stanley are worth dozens of scholarly institutions and hundreds of fine books … and it’s not for nothing that on the roads where they passed, the peoples make up legends about them.» Petersburg State University of Communications is proud of its pupils, among whom Nikolai Miklouho occupies a special place in the memorial of graduates — railway engineers.

We are grateful for the information provided from the family archive to Karina Viktorovna Miklouho-Maclay (Raushenbach), Nikolay Andreyevich Miklouho-Maclay and Olga Andreyevna Miklouho-Maclay.

Поделиться публикацией