Alexander Fjodorowitsch Hilferding

Alexander Hilferding (1872)

Alexander Hilferding ( Russian Александр Фёдорович Гильфердинг , even in transliteration Gilferding , born July 2, ^jul. / 14. July  1831 ^greg. In Warsaw ; † June 20 ^jul. / 2 July  1872 ^greg. In Kargopol ) was a Russian Slavist and corresponding member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences .

Hilferding was born into the family of a senior civil servant and received a good education from private tutors. In 1852 he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Moscow University with a thesis "On the Relationship of Slavic Languages ​​to Other Related Languages". In the following years he dealt with the Western Slavs living on the Baltic Sea, especially the Kashubians and the Slovins , about which he was the first to report. For his work "History of the Slavs living on the Baltic Sea" (1855) he was elected in 1856 as a corresponding member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

He then entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1856 he was consul in Bosnia. In 1861 he became an employee of the Chancellery of the State Council and in the following years worked primarily for the Imperial Geographical Society.

In the summer of 1871 he traveled to the Olonez Governorate , where he collected bylins ; in less than a month he recorded 318 byliners on over 2,000 pages. In the summer of the following year he went to Kargopol for the same purpose, but there he fell ill with typhus and died shortly after his arrival. He was first buried in Kargopol and later transferred to St. Petersburg.

Publications (selection)

• History of the Serbs and Bulgarians , 1856.
• The linguistic monuments of the Drevjan and Glinjan Elbslaven , 1857.
• Bosnia. Travel sketches from 1857 , 1858.
• The remains of the Slavs on the south side of the Baltic Sea . In: Journal of Slavic Literature, Art and Science . Volume I, Issue 1, Bautzen 1862, pp. 81–97 ( full text ), Volume I, Issue 4, Bautzen 1864, pp. 230-230 ( full text) and Volume II, Issue 2, Bautzen 1864, pp. 81–111 ( Full text. )
• In what is the solution to the Polish question to be sought? , 1863.
• Untold testimony from a contemporary about Vladimir the Saint and Bolesłav the Bold. In: Journal of Slavic Literature, Art and Science. Volume II, Issue 3, Bautzen 1864, pp. 179–206 ( full text ).