Donald Mackenzie Wallace

Donald Mackenzie Wallace.

Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace (born November 11, 1841 in Paisley ( Renfrewshire ), † January 10, 1919 in Lymington ( Hampshire )) was a Scottish publicist .

Life

Donald Mackenzie Wallace was a son of Robert Wallace and Sarah Mackenzie and lost both parents before he was ten. He studied law in Edinburgh , Paris , Berlin and Heidelberg and obtained his doctorate from the latter university in 1867. In December 1869 he returned to his homeland.

Wallace went to Russia as early as the beginning of 1870 to study the political and economic conditions there. He spent almost six years there, living alternately in Moscow , Saint Petersburg and Yaroslav, went on numerous trips, learned the Russian language and also familiarized himself with Russian history and literature . In 1876 he returned to the United Kingdom . He put the results of his studies on Russia down in his work Russia (2 vols., London 1877; 5th revised edition, 2 vols., 1905), which was translated into most European languages ​​(German in 4th edition by Purlitz, 2 vols. , Würzburg 1906), including into Russian, and into various oriental languages.

Because of the success of the book, Wallace became a foreign correspondent for the Times immediately after its publication, first in Saint Petersburg, then in Berlin in 1878 (during the congress ), and then in Constantinople until 1884 . In the final phase of his work there, he went on a special mission to Egypt, the result of which he wrote down in the successful book Egypt and the Egyptian question (London 1883). In 1884 he followed a call from Lord Dufferin , Viceroy of India, to act as his private secretary,

In 1889 Wallace, who had been knighted the year before, returned to England via Persia, Central Asia and Russia. At that time he wrote the work Overland from India (in the English Illustrated Magazine , born 1889). Embarked on a new journey to the Balkan Peninsula in 1890, he went to Bombay on behalf of the English government to accompany the Russian heir to the throne, Nicholas, on his journey through India and Ceylon .

Upon his return, Wallace became the foreign affairs director of the London Times . For a short time he participated in the editing of the 10th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica . From March to October 1901, in the capacity of private secretary, he accompanied the Duke of Cornwall and York (the future King George V ) on an extended trip to Gibraltar , Malta , Aden , Ceylon, Australia , New Zealand , Straits Settlements , the Colony of Natal and Cape Colony as well as Canada . In addition, he published his last book The web of Empire. Diary of the imperial tour of their RH the duke and duchess of Cornwall and York (1902). In 1909 he belonged to the entourage of the Russian emperor during his visit to England and was then from 1909 to 1910 sub-chamberlain of Edward VII and then George V. He remained unmarried and died on January 10, 1919 at the age of 77 in Lymington, Hampshire .

literature

• Wallace, Sir Donald Mackenzie , in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , 6th edition, 1902-08, 20th volume, p. 345 f.