Karl Fyodorowitsch Kessler

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Karl Fyodorowitsch Kessler

Karl Fjodorowitsch Kessler ( Russian Карл Фёдорович Кесслер ; * 19 November July / 1 December  1815 greg. In Damrau , Koenigsberg district , Kingdom of Prussia ; † March 15 July / 27 March  1881 greg. In Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire ) was a Russian zoologist , ichthyologist , university professor and university rector of German origin. His author's abbreviation is " Kessler ".

Life

Karl Kessler was born in the East Prussian village of Damrau, today's Sokolowka in the Russian Oblast of Kaliningrad . In Saint Petersburg he graduated from the Imperial University in 1838 and in 1844 he became associate professor of zoology and between 1845 and 1861 full professor at St. Vladimir University in Kiev . He also reorganized the University Museum at Kiev University and was the initiator of two congresses of natural scientists in 1861 and 1862. In 1861 he became a professor at the Imperial University of Saint Petersburg and was its rector between 1867 and 1873. In 1868 he was one of the founders and, between 1869 and 1881, the first president of the Imperial Petersburg Society of Naturalists.

Kessler explored the vertebrate fauna of the right bank of the Ukraine , the northern coasts of the Black and Azov Seas , the Crimea , the Neva and the Volga as well as the Ladoga and Onega lakes . As a result of his research, he published a series of monographs, which between 1850 and 1856 were summarized as the 6-volume natural history of the provinces of the Kiev educational district. His list of works contains a total of 65 articles and studies.

Kessler was one of the first zoologists to suggest that mutual aid , not combat, is the primary cause of a species' development. After the Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin learned of the idea of mutual aid through a lecture by Kessler in 1883 , he made this mutual aid in the animal and human world the foundation of his theory of communist anarchism in his 1902 book .

Honors and memberships

  • The Kessler goby was named after him
  • Honorary Member of the University of Kiev (1863)
  • Honorary member of the University of St. Petersburg (1873)
  • Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1874)

Web links

Commons : Karl Kessler  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Entry on Karl Kessler in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia 1979, on dic.academic.ru ; accessed on February 22, 2019 (Russian)
  2. ↑ Entry on Karl Kessler in Brockhaus-Efron ; accessed on February 22, 2019 (Russian)
  3. ↑ a b c d e Entry on Karl Kessler in the Encyclopedia of the History of the Ukraine ; accessed on February 22, 2019 (Ukrainian)
  4. ^ President of the Imperial Petersburg Society of Naturalists on the Society's official website; accessed on February 22, 2019 (Russian)
  5. ↑ Entry on Karl Kessler in the Great Biographical Encyclopedia (2009); accessed on February 22, 2019 (Russian)
  6. ↑ Anarchist Portraits by Paul Avrich, page 57 (English)
  7. ^ Profile of Karl Fjodorowitsch Kessler on the official website of the Russian Academy of Sciences; accessed on February 22, 2019 (Russian)
personal data
SURNAME Kessler, Karl Fjodorowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Кесслер, Карл Фёдорович (Russian); Кесслер, Карл Федорович (Ukrainian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian zoologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Damrau , Koenigsberg District , Kingdom of Prussia
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1881
Place of death Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire