Mikhail Alexandrovich Menzbier

MA Menzbier

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Menzbier ( Russian Михаил Александрович Мензбир transcribed Mikhail Mensbir , scientific. Transliteration Mikhail Aleksandrovich Menzbir * 23. October 1855 in the Tula Governorate , † 10. October 1935 in Moscow ) was a Russian zoologist , predominantly in the field of ornithology was active.

Life

Menzbier attended grammar school in Tula until 1874 and passed his Abitur with distinction. He then began studying at the science and mathematics faculty of Moscow University . There he was primarily influenced by Nikolai Alexejewitsch Severzow , with whom he was later friends. In 1878 he passed his intermediate examination, where he worked on Diptera , again with distinction. In 1882 he submitted the general part of his later famous book "Ornithogeography of European Russia" as a master's thesis, passed and received a teaching license .

During a two-year trip on behalf of the government, during which museum research projects and relationships were to be initiated and which took him to numerous capitals, he met Richard Bowdler Sharpe , Henry Eeles Dresser and Henry Seebohm , with whom he later became a lifelong friend. On his return he accepted a position as a private lecturer in comparative anatomy . In 1886 he received his doctorate on the osteology of penguins . In 1887 he became an associate professor and from 1898 a full professor. During his tenure, he founded the Anatomical Institute with laboratories, a museum and a library. In 1896 he was offered the successor Theodor Pleske at the Zoological Museum of the Academy in Saint Petersburg , which he turned down.

In 1911, Menzbier came into conflict with the government of Tsar Nicholas II when it severely restricted teaching freedom at universities. He resigned his chair in protest and only returned during the First World War , when conditions at the universities eased again. As a special honor he was offered the post of rector, which he then held for three years. In 1929 he became a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences .

Major works

Menzbier's first significant work was the "Ornithogeography of European Russia" , of which the volume on birds of prey and owls was initially published in 1882 and the volume on songbirds from 1891 , although this remained unfinished. The decisive factor was the sustained attempt made in this work for the first time to divide Russia into zoogeographical “fauna districts”.

The second major work, "The Birds of Russia" , which appeared in 1895 and comprised over 2000 pages, had a particularly broad impact and introduced the bird lovers of the time to the scientifically advanced ornithology. Its effect is comparable to Johann Friedrich Naumann's "Natural History of the Birds of Germany" (1822–1866) and - apart from Peter Simon Pallas ' Zoographica Rosso-Asiatica - the first comprehensive representation of the bird world in Russia. Similar, previous projects by Modest Bogdanow (1884) and Theodor Pleske (1891) did not get beyond the beginnings. "The Birds of Russia" were so successful that they had to be reprinted in the year of publication. The third, greatly expanded edition, which appeared from 1918, remained unfinished. In 1900 Menzbier's third large work “The huntable and commercially used birds of European Russia and the Caucasus” appeared , which deals with 136 species of birds in a wide area and with 140 color plates.

In the Ornithologie du Turkestan , which appeared in French from 1888-1893, Menzbier evaluated the records of Nikolai Alexejewitsch Severzows, who had an accident in 1885. It initially dealt with the birds of prey and owls in a volume with color plates based on Menzbier's drawings. After that, however, work on this too large-scale plant was stopped. In 1916, Menzbier published the volume Falconiformes from the Fauna Rossii series of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The systematic findings in this work were largely based on Menzbier's 480 bellows collection of large falcons. In “The zoological districts of the Turkestan area and the neighboring countries”, which was published in 1914, Menzbier divided this region zoogeographically into Pamir district, Bukhara district and the western and eastern Tianshand district .

Menzbier also worked as an editor for the "Moscow Natural Scientists Society" and, in addition to the regular publications, also initiated the publication of numerous extensive special papers.

literature

• Hermann Grote : Dem Andenken Michael Menzbiers , Journal for Ornithology , 84th year, issue 2, April 1936, pp. 173–179, doi : 10.1007 / BF01906707