Johann Anton Güldenstädt

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Johann Anton Güldenstädt (April 26, 1745 – March 23, 1781) was a Baltic German naturalist and explorer in Russian service.

Güldenstädt was born in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, and studied medicine at the University of Frankfurt, obtaining his doctorate in 1767. In the following year he joined the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences' expedition sent by Catherine II of Russia to explore the Russian empire's southern frontier. Güldenstädt travelled through Ukraine and the Astrakhan region, as well as the northern Caucasus and Georgia, both of which were almost entirely beyond the borders of the Russian empire, returning to St Petersburg in March 1775. The results of the expedition and Güldenstädt's edited expedition journal were published after his death by Peter Simon Pallas in Reisen durch Russland und im Caucasischen Gebürge (Travels in Russia and the Mountains of the Caucasus) (1787-91).

Güldenstädt's expedition was the first systematic study of the Caucasus. As was typical of contemporary expeditions organized in the spirit of the Enlightenment (including the later American Lewis and Clark Expedition), it was tasked with the observation and description of virtually every aspect of the region under study. This included both its "natural" attributes--flora, fauna, geography, and geology--and its peoples, economy, and government. In this sense it was both a scientific expedition and a mission of reconnaissance to learn more about a region that was important in the simultaneous Russian war with the Ottomans, of which the Caucasus was a theater, with the Georgians acting as Russian allies. Immediately following the expedition, Russian interest in the region, particularly Georgia, grew markedly, culminating in the Treaty of Georgievsk, which made East Georgia a Russian protectorate.

The expedition also contributed greatly to the fields of biology, geology, geography, and particularly linguistics—Güldenstädt took detailed notes on the languages of the region. After the expedition, which definitively established Güldenstädt's reputation at the Academy, he continued to work as a naturalist. In 1781, he died from an outbreak of fever in St. Petersburg.

[edit] References

• Güldenstädt, Johann Anton. Puteshestvie po Kavkazu v 1770-1773 gg. Trans. T. K. Shafranovskaia. St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie, 2002.
• Güldenstädt, Johann Anton. Reisen durch Rußland und im Caucasischen Gebürge. St. Petersburg: 1787.
• Gnucheva, Vera Fedorovna et al. Materialy dlia istorii ekspeditsii Akademii nauk v XVIII i XIX vekakh: khronologicheskie obzory i opisanie arkhivnykh materialov. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1940.
• Kopelevich, Iudif’ Khaimovna. Iogann Anton Gil’denshtedt, 1745-1781. Moscow: Nauka, 1997.
• Kosven, Mark Osipovich. “Materialy po istorii etnografii Kavkaza v russkoi nauke.” Kavkazskii etnograficheskii sbornik. Vols. I, III. Ed. V. K. Gardanov. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1955. I, 272-290. II, 267-281.
• Lavrov, L.I. “K 250-letiiu akademicheskogo kavkazovedeniia v Rossii.” Kavkazskii etnograficheskii sbornik. Vol. VI. Ed. V. K. Gardanov. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1976. 3-10.