Dmitry Anuchin

ANUCHIN, Dmitry Nikolayevich (1843–1923), the first professor of anthropology and geography at Moscow University, a renowned scientist and prominent representative...

Figure 8. Lambret's method. The operation is completed.

at the university, but after the university reform of the 1880s, which did not provide for a department of anthropology, he transferred his activities to the newly founded department of geography, which he held until 1918, continuing to teach anthropology and ethnography the entire time. By the end of the 1890s, Anuchin acquired the reputation of the most authoritative specialist in these three vast branches of knowledge: anthropology, ethnography, and geography. Not a single initiative in this field—expeditions, publications, dissertations—passed without Anuchin's involvement. In 1896, he was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences, and after some time, in view of his refusal to move to St. Petersburg and his resignation from the active staff, the Academy of Sciences elected Anuchin as an honorary member. In total, Anuchin published about 600 scientific works. Simultaneously with such diverse and intensive scientific activity, Anuchin conducted extensive scientific and public work. For 25 years he served as president of the Society of Amateurs of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography, which during this period became the largest scientific organization in Russia; he was chairman of a number of congresses, including congresses of the Society of Naturalists and Physicians, uniting all Russian science in these fields; he delivered papers at a number of congresses, participated in drafting secondary school curricula, and published a number of popular science works on issues that stirred society. Starting in the 1870s, when he began contributing to newspapers, Anuchin was for a long time the editor of the then most influential liberal newspaper Russkiye Vedomosti. Anuchin met the October Revolution at the age of 75 and, despite this, took an active part in the work of a number of newly created scientific and educational institutions (Gosplan, Glavnauka, Glavmuzei, the Central Museum of Ethnology, etc.), wrote several works, and so on. By a decree of the People's Commissariat of Education, his name was given to the Anthropological Institute of Moscow University. In 1919, Anuchin transferred to the newly founded department of anthropology at the university. The results of Anuchin's versatile activities are enormous. His works on cranial anomalies and on stature are fundamental; their propositions have become indisputable facts of science, included in all textbooks. His ethno-archaeological studies and works on the geography of Central Russian lakes and on the relief of the Russian plain served as methodological and theoretical models for further research. The Anthropological Museum created by him, with its large libraries, is one of the largest in Europe, and the substantial Geographical Museum laid the foundation for the independent development of these sciences in Russia. A significant portion of the departments of anthropology and geography in the USSR are held by Anuchin's students. He was the first to acquaint wide circles of Russian society with the achievements of the science of man and the earth and managed to ensure the authority and widespread recognition of the activities of a number of scientific institutions.

V. Bunin