G. F. Muller and corporate movement in the Petersburg academy of Sciences: the years of reaction
In the given article it is told about the notable participant of a corporate movement in the Petersburg Academy of Sciences of first half of XVIIIth century - Gerhard Friedrich Muller. Estimating life of the scientist as one of the most difficult, the most discrepant and the most dramatic in the history of Russian-German scientific relations, the author shows on its example, to what difficulties West European scientists were exposed sometimes when they went to Russia in a XVIIIth century. Joined after the returning from expedition across Siberia Muller has entered in a corporate movement and added a vivid page to a civil history of Russia. In the article the history of prosecutions by the academic authorities of one of leaders of the democratic movement in the Petersburg Academy of Sciences is described. According to the author of the article, Muller has endured some moments of the most serious danger, which were capable to interrupt not only career, but also life of the scientist, - «cases» of De L'Isles and Gmelin; discussion about an origin of the Russian people, which was ended with demotion the scientist to the junior scientific assistant; etc. Muller's straightforwardness and independent character annoyed the academic bureaucracy and it did all to make his staying in Academy into one painful torture. When he was tired of that struggle the scientist had left Petersburg. As well as to other professors of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences - who were participants of a corporate movement during 1745th-1747th, to Gerhard Friedrich Muller the term «homager « is applicable only conditionally. The scientist felt himself as the citizen - the person, whose rights and duties are defined by contractual relations with a society and the state. Consciousness of responsibility for activities, which he (together with other participants of the movement) represented, pushed the scientist on constant conflicts with the authorities in which he (besides as well as his colleagues on struggle for democratic freedom in Academy) saw the main obstacle on a way of free development of sciences. These conflicts accompanied Muller during all time of his staying in Russia, and assigned to him «glory» of the person on duty or «the disturber of calmness in Academy» (M. Lomonosov's expression). In the basis of conflicts was the developed civil consciousness of the scientist who could not find in the country, which he selected as a place of the work, adequate understanding of problems of science and its representatives.