Dmitry Nikolayevich
Anuchin
1843-1923
The achievements of Russian explorers, scientists and geographers are inestimable. Many streets in Moscow are named after them, including Anuchin Street.
Dmitry Nikolayevich Anuchin (1843-1923) was an anthropologist, geographer, ethnographer and archaeologist, professor at Moscow State University (1884), ordinary Academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1896), honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1898), founder of the geography, anthropology and ethnography departments at Moscow State University. He was born in St. Petersburg on September 8, 1843. In 1863 he entered Moscow University at the Natural Science Department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, from which he graduated in 1867. As a student, Dmitri Nikolaevich was interested in zoology, anthropology, ethnography, and studied literature on these subjects. After defending his master’s thesis in 1880 on the topic of “On some anomalies of the human skull, mainly in their distribution among races”, D.N. Anuchin was elected as associate professor at the Anthropology Department of Moscow University. For his scientific works published in 1886-1889, D.N. Anuchin received the academic title of Doctor of Geography. From 1875 he was a member of the Imperial Society of Amateurs of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography, of which he was president from 1890 to 1923, and within which he organised a geographical section. He also founded and edited the geographical journal Zemlevedenie. In 1894-1895 D.N. Anuchin took part in an expedition to find out the causes of river silting in the Tver governorate, and he is credited with solving the question of the source of the Volga. The scientist has about 600 scientific works. He took part in numerous expeditions, the results of which were published scientific works that laid the foundation for the systematic study of the relief and lakes of Russia. At Moscow University, Dmitry Anuchin created the Geographical Museum – one of the most complete in Russia, with a library of some 10,000 volumes – and the Anthropological Museum – the largest museum of anthropology and ethnology. In addition, the scientist donated his personal library of some 2,000 publications to Moscow State University. For his services to the field of geography, the Imperial Russian Geographical Society elected Anuchin an honorary member in 1901, and in 1913 awarded him the Konstantinovsky Medal ‘for the totality of his long-standing research in geography’. On the initiative of the Russian Geographical Society in October 2017 the planned driveway № 421 was given the name “Anuchin Street”. The proximity to the main building of Moscow University played a role in choosing the name of the street, the organisation to which D.N. Anuchin gave most of his life.
Address: Moscow, Anuchina str.
