Biography of Alexander Brown

Brown, repeatedly elected by the dean of the Historical and Philology Faculty of St. Petersburg University, and in years-was the vice-rector of the university, entered the domestic and world history of science, as an outstanding archaeologist and philologist. His scientific works were associated with the regions of Germans, Scandinavity, archeology and university activities.

Their ancestors came from the small town of Ryudsheim on the right bank of the Rhine, located 30 kilometers from Minz. The boy received secondary education in the first St. Petersburg gymnasium, located near their house, since the family of St. Petersburg Germans lived on Cabinet Street. In the year, Fedor Brown graduated from a gymnasium with a gold medal and entered the historical and philological faculty of St.

Petersburg University. At the university, he was engaged in Sanskrit and comparative linguistics with Professor I. Minaev, as well as Slavic philology with Professor I. But his main teacher became Alexander Nikolaevich Veselovsky - the founder of the famous philological school. Under the leadership of Veselovsky F. Brown studied Romano-German philology and literature. The student essay on the Anglo -Saxon poem “Beowulf” was awarded a gold medal written at the end of Brown's studies.

In the year, he graduated from the university with a diploma of the candidate, having received excellent assessments in all subjects except philosophy. On the recommendation of Veselovsky, he was left under the department to prepare for master's exams and professorship. An important part of such training at that time was considered foreign business trips that enable graduate students to continue their studies at the best European universities.

Having received a paid business trip for two years from St. Petersburg University in the fall, F. Brown went abroad. Even then, his specialization as a Germanist began to be determined, and he was especially attracted by issues not strictly linguistic, but a common circle of problems related to antiquities in the broad sense of the word. Upon returning from abroad, Brown passed the master's exams and was admitted in the year to give lectures as a privat-document in the Department of History of Western European literature.

The themes of his trial lectures, listened to the professors of the faculty, were: “The chronology of historical layers in the Saga about the Nibelungs” and “The question of related relations of Indo -European languages ​​among themselves and the situation between them of German dialects”. At the same time, he was appointed teacher of the German language, as this vacancy was released. In the years, Brown was engaged in teaching a lot of teaching in various educational institutions, among which were the Alexander Lyceum, the Nikolaev Sirot Institute, the School of St.

Ekaterina, gymnasium M. Stoyanina and others. He was considered one of the best specialists in the German language in St. Petersburg, state and courts often turned to him in connection with the need for absolutely accurate translations of documents. Active teaching did not prevent him from conducting serious scientific work. Interested in the issue of Crimean Goths, F.

Brown released a small book on this subject in German, which became his first scientific work. Not limited to the study of a few written sources about the Goths, in the year Brown appeals to the imperial archaeological commission with a note on the need to search for traces in the Northern Black Sea region. The Russian Archaeological Society supported his petition and asked to resolve his research in the Mariupol district and mountain Crimea to study the Orthodox Tatar population, "in which G.

Brown implies descendants of ready." The archaeological commission allocated rubles on this trip. Initially, Brown took up the search for traces of the Gothic language in the vicinity of Mariupol, where part of the Greek and Tatar population of Crimea moved in the year, but did not find a single word that could be associated with the Goths. But the scientist was striking the difference between two ethnic types of local population, in one of which he saw the “Gothic type”.

Having not received the expected results from ethnography and linguistics, F. Brown came to the conclusion that “only one path remains - archaeological searches in the Crimean Gori itself”. Initially, it was planned to excavate in Mangup, in Suyren, in the village of Biya Sala and Partenit, but only Mangup had to limit himself for a lack of time and money. Having settled right on the settlement in one of the caves, Brown led there for 28 days.

The report on these studies was submitted to the archaeological commission and later published with some reductions in its publication. Noting the division of a well -fortified settlement into three parts: citadel, the middle and lower city - the researcher tried to start excavations in all three parts in order to establish the historical planography of the city.

In the citadel, he opened the foundation of the octagonal church, in the middle of the city he opened 12 burials.In the lower part, starting the excavation of a large hill, Brown discovered the remains of a large basilica, which he interpreted as a fence of cemeteries and a cemetery church surrounded by crypts. Modern researchers of the Mangup basilica, based on the reviews of A.

Bertier-Delagard and R. Leper, consider these field studies by F. Brown extremely imperfect and poorly documented. Nevertheless, A. Herzen believes that a new stage in the study of the defensive structures of Mangup began with the excavations of F. Brown. This was the first experience of field archaeological work by F. Brown, who had never produced independent excavations up to a year.

A plan of the octagonal church, drawings of the found things and 19 photographs were attached to the researcher's report. At that time, the photograph had just begun to be used for archaeological fixation, and field reports were very rarely accompanied by photographs. During the excavations, important finds were made - two inscriptions, one of which contained the mention of the name of the Fortress Feodoro, which was the capital of the medieval principality of the same name, which gave good arguments in order to localize it on Mangup.

The few finds in the form of five arrowheads were transferred to the artillery museum, and a fragment of iron stirrup, spurs, fragments of inscriptions, architectural details and frescoes to the Museum of the Tauride Scientific Archival Commission. The next episode of the archaeological activity of Fedor Alexandrovich Brown is also connected with the search for ready in Eastern Europe, but it did not occur in the Northern Black Sea region, but in the Baltic states.

In June, he appealed to the archaeological commission with a statement, in which he proposed new excavations of the Alt-Radensky burial ground in the territory of the Uting estate in the Bassky district of the Courland province. The burial ground was opened in the year, and on behalf of the archaeological commission, excavations were carried out there, during which burials with a rich inventory were opened.

These findings interested the famous Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius, who suggested their belonging to the tribes of ready or vandals and dating them for the first centuries, but. Brown was inclined to later dating the burial ground of the 7th -10th centuries. The commission released the rub. Active searches for archaeological traces were ready to lead to the fact that, as N. Shamonin, the wife of historian S.

Platonov, was recorded in his diary in her diary, Academician V. Vasilievsky dubbed Brown “Potakop”. In the year, the position of a full -time member was released in the Archaeological Commission, since V. Druzhinin moved to the archaeographic commission, and from December 1 of this year, F. Brown became a full -time member of the imperial archaeological commission with the “reservation” of the Privatdocent and the lecturer of St.

Petersburg University. According to the distribution of duties, each member of the commission was in charge of his area. The “zone of responsibility” of Brown included a huge territory from the latitude to the Black Sea, the North Caucasus and the Caspian. The Crimean peninsula, of course, also subject to its jurisdiction and at the end of the 10s, Brown had to report at meetings of the commission on the current restoration of the Bakhchisarai palace, the Aluston fortress, and inspect the excavations of Chersonesos.

The director of the Kerch Museum K. Dumberg and the head of the Kherson excavation K. Kosyushko-Valuzhinich, scientifically, should have been reached by him. In the city of Borodaevki, the excavations of the mound, located in the acute beam of the Dnieper -Kovokamensky cottage, began. The commission instructed F. Brown to inspect this mound, make his excavations and, “if it finds necessary,” excavations of the mounds closest from him; Also inspect the excavations of Chersonesos, visit Kerch and the Old Crimea.

During the examination, F. Brown seemed to be a natural hill that arose as a result of a collapse of a significant block of land from the steep southern slope of the beam. The rest of the time he spent at the excavations of Chersonesos and Kerch and even went to the Taman Peninsula for the look of monuments in the vicinity of Sennaya. The most striking episode of the short service of F.

Brown in the archaeological commission was the excavations of the mounds in the Tauride province in the summer of the year. Commission, highlighting the rub. Brown for excavations of "promising" mounds. Brown explored four embankments at s. The lower and upper seragoses, in which burials of various eras were discovered, starting from the Bronze Age, and two large mounds in the vicinity of s.

Big Belozerka. The first contained about twenty burials, the second, having a height of more than 5 meters, was called local residents of the Chmoreva grave. The central burial turned out to be completely looted and almost destroyed. The lateral catacomb, which was broken through a thirteen -meter predatory mine, was also robbed. Nevertheless, sifting through the roar of its filling gave its results - gold plaques were found, including with images of struggling Scythians and winged animals; Golden Pronis and bead; bronze arrowheads; The remains of iron armor.

The main discovery was the burial of ten horses with a rich harvest. Brown described in detail each horse pave.The report, which was later published with small abbreviations, contained plans for the location of burials in the mounds, plans and cuts of funeral cameras, drawings and photographs of finds. Compared to the report on the excavations in Mangup, it is clearly visible how the researcher acquired the experience of field work and improved the methods of excavations and fixation.

Brown submitted a report to the chairman of the archaeological commission to Count A. Bobrinsky with a request to dismiss the standard member of the commission from the post of regular member, motivating this with a desire to focus on continuing scientific works, "requiring intensified labor and significant time spent." In view of the defense of the dissertation, Brown received in early August the year along with the duties of the secretary of the historical and philological faculty.

Although he remained a freelance employee of the archaeological commission.