Morphological scientists at the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the 18th – early 20th centuries. To the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences

The purpose of this work was to analyze the participation of domestic and foreign morphological scientists in the activities of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. From 1724 until 1917, a number of outstanding morphologists were elected as full members of the Academy, among them - anatomist and embryologist K.F. Wolf, anatomist A.E. Protasov, embryologist, geologist and paleontologist H.G. Pander, naturalist K. E. Beer, embryologist A. O. Kovalevsky, physiologist, histologist and zoologist F. V. Ovsyannikov, histologist A. S. Dogel, anthropologist, ethnographer and geographer D. N. Anuchin. The academy’s connections with foreign scientists also developed, many of whom were elected corresponding members and foreign honorary members of the academy, among them a number of morphologists, comparative anatomists and histologists. Thus, the following were elected as foreign honorary members: René Antoine Reaumur (1683 - 1757, elected in 1737); Albrecht Haller (1708 – 1777, elected 1776); in 1802 Georges Cuvier (1769 – 1732) was elected; in 1826 – Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749 – 1832); in 1905 - Camillo Golgi (1844 - 1926).

Correspondents were elected as foreign members: in 1826 - Robert Brown (1773 - 1858), who in 1827 became a full member of the academy; in 1826, Karl Ernst Baer (1792 - 1876) was elected foreign corresponding member, who after moving to Russia became its ordinary academician (1827), and then after his resignation, its honorary member (1862); in 1832 - Johannes Peter Müller (1801 - 1852); in 1836 - Jan Evangelista Purkinje (1787 - 1869); in 1850 – Matthias Jacob Schleiden (1804 – 1881); in 1857 - Rudolf Albert Kölliker (1817 - 1905); in 1881 - Rudolf Virchow (1821 - 1902); in 1897 - Franz Leydig (1821 - 1908).

Communication between foreign corresponding members and foreign honorary members was carried out with the academy in several directions, of which the main one was sending their works to the academy and publishing their works in the academy’s publications. Another direction was the training of students who were subjects of the Russian Empire, as well as the internship of young Russian researchers who were preparing for a professorship.