The eighteenth-century natural philosopher Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonosov (1711-1765) has long been represented by Russian writers and scholars as an encyclopedic figure who not only pioneered the dissemination of a scientific ethos in Russia, but whose own innumerable contributions to science make him eminently worthy of inclusion in a pantheon among the greatest scientific minds. A robust mythology extolling Lomonosov's role in Russian science and culture formed in the years immediately following his death, and would increase in vigor while adapting to changing historical circumstances until well into the twentieth century. This dissertation explores the evolution of Lomonosov's imposing stature in Russian thought from the middle of the eighteenth century to the first decades of the Soviet period. It reveals much about the intersection in Russian culture of changing attitudes towards the meaning and significance of science, as well as about the rise of a Russian national identity of which Lomonosov became an outstanding symbol. / The processes by which myths can be used to create and shape historical memory are highlighted throughout this inquiry. At first, Lomonosov was depicted very generally as the pioneering Russian natural philosopher; later his contributions, still broadly framed, were conflated with select institutional agendas; finally historians of various disciplines appropriated his life in order to reinforce their own professional strategies. Even as the myth of Lomonosov grew more elaborate, however, it was the inspiring idea of Lomonosov's heroic determination to propagate science, culture, and education within Russia and his successful struggles against myriad obstacles to achieve this end that remained the primary and enduring biographical element. It is this image with which my study is principally concerned.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1963. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-177).

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Diss.--Lett.--Tübingen--Univ., Neuphilologischen Fakultät, 1998. / Bibliogr. p. 178-185. Notes bibliogr.

During the first half of the XVIIIth century in Russia, deep social and cultural changes led to a chaotic linguistic situation. The Russian scholar Michail Lomonosov played a key role in the grammatical and lexical organization of the Russian literary language around the middle of the century. His contributions are reviewed and their importance analyzed in the present thesis. / Chapter One provides an analysis of the linguistic situation during the first half of the XVIIIth century. The role and the functions of different linguistic elements are examined, including West European lexical borrowings, the native Russian, the Church Slavonic, and their mutual interactions. / Chapters two and three analyze M. Lomonosov's role in the standardization of Russian grammar and vocabulary by examining his two major philological works: the "Rossiaeiskaeiia Grammatika" and the article "Predislovie o polbze knig tserkovnikh v rossiiskom yazike." / Although Lomonosov's merit is widely acknowledged among scholars, the importance of his stylistic theory has been challenged lately. In Chapter Four, Lomonosov's linguistic contributions to the development of the modern Russian literary language are weighed and assessed against these critical arguments.

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The dissertation focuses on the history of Russian chemistry between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Present scholarship contends that the growth and maturation of chemistry in Russia was a straitlaced process, state imposed and directed, and critically tied to the founding of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (1724-1725). Within this generally accepted school of thought, the infrastructure, codes of conduct, and ways of thinking that are the precursors of a vibrant chemical culture had no precedent in Russia, and historians portray them as having sprung up overnight by the founding of this institution. This dissertation refutes this seemingly immaculate conception of chemistry on Russia soil. Through a detailed examination of primary sources, including manuscript collections of artisanal recipes, legal contracts, tsarist decrees and acts (Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov), canon codes (Stoglav), synodal correspondence, printed annual calendars (Kalendar' ili Mesiatsoslov Khristianskii) and almanacs (Brius Calendars), as well as academic papers, chemical journals, public lectures, odes, correspondence, and artifacts of Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonosov (1711-1765), this study details how chemical practices, practitioners, and ideas across a multiplicity of sites grew, diversified, and entered the scholarly and courtly domains in the course of the eighteenth century in Russia. By uncovering a vibrant chemical culture that existed before the founding of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and continued to thrive alongside it, this dissertation shows not only that Early Modern Russia hosted a robust knowledge-generating culture, but also that practical chemistry was endemic to Russia’s material and cultural landscape. In doing so, it lays to rest the enduring but erroneous scholarly assumption that the natural sciences, including chemistry, had no indigenous roots in Russia and were forcibly and belatedly transplanted onto Russian soil only in the eighteenth century. Such assertions imply that Russia was not only a docile recipient of scientific disciplines and thus played no role in their formation but also that scientific disciplines arrived on Russian shores as fully mature sciences with stable disciplinary identities and practices agreed upon by an international community of practitioners. This dissertation makes two central claims. First, it argues that the entry of chemistry into the Academy was a dynamic process, negotiated by a confluence of actors, historical contingencies, and private interests, and not imposed by the state from above. To do so, it broadens the category of “science” and “scientific” to include pre-industrial processes and technologies, while outlining the essential preconditions for the development of a scientific culture. Second, it underscores the centrality of projects and projecting strategies to the crystallization of Russia’s popular scientific culture and discourse, and the development of chemistry as an academic discipline and a courtly science. This forces us to look at projecting not only as a hobbyhorse of adventurers, parvenus, and profit-seekers, but as a meaningful and epistemologically generative activity. In the middle of the eighteenth century, there were still many ways of doing academic chemistry, including Lomonosov’s Wolffian synthesis of “Physical Chymistry” (chymiae physicae or физическая химия), which had crystallized in the course of his projecting. Despite being grounded in corpuscular philosophy, Lomonosov’s “Physical Chymistry” offered a promising experimental framework for the study of chemical principles (first order constituents of mixed bodies), which was still mostly considered beyond the reach of chymical inquiry.

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O presente trabalho se propõe a esboçar a primeira apresentação em língua portuguesa de uma das mais importantes figuras do pensamento, letras e educação da Rússia, absolutamente central em seu desenvolvimento técnico, científico e literário, Mikhail Vassílievitch Lomonóssov. Nele, juntamente com uma introdução provendo uma contextualização geral do século XVIII russo, seguida de um panorama biográfico do polímata centrado em sua produção literária e findada em um relato sobre sua contribuição para a formação da língua russa moderna, são apresentadas as traduções integrais de quatro obras suas na área das letras, duas das quais poemas longos acrescidos de comentários, bem como outras traduções secundárias ilustrativas da primeira parte. / The goal of the present work is to provide a sketch presenting for the first time in Portuguese language one of the most important individuals in Russian thought, language and education, who played a fundamental role in the technological, scientific and literary development of the country, Mikhail Vasilievitch Lomonosov. Here, along with an introduction containing a general outline of 18th century Russia, followed by a biographical overview of the polymath and ending in an account of his main contributions to the shaping of the modern Russian language, four full translations of his works in the realm of letters are presented, two of which duly commented long poems, as well as minor secondary translations, illustrating the first part.

O presente trabalho se propõe a esboçar a primeira apresentação em língua portuguesa de uma das mais importantes figuras do pensamento, letras e educação da Rússia, absolutamente central em seu desenvolvimento técnico, científico e literário, Mikhail Vassílievitch Lomonóssov. Nele, juntamente com uma introdução provendo uma contextualização geral do século XVIII russo, seguida de um panorama biográfico do polímata centrado em sua produção literária e findada em um relato sobre sua contribuição para a formação da língua russa moderna, são apresentadas as traduções integrais de quatro obras suas na área das letras, duas das quais poemas longos acrescidos de comentários, bem como outras traduções secundárias ilustrativas da primeira parte. / The goal of the present work is to provide a sketch presenting for the first time in Portuguese language one of the most important individuals in Russian thought, language and education, who played a fundamental role in the technological, scientific and literary development of the country, Mikhail Vasilievitch Lomonosov. Here, along with an introduction containing a general outline of 18th century Russia, followed by a biographical overview of the polymath and ending in an account of his main contributions to the shaping of the modern Russian language, four full translations of his works in the realm of letters are presented, two of which duly commented long poems, as well as minor secondary translations, illustrating the first part.