J. J. Hall, Some Early Publications of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The purpose of this note is to draw attention to six early publications of the Russian Academy of Sciences now in Cambridge University Library. The first of them was presented to the Library by the Academy in 1727 (as a note written in it reveals), and must rank among the Library's most neglected accessions: more than 240 years appear to have passed before it was so much as assigned a classmark; the other five are a recent purchase.
These six publications contain Latin speeches delivered at, or composed for, public meetings of the Academy (the rules of which laid down that it should hold periodic public meetings, so that it should be generally known how the Academicians at their meetings conducted their business of expounding their own work and plans, and commenting on that of their fellows.(1) Longest, and most important, are two which contain speeches composed for the first two of these public meetings:
1) Sermones in primo solenni Academiae Sciendarum Imperialis conventu die XXVII. Decembris anni MDCCXXV. publice recitati. (Petropoli [1726].) [8], 120p.
This contains a speech, of 111 pages, by Georg Bemhard Bülffinger (here so-called: usually Bilfinger), Professor of Physics at the Academy, on the value of academies of science and of scientific studies ‹ a recurrent theme in these works ‹ and on the means of determining longitudes, with a brief reply, giving the judgement of the Academy, by the Professor of Mathematics, Jakob Hermann. The distinguished audience (as the preface explains) included the Empress Catherine's son-in-law, Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein.
2) Sermones in secundo solenni Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis conventu die 1. Augisti anni MDCCXXVI publice recitati. (Petropoli [1727].) [4], 120p.
The main text is 115 pages by Hermann on the history of geometry and the perfection of telescopes, followed by a reply by Christian Goldbach. The audience was still more distinguished, for it included the Empress Catherine herself; but, as it was obviously inadvisable to inflict all this on the ill-educated Empress, the preface explains that the greater part of Hermann's discourse was left unspoken, while the Empress actually heard a German panegyric by G. S. Bayer (not printed here) in praise of the Empress and the origins of the Russian people. (The preface calls the Empress 'of glorious memory', so this cannot have been published until after her death in May 1727; this delay may explain why it is exceptionally little-known; see below.)
The third of the six works is probably the least interesting:
3) Sermo panegyricus in solenni Academiae Sciendarum Imperialis conventu die V. Mali anni MDCCXXXI. publice recitatus. (Petropoli [1731].) 63p.
The single speech, by Johann Simon Beckenstein, contains a rather brief discussion of the theoretical principles of government, leading into a long panegyric of the Empress Anna. (There is no preface.)
The last three publications describe the Academy's celebrations of occasions in the reign of the Empress Elizabeth:
4) Sermones in solenni Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis conventu die XXDC. Aprilis anni MDCCXLII. publice recitari. (Petropoli [1742].) [8],51p.
The occasion was the Empress's coronation. Georg Wolfgang Krafft spoke on the laws of harmony, and enquired whether similar laws might apply to the arrangement of colours; Josias Weitbrecht replied; and G. F. W. Juncker recited a German poem in praise of the Empress. (This was printed separately,(2) but not with the Latin speeches. Cambridge University Library has no copy.)
5) Diem imperil... Elisabethae ... Imperatricis ... Academia Scientiarum solemn! conventu celebrat postridie illius diei Novembris XXVI. anno MDCCXLDC. (Petropoli [1749].) [14], 33p.
This was the anniversary of the Empress's accession. Georg Wilhelm Richmann spoke on the laws of evaporation; C. G. Kratzenstein replied; and Mikhail Lomonosov delivered a eulogy of the Empress ‹ he spoke in Russian, but the printed version is his Latin translation. (This has its own title, and was perhaps issued as a separate publication.)
Panegyricus Elisabetae Augustae Russiarum Imperatrici patrio sermone dictus orante Michaele Lomonosow. Latine redditus eodem auctore. [St Petersburg, 1749] 42p.
6) Diem lustricum... Imperatricis Elisabetae... Academia Scientarium oradonibus solemnibus ac fesds imibus celebrat anno MDCCL. Sept. VI. (Petropoli [1750].) [ll],32p.
The 'dies lustricus' was apparently the feast day of the saint after whom the Empress was named.(3) The printed speech is by Abraham Kaau Boerhaave on 'the things which adorn and perfect a medic', with J. C. Hebenstreit's reply.
These were celebrations of imperial occasions, as is shown by Juncker's and Lomonosov's panegyrics, and by descriptions of firework displays included in the last two publications; but they are also public displays of the Academy at work, and in the last two of them stress is placed on its practical usefulness. (Of Richmann's speech, Kratzenstein's reply argues that the study of evaporation will make possible scientific weather-forecasting.) The use of Latin must have limited the numbers of those able to appreciate these demonstrations; but, as the speakers (apart from Lomonosov) were all expatriates, they were perhaps not competent to speak in Russian.
As publications, these works were clearly intended as advertisements for the Russian Academy. They are all - the earlier ones especially - well printed, usually in large type and ornamented with an engraved vignette; and the exclusive use of Latin - which, as we have seen, was not always the practice at the meetings - must have been intended to enhance the prestige of the Academy and its international acceptability; that this last was an object is shown by the presentation of the first of these works to Cambridge. All of them are now rare: the British Library catalogue includes only nos. 1 and 3; the National Union Catalog lists only no. 1 (in two copies), and, apparently, two copies of Lomonosov's eulogy from no. 5;(4) Сводный каталог книг на иностранных языках, изданных в России в XVIII веке (Leningrad, 1984-86) includes only nos. 3, 5 and 6. Of the six, the first two are the most important, for they are the first publications of the Academy, preceding the first volume of its Commentarii, published in 1728; and prima facie they should be in their own right of some significance in the history of science. All of them, even if not of wider significance, are interesting memorials of the work of the Academy in its early years.
- J. J. Hall (Cambridge University Library)
References
(1) See Sermones in primo solenni Academiae Sciendarum... conventu ... [1726] (item 1 below), preface; also Sermones in solenni Academiae ... conventu die XXDC. Aprilis anni MDCCXLII. [1742] (item 4 below), 5.(2) Сводный каталог книг на иностранных языках, изданных в России в XVIII веке (Leningrad, 1984-86), no. 1478.
(3) 'Dies ... cui Diuae Elisabetae in fastis nomen religio maiorum imposuit', p. 30.
(4) The date is given as [1753], but the other details fit.