Anuchin Dmitry Nikolaevich
(27.08.(08.09).1843–04.06.1923)

An outstanding Russian anthropologist, geographer, ethnographer and archaeologist.
Born in St. Petersburg in a wealthy large family of a retired officer, raised to the nobility for merits in the 1812 war. The Anuchins were the foremost people of their time, were fond of theater, music, literature, had a good library, wrote newspapers and magazines. Dmitry, the sixth child in the family, learned to read and write early, knew French and German, was fond of literature, history and especially geography. Since childhood, he was distinguished by dedication and self-discipline, as can be seen from the diaries of high-school years: “To read books in German and French. Learn English and Italian ... Read Schiller, Goethe, Shakespeare, Byron ... Buy a microscope and make various observations ... To be in the Public Library, the Hermitage, the Rumyantsev Museum ... ".
After graduating from the 4th Larinsky gymnasium in St. Petersburg in 1860, Anuchin entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, but due to a pulmonary disease, he left school and went abroad to improve his health. After spending about two years in Germany, France, Italy, in 1863 he returned to Russia and entered the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow University. His favorite subjects were anthropology and ethnography. After graduation, he worked as a scientific secretary of the Society for the acclimatization of animals and plants, while continuing to deal with the problems of anthropology, archeology, and ethnography.
In 1876, he was offered to head the newly formed Department of Anthropology at Moscow University. Having accepted this proposal, Anuchin began by studying the work experience of similar departments of universities in Western Europe, visited the anthropological museums of Paris, Vienna, London and the laboratories of leading scientific centers. He used all the best he had seen to organize his department. In 1878, he prepared the Russian department of the World Anthropological Exhibition in Paris, a year later participated in the VI Congress of Naturalists and Doctors of Russia. In the same year he was elected a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. For the first time, Anuchin organized university studies in anthropology, ethnography and geography in Russia and organized an extensive Anthropological Museum at the University of Moscow (with departments of ethnography and prehistoric archeology). From 1875 he worked in the Society of lovers of natural science, ethnography and anthropology, where he held various positions, and since 1890 he was the permanent president of the Society. At the same time, the Society was established in 1890. The Geographical Department, which chose Anuchina as its chairman and published the journal Zeleudovanie since 1894, is one of the first popular science publications in Russia.
In 1885, Anuchin headed the department of geography founded by him at Moscow University, which he managed until the end of his life, creating the Russian school of geographers, researchers and teachers. Such prominent figures of Russian science as academician L.S. Berg, Professor A.A. Borzov, B.F. Dobrynin, A.S. Barkov, I.S. Schukin, A.A. Kruber and others. Anuchin identified two large sections of geography: general (geography), with the object of study the entire surface of the Earth and private (regional geography), studying parts of the Earth's surface, country and region. He considered the geographic environment to be a decisive factor in the development of society, and even a hundred years before the birth of the concept “ecology”, he advocated respect for it.
In 1889, Anuchin was awarded the Imperial Russian Geographical Society Gold Medal for an original study on the geographical distribution of the male population of Russia according to height.
Anuchin paid much attention to the history of geography, its popularization, preservation of the memory of prominent geographers and travelers. He wrote remarkable essays about M.V. Lomonosov, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay, N.M. Przhevalsky and many others.
Anuchin did not belong to the category of cabinet scientists. Participation in numerous expeditions and field studies allowed him to collect a huge amount of scientific material, on the basis of which such fundamental works were born as “Relief of the surface of European Russia in the consistent development of the concept of it”, “Upper Volga lakes and the upper reaches of the Western Dvina. Reconnaissance and research of 1894–1895”, “Japan and the Japanese. Geographical, anthropological and ethnographic essay", and a number of other scientific studies.
In 1896, Anuchin was elected valid, and in 1898, an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. For many years he headed the Society of lovers of natural science, anthropology and ethnography.

Merit Anuchina awarded orders St. Vladimir 3 and 4 degrees, St. Anna 2 degrees, the foreign order of the Legion of Honor. In 1913, he was awarded the Konstantin Medal, the highest award of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, for research on criminal statistics in Russia.
After the October Revolution, Anuchin, continuing fruitful scientific and pedagogical activity, took an active part in the work of state institutions and, in particular, the State Planning Commission. He was one of the compilers and editors of the first Soviet Atlas of the World.
He died in Moscow, buried in the Vagankovsky cemetery. In Moscow, at number 6 on Khlebniy Lane, in which Anuchin lived in 1911-1923. installed a memorial plaque.
Cape in the north of the island of Greeley archipelago Land of Fanz-Joseph. Named by cartographers in 1955.
Cape in the east of the island of the October Revolution of the archipelago Severnaya Zemlya. Opened and named by hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean Region in 1913.
A glacier northeast of Mack Bay on the west coast of the northern island of Novaya Zemlya. Named in 1913, by the expedition G.Ya. Sedov.
The lake to the south of the Maud Bay and the river to the east of the Faddey Gulf on the northeast coast of Taimyr. Named in 1951 by the North Taimyr Expedition.