Alexander Alexandrovich Miller ( 1875 - 1935 ) - Russian archaeologist and ethnologist , artist and museologist.
| Miller Alexander Alexandrovich | ||||
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| Date of Birth | August 27, 1875 | |||
| Place of Birth | ||||
| Date of death | January 12, 1935 (59 years old) | |||
| Place of death | ||||
| Citizenship |  the USSR | |||
| Allegiance |  Russian empire | |||
| Occupation | archaeologist , ethnologist , artist | |||
| Father | Alexander Nikolaevich Miller | |||
| Mother | Alexandra Alexandrovna Pershina | |||
| Awards and prizes |
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He was a full member of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture, a professor of archeology at St. Petersburg and then Petrograd and Leningrad universities, a member of the Hermitage Council, head of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III , and then director of this museum (from 1918 to 1923).
Biography
Born on August 27, 1875 in Lugansk, Ekaterinoslav province. [1] He spent his childhood in the family estate of Kamenno-Tuzlovsky of the Taganrog district (now the Kuybyshevsky district of the Rostov region). After the sale of the estate, the family moved to Taganrog , where his father, Alexander Nikolayevich Miller (1844-1916), was a full-time state councilor , was a member of the city council and replaced the position of the Taganrog mayor.
Alexander received primary education at home. Then he studied at the Novocherkassk Cadet Corps (1886-1893) and the Nikolaev Engineering School in St. Petersburg (1893-1896). At the end of the school, he was enlisted as second lieutenant in the 4th Railway Battalion. But a military career did not captivate Miller and in 1899 he retired, deciding to do painting . He left for Paris , where he enrolled in the Higher Russian School of Social Sciences and at the same time in the renowned Julian Academy of Art. [2] Having stopped occupying the social sciences and completely engaged in painting, in 1906 he gained fame as an artist; his paintings were exhibited at the Paris Salon (currently, A. A. Miller's works are in the collections of the Russian Museum and Taganrog Art Gallery). Also in Paris, in 1901, A. A. Miller entered the Anthropological School, at the archaeological department, without abandoning painting. But archeology fascinated him more with painting - in addition to listening to lectures at the school, he studied in its library and archaeological museums, gradually getting drawn into scientific activity. After graduating from the Anthropological School in 1904, from 1906, Alexander Miller devoted himself entirely to archeology only.
In 1907, he was invited to work in the anthropological department of the Russian Museum and was sent on his first scientific trip to Abkhazia and Kalmykia . At the end of this work, Miller was appointed head of the Caucasus department at the Russian Museum. In 1908, he embarked on a study of the Elizabethan settlement and the burial mounds in the rows of the Don River . In 1909, there was a trip to the province of Elizavetpol to study carpet production, as well as archaeological exploration on the Black Sea coast and excavations at the village of Elizavetovskaya . In 1910 - a trip to the Kuban region and the Black Sea province to study the culture of the Circassians and the continuation of excavations of the burial mound at the village of Elizavetovskaya. In 1911, he was in Akhaltsikhe and Tiflis to study jewelry and continued excavations of burial grounds near the village of Elizavetovskaya. In 1912, a trip was made to the Batumi region and the Black Sea province for ethnographic work, and in 1913 to the Crimea to study the material culture of the Tatars, Karaites and Gypsies. In 1914, the excavations of the Scythian necropolis at the village of Elizavetovskaya were completed and archaeological exploration was carried out along the northern shore of the Dead Donets .
In 1914-1916, Miller was engaged in the construction of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum. In 1916, in connection with the ongoing World War I , he was called up for military service, but immediately seconded to the museum. In 1917 he was in Taganrog , at the end of August of the same year he returned to Petrograd . After the October Revolution, he, as a former officer, was drafted into the Red Army as Chairman of the examination committee for the recruitment of specialists from the North-Western Front. But this service was short and in 1918 Miller was elected director of the Russian Museum in Petrograd. The following years he was engaged in museum work, participated in archaeological trips, and was on business trips abroad.
On September 9, 1933 , on his return from another expedition from the North Caucasus , A. A. Miller was arrested and charged with conducting national fascist propaganda and using the possibilities of scientific and museum work for this purpose. In 1934, by the decision of the Special Meeting at the OGPU of Leningrad, Alexander Miller received five years of exile and was sent to Kazakhstan . There is no exact information about the death of a Russian scientist-archaeologist. According to official figures, he died of heart failure in Karlag on January 12, 1935 . [1] He was rehabilitated by the Definition of the Military Tribunal of the Leningrad Military District of November 28, 1956 .
In 1908-1910, A. A. Miller was elected a full member of the Geographical, Archaeological and Prehistoric Societies of France. He was awarded the royal orders of St. Anne, St. Stanislav and St. Vladimir of various degrees. His brother - Miller, Mikhail Alexandrovich (1883-1968) - was also an archaeologist [3] .