Passport details
Born in Rozhdestvenskoye, Russia, on 17 July 184, and cursed with a name that’s confusing even for Russophiles, Miklouho-Maclay may be the greatest and most likable 19th-century explorer you’ve never heard of.
Claim to fame
His adventures straddled the globe from the Canary Islands and North Africa to Patagonia, Easter Island, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, the Philippines and New Guinea. His main interest was ethnography: seeking out uncontacted tribes to see what he might learn from them. Given the era’s mood of white supremacy bolstered by dubious racial science, Miklouho-Maclay’s open-minded engagement with the subject is amazing. He believed he and the tribespeople shared a common humanity, and was further convinced by his investigations of the brains of executed Australian criminals. His conclusion – that all races possessed identical intellectual potential – led him to campaign against slavery and for the rights of indigenous people.
Supporting documentation
Miklouho-Maclay didn’t live long enough to complete a magnum opus, and his Australian wife, Margaret, destroyed some of his Russian journals.However, surviving diaries detail his encounters with several tribes, his attempts to record native languages and his despair about the influence of his fellow Europeans, noting: “The Europeans exploit the natives, and by their example they develop habits of lying and deceit.”
Writer Leo Tolstoy understood the importance of Miklouho-Maclay’s research. “You are the first to prove by experiment,” he wrote, “that man is man everywhere – a sociable being with whom one should communicate with kindness and truth, not guns and vodka.”
Distinguishing marks
Dashingly bearded, with a mane of unruly hair, Miklouho-Maclay looks more like a poet than an extraordinary adventurer. Impressed by his ability to produce light (thanks to a ship’s lantern), the Papuans called him “karam tamo” – the man from the moon.
Last sighted
Miklouho-Maclay died at 41, on a visit to Russia from his adopted home of Australia. Idolised in the Soviet Union (and honoured with a biopic in 1947), he lives on in folk tales of parts of New Guinea, where objects he introduced – axes, melons, corn – are known by their Russian names.
Intrepidness rating
His passion for exploration destroyed his health and sent him to an early grave: 8.
