Rezensionen
Rezensionen
Karin Reich, Elena Roussanova
Formeln und Sterne: Korrespondenz deutscher Gelehrter mit der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu St. Petersburg
Briefe von Johann Wilhelm Andreas Pfaff, Johann Sigismund Gottfried Huth, Wilhelm Struve, Martin Bartels, Magnus Georg Paucker aus der Autographensammlung von Wilhelm Stieda in der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig
Rezension
The book under review is devoted to the correspondence between German scientists with the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. All published letters come from the collection
of Wilhelm Stieda (Library of the University of Leipzig, Germany). In the introductory part explanations and conventions concerning symbols, abbreviations and the rules of translitera-tion of names are provided. The proper part of the book consists of 8 chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction where the importance of Stieda´s collection is discussed and reasons of choosing the persons whose correspondence is presented are given. The letters published in the book come from the period 1806-1834. They were written in St. Petersburg, Tartu, Kharkiv, Kazan and Mitau as well as Frankfurt/Oder and Braunschweig.
The following Chapters 2-8 are de- voted, respectively, to Wilhelm Christian Hermann Stieda, Nikolaus and Paul Heinrich Fuss, Johann Wilhelm Andreas Pfaff, Johann Sigismund Gottfried Huth, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm (von) Struve, Johann Martin Christian (von) Bartels and Magnus Georg (von) Paucker. Each chapter begins with a short CV of the respevtive scientist, then important and meaningful aspects of his life and scientific work are discussed, further there are comments on the letters that are given in the last part of the chapter. The number of letters of particular persons is different: from 40 in the case of Paucker to 6 in the case of Pfaff. The volume was prepared in a very careful way. It gives an interesting picture of the scientific exchange and scientific life in the first half of the 19th century showing scientists with German background collaborating with the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg as well as with various educational institutions in Russia. Comments of the editors indicate not only the content of the letters but also their cultural and historical background. The book contributes to a better understanding not only of particular scientific issues from mathematics and astronomy but also of the academic life in Russia in the indicated period.
Roman Murawski
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