Page - 232 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 5232 observationes (Notes on the character of the Finnic language), whose manu- script from 1669 was later unearthed among the papers of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716).69 The works that Leibniz and his collaborator, Johann Georg von Eckhart (1664–1730), put forward in the early eighteenth century became seminal. Leibniz argued for the large-scale collection of samples from various vernaculars, not least in Russia. In this context, he pointed to a sup- posed connection between Sámi, Finnish, Hungarian, and several indigenous languages found in the Russian realm.70 Collection of linguistic data from Rus- sia, however, did not begin in earnest until the 1720s. Several expeditions were then dispatched to chart the Russian Empire, with linguistic studies forming part of the research programs. A German-speaking Swedish officer who had been taken captive and sent to Siberia, Philipp Johann von Strahlenberg (1676– 1747), took part in one of the earliest expeditions. After being released, he pub- lished a sensational book on the northern and eastern parts of Russia (1730).71 In his book, von Strahlenberg included a table with words from what he de- fined as “the Tatarian and Hunno-Scythian ancestral peoples.” All the languag- es he included in the table are now considered parts of the Uralic language family, in which the Finno-Ugrian group (or, as he called it, the “Hun nation”) constitutes the largest branch. Mutatis mutandis, von Strahlenberg perceived the linguistic links between the entire group of Finno-Ugrian peoples, with members from Siberia (Mansi, Khanty) via northwest Russia (Komi, Mari, Mordvin, etc.) and the Baltics (Estonian, Livonian) to Central Europe (Magyar) and Fennoscandinavia (Sámi, Finnish, Karelian).72 Further contributions in the same vein as von Strahlenberg added more em- pirical material besides presenting theories on the ethnic kinship of the Ma- gyars. They include several works by Johann Eberhard Fischer (1697–1771), who was the secretary of the second Kamchatka (or “Bering”) expedition between 1733 and 1743 (himself involved in the fieldwork from 1740): De origine 69 On Fogel, see Maria Marten and Carola Piepenbring-Thomas, Fogels Ordnungen: Aus der Werkstatt des Hamburger Mediziners Martin Fogel (1634–1675) (Frankfurt am Main: Vit- torio Klostermann, 2015). 70 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Brevis designatio meditationum de Originibus Gentium, ductis potissimum ex indicio linguarum,” Miscellanea Berolinensia ad incrementum scien­ tiarum, ex scriptis Societati Regiae Scientiarum exhibitis edita 1 (1710): 1–16; cf. Stipa, Finn­ isch­ ugrische Sprachforschung, 155–64; Hans Arens, Sprachwissenschaft: Der Gang ihrer Entwicklung von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Freiburg: K. Alber, 1969), 94–104. 71 P.J. [Philipp Johann] von Strahlenberg, Das Nord­ und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, Jn so weit solches Das gantze Rußische Reich mit Siberien und der grossen Tatarey in sich begreiffet [...] (Stockholm: In Verlegung des Autoris, 1730). 72 Modern archival studies have revealed that his book relied heavily on materials collected by another participant of the same expedition, Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685– 1735). See Stipa, Finnisch­ ugrische Sprachforschung, 173–79.