Shyogren, Andrey Mikhaylovich (1794-1855), a scholar

Subject / Ethnic culture/Personnel
Andreas Johan (Andrey Mikhailovich) Sjogren (1794-1855) was an ethnographer, linguist. In 1831 he became an academician of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Science. He was born in Finland in the family of a shoemaker. He studied in a grammar school in Borgo (Porvoo), in 1819 he graduated from the Åbo (Turku) Akademi University where he got the degree of a Doctor of Philosophy. Since 1820 he lived in Saint Petersburg, studied the Russian language and History. From 1822 to 1823 he worked as a librarian for the count N.P.Rumyantsev. In 1823 he made a trip through Priladozhie. From 1824 to 1826 he made tour of the Novgorod, Olonets, Arkhangelsk gubernias, Finland; from 1826 to 1828 he went on travelling through the Vyatka, Kazan, Perm gubernias. Sjogren studied local history, local dialects, tried to find out the Finno-Ugric roots in the population of Russian North, copied archival documents. In 1829 he became a junior scientific assistant of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Science. In 1833 Sjogren was the first to discribe the Finns of Ingermanlandia as a particular group and marked such ethnic groups as the Savakot and Ayramoiset in their composition. Sjogren had become interested in the culture and language of the population of Ingermanlandia as back as 1816 when he spent his student holidays in Gubanitsy Village (now Volosovo District). From 1835 to 38 he was making a tour of the North Caucasus wher he studied the language of Ossetians for determination of its place among the Indo-European languages. In 1844 he made "Osetinskaya grammatika s kratkim slovaryom osetino-rossiyskim i rossiysko-osetinsky" ("The Ossetic Grammar with Brief Ossetic-Russian and Russian Ossetic Vocabularies"). In 1846 and 1852 he visited Livonia (Livland) and Courland where he studied Livs (a small Baltic-Finnic ethnic community) and Krevings - descendants of the Votes moved by the German khights to the Baltic countries in the 15th century. Sjogren became the only researcher who had fixed the culture of the Krevings before their final assimilation. Materials of that expedition of Sjogren are kept in the archives of the Russian Geographical Society. He was buried in the Mitrofanyevskoy (Mitrofan) cemetery in Saint Petersburg (his grave was lost). His work: : Uber die finnische Bevolkerung des St.-Peterburgischen Governements. SPb. Chistyakov, Anton Yuryevich
Rumyantsev, Nikolay Petrovich, Count
Schegren, Andrey Mikhaylovich
Neighbouring Territories/Finland
Leningrad Oblast, the/Volosovo District/Gubanitsi Village
Historical Toponyms/Ingermanlandia (Ingria)
Historical Toponyms/Novgorod Gubernia (Province)
Historical Toponyms/Olonets Gubernia (Province)
Topographical landmarks/Priladozhye
Академик А.М. Шегрен // Журнал Министерства народного просвещения. 1855. Ч. LXXXVI. Отд. V., С.1-8
Branch M. A. J. Sjogren studies of the North. Helsinki, 1973, С.1-8
Ayramoiset, an ethnic group of Ingermanlandia Finns
Finns of Ingermanlandia
Savakots