Geological excursions of Grigorii Shchurovskii

Abstract

The present paper deals with development of popular science and methods of popularization of scientific knowledge in the 19th century Russia with special focus on public geological excursions organized by Grigorii Shchurovskii. He was a reputable professor of geology at the Moscow University and twice was elected dean of the Physical and Mathematical Department. But while his geological research was highly estimated, his ideas of popular science and his concept of popularization as combination of scientific narrative and visual imagery for a long period of time were not too well received by his university colleagues and members of the Moscow Society of Naturalists. This was mainly because of the common belief that persisted well into the 19th century that Russian public was not interested in scientific ideas. Only in the post-reform time Shchurovskii under the auspices of the Society of Friends of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography got an opportunity to realize his ideas. And his public geological excursions were their first practical implementation. Shchurovskii’s concept of popularization of science has never become the subject of special study and deserves further investigation.