Ivan Evseevich Veniaminov

Veniaminov, Ivan Evseevich

 

(monastic name, In-nokentii). Born Aug. 26 (Sept. 6), 1797, in the village of Anginskoe, Irkutsk Province; died Mar. 31 (Apr. 12), 1879, in Moscow. Russian church figure, ethnographer and naturalist, missionary, and first researcher to study the Aleuts: he also studied the Tlingit (on lands owned by the Russian American Company, 1824-39).

Veniaminov devoted particular attention to the study of forms of marriage and family relationships, and he held a consistently historical point of view in ethnography. His principal work was Notes on the Islands of the Unalaska Section (parts 1-3, 1840). In 1840 he was made bishop of Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands, and the Aleutians. After he became metropolitan of Moscow in 1868, he withdrew from research activity.

REFERENCE

Stepanova, M. V. “I. Veniaminov kak etnograf.” In the collection Tr. In-ta etnografii AN SSSR,new series, vol. 2. Moscow-Leningrad, 1947.