Timotheus M. Klingstadt (334)

Timotheus Merzahn von Klingstädt (1710–1786) was an administrator, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1773. Born in Barth, now part of Germany, he was the son of the local bürgermeister. After his studies he worked as a private tutor for some time before relocating to St. Petersburg for a career in administration. By the time he was dismissed in 1771, von Klingstädt was well established throughout Europe: serving as Vice-President of the Department of Justice for Livland, Estonia, and Finland, a charter member of the Free Economic Society of St. Petersburg, and a published scholar on Russian culture. He spent the next few years traveling the continent until 1773, when a fateful meeting with Benjamin Franklin in London sparked an academic dialogue between the two men’s countries. Franklin introduced von Klingstädt to the workings of the American Philosophical Society. Impressed, von Klingstädt expressed his desire to become a member, which the Society duly obliged: making him its first Russian member. Von Klingstädt returned to St. Petersburg with the first volume of the Society's Transactions, which received such grand recognition in Russia that the Russian Academy of Science published its contents in 1779.