In September 1819, the St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society received as a gift from the literary genius and universalist scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe a part of his personal collection of minerals. Two batches, of 105 and 153 pieces, i.e., individual pieces of geological bodies, have been recorded as having been received. Among them are amethyst, rock crystal, chalcedony, augite, various kinds of granite, quartz rock, feldspars, and mica.
It is known that Goethe was sympathetic to Russia, but Russian mineralogy owes such a valuable gift to a specific person, Prince Dmitry Golitsyn. Dmitri Golitsyn was the first prominent statesman in the country, at the dawn of the reign of Catherine II, who called for liberating the peasants and giving them land property.
In 1799, three years after the foundation of the first mineralogical society in the world, Golitsyn was elected its president. The prince remained in office until his death. Two months before his death in December 1802 he donated his personal collection of minerals to the Jena museum.
A letter of thanks to the donor on behalf of Carl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was written by none other than the author of the immortal tragedy Faust:
"This institution [the Mineralogical Society of Jena], which began small and has attained a solid existence, owes exclusively to you, gracious sovereign, the respect and brilliance which now distinguish it among other similar institutions. Not only have you been gracious enough to assume the burden of the title of president in order to assist the society with your knowledge, but you have invested a surplus of kindness by giving a magnificent collection, doubly interesting both for the value and rarity of the specimens and for the choice of the connoisseur who has collected them."
Goethe, as an honorary member of the Society, inherited the presidency from the Russian prince. He devoted at least 11 years of his life to sorting out the "Golitsyn Catalogue". Mentions about it appear in the writer's diary until 1813.
In 1817, the St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society was founded. A year before his seventieth birthday, Goethe becomes a member. Having 18 thousand minerals in his personal collection, and bearing in mind the gift of Golitsyn, he did not hesitate to give about three hundred of them as a return gift to his Russian colleagues.
Goethe explained his fascination with mineralogy by his hope "to discover [through it] data about the origin of the primordial world."
At the end of a long and remarkably fruitful life Goethe (in conversations with Johann Eckermann, 24.02.1831) confessed that he was disappointed in these attempts:
"At dinner we spoke of the desire of some naturalists to delve into the organic world by pushing away from mineralogy. This is a fatal delusion. In the mineralogical world, the simplest is the most beautiful. In the organic world it is the most complex. From this it is easy to conclude that the tendencies of both worlds are different and a step transition from one to the other is impossible."
The mystery of creation, perhaps for the best, remained unsolved. Thanks to such enthusiasts as Goethe and Golitsyn, mineralogy established itself as an independent and extremely useful science. Earlier in universities it, together with chemistry and botany, was perceived as "an auxiliary discipline in the training of pharmacologists." And the instruments of knowledge - most of the stones donated by Goethe to Russia have survived to this day and are on display in the Mining Museum.
