Alexander Ivanovich Galich (; 1783–1848) was a Russian teacher, philosopher, and writer. Galich was a teacher of Latin and Russian literature at the German Saint Peter's School (Petrischule) in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, a professor at

St. Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

, a teacher of

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

, and a writer and philosopher who was one of the first followers of the German philosopher

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him be ...

in Russia.

Life

Galich was born as Alexander Ivanovich Govorov in 1783 into the family of a deacon in Trubchevsk in

Bryansk Oblast Bryansk Oblast (), also known as Bryanshchina (, ), is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Bryansk. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 1,169,161. Geography Bryansk Oblast lies in weste ...

. From 1793 to 1803 he studied at Sevsk Theological Seminary. He then entered the St. Petersburg Teacher's Seminary, which in 1804 was renamed to Main Pedagogical Institute. Here he changed his surname to "Galich" (before that he had once changed it to "Nikiforov"). In 1808, he went to study at the University of Helmstedt and the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. In 1813, he defended his thesis at the Department of Philosophy of the St. Petersburg State Pedagogical Institute. From 1814 to 1818 Galich taught at the Petrischule, the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, and the Main Teacher's College. In 1819, the Main Teacher's College was reorganized as

, and Galich was the first member of the Faculty of Philosophy. From 1818 to 1819, Galich published ''A History of Philosophical Systems'' in two volumes, compiled on the basis of German works by Sacher, Ast, Tenneman, and other German philosophers, and ending with an essay on the philosophical exposition of Schelling. Shortly thereafter, charges were instituted against Galich and three other professors of impiety and revolutionary designs. In 1837, Galich, accused of

freethinking Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an unorthodox attitude or belief. A freethinker holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and should instead be reached by other meth ...

, was laid off from St. Petersburg University. However, in the same year, he obtained a position in the Department of Archives. In spite of his career problems, Galich continued to write and publish. His ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1845) was one of Russia's first philosophical reference works. Most significant and broad in scope were two of his later works: ''Universal Rights'' and the ''Philosophy of Human History''. However, ill fortune did not abandon Galich: as soon as he had completed these works, they were destroyed in an accidental fire. Unable to survive this loss, Galich became ill and died in 1848. {{DEFAULTSORT:Galich, Alexander 1783 births 1848 deaths People from Bryansk Oblast 19th-century philosophers from the Russian Empire Writers from Saint Petersburg Russian historians of philosophy 19th-century translators from the Russian Empire