Miller, Mykhailo

Miller, Mykhailo [Міллер, Михайло], b 26 November 1883 in Millerovo, Kamenskaia county, Oblast of the Don Cossack Host, d 15 February 1968 in Munich, West Germany. Archeologist and émigré scholar; brother of Oleksander Miller. Born into a family of German settlers, Miller grew up in a predominantly Ukrainian section of the Don region. He studied history at Moscow University and then law at Kharkiv University. After working as a judge (1913–20) then a high school teacher (1921–30) in Tahanrih, he was a lecturer at the Dnipropetrovsk Pedagogical Institute (1931–4) then taught history and archeology at both the Rostov-na-Donu State Pedagogical Institute and Rostov-na-Donu State University (1934–43). Between 1900 and 1942 he led or took part in numerous archeological expeditions in the Volga-Don, Northern Caucasia, and Dnipro Rapids regions and became a specialist in the prehistory of these areas. In 1943 Miller left for Munich, where he continued his scholarly work. After the Second World War he was active in the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Shevchenko Scientific Society (a full member from 1950), the Institute for the Study of the USSR, and the Ukrainian Free University. His émigré writings—particularly during the 1950s—frequently dealt with the destruction of historical monuments in Ukraine and with the fate of Soviet archeology and archeologists during and after the Stalinist terror. His major work in this regard is Arkheologiia v SSSR (1954; translated and published in 1956 as Archeology in the USSR).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]