In November 1883, Mikhail Alexandrovich Miller, a scientist, professor of archeology, historian, lawyer, teacher, and museum worker, was born at the estate of Kamenno-Millerovsky in the Taganrog district. He was of German Cossack descent, tracing his history back to the son of the Prussian colonel, Abram Yegorovich Miller, who had arrived from Königsberg during the time of Peter I. Mikhail was the last of ten children to the State Councillor, the Vice President of the Taganrog City Duma, Alexander Nikolaevich Miller, and his wife, Alexandra Alexandrovna, maiden name Pershina.
From the three sons, Alexander, Vasilii, and Mikhail, the middle one became an economist, and the oldest and youngest became archaeologists. Mikhail Miller became interested in archeology, probably influenced by his older brother Alexander’s own passion for archeology. At the age of 19, Mikhail had already begun to dig. The brothers worked closely together for many years until the arrest and subsequent death of Alexander Miller in exile in 1935. According to the family legend, the head of the family, Alexander Nikolayevich, sold his estate in Millerovskaya settlement, near Rostov in 1893, and moved to Taganrog.
He did so because he did not want to part from his youngest son, his pet, Misha, who at the age of ten was supposed to, following a tradition, join the Novocherkassk cadet corps named after Emperor Alexander III, like his brothers. The boy was to leave his family for a long time, returning home only during Christmas and summer vacations. Taganrog had a classical gymnasium, which Alexander, Mikhail’s father, decided that his son should attend instead of the cadet corps. By the way, Anton Chekhov attended this gymnasium. In 1903, Mikhail Miller graduated from the Taganrog gymnasium. In 1904 he enrolled in the History and Philology Faculty of the Moscow University. Being a student, he took part in archaeological field research. After completing his university course in 1908, he, together with his brother Alexander, led the excavation of the Elizavetovskoe settlement in the summer, and attended lectures at the Faculty of Economics at Kharkov University in the winter. In 1911, after receiving a second university diploma in the field of economics and jurisprudence, he took up the position of a magistrate in the Taganrog district and worked for the Don Land Bank.
From 1920 to 1930, he taught history in city schools. In the late 1920s, Mikhail Miller was involved in the organization of a local history museum in Taganrog, where he was appointed as the head in 1927. In 1929-1932, he was the deputy head of the archaeological expedition in the Dnieper reservoir area. In early 1931, Mikhail Alexandrovich met Tatiana Alexandrovna Neklyudova in Taganrog. Her family had been known to him before the October Revolution, when the Neklyudovs lived in the Blagodatnoe estate near Taganrog. Tatiana Alexandrovna became not only his wife but also his faithful friend and assistant.
In September 1934, Mikhail Miller entered the Rostov Pedagogical Institute as a professor of ancient history, and the family moved to Rostov-on-Don. When the front in early February 1943 approached Rostov-on-Don, Mikhail, together with his family and other refugees, fled to Dnepropetrovsk. At that time, the German authorities organized archaeological excavations in the Dnieper region, as German archaeologists were interested in the traces of the Goths and Normans. Kseniya, Mikhail’s daughter, recalls: “It was clear to Dad that this was his chance to make his last excavations, as we were going to leave our homeland forever soon. And we were all in short supply, just as all the residents of Dnepropetrovsk, but fruits and vegetables were available in the villages. Therefore, he asked the German authorities for permission to carry out excavations near the village of Belenkoye. We went with just the three of us—grandmother stayed in Dnepropetrovsk—and Dad took with him Aliko, a boy from the neighbors, to, as he said, “get fat.” The hill in the farmer’s yard that my Dad dug up turned out to be nothing more than a mound, made by the farmer’s great-grandfather, as the neighbors later told us. During these excavations in Belenki, he found absolutely nothing, and in our humble luggage, when we arrived in Germany, there wasn’t a single archaeological “souvenir”. In September 1943, we continued our journey west…” That was Vienna, Göttingen, where Mikhail Miller taught history.
In 1951, Mikhail was offered the position of scientific secretary of the American Institute for the Study of the Soviet Union in Munich. Ksenia recalls: “Dad felt great in Munich, gathered a circle of friends, and equipped the apartment with Biedermeier style furniture, but in the Russian taste: with icons in the “red corner” and a carpet on the wall, on which hung Cossack weapons. At the famous antique market “Auerdul” he even found an engraving of old Taganrog and pictures depicting Cossacks on horses. Working at the institute brought him great satisfaction: he worked there for ten years and wrote about 130 monographs, the most famous of them being “Archeology in the Soviet Union.” After the Second World War, Mikhail Miller proudly said that fate had given him three completely different lives: one before the revolution, one under Soviet power, and one abroad.”
Irina Kuznetsova previously reported: The remains of Red Army soldiers will be reburied on Sambek heights 7119 News on Blocknot-Taganrog
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