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Lev Sternberg

1861 – 1927

Russian and Soviet ethnographer

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About Lev Sternberg

Lived 1861 – 1927 (aged 66). Lev Sternberg was a Russian ethnographer, politician and anthropologist.

Lev (Chaim-Leib) Yakovlevich Sternberg ( – August 14, 1927) was a Russian and Soviet ethnographer of Jewish origin who from 1889 to 1897 studied the Nivkhs (Gilyaks), Oroks, and Ainu on Sakhalin and in Siberia for the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City. He was not a Marxist. He was arrested by Russian authorities April 27, 1886 for participation in The People's Will which was labeled an anti-tsarist terrorist organization spending three years in an Odessa jail. Sternberg was then exiled to the Sakhalin penal colony for a ten-year prison sentence. He was deported from Odessa on the boat Peterburg on March 19, 1889, arriving in Port Aleksandrovsk, Sakhalin, on May 19, 1889. Sternberg agitated authorities due to his activism with regard to prisoners' and indigenous peoples' rights. Authorities sent him to the remote community of Viakhtu, 100 km north of Port Aleksandrovsk, where he first began his ethnographic fieldwork on the Nivkhs, Oroks, and Ainu.

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Important facts

Birth century
Occupation
Ethnographer, politician, Anthropologist
Education
Odesa University
Employers
Kunstkamera
Also known as
Lev Yakovlevich Sternberg

Contemporaries

People whose lives overlapped Lev Sternberg's

Frequently asked questions

Who was Lev Sternberg?

Russian and Soviet ethnographer (1861-1927)

When was Lev Sternberg born?

Lev Sternberg was born on 21 April 1861 in Zhytomyr.

When did Lev Sternberg die?

Lev Sternberg died on 14 August 1927 in Duderhof.

What was Lev Sternberg's occupation?

Lev Sternberg was an ethnographer, politician and anthropologist.

What nationality was Lev Sternberg?

Lev Sternberg was Russian.

Sources & further reading

· Wikipedia: Lev Sternberg

· Wikidata: Q1822001

· DBpedia: Lev Sternberg

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Lev Sternberg. https://biography.guide/lev-sternberg/

MLA: "Lev Sternberg." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/lev-sternberg/.

Chicago: "Lev Sternberg." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/lev-sternberg/.

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