author
Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann
1756–1804
Best known for an influential 1783 study of Roma people in Europe, this German scholar moved between history, geography, and statistics at a time when those fields were still taking shape. His work made him a notable figure in late Enlightenment scholarship, even though some of its assumptions reflect the limits and prejudices of his era.
1 Audiobook
Dissertation on the Gipseys Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in Europe
by Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann
About the author
Born in Jena on December 7, 1756, he was educated in Weimar and studied from 1776 to 1781 at the University of Jena before continuing in Göttingen. He went on to teach there, becoming an associate professor in 1787 and a full professor in 1794.
He is chiefly remembered for Die Zigeuner (1783), a book often described as the first major scholarly study devoted to Roma people in Europe. It brought him lasting attention as a cultural historian and early ethnographic writer, though modern readers usually approach the book with caution because it also helped shape stereotypes that later scholarship has had to challenge.
In 1804 he was appointed professor of statistics at Moscow University, but he died in Moscow on October 13, 1804, soon after taking up the post. I couldn't confirm a suitable portrait image from the sources I checked, so no profile image is included.