The Foreign Service Journal, May 2009

M A Y 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 mong early U.S. diplomats, Eugene Schuyler was a multifaceted star. Born in Ithaca, New York, on Feb. 26, 1840, Schuyler began his studies at Yale Univer- sity at the age of 15, gradu- ating near the top of his class in 1859 with a Philosophical Oration (a high academic honor) as well as distinction in Latin. Two years later, he be- came one of the first three students to earn a Ph.D. from an American university —Yale’s Department of Philosophy and the Arts — before going on to help Noah Porter revise Webster’s Dictionary . Always hungry for new knowledge, Schuyler de- cided to study law, graduating fromColumbia Law School in 1863. But that September, Czar Alexander II sent eight Russian Navy ships to New York — a move interpreted by the North as a show of support for President AbrahamLin- coln and the Northern states at the very height of the U.S. Civil War. Schuyler befriended several of these visiting offi- cers and decided to learn Russian as a result, changing his life forever. (His language teacher appears to have been one of New York City’s very first Russian Orthodox priests.) While waiting to join the U.S. Consular Serv- ice, Schuyler added yet another job to his ever-ex- panding portfolio in 1865 when he became a staff member and lifelong contributor to The Nation , which would become one of America’s leading lib- eral magazines. Off to Russia After his acceptance into the U.S. Consular Service in 1866, Schuyler was assigned to be U.S. consul in Moscow, thanks to his knowledge of Russian. While waiting to make the journey, Schuyler developed an interest in Finnish after he was asked to edit the first U.S. edition of Finland’s national epic — the Kalevala (1867) — translated by John Porter. On his way to take up his new duties in August 1867, Schuyler met with Ivan Turgenev at Baden-Baden, Germany, and became Turgenev’s first U.S. translator with the 1867 publication of Fathers and Sons . In addition to furnishing letters of introduction to various Russian literary figures, in- cluding Count Leo Tolstoy, Turgenev gave Schuyler the fol- lowing encouragement: “I have no doubts that you will be accepted in the most cordial way: you know how much peo- ple in Russia love Americans, and an American interested in our literature has all the rights to be a welcome guest in our country.” Pursuing those literary interests, Schuyler spent a week at FS H ERITAGE E UGENE S CHUYLER : S CHOLAR , P ATRIOT AND M AN OF L ETTERS A VISIT BY THE C ZARIST N AVY TO N EW Y ORK C ITY IN 1863 LED ONE OF A MERICA ’ S FIRST R USSIA EXPERTS TO JOIN THE U.S. C ONSULAR S ERVICE . B Y E RIC A. J OHNSON Eric A. Johnson entered the Foreign Service as a specialist in 1999, then became a generalist in July 2007. Currently the public affairs officer in St. Petersburg, he previously served in Moscow, Tallinn and Washington, D.C. The author would like to thank David Siefkin, Snejana Ianeva, Elena Smirnova and Vera Sevastyanova for their help in researching this pro- file. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and not necessarily those of the Department of State or the U.S. government. A A portrait of Eugene Schuyler fromhis post- humous Selected Es- says. (Photographer unknown)