Pyotr Chaadayev
1794 – 1856 · 62 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia
His Philosophical Letters reflected on Russia's place between West and East and its separation from European history. After the first letter appeared in 1836 he was officially declared insane; the debate split Westernizers and Slavophiles.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Portrait: А. Козина · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Charles Darwin — naturalist, author of evolutionary theory, 15 years younger
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — German poet and thinker, 45 years older
- Karl Marx — philosopher and economist, 24 years younger
- Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 25 years younger
- Ludwig van Beethoven — German composer, 24 years older
- Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French, 25 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Alexander Pushkin — Russian poet, 5 years younger
- Fyodor Dostoevsky — novelist, 27 years younger
- Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 34 years younger
- Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 40 years younger
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 46 years younger
- Nicholas I — emperor who crushed the Decembrist revolt, 2 years younger
Middle East
- Mahmud II — sultan who destroyed the Janissaries, 9 years older
- Abdulmejid I — sultan of the Tanzimat reforms, 29 years younger
- Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 48 years younger
- Abdulaziz — first sultan to visit Western Europe, 36 years younger
- Selim III — reforming Ottoman sultan, 33 years older
- Mustafa IV — sultan who overthrew the reformer Selim III, 15 years older
Africa
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt — ruler of Egypt, 25 years older
- David Livingstone — explorer of Africa and missionary, 19 years younger
- Shaka — King of the Zulu, 7 years older
- Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 50 years younger
- Ranavalona I — Queen of Madagascar, 16 years older
- Moshoeshoe I — founder of Lesotho, 8 years older
Asia
- Katsushika Hokusai — Japanese artist, 34 years older
- Tokugawa Ienari — longest-serving shogun, for half a century, 21 years older
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu — last shogun, who handed power back to the emperor, 43 years younger
- Tokugawa Ieyoshi — shogun who died just after the Black Ships arrived, 1 year older
- Tokugawa Iesada — shogun under whom Japan opened its ports to the West, 30 years younger
- Empress Dowager Cixi — Empress Dowager of China, 41 years younger
Americas
- Abraham Lincoln — 16th President of the United States, 15 years younger
- Simón Bolívar — liberator of South America, 11 years older
- José de San Martín — liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, 16 years older
- Andrew Jackson — 7th US president, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian era, 27 years older
- Benito Juárez — President of Mexico, 12 years younger
- Ulysses S. Grant — 18th US president, commanding general of the Union Army, 28 years younger
Oceania
- Kamehameha I — first King of Hawaii, 36 years older
- Truganini — Aboriginal Tasmanian woman, 18 years younger
- Henry Parkes — Premier of New South Wales, 'Father of Federation', 21 years younger
- Hongi Hika — Ngāpuhi Māori chief, 22 years older
- Arthur Phillip — first Governor of New South Wales, 56 years older
- Bennelong — Aboriginal intermediary, 30 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — aged 2, Europe
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — aged 4, Africa
- 1800 Volta's pile, the first battery — aged 6, Europe
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — aged 9, Americas
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — aged 10, Europe
- 1804–1813 First Serbian Uprising — aged 10, Europe
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — aged 10, Africa
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — aged 11, Africa
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — aged 11, Europe
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — aged 16, Americas
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — aged 18, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — aged 20, Europe
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — aged 21, Asia
- 1815 Battle of Waterloo — aged 21, Europe
- 1816 Year Without a Summer — aged 22, Europe
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — aged 23, Asia
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — aged 23, Americas
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — aged 25, Asia
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — aged 28, Americas
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — aged 34, Middle East
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — aged 37, Asia
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — aged 39, Europe
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — aged 41, Africa
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — aged 41, Americas
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — aged 44, Americas
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — aged 45, Asia
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — aged 45, Europe
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — aged 45, Middle East
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — aged 45, Middle East
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — aged 51, Europe
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — aged 52, Americas
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — aged 52, Americas
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — aged 53, Africa
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — aged 54, Europe
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — aged 54, Europe
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — aged 56, Asia
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — aged 57, Oceania
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — aged 59, Asia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia