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Johann Philipp Gustav von Ewers orEvers (27 July 1779 – 20 November 1830) was a German legal historian and the founder of Russianlegal history as a scholarly discipline.
Ewers was a farmer’s son from the village of Amelunxen (now a part ofBeverungen) in theBishopric of Paderborn. He first studiedtheology and thenpolitical science at theUniversity of Göttingen.
His first employment, as was customary for a graduate from a poor background, was as a private tutor. This brought him to theImperial Russian province ofLivonia, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. While teaching, he pursued his scholarly interests, especially regarding Russian political and legal history, which became one of his main fields of study – one indeed of which he is often regarded the founder.
Influenced by theHegelian definition of society and state, he described the traditional tribal structure of Russia as the foundation of Russian statehood, most notably in this 1826 monographDas älteste Recht der Russen. Evers' ideas have found a continued reception among Russian legal theorists.
On the basis of his publications, he was offered in 1810 the Chair ofHistory,Statistics, andGeography of the Russian State at theUniversity of Dorpat (nowTartu) in what is todayEstonia. He occupied that chair until 1826, when he transferred to the law faculty. In 1816, Ewers declined an offer of the Chair ofPolitical Economy at the newly foundedUniversity of Berlin. In the same year, he had become Prorector of the University of Dorpat and in 1818,Rector, to which office he was re-elected every year until his death atDorpat in 1830, aged 51.
| Preceded by | Rector ofUniversity of Dorpat 1818–1830 | Succeeded by |
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