Petersburg in 1849 in the form of a Versuch einer ostjakischen Sprachlehre. In 1850 he published a treatise De affixis personalibus linguarum Altaicarum, and was appointed professor of the new chair of Finnish language and literature at the University of Helsinki. The following year saw him raised to the rank of chancellor of the university. He was busily engaged in what he regarded as his principal work, a grammar of the Samoyedic languages, when he died in 1852 at 38 years of age. Personal life In 1850, he married Lovisa Natalia Tengström (1830–1881), whose father Johan Jakob Tengström (1787–1858), was a professor of theoretical and practical philosophy at Alexander University. They were the parents of newspaper publisher and elected official :sv:Robert Castrén (1851–1883). Posthumous publications Five volumes of his collected works appeared from 1852 to 1858, containing respectively (1) Reseminnen från åren 1838-1844; (2) Reseberättelser och bref åren 1845-1849; (3) Föreläsningar i finsk mytologi; (4) Ethnologiska föreläsningar öfver altaiska folken; and (5) Smärre afhandlingar och akademiska dissertationer. A German translation was published by Anton Schiefner, who was also entrusted by the St Petersburg Academy with the editing of his manuscripts, which had been left to the University of Helsinki and which were subsequently published. M. A. Castrén Society The M. A. Castrén Society was founded in Helsinki on 22 January 1990. The Society creates contacts and fosters dialogue between Finns and other Uralic- (generally Finnic-) speaking peoples and provides assistance for the publication of literature in the Uralic languages. References Primary Source Matthias Castrén in 375 humanists 01.03.2015, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki Attribution External links M. A. Castrén Society website 1813 births 1852 deaths People from Tervola People from Oulu Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) 19th-century Finnish people Finnish philologists Linguists from Finland Finnish ethnologists Finnish Finno-Ugrists Finnish translators Translators from Finnish Translators to Swedish Paleolinguists 19th-century translators Academic staff of the University of Helsinki Linguists of Samoyedic languages Linguists of Sámi Sámi studies