Early Years
Struve was born in Munich the son of a Russian diplomat Johann Christoph Gustav von Struve, whose family came from the lesser nobility. His father Gustav, after whom he was named, had served as Russian Staff Councilor at the Russian Embassy in Warsaw, Munich and The Hague, and later was the Royal Russian Ambassador at the Badonian court in Karlsruhe. The younger Gustav Struve grew up and went to school in Munich, then studied law at universities in Göttingen and Heidelberg. For a short time (from 1829 to 1831) he was employed in the civil service in Oldenburg, then moved to Baden in 1833 where in 1836 he settled down to work as a lawyer in Mannheim.
In Baden, Struve also entered politics by standing up for the liberal members of the Baden parliament in news articles. His point of view headed more and more in a radical democratic, early socialist direction. As editor of the Mannheimer Journal, he was repeatedly condemned to imprisonment. He was compelled in 1846 to retire from the management of this paper. In 1845, Struve married Amalie Düsar on 16 November 1845 and in 1847 he dropped the aristocratic "von" from his surname due to his democratic ideals.
He also gave attention to phrenology, and published three books on the subject.
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