Bellingshausen and the Russian Antarctic Expedition, 1819–21 Also by Rip Bulkeley the ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY and WORLD SECURITY (With H
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Bellingshausen and the Russian Antarctic Expedition, 1819–21 Also by Rip Bulkeley THE ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY AND WORLD SECURITY (with H. G. Brauch) SPACE WEAPONS: Deterrence or Delusion? (with G. Spinardi) THE SPUTNIKS CRISIS AND EARLY UNITED STATES SPACE POLICY Bellingshausen and the Russian Antarctic Expedition, 1819–21 Rip Bulkeley © Rip Bulkeley 2014 Foreword © Ian R. Stone 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-0-230-36326-7 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-59576-1 ISBN 978-1-137-40217-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-40217-2 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. Transferred to Digital Printing in 2014 For Igor, who told me – about eight years ago – that it was needed urgently In the distant future Ocean will set all things free, and the vastness of Earth will lie open. Navigators will discover new worlds, so that Thule shall no longer be the uttermost land of all. LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA Medea, ll. 375–9, about 50 CE Contents List of Figures ix List of Maps x List of Tables xi Foreword by Ian R. Stone xiii Preface xv Acknowledgements and Sources xxi Chronology of Bellingshausen’s Life and European Events xxvi List of Abbr eviations xxix Part I Imperial Quest 1 Port Jackson, April 1820 3 2 The Commander 9 3 Southward Ho! 25 4 Wanted on Voyage 41 Part II Reports Translator’s Note 67 5 First Season: December 1819 to September 1820 73 B1: First report 74 B2: Second report 75 B3: Third report 76 B4: Fourth report 76 B5: Covering letter 77 B6: Personal letter 78 B7: Fifth report 79 B8: Sixth report 88 V1: Covering letter 98 6 Second Season: November 1820 to August 1821 99 B9: Seventh report 100 T1: Memorandum 101 B10: Final (eighth) report 102 vii viii Contents 7 The Able Seaman 125 K1: Diary of Yegor Kisilëv 130 8 The Astronomer 141 S1: Journal of I. M. Simonov 144 S2: Duties of the astronomer 158 9 The Lieutenant 163 L1: Letter to Captain Lieutenant Shestakov, 1821 166 L2: Letter to Captain Lieutenant Shestakov, 1834 (excerpt) 174 10 Other Witnesses 178 11 Homecoming 185 O1: News report from Otechestvennyye Zapiski, July 1821 186 Part III Findings 12 Achievements 193 13 Future Research 208 14 Afterwords 212 Appendix 1 Crew Lists of HIMS Vostok and Mirnyi 214 Appendix 2 Four Deaths 218 Appendix 3 Measurements and Money 222 Appendix 4 The Sizes of the Ships 225 Appendix 5 How Accurate Were They? 228 Appendix 6 Ice Vocabulary 231 Glossary 233 Notes 236 Bibliography 247 Index 267 List of Figures 1 Profile sketch of Captain Bellingshausen, 1820 2 2 Statue of Admiral Bellingshausen, 1870 22 3 HIMS Vostok 27 4 Lines of latitude and longitude on a sphere 46 5 Continuous ice: the corvette Astrolabe temporarily beset, 5 February 1838 56 6 Main ice? Mirnyi and Vostok in front of ice cliffs 60 7 ‘I met with no signs anywhere of a great southern land’ 88 ix List of Maps 1 The Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire, about 1800 10 2 The Empty South 38 3 What some geographers expected 59 4 Bellingshausen’s second southing, 15–23 January 1820 84 5 Bellingshausen’s third southing, February 1820 85 6 Peter I Island, January 1821 114 7 The Alexander I Coast, January 1821 115 8 Tracks of the Cook and Bellingshausen expeditions 192 x List of Tables 5.1 ‘Longitudes and latitudes of various islands’ 94 6.1 ‘Islands’ 120 7.1 Seagoing naval rations per man / week, about 1810–20 127 A4.1 Overall dimensions of Vostok and Mirnyi in feet and inches 226 A4.2 Sizes of Vostok and Mirnyi 227 A5.1 Latitudes and longitudes at Port Jackson, 1770–1828 229 xi Foreword In June 1992 I visited the small settlement of Lahhentagge (now Lahetaguse), on the Estonian island of Saaremaa, in which Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin Bellingshausen spent his early childhood years after his birth in 1778. What were then Bellingshausen estates are set in the midst of beautiful countryside and I counted myself privileged to be able to visit the area, especially as the island had only just become open to western visitors with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Anyone attending the scenes of Bellingshausen’s childhood would, almost inevitably, be led to muse concerning what took him to the sea but, as is well known, it was common practice for sons of the Baltic German aristocracy (the Bellingshausens had lived in Saaremaa since 1549) to enter the Imperial Russian service and by joining the Navy Bellingshausen was following a well trodden path. He had a glittering career and ended it as the military governor of the great naval base at Kronstadt, outside St Petersburg, where he died in 1852. But the event for which he is best known is his great voyage of exploration of 1819–21 during which he accomplished the second circumnavigation of Antarctica, after the great James Cook whose voyage of circumnaviga- tion took place in the 1770s. Bellingshausen’s voyage was hugely successful; indeed he is the mariner who, in my opinion, most invites favourable comparison with Cook, but while strolling in the gentle countryside of Saaremaa, I was led to wonder why his achievements were not better known in the west. But there is, of course, no real mystery to this. Historians were ham- pered, in the nineteenth century, by the difficulty of securing access to the relevant documents on the expedition and even if this were pos- sible, of understanding them. In fact no western scholar secured such access and writers had perforce to rely on the very limited secondary sources to emerge from Russia, most of which lacked vastly in accuracy. With the advent of the Soviet Union the situation became worse, if that were possible. There appeared an additional overlay of Soviet accounts of the expedition that did not hesitate to interpret the facts so that they conformed to the political aims of the state with regard to Antarctica. This is where the suggestion arose, in many minds regarded as more than a suggestion, that Bellingshausen had been the first to sight the continent. It should be noted here that Bellingshausen himself xiii xiv Foreword never claimed this; he was far too honest and consummate a sailor for such deception. So while one has to respect, admire and, indeed, cherish what might be regarded as the British school of Bellingshausen studies, including works largely derived from Soviet sources, by H. R. Mill, F. Debenham, T. E. Armstrong and A. G. E. Jones for example, one must recognize their deficiencies and treat them with caution. The situation was totally unsatisfactory for decades. Until now. Here Rip Bulkeley presents in one volume all that the average historian of the Antarctic or of exploration generally might reasonably wish to possess to restore Bellingshausen to his rightful position as one of the very greatest sailors who ever went to sea. Not only does it include all of Bellingshausen’s reports to the Admiralty in St Petersburg, in trans- lation, but it is the first full-length study of the Antarctic ‘thrust’ of the expedition anywhere for 40 years. Moreover, there are translations of three other first- hand accounts of the voyage, including, remark- ably, one by an Able Seaman, and the most complete biography of Bellingshausen ever published. Very many of these primary sources have never been analysed previously by any scholar. This study firmly places Bellingshausen within the development of European understanding of the polar regions. It is a major contribution to Antarctic scholarship and the author deserves our thanks. Ian R. Stone Editor Polar Record Scott Polar Research Institute University of Cambridge 11 April 2013 Preface Modern historians will go on answering questions that no one ever asked them. paraphrased from TOLSTOY’S War and Peace (1869) About 17 years ago I had passed my A- level certificate in Russian and optimistically supposed, on the basis of a rewarding struggle with Pushkin’s Bronze Horseman, that I could now read the language. While browsing in a charity bookshop I found a 1951 anthology about the Imperial Russian Navy’s Antarctic expedition of 1819 to 1821, com- manded by Junior Captain Faddei Faddeyevich Bellingshausen.