AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Rachel D. Koroloff for the degree of Master of Arts in History of Science presented on June 13, 2007. Title: The Beginnings of a Russian Natural History: The Life and Work of Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (1711 – 1755) Abstract approved: Paul L. Farber Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (1711 – 1755) was a successful early Russian naturalist whose professional and social destinies were linked to eighteenth-century Russia’s nascent but growing naturalist tradition. During his own time Krasheninnikov bridged the gap that existed in Russia between a distinctly European scientific practice and a tradition of Russian military expansion. He, like many of his contemporaries, was engaged in a process of accommodation between European scientific practices and Russian social and political traditions. This study attempts to address the general theme of the relation between science and culture through the life and work of Krasheninnikov. It argues that the adoption of scientific practices (in the guise of natural history) in eighteenth-century Russia was characterized not by a unidirectional importation of scientific practice nor by the westernization of the practitioners, but by a diffuse and sometimes idiosyncratic process of appropriation as Russian men of science sought to integrate European scientific practice into preexisting Russian historical, social, and political structures. ©Copyright by Rachel D. Koroloff June 13, 2007 All Rights Reserved The Beginnings of a Russian Natural History: The Life and Work of Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (1711 – 1755) by Rachel D. Koroloff A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Presented June 13, 2007 Commencement June 2008 Master of Arts thesis of Rachel D. Koroloff presented on June 13, 2007. APPROVED: Major Professor, representing History of Science Chair of the Department of History Dean of the Graduate School I understand that my thesis will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my thesis to any reader upon request. Rachel D. Koroloff, Author ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to expresses my most sincere appreciation for the careful guidance of Paul Farber, Mary Jo Nye, Robert Nye, Ben Mutschler, and the history faculty at Oregon State University. Their engagement, encouragement, and constructive criticism have made me a better person and a better scholar. My fellow graduate students, Melinda Gormley, Erica Jensen, Terry Christensen, and Katie Zimmerman have also had their part in helping this project come to be. They have provided much needed inspiration and more than a few pitchers over the past three years, for which I will always be grateful. I would also like to thank mom, Al, Mary, Dan, and Nora for their unstinting emotional support and incredible patience with me as I inch forward in my studies. Recognition must be given to Cory Falk and Sabina Pasic, my two best friends, who always ask after my work and bravely face the consequences. Finally, to Dante Lee Knapp I owe the deepest acknowledgement for helping me to stay upright and human throughout this ordeal. I thank you all. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction………………………………………………………………………1 1 Historiography………………………………………………………………….9 Peter the Great and ‘Westernization’…………………………………….11 Siberia and the Fur Trade………………………………………………...31 Krasheninnikov the Bridge………………………………………………34 2 Expeditions…………………………………………………………………….37 Early Expansionary Traditions…………………………………………..38 The First and Second Kamchatka Expeditions…………………………..42 Eighteenth-Century Scientific Contingents……………………………...50 Russia as Colonial Empire……………………………………………….54 3 Natural History…………………………………………………………………58 Science and Colonialism…………………………………………………60 4 Early Years……………………………………………………………………..76 5 Writings………………………………………………………………………...89 The Letters (1737 – 1740)………………………………………………..91 Rech o Polze Nauk i Khudozhestv [Speech On the Use of the Sciences and the Arts]………………………………102 Opisanie zemli Kamchatki……………………………………………...107 6 Reception……………………………………………………………………..124 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...139 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Krasheninnikov, “De Acere” (1749)…………………………………………121 2. Krasheninnikov, Opisanie (1755)……………………………………………122 3. Krasheninnikov, map of Kamchatka (1755)…………………………………123 4. Strahlenberg, map of Siberia and Kamchatka (1730)………………………..138 5. Weber, map of the Pacific coast of Russia (1723)…………………………...138 1 The Beginnings of a Russian Natural History: The Life and Work of Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (1711 – 1755) INTRODUCTION Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (1711 – 1755) was a successful early Russian naturalist whose professional and social destinies were linked to eighteenth-century Russia’s nascent but growing naturalist tradition. Krasheninnikov’s life and scientific career illuminate the strongly interrelated, even interdependent, characters of natural history, expedition, and conquest in the eighteenth century. His life bridged culturally and historically diverse traditions stemming from Russia and Europe; traditions that had been in uneasy coexistence in Moscow and St. Petersburg since the turn of the century. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, Russia already had a long and well-established tradition of military expansion, in which conquest and exploration were linked. The introduction of the European scientific practices, of natural history, geography, astronomy, and ethnography to Russia’s tradition of military expansion fostered the growth of the familiar eighteenth-century hybrid practice of scientific expedition into Russia’s borderlands. The practice of scientific expedition called for a new nexus where the culturally-influenced traditions of state-sponsored science and expansion came to accommodate one another. The career of Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov hinged on both of these traditions. During his own time Krasheninnikov bridged the gap that existed 2 between two sets of practices that were still integrating into one another. A treatment of Krasheninnikov’s career and the uses to which he put his skill at natural history, likewise bridges certain distinct sets of literature in the historiography of eighteenth-century Russia. The introduction of European scientific practice to Russia is usually discussed in the historical literature under the rubric of the ‘westernization’ implying that certain European traditions replaced and made obsolete Russian traditions that came before. I argue here that aside from the importation of scientific practice, eighteenth-century Russians were engaged in a process of accommodation between European scientific practices and Russian social and political traditions. Krasheninnikov’s practice of natural history might just as easily fall under the less well-known rubric of the russification of European traditions in science.1 I use this term to indicate the various intellectual tools (assumptions, experiences, interests, and methods) that Russian practitioners have inherited from their Russian cultural milieu and employed in their scientific practice. Falling just short of a Russian national style, the russification of eighteenth-century European science demonstrates the plasticity of early scientific practice and underscores the important role of location (cultural or otherwise) in science. The literature that focuses specifically on the early history of Russian science is somewhat less extensive. Often the issue of early Russian science forms 1 Ludmilla Schulze has used the term “russification” more narrowly in her work to mean the demographic shift within the Academy away from an entirely European make up to a primarily Russian one. “The Russification of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Arts in the Eighteenth Century” British Journal for the History of Science 18 (1985): 305 - 335. 3 only a brief part of larger narratives more concerned with eighteenth-century Russian history in general. These histories, because of their breadth often fail to stress, or even note, the importance of the scientific expeditions to early Russian science. They too rely on the key concept of westernization and the metaphor of importation to describe and analyze eighteenth-century Russian science. They do find in the eighteenth-century Russian scientific expeditions a source of cultural commixture but see, rather, an instance of double colonization: the European colonization of Russian scientific practice and Russian territorial expansion. If the scientific conquest of Siberia and other Russian borderlands do not command the attention of historians of eighteenth-century Russia in general, they are treated only marginally better by historians of Siberia. Those histories of the Russian empire that choose to focus on conquest and the fur trade often fail to appreciate fully the rich scientific traditions established by these expeditions.2 This study seeks to address this gap in the literature by addressing the general theme of the relation between science and culture on two different levels. First it tries to show how science, in the form of natural history, and empire were related in eighteenth-century Russia by exploring how Krasheninnikov’s work was used in the interest of Russian empire and to what extent it was recognized as scientific. Secondly it tries to show, on a more circumscribed level, the process of 2 There is a great deal of literature available on the relationship between scientific practice,