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Russia and South Africa Before the Soviet Era

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Apollon Davidson RUSSIA AND SOUTH AFRICA BEFORE THE SOVIET ERA BASIC RESEARCH PROGRAM WORKING PAPERS SERIES: HUMANITIES WP BRP 21/HUM/2013 This Working Paper is an output of a research project implemented at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE). Any opinions or claims contained in this Working Paper do not necessarily reflect the views of HSE. Apollon B. Davidson1 RUSSIA AND SOUTH AFRICA BEFORE THE SOVIET ERA2 This article is devoted to relations between Russia and South Africa from the mid-17th to the early 19th century. It covers first attempts at sending Russian expeditions around the Cape of Good Hope by Peter the Great and Catherine II and describes how the first Russians reached the Cape from the other end, from Kamchatka. It goes on to describe the trips to the Cape by Russian naval officers and other Russians, some of whom spent a long time in South Africa and left interesting descriptions of the Cape. A unique testimony to the fact that black South Africans knew about Russia is presented in the letter of a Pondo chief to the Russian tsar. The most significant part of Russia’s relations with South Africa was its preoccupation with South African affairs during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1900, when Russian volunteers went to fight for the Boers and two medical detachments were sent to treat their wounded. At that time Russia even established diplomatic relations with Transvaal. Mutual interest in the mining sphere is also analysed, and relations between some Russian and South African intellectuals are mentioned. Immigration of Russian Jews to South Africa is also described. Key words: South Africa, Transvaal, Anglo–Boer War, Peter the Great, Witsen, Cathrine the Great, Beniovsky, Golovnin, Goncharov, van Riebeeck, Nicholas II, Grand Duke Alexei, Pondo, Olive Schreiner, Leipoldt, Maximov, Russian Jews. JEL Classification: N97. 1 Ordinary professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Academician, Russian Academy of Sciences; Ph.: +7 495 939 0521; e-mail: [email protected]. 2 This study was carried out within “The National Research University Higher School of Economics’ Academic Fund Program in 2012-2013, research grant No. 11-01-0040) The history of relations – or attempted relations – between South Africa and Russia began much earlier than one might think, with the establishment of the Cape Colony. There were unlikely connections, little-known plans and incredible voyages long before mutual visits between the two countries became commonplace. From Jan van Riebeeck to Peter the Great It was not really a surprise for us to discover how much the first Dutch administrators of the Cape Colony knew about Russia: seventeenth-century Holland had close trade and other relations with its neighbours. Muscovy was one of them. Jan van Riebeeck, the founder and first commander of the European settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, mentions ‘Moscovy’ in his diary as early as September 1652, soon after his arrival at the Cape. Van Riebeeck thought of using seals’ fat for food, ‘considering how much train oil is annually extracted from seals in Moscovy’.3 Among the early Cape settlers there was at least one émigré from Moscow, Johannes Swellengrebel (Schwellengrebel), father of the first Cape Town-born governor of the Cape Colony, Hendrik Swellengrebel. Johannes was born in Moscow in 1671 and died in Cape Town in 1744. His father, Heinrich Schwellengrebel, was born into an Amsterdam worker's family and in 1643 became a trader in Moscow, where he lived until his death in 1699. Johannes spent most of his life in Russia before becoming an official of the Dutch East India Company in the Cape. This ‘Russian from Moscow’, as the South African Dictionary of National Biography called him, could have told a lot about Russia – and not only to his son, the governor. 4 There were, of course, no South Africans in Russia in those days. What little knowledge the Russians had about South Africa came from books – and this luxury was available only to the chosen few. Until the end of the seventeenth century only theological books were printed in Moscow. Secular books were written and copied by hand and were, of course, very expensive and rare. However, those who had access to them could find all sorts of interesting information about distant lands, some real, some invented. The best sources of such information were the so-called cosmographies, hand-written geographies of the time. The most famous surviving cosmography dates back to 1670. Based on the work of a Flemish 3 Journals of Jan van Riebeeck, vol 1, 1651‒1655. Cape Town: AA Balkema, 1952, p 58. ‘Train’ here is a horse-drawn sledge used in Russia in winter. 4 Dictionary of South African Biography, vol 2. Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1972, p 726; E Rosenthal (ed), South African Dictionary of National Biography. London: F Warne, 1966, p 369. 3 author, Gerard Mercator (1512‒1594), the expanded Russian edition contained references to Africa and Madagascar. South Africa was clearly depicted on maps brought to Russia from abroad. A Dutch mission presented Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich (who ruled from 1645 to 1676) with a huge seven-foot copper globe made by pupils of the famous Dutch geographer and cartographer Willem Janszoon Blaeu. The globe still exists and is housed in a museum in the Red Square at the very centre of Moscow. One can still discern the words Caput de Bonae Speranca at the southern tip of the African continent. It was, perhaps, this globe that struck the imagination of Aleksei Mikhailovich’s son, Peter the Great, arousing his passion for travel. Peter was 25 when, in 1697, he spent more than four months in Holland as Peter Mikhailov, learning every possible naval skill from carpentry to mathematics and navigation. Every day he and his companions worked and dressed as common workers, sail makers, mast builders, or seamen. Peter’s dream was to build his own fleet and open the southern seas for Russia, which was not a naval power at that time. Among Peter's friends in Holland was Nicolaas Witsen, burgomaster of Amsterdam and one of the directors of the Dutch East India Company. It was he who gave Peter and his companions permission to work at the Company's docks. Witsen accompanied Peter to his meetings with many important people, first of all with the Prince of Orange, William III, who simultaneously held the titles of Stadholder of Holland and King of England. 5 The culmination of the friendship was the gift that Witsen gave Peter in the name of the citizens of Amsterdam when the Tsar’s visit was finally over. It was one of the ships that was built during Peter’s stay. One of Peter’s biographers wrote: ‘Peter was so delighted that he threw himself on Witsen's neck. He accepted the present with gratitude and gave the vessel the name Amsterdam.’6 Witsen was a well-educated and well-travelled man who visited many European countries and studied astronomy, mathematics and classics at the University of Leiden.7 His interest in Peter – at that time an uncouth youth – was scholarly too. In 1664 he spent about a year in Russia and subsequently published three volumes of his impressions and notes about this trip. These volumes were thought sufficiently interesting to be published again three 5 V Kliuchevski, Kurs russkoi istorii (The Course of Russian History), part IV. Petrograd, 1918, pp 29‒30. 6 O Browning, Peter the Great. London: Hutchinson, 1898, p 102. 7 JFL De Balbian Verster, Burgomeesters van Amsterdam in de 17e en 18e eeuw. Zutphen: WJ Thieme en Cie, 1932, pp 99‒ 105; A Boeseken and M Cairns, The Secluded Valley. Tulbagh: 't Land van Waveren 1700‒1804. Cape Town and Johannesburg: Perskor, 1989, p 20. 4 centuries later.8 During Peter’s stay in Amsterdam Witsen was working on another book which was to provide detailed descriptions of several countries and regions of the world, including Central Asia, Northern Persia, the Caucasus, the Crimea, China and Japan. Russia, with its eastern regions, was to occupy the central place in this publication. To have the Russian tsar as a consultant on his own country was a real stroke of luck for the author. Two large volumes of this book were published in 1705. They were beautifully illustrated, supplied with maps and detailed descriptions of many Russian cities and towns, geographic features, traditions and habits. As a source for his information Witsen often gave ‘the Russian court’. This clearly meant Peter. Naturally, he dedicated his book ‘To Tsar and Great Prince Piotr Alekseevich’.9 This friendship is important for us here, as, without a doubt, Witsen was the person who got Peter interested in Southern Africa. Witsen had already been a director of the Dutch East India Company for four years by the time Peter appeared in Amsterdam, and the Cape Colony was constantly on his mind. His signature appears on many Company letters addressed to the governor of the Cape. Moreover, this governor, Simon van der Stel, was Witsen’s personal friend, who even named a mountain range in the Tulbagh area after him. Later this range, Witsenberg, gave Witsen's name to one of South Africa’s famous wines.10 During Peter’s reign Russian knowledge of Africa accumulated exponentially. In 1713 the first map of Africa, based on a map by a famous Dutch cartographer, Frederick de Witt Senior (1616‒1689), was published in Moscow. In 1719 the first Russian book containing a detailed description of Africa was published. It was a translation of a book by the German geographer, Johann Hübner.
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  • Thesis White South Africans in Colorado

    Thesis White South Africans in Colorado

    THESIS WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS IN COLORADO: UNDERSTANDINGS OF APARTHEID AND POST-APARTHEID SOCIETY Submitted by Christine A. Weeber Department of Anthropology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Spring 2005 Copyright by Christine A. Weeber 2005 All Rights Reserved COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY March 31, 2005 WE HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER OUR SUPERVISION BY CHRISTINE A. WEEBER ENTITLED WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS IN COLORADO: UNDERSTANDINGS OF APARTHEID AND POST­ APARTHEID SOCIETY BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING IN PART REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS. Committee on Graduate Work Advisor 11 ABSTRACT OF THESIS WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS IN COLORADO: UNDERSTANDINGS OF APARTHEID AND POST-APARTHEID SOCIETY This pilot study focuses on the experiences of two white ethnic groups within the South African immigrant population, Afrikaners and English-speakers, who came of age during two different phases of apartheid, between 1958-1978 and 1979-1993. Race, ethnicity, generational standing, class, and nationalism remain important fault lines, so my analysis is structured to differentiate between the entrenchment and reproduction of these identities during apartheid and the disruption of these in the post-apartheid era and in people's migration to the U.S. Using a phenomenological approach, I investigate three issues: experiences of being white, the culture of apartheid, and immigration. Among the themes that emerged from my interviews are the "schizophrenic" nature of life under apartheid; guilt and responsibility; questions of truth, propaganda, and brainwashing; "Afropessimism" and racism; what it meant to be white under apartheid versus the present 'box of being white'; the 'push factors' of affirmative action and crime; and perspectives of race and racism in the U.S.