AlfaBloggers Best Bloggers Team Of Asia : Exploration and Science

Exploration and Science

The medieval Russian trading network leading north to the White Sea and east to the Urals and Siberia established much of the wealth that propelled Russia's merchants towards the east from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. The region's sturdy peasant culture, as well as the high, church-inspired culture of the wealthiest merchants, are both represented by surviving examples of architecture, particularly in Arkhangelsk province. These artifacts reflect the dynamism of an entrepreneurial spirit that would propel Russians toward the wealth of the Far East.

Early Expeditions

Geographic and scientific interests played a major role in the first phases of Russia's expansion throughout Siberia. Peter the Great (1672-1725) provided the key impetus for this concern, since basic knowledge about Russia's borderlands was essential to its political and economic future. Moreover, there was a need to know the specific extent and nature of the empire's realm in an age when other nations were expanding as well. In particular, the burgeoning international competition among European states spurred Russia to conduct multiple investigations of its eastern frontier.

While Russians served in vital positions on the initial scientific and diplomatic expeditions, Western and Central Europeans typically led the missions, reflecting Peter's famous attempts to tap European talent in his drive to westernize and modernize Russia. By the end of the seventeenth century, German and Dutch specialists began a lengthy period of Siberian exploration that resulted in a series of important books and maps describing the farthest reaches of the Russian Empire.

Northeastern Expeditions

In the 1730s and 1740s, Russian science began to develop and contribute to the exploration of Siberia, Kamchatka, and Alaska. This work involved both Russian-born scientists and the many German scientists who came to Russia to work in the service of the tsar. Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov, born of humble origins in Moscow, acquired a classical education and took part in the Great Northern Expedition (1733-43). A natural scientist, Krasheninnikov eventually left the expedition and traveled extensively throughout Siberia before returning in 1743 to St. Petersburg, where he was named professor of botany. Gerhard Friedrich Mueller (also known as Gerard Miller), a German who came to Russia in 1725 to join the newly founded Academy of Sciences, also participated in the Great Northern Expedition and subsequently became secretary of the Academy.

Georg Wilhelm Steller, another German in the service of the Russian Empire, worked with Krasheninnikov in Siberia and later joined Vitus Bering, the Danish seaman, on the Second Kamchatka Expedition to explore the coast of North America. German-born Johann Georg Gmelin studied science at Tuebingen before entering the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1727. He joined the Second Kamchatka Expedition, but never reached the Pacific. Instead, Gmelin traveled throughout western and southern Siberia, where he studied plants and animals, returning to St. Petersburg in 1743.

Private Travelers, Prisoners of War, and Tradesmen

Although Russia's state-sponsored expeditions to Siberia and the North Pacific attained the highest profile, they were not the sole source of new information about the region. Personal journeys, undertaken for a variety of reasons by a wide spectrum of travelers, resulted in a number of written accounts. Although not as technical or sophisticated as government reports, such reflections prove among the most colorful and entertaining tales from the Siberian frontier.

Reflective of the history of Russia, these travel accounts incorporate the viewpoints of itinerant merchants, European scientists in service to the tsar, prisoners of war, and exiled political enemies. Although more sensational than most, the travelogue of Maurice Auguste Benyowsky typifies the genre of the vivid regional tale of adventure. Benyowsky was captured in 1769 while fighting for Poland in a war against Russia. He was exiled to Bolsheretsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where he staged a rebellion in April 1771, seized a ship, and sailed to Japan and Macau with a cargo of provisions and furs to finance a journey back to Europe.