Kotsebu, Otto

Kotsebu, Otto Evstaf’evich 

(also O. E. Kotzebue). Born Dec. 19 (30), 1788, in Tallinn; died Feb. 3 (15), 1846, in Triigi Mõis; buried in Kose, in present-day Harju Raion. Russian navigator. Captain.

From 1803 to 1806, Kotsebu took part in a voyage around the world aboard the ship Nadezhda, commanded by I. F. Kruzenshtern. From 1815 to 1818, Kotsebu led an expedition on the ship Riurik, during which a number of islands in the Tuamotu Archipelago and in the Marshall Islands group and a sound on the west coast of Alaska (named after Kotzebue) were discovered and the existence of the two main parallel Ratak and Ralik chains in the Marshall Islands was established for the first time. The circumnavigational expedition (1823–26) led by Kotsebu aboard the sloop Predpriiatie discovered new islands in the Tuamotu Archipelago, in Samoa, and elsewhere. During the voyage, oceanographic research was conducted by the physicist E. Kh. Lents (also H. F. E. Lenz).

WORKS

Puteshestvie v luzhnyi okean i v Beringov proliv dlia otyskaniia severovostochnogo morskogo prokhoda, predpriniatoe v 1815, 1816, 1817 i 1818godakh na korable “Riurike,” parts 1–3. St. Petersburg, 1821–23.
Puteshestvie vokrug sveta na voennom shliupe “Predpriiatie” v 1823, 24, 25 and 26 godakh pod nachal’stvom flota kapitan-leitenanta Kotsebu. St. Petersburg, 1828.
Puteshestviia vokrug sveta, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1948.
Novoe puteshestvie vokrug sveta v 1823–1826 gg. Moscow, 1959.