Kruzenshtern, Ivan Fedorovich

Kruzenshtern, Ivan Fedorovich 

Born Nov. 8 (19), 1770, in Hagudi, now in Rapla Raion, Estonian SSR; died Aug. 12 (24), 1846, in Tallinn. Russian navigator; admiral (1842); honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1806). Son of a member of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry).

Kruzenshtern graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1788 and, in the same year, took part in the battle of Gogland. In 1793 he was sent as a volunteer to England to acquire experience in naval affairs. He sailed in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. In 1799 he returned to Kronstadt. In 1802 he was appointed head of the first Russian round-the-world expedition (1803–06), which included the ships Nadezhda (commanded by Kruzenshtern) and Neva (commanded by Iu. F. Lisianskii). The ships sailed from Kronstadt on Aug. 7, 1803, rounded Cape Horn in March 1804, and proceeded into the Pacific Ocean. After visiting the Hawaiian Islands, the Neva went to NovoarkhangePsk and the Nadezhda sailed to Kamchatka and then on to Japan. In August 1806 the expedition returned to Kronstadt through the Indian and Atlantic oceans.

During Kruzenshtern’s voyage, extensive oceanographic and meteorological research was performed for the first time in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, and systematic deep-sea ocean research was begun; Kruzenshtern described some of the Kuril Islands, the shores of Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and several islands of Japan. Kruzenshtern published an account of the voyage and the results of the oceanographic and ethnographic research in the three-volume work Voyage Around the World in 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806 Aboard the Ships “Nadezhda” and “Neva” (1809–12; 2nd ed., 1950).

Kruzenshtern became inspector (1811) and director (1827–42) of the Naval Cadet Corps. On Kruzenshtern’s initiative, preparations were made for a round-the-world sea expedition under the command of O. E. Kotsebu. In 1823–26, Kruzenshtern published the two-volume Atlas of the Southern Sea, which contains historical and geographical analysis of extensive Russian and foreign sources. Kruzenshtern was a founding member of the Russian Geographic Society, a member of the Royal Society (in London), and a member of other scientific societies. A number of geographic locations (straits, islands, capes, and mountains) in the Pacific Ocean were named after Kruzenshtern.

REFERENCES

Nevskii, V. V. Pervoe puteshestvie rossiian vokrug sveta. Moscow, 1951. (Includes bibliography of Kruzenshtern’s works.)
Pasetskii, V. M. Ocharovannyi nadezhdoi. Leningrad, 1970.