The Russian Navy as Chartmaker in the Eighteenth CenturyAuthor(s): Aleksey V. PostnikovSource: Imago Mundi, Vol. 52 (2000), pp. 79-95Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1151479Accessed: 03/12/2008 14:50

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Plate 4. 'Plan of Pharos Island surveyed by Lieutenant Grigoriy Kushelyov when the Russian fleet was laid up in the Archipelago', 1774?. Manuscript. 51 71 cm. RGVIA, fund 434, op. 1, d. 112. (Reproduced with permission from the Russian State Military-Historical Archives.) (Page 86.)

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Plate 6. A view of Corfu Town. 1804?. The author of this semi-perspective plan was Captain Lieutenant Telesnitskii. His work was counter-signed by Vice-Admiral Ushakov. The inscription at the bottom explains that this view had been 'made in a hurry and ... would be exchanged for an accurate one later on'. 33X58 cm. RGVIA, fund 434, op. 1, d. 52.

(Reprodutced with permission from the RuLssian State Military-Historical Archives.) (Page 91.)

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The Russian Navy as Chartmaker in the Eighteenth Century

ALEKSEY V. POSTNIKOV

ABSTRACT: The modern period of chart making in Russia began in the reign of Peter the Great. Peter created the country's navy, which became the main focus for cartography in the eighteenth century. In this paper the multi-faceted duties of naval officers in the charting and mapping of seas, rivers, forest resources and other features important for ship building and the development of navigation, and essential to Russia's geo-political interests, are considered. The history of the early stages of specialized naval education and the training of surveyors at the Moscow Mathematical-Navigational School (from 1701) and the St Petersburg Naval Academy (from 1715) are outlined, and the first surveys in the Baltic and Caspian seas are described. Finally, special attention is paid to the hydrographical surveys and charting of the Aegean Sea during the Russian- Turkish war of 1768-1774, the sources and methods involved, and the little-known Atlas of the Archipelago (1788) which was created from the surveys.

KEYWORDS: Eighteenth century, Russia, Greece, Aegean Sea, Black Sea, Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea, Dardanelles, Bosporus, Russian Navy, cartography, hydrography, foreign influences on education, Peter I, Andrew Daniel Farquharson (Ferguson), Fyodor I. Soymonov, Aleksey I. Nagayev, Gavriil Sarychev, Aleksey Orlov, Ivan Bersenev, Vilim Fondezin, Grigoriy G.

Spiridov.

Hydrographical description in Russia goes back at least to the start of the early modern period, when

Russian pomors (the name given in Muscovy to sailors and fishermen from, mainly, the White Sea

coast), began producing detailed written records of the rivers and sea coasts of northern Russia. The earliest evidence of a chart, however, dates from

1594, when Dutch seamen operating in the vicinity of Kolguyev Island acquired from a pomor pilot a chart showing the whole of the White Sea as far as the mouth of Pechora River.' This chart may have reached Gerard Mercator, whose map of the northern lands (Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio, posthumously published in 1595), was used by Hessel Gerritsz for his Caerte van't Noorderste Russen,

Samojeden, ende Tingoesen Landt (1612).2 Gerritsz

acknowledged the Russian source with the words

Kushelyov, Ivan L. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Grigoriy

'Aenmerkinghen op dese Russche caerte' [compiled with use of a Russian map].3

The modern phase of Russian chart and map making began in the reign of Peter the Great

(1682-1725), stimulated by his reforms and his

encouragement of close cartographical contacts between Russia and western Europe. Practices such as the use of projections, coordinates and mathematical scales were readily adopted by Russian mapmakers. One of the main areas of state cartography was hydrographical charting. My aim in this paper is to provide an overview of the role of the Russian Navy in chart making, with its sometimes unexpected facets, up to the start of the nineteenth century. Since the charting of the

Caspian and the Baltic seas is reasonably well

documented, this aspect will be mentioned only

> Dr Aleksey V. Postnikov, Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1/5 Staropanskii St., Moscow, 103012, Russia. Tel: (7) (095) 925 70 03. Fax: (7) (095) 925 99 11. E- mail: apostnik@history.ihst.ru ? Imago Mundi. Vol. 52, 2000, 79-95. 79

briefly, in order to concentrate on the Navy's role in the charting of the Black and the Aegean seas and

the Straits (Dardanelles and Bosporus).

The Schools of Navigation

The education and training of Russian surveyors and hydrographers in the eighteenth century benefitted from a number of distinct western

European traditions. At first, British cartographers predominated. Students at the Mathematical-Navi-

gational School in Moscow (Moskovskaya Mate-

matiko-Navigatskaya Shkola), which had been founded in 1701, were taught by Professor Andrew Daniel Farquharson (Ferguson) and Navigator Stephen Gwynn. No French participated in the Moscow school, but in St Petersburg, Professor

Joseph-Nicolas Delisle (1688-1768) taught a few students (possibly no more than two) at the

Academy of Sciences. From him the students received training in the French tradition of small- scale mathematical geography, with its emphasis on the use of coordinates of longitude and latitude to locate places and features precisely and to outline the shape of each nation accurately.4

Dutch influence spread in Russia not so much

through education-no Dutch teachers were in either Moscow or St Petersburg-as through the

design and printing of newly published Russian

maps. Only Peter I himself had received instruction from the Dutch when, during his visit to Holland in

1697, he took lessons in engraving from Adrian

Schoonebeek, who worked for Jacob Wilde. Schoonebeek was then invited to Moscow to serve as the tsar's first professional engraver and to teach engraving. One of his Russian students was

Aleksey Zubov, who later worked in the Imperial

Academy of Sciences.5 The curriculum in the Mathematical-Naviga-

tional School included arithmetic, geometry, trigo- nometry, practical (that is, naval) astronomy, practical navigation, spherical trigonometry, gen- eral and mathematical geography, drawing and technical drawing, elementary map making, and instruction on how to keep a ship's log. Since

graduates were expected to have a sound knowl-

edge of both theory and practice in navigation, they were also instructed in the techniques of hydro- graphical surveying. The importance of the Moscow School declined when the Naval (Admiralty) Academy (Morskaya Akademiya) was founded in St Petersburg in 1715. First Professor Farquharson

80 and then the entire navigation section were

transferred from Moscow to the new capital. Gradually, the Moscow establishment became an

exclusively mathematical school. Later, in 1752, the Naval Cadet Corps for the Gentry (Morskoy Shlyakhetnyy Kadetskiy Korpus) was founded.

In 1718 Peter I created the Admiralty Board

(College of Admirals), which took over the super- vision of all cartographical activities at the Naval

Academy in 1724. In 1721 a Printing Office was established at the Naval Academy for the compila- tion, engraving and publication of charts and other

navigational material. By the 1760s the Admiralty's Drawing Office had come into existence, although this was not officially established, with permanent staff, until 13 November 1777.6 Henceforth all

training in navigation, hydrography and chart

making was concentrated in St Petersburg. Students at the Naval Academy started with

arithmetic and went on to geometry, navigation, cartography and land surveying; they then con- tintued their studies with advanced astronomy according to their individual capabilities. Both the Naval Academy and the Naval Cadet Corps offered their pupils the most up-to-date methods of marine

surveying and chart making. The geodetical class at the Academy was established early (1716), and

particular attention was paid to the theoretical and

practical skills necessary for taking astronomical observations and for calculating latitude (mainly by measuring the altitude of the sun at noon with sextants and quadrants), and longitude (mainly by dead-reckoning).7 French textbooks were used in the original French and in translation.8

Prominent Russian hydrographers, such as Fyo- dor I. Soymonov (1692-1780), Aleksey I. Nagayev (1704-1781), and Gavriil Sarychev (1764?-1831), were involved in the cadets' training at both the

Academy and the Naval Cadet Corps. Sarychev used his long personal experience of surveying under a variety of conditions, which included

hydrographical projects in Russian America, to

compile the first Russian manual on hydrographical surveying and charting. His 'Rules Pertaining to Marine Geodesy', published in 1804 and re-

published with supplements throughout the nine- teenth century, was also used as a texbook on

hydrography and charting.9 From at least the

1750s, the quality of an officer's education in the

Russian Navy equalled that received elsewhere in

Europe. Surveys carried out by the Russian Navy along the coasts of various seas and oceans came to

play a prominent role in world hydrography.

Charting the Caspian Sea

One of Peter I's main political aims was to secure Russian control over outlets to the seas in the

northwest, the south and the east of the country, and one of the first cartographical projects of the Petrine era was connected with the Mediterranean basin. In 1699 the Cornelis Cruys, supervised and

helped by Peter himself, conducted a survey of the river Don.'0 The results, combined with work in the southern region a few years earlier (1696), pro- vided the basis of the Nauw-keurige Afbeelding Vande Rivier Don, of Tanais, de Azofsche Zee of Palus Moeotis,

en Pontus Euxinos of Swarte Zee [Atlas of the Don, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea], which was

compiled in 1703 and printed in Amsterdam in 1705 by Hendrik Doncker and supplied with Russian annotations. Later, once Peter was installed in his new capital of St Petersburg, the focus turned to the Baltic Sea. Perhaps not surprisingly, of the 29 Russian navigational atlases published in the eight- eenth century, 21 were devoted to the Baltic; and it was in the Baltic, as well as in the Caspian, that the new Russian hydrographers honed their chart-

making skills and achieved the first charts to be

acknowledged outside the country. The accurate charting of the Caspian Sea was

one of the major scientific achievements of Peter's

reign. Up to the eighteenth century, the Caspian was usually incorrectly represented on maps. In 1715, Peter ordered Aleksandr Bekovich Cher-

kassky and A. Kozhin to produce charts of the sea and its coast, on which they worked until 1718. Then another pair of officers (Fyodor I. Soymonov and Karl van Verden) took over, and in 1719 and 1720 the charting of the world's largest salt lake was completed with unusual speed. The printed chart, Kartina ploskaya Kaspiyskogo morya ot ust'ya

Yarkovskogo do zaliva Astrabadskago, po meridianu

vozvyshayetsya v gradusakh i minutakh, glubina v

sazhenyakh i futakh [Plan map of the Caspian Sea from the mouth of the Yarka to Astrabat Bay along a meridian measured in degrees and minutes and its depths in fathoms and feet]. Drawn in Astrakhan' and engraved in copper in St Petersburg in 1720, the map bears Soymonov's and Verden's names." In February 1721, Peter sent a copy of the new Russian chart of the Caspian Sea to Paris as a mark of gratitude for his election (on 22 December, 1717) to the French Academy of Sciences.

The new chart caused a furore among France's men of letters. Bernard le Bovier, sieur de

Fontenelle (1657-1757), secretary to the French

Academy, was ecstatic: 'We have much to be thankful to You Great Academic Victor. We at last know the true shape of this sea which bears no resemblance to the former and more common

[shape]'.'2 The Russian chart received widespread recognition throughout western Europe. In parti- cular, the publication in 1725 in Nuremberg of J. B. Homann's atlas of the world did more than

anything else to advertise Russia's new cartogra- phical achievements. One plate in the atlas con- tained a general map of the Russian Empire featuring the Caspian in the new outlines of the 1720 chart; another reproduced two new Russian

maps of Kamchatka and the Caspian.'3 Meanwhile, in Russia, Soymonov was continuing with his Caspian surveys. In 1731 his publication of the first navigational atlas and sailing directions for the

Caspian Sea, Atlas i lotsiya Kaspiyskogo morya [Atlas and Sailing Directions for the Caspian Sea] marks the start of specialized scientific hydrographical surveying in Russia.

Charting the Baltic Sea

In 1714, Russians began to survey the gulfs of Finland and Riga. While at the Admiralty Board in the late 1720s, Soymonov turned his attention to Russia's pressing need for charts of the entire Baltic area. He based his work on a revised Russian translation from the Dutch of De Nieuwe Groote Lichtende Zee-Fakkel (first issued in 1680), an atlas with sailing directions, into which he inserted Russian surveys completed between 1714 and 1732. The first Russian edition of the atlas, Kniga razmernaya gradusnykh kart Ost-Zee ili Varyazhskogo morya napechatana poveleniyem Yego Velichestva Tsarya v Sankt Peterburge v 9 den' maya 1714 goda s rozhdestva

Nashego Gospoda [A Book of the Scale Degree Map of the East Sea or Varangian Sea Printed under the Order of His Majesty the Tsar in St Petersburg on the Ninth Day of May in the Year of Our Lord

1714], was based on a Swedish original compiled from surveys carried out by Vice-Admiral Werner von Rosenfeldt and Peter Gedda and published in 1695 in Dutch and English. When Soymonov's new atlas was published in 1738, it comprised eight Swedish charts, six new Russian charts based on the surveys mentioned above, and four charts from an earlier period of surveying connected with a Russian naval campaign directed at the conquest of Finland in 1710-1714.14 The earliest of the revised charts was based on planimetric surveys carried out 81

in 1715 by Edward Lane, an English captain in the Russian Navy from 1702, and A. Kozhin in the Gulf of Finland, between Tallinn and Hogland, an area of vital importance for the defence of the nation.15 Further south a pioneer survey of the Gulf of Riga was carried out by M. Travin and T. I. Myasnoy in 1715. By 1716 the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, the sea area between Dagerort (on Hiiumaa island), Estonia, and Hankoniemi, Finland, had been charted by Karl van Verden and work was in

progress along the coast of Estonia.16 An important stage in the charting of the Baltic

was reached in 1746, when Captain (later Vice-

Admiral) Aleksey I. Nagayev was commissioned by the Admiralty to produce charts of the entire Baltic Sea.17 He had already spent the years 1736 to 1740

revising Russian charts and helping his superior, Lieutenant-General Ivan Lyuberas (Admiral J. L. von Liiberas), chart the inshore waters of the Gulf of Finland.'8 Nagayev was then given charge of a man-of-war in the White and the Baltic seas, where

he worked until 1743, when his ship was grounded on a shoal near Copenhagen and destroyed, an

accident from which he and his officers were released without charges.'9 He published an interim atlas, the General'naya i raznyye spetsial'nyye karty vsego Baltiyskogo morya s Finskim i Botnicheskim

zalivami s shkager rakom, kategatom i bel'tami [Gen- eral and Different Special Charts of the Baltic Sea with the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia, the

Skagerrak, Kattegat and Belts] (St Petersburg, 1750), for which he used charts from the Swedish

atlas by Nils Stromkrona (Stockholm, 1738), as well

as his own material and revisions. Why Nagayev

produced this atlas before one incorporating the

new Russian surveys-admittedly not yet com-

pleted-is not entirely clear. In the event, it was

only in 1757 that the Atlas vsego Baltiyskago morya. . .

[Atlas of the Whole Baltic Sea . . .], comprising

largely new navigational charts, was engraved and

printed in the printing house of the Naval Cadet

Corps for the Gentry.20 Seventeen charts in Nagayev's 1757 atlas were

based entirely on original Russian surveying. For

the other eleven he used six Swedish and five

Danish charts, to which he added a great deal of

new data. Charts 9 to 11 cover the coasts of

Sweden, while charts 12 to 14 are devoted to the

Gulf of Riga and the western coast of Estonia. The

remaining twenty-two delineate the coasts of the

Gulf of Finland.21 In terms of accuracy and quality, 82 Nagayev's charts are remarkable. Those of the

Russian coasts are of two kinds: detailed special charts (spetsial'nyye karty) and navigational charts

(navigatsionnyye karty). Special charts were provided for all Russia's Baltic ports and for major island

groups. The navigational charts are on a variety of different scales which are smaller than the special charts, but they provide a systematic cover for the whole of the Finnish gulf. Although geographical coordinates are missing the navigation charts are

noteworthy for their overall high quality, the accurate configuration of coastlines, including those of the islands, and the large amount of detailed information concerning depths, rocks and shoals.22

The Navy's Land Maps

The well-trained naval surveyors from St Peters-

burg were in great demand for work in the interior of Russia as well as along the coasts. Three major contexts demanded their participation: the survey- ing and mapping of rivers to provide a navigable route between the Baltic (and the new capital) and

the Caspian and Black seas; the mapping of Siberian

rivers to provide economic links across the Empire; and the mapping of forests for the supply of timber for ship-building.

At first it had been hoped to connect the upper reaches of the Volga River with the Msta and Volkhov rivers by means of small rivers and Lake

Seliger, with Lake Ladoga and then the Vyshniy- Volochok rivers. A large number of maps and plans relating to different parts of the system were

produced in the early eighteenth century, mostly

relating to the Borovitsa Rapids on the Msta River, the most difficult stretch for navigation. In the 1730s the Senate commissioned a major hydro- graphical study in order to decide if it would be

possible to by-pass the rapids. One result was

Konstantin I. Brask's Karta, kotoraya sochinena po ukazu yego imperatorskogo velichestva, prislannomu iz

Pravitel'stvuyushchego Senata, i pokazuyet situatsiyu mezhdu rekoyu Volgoyu i ozerom II'men' [Map Produced by Order of His Imperial Majesty Sent

from the Governing Senate Which Illustrates the

Situation between the Volga River and Lake

Il'men'], dating from 1735 and on a scale of 5

versts per inch.23 Starting near the Volga's tributary, the Selizharovka River, the map shows the places where the survey had already been conducted as, for example, on the Cherna River where a note

reads: 'Tract surveyed by ... Lieutenant-General

Decoulomb'.

The Vyshniy-Volochok system proved to be too slow and dangerous for navigation, and work began on surveying an alternative route. This was the Tikhvinka system, which started from the Mologa River, another tributary of the Volga, and then connected several small rivers such as the Chago- doshcha and the Tikhvinka before terminating in the Volkhov River. The maps and plans associated with the design and construction of the Tikhvinka

waterway were made in the second half of the

eighteenth century. One of the first detailed maps, entitled Spetsial'naya karta polozheniyu mezhdu sudo-

khodnymi rekami Tikhvinki, Liti i Kolpi, s pokazaniyem prozhekta kanala [A Special Map of the Terrain between the Navigable Tikhvinka, Lit', and Kolp' Rivers Showing the Design of a Canal], had been made by Hydraulic Engineer A. Rezanov in 1762.24 Later, Mikhail Dedenyov, an hydraulic engineer in

charge of the Tikhvinka scheme, produced a more

complete design, 'extremely accurate plans' and a 'special general map' which provided a detailed

description of the Syas, Tikhvinka, Valchina, Bystraya, Somina, Lit', Kolp', and Chagodoshcha rivers.25 As a 'special river plan', it was drawn on the exceptionally generous scale of one verst to one inch.

Maps and plans produced in conjunction with the construction of what was to be the most successful waterway, the Mariinsk canal system, forerunner of the modern Volga-Baltic system, comprised a comprehensive graphic description of the rivers and adjacent areas. The Mariinsk system included the Sheksna (tributary of the Volga), the

Beloye Ozero (White Lake), the rivers Kovzha, Vytegra, Svir' and Neva, and the Onega and Ladoga lakes. The construction of the Mariinsk waterway was completed in the first decade of the nineteenth

century after many years of exploration and

surveying, especially in the last quarter of the

eighteenth century, when most of the maps and plans were drawn.26

Northwestern Russia was not the only area where the hydrographical system was mapped for practical purposes. For example, in 1717-1718, two graduates of the Mathematical-Navigational School in Moscow, Mikhail Isupov and Vasiliy Leushinsky, investigated the possibilities for a canal connecting the sources of the Gzhat' River (tributary of the Vazuza, which flows into the Volga) and the Vorya River (tributary of the Ugra, which flows into the Oka). The canal was never built, but we have the records from the exploration of the area, notably

the first Atlas reki Volgi ot sela Kimry [Atlas of the

Volga River from the Village of Kimry], produced from surveys by Peter Pronchishchev and Peter

Chaplin in 1735 and 1736.27 Another concern of the Russian Navy in inland

mapping was the need for economic links between Russia and the remoter regions of its Empire. Naval officers and surveyors such as Ivan I. Islen'yev (1738-1784) were engaged in pioneer exploration of the great water arteries-Ob', Yenisey, Irtysh, Lena-which offered the only means of access into the most distant parts of the Siberian tayga. Detailed geographical descriptions and reconnais- sance surveys of rivers played a major role in Siberia's exploration, and many of the instructions for these activities were drafted by the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Naval mapmakers frequently borrowed material from earlier cartographical work-including that by Semyon Remezov (1642-after 1720) and his predecessors-for their own maps of the Siberian rivers. Direct evidence of this is provided by Islen'yev's Ob'yasneniye na

sochinyonnuyu kartu techeniya reki Leny ot vershin do

goroda Yakutska [Explanatory Notes for the Map of the Lena River from Its Headwaters to the City of

Yakutsk], dated 23 May 1782. He explains that

although the cities of Irkutsk, Selenginsk, Ilimsk, Kirensk, Olekminsk and Yakutsk had been mapped according to 'the most recent astronomical observa- tions', the Lena River 'from the village of Paguch to the mouth of the Dubrovka River' was drawn from old cartographical material 'with corrections for the old surveying measures'. He goes on to note that the stretch from the mouth of the Dubrovka River to the city of Yakutsk 'was completely replotted' from maps produced 'while travelling on the Lena River in 1768 using a compass and measurements based on the rules for navigation charts', and that 'other land and rivers on both sides of the Lena were plotted from the best and most recent maps available at the Archives of the Geographical Department'.28

The third context in which naval officers were engaged in inland surveying and map making dated back to the time of Peter I and arose from the Navy's perennial need for good ship building timber. Forests had to be continually surveyed and stands of potentially useful ship timber mapped. In the 1740s Naval Academy Surveyor Yegor Safonov, for example, produced a Karta techeniya rek Dona i Dontsa s lezhashchimi okolo onykh gorodov [gorodami] [Map of the Courses of 83

the Don and Donets Rivers with Nearby Cities] largely from a map that had been made in 1737 by Naval Lieutenant Krivtsov.29 Safonov's map shows the Don from the mouth of the Aksay River to the mouth of the Voronezh River, the northern Donets, the Khoper and the Medveditsa rivers, with all their

tributaries, even the most minor ones. One of the most impressive results of the Russian

government's programs for surveying and mapping forests is another manuscript atlas, dated 1782, entitled General'noy atlas sochinyonnoy iz imeyush- chikhsya pri Admiralteyskoy chertyozhnoy raznykh

godov opisey vsyakogo roda lesam 1782 goda [A General

Atlas Compiled in 1782 from the Surveys of All

Kinds of Forests Taken in Different Years and

Stored at the Admiralty Drafting Office].30 It

incorporates 52 maps resulting from forest surveys carried out during the previous half-century. The

earliest is Karta Kazanskoy gubernii . . opisi geodezis- tov Vasiliya i Ivana Shishkovykh [A Map of Kazan'

Province . . . Surveys Conducted by the Surveyors

Vasiliy and Ivan Shishkov], produced in 1733. A limited array of signs (letters, numerals, lines) was

employed to depict the qualitative and quantitative

composition of ship timber and the extent of

reserves, suggesting that thematic mapping was as little developed in Russia as elsewhere in Europe at this date. No attempt has been made to depict the forest boundaries precisely. Numbers serve to

indicate different forest units. The total area

occupied by different tree species is tabulated

separately in desyatinas. On the map of Kazan'

province, only two areas are distinguished: 'a good

pine forest designated by the letter A' and 'a

worthless mixed forest designated by the letter

B'.31 The most detailed and cartographically refined

map in the atlas is the Karta Vyborgskogo uezdu pri reke Lindulovoy sostoyashchey Listvennichnoy razozhen-

noy roshey v proshlom 1738 godu a kak nyne onaya po

opisi forshmeystera Selivanova sostoit s pokazaniem v ney lesov, 1781 godu. [Map of Vyborg District along the

Lindulova River Consisting of a Larch Forest as It

Was in 1737 and as It Is Now According to the

Survey by Forest Ranger Selivanov Showing the

Timber Contained in It, 1781'. The large-scale map

(at 50 sazhens to one inch) shows part of the

Lindulova Forest Estate (now an important forest

reserve and natural history memorial) and indicates

the number of trees, with their diameter and

height, found in each tract.32 From the 1730s to the 1750s, in short, many

84 naval officers were spending more time in land

surveying and map making than on board warships

(Fig. 1). The work they were engaged in, however, was not irrelevant. As individuals and as a corps, they were acquiring skills and experience which would stand them in good stead when it came to

making charts of unfamiliar coasts and seas, in

particular, the surveys done in the course of the Russian Navy's operations in the Aegean Sea.

Charting the Aegean Sea

What came to be known as the First Archipelago

[Aegean] Expedition (1769-1774) occupies an

outstanding place in the history of the Russian

Navy. It was the first large-scale strategic naval

campaign conducted at a distance from Russian

shores, and it contributed significantly to Russia's

victory in the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774. It also saw the Navy's recovery, under Catherine II, from a period of decline and laid the foundation of

the future Black Sea fleet.33 Greek aspirations for freedom were largely

sustained by a corpus of prophetic and messianic beliefs that foretold the eventual overthrow of the Turkish yoke as the result of divine rather than

human intervention.34 As the only Orthodox

power free from foreign domination, the Russians were identified with the legendary ksanthon genos, a

fair-haired race of northern liberators, and formed an essential element of the Orthodox Christian

commonwealth.35 In 1770 the Russian Navy, under

the command of Count Aleksey G. Orlov, entered

the Mediterranean with the intent to destroy the

Ottoman fleet and to foment rebellion among the

Greeks of the Morea against their Ottoman occu-

piers. The Expedition was not wholly successful, but the Turks were forced to sign the humiliating

Kyuchuk-Kaynardzhiy [Kaynardzha] Treaty on 10

July 1774.36 According to the territorial provisions of the Treaty, Russia's frontier now extended to the

Southern Bug River, and included control of the

port of Azov, the fortresses of Kerch' and Yenikale

at the eastern end of the Crimean peninsula, part of

the province of Kuban', and the combined estuaries

of the Dnieper and Bug rivers (with the fortress of

Kinburn). The Crimean khanate was to form an

independent state, subject to the Ottoman sultan-

caliph only in religious matters. The Treaty's commercial provisions gave Russia the right to

establish consulates anywhere in the Ottoman

Empire and to navigate freely through the Bos-

porus and the Dardanelles. A clause that was to

have far-reaching consequences allowed Russia to

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represent, within the Ottoman Empire, all Greek Orthodox Christians in the Aegean Islands.37

The charts from the First Archipelago Expedition are the clearest testimony to the quality as well as

quantity of the Russian naval officers' surveying achievements. They were eventually reproduced in the Naval Cadet Corps's printshop in 1788 as the Atlas of the Archipelago, a magnificent compilation including: a small-scale general chart showing the whole Aegean, six regional charts of medium scale, and 51 detailed, large-scale charts of individual

gulfs, harbours, channels and other potential anchorages.38 Copies of the printed atlas are in the State Historical Museum, the Naval Archives and the Russian State Military-Historical Archives. The last also has a manuscript version of the atlas.39 Most of the originals of the charts from which the atlas was compiled are in the State Historical Museum.

The manuscript atlas in the Russian State

Military-Historical Archives is particularly interest-

ing for the annotations which are in a different ink from that used for the charts themselves, implying that this copy was used for updating the original expedition charts. It seems safe to assume that this work was one of the originals used for the

published atlas. The luxurious red leather binding and the gilded title of the atlas, however, might suggest that this was the copy officially presented to the Empress Catherine II, especially since the charts are highly decorative and coloured (Figs. 2 and 3).

More than fifty manuscript charts made during the First Archipelago Expedition are in the State Historical Museum, along with numerous charts of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the

Bosporus made after the signing of the Kyuchuk- Kaynardzhiy Treaty. Also surviving are sixteen charts and one sheet of coastal profiles from the atlas produced on board the frigate Severnyy Oryol between 26 August 1776 and July 1777 and submitted to the Admiralty as a supplement to

ship's log-book.40 Supplementing the Russian surveys were the

most recent French and English charts of the

region. These foreign charts of the Aegean, the

Sea of Marmara, and the Straits were revised from

reports brought in by Russian scouts and from the

huge numbers of bearings and soundings taken on Russian investigative voyages. Despite the Admir-

alty's disparaging comments about Turkish science, Russian officers urgently sought and made use of

86 any Ottoman charts and maps they could acquire.

The first chart in Ivan Bersenev's manuscript Atlas

sokrashchonnykh kart general'noy vsego arkhipelaga, tak i nekotorykh ostrovov i vo onykh portov s promerom glubin i akuratnoy opisi beregov s polozheniyem situatsii, sokrashcheny leytenantom Ivanom Bersen [General Atlas of Summary Charts ...] of about 1774 is entitled General'naya karta vsego arkhipelaga i chast' Marei umen'shonnaya s turetskoy karty [Chart of the

Aegean and part of the Morea, reduced from the Turkish Chart].4 A semi-perspective plan of the island of Monemvasia (Malvasia) would seem, from its archaic style, to have been a copy of a Greek map

(Fig. 4).42 In contrast, the coloured Plan ostrova Parosa snyat v bytnost' Rossiyskogo Imperatorskogo flota v Arkhipelage [Plan of Pharos Island ...] is the outcome of Russian surveying carried out during the expedition by Lieutenant Grigoriy Kushelyov.43 It includes his finely executed panoramic view of the island from the northeast (Plate 4).

The official correspondence gives us some idea of the cartographical aids available to the First

Archipelago Expedition. For navigation, the Expe- dition appears to have relied on the Dutch Zee-

Fakkel, as is revealed by an order issued on 9 July 1769 to the Admiralty Drawing Office while the

Expedition fleet was still lying off Kronshtadt:

By Her Imperial Majesty's Decree, and in reply to Admiral and Cavalier Spiridov's Report, the Admiralty Board is ordered to send to the said Admiral and Cavalier the Third Part of the new books of the Zeydfakel in the Dutch language which contains the Mediterranean and the Archipelago [Aegean Sea] and which is bound in leather with gold-leaf decoration. This book, which is needed by the Admiral and Cavalier for the Expedition entrusted to him and which is kept in the Drawing Office, must be sent by a special boat together with the Decree. All these [instructions] are to be communicated to the Drawing Office staff.44

The many other volumes of the Zee-Fakkel were needed for each ship in the fleet for the journey from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. Besides such

published aids, the officers of the Russian Navy acquired for their ships whatever other foreign material they could, either beforehand or in the course of the expedition. Some came from the

military, such as a French manuscript map of the Morea (Carte de la Moree, 1775-1776) by C.

Abancourt, which shows in a generalized way mountains, roads, towns (including Athens, given as 37?58'01"N), and villages.45

Foreigners helped the Russian cause in other

ways too. In June 1769, twenty Greek merchants, who happened to be in Rostov-on-Don and who

(-sAjlq3Iv IeJleOIsH-AIeIl! DWIS ueissn- aq uioij uoissiwuIad qilm pamnpojda-) LS 'I 'Z9 P 'I do 'bti *J 'VIA UI3 - X lb 8LL I - 'umoulun ioqnV (OOO'OS:I ') 13aJ qsllSuI L jo suifzvs uF Ios 5 JO uope!ap ssedwo pjeMisaM e uo pas1q sI Jueq aqaj s8uipunos uioij uajei sqidap pue auIliseo paAuAns qiM 'euAs 'elleH pue exiv ua;Miaq pealspeow aq jo ueqp idi snueW ? -!1

Fig. 4. A manuscript view of the island town of Monemvasia (Malvasia), Morea, southeastern Greece. Author unknown; c.1770s. 44 x 27 cm. RGVIA, f. 434, file 1, no. 92. (Reproduced with permission from the Russian State Military-Historical

Archives.)

were eager to fight for Greek independence, were

accepted as volunteer crew members in the Russian

Navy. They proved to be good sailors and a great asset to the Russian chartmakers dealing with Greek geographical names.46 Another participant of Greek origin, Lieutenant Nikolay Kumani, was also invaluable when it came to charting the coasts of his native land.47

An examination of surviving manuscript charts and related correspondence shows that the proce- dures used for hydrographical surveys and charting were more or less standard at the time. Owing to the hostility of the Turks and the shortage of time, much had to be done by reconnaissance. Never-

theless, the officers of the Russian fleet achieved a

great deal. Although the original manuscript charts lack a geographical grid, compass variations are noted and latitude is indicated on at least one chart

(that of the west coast of the island of Skiros). There are many indications in the charts' titles of their

being nautical and accurate.48 We may assume that most were compiled from astronomical determina- tions of latitude; indeed, the ships' logs contain

many such determinations.49 That some charts

were based on land surveys is made clear by their titles. That of Auzia reads, Special chart of the port of Auzia, described with an accurate survey with all accessories on shore ...50

From the start of the Aegean survey, a major concern was to ensure a satisfactory linkage between individual charts. Vilim Fondezin, a

Captain of the First Rank, reported on the matter:

To his excellency, the high-born Grigoriy Andreyevich Spiridov, Admiral and Cavalier of many Orders. From Captain of the Fleet Fondezin. A most humble Report. On the strength of your high excellency's order, sent to me on 28 March last, it was directed that, if Lieutenant Sukovatyy together with his mates, who had been sent on the frigate 'Zapasnyy' under the command of Lieutenant Fyodorov, had not previously surveyed the Argo Islands, then they should make an accurate survey of them; on this [Order] I am reporting my obedience, and that the said Argo and Plipso islands have already previously been linked by bearings, and that now the said Lieutenant Sukovatyy together with navigators sent with him, as well as the navigators from all the ships of my own squadron, together with their mates, have carried out an accurate survey of those islands; and as regards connecting them to other islands by bearings, then during my voyage I shall make every effort in the same way in so far as while cruising I shall happen to visit those places which by 89

Fig. 5. Manuscript plan of the castle of St Maura, Greece, captured from the French on 4 November 1798, by Pyotr Puzanov. 71 X 50 cm. RGVIA, f. 434, op. 1, d. 120. (Reproduced with permission from the Russian State Military-Historical Archives.)

reason of their convenience will fit in with the survey, then all such places I shall not fail to survey.

Captain of the Fleet Vilim Fondezin. 3 April 1773.51

As Fondezin's report indicated, every opportunity was used to obtain data which would enable the individual islands of the Aegean to be located

correctly by multiple bearings. In 1771 Russian officers compiled the Kratkoye

khorograficheskoye opisaniye Arkhipelaga s topografiyey kazhdogo iz os'mnadtsati ostrovov, kotoryye nyne nakho-

dyatsya pod vladeniyem Yeya Velichestva Imperatritsy vserossiyskoy [Short Chorographical Description of the Archipelago with a Topography for Each of the

Eighteen Islands Which Are Now under the Sway of Her Majesty the Empress of All the Russias], a

geographical description of the Aegean with special attention to the islands, a number of which had in that year been transferred to Russian sovereignty.52 The compilation of the Description was closely connected with work for the charts and reflects normal practice in Russian large-scale cartography in the eighteenth century, when geographical and statistical descriptions were considered an essential

90 outcome of distant or foreign exploration.

tin 1775 Captain Fondezin handed over all field records and the charts that were completed to the new Fleet Admiral with an inventory, 'the list of four

wooden boxes and one iron chest dispatched to His

High Excellency Vice-Admiral ... Andrey Vlas'yevich Yel'manov'.53 The inventory details 79 charts and

drawings, many of which are no longer to be found in the State Historical Museum or in any other Russian archive. Some of the material sent by Fondezin was not directly connected with the charting of the

Aegean. There were maps of the Black, Azov and

Caspian seas, for instance, as well as architectural

drawings and technical sketches relating to the construction of ships and pumps. By March 1776, as the expedition came to an end, Vice-Admiral General Ivan Golenishchev-Kutuzov, director of the Naval Cadet Corps for the Gentry, personally began the

cataloguing and study of all charts and ships' logs.54

The hydrographical material and technical experi- ence gained by Navy surveyors and chartmakers

during the First Archipelago Expedition not only were reflected in the creation of the Atlas of the

Archipelago but also were to prove of immense

practical value. In 1778 a Russian Navy squadron set

sail for the Mediterranean under the command of F.

F. Ushakov's Mediterranean Expedition (1778-

1780). And 1805 saw the embarkment of the

Second Archipelago Expedition, under D. N. Senya-

vin, which lasted for two years, and which will be

the subject of a further article in Imago Mundi.

Meanwhile, in conclusion here, mention should

be made of the subsequent editions of the Atlas of

the Archipelago and allied atlases and charts. In 1798

a second edition of the atlas was published. A year

later some of the results of Ushakov's Mediterra-

nean Expedition were published as a continuation

of the Archipelago atlas under the title Morskoy atlas

k plavaniyu ot Arkhipelaga do beregov Frantsii [The Naval Atlas of a Voyage from the Archipelago to the

French Shores], published in St Petersburg in

1799.55 Ushakov's atlas included a number of

foreign charts (mainly for the Mediterranean

waters west of the Aegean), for it seems that on

this expedition Russian officers carried out only a

few surveys of their own. One of these was Peter

Puzanov's Plan kreposti Svya. Mavry, vzyatoy u

Frantsuzov 1789 goda noyabrya 4 dnya v ostrove

Mavry. Snimal artillerii kanstapel' Pyotr Puzanov

[Plan of St Maura Castle, captured from the French

on 4 November 1789] (Fig. 5).56 Other material-

including a French battle plan of the island of

Corfu,Carte de l'Ile de Corfou prise sur les Francois par

les Escadres Combindes de sa Majeste Imperial 1'Emper-

eur des Ottomans et de Sa Majeste Imperial I'Empereur de toutes les Russies. Dressee . . . par Kauffer Ing. au

Service de la Subline Porte le 29 mars 1799-was

captured.57 Notes written on this manuscript plan in Turkish as well as in French explain the progress of the military action (Plate 5). Ushakov's officers

limited their cartographical efforts to sketching a

view of Corfu Town which, as an inscription on the

plan testifies, 'had been made very hurriedly and

would be exchanged for an accurate [plan] later

on'.58 The author of the view was Captain-

Lieutenant Telesnitsky, whose work was counter-

signed by Vice-Admiral Ushakov (Plate 6).

A version of this paper was read to the 18th International Conference on the History of Cartography, Athens, July 1999.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. B. P. Ivanov, 'K istorii Rossiyskoy kartografii 17 v.' [On the history of Russian cartography in the seventeenth century], Izvestiya Kar'kovskogo otdela Geograficheskogo obshchestva, Vypusk 1 (Khar'kov, 1963): 133-34; 'K istorii kartografii russkogo severa' [On the history of the cartography of the Russian north], Vestnik Khar'kovskogo

universiteta. Seriya Geologo-geograficheskaya, Vypusk 2, no. 25 (1967): 97-99.

2. Aleksey V. Postnikov, Razvitiye krupnomasshtabnoy kartografii v Rossii [The Development of large-scale cartography in Russia] (Moscow, Nauka, 1989): 16-17. Mercator's map was published in his Atlas sive cosmogra- phicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura, 1595 (see Russian State Library, St Petersburg, KolO, map 7).

3. Based on a communication from Jan Smits, Map Curator, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, on the Map History Discussion List, 1999. There are copies of this map in Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschap- pen NIWI [Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences] and KITLV [Royal Institute for Language, Geography and Ethnology]. It was published in facsimile by S. Muller (1878) and in an annotated facsimile with commentary in Dutch in the series Werken uitgegeven door De Linschoten-Vereniging [Works published by the Linschoten Society], No. 23 (1924).

4. Andrew Farquharson (Ferguson), a Scottish-born professor of mathematics at Aberdeen University, served in Russia from 1699. He taught mathematics, geodesy, cartography and naval sciences at the Moscow Mathema- tical-Navigational School and the St Petersburg Naval Academy. He also conducted surveys for the Moscow-St Petersburg road (1709). Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, a French astronomer and cartographer, was professor at the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1726-1747). As the first director of the Russian Astronomical Observatory, he began systematic observations and precise geodetic sur- veys in Russia.

5. For more detail see J. Abbing, 'Nederlandse graveurs in dienst van Peter de Grote, Spiegel Historiael 24:6 (1989): 269-71; S. R. Potter, 'Essence of eighteenth-century Russian cartography', Osaka Dakuin Daikagu Tsushin 19:3 (1988): 35-68; P. Kokkonen, 'Map printing in early eighteenth-century Russia', Fennia 170 (1992): 1-24.

6. Istoriya gidrograficheskoy sluzhby Rossiyskogo Flota (k 300-letiyu Voyenno-Morskogo Flota). Tom 3: Khronika vazh- neyshikh sobytiy [History of the Hydrographic Service of the Russian Fleet, Vol. 3: Chronicle of the Most Important Events] (St Petersburg, 1996), 12, 20.

7. F. A. Shibanov, 'Russkaya polevaya astronomiya v 18 veke' [Russian field astronomy in the eighteenth century], Uchonyye zapiski Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta', Seriya geograficheskikh nauk, no. 226; Vypusk 12: Kartografiya (1958): 5-6.

8. The main texts were Jean Bouguer, Traite complet de la navigation contenant les propositions & practique de geometrie, un traite de la sphere &e d'astronomie, les tables ephemerides du mouvment du soleil . . les regles generales de la navigation, par les cartes marines . .. e&c, le tout clairment demontre & explique. . .. par le sieur Bouguer . .. Nouvellement revu, corrige & augmente par l'auteur (Paris, 1706). This was augmented by Semyon Gur'yev, Navigatsionnyye ili more- khodnyye issledovaniya. Sochineny gospodinom Bezu; s Frant- suzskogo podlinnika na Rossiyskoy yazyk perevedeny i dopolneny Semyonom Gur'yevym [Navigational or Sea-faring Researches. Composed by Mr Bezu; translated from the French original into Russian and supplemented by Semyon Gur'yev] (St Petersburg, 1790).

9. Gavriil Sarychev, Pravila, prinadlezhashchiye k Morskoy geodezii, sluzhashchiye nastavleniyem, kak opisyvat' morya, berega, ostrova, zalivy, gavani i reki, plavaya na bol'shikh parusnykh i malykh grebnykh sudakh, tak'e [takzhe] i iduchi s meroyu po beregu, s pokazaniyem, kak sochinyat' morskiye karty, i na onykh raspolagat' opisannyye mesta. Sochineno 91

Kontr-admiralom Sarychevym (St Petersburg, pri Morskoy Tipografii, 1804).

10. Cornelis Cruys (1657-1727), admiral of Dutch origin, was accepted into the Russian service in 1698. In 1699 he took part in the Kersch' campaign as commander of the Blagoye Nachalo. From 1704 to 1713, he commanded the Baltic and Azov fleets, taking part in the Northern War and the war against Turkey.

11. Soymonov and Verden were helped by V. Urusov. Fyodor Ivanovich Soymonov (1692-1780), Russian hydrographer and statesman, produced atlases of the Caspian and Baltic seas, several works on the economy and geography of Siberia, and other historical writings, such as a history of Peter the Great. He was governor of Siberia, 1757-1763, and a member of the Senate, 1763- 1766. 12. I. I. Golikov, Deyaniya Petra Velikogo [The Deeds of

Peter the Great], Part 8 (Moscow, 1789): 36. 13. Generalis Totius Imperii Russorum Novissima Tabula

Magnam Orbis terrarum partem a Polo Arctico usque ad mare Iaponicum et Chinae Septentrionalis confinia exhibens cum via Czaricae nuper Legationis ex urbe Moscua per universam Tartarium ad Magnae Chinae Imperatorem and Geographica Nova ex Oriente gratiosissima, duabus tabulis specialissimis contenta, quarum una Mare Caspium, altera Kamtzadaliam seu Terram Jedso curiosem exhibent editore.

14. Fyodor I. Soymonov, Atlas Baltiyskago morya [Atlas of the Baltic Sea] (St Petersburg, Naval Academy, 1738). This atlas was modelled on the Atlas of the Varangian Sea (1723), the second edition of Kniga razmernaya gradusnykh kart Ost-Zee ili Varyazhskogo morya (St Petersburg, 1714), which was a Russian translation of Rosenfeldt's atlas. See Pellervo Kokkonen, 'Practice of marine cartography and the Russian representation of the Baltic Sea in the eighteenth century', Fennia 175 (Helsinki, 1997): 52-53.

15. Lane and Kozhin surveyed the Gulf between Narva, Lavensar, Seskar, Somers and the Beryozovy islands (Koivisto/Primorsk).

16. The survey of the Estonian coast was started by Gosler and Karl van Verden in 1716-1717; Agazen, Ekgov, Mishukov and Gans continued the survey along the route from Haapsala and Tallin to Kronshtadt betweeen 1719 and 1726, under the direction of Admiral Ivan Lyuberas. See Kokkonen, 'Practice of marine cartography' (note 14), 54.

17. Aleksey Ivanovich Nagayev (1704-1781), hydrogra- pher, vice-admiral, was engaged in a hydrographical survey of the shores of the Caspian Sea from 1730 to 1734. Then in 1739 and 1740 he explored the coast of the Gulf of Finland, and in 1744 and 1745 he compiled maps based on the materials from the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1738-1743). Between 1746 and 1752 he supervised hydrographical surveys in the Baltic, which resulted in a navigational atlas published in 1757. He was also Director of the Morskoy Shlyakhetnyy Kadetskiy Korpus [Naval Cadet Corps for the Gentry] (1764-1766) and a member of the Admiralty Board (1766-1775). In 1763 and 1764 he surveyed Lake Ladoga and compiled maps based on the results of Russian research in the North Pacific. In 1766 he led a survey of the Moskva River.

18. The originals of these charts seem not to have survived; at least I could not find them in the Russian State Navy Archives, Russian State History Archives or Russian State Military-Historical Archives.

19. Kokkonen, 'Practice of marine cartography' (see note 14), 56.

20. Atlas vsego Baltiyskago morya s Finskim i Botnicheskim 92 zalivami, s Shkager-Rakom, Kategatom, Zundom, i Beltami. v

general'nykh morskikh i spetsial'nykh kartakh sostoyashchiy, v kotorom vse Baltiyskago morya raznykh sochineniy morskiye karty sobrany, razsmotreny, i Rossiyskimi plavatelyami na istinnyye mezhdu mest kompasnyye rumby i distantsii privedeny, i vymerennymi po prostranstvu morya, i u beregov glubinami, i vnov' naydennymi tam zhe podvodnymi melyami dopolneny. A v sinuse Finskom vse morskiye berega s ostrovami, shkherami, reydami, zalivami, portami i rechnymi ust'yami, s glubinami pri nikh, i mezhdu shker morya farvaterov so mnogimi vnov' naydennymi melyami, pod vladeniyem Yeya Imperatorskago Velichestva sostoyashchiye, po Ukazu Yeya Imperatorskago Velichestva iz Gosudarstvennoy Admiralteyskoy Kollegii Noyab- rya 2 dnya, 1746 goda vnov' opisany, vymereny, i v istinnykh polozheniyakh ikh, i mezhdu mest kompasnykh rumbakh i distantsiyakh, na morskiya karty, dlya bezopasneyshago Ros- siyskomu flotu plavaniya postavleny Flota Kapitanom, Pervago Ranga Alekseyem Nagayevym. Vyrezyvaniyem k pechati na doskakh okoncheny 1752 goda. Pechatan pri Admiralteyskoy Kollegii v Tipografii morskago Shlyakhetnago kadetskogo Korpusa Aprelya ... dnya, 1757 goda. (St Petersburg, 1757). The atlas was reissued with changes in 1776, 1780, 1788, 1791, 1793 and 1795. 21. For a detailed analysis of this atlas see Kokkonen,

'Practice of marine cartography' (note 14). 22. The Russian surveys of the Baltic have been studied

in some detail by historians of cartography. See Aleksandr I. Alekseyev, 'Russkaya geograficheskaya nauka v 18 veke' [Russian geographical science in the eighteenth century]', Trudy Instituta istorii yestestvoznaniya i tekhniki 37: istoriya geografii i geologii, 2 (Moscow, 1961): 88; Jarl Gallen, 'Baron von Luberas och admiral Nagaev:pionjarer i rysk sjomatning och kartografi', Nautica Fennica 2: Suomem merihistoriallienen yhdistys (no year given); Matti Nurminen, 'Navigare necesse est, vivere non est necesse', in The Routes of the Sea: Sea Chart from the 16th Century to the Present Times (Helsinki: John Nurminen, 1988), 25; Pellervo Kokkonen, 'Map printing in early eighteenth- century Russia', Fennia 170 (1992): 13-15. 23. Russian State Military-Historical Archives (hereafter

RGVIA), f. VUA, d. 23789. One verst equals 0.66 mile or 1.067 kilometres. 24. RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 23797. 25. Russian State History Archives (hereafter RGIA), f.

1487, op. 12, d. 5. 26. Two examples are Topograficheskaya karta s proyektom

napravleniya novogo Mariinskogo kanala dlya soyedineniya rek Vytegry i Kovzhiy otkiritiya sudokhodnogo puti iz reki Volgi cherez Onezhskoye i Ladozhskoye ozero [Topographical Map with the Design of a Branch of the New Mariinsk Canal to Connect the Vytegra and Kovzha Rivers and Open Up a Navigation Route from the Volga River through Lakes Onega and Ladoga] and the Karta Vyborgskogo uyezdu pri reke Lindulovoy sostoyashchey Listvenishnoy razszhennoy roshy v proslom 1738 godu a kak nyne onaya po opisi forshmeystera Selivanova sostoit s pokazaniyem v ney lesov, 1781 godu referred to in the text below [Map of Vyborg District along the Lindulova River ...]. RGIA, f. 1487, op. 10, d. 175 (1774-1775), and d. 147. (1785)). 27. Russian Academy of Sciences Library, Manuscript

Department, Map Collection, no. 692. This atlas was used for three decades and copied in 1753 (see Russian State Naval Archives (hereafter RGA VMF), f. 1331, op. 4, d. 748). On canal projects see Konstantin I. Shafranovsky, Proyekt kanala mezhdu rekami Gzhat' i Vorya pervoy chetverti 18 veka [Project of a canal between the Gzhat' and Vorya rivers], Izvestiya AN SSSR, seriya geograficheskaya, no. 1 (1950): 70-72. 28. Islen'yev specifically indicated the catalogue num-

bers of the maps he used (Russian Academy of Sciences Archive (St Petersburg), f. 3, op. 10, d. 183, 1. 29).

29. Russian State Archives of Old Records, f. 192, Yekaterinoslav Guberniy, d. 22.

30. The atlas is now in the Russian National Library, Manuscript Department, Hermitage Collection, d. 610.

31. Ibid, no. 31. A desyatina is a unit of area equal to 2.7 acres or 1.093 hectares.

32. Ibid, no. 5. A sazhen' is equal to 7 feet or 2.134 metres.

33. V. E. Bulatov and A. K. Zaytsev, 'The First Archipelago Expedition of the Russian Navy in 1769- 1774', in V. E. Bulatov, A. K. Zaytsev, Ye. D. Markina and N. Yu. Solov'yova, Atlas arkhipelaga i rukopisnyye karty Pervoy Arkhipelagskoy ekspeditsii russkogo flota 1769-1774 g.g. [Atlas of the Archipelago and Manuscript Charts of the First Archipelago Expedition of the Russian Navy, 1769- 1774] (Moscow, Indrik, 1997), 37-43. 34. Oracles attributed to the Byzantine emperor Leo VI

the Wise (886-912) foretold the liberation of Constanti- nople 320 years after its fall, that is, in 1773. Particular credence was placed in this prophecy, for its fulfilment coincided with the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774.

35. For details, see Arnold Toynbee, The Greeks and Their Heritages (London, 1981); D. A. Zakythinos (Dionysios A. Zakythenos), The Making of Modern Greece: From Byzantium to Independence (London, 1976); Steven Runciman, The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence (London, 1968, reissued 1985).

36. That is 21 July 1774 (new style). 37. The Russians were unable to coordinate their

operations with the rebel Greeks on land, but they won a decisive victory at (esme. The Ottoman fleet was burned, but Orlov, lacking landing forces, did not force the Straits. The Ottomans suffered further setbacks on the Danube, however, The Kyuchuk-Kaynardzhiy Treaty terminated undisputed Ottoman control of the Black Sea and provided a diplomatic excuse for Russian influence in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Later, Russia freely interpreted and employed this provision to support its claims to a protectorate over the Greek Orthodox Christians anywhere in the Ottoman Empire. The pact signed (9 January 1792) at Jassy in Moldavia (modern Iasi, Romania), at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792 confirmed Russian dominance in the Black Sea. The Russian Empress Catherine II the Great had entered the war envisioning a partition of the Ottoman Empire between Russia and Austria and a revival of the Byzantine (Greek) Empire in Istanbul. Her plan failed, however, because of Austria's withdrawal from the war (Peace of Sistova, August 1791) and a lack of organized and massive support from Balkan Christians. The Treaty of Jassy confirmed the earlier Treaty of Kyuchuk-Kaynardzhiy between the two states; it advanced the Russian frontier to the Dniester River, including the fortress of Ochakov, but restored Bessarabia, Moldavia and Walachia to the Ottomans. See 'Kaynarca, Treaty of', 'Greece: History: Greece under Ottoman rule: Belief in divine intervention', and 'Jassy, Treaty of', all in Britannica Online <http://www.eb.com: 180/cgi-bin/g?Doc- F=macro/5002/70/34.html> [accessed 25 August 1998]. For details see books cited in note 35.

38. Atlas Arkhipelaga soderzhashchiy v sebe karty: odnu general'nuyu, shest' chastnykh, pyat'desyat odnu raznuyu zalivov, gavaney, prolivov i drugikh mest vygodnykh dlya lezhaniya na yakore; s prisovokupleniyem tryokh kart Sirskikh beregov. Sochinyon po ukazu Gosudarstvennoy Admiralteyskoy

Kollegii, pri yeya chertyozhnoy, pod smotreniyem i rukovodstvom vitse-admirala i kavalera Ivana Golenishcheva-Kutuzova, flota kapitanom Vilimom Fondezinom i leytenantom Ivanom Berse- nevym. Pechatan v Tipografii Morskogo Shlyakhetnago Kadets- kago Korpusa, 1788 goda. The atlas also contains charts of the coast of Syria, including Karta reydy Verutskoy, lezhashchey v Sirii, opisana meroyu po beregu i glubiny promereny. Karta sdelana na skloneniye kompasa zapadnoye 15.00. Machtab v sazhenyakh semifutovoy mery angliyskogo futa [Chart of Beyrouth roadstead in Syria] and Karta reydy, lezhashchey v Sirii, mezhdu gorodami Akriy i Kayfy; opisan meroyu po beregu i glubiny promereny. Karta zdelana na skloneniye kompasa zapadnoye 15.00. Machtab v sazhenyakh [Chart of the roadstead in Syria between the cities of Acra and Khaifa] reproduced above (Figs 2 and 3). See also Vladimir E. Bulatov and Ye. D. Markina, 'Eighteenth- century charts and atlases in the collection of the State Historical Museum', in Bulatov et al., Atlas of the Archipelago (note 33), 44-46.

39. RGVIA, f. 434, op. 1, d. 62. 40. Bulatov and Markina, 'Eighteenth-century charts

and atlases' (see note 38). 41. The full title of Bersenev's atlas is Atlas sokrashchonn-

nykh kart kak general'noy vsego arkhipelaga, tak i nekotorykh ostrovov i vo onykh portov s promerom glubin i akuratnoy opisi beregov s polozheniyem situatsii, sokrashcheny leytenantom Ivanom Bersen'yevym [Atlas of Summary Charts, both a general one of the Whole Archipelago, and also of Some Islands and Harbours Therein with Soundings and an Accurate Survey of Coasts Together with Their Relief, summarised by Lieutenant Ivan Bersenev]. RGVIA, f. 434, op. 1, d. 59, 1. 1. 42. Ibid., d. 92. 43. Ibid., d. 112. 44. 'Po ukazu Yeya Imperatorskogo Velichestva admir-

alteyskoy kollegii po donosheniyu gospodina admirala i kavalera Spiridova prikazali trebuyemuyu onym gospodi- nom admiralom i kavalerom dlya vruchonnoy yemu Ekspeditsii i khranyashcheysya v chertyozhnoy kamore knig Zeydfakelov novykh na gollandskom yazyke tret'yu' chast', soderzhashchuyu v sebe Sredizemnoye more i Arkhipelag, s liavrom kozhenom s pozolotoyu pereplyote otoslat' k gospodinu admiralu i kovaleru na narochnoy shlyupke pri ukaze. I o tom v chertyozhnuyu komandu soobshchit'. From 'Ob otpravlenii v Sredizemnoye more eskadry pod nachal'stvom admirala Spiridova i kontr- admirala El'finsona' [On the despatch of the squadron to the Mediterranean under Admiral Spiridov's and Rear- Admiral Elphinstone's Command]. RGA VMF, f. 212, op. 4, d. 57, Sheet 135: 1769. 45. RGVIA, f. 434, op. 1, d. 60. 46. 'Donosheniye ot gospodina admirala i kavalera

Spiridova o pribyvshikh k nemu otpravlennykh iz kreposti Svyatogo Dmitriya Rostovskogo dvadtsati chelovekakh grekov, koikh prosil o prinyatii v sluzhbu ... na korabli, 9 iyunya 1769 g.' [Report from Admiral and Cavalier Spiridov about twenty Greeks who have come to him, having been sent from the fortress of St Dmitriy of Rostov, and who he has requested should be taken into service . . on the vessels, 9 June 1769]. RGA VMF, f. 212, op. 4, d. 58, 11. 177-184. 47. Kumani was an educated Russian subject who had

been an officer in the British Navy before serving with his brother in Astrakhan'. On 15 July 1769 he was accepted as an officer in Admiral Spiridov's squadron. See RGA VMF, f. 212, op. 4, d. 57, 11. 149 and 212; and d. 58, 11. 223-236. 93

48. The terms 'nautical' and 'accurate' were usually applied to charts constructed on Mercator's projection. 49. Bulatov and Markina, 'Eighteenth-century charts

and atlases' (see note 38), 45, infer that 'The practical destination of the charts' application had led to the effective abandonment of the degree reticule [grid], since it was not supported by necessary astronomical observations .. . It can be surmised with some degree of probability that the Mediterranean tradition of portolan charts had influenced the charts compiled by the expedi- tion'. There are no grounds at all, however, for Bulatov and Markina's last inference. The officers of the Aegean expedition were highly educated navigators working in an entirely different, Ptolemaic, mapping paradigm. They would have been as familiar with geographical coordi- nates, scales and map projections as are their modern counterparts. Portolan charts, in contrast, were compiled from compass bearings and almost certainly lacked any astronomical inputs. It is unlikely that the Russian officers would have been acquainted with Mediterranean porto- lan charts.

50. Karta spetsial'naya porta Auzy opisany okuratnoyu opis'yu so vsemi prinadlezhnost'mi naberu [na beregu] ...: V. E. Bulatov, Ye. D. Markina and N. Yu. Solov'yova, 'The Catalogue' in Bulatov, Atlas of the Archipelago (see note 33), 52, no. 21. 51. 'Vysokorodnomu vysokoprevoskhoditel'nomu gos-

podinu admiralu i raznykh ordenov kavaleru Grigoriyu Andreyevichu Spiridovu, Flota kapitana Fondezina Pokor- neyshiy raport. Po sile prislannogo ko mne ot Vashego vysokoprevoskhoditel'stva minuvshego marta 28-go dnya ordera veleno: ostrova Argo prislannym na Fregate 'Zapasnom', na kotorom komandir leytenant Fyodorov, leytenantom zhe Sukovatym s ikh matami, bude prezhde ne opisany, to sdelat' akuratnuyu opis'; i na onoye sim Vashemu Vysokoprevoskhoditel'stvu o moyey pokornosti ya donoshu. Chto pomyanutyye ostrova Argo, Plipso i prezhde byli pelengami svyazany, a nyne kak vysheopi- sannym gospodinom leytenantom Sukovatym i s nim

prislannymi shturmanami tak i eskadry moyey vsekh sudov shturmanami s ikh matami tem ostrovam akur- atnaya opis' sdelana; a chto kasayetsya do privyazyvaniya ko onym pelengami drugikh ostrovov, to vo vremya plavaniya skol'ko mozhno starat'sya budu takozh nezheli vo vremya kreysirovaniya sluchitsya byt' v takikh mes- takh, koi po ikh udobnosti sootvetstvovat' budut opisi, to vse takovyye opisat' ne primyanu [preminy]. Flota kapitan Vilim Fondezin. Aprelya 3 dnya 1773 godu'. RGA VMF, f. 190 (Admiral Spiridov), op. 1, d. 34, 1. 25r-: O raznykh predmetakh' [On different Matters].

52. State Historical Museum, Department of Written Sources, f. 445, op. 114, 11. 35v-53r. The title continues: 'since the Severnyy Oryol's [sailors] with the rays of their victories resuscitated those islands, they are in prosperous condition, so that the Turks do not dare to touch them' (Bulatov and Zaytsev, 'The First Archipelago Expedition' (see note 33), 37-43). 53. RGA VMF, f. 188, op. 1, d. 69, 11. 141-144. 54. RGA VMF, f. 'Kants. II', d. 109, 1. 62: Golenishchev-

Kutuzov's Report, 15 March 1776. Among those who worked on the charts in the Admiralty's Drawing Office were Captain Vilim Fondezin and Lieutenant Ivan Bersenev, two officers who had been in the Aegean for the duration of the expedition. See Bulatov and Zaytsev, 'The First Archipelago Expedition' (note 33), 37.

55. See Bulatov and Zaytsev, 'The First Archipelago Expedition' (note 33), 42.

56. RGVIA, f. 434, op. 1, d. 120. 57. Ibid, d. 78; another rougher copy is found at d. 79.

As a result of the dismemberment of the Venetian republic (1797), Corfu was ceded to France and in 1799 was still under the French. However, the French garrison was expelled by a Russian-Turkish fleet, and a joint Russo- Turkish protectorate was established. The Septinsular Republic, as it was called, lasted until the islands were again ceded to the French in 1807 by the treaty of Tilsit.

58. RGVIA, f. 434, op. 1, d. 52.

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La marine russe au XVIIIe siecle: sa contribution a I'hydrographie L'hydrographie moderne en Russie commence avec le regne de Pierre le Grand. Ce dernier crea la marine russe qui devint le principal centre de production cartographique en Russie au XVIIIe siecle. Dans cet article sont analysees les diverses facettes des responsabilites des officiers de marine dans les leves hydrographiques et la cartographie des mers, rivieres, ressources forestieres et autres elements necessaires a la construction navale et au developpement de la navigation, elements egalement essentiels a la defense des interets

geopolitiques russes. L'histoire de la mise en place d'un enseignement naval specialise et la formation des

hydrographes a l'lcole de mathematique et de navigation de Moscou (a partir de 1701) et a l'Academie de marine de Saint-Petersbourg (a partir de 1715) sont presentees dans les grandes lignes, ainsi que les premiers leves hydrographiques effectues en Mer Baltique et en Mer Caspienne. Pour finir, une attention particuliere est accordee aux leves hydrographiques de la Mer Egee realises pendant la guerre russo-turque de 1768- 1774, a leur mise en forme cartographique, aux sources et methodes employees, ainsi qu'a l'atlas peu connu de l'Archipel (1788) dans lequel ces leves furent finalement inseres.

Kartographie in der russischen Marine des 18. Jahrhunderts Die Periode moderner Seekartographie in Rulland begann unter der Regierung Zar Peters des Grogen. Er baute die nationale Marine auf, die der wichtigste Trager der Kartographie im 18. Jahrhundert werden sollte. Dieser Beitrag beschaftigt sich mit den vielfaltigen Aufgaben der Seeoffiziere bei der Kartierung von Meeren, Flussen, Waldbestanden und anderen fur den Schiffbau und die Entwicklung der Seefahrt wichtigen Sachverhalten, die insgesamt fur Rutlands geopolitische Ambitionen von Bedeutung waren. Behandelt werden die Anfange einer spezialisierten nautischen Schulung und die Ausbildung von Vermessungsin- genieuren an der Moskauer Mathematisch-Nautischen Schule (ab 1701) und an der Marineakademie in St. Petersburg (ab 1715) sowie die Vermessungen in der Ostsee und im Kaspischen Meer. Besonderes Augenmerk wird auf die hydrographische Aufnahme und Kartierung der Agais wahrend des Russisch- Turkischen Krieges (1768-1774) gelegt, ebenso auf die Quellen und die dabei angewendeten Methoden sowie auf den kaum bekannten Agais-Atlas (1788), in den die Vermessungsergebnisse eingeflossen sind.

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