How the Russian Geographical Society was built - Russian Geographical Society

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the 19th century, there were enough gaps in the field of geography for every serious expedition to arouse the keenest interest in society. Travelers were honored as heroes, eagerly listened to stories about distant lands and supplemented the maps with fresh data. One of the banquets dedicated to the successfully completed expedition resulted in the creation of the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1843-1844, a circle of statisticians and travelers gathered in St. Petersburg every Saturday. The meetings were devoted to the discussion of new books and maps, or the results of expeditions, and were usually held with one of the academicians - Peter Köppen, Nikolai Nadezhdin or Karl Baer. Meetings at Beer's apartment were particularly successful. In March 1843, he thought about how to somehow limit the number of participants, among whom there were more and more random people. He shared the idea of creating a society with a clearly defined charter with his friends, sailors Fyodor Litke and Baron Ferdinand Wrangel.

“But I have a request - many persons are not needed for founding. Then nothing will come of it. I think five, at most six faces are enough. They will draft a charter, which will be valid for the first three years, and then can be revised by a special commission. If we draw up the charter with the participation of 12-13 people, then we will never finish. In the beginning, only a clear and concise draft is needed … I would very much like only three of us to be present when drawing up the initial plan … at the very least, Gelmersen would be the fourth."

From a letter from Karl Baer to Fyodor Litke dated April 14, 1844

It took almost a year for the idea to "mature". On March 24, 1845, Alexander Middendorf, who had just returned from a trip to Eastern Siberia, was honored at Baer's house. The expedition was conceived and organized by Baer, but he himself did not manage to go there, so Middendorf turned out to be its leader. The trip was exceptional both in terms of the area studied and the amount of scientific evidence. Many wanted to hear Middendorf's story, and on April 4 the Academy of Sciences organized a banquet on this occasion. At Baer's request, a large map of Siberia that belonged to Wrangel was hung on the wall so that any of the guests not related to geography could familiarize themselves with the territory where the expedition took place. Among the guests were friends of Middendorf, as well as members of the circles of statisticians and travelers.

Karl Ernst von Baer. Source: wikipedia.org

The very idea of the dinner was borrowed from the London Geographical Society, where it was customary to honor researchers returning from long trips. 25 years later, marking the anniversary of the Geographical Society, Baer recalled that at the banquet they talked about how the members of this society triumphantly greeted their travelers, and that the question was raised: “Shouldn't Russia, where so much is being done to expand geographical knowledge, have the same society?"

“The idea of the need to found a geographic society in our country has been wandering in my head for a long time. She was especially moved after the banquet we gave to the returning Middendorf in the spring.

From the diary of Fyodor Litke, 1845

Fedor Litke. Collage based on the portrait of S. Zaryanko

After the banquet, things began to move quickly forward. On April 25, Academicians Karl Baer, Peter Köppen and Grigory Gelmersen, as well as ethnographer and author of the famous dictionary Vladimir Dal, geographer and traveler Pyotr Chikhachev and topographer Fyodor von Berg, gathered at Admiral Litke's. Baer also sent an invitation to Academician Vasily Struve, but he was not in St. Petersburg.

"Admiral Litke instructed me, if you come to the city today, to ask you to come to Litke in the evening to take part in the birth of the Geographical Society as an obstetrician."

From a letter from Karl Baer to Vasily Struve, April 25, 1845

The first step was to draw up the charter of the new society. Initially, this task was entrusted to Baer, but literally the next day he transferred it to Litka, providing the latter with examples of the statutes of various non-geographical societies and his own sketches. It was he who came up with the idea to create four sections within the framework of the new organization: physics and mathematics, geography, statistical and ethnographic.

“Can't you come to Wrangel tonight? On the one hand, it would be nice if all the founders of the Society - you, Wrangel and I, would talk a little more about the embryo; on the other hand, I would like to free myself from the undertaken obligation, since the preparations for the trip insistently require me to postpone all extraneous affairs. I also want to grab a dozen statutes of various scientific societies, though not geographic."

From a letter from Karl Baer to Fyodor Litke, April 26, 1845

Litke completed the work without delaying it, and already on April 30, Baer commented on the draft sent to him: “I find the charter and the memo excellent, everything essential is said there. In the future, I would like to offer only a few additional comments. However, the author himself was very critical of his work.

“I am sending you, my dear Ferdinand, for preliminary consideration the drafts I have sketched out in a hurry, which will be proposed to the meeting of the founders. Look at them, please, make your comments and return them to me today, and the sooner the better, so that you can have them delivered to Berg and Baer. Take the trouble to make your comments on a separate piece of paper. I myself am very dissatisfied with this work, but with the state of my head, which is now mine, you can do little worthwhile."

From a letter from Fedor Litke to Baron Ferdinand Wrangel, May 1845

Litke was in a hurry: it was important for him to hand over the charter and the memorandum before May 10, because the next day he had to leave on a journey to the Black Sea with his seventeen-year-old pupil, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich.

Lev Perovsky. Source: wikipedia.org

There was a hitch with the name of the society: the Minister of Internal Affairs Lev Perovsky, who was supposed to present the charter and a note to the emperor, made a proposal to make it "Geographic and statistical". There was less than a week left: Perovsky received the documents on May 6, and they had to be corrected. “Confident in advance in the agreement of the venerable founders, I immediately authorized Dahl to put the Geographic-Statistical Society in my projects wherever needed and to accept Perovsky's proposal with gratitude,” wrote Baer Litke. The academician did not object to the new name, but he treated it quite ironically.

“For the egg we laid, we need a large brood hen with wide and powerful wings; if the hen found by Dahl, only on the condition that we give the chicken a longer name, and in return promises him a rich dowry, like some princess, then I find this requirement fair. Princesses even have three or more names. However, in life they are called only by one name. And we should have stuck with that."

From a letter from Karl Baer to Fyodor Litke, May 7, 1845

In the most loyal report that Perovsky presented to Nicholas I on July 2, 1845, he himself abbreviated the name of the society - in his document it became simply statistical. But the sovereign, who was somewhat wary of statistics, gave permission to create the Geographical Society, and so everything returned to normal.

In his memorandum, the minister asked permission to establish the Geographical Society, to leave benefits from the treasury up to 10,000 rubles in silver, to be allowed to have his own seal with the coat of arms and to use the free mailing of correspondence on the Society's affairs. Perovsky, the Society owes its first chairman, who, to some bewilderment of the founders, was the young pupil of Litke, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich.

“… Adjutant General Litke added to this that the future society would consider itself quite happy, and the success of its enterprise assured, if Your Majesty would be pleased to grant him the presidency of His Imperial Highness. book Konstantin Nikolaevich, known for his love of exact sciences."

From the memo of Lev Perovsky presented to Emperor Nicholas I

On August 6 (18), 1845, the Imperial Order of Emperor Nicholas I approved the presentation of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire, Count Lev Perovsky, on the creation of the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg. Now this date is considered the day of foundation of the Russian Geographical Society.

The highest command of Nicholas I on the establishment of the Russian Geographical Society

Litke himself, to whom Perovsky wrote that “the founders expressed a desire to propose led. book the title of chairman of the Society , was slightly discouraged by the decision, but since the will of the sovereign should not be challenged, he took up more practical issues - preparations for the inauguration of the Society. However, he himself was still on the journey with Konstantin Nikolaevich, so he entrusted all the necessary organizational work to Wrangel.

From a letter from Fyodor Litke to Baron Ferdinand Wrangel, August 30, 1845

On October 7, 1845, the first general meeting of the Russian Geographical Society took place in the large conference hall of the Academy of Sciences.