Fake Atlas of the Russian Empire of 1745

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

Maps from the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1768-1771, are interesting in demonstrating not only the polygraphic level of that time, but also the real state of geographical representations. Can you imagine that the king, lords and other aristocrats of the "nautical nation", "rulers of the seas" bought outdated information for a lot of money?

The fact that the publishers not only did not end up in jail for hack-work, but immediately continued publishing the encyclopedia, increasing the volume, additionally proves that everything was originally done by them with high quality, super-duper, high-end. The first edition of Britannica, 1768-1771, consisted of three volumes, 2670 pages, 160 tabs with illustrations; second edition 1777-1784 of 10 volumes, 8595 pages, 340 pictures; third edition 1788-1797 - 18 volumes, 14579 pages, 542 illustrations.

Continuing the study of the 1771 map of Europe from Britannica, begun in the previous note, for convenience I repeat a couple of maps: on the left is a fragment of the Shokalsky map (river basins), on which a red line separates the watershed of the Baltic and White Sea river basins, and the red arrows above and below show the main directions colonization from the seas; on the right of the same map added toponyms of interest to us, taken from the map from Britannica:

Now we cut out fragments from the map on the right and add the corresponding fragment (as far as we could with different projections) from the 1771 Britannica map. In both fragments, for ease of study, red dots mark cities near the rivers of the Baltic and White Seas, and green dots mark cities near the rivers of the Black and Caspian Seas:

Now we consider and mark some points not even for discussion, but just to get imbued with what the British aristocracy saw then:

- there is no Veliky Novgorod, on the Volkhov only old Ladoga, which seems to have no place here;

- Narva is, Revel (Tallinn) is, Pleskov (Pskov) too, but Veliky Novgorod is not;

- but some Novgorod is found near Smolensk, similar to the place of modern Vitebsk;

- there is no Tver, which was revered by the Oldenburg people as "our third capital".

Yes, okay, then we'll figure it out.

And now I recommend comparing the map of Asia (seemingly from the third edition of Britannica, I must clarify) of the late 18th century with the Shokalsky map of the late 19th century, paying special attention to the configuration of the Pacific coast. Is it true that progress has been noticeable in 100 years?

Such progress became possible not only because geodetic surveys in the 19th century began to be carried out by the triangulation method instead of the ancient "eyeball" survey and measuring distances with a measuring chain.

No, the main achievement was in the decision PROBLEMS OF LONGEVITY … In short: the latitude was measured quite accurately by the angle of ascent of the Sun, the North Star, etc., but the second coordinate, longitude, was very difficult to calculate.

In 1714, in England (by parliament, by the queen?) A huge prize of 20,000 pounds sterling was awarded to anyone who solved the "problem of longitude." Astronomers fought over calculations for the satellites of Jupiter, the passage of the stars by the Moon, etc., but a practically applicable solution, both in accuracy and in real sea conditions, was not found.

In other words, almost until the very end of the 18th century, all maps were a version of a particular captain, a pioneer, or someone's consolidated interpretation of various sources. Everything depended on the accuracy of observations, the ability to use this or that technique and, ultimately, the low accuracy of the technique itself, which is why we see such strong discrepancies with modern ones on old maps.

The "problem of longitude" was solved by the invention of Harrison's chronometer. But it took many years of design improvements from the first working model in 1734 before the chronometer was brought to practical precision in 1761.

So only from 1761, sailors and cartographers had the potential to establish exact longitudes and create really accurate maps, but for this it was still necessary to create a sufficient number of chronometers and go on an expedition with them.

For the first time, the Harrison chronometer was taken by James Cook on his trip around the world in 1768-1771. on the Endeavor, and on his return he spoke highly of the device; the error did not exceed 8 seconds per day (i.e. 2 nautical miles at the equator) for three years of sailing from the tropics to Antarctica. It is not known whether the most recent data of Cook were taken into account in Britannica, it is necessary to compare the time of publication of the volumes with the time of his return to England, but The 1771 map from Britannica is valuable in that it faithfully reflects the ancient geographic ideas about the world before the "era of the chronometer" and can serve as a kind of benchmark for comparative studies.

Now we return to my hypothesis that the Russian Empire in the form in which everyone is used to presenting it began to be created only after the conquests of the war of 1812. In order to substantiate the prescription of ownership, the easiest way is to create appropriate geographical political maps that visually record in the minds of the masses "as it was then / always".

IMHO such remarkable propaganda fakes include the atlas of the Russian Empire of 1745 on the title page of which it is written: sowing empires, through the diligence and labors of the Imperial Academy of Sciences."

From Wikipedia and other sources, we can find out that this Atlas of Russian (download Atlas, PDF, 26.66 Mb):

- a unique work of the early period of Russian cartography, published in 1745 by the Russian Academy of Sciences and recognized as the first official atlas of the Russian Empire, since for the first time it gave wide layers of society an idea of the state as a whole and each of its provinces. It was a logically connected collection of maps with a uniform design style. states;

- the publication of the Atlas was the result of 20 years of work by many cartographers who carried out instrumental surveying of Russian lands by the decree of Peter I and is the pinnacle of Russian cartography at the end of the first half of the 18th century;

- The Atlas was in great demand, and in 1749-1762 additional circulations of 25, 50, 100 copies were repeatedly printed (this is not some 3-thousandth Britannica for you);

- from the moment the Atlas of Russia was published, it has never been reprinted again;

- The Atlas was published in Russian, Latin, German and French.

Why has such a trick of cartography never been reprinted again? After all, almost 50 years have passed before the release of the next one. Choi they printed so little, and even in several languages, for whom was it intended? Duc, they threw agitation in libraries of different countries and recorded the antiquity of the Russian Empire, for those scholars who are suckers who find this atlas in the library and write the history as it should, they say, saw the map with my own eyes. Are they really "the cards don't lie"?

If earlier we blindly trusted what was written by scientists, now we can see a lot with our own eyes and draw independent conclusions.

It is as if in 1745 the title page of the Atlas was printed in the Russian Empire, and a quarter of a century later, in 1769, the first paper money:

Not funny? Now compare the color version of the Atlas of Russia in 1745 with the Shokalsky map of the late 19th century, especially having checked the accuracy of the transmission of the Pacific coast and islands:

view in detail the map from the Atlas of 1745 in high quality

Doesn't it surprise you? Then compare this same map, allegedly from 1745 (for ease of comparison, in black and white) with the maps of Europe from Britannica of the first edition of 1771 and Asia (seemingly from the third edition of 1797):

miracle atlas allegedly of 1745

English maps of 1771 and 1797.

So, I am modestly interested and who did they hang on the ears after all? British aristocrats in 1771 for their back-breaking work of 12 pounds of silver or the whole world completely free?