AT early XIX For centuries, contradictory legends have circulated about this mainland. The first guesses about the existence of the mysterious mainland dawned on travelers on the expedition of Amerigo Vespucci back in 1502.
But the cold stopped the Portuguese sailors many miles from the supposed mainland. James Cook penetrated the Antarctic waters further than others, but he was also stopped by great frosts. Cook believed in the existence of Antarctica.
Faddey Faddeevich Bellingshausen was born on the island of Ezel, into a German noble family. There were many of them in the Russian service - glorious Otssee (Baltic) Germans.
At birth, the future marine pioneer bore a name unusual for the Russian ear: Fabian Gottlieb Thaddeus von Bellingshausen. Nowadays, the island of Ezel is called Saaremaa and is located in Estonia. There were serious battles during the First and Second World Wars.
Bellingshausen did not imagine any other vocation for himself than the naval service. “I was born on the sea, the sea is my whole life,” the captain had such a credo.
Bellingshausen participated in the first Russian round-the-world trip - and earned the trust of Kruzenshtern. But they did not see him as the head of the first Antarctic expedition.
Idea sea travel to the South Pole has been in the air for a long time, but only at the beginning of 1819, Russian sailors turned to the government with detailed plan expeditions.
Emperor Alexander I approved the idea. He was not an enthusiast of the fleet, but in this undertaking he saw the continuation of the great deeds of Peter. And the plan was not shelved, they got down to business energetically.
Who should be appointed as leader? Krusenstern was going to entrust this mission to Vasily Golovnin, but during the preparation of the expedition Golovnin was on a trip around the world.
Bellingshausen's candidacy arose, but the government proposed Makar Ivanovich Ratmanov, a well-known brave man, an experienced captain.
But it was then that Ratmanov was shipwrecked, returning to his homeland from a voyage to Spain. He had to stay in a Danish hospital. So Bellingshausen stood at the head of the expedition, dreaming of discovering the mysterious mainland.
They approached the preparation thoroughly, although mistakes were not avoided. The sloops were built according to the designs of Russian engineers. Masters thoroughly strengthened them - in case of a possible fight with the ice.
The restructuring of the ships was led by Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev - the second captain, the second person in the expedition. Lazarev and recruited a team, meticulously checking experienced sailors. The best went on the expedition.
The Vostok sloop was commanded by Bellingshausen, another sloop, which was called Mirny, was commanded by Lazarev. It was indeed a peaceful mission that required selflessness and courage from the participants. Many years later, the first Soviet Antarctic stations would be named after these ships. "Vostok" proved to be a faster ship, "Mirny" was more reliable, much less likely to require repairs.
In the ministerial instructions, Bellingshausen was ordered not only to step into the unknown, but to record all observations: "Try to write down everything in order to inform future readers of your journey." A perfectly fitting program for the sons of the Age of Enlightenment.
In August, the ships headed for the Atlantic. November 2 anchored in Rio, rested three weeks in Brazil. Replenished stocks, repaired the sloops. And again the ocean.
In mid-December, Bellingshausen and Lazarev saw the islands, discovered by Cook First of all, South Georgia. From there we went to the land of Sandwich. Icebergs appeared. It became frosty - like winter in the Russian north.
It was then that they refuted the assumption of Cook, who declared: “The risk associated with sailing in these unexplored and ice-covered seas in search of the Southern Continent is so great that I can safely say that not a single person will ever dare to penetrate further south, what made it possible for me."
AT last days In 1819, Russian ships were already breaking through the ice - to the South, to the South! On January 15 they crossed the Antarctic Circle.
On January 22, 1821, an unknown island appeared to the eyes of travelers. Bellingshausen called it the island of Peter I - "the high name of the culprit of the existence of Russian Empire navy."
Finally, on January 28 (16th, old style), the sailors saw a bright strip of solid ice and at first mistook it for a bank of clouds. Before them, no one had seen this picture: Antarctica! Bellingshausen led the ships along the ice bulk. He was not yet sure that the mainland was in front of him.
"Here, behind the ice fields fine ice and islands are visible to the mainland of ice, whose edges are broken off perpendicularly and which continues as far as we see, rising to the south like a coast. The flat ice islands located near this mainland clearly show that they are a fragment of this mainland, because they have edges and an upper surface similar to the mainland, ”wrote Faddey Faddeevich.
For a long time they walked along the icy shores - towards dangers. They discovered new islands, gave explanations for natural phenomena. The name of Emperor Alexander I was also immortalized. The existence of Antarctica has been proven.
The expedition was attended by a remarkable scientist, at that time still a young astronomer Ivan Mikhailovich Simonov. He stoically endured all the hardships of the journey. In swimming for a year and a half, Simonov became a competent sailor. He was the first to establish that the South magnetic pole The earth is located at 76 ° south latitude and 142.5 ° east longitude - for that time it was accurate data. He will continue his research at Kazan University, the experience of the expedition will be useful to him for the rest of his life.
The voyage lasted 751 days. Vostok and Mirny traveled almost 50,000 miles.
Bellingshausen showed unprecedented determination: he went towards the cold, did not reckon with the warnings of Cook and other predecessors. At the time, it was an unheard of dangerous journey. Wooden sloops had to maneuver through the fog among the ice and icebergs.
Experienced sailors said that Bellingshausen and Lazarev were accompanied by the blessing of the Lord. They went through all the misfortunes with minimal losses, achieved the most daring goal - and returned alive. It was seen as a miracle.
This was a miracle - bold, but prudent navigation. Two captains, two outstanding naval commanders, for a common cause, they knew how to tame ambition. How often contradictions between commanders appear in campaigns, how often this hinders success. Bellingshausen and Lazarev worked in concert.
Russian ships circled the entire Antarctic continent. Dozens of new islands were discovered and mapped, unique natural science and ethnographic collections were collected and stored at Kazan University. Made excellent sketches of Antarctic species and animals living there.
The most severe continent on earth became related to Russia. It was in Antarctica, at the Soviet station Vostok, on July 21, 1983, scientists noted the most low temperature air on Earth for the entire history of meteorological measurements: 89.2 degrees below zero.
His capital work "Double surveys in the South Arctic Ocean and sailing around the world on the sloops Vostok and Mirny…” Thaddeus Bellingshausen finished in 1824, but the publication had to wait seven years. The book was translated into several languages, it aroused the admiration of specialists, and was reprinted more than once in our time.
Bellingshausen will finish his service with the rank of admiral, as military governor-general of Kronstadt. Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev will also rise to the rank of admiral, become commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and bring up a galaxy of outstanding naval commanders: Nakhimov, Kornilov, Putyatin.
And yet, the finest hour of both outstanding navigators is precisely January 1820, the blinding ice of the mysterious mainland. A discovery that is not subject to cancellations and revisions. The names of the heroes are forever written in the ice. They were ahead of their time for a long time: attempts to explore Antarctica will begin only after 70 - 75 years!
Not far off is the bicentenary of the glorious expedition, which is associated with, perhaps, the loudest of Russian geographical discoveries.
Until now, there is no worthy feature film about the feat of the Columbuses of Antarctica, but a short cartoon of 1972 based on the script by Leonid Zavalnyuk, in which the old sailor tells the guys about the expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev, remained in my memory.
There are also good children's books about brave travelers. And, therefore, the memory of the pioneer sailors lives in generations.
People theoretically knew about the existence of the sixth continent from early XVI century. Expedition 1501-1502 explored the polar latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere and landed on the shores of the island of South Georgia. The cold prevented the navigator from moving further to the Pole, solid ice and hummocks. After that, the secrets of Antarctica attracted the discoverers to it. On the maps, the mainland appeared long before a human foot set foot there, and even before the ice-covered land was seen. Previously believed that this continent is the southern tip Latin America or even Australia, as, for example, in the 1513 map of Pirireis.
But who discovered Antarctica first? And what does "open" mean? Had seen? Did you step on the beach? Hoisted a flag? There is no consensus on this matter. The Russians believe that the honor of discovering the continent fell to the expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev (January 1820), while the British are sure that Edward Bransfield discovered Antarctica (also in January 1820). The Americans award the laurels of the discoverer of the new continent to Nathaniel Palmer (November 1820). All three of these expeditions only saw the shores rising to the sky, but they could not approach them due to the vast expanse of ice. The Frenchman Dumont d'Urville was the first to guess to hoist the flag of his country, but he did it, as it turned out, on the island, and not on a vast stretch of land.
The Dutch have their own answer to the question of who discovered Antarctica. According to them, the captain of the ship, Dirk Geeritz, did this back in 1559. After a storm that raged, the ship lost contact with the squadron and mistakenly headed south. When the weather cleared, the Dutch saw the "high land" and determined their coordinates - 64 ° S. sh. However, Geeritz himself never claimed to be the discoverer of the mainland, and we do not know what he meant by "high land" - perhaps it was one of the islands, of which there are many on the shelf of the continent.
In January 1773, James Cook approached 67 ° S on the ships "Resolution" and "Adventure", where he was stopped by ice. Not satisfied with what he had achieved, he returned to next year and reached 71 ° 15 "south latitude, however, since it was moving southwest of land, it never reached and did not even see it. But the American ship Cecilia was lucky to approach the shores of the mainland a year after the Russian expedition, in 1821 But people did not land on the shore.If we judge who discovered Antarctica by the fact of landing on the shore, then here we find disagreement.
January 23, 1895 is considered the official date of the first landing of a man on the continental, and not the shelf ice of this mysterious part of the land. This honor fell to two Norwegians: the captain of the fishing ship "Antarctic" Christensen and passenger Karlsten Borchgrövink, a science teacher. The teacher, in fact, persuaded the captain of an industrial ship, far from ambitious claims, to launch the boat into the water and moor to the shore. There Borchgrövink collected samples rocks and described the Antarctic lichen he saw. But Argentinean scientists dispute the primacy of the Norwegians, assuring that it is impossible to find out who discovered Antarctica, since these people did not leave behind any written evidence. Archaeologists have discovered on the shores of the mainland the remains of houses and household items that date back to the beginning of the 18th century. Unknown whalers of unknown nationality took their secret to the grave.
Be that as it may, the merit of the Russian expedition to mankind is undeniable. Bellingshausen and Lazarev circled the mainland and proved that it was surrounded by seas on all sides. The weather in Antarctica is not conducive to moving inland: even in summer, the ice cover does not melt there. It is thanks to him that the continent is considered the highest - its average height is more than 2 thousand meters, and the highest high point(Vinson massif) - 5140 meters. led to no less ambitious and risky plans for mankind to get to South Pole. Discovery laurels belong to Amundsen (1911-12).
It was actually discovered in 1820, when on January 16 (28) an expedition led by the great Russian seafaring officers Mikhail Lazarev and Thaddeus Bellingshausen noticed an unknown land nearby. This land turned out to be the sixth, the last of the discovered globe- Antarctica.
The distance traveled by the Mirny and Vostok boats was 100,000 km.
The expedition members managed to accomplish what was previously considered impossible.
Indeed, back in 1775, the famous James Cook, who could not break through the ice (he stopped about two hundred kilometers from Antarctica), wrote in his diaries that not a single person could move south further than him.
The Russian expedition did not land on the coast of Antarctica, and this is one of the reasons for the disputes about the discovery of the continent.
The expedition of Lazarev and Bellingshausen lasted a little more than two years (751 days), and the path they covered was equal to two trips around the world.
Discovery of Antarctica: speculation and assumptions
The version about the existence of the continent itself was expressed in the second century AD by the ancient Greek geographer and astronomer Ptolemy. However, his assumptions for many centuries were not confirmed by scientific facts.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese, led by Amerigo Vespucci, reached the island of South Georgia, but returned due to extreme cold, which none of the members of the flotilla could endure. In 1775 James Cook went deep into Atlantic waters, but he could not break through the cold and ice close to the mainland, and was also forced to retreat. Although he was in the existence of Antarctica.
Whoever set foot on earth first discovered
Recently, the assertion that it is not open until a person has set foot on it has become popular. Hence, another date for the “discovery” of the sixth continent is January 23, 1895, when the Norwegians Christensen (the captain of the Antarctic ship) and Carlsen Borchgrevink (teacher natural sciences) reached the coast of Antarctica and landed on its land.
Their expedition managed to get samples of minerals and describe the aurora. A few years later, Borchgrevink returned to Antarctica, but already as the leader of an expedition called the Southern Cross.
Only 120 years have passed since the beginning of human exploration of the continent known as Antarctica (1899), and almost two centuries since the time when sailors first saw its shores (1820). Long before the discovery of Antarctica, most early explorers were convinced that there was a large southern mainland. They called it Terra Australis incognita - the Unknown Southern Land.
The origins of ideas about Antarctica
The idea of its existence came to the mind of the ancient Greeks, who had a penchant for symmetry and balance. There must be a large continent in the South, they postulated, to balance the large landmass in the Northern Hemisphere. Two thousand years later great experience geographical research gave Europeans enough reason to pay attention to the South to test this hypothesis.
16th century: first erroneous discovery of the southern continent
The history of the discovery of Antarctica begins with Magellan. In 1520, after he had sailed through the strait that now bears his name, the famous navigator suggested that its southern coast (we now know that it is the island of Tierra del Fuego) might be the northern edge of the great continent. Half a century later Francis Drake established that the alleged "continent" of Magellan was only a series of islands near the tip of South America. It became clear that if indeed there is a southern continent, then it is located further to the south.
XVII century: a hundred years of approaching the goal
In the future, from time to time, sailors, carried off course by storms, again discovered new lands. They often lay further south than any previously known. So, when trying to navigate around Cape Horn in 1619, the Spaniards Bartolomeo and Gonzalo García de Nodal veered off course, only to find tiny patches of land that they called the Diego Ramirez Islands. They remained the southernmost of the open lands for another 156 years.
The next step on a long journey, the end of which was to mark the discovery of Antarctica, was taken in 1622. Then the Dutch navigator Dirk Gerritz reported that in the region of 64 ° south latitude, he allegedly discovered a land with snow-capped mountains, similar to Norway. The accuracy of his calculation is doubtful, but it is possible that he saw the South Shetland Islands.
In 1675, the ship of the British merchant Anthony de La Roche was carried far to the southeast of the Strait of Magellan, where at a latitude of 55 ° he took refuge in an unnamed bay. During his stay on this landmass (which was almost certainly the island of South Georgia), he also saw what he thought was the coast of the Southern Continent to the southeast. In reality, these were most likely the Clerk Rocks Islands, which lie 48 kilometers southeast of South Georgia. Their location corresponds to the shores of Terra Australis incognita, placed on the map of the Dutch East India Company, which at one time studied de La Roche's reports.
18th century: the British and French take over
The first truly scientific search, the purpose of which was the discovery of Antarctica, took place at the very beginning of the 18th century. In September 1699, the scientist Edmond Halley sailed from England to establish the true coordinates of ports in South America and Africa, measure the Earth's magnetic field and search for the mysterious Terra Australis incognita. In January 1700, he crossed the border of the Antarctic Convergence Zone and saw icebergs, which he recorded in the ship's log. However, cold stormy weather and the danger of colliding with an iceberg in the fog forced him to turn back to the North.
The next forty years later was the French navigator Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozière, who saw an unknown land at 54 ° south latitude. He named it "Cape of Circumcision", suggesting that he had found the edge of the Southern Continent, but it was actually an island (now called Bouvet Island).
The Fatal Delusion of Yves de Kergulen
The prospect of making the discovery of Antarctica attracted more and more new sailors. Yves-Joseph de Kergulin sailed with two ships in 1771 with specific instructions to search for the southern continent. On February 12, 1772, in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, he saw land shrouded in fog at 49 ° 40 ", but could not make a landing due to stormy sea and bad weather. A firm belief in the existence of the legendary and hospitable southern continent blinded him and made him believe that he had actually discovered it, although the land he saw was an island. Returning to France, the navigator began to spread fantastic information about the densely populated continent, which he modestly called "New Southern France". His stories convinced the French government to invest in another expensive expedition. In 1773, Kergulen returned to the mentioned object with three ships, but never set foot on the shore of the island, which now bears his name. Worse, he was forced to admit the truth and, returning to France, spent the rest of his days in disgrace.
James Cook and the search for Antarctica
The geographical discoveries of Antarctica are to a large extent connected with the name of this famous Englishman. In 1768 he was sent to the South Pacific to search for a new continent. He returned to England three years later with a variety of new information of a geographical, biological, and anthropological nature, but found no sign of the southern continent. The desired shores were again pushed further south from their previously assumed location.
In July 1772, Cook sailed from England, but this time, on the instructions of the British Admiralty, the search for the southern continent was the main mission of the expedition. During this unprecedented voyage, which lasted until 1775, he crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time in history, discovered many new islands and deepened south to 71 ° south latitude, which no one had previously succeeded in.
However, fate did not give James Cook the honor of becoming the discoverer of Antarctica. Moreover, as a result of his expedition, he gained confidence that if there is an unknown land near the pole, then its area is very small and is of no interest.
Who was lucky enough to make the discovery and exploration of Antarctica
After the death of James Cook in 1779 European countries for forty years they stopped searching for the great southern continent of the Earth. Meanwhile, in the seas between the previously discovered islands, near the still unknown continent, whalers and hunters of sea animals: seals, walruses, and fur seals were already in full swing. Economic interest in the subpolar region grew, and the year of the discovery of Antarctica was steadily approaching. However, only in 1819, the Russian Tsar Alexander I ordered to send an expedition to the southern polar regions, and thus the search was continued.
The head of the expedition was none other than Captain Thaddeus Bellingshausen. He was born in 1779 in the Baltic States. He began his career as a naval cadet at the age of 10 and graduated from the Naval Academy in Kronstadt at the age of 18. He was 40 when he was called to lead this exciting journey. Its purpose was to continue Cook's work during the voyage and move as far south as possible.
The already well-known navigator Mikhail Lazarev was appointed deputy head of the expedition. In 1913-1914. he made a round-the-world trip as a captain on the sloop "Suvorov". What else is Mikhail Lazarev known for? The discovery of Antarctica is a bright, but not the only impressive episode from his life dedicated to serving Russia. He was the hero of the Battle of Navarino at sea with the Turkish fleet in 1827, and for many years he commanded the Black Sea Fleet. His students were the famous admirals - the heroes of the first Sevastopol defense: Nakhimov, Kornilov, Istomin. His ashes deservedly rest with them in the tomb of the Vladimir Cathedral in Sevastopol.
Expedition preparation and composition
Its flagship was the 600-ton Vostok corvette, built by British shipbuilders. The second ship was the 530-ton Mirny sloop, a transport vessel built in Russia. Both ships were made of pine. Lazarev commanded the Mirny, who was in charge of preparing the expedition and did a lot to prepare both ships for sailing in the polar seas. Looking ahead, we note that Lazarev's efforts were not in vain. It was the Mirny that showed excellent driving performance and endurance in cold waters, while the Vostok was put out of sailing for a month ahead of schedule. A total of 117 crew members had the Vostok, and 72 were on board the Mirny.
Start of the expedition
She started on July 4, 1819. In the third week of July, the ships arrived in Portsmouth, England. During a short stay, Belingshausen went to London to meet with the president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banky. The latter forty years ago sailed with Cook and now supplied the Russian sailors with books and maps left over from the campaigns. On September 5, 1819, Bellingshausen's polar expedition left Portsmouth, and by the end of the year they were near South Georgia Island. From here they headed southeast to the South Sandwich Islands and made a thorough survey of them, discovering three new islands.
Russian discovery of Antarctica
On January 26, 1820, the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle, the first time since Cook did so in 1773. The next day her journal shows what the sailors saw Antarctic continent while being 20 miles away. The discovery of Antarctica by Bellingshausen and Lazarev took place. Over the next three weeks, the ships cruised continuously in coastal ice, trying to approach the mainland, but they failed to land on it.
Forced sailing in the Pacific
February 22 "Vostok" and "Mirny" suffered from the strongest three-day storm for the entire time of the campaign. The only way to keep the ships and crews was to return to the north, and on April 11, 1820, the Vostok arrived in Sydney, and the Mirny entered the same harbor eight days later. After a month of rest, Bellingshausen took his ships on a four-month exploratory voyage to Pacific Ocean. Arriving back in Sydney in September, Bellingshausen was notified by the Russian consul that an English captain named William Smith had discovered a group of islands at the 67th parallel, which he called the South Shetland and proclaimed them part of the Antarctic continent. Bellingshausen immediately decided to take a look at them himself, hoping in the process to find a way to continue further south.
Return to Antarctica
On the morning of November 11, 1820, the ships left Sydney. On December 24, the ships crossed the Antarctic Circle again after an eleven-month break. They soon encountered storms that pushed them northward. The year of the discovery of Antarctica was ending hard for Russian sailors. By January 16, 1821, they crossed the Arctic Circle at least 6 times, and each time the storm forced them to move north. On January 21, the weather finally calmed down, and at 3:00 a.m. they noticed a dark speck in the background of the ice. All the spyglasses on the Vostok were pointed at him, and as the day dawned, Bellingshausen became convinced that they had found land beyond the Arctic Circle. The next day, the land turned out to be an island, which was named after Peter I. Fog and ice did not allow them to land on land, and the expedition continued on its way to the South Shetland Islands. On January 28th they were enjoying fine weather near the 68th parallel when land was once again sighted about 40 miles to the east. Too much ice lay between the ships and land, but a number of snow-free mountains were seen. Bellingshausen named this land the Alexander Coast, now known as Alexander Island. Although not part of the mainland, it is nonetheless connected to it by a deep and wide strip of ice.
Completion of the expedition
Satisfied, Bellingshausen sailed north and arrived in Rio de Janeiro in March, where the crew remained until May, making overhaul ships. August 4, 1821 they anchored in Kronstadt. The journey lasted two years and 21 days. Only three people were lost. The Russian authorities, however, turned out to be indifferent to such a great event as the discovery of Antarctica by Bellingshausen. Ten years passed before the accounts of his expedition were published.
As in any great undertaking, the Russian sailors found rivals. Many in the West doubted that it was our compatriots who first discovered Antarctica. The discovery of the mainland at one time was attributed to the Englishman Edward Bransfield and the American Nathaniel Palmer. However, today almost no one questions the superiority of Russian sailors.
Only 120 years have passed since the beginning of human exploration of the continent known as Antarctica (1899), and almost two centuries since the time when sailors first saw its shores (1820). Long before the discovery of Antarctica, most of the early explorers were sure that there was a large southern mainland. They called it Terra Australis incognita - the Unknown Southern Land.
The origins of ideas about Antarctica
The idea of its existence came to the mind of the ancient Greeks, who had a penchant for symmetry and balance. There must be a large continent in the South, they postulated, to balance the large landmass in the Northern Hemisphere. Two thousand years later, the great experience of geographical research gave Europeans enough reason to turn their attention to the South to test this hypothesis.
16th century: first erroneous discovery of the southern continent
The history of the discovery of Antarctica begins with Magellan. In 1520, after he had sailed through the strait that now bears his name, the famous navigator suggested that its southern coast (we now know that it is the island of Tierra del Fuego) might be the northern edge of the great continent. Half a century later, Francis Drake established that Magellan's supposed "continent" was just a series of islands near the tip of South America. It became clear that if indeed there is a southern continent, then it is located further to the south.
XVII century: a hundred years of approaching the goal
In the future, from time to time, sailors, carried off course by storms, again discovered new lands. They often lay further south than any previously known. So, when trying to navigate around Cape Horn in 1619, the Spaniards Bartolomeo and Gonzalo García de Nodal veered off course, only to find tiny patches of land that they called the Diego Ramirez Islands. They remained the southernmost of the open lands for another 156 years.
The next step on a long journey, the end of which was to mark the discovery of Antarctica, was taken in 1622. Then the Dutch navigator Dirk Gerritz reported that in the region of 64 ° south latitude, he allegedly discovered a land with snow-capped mountains, similar to Norway. The accuracy of his calculation is doubtful, but it is possible that he saw the South Shetland Islands.
In 1675, the ship of the British merchant Anthony de La Roche was carried far to the southeast of the Strait of Magellan, where at a latitude of 55 ° he took refuge in an unnamed bay. During his stay on this landmass (which was almost certainly the island of South Georgia), he also saw what he thought was the coast of the Southern Continent to the southeast. In reality, these were most likely the Clerk Rocks Islands, which lie 48 kilometers southeast of South Georgia. Their location corresponds to the shores of Terra Australis incognita, placed on the map of the Dutch East India Company, which at one time studied de La Roche's reports.
18th century: the British and French take over
The first truly scientific search, the purpose of which was the discovery of Antarctica, took place at the very beginning of the 18th century. In September 1699, the scientist Edmond Halley sailed from England to establish the true coordinates of ports in South America and Africa, measure the Earth's magnetic field and search for the mysterious Terra Australis incognita. In January 1700, he crossed the border of the Antarctic Convergence Zone and saw icebergs, which he recorded in the ship's log. However, cold stormy weather and the danger of colliding with an iceberg in the fog forced him to turn back to the North.
The next forty years later was the French navigator Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozière, who saw an unknown land at 54 ° south latitude. He named it "Cape of Circumcision", suggesting that he had found the edge of the Southern Continent, but it was actually an island (now called Bouvet Island).
The Fatal Delusion of Yves de Kergulen
The prospect of making the discovery of Antarctica attracted more and more new sailors. Yves-Joseph de Kergulin sailed with two ships in 1771 with specific instructions to search for the southern continent. On February 12, 1772, in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, he saw land shrouded in fog at 49 ° 40 ", but could not make a landing due to rough seas and bad weather. A firm belief in the existence of the legendary and hospitable southern continent blinded him and made him believe that that he really discovered it, although the land he saw was an island.Back in France, the navigator began to spread fantastic information about the densely populated continent, which he modestly called "New Southern France".His stories convinced the French government to invest in another expensive expedition.In 1773 Kergulen returned to the said object with three ships, but never set foot on the island that now bears his name.Worse, he was forced to admit the truth and, returning to France, spent the rest of his days in disgrace.
James Cook and the search for Antarctica
The geographical discoveries of Antarctica are to a large extent connected with the name of this famous Englishman. In 1768 he was sent to the South Pacific to search for a new continent. He returned to England three years later with a variety of new information of a geographical, biological, and anthropological nature, but found no sign of the southern continent. The desired shores were again pushed further south from their previously assumed location.
In July 1772, Cook sailed from England, but this time, on the instructions of the British Admiralty, the search for the southern continent was the main mission of the expedition. During this unprecedented voyage, which lasted until 1775, he crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time in history, discovered many new islands and deepened south to 71 ° south latitude, which no one had previously succeeded in.
However, fate did not give James Cook the honor of becoming the discoverer of Antarctica. Moreover, as a result of his expedition, he gained confidence that if there is an unknown land near the pole, then its area is very small and is of no interest.
Who was lucky enough to make the discovery and exploration of Antarctica
After the death of James Cook in 1779, European countries stopped searching for the great southern continent of the Earth for forty years. Meanwhile, in the seas between the previously discovered islands, near the still unknown continent, whalers and hunters of sea animals: seals, walruses, and fur seals were already in full swing. Economic interest in the subpolar region grew, and the year of the discovery of Antarctica was steadily approaching. However, only in 1819, the Russian Tsar Alexander I ordered to send an expedition to the southern polar regions, and thus the search was continued.
The head of the expedition was none other than Captain Thaddeus Bellingshausen. He was born in 1779 in the Baltic States. He began his career as a naval cadet at the age of 10 and graduated from the Naval Academy in Kronstadt at the age of 18. He was 40 when he was called to lead this exciting journey. Its purpose was to continue Cook's work during the voyage and move as far south as possible.
The already well-known navigator Mikhail Lazarev was appointed deputy head of the expedition. In 1913-1914. he made a round-the-world trip as a captain on the sloop "Suvorov". What else is Mikhail Lazarev known for? The discovery of Antarctica is a bright, but not the only impressive episode from his life dedicated to serving Russia. He was the hero of the Battle of Navarino at sea with the Turkish fleet in 1827, and for many years he commanded the Black Sea Fleet. His students were the famous admirals - the heroes of the first Sevastopol defense: Nakhimov, Kornilov, Istomin. His ashes deservedly rest with them in the tomb of the Vladimir Cathedral in Sevastopol.
Expedition preparation and composition
Its flagship was the 600-ton Vostok corvette, built by British shipbuilders. The second ship was the 530-ton Mirny sloop, a transport vessel built in Russia. Both ships were made of pine. Lazarev commanded the Mirny, who was in charge of preparing the expedition and did a lot to prepare both ships for sailing in the polar seas. Looking ahead, we note that Lazarev's efforts were not in vain. It was the "Mirny" that showed excellent driving performance and endurance in cold waters, while the "Vostok" was withdrawn from sailing a month ahead of schedule. A total of 117 crew members had the Vostok, and 72 were on board the Mirny.
Start of the expedition
She started on July 4, 1819. In the third week of July, the ships arrived in Portsmouth, England. During a short stay, Belingshausen went to London to meet with the president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banky. The latter forty years ago sailed with Cook and now supplied the Russian sailors with books and maps left over from the campaigns. On September 5, 1819, Bellingshausen's polar expedition left Portsmouth, and by the end of the year they were near South Georgia Island. From here they headed southeast to the South Sandwich Islands and made a thorough survey of them, discovering three new islands.
Russian discovery of Antarctica
On January 26, 1820, the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle, the first time since Cook did so in 1773. The next day, her journal reveals that the sailors saw the Antarctic mainland from 20 miles away. The discovery of Antarctica by Bellingshausen and Lazarev took place. Over the next three weeks, the ships cruised continuously in coastal ice, trying to approach the mainland, but they failed to land on it.
Forced sailing in the Pacific
February 22 "Vostok" and "Mirny" suffered from the strongest three-day storm for the entire time of the campaign. The only way to keep the ships and crews was to return to the north, and on April 11, 1820, the Vostok arrived in Sydney, and the Mirny entered the same harbor eight days later. After a month of rest, Bellingshausen took his ships on a four-month exploratory voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Arriving back in Sydney in September, Bellingshausen was notified by the Russian consul that an English captain named William Smith had discovered a group of islands at the 67th parallel, which he called the South Shetland and proclaimed them part of the Antarctic continent. Bellingshausen immediately decided to take a look at them himself, hoping in the process to find a way to continue further south.
Return to Antarctica
On the morning of November 11, 1820, the ships left Sydney. On December 24, the ships crossed the Antarctic Circle again after an eleven-month break. They soon encountered storms that pushed them northward. The year of the discovery of Antarctica was ending hard for Russian sailors. By January 16, 1821, they crossed the Arctic Circle at least 6 times, and each time the storm forced them to move north. On January 21, the weather finally calmed down, and at 3:00 a.m. they noticed a dark speck in the background of the ice. All the spyglasses on the Vostok were pointed at him, and as the day dawned, Bellingshausen became convinced that they had found land beyond the Arctic Circle. The next day, the land turned out to be an island, which was named after Peter I. Fog and ice did not allow them to land on land, and the expedition continued on its way to the South Shetland Islands. On January 28th they were enjoying fine weather near the 68th parallel when land was once again sighted about 40 miles to the east. Too much ice lay between the ships and land, but a number of snow-free mountains were seen. Bellingshausen named this land the Alexander Coast, now known as Alexander Island. Although not part of the mainland, it is nonetheless connected to it by a deep and wide strip of ice.
Completion of the expedition
Satisfied, Bellingshausen sailed north and arrived in Rio de Janeiro in March, where the crew remained until May, making major repairs to the ships. August 4, 1821 they anchored in Kronstadt. The journey lasted two years and 21 days. Only three people were lost. The Russian authorities, however, turned out to be indifferent to such a great event as the discovery of Antarctica by Bellingshausen. Ten years passed before the accounts of his expedition were published.
As in any great undertaking, the Russian sailors found rivals. Many in the West doubted that it was our compatriots who first discovered Antarctica. The discovery of the mainland at one time was attributed to the Englishman Edward Bransfield and the American Nathaniel Palmer. However, today almost no one questions the superiority of Russian sailors.