This study focuses on the emergence and functioning of a transnational network of marine practitioners, scholars and patrons who, in the early 1800s, engaged in exploring the Bering Strait's maritime region. In particular, and from the Russian perspective, this study analyses those investigations of the Bering Strait area which centred on finding an Arctic passage between the Eurasian and North American continents. More precisely, it concerns the private initiatives and networking activities of two Russian gentlemen – Count Nikolai Rumiantsev and his close collaborator Adam von Krusenstern – in organizing the expedition on the brig Rurik commanded by Lieutenant Otto von Kotzebue in 1815–18. The visionary Russian statesman and the celebrated navigator were deeply involved in northern exploration. They initiated, funded and organized the Rurik's circumnavigating voyage to search for a northern passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic and to conduct a series of scientific investigations in the Bering Strait region. Rich scholarship in the Russian language has addressed Rumiantsev's patronage of humanistic activities, such as funding archival surveys and publication projects, and organizing a public museum with collections of books and other cultural objects.Footnote 1 However, much less attention has been paid to his ambitious scientific endeavours, including northern exploration and the scientific study of the global ocean. This study is based on private correspondence, printed accounts and journal articles, and other publications about exploration in the North Pacific, including nearly two hundred letters exchanged by Rumiantsev, Krusenstern and other correspondents from 1801 to 1826.Footnote 2 Deeply engaged in the job of writing letters and maintaining regular contacts with their vast network of correspondents, these men established several distinct communication channels. I argue that the process of transnational circulation of information, knowledge, personnel, objects and practices at the beginning of the nineteenth century profoundly influenced European attitudes towards oceanic spaces and heightened the importance of their comprehensive investigation. Focusing on ‘circulatory localities’ and practices of networking reveals a complex interplay of geopolitical and intellectual competition, along with collaboration and coordination among various actors interested in this distant frozen region. The Bering Strait garnered the attention not only of patrons, navigators, entrepreneurs and scholars, but also of a much broader public. This was to stimulate a generation of northern maritime explorers.
In analysing this private expeditionary enterprise, I use the concept of ‘spaces of circulation’. According to Kapil Raj, they are ‘constituted of communities that share a hodgepodge of material and immaterial entities consisting of knowledges, ideas, theories, and their attendant practices and materials (instruments, gestures, books, etc.), but also familial ties, training, education, values, beliefs, ideals, canons of civility, loyalties, and norms’.Footnote 3 As others have emphasized, the circulation of people, objects, knowledge and institutional forms implies a double movement going forth and coming back within and through specific places, areas or regions. It also implies an incremental aspect of that process, which is not simple reproduction across space, but transformation of the entities involved in circulation.Footnote 4 The concomitant situatedness of scientific knowledge production and its movement on a global scale are extensively debated in scholarship on the history of science.Footnote 5 In focusing on the phenomenon of circulation as a process of knowledge making, some scholars have examined the transformative nature of communications. They have emphasized the analysis of specific transformation mechanisms and mutational aspects of knowledge in the process of movements, encounters and interactions.Footnote 6 Approaching oceans and seas as vibrant spaces in-between continents, spaces that became the focus of sustained scientific interest for the first time in history, and stimulated scientific advancement in the first half of the nineteenth century, historians have reconceptualized the global ocean as a physical and intellectual space full of imperial and commercial significance.Footnote 7 Arguing that ‘the ocean is a space of circulation because it is constituted through its very geophysical mobility’, Philip Steinberg stressed the point of considering movement ‘as the very essence of the ocean region, including the aqueous mass at its center’.Footnote 8
Around the mid-seventeenth century, a strait separating Asia and America became a subject of controversy.Footnote 9 For centuries the quest for a northern passage between continents led not only to trade, investment and migration related to ambitious imperial projects that significantly influenced the Bering Strait's Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems, but also to the advancement of the earth sciences, including marine scienсe.Footnote 10 Numerous historical works concerning the exploration and scientific study of the North Pacific have followed different historiographical traditions.Footnote 11 Publications about the maritime dimension of the Russian Empire's geopolitical ambitions during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have largely examined these endeavours in the context of national histories situated within the comparative perspective of empires and colonialism in global history.Footnote 12 In recent years there has been a visible shift towards (re)writing this history from a maritime-environmental perspective.Footnote 13 Focusing on ethnography, attention was also given to the role of patronage in Pacific voyages of exploration in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, France, the German states and Russia.Footnote 14 Historians of oceanography have pointed out the important contribution of Russian navigators and scientists in collecting vast amounts of data on the properties of seawater and global ocean currents during their circumnavigations in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century.Footnote 15 But it remains unclear why and how scientific studies of the global ocean and the properties of seawater became so important in that particular period.
The first section of this paper analyses the specific interest of the initiators of this early nineteenth-century voyage, along with the role of patronage and the communication networks that emerged to support and promote privately organized exploration enterprise. The second section describes how the Bering Strait region became a place of circulation both as a geographical entity and as an imaginary space, and how this transformation is connected to the Rurik's voyage. The Rurik's mobile ‘circulatory locality’ is studied in detail in the next section. The last section focuses on the strategies employed to disseminate information and publicize the voyage and its scientific results, which fuelled interest in northern maritime regions and promoted further investigations.
Rurik's voyage in a network of communication: patronage, incentives and strategies
Understanding the nature of the privately sponsored voyage of the small brig Rurik to the North Pacific and the Bering Strait region in 1815–18 necessitates analysing the intentions of its organizers and the practices they used to manage their costly, risky, ambitious enterprise. Thus, before examining the voyage and its scientific programme, an explanation is needed of the role of Count Rumiantsev, his relations with von Krusenstern and their extensive communication network.
Rumiantsev came from a well-known Russian aristocratic family. At a young age, he went on a Grand Tour of Europe and studied for a year at the University of Leiden, where, inspired by the spirit of the Enlightenment, he started cultivating relationships with men of science. For several decades he was an important actor in Russian political and intellectual life, holding top-level government positions, including minister of commerce and minister of foreign affairs. In 1809 he was appointed Chancellor. Rumiantsev supported the first Russian circumnavigation, led by Krusenstern in 1803–6, and turned it into a major political and scientific enterprise.Footnote 16 Being especially interested in the northern regions and their riches, he also supported a series of surveys in Novaya Zemlya and Siberia.
In 1812, just as Napoleon's army crossed Russia's border and marched on Moscow, Rumiantsev suffered a stroke. The negative opinion of the Chancellor in some court circles increased visibly with Napoleon's invasion. In public, he was seen as ‘a traitor to the Fatherland’. One of his contemporaries commented in her memoirs that Rumiantsev ‘was hated and despised by all to such an extent that they rejoiced when he had a stroke … everybody regretted that he had recovered’.Footnote 17 Suspended from participating in state affairs and losing his influence, he tried to resign, but was not allowed to leave his post until 1814. All this seriously undermined his authority and credibility.
After the stroke, Rumiantsev's personal tragedy was exacerbated by his rapidly progressing deafness. ‘You can hardly speak to him and I am losing one of the most pleasant interlocutors’, noted an acquaintance; ‘high status and wealth lose their value under these circumstances’. For Rumiantsev, it became imperative to salvage his prestige and reputation. He turned away from court life to embrace ambitious scholarly pursuits, and eventually regained public recognition. As he had no immediate family, Rumiantsev spent much of his money, time and energy organizing various research enterprises, thus successfully converting his ancestors’ enormous political, social and economic assets into cultural capital. The results of his activities and the networks he cultivated from 1815 to 1826 were so impressive, even to his contemporaries, that those ten years have been called the ‘Rumiantsev Era’ in the history of Russian culture. According to Vladimir Kozlov, who analysed a large body of Rumiantsev's correspondence, about fifty persons formed the core group of his personal network, which included both professionals and amateurs. He regularly kept in touch with about two hundred correspondents on various research issues.Footnote 18 In the particular community cultivated by the Chancellor, its members were personally tied to him via patronage – they carried out projects for the privileges Rumiantsev was able to obtain for them and their relatives. Through engagement in scholarly pursuits and personal initiation of projects, he actively fashioned his public image as a grand patron of the humanities and sciences, not merely a financial supporter of research initiatives. He sought public recognition as an aristocrat scholar, even a leader of the scholarly community.Footnote 19
Rumiantsev considered the support of navigators and the promotion of Russian maritime exploration to be an important personal mission. Emphasizing that he was ‘not alien to the Admiralties and the Navy’ and ‘having been an admirer of navigators’, Rumiantsev pointed out that ‘through their activities the Fatherland would increase both its honor and advantage’.Footnote 20 Implementing the Rurik's circumnavigation project was important to Rumiantsev for many reasons. For an energetic person accustomed to high-ranking state service, it was an inspiring intellectual endeavour. Rumiantsev's letters to Krusenstern provide important insights into how the Chancellor was increasingly involved in the implementation of this project, and how impatiently and passionately he waited for correspondence from members of the voyage. He compiled descriptions of their observations and discoveries, discussed details with his correspondents, looked through articles in Russian and European newspapers and magazines, and requested additional information from Russian diplomats and representatives of the Russian–American Company (RAC). He was also interested in state-of-the-art geographical information, ordering maps and recent books and articles concerning the exploration of the northern areas in general and of the Bering Strait in particular. For instance, asking Krusenstern about a letter from a naturalist addressed to him among papers in a package from the expedition delivered in 1817, Rumiantsev ordered that it be sent to him promptly, as he was ‘very curious to know if there was anything about natural history in that icy land’.Footnote 21 Unable to go around the world himself, he travelled vicariously with the Rurik's crew by reading their letters and reports.
Along with the Rurik's voyage, Rumiantsev also initiated several land and sea expeditions to investigate the Bering Strait in 1818–24 in close collaboration with the governor of Kamchatka and the RAC. But he always emphasized that he acted independently, with the main objective of ‘common benefit’ and ‘scientific knowledge advancement’.Footnote 22 These projects were crucial to establishing Rumiantsev's international recognition, and Krusenstern connected his patron's activities to the British intellectual community. This was one reason why Krusenstern, whom the Chancellor trusted and whose expertise he valued very much, had a special place in Rumiantzev's personal network.
Krusenstern perfectly mastered ‘the art of sociability’. With virtually no inheritance and low social position, he succeeded in making useful connections and methodically maintaining important relations for years. Born sixth in a large Baltic German family with modest income in Estland, on the western borderlands of the Russian Empire, he achieved his social status through zealous service. After graduating from the Naval Cadet Corps in St Petersburg, he was sent to Britain with a group of promising young officers. He spent several years on British vessels, visiting the Americas and Asia. Returning to Russia, he energetically engaged in promoting the circumnavigation programme that culminated in the first Russian round-the-world voyage on the Nadezhda in 1803–6. With Rumiantsev's assistance, Krusenstern joined the Russian diplomatic mission in London, where he visited the most important ports and docks, and learned about British innovations in shipbuilding and the achievements of the Royal Navy. However, after the Napoleonic Wars his career in state service stalled. Thus Krusenstern decided to concentrate mostly on ocean hydrographic research, collecting and refining all available data on ocean winds, currents and depths, and working on his Atlas de l'Océan pacifique. He went on indefinite leave from state service and, at Rumiantsev's suggestion, took over the organization of the expedition to the Bering Strait. This circumnavigation voyage, with a strong scientific agenda and emphasis on studies of the North Pacific, matched his own agenda to identify inaccuracies in the description of geographical discoveries in the Pacific Ocean and to refine nautical charts of the Pacific.Footnote 23
Krusenstern orchestrated the entire enterprise. He shaped the scientific programme of the voyage at every stage, selected the vessel design, negotiated with potential members of the scientific staff, selected the crew and obtained the latest maps, instruments and tools. His activities also included preparing news digests during the voyage for Russian and European papers and journals, promoting this information through transnational intellectual networks, assisting in the preparation of substantial official reports for the Russian minister of the navy, and selecting the scientific materials to be included in the comprehensive publication of expedition results. Wielding authority in maritime circles, and with considerable organization skills and practical experience in navigation, Krusenstern mastered all these tasks. Having been persistently employing and developing his network of contacts, he communicated with dozens of correspondents in Russia and around the world, acting as mediator, carrying out numerous assignments, giving advice and exchanging information.
In his letters to Rumiantsev, Krusenstern reported on the progress of his numerous assignments, both organizational and financial, not all of which concerned exclusively maritime expeditions and exploration. Krusenstern promptly informed Rumiantsev on the progress and results of Russian and foreign (mostly British) expeditions, appointments in the Russian Navy, and recent publications on navigation, exploration and geography. He kept Rumiantsev abreast of the latest British technological inventions and prospects for their practical appropriation. The navigator consulted the Chancellor on issues concerning the history of exploration and geography, hydrography and cartography. In addition to his native German, Krusenstern spoke and wrote fluently in Russian, French and English. Besides John Barrow, the Permanent Secretary of the British Admiralty, his British correspondents included publishers, booksellers, instrument-makers and navigators, among them John Murray II, John Booth, James Burney and the famed navigator John Ross. As editor of an 1856 London publication about Krusenstern, Ross wrote of him with great respect, stating that Krusenstern ‘rendered essential service … to the advancement of science and geographical knowledge’.Footnote 24 Mentioning Krusenstern's ‘splendid talents and acquirements’, as well as his ‘noble character of unstained purity and excellence’, he added some of his personal correspondence with Krusenstern to the volume, thereby emphasizing that he knew him well.Footnote 25
Letters were written by individuals, but they were influenced by polite society and literary convention. Epistolary language has never been neutral, objective or free from the exercise of power.Footnote 26 While Rumiantsev played masterfully with the language of friendship in his letters, Krusenstern mostly employed the language of official reports––indicating the symbolic distribution of power between patron and client. Knowing Krusenstern's tight financial circumstances, Rumiantsev supported his scholarly adviser and members of his family to thank him for his loyalty and assistance. Just before Krusenstern left for his 1803–6 voyage around the world, Rumiantsev agreed to become godfather to his newborn son. Later he offered to pay for educating Krusenstern's two sons at the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, one of the best educational institutions for the nobility in Russia at that time. Rumiantsev followed the boys’ progress and helped advance their careers after they joined state service.Footnote 27 In return, Krusenstern regularly expressed his deepest gratitude by dedicating his scientific publications to Count Rumiantsev.Footnote 28
The ties maintained through regular correspondence were founded on personal meetings, where most important issues were discussed and decisions made. The two men met occasionally at Rumiantsev's St Petersburg palace, situated on the bank of the Neva river.Footnote 29 Because of their frequent personal meetings, only a few of their letters dated from 1813–16. This changed as both gentlemen became busy carrying out other projects and travelling between the capital and their estates. They needed a mediator to transmit communications. In 1817 academician Philipp Krug, an ethnic German in Russian service, assumed this position and became indispensable to the function of the network. An expert in history and numismatics, Krug became Rumiantsev's associate and adviser. He was also a close friend of Krusenstern's. Communicating regularly with Rumiantsev on many issues, Krug often reported on Krusenstern's activities and needs.Footnote 30 Letters from Krusenstern's foreign correspondents, John Barrow in particular, came to St Petersburg in packages addressed to Krug. The delivery cost of such correspondence was high. As a full member of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Krug was compensated for all postal expenses, thus his services relieved Krusenstern of a considerable expenditure.Footnote 31
Based on the combined efforts of a small group of enterprise initiators, who knew each other well and had strong personal incentives, a network of expedition contractors, assistants and collaborators was maintained through correspondence. Details were negotiated in letters, and flows of various ideas and artefacts went back and forth. Yet this variable, vibrant space of communication was shaped by power relations of patronage that, despite constant flux, influenced the configuration of the network structure. It would be no exaggeration to say that this communication network covered the entire globe, but its crucial crossing nodes were situated in Eurasia. One of the most active informational exchanges was established between the Russian correspondents and their British counterparts.
The northern passage as a space of circulation
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Arctic regions were considered to be among the few remaining geographical frontiers. Exploration of the Bering Strait region became the centre of attention for various actors – maritime ministries, commercial trade companies, learned societies and private patrons. Britain and Russia competed in the ‘northern race’ for the glory of finding a northern passage that would lead, via a strait, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean and back again along the coast of North America. Europe's reading public followed publications about marine and terrestrial exploration with great enthusiasm, and publishers like John Murray gained prominence and profited from them.Footnote 32
On 3 November 1817 the Permanent Secretary of the British Admiralty, John Barrow, wrote to the Russian navigator, Adam von Krusenstern, to inform him that the British Navy planned to send an exploratory expedition to the Bering Strait region. He wrote,
I take the liberty to address this letter to you, the object of which is to beg the favor of you to let me know whether anything, and what, has been heard of Lieutenant Kotzebue since his departure; for if I understood you rightly when I had the pleasure of seeing you in England, one object of the voyage was to discover if any strait or open sea led from Bering's Strait into the Northern ocean …Footnote 33
Barrow suggested that the British ships could meet with the Russian brig (the Rurik) commanded by Lieutenant Kotzebue that had gone there earlier, and expressed hope that the British and Russian sailors would assist each other in their work. Barrow courteously noted that, if the Russian correspondent had ‘any information concerning the Northern extremity of North-West America’, he would communicate it.Footnote 34 As Rumiantsev's consultant and collaborator, as well as an informal adviser to the Russian Ministry of the Navy, Krusenstern was equally interested in receiving reliable, first-hand information about British endeavours from Barrow and in giving his expert opinion on hotly debated issues. The letters these correspondents exchanged from about 1815 to 1830 give insights into their keen interest in, and consistent exchange of information about, northern exploration.
Although persistent attempts to find and master a northern waterway between Asia and North America had been undertaken for several centuries, the quest reached unprecedented levels of intensity in the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth. For a long time such a passage seemed useful for trade. James Cook's last voyage of exploration was also the last attempt to discover and chart this passage in the eighteenth century. Eventually it was acknowledged that the route could not be used for trade, and interest lapsed for several decades. Little was known about remote regions where continental shorelines remained largely unexplored. Old myths continued to circulate about a land somewhere in the north that had yet to be discovered. No one knew whether a strait separated Asia and America, or an isthmus connected the two continents. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, debate about the existence of the strait resumed. James Burney, Cook's crewmember, actively promoted the idea that the continents were connected, and the passage did not exist. He reported to the Royal Society in London on the matter in 1817 and published his arguments for his peers and the public. Although many navigators and geographers were skeptical, his ideas could not be ignored.Footnote 35
As the nineteenth century advanced, the question of the existence of a passage, mostly blocked by impassable ice, was slowly losing practical relevance, but instead was becoming an important scientific problem that needed to be solved to advance geographical knowledge. At the same time, encyclopedic empiricism, which relied on the collection and collation of facts, was replaced with ‘Humboldtian science’ focused on new disciplined practices of observing, measuring and using advanced instrumentation, as well as on the study of the relationship between accurate measurement and mathematical laws.Footnote 36 Marine science developed rapidly between 1815 and the 1830s, and was influenced by scientific practices and new ‘way[s] of knowing’.Footnote 37 The novel scientific instruments and new technologies introduced in the practice of ocean exploration were extremely important for the study of ocean spaces.Footnote 38 Scientific data on North Pacific sea currents and their intensity were considered primary evidence for the existence of a northern waterway between the two continents and they featured as an important argument in the debates. Once in the Bering Strait region, marine expeditions were instructed to measure the temperature of seawater on the surface and at different depths and study its salinity and transparency.Footnote 39
Barrow and Krusenstern regularly informed each other about voyages already under way and others being planned. Emphasizing discoveries and achievements, they also mentioned their failures. Each letter usually accompanied packages of books and the latest journal articles containing voyage accounts. Instruments and equipment were also exchanged through this network. While the Russian correspondents were interested in expert opinions about British technological innovations, including an apparatus for distilling water, steam engines, the quality of coal types and so on, Barrow wanted detailed information about the practical experiences of Russian explorers in Arctic environments, such as expedition provisions and transport arrangements. In addition, he asked his Russian correspondents to search for the original archival documents recording Semen Dezhnev's sailing through the strait in 1648.
Krusenstern supplied Barrow and other British correspondents with reliable information about the expedition of the Rurik, which had been undertaken expressly to search for the northern passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic. This information was very much in demand. Asking for details about Kotzebue's recent voyage and discoveries, Barrow wrote to Krusenstern on 26 February 1818,
some ridiculous stories and some fabricated letters are circulated in this great town, some of which carries the lieutenant to Makenzie river; another says he has found the passage from the newly discovered bay into the Arctic sea – perhaps you will have time briefly to state what these speculations were with regard to the opening in question, and whether he had any reason to believe that it communicated with the deep sea.Footnote 40
Another fragment from their correspondence cited earlier gives additional evidence that all parties were interested in the prompt circulation of information about exploration in the Bering Strait region, and in collaboration. Shortly after Kotzebue's brig sailed to the Bering Sea, the British Admiralty organized a series of expeditions to the region. In his diplomatic report from London the Russian ambassador informed St Petersburg of the British government's concerns about the Rurik expedition and the intensification of Russian surveys in the North Pacific.Footnote 41 The first two British expeditions, commanded by Captains John Ross and David Buchanan (to Baffin Bay and Spitsbergen respectively), were tasked with searching for the north-west passage. The Russian Ministry of the Navy countered with its own expeditions, renewing its interest in surveying the blank ‘white spots’ on maps of the polar regions. In fact, in December of 1818 Rear Admiral Grigorii Sarychev, a member of the Admiralty Board who had defined the Russian ministry's exploration policy, submitted a note to the minister of the navy on which coastlines should be mapped. This document stressed the importance of describing the coastlines located in the polar regions. The programme included a series of marine and land-exploring enterprises that the Russian Ministry of the Navy subsequently implemented step by step.Footnote 42 As Erki Tammiksaar and Tarmo Kiik have convincingly argued, two ambitious expeditions to explore both the southern and northern polar areas in 1819, initiated by the Russian minister of the navy with the strong support of the emperor Alexander I, were stimulated by the results of the Rurik's explorative voyage.Footnote 43 Pursuing their own commercial objectives, the RAC also became increasingly involved in exploring the region, occasionally acting in cooperation with other interested parties.Footnote 44
Intense competition in the search for a northern passage resembled a chess game, with chess players closely following moves that had already been made. Initially, Rumiantsev and Krusenstern wanted to explore the passage from both directions. Thus another ship had to sail from America.Footnote 45 They also discussed the possibility of sending the Rurik on a second voyage from Arkhangelsk following its return.Footnote 46 This did not happen, for as soon as the two men learned from their British correspondent of the British Admiralty's dispatch of two ships in 1817 on voyages of discovery to the Bering Strait region via the Atlantic Ocean, they adjusted their plans.Footnote 47 Rumiantsev also asked Krusenstern to inform his British correspondent about his intention to explore the northern regions in the Russian Far East and in Russian America in collaboration with the governor of Kamchatka and the RAC's Board of Directors.
Rumiantsev financed a series of surveys and expeditions in partnership with the RAC. In the 1820s he cooperated with naval officers appointed to manage the affairs of the Russian colonies in America. He sent various goods to Alaska, such as tobacco and iron, to be sold there. Proceeds from these sales were used to organize expeditions. Specific plans and instructions were developed on the spot, but they had been agreed in advance by the RAC's Board of Directors and Rumiantsev.Footnote 48 In the spring of 1820, the RAC sent Rumiantsev the first results of short expeditions in the north, which he forwarded to Krusenstern for expert review. The Chancellor was pleased with the results, saying, ‘at the cost of three hundred roubles we acquired information about 33 unknown settlements; it seems that geography had never made such cheap discoveries’. He asked Krusenstern to inform Barrow in London and Malte-Brun in Paris about the results.Footnote 49 However, a month later, the Chancellor changed his mind, apologizing for unexpectedly deciding not to publish material in international journals.Footnote 50 He had learned about strong opposition from the RAC to publishing information about discoveries abroad. The RAC's Board of Directors had decided to selectively share information about geographical discoveries in the north obtained from collaborative surveys and expeditions.Footnote 51 Later, Rumiantsev and Krusenstern did publish short reports first in Russian magazines and then in Europe. The Chancellor was convinced that supporting different research projects and doing everything in his power to make credible information about the results widely available ultimately contributed to the ‘common benefit’ and served the Enlightenment.Footnote 52
By 1820, the Bering Strait area had been visited by Russian and British expeditions, which were making geographic surveys, studying tides and conducting navigational and seawater investigations. Despite commercial, geopolitical and intellectual tensions, as well as occasional censorship, all the actors involved were interested in the quick exchange of reliable information about the region. They promptly published new data, discoveries and observations, tried to check the accuracy of the information, and shared their findings with each other. As a result, this remote northern region became a place of intensive circulation as a specific geographical and physical entity and also as an imaginary space. Published descriptions of overland surveys and northern maritime voyages, and numerous overview articles in journals and magazines for the broader reading public, inspired a romantic fascination and excitement, which helped promote further investigation.
The Rurik as a ‘circulatory locality’
The vessel itself and the process of its construction could be considered a place of circulation. Issues such as how the idea of the brig took shape and was negotiated, who designed it and how it was built, what kinds of constraints and difficulties the voyage planners encountered, are especially important in this respect. For a privately organized voyage to the North Pacific, vessel design and construction were key to the success of this ambitious, but risky, enterprise. The ship was well equipped for the expedition. Its interior was conveniently arranged for all the crew, not only the officers and members of the scientific team, but the sailors as well.
Vessels used for voyages of discovery were visible symbols of prestige and power and employed as signs of progress in the performance of discovery and exploration. As historians have emphasized, exploration became a distinct enterprise governed by a special set of protocols and practices in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At that time, discovery expeditions were viewed as missions in the service of modernity and identified with technological innovations and scientific knowledge.Footnote 53 Moreover, a vessel fully equipped for such long-distance journeys could be conceptualized as a scientific instrument in and of itself, and not merely a vehicle. As other historians have argued, ‘it mattered very much what kind of ship was chosen for a particular voyage, who had commissioned it, and what kind of scientific instruments and techniques made certain its navigation’.Footnote 54
To build a vessel suitable for a voyage at high latitudes was extremely expensive. Since Rumiantsev paid for the expedition and his funds were limited, the initial idea was to build a small vessel of twenty-five or thirty tons. Timber would be shipped to the north-west American coast on an RAC ship, and the vessel would be assembled on site. Arctic ice requires exceptionally strong hulls, preferably made of oak. Krusenstern explained why this plan was given up: ‘The frame of the vessel would have taken up too much room on board one of the Company's ships, which are but small vessels’. Another idea was to build a larger ‘vessel of seventy or eighty tons, with moveable keels’ made of oak. The Russian shipbuilder Rasumof would oversee construction according to the plan of the English Captain Shank in Russia's Imperial Dockyard. This plan was also abandoned because there was ‘no private dock-yard in St. Petersburg, and the oak timber is exclusively in possession of the Admiralty’. As it was too expensive to build an oak vessel abroad, the decision was made to use fir to build a larger vessel than was at first intended. Thus the contract went to shipbuilder Erick Malm at Abo in Finland to build a 180-ton vessel for 30,000 roubles. Krusenstern praised Malm's work: ‘He neglected nothing on his part, to build the vessel with a degree of durability, that could hardly be expected from a fir ship’. In addition, ‘No greater proof can be given of the excellence of the workmanship and the care with which the timber had been prepared, than that, upon an accurate survey after its return, it was found so good’ that Rumiantsev was able to sell it to the RAC and the Rurik sailed on another voyage to the Pacific.Footnote 55
Since the main goal of the Rurik's circumnavigation was to search for a passage from the Bering Sea into the Atlantic Ocean and ‘to complete the geography of the South Sea and of the northern coasts of that ocean’, the size of the vessel and its equipment mattered significantly. The advantages of smaller-sized vessels on voyages of exploration included the possibility of a closer approach to the coast. In the case of the Rurik this allowed for a more accurate examination of the Coral Islands in the Pacific and the discovery of the Sound in the Bering Strait region. Among the Rurik's disadvantages, Krusenstern mentioned lack of space on board for storing specimen collections and the risk of ocean sailing in a relatively small vessel.Footnote 56
The ship's design; its instruments made by prominent, mostly British, craftsmen; the scientific observations made during the journey; along with the various tools and chart collections, the lifeboat, clothes and tinned foods, all fit with the voyage's main objectives. They were vital in journeying from St Petersburg via Cape Horn across the Pacific to Kamchatka and then to the Bering Strait, but they also played a significant symbolic role in framing the image of the voyage as a lofty scientific enterprise.
To order construction of the brig and equip it for the voyage, Krusenstern and its future captain, Kotzebue, went to Finland. While Kotzebue stayed there for several months observing the construction, Krusenstern proceeded to London. In Britain, ‘the country which he cherished from his youth, with all the warmth of his heart, and on whose approbation of his scientific endeavors, he always set the highest value’,Footnote 57 he spent a year acquiring the instruments and equipment that he considered important for the success of the enterprise. He purchased a large collection of maps by James Horsburgh, John Arrowsmith and John Purdy. He acquired surgical instruments, medicines, spices and special clothing for the crew. Krusenstern also applied to the British Admiralty for permission to build a lifeboat for the expedition. With Barrow's assistance, the permission was granted promptly, and the boat was delivered to Captain Kotzebue as he was passing through the harbor at Plymouth a year later.Footnote 58 Krusenstern paid special attention to provisions for the crew. Canned food was ordered for the expedition. Invented in France and improved by the British engineer and entrepreneur Bryan Donkin, tin cans of food were produced on a large scale for the British Navy after 1813. Krusenstern picked up this innovative technology two years later and used it on Rurik's circumnavigation voyage.Footnote 59
The list of items purchased in Britain for the voyage also included a set of physical and astronomical instruments: several sextants for measuring the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for celestial navigation, compasses, two marine barometers to help decode the weather, a dip-needle compass pivoted to move in the plane containing the earth's magnetic field vector, an areometer used to measure the density of sea water, several thermometers, hygrometers for measuring the water vapour in the atmosphere, Massey's log and a sounding machine. Among the instruments ordered in Britain, Krusenstern mentioned a Six's thermometer, invented in 1780 to measure maximum and minimum water temperature, a mountain barometer frequently used in the early nineteenth century for measuring heights, and a camera lucida optical instrument patented in 1806. He pointed out that these three items were made by Thomas Jones. He also bought two telescopes made by Tully, two chronometers and a pocket chronometer made by Barraud. In this extensive list of British-made instruments, there is no device for sampling oceanic water at great depths to make more accurate observations of seawater temperature. It seems likely that on the Rurik's voyage, Kotzebue used the same instrument made by a Russian instrument-maker that Krusenstern had used on the Nadezhda during his circumnavigation in 1803–6.Footnote 60
The expedition's success, however, depended not only on the qualities of the ship and its equipment, but also on the qualifications of the personnel. Otto von Kotzebue, Krusenstern's nephew, pupil and protégé, was appointed to lead the three-year voyage. Accompanying his uncle on the first Russian circumnavigation on the Nadezhda in 1803–6, he had obtained practical skills and learned to work with navigational instruments and charts. He dreamed of discoveries and hoped that his participation in Rumiantsev's enterprise would contribute to a quick promotion. His crew of about twenty men included two naval officers, two subaltern officers, three navigation assistants, a naturalist, a surgeon and a painter. Although a vessel captain is not usually required to take part in scientific observations himself, Krusenstern expected Kotzebue and those who would assist him to have a special passion for science. In his special instruction he prepared for the expedition, Krusenstern stressed the importance of calculating latitude and longitude and recording deflections of the compass's magnetic needle, collecting systematic data on the direction and strength of sea currents and the temperature of seawater at various depths, and making regular marine barometer readings and keeping a meteorological journal.Footnote 61
Johann Caspar Horner, the Swiss physicist, mathematician and astronomer who had also participated in Krusenstern's circumnavigation, drew up instructions for making comprehensive astronomical and physical observations and measurements.Footnote 62 Horner stressed, ‘We still know so little of the numerous interesting phenomena of this immense mass of water, which covers two-thirds of the surface of our globe, that this is precisely a main object of every voyage undertaken for the improvement of science’.Footnote 63 Among other measurements and observations, the scientific programme was to include systematic investigations of sea currents, tides and depths, and to study the properties of seawater by measuring its temperature, salinity and transparency.Footnote 64
An ambitious group of observers was hired to accompany Kotzebue on the voyage. Adelbert von Chamisso, the German poet and botanist who wrote Peter Schlemihl, was recommended to Krusenstern by Professors Rudolph and Lichtenstein via August von Kotzebue, the noted playwright and father of the voyage commander. Chamisso was hired as a naturalist at the very last moment when Professor Lebedour from the University of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) unexpectedly declined an invitation to join the voyage due to illness. Lebedour recommended Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, his pupil, who studied medicine and had just graduated from the university, as the ship's surgeon and naturalist. Louis Choris offered himself as painter to the expedition. Morton von Wormskiold, a Danish lieutenant who had travelled in Greenland and Norway, joined the expedition as a volunteer naturalist. All of them were young men who wanted to challenge themselves while seeing the world and opening a path for their future careers. They had not met before and had different life experiences and intentions. Only Wormskiold had some experience on a naval voyage; the others found themselves on a lengthy maritime voyage for the first time in their lives. During the round-the-world scientific expedition, all personnel had to acclimate to the mobilities of seafaring, master the necessary skills to conduct research and take instrumental measurements, and, if lucky, make names for themselves.
Carefully designed and equipped, the brig was a reliable platform for making surveys and recording depths in the shallow waters of the Bering Strait, but there was not enough space to store the various specimens collected by the naturalists. From time to time this led to conflicts between the captain, the crew and the civilians making observations and doing research. During the voyage, tensions also arose between members of the scientific staff. Relations between Chamisso and Wormskiold, who often conflicted with each other and also with the captain, became more and more strained.Footnote 65 Initially tasked with conducting meteorological observations and other instrument testing, Wormskiold, the most experienced member of the team, left the vessel upon its arrival in Kamchatka.Footnote 66 As a result, the captain entrusted these duties to Eschscholtz, who acquired the necessary skills and knowledge step by step. He was an ambitious young man, easy to communicate with and reliable. It was Eschscholtz who assisted the captain in depth recording and measuring seawater characteristics.Footnote 67
The brig sailed from St Petersburg in the summer of 1815. Three years later, it came back to anchor in front of the Chancellor's palace on the Neva river embankment, although in worse condition than at the beginning of the voyage. Hit by heavy storms, the small vessel, which Chamisso compared to a walnut shell, was often severely damaged and required thorough repairs along the way. The strongest storm hit the vessel in the Bering Strait in 1817, and almost cost the crew their lives. It broke the mainsail mast, damaged the hull, and seriously injured Captain Kotzebue and several mariners. Kotzebue was forced to make the difficult decision to stop further surveys. They turned back and sailed home to Russia.Footnote 68
The strong winds and thick fogs common in the Bering Strait region, even during the summer, were serious obstacles for producing scientific knowledge at sea. Yet seawater depth, temperature and salinity were regularly measured and studies of ocean currents performed. More than three hundred measurements of the temperature and density of surface ocean water were carried out. In ten places vertical temperature series were measured using Six's thermometer, including one measurement at the great depth of 1,829 metres.Footnote 69 Despite tensions about the use of vessel space, and conflicts – some coming to blows – among members of the expedition's scientific staff and between some of them and the captain, valuable information and specimens pertaining to geography, hydrography, meteorology, natural history and ethnography were collected during the voyage.Footnote 70 In addition to discovering the sound named after Kotzebue, and a number of islands in Oceania, the largest group of which were named after Rumiantsev, the expedition checked the accuracy of navigational charts, surveyed and described three hundred miles of the north-west continental American coastline, and gathered unique collections of flora, fauna and ethnographic items. They studied sea creatures that rose from the depths to the surface of the world oceans: salps, jellyfish, dolphins, whales, sharks and various fish species. They also discovered the phenomenon of permafrost and described it in publications, prompting further study of ice formations.
Besides acting as an ocean-going laboratory, the Rurik also served as a vehicle for testing new technologies to improve human survival under extreme conditions, including the use of canned food to feed its crew during the long sea journey. Thus the ship itself could be considered a specialized instrument epitomizing a specific technology of knowledge production, a mobile, more-than-human space, and also, as other scholars have emphasized, a tool for ‘breaking across borders and voyaging towards new insights for the future’.Footnote 71
In his Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, published by John Murray in 1818, Barrow described recent British expeditions searching for a northern passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific. A description of the voyage of the Rurik appeared in the book. Besides mentioning several geographic discoveries in the Pacific, the ethnographic and natural-science observations made and the data collected, Barrow highlighted as one of the expedition's major achievements that sea temperature was measured for the first time ‘at the surface and at a certain depth at a particular hour every day, both on the outward and homeward voyage’. He relayed the information about the voyage that he obtained from Capitan Kotzebue himself during personal conversations in Plymouth, as the Russian brig made its way back to St Petersburg.Footnote 72 In a comprehensive review published in the Quarterly Review in 1822, Barrow paid particular attention to how Kotzebue and his scientific staff described sea currents in the Bering Strait in their published account of the voyage.Footnote 73 Krusenstern, in turn, included an overview of what had been done by the British exploring expeditions to the Arctic from the perspective of maritime studies in a paper published as a contribution to the account of the Rurik's circumnavigation.Footnote 74
In the early 1810s, interest in new discoveries remained strong among the majority of experienced navigators, and also among politicians, visionaries and intellectuals who were often far removed from the practice of navigation and maritime research. A decade later, attitudes towards exploring the seas and oceans were changing noticeably. Discussing the organizational details of a new expedition combining maritime and overland surveys of the Bering Strait area in 1822, Rumiantsev, in a letter to Krusenstern, reminded him to include explanations of how to measure the salinity of seawater in the expedition's instructions, and to calculate the cost of the expedition's equipment accordingly.Footnote 75
Having acquired the practical skills of taking measurements and making observations at sea, Captain Kotzebue continued this work during his next voyage on the Predpriiatie in 1823–6. Initially, he planned to visit the Bering Strait to conduct additional scientific surveys and the ship was superbly equipped with instruments and tools for this purpose. At the very last moment the Russian Ministry of the Navy changed the plans. Nevertheless, this circumnavigation also produced extensive seawater observations and measurements. On this voyage, Eschscholtz again accompanied Kotzebue as naturalist, joined by the physicist Emil von Lenz, who was beginning his successful academic career. In close collaboration with George Fredrich Parrot, professor at the University of Dorpat, Lenz considerably improved the apparatus for bringing up water from depth and applied a correction for the warming that took place as it came to the surface. This generated more accurate data on temperature and specific gravity, the most extensive and reliable of the period.Footnote 76 Based on analysis of all available data obtained during both of Kotzebue's expeditions, Lenz developed a model that predicted the circulation of ocean currents, arguing that polar flow existed in both hemispheres, and that the low temperatures and salinities detected near the equator were due to polar water rising toward the surface.Footnote 77 The notion of winds as the driving force of seawater movements remained a dominant concept shared by the majority of maritime experts. Lenz's ideas were rejected at the time, and only developed decades later.
As an ocean-going vessel, the Rurik's ‘circulatory locality’ was contested, hybrid and heterotopic, using Michel Foucault's terminology. Voyage participants inhabited a mobile space in an inherently hostile environment. They learned how to use scientific instrumentation and technologies, and acquired skills and knowledge that were appropriated and used in later maritime explorations. The first results of studies of the depth and properties of seawater delighted expedition organizers and made them eager to support marine science in the future.
Publishing information and promoting the expedition's results
As Rumiantsev's primary interest in supporting the Rurik's expedition was informing the public about the voyage and its scientific results – of great importance for establishing his image as a grand patron of the sciences – he pushed Krusenstern and other collaborators to prepare reports and articles promptly and publish them in newspapers and magazines. These publications reveal a close intertwining of the ship, the explorative voyage and relations of patronage. In discussing on how Russians were using foreign models successfully, the author of an article titled Patriotic Enterprise characterized Rumiantsev's role as extraordinary, in terms that must have gratified the Chancellor:
governments of all enlightened maritime nations sent ships for discoveries around the world … in England societies were founded by wealthy gentlemen for the same purpose … In other lands, governments and societies initiated maritime expeditions, in which commercial issues were taken into consideration … Here in Russia one private man … from his own means has been equipping an expedition with the sole purpose of disseminating the knowledge of the globe … Honour and glory to the famous patriot!Footnote 78
Rumiantsev made sure that correspondence and reports about the Rurik's voyage, arriving in St Petersburg, would be opened immediately even if he was not in the capital, and the letters sorted for appropriate delivery. Informed that a package with reports from the Rurik's crew members would shortly arrive from Spain, he immediately contacted Krusenstern from his estate, provided details about the package's delivery, asked his colleague and friend to review the enclosed material and sent all the letters to their appropriate addresses. Moreover, Rumiantsev requested that his correspondent ‘make a short report to be published in the newspaper Severnaia Pochta [Northern Mail] as soon as possible, and then prepare an article with your remarks to be published in the journal Syn Otechestva [Son of the Fatherland], please’.Footnote 79
Rumiantsev closely followed articles in European and Russian newspapers and magazines concerning the voyage of the Rurik and other surveys in the northern regions, even acquiring all issues of the British Quarterly Review for his library.Footnote 80 Wishing to please and maintain personal contacts with this influential patron, members of the Russian diplomatic corps supplied him with valuable information from abroad. For example, the Russian ambassador in London sent Rumiantsev issues of British newspapers and magazines, as well as other publications and maps that he could obtain. Rumiantsev quickly communicated to Krusenstern any useful information he received and requested his expert advice on various issues.Footnote 81
Rumiantsev also maintained contacts with authors in Russia, who wrote essays on the history and current state of research in the northern regions. One of them was Vasilii Berkh, a participant in the first circumnavigation on the Nadezhda who had to leave the service for health reasons. Having a taste for history and literary pursuits, he collected documents, manuscripts and early printed books. Interested in obtaining Rumiantsev's patronage and support for publishing an essay on the history of northern marine research in Son of the Fatherland, Berkh corresponded with him about buying some of the books and old manuscripts he found. Rumiantsev agreed to promote Berkh's paper on northern exploration only after Krusenstern had had a look at it and expressed his expert opinion about its value. Informing Krusenstern about this, Rumiantsev requested that close attention be paid to segments describing the Rurik's voyage. Using Krusenstern as his intermediary, Rumiantsev supplied Berkh with maps and recent British publications that significantly improved Berkh's initial draft.Footnote 82 Because of this mutually beneficial collaboration, information about the Rurik's expedition appeared in the annals of northern exploration in a form that most suited its initiators, and the Russian reading public enjoyed a comprehensive overview of British exploration in the Arctic.
Analysis of the expedition's scientific results appeared in a three-volume edition, along with an account of the voyage prepared by Kotzebue and edited by Krusenstern, who also included several of his essays in the publication. It was published in German and Russian, and translated into English and Dutch in 1821–3.Footnote 83 Copies of the publication in Russian were presented to the Russian emperor, members of the imperial family and the bureaucratic elite, and directors of the RAC. They were donated to the St Petersburg Public Library, to universities and to a library in Russian America. The Russian ambassador in London, Count Lieven, John Barrow, publisher John Murray and the president of the Paris Société de géographie also received copies.Footnote 84
Publishing the expedition results was an additional project of negotiation and mediation. Upon his return, Kotzebue prepared an official report on the voyage for the minister of the navy. However, Rumiantsev found the document unsatisfactory and asked for Krusenstern's help in improving it so that it could be shown to the emperor through the minister of the navy.Footnote 85 Rumiantsev relied on Krusenstern's assistance and Krug's advice in preparing expedition materials for publication, particularly in the account of the voyage that Kotzebue had written in German, and translating it into Russian. Such negotiations and preparations took time. Along with contributing to the official publication, voyage participants wanted to publish separate essays. Kotzebue, Chamisso and Choris were impatient to publish their individual accounts in Germany and France as soon as possible, even before the publication appeared in the Russian language. Rumiantsev agreed, but stressed that the material should be published at the authors’ expense and prohibited them from using illustrations prepared for the official publication in Russian.Footnote 86 Krusenstern had to mediate among all participants involved in the process, whose goals and intentions did not always coincide. Indeed, sometimes his own point of view did not match with that of his patron. That was the case with Choris, the expedition's painter, and his preparations for his own publication in Paris.
After the Rurik's expedition Choris had moved to Paris with part of the collection of drawings he had made during the voyage, and obtained support from the prominent scientists Georges Cuvier and Franz Gall. He became a member of the recently founded Paris Société de géographie and published his world tour in pictures, in cooperation with his former companions.Footnote 87 According to Krug, Krusenstern considered the scientific quality of Choris's account unsatisfactory, and was ‘furious’ when he found out that Choris had obtained Rumiantsev's permission to dedicate the publication to him and his approval to include an expedition map, picturing the route of the voyage. Rumiantsev generally shared Krusenstern's opinion about Choris but, following Krug's advice, decided to support the painter's initiative. Through his own channels, Krug knew of Choris's success in Parisian scholarly circles and believed that supporting him would eventually enhance Rumiantsev's symbolic capital as a patron of science.Footnote 88
Rumiantsev was very successful in promoting the results of the Rurik's expedition and other surveys of the Bering Strait that were organized with his support. Every success of his associates and collaborators, to which he had contributed as patron, signalled to the world that the Chancellor was still alive and active. Attracting public attention in Europe to the northern voyage of exploration he had conceived of, sponsored and brought to fruition in published volumes fulfilled Rumiantsev's ambition and brought him recognition as the initiator of this impressive scientific endeavour. Rumiantsev was pleased when his activities were compared to those of great patrons of the sciences. After mentioning the death of Sir Joseph Banks and ‘the severe loss to British science’ that would long be felt, Barrow, in a letter dated 1820, asked Krusenstern to forward his compliments to Count Rumiantsev ‘for his respectful attention’ and for sharing communications on recent discoveries. Barrow added that Rumiantsev's ‘exertions in the cause of science and for the extension of human knowledge do him infinite credit’, and heartily wished that the world had many patrons like him.Footnote 89 As soon as this letter reached Krusenstern, he sent the original directly to his patron, who was pleased by such a flattering tribute and asked to make a copy for his archives.Footnote 90 In 1822, Rumiantsev was invited to become a member of the Paris Société de géographie. Sending Krusenstern the original letters he received from the society's first president, the Marquis Pierre-Simon de Laplace, and from Conrad Malte-Brun, its first general secretary and editor of Les annales des voyages and Les annales des voyages de la géographie et de l'histoire, he shared thoughts with his correspondent about plans to take part in the activities of this new scientific institution. Although he observed in his letter that Britain had missed out on establishing the first geographical society, he appreciated the idea expounded by the institution's founders in Paris, noting, ‘To achieve important goals requires not large amounts of money and government support, as often is considered, but a strong spirit and a strong-willed person’.Footnote 91
Conclusion
The Rurik's voyage was one among a few dozen other marine and overland expeditions launched aimed at the Arctic region by the British Admiralty, the Russian Ministry of the Navy and trade companies in the 1810s–1820s. Private patronage meant that the Rurik's voyage was ostensibly undertaken ‘purely [for] the promotion of geographical discovery and physical science’, and its results contributed to ‘the extension of geographical knowledge and the benefit of mankind’, as Barrow stressed in an essay published in the Quarterly Review.Footnote 92 Indeed, studies of currents and seawater properties in the Bering Strait region were an essential part of its research programme. But crucially, Kotzebue's round-the-world expedition came to be at the centre of discussions within the transnational communication network promoting geographical knowledge and maritime research. The Rurik's mobile ‘circulatory locality’ stirred up and shuffled other spaces of circulation, which in turn intersected, creating novel ensembles.
The influential Russian patron Rumiantsev and his principal adviser and collaborator Krusenstern promoted northern exploration, organized ambitious enterprises of discovery, and became successful mediators who encouraged and facilitated the circulation of knowledge locally and globally. Access to capital and unique expeditionary and informational resources made the two men successful transnational brokers of valuable scientific information about the geography and oceanographic conditions in high latitudes, and enabled them to forge an elaborate network of correspondents, associates and collaborators. They maintained and built a network of international correspondents who facilitated the regular movement and assessment not only of letters, books and clippings from European and Russian newspapers, but also of maps, engraving boards, drawings, instruments and equipment. With information gathered from many sources about exploration in the northern regions, and prompt acquisition of recent publications on the subject, they could keep abreast of rapidly developing events and adjust their programme of future surveys accordingly. Their exchanges with British correspondents were particularly extensive. Various actors involved in explorative enterprises realized that maritime and overland expeditions to the Bering Strait region entailed considerable risk as well as considerable expense. Under these circumstances, exchanging information and first-hand experiences, and occasional coordination, were crucial for success and even survival. Despite the wider geopolitical competition between the two nations, information continued to flow via well-established, but informal, networks of correspondence. Krusenstern maintained this channel of communication and exchanged letters with Barrow and other British correspondents even after Rumiantsev's death in 1826. In 1830 he was invited to become a corresponding member of the new Royal Geographical Society of London. Fifteen years later, he was among the founding members of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.
Creating novel configurations each time, ‘circularity’ was organized through intensive networking activities within a framework of patronage relationships. Transnational pathways played a key role in moving information and standardizing devices, practices and representations, but they also influenced vital local channels of negotiation and exchange. Likewise, local configurations of these encounters and exchanges shaped the transformative dynamics of the transnational network. The question of cultural property also affected the movement of information and knowledge through communication channels. It was a complex interplay of openness and secrecy, dependent not only on the interests and intentions of actors involved in the exchanges, but also on local configurational settings.
The ascent of marine science was a result of this transformative work in various localities, spaces and multiple loops of circulation. The mobilities and spatialities of both the Rurik and its crew, along with the correspondence network that supported the voyage and promoted its scientific results, shed light on how notions of oceanic space started to emerge as a whole and as a commons, and what practices shaped this new ‘way of knowing’ about the Bering Strait region. Patronage was crucial for the development of marine studies since, even at this early stage, it was a complex and costly endeavour that relied on innovative instruments. As Margaret Deacon and others have demonstrated, while the political and economic importance of the sea was clear by the end of the seventeenth century, it still took nearly another century before visible progress was made towards founding a science of the sea. Systematic series of measurements using novel instruments and techniques carried out during explorations of the Arctic regions revealed the properties of seawater, such as temperature and salinity on the surface and at depth, and the circulation of ocean currents and its causes. Observations and measurements made by the Rurik and other vessels of the Russian Ministry of the Navy, as well as by British expeditions sent to the Bering Strait region via the Atlantic, were important in acquiring considerable knowledge of currents and the properties of seawater. These studies helped produce the first scientific models of ocean current circulation.
