Faddey Faddeyevich Bellingshausen or Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin von Bellingshausen ( – ) was a Russian cartographer, explorer, and naval officer of Baltic German descent, who attained the rank of

admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in many navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force. Admiral is ranked above vice admiral and below admiral of ...

. He participated in the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe, and subsequently became a leader of another circumnavigation expedition that discovered the continent of

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. Like Otto von Kotzebue and Adam Johann von Krusenstern, Bellingshausen belonged to a cohort of prominent Baltic German navigators which helped Russia launch its naval expeditions. Bellingshausen was born on the island of Saaremaa ( Ösel), to the . He started his service in the Russian

Baltic Fleet The Baltic Fleet () is the Naval fleet, fleet of the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea. Established 18 May 1703, under Tsar Peter the Great as part of the Imperial Russian Navy, the Baltic Fleet is the oldest Russian fleet. In 1918, the fleet w ...

, and after distinguishing himself joined the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth in 1803–1806, serving on the merchant ship ''Nadezhda'' under the captaincy of Adam Johann von Krusenstern. After the journey, he published a collection of maps of the newly explored areas and islands of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. Subsequently, he commanded several ships of the Baltic and

Black Sea Fleet The Black Sea Fleet () is the Naval fleet, fleet of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Mediterranean Sea. The Black Sea Fleet, along with other Russian ground and air forces on the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula, are subordin ...

s. As a prominent cartographer, Bellingshausen was appointed to command the Russian

circumnavigation Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first circumnaviga ...

of the globe in 1819–1821, intended to explore the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the world ocean, generally taken to be south of 60th parallel south, 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is the seco ...

and to find land in the proximity of the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True South Pole to distinguish ...

. Mikhail Lazarev prepared the expedition and was made Bellingshausen's second-in-command and the captain of the sloop '' Mirny'', while Bellingshausen himself commanded the sloop '' Vostok''. During this expedition, Bellingshausen and Lazarev became the first explorers to see the land of

on 27 January 1820 (

New Style Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various Europe, European countrie ...

), disproving

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

's contention that it was impossible to find land in the southern ice-fields. They circumnavigated the continent twice and never lost each other from view. The expedition discovered and named Peter I, Zavodovski, Leskov,

Alexander Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here ar ...

, and Visokoi Islands, the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martin in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica. ...

, and made other discoveries in the tropical waters of the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

. Made on his return, Bellingshausen participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829. Promoted to

vice admiral Vice admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, usually equivalent to lieutenant general and air marshal. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral. Australia In the Royal Australian Navy, the rank of Vice ...

, he again served in the Baltic Fleet in the 1830s. From 1839, he was a military governor of Kronstadt, and gained the rank of

in 1843. In 1831, he published the book on his Antarctic travels, called ''Double Investigation of the Southern Polar Ocean and the Voyage Around the World''.

Early life and career

Bellingshausen was born into the Baltic German noble Bellingshausen family in the , Ösel County in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire; now

Saare County Saare County ( or ''Saaremaa''; ; ; ; ) is one of 15 counties of Estonia. It consists of Saaremaa, the largest island of Estonia, and several smaller islands near it, most notably Muhu, Ruhnu, Abruka and Vilsandi. The county borders Lääne Count ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. His paternal family had Holsteinish origins; the surname Bellingshausen was first recorded in

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...

. He enlisted as a cadet in the Imperial Russian Navy at the age of ten. After graduating from the Kronstadt naval academy at age eighteen, Bellingshausen rapidly rose to the rank of captain.

First Russian circumnavigation

A great admirer of Cook's voyages, Bellingshausen served from 1803 in the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth. He was one of the officers of the vessel '' Nadezhda'' ("Hope"), commanded by Adam Johann von Krusenstern. The mission was completed in 1806. After the journey, Bellingshausen published a collection of maps of the newly explored areas and islands of the

Service as captain

Bellingshausen's career continued with the command of various ships in the Baltic and

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

s. From 1812 to 1816, he commanded the

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...

Minerva Minerva (; ; ) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Be ...

'' and from 1817 to 1819 the frigate ''

Flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

'', both in the

. During 1812 he met on

Macquarie Island Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island in the south-western Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. It has been governed as a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1880. It became a Protected areas of Tasmania, Tasmania ...

, half-way between

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and

, Richard Siddins, the Australian captain of the ship ''Campbell Macquarie''.

First Russian Antarctic expedition

When Emperor Alexander I authorized an expedition to the south polar region in 1819, the authorities selected Bellingshausen to lead it as an experienced captain and explorer, and a prominent cartographer. The expedition was intended to explore the

and to find land in the proximity of the

. The preparation work on the two ships, the 985-ton

sloop-of-war During the 18th and 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship of the Royal Navy with a single gun deck that carried up to 18 guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy covered all vessels with 20 or more guns; thus, the term encompassed all u ...

'' Vostok'' ("East") and the 530-ton support vessel '' Mirny'' ("Peaceful") was carried out by Mikhail Lazarev, who had captained his own

of the globe before. Bellingshausen became the captain of ''Vostok'', and Lazarev captained ''Mirny''. The journey started from Kronstadt on 4 June 1819. They stopped briefly in England, where Bellingshausen met with Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. Banks had sailed with Captain

fifty years earlier and supplied the Russians with books and charts for their expedition. Leaving

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

on 5 September 1819 the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle (the first to do so since Cook) on 26 January 1820 (

). On 27 January, the expedition discovered the Antarctic mainland approaching the Antarctic coast at a point with coordinates 69º21'28"S 2º14'50"W and seeing ice-fields there. The point in question lies within twenty miles of the Antarctic mainland. Bellingshausen's diary, his report to the

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n Naval Minister on 21 July 1821 and other documents, available in the Russian State Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, Russia, were carefully compared with the log-books of other claimants by the British polar historian A. G. E. Jones in his 1982 study ''Antarctica Observed''. Jones concluded that Bellingshausen, rather than the Royal Navy's Edward Bransfield on 30 January 1820 or the American

Nathaniel Palmer Nathaniel Brown Palmer (August 8, 1799 – June 21, 1877) was an American seal hunter, explorer, sailing captain, ship designer, and a whale hunter. He gave his name to Palmer Land, Antarctica, which he explored in 1820 on his sloop ''Hero''. ...

on 17 November 1820, was indeed the discoverer of the sought-after Terra Australis. During the voyage Bellingshausen also visited Meretoto / Ship Cove in New Zealand, the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands, Antarctic islands located in the Drake Passage with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the n ...

, and discovered and named Peter I, Zavodovski, Leskov and Visokoi Islands, and a peninsula of the Antarctic mainland that he named the Alexander Coast, but that has more recently borne the designation of

Alexander Island Alexander Island, which is also known as Alexander I Island, Alexander I Land, Alexander Land, Alexander I Archipelago, and Zemlja Alexandra I, is the largest island of Antarctica. It lies in the Bellingshausen Sea west of Palmer Land, Antarcti ...

. Bellingshausen and Lazarev managed to twice circumnavigate the continent and never lost each other from view. Thus, they disproved Cook's assertion that it was impossible to find land in the southern ice fields. The expedition also made discoveries and observations in the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Admiral

Returning to Kronstadt on 4 August 1821, Bellingshausen was made , and received the rank of counter admiral from tsar Nicholas I in 1826. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, — particularly in the siege of Varna, was promoted to

in 1830, served as a military governor of port Kronstadt at the approaches to

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, and gained the rank of

in 1843. In 1831, he published the book on his Antarctic travel, called ''Double Investigation of the Southern Polar Ocean and the Voyage Around the World''.

Military governor of Kronstadt

In 1839 he became a military governor of Kronstadt, the main base of Russian

, and died there in 1852.

Legacy

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen is remembered in Russia as one of its greatest admirals and explorers. In the

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

, multiple geographical features and locations, named in honor of Bellingshausen, remind of his role in exploration of the southern polar region.

Monuments

There is a memorial stone of Bellingshausen on the previous site (on the ruins) of Lahhentagge/Lahetaguse manor in Ösel/Saaremaa. There is a monument to Bellingshausen in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, as well as in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and in Montevideo, Uruguay. There is a monument to Admiral Bellingshausen in Kronstadt, near

in Russia.

Named in honour

* Bellingshausen Island (was) in the

Aral Sea The Aral Sea () was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up into desert by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhst ...

. * Bellingshausen Island in the south Atlantic Ocean, part of the

South Sandwich Islands The South Sandwich Islands () are a chain of uninhabited volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. They are administered as part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The chain lies in the sub-A ...

* Bellingshausen Sea in the

* Bellingshausen Station, a Russian (former

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

) base on King George Island, Antarctica * Bellingshausen Plate, an ancient

tectonic plate Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

* Bellinsgauzen, a crater on the

far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the hemisphere of the Moon that is facing away from Earth, the opposite hemisphere is the near side. It always has the same surface oriented away from Earth because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. C ...

* Faddey Islands in the Laptev Sea coastal region on the north Russian coast, named after Bellingshausen's first name in Russian * Motu One (Society Islands), also known as Bellinghausen, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean * A

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

3659 Bellingshausen, discovered by

astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh in 1969

Notes

References

Sources

* * * Oliver, Steven. 'Bellingshausen, Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin von',

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography The ''Dictionary of New Zealand Biography'' (DNZB) is an encyclopedia or biographical dictionary containing biographies of over 3,000 deceased New Zealanders. It was first published as a series of print volumes from 1990 to 2000, went online ...

, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1b17/bellingshausen-fabian-gottlieb-benjamin-von (accessed 15 January 2024) * *

External links

70South – information on Fabian von Bellingshausen
Bellingshausen's book in Russian with details on the Antarctic expedition led by him
A map of his Antarctic expedition (in Russian)
attention – all dates there are Julian
The page of Pilguse (Hoheneichen) manor from Estonian Manors Portal
owned by the von Bellingshausens {{DEFAULTSORT:Bellingshausen, Fabian Gottlieb von 1778 births 1852 deaths People from Saaremaa Parish People from Kreis Ösel Baltic-German people from the Russian Empire Explorers of Antarctica Estonian explorers 19th-century explorers from the Russian Empire Imperial Russian Navy admirals Cartographers from the Russian Empire Circumnavigators of the globe Russian polar explorers Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Fourth Degree Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st class Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Russia) Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 1st class Companions of the Order of the Bath Order of Saint Louis recipients