Alexander Filippovich Postels (; 24 August 1801 in

Dorpat Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

– 28 June 1871 in

Vyborg Vyborg (; , ; , ; , ) is a town and the administrative center of Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of Vyborg Bay, northwest of St. Petersburg, east of the Finnish capital H ...

) was a Russian naturalist, mineralogist and artist of Baltic German descent.

Career

Postels studied at St.Petersburg Imperial University and in 1826 lectured there on

inorganic chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with chemical synthesis, synthesis and behavior of inorganic compound, inorganic and organometallic chemistry, organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subj ...

. In the 1820s political relations between

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 ...

and the United States were troubled by the extent of Russian territory in North America. Russia intended to enforce its claims by sending two warships to the disputed areas. When the two countries agreed on 54°40′N as the southern limit of Russian claims, Czar Nicolas I changed their orders in 1826 to an extended three-year survey of the Russian-American and Asian coasts.

Otto von Kotzebue Otto von Kotzebue (; 30 December 1787 – 15 February 1846) was a Baltic German naval officer in the Imperial Russian Navy. He commanded two naval expeditions into the Pacific for the purposes of exploration and scientific investigation. The fi ...

had returned on 10 July 1826 from his voyage of discovery aboard ''Predpriyatiye''. On 16 August 1826, Captain Lieutenant Fedor Petrovich Litke, sailed on board the Russian vessel ''Senyavin'', accompanied by the ''Möller'' under Captain Lieutenant M. N. Staniukovich. Postels sailed with Litke as a naturalist/artist and had the distinction of being the first St. Petersburg University graduate to join such a large-scale expedition. On board were also the naturalist

Karl Heinrich Mertens Karl Heinrich Mertens (Russian: Андрей Карлович Мертенс, 17 May 1796 – 29 September 1830 Kronstadt), was a German botanist and naturalist, and son of the botanist Franz Carl Mertens. Mertens was born in Bremen and became in ...

(1796–1830), who died in Kronstadt shortly after his return from

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

and another trip on the ''Senyavin'', and the ornithologist Baron von Kittlitz. left, Voyage of the ''Senyavin'' Their orders were to ''"reconnoitre and describe the coasts of

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

, the land of the Chuchkis and the Koriaks (the coasts of which have not yet been described by anyone, and which are unknown except by the voyage of Captain Bering); the coasts of the

Okhotsk Sea The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the south, ...

, and the

Shantar Islands The Shantar Islands () are a group of fifteen islands located off the northwestern shore of the Sea of Okhotsk east of Uda Bay and north of Academy Bay. Most of the islands have rugged cliffs, but they are of moderate height; the highest point in ...

, which although they are known to us, have not been sufficiently described."'' The expedition sailed from

Kronstadt Kronstadt (, ) is a Russian administrative divisions of Saint Petersburg, port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal cities of Russia, federal city of Saint Petersburg, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg, near the head ...

, the Russian port on

Kotlin Island Kotlin (; ) is a Russian island, located near the head of the Gulf of Finland, west of Saint Petersburg in the Baltic Sea. Kotlin separates the Neva Bay from the rest of the gulf. The fortified city of Kronstadt is located on the island and form ...

, via

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 ...

and rounded

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

on 24 February 1827. The ''Senyavin'' called at Concepcion in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, before sailing north to Sitka, and arriving at Petropavlovsk in mid-September. They explored the

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the cen ...

and the Bonin-Jima group for four months, returning to Kamchatka in May. During the summer they sailed from

Avacha Bay Avacha Bay () is a Pacific Ocean bay on the southeastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is long and wide (at the mouth), with a maximum depth of . The Avacha River flows into the bay. The port city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and the c ...

to Karaginskii Island and on through the

Bering Strait The Bering Strait ( , ; ) is a strait between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, separating the Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East from the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The present Russia–United States maritime boundary is at 168° 58' ...

to reconnoitre the coast as far north as the

Anadyr River The Anadyr (; Yukaghir: Онандырь; ) is a river in the far northeast of Siberia which flows into the Gulf of Anadyr of the Bering Sea and drains much of the interior of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Its basin corresponds to the Anadyrsky ...

. They returned via

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

and the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

, arriving back in

on 16 September 1829. The expedition was called the largest and most productive voyage of discovery of the era, and brought back some 4 000 natural history specimens, including mammals, insects, birds, plants, and minerals. More than 1250 sketches of their findings were made on the voyage. Twelve island groups were discovered along the Asian coast, and 26

were explored and described. The flattening of the Earth's poles was investigated using an invariable pendulum. Postels was appointed assistant-professor of the Department of Mineralogy and Geology of St.Petersburg University. During the voyage Postels depicted more than 100

seaweeds Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of ''Rhodophyta'' (red), '' Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...

or marine algae from the northern Pacific in ''"Illustrationes algarum in itinere circa orbem jussu Imperatoriis Nicolai I"'' published in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

in 1840. The seaweed genus ''

Postelsia ''Postelsia palmaeformis'', also known as the sea palm (not to be confused with the southern sea palm) or palm seaweed, is a species of kelp and classified within brown algae. It is the only known species in the genus ''Postelsia''. The sea pa ...

'' is named in his honour. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Postels when

citing A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or cultivar group, Group epithets must conform t ...

. Postels was elected an Honorary Member of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

on 14 January 1866 and invited to act as curator of the Mineralogical Museum. He tutored the Grand Duchesses Maria and

Ekaterina Ekaterina is a Russian feminine given name, and an alternative transliteration of the Russian Yekaterina. Katya and Katyusha are common diminutive forms of Ekaterina. Its Western counterpart is Catherine (Katherine). Notable people with the na ...

, daughters of Czar Nicolas I's brother

Mikhail Michael is a common masculine given name derived from the Hebrew phrase ''mī kāʼēl'', 'Who slike-El', in Aramaic: ܡܝܟܐܝܠ (''Mīkhāʼēl'' ). The theophoric name is often read as a rhetorical question – "Who slike he Hebrew Go ...

, and was the tutor of Prince Oldenburgski's children.KUNSTKAMERAThe Museum and its directors
/ref>

References

External links

Ships of Discovery and Exploration (Lincoln P. Paine)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Postels, Alexander Philipov Botanists with author abbreviations Naturalists from the Russian Empire 19th-century botanists from the Russian Empire Russian botanical illustrators Mineralogists from the Russian Empire 1801 births 1871 deaths Scientists from Tartu 19th-century painters from the Russian Empire Privy Councillor (Russian Empire) 19th-century Russian illustrators

Career

See also

References

External links