Born 1778,
Ösel Island, Estonia
Died 1852,
Kronshlot, Russia
Although Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen made pioneering explorations of the waters around the Antarctic continent, the significance of his voyage was not appreciated during his lifetime. In 1820 he sighted the Antarctic mainland—perhaps the first person ever to do so—but more than a hundred years would pass before his name would be associated with the discovery of Antarctica.
Bellingshausen was born on Ösel Island in the Baltic Sea, which lies between Sweden and the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. His family belonged to the German gentry, who had long been prominent landholders and merchants in Estonia, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. In the Russian language he was known as Faddey Faddeyevich Bellingshausen. As a young man, Bellingshausen attended the Russian Naval Academy at Kronshlot near St. Petersburg, Russia. He served as a junior officer on the ship that made the first Russian voyage around the world. In the following years Bellingshausen carried out hydrographic surveys in the Black Sea.
In May 1819 Bellingshausen was summoned to St. Petersburg, where he learned that Czar Alexander I had decided to send two ships to explore Antarctica. Bellingshausen was informed that he had been chosen to lead the expedition. In July, after hurried preparations in Kronshlot, he set sail as commander of a newly constructed ship, the Vostok (East); it was accompanied by a smaller and slower ship, the Mirnyi (Peaceful), commanded by Mikhail Lazarev.
Bellingshausen’s voyage began with stops in Denmark and England, where he tried unsuccessfully to persuade the naturalist Joseph Banks (see entry) to join the expedition. The Vostok and the Mirnyi started the long journey south, stopping first at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and then heading toward the South Atlantic island of South Georgia.
An admirer of James Cook (see entry), the British sea captain and explorer, Bellingshausen kept Cook’s works close at hand. Now Bellingshausen himself was sailing through a region Cook had begun exploring nearly 50 years earlier. He mapped the southern coast of South Georgia Island, completing the work that Cook had done along the northern coast in 1775. When Bellingshausen’s ships crossed the Antarctic Circle on January 27, 1820, they were the first ships to have done so since Cook’s voyage in 1773.
The next day Bellingshausen sighted distant mountains in the area now called the Princess Martha Coast on the Antarctic mainland. The following three days he reported seeing ice cliffs and ice-covered mountains, not realizing they were part of a large continent. At almost exactly the same time as Bellingshausen’s sightings, the British naval captain Edward Bransfield and the American seal-hunting captain Nathaniel Palmer also reported seeing mountains. It is not clear who actually saw the continent first.
On February 22 a severe storm forced Bellingshausen’s ships to turn northward at about the longitude of Cape Town, South Africa. Sailing east to Australia, the Vostok arrived in Sydney Harbor on April 11; the Mirnyi trailed in eight days later. For several weeks the explorers stayed in the harbor to repair the ships and take on supplies.
Bellingshausen set out during the southern winter, sailing among the islands of Polynesia and stopping at New Zealand along the way. When the ships passed through the Tuamotu Archipelago in the South Pacific, Bellingshausen became the first European to see some of the islands in that area. He also discovered and named the small, uninhabited island of Vostok. Returning through the central Pacific, where he fixed the location of many islands, he stopped again in Sydney in September 1820.
In November Bellingshausen left Australia and sailed back to the Antarctic. He spent a few days on isolated Macquarie Island south of the Australian continent, where he encountered several seal-hunting ships. He accurately forecast that the seal population would soon be destroyed.
On January 21, 1821, Bellingshausen reached his farthest point south, 69.5°S, in the body of water now called the Bellingshausen Sea; the coast of this region of Antarctica is so heavily surrounded by ice that no ship has ever reached it. The following day Bellingshausen discovered an island and named it Peter I after the czar who had founded the Russian navy. A week later Bellingshausen sighted a group of mountains that he named Alexander I Land, which was actually an island connected by ice to the Antarctic Peninsula.
Sailing north to the South Shetland Islands, Bellingshausen met eight seal-hunting ships. The captain of one of them was Palmer, who came aboard the Vostok to visit Bellingshausen. According to an American account published 12 years later, Palmer told Bellingshausen that he had discovered the mainland of a continent. The Americans called it the Palmer Peninsula; actually it was the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Bellingshausen’s account makes no mention of Palmer’s claim. Bellingshausen’s ships were now turning toward home. From the South Shetlands they sailed north, reaching Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in March 1821 and arriving in Kronshlot on August 4, 1821.
At the time of his return, Bellingshausen’s discoveries were largely ignored. Although he submitted a report on his expedition, publication was delayed for several years. Meanwhile, Bellingshausen returned to active duty in the Russian navy with the rank of rear admiral and fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29. In 1831 he was promoted to admiral and in 1839 was made military governor of Kronshlot, where he served until his death in 1852.
The Russian Empire never sent another expedition to Antarctica. The Soviet Union, which replaced the Russian Empire after World War I, did not become actively involved in Antarctic affairs until much later, starting with the International Geophysical Year in 1957. It was then that the Soviets put forward the claim that Bellingshausen had been the first person to see the continent of Antarctica.
International Geophysical Year
Beginning in July 1957 scientists from 67 nations combined their efforts in an international study of the solar-terrestrial environment. This program, known as the International Geophysical Year (IGY), was the most important worldwide scientific project to that date. The IGY continued through December 1958 during a period of maximum sunspot activity.
The IGY produced significant discoveries in several fields: Earth satellites found the Van Allen radiation belts that are responsible for northern and southern polar auras; oceanographic studies produced new information about the ocean floor and deep ocean currents; and scientists developed more effective gravity measurements for mineral exploration. As a result of the IGY, Antarctica was designated a nonmilitary region reserved for international scientific study, such as the collection of meteorological data.
This is the complete article, containing 1,103 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
