Bellingshausen was born in the Estonian island of Saaremaa (Ösel), in the eponymous family. He started his service in the Russian Baltic Fleet, 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. Subsequently, he commanded several ships of the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets.[2]
As a prominent cartographer, Bellingshausen was appointed to command the Russian circumnavigation of the globe in 1819–1821, intended to explore the Southern Ocean and to find land in the proximity of the South Pole. 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 Antarctica on 27 January 1820 (New Style),[9] disproving James Cook's contention that it was impossible to find land in the southern ice-fields.[citation needed] They circumnavigated the continent twice and never lost each other from view. The expedition discovered and named Peter I, Zavodovski, Leskov, Alexander, and Visokoi Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula, and made other discoveries in the tropical waters of the Pacific.
Made captain-commodore [ru] on his return, Bellingshausen participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829. Promoted to vice admiral, he again served in the Baltic Fleet in the 1830s. From 1839, he was a military governor of Kronstadt, and gained the rank of admiral 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.[e]
The mission was completed in 1806. After the journey, Bellingshausen published a collection of maps of the newly explored areas and islands of the Pacific Ocean.
The First Russian Antarctic expedition 1819–1821Captain Faddey Bellingshausen with the Cross of the Order of St. Vladimir
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 Southern Ocean and to find land in the proximity of the South Pole. The preparation work on the two ships, the 985-ton sloop-of-warVostok ("East") and the 530-ton support vessel Mirny ("Peaceful") was carried out by Mikhail Lazarev, who had captained his own circumnavigation 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. Banks had sailed with Captain James Cook fifty years earlier and supplied the Russians with books and charts for their expedition.[11]
Leaving Portsmouth on 5 September 1819 the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle (the first to do so since Cook) on 26 January 1820 (New Style). 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 Russian Naval Minister on 21 July 1821 and other documents, available in the Russian State Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic in Saint Petersburg, 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 on 17 November 1820, was indeed the discoverer of the sought-after Terra Australis.
Mikhail Lazarev, captain of Mirny and second-in-command to Bellingshausen during the Antarctic expedition.
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.[citation needed]
Returning to Kronstadt on 4 August 1821, Bellingshausen was made captain-commodore [ru], 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,[14] was promoted to vice admiral in 1830, served as a military governor of port Kronstadt at the approaches to St Petersburg, and gained the rank of admiral 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.[e]
Military governor of Kronstadt
In 1839 he became a military governor of Kronstadt, the main base of Russian Baltic Fleet, and died there in 1852.
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen is remembered in Russia as one of its greatest admirals and explorers. In the Antarctic, 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.
Faddei Faddeevich Bellingshausen according to the AuDB.[2] Faddey Faddeyevich Bellingshausen in Dictionary.com(one of the possible variants).[3] Estonian: Faddei Faddejevitš Bellingshausen.[4]
^In German personal names, von is a preposition which approximately means 'of' or 'from' and usually denotes some sort of nobility. While von (always lower case) is part of the family name or territorial designation, not a first or middle name, if the noble is referred to by their last name, use Schiller, Clausewitz or Goethe, not von Schiller, etc.
^ abOriginal title in Russian: Двукратные изыскания в южнополярном океане и плавание вокруг света, romanized: Dvukratnyye izyskaniya v yuzhnopolyarnom okeane i plavaniye vokrug sveta.
^Daum, Andreas W. (2019). "German Naturalists in the Pacific around 1800: Entanglement, Autonomy, and a Transnational Culture of Expertise". In Berghoff, Hartmut (ed.). Explorations and Entanglements: Germans in Pacific Worlds from the Early Modern Period to World War I. Berghahn Books. pp. 79–102. ISBN978-1-78920-028-7.
^A.H. McLintock, ed. (1966). "Ship Cove". An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. Ministry for Culture and Heritage/Te Manatū Taonga, Government of New Zealand. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
Novitsky, Vasily F.; Schwarz, Alexey V. von; Apushkin, Vladimir A.; Schoultz, Gustav K. von (1911). Военная энциклопедия [Military Encyclopedia] (in Russian). Vol. IV: Б – Бомба. Moscow: Типография Т-ва И. Д. Сытина. pp. 450–451. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
Hotimsky, C. M. (1966). "Bellingshausen, Faddei Faddeevich (Fabian) (1778–1852)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
