page_title: First Russian Antarctic Expedition
section_title: After 1948
hierarchical_section_title: First Russian Antarctic Expedition / Historiography / Question of priority in the discovery of Antarctica / After 1948
caption_attribution_description: English: Stamp of USSR
context_page_description: The First Russian Antarctic Expedition took place in 1819–1821 under the direction of Fabian Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. The expedition aimed to reach the Southern Ocean in order to prove or disprove the existence of a suspected sixth continent, Antarctica. The sloop Vostok was under the command of Bellingshausen, while Lazarev commanded the sloop Mirny. Overall, the crew consisted of 190 people.
  Due to extreme haste in equipping the voyage, it was impossible to assemble a science team. Thus, almost all scientific observations in the fields of geography, ethnography, and natural history were conducted by officers and the only scientist on board – associate professor Ivan Mikhailovich Simonov, who taught at the Imperial Kazan University. A novice painter, Pavel Mikhailov, was hired to depict the events, landscapes, and biological species encountered during the expedition. His paintings of the South Shetland Islands were used in English sailing directions until the 1940s.
  The Russian Antarctic expedition ended in complete success and became the second expedition to circumnavigate Antarctica after James Cook's expedition a half century earlier.
context_section_description: On August 9, 1948, discussion regarding the role of Russia in the discovery of Antarctica moved to a political dimension. At that day the USA officially urged countries that pretended on Antarctic territories (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and Britain) to unite and create a condominium of eight powers. Soviet interests were not taken into consideration. On January 29, 1949, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided to attract international attention to the Soviet claims to Antarctic territories. On February 10, 1949, Russian Geographical Society held a meeting where the president of the Society Lev Berg read the report. The following resolution, based on his speech, was very discreet. It stated that Russian sailors just "discovered in 1821 the Peter I Island, Alexander Island, Traversay Islands, and others". Thus, the question was raised regarding the Soviet development of Antarctica and scientific research on the discovery of the Ice Continent.
  Extended English translation of the Bellingshausen's description of the expedition was published in 1946 and edited by Frank Debenham – the director of the Scott Polar Research Institute. Starting from the 1920s, Debenham was investigating Russian impact on the discovery of Antarctica. The scientist took an objective position and very highly praised the qualities of Russian officers in observing and researching. According to Tammiksaar, because of Debenham' editorial notes, Soviet researchers were able to investigate Bellingshausen' discoveries more thoroughly. Commenting on the notes of January 16 (28) 1820, Debenham mentioned that "this day can be counted as unsuccessful for the expedition" because the vessels  were no further than 20 miles from the Princess Martha's coast. Few hours of good weather could have lead to its discovery 110 years earlier than was done by Norwegians.
  In 1947, Evgeniy Sjvede published review on the book translation, and later it played a large role in the Soviet discussions of 1949. Sjvede and Berg emphasized James Cook' claims on the impossibility of reaching the extreme southern latitudes, and that the hypothetical Southern continent will never be discovered. The preface to "Dvukratnykh izyskanii" that was published in 1949 contained overt political accusations. Sjvede also referred to the observations made by Soviet whale hunters on flotilla “Slava”, matching them with notes by Bellingshausen, Lazarev and Novosilsky.
  In 1961–1963, the famous historian of polar expeditions Mikhail Belov published a series of studies on the Bellingshausen's report card. Thus, the new primary source that proved the Russian priority over Antarctic lands was released. The map was presumably made by the expedition officers for the report to Traversay, or even to Alexander I. In the 1980-1990s, Belov's argumentation was accepted by foreign specialists. The map included 15 pages and had coloured remarks on different ice conditions. According to Belov, every time when Bellingshausen used the phrase "sploshnoi led" it actually meant that the expedition faced not with ordinary ice fields but with the shores of the Antarctic continent. As Bulkeley calculated, Bellingshausen described meetings with "sploshnoi led" 12 times, using this term 16 times in the reports, and around 33 times in his book. According to Belov, the expedition simultaneously opened the continent, and conducted an extended research on it. Conclusions of Belov were repeated in the book of Alexey Tryoshnikov, and in the research conducted by Vasilii Yesakov and Dmitrii Lebedev "Russian geographic discoveries and studies from ancient times to 1917" (Russian: «Русские географические открытия и исследования с древних времён до 1917 года») where the authors reproduced the map of the "ice shore" and ice classification compiled by Novosilsky.
  This point of view became conventional in the Soviet and Russian historiography. In the "Ocherki po istorii geograficheskikh otkrytii" (Russian: «Очерках по истории географических открытий») by Iosif Magidovich and Vadim
caption: USSR postal stamps (1950) dedicated to expedition
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