Alexander Evgenievich Goncharov,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Reshetnev Siberian State University of Science and Technology, Krasnoyarsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Who Shipwrecked the SS Tsaritsa? M.K. Sidorov and the 1878 Polar Expedition to the Yenisey
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2023-6-5
This article will examine the 1878 expedition to the Yenisey River, organized by Bremen merchant Ludwig von Knoop as one of the episodes in the development of the Northern Sea Route. Unlike traditional historical literature on the Kara Sea expeditions, this article shall focus on the role of public relations in the formation of the very idea of the sea route. The period of the 1870s for the first time in Russian journalism witnessed such close attention to the development of the Arctic. The leading role in this process belonged to the “Works of the St. Petersburg Imperial Society for the Promotion of Russian Mercantile Shipping” and its main authors on the Russian North: Mikhail Konstantinovich Sidorov and Fedor Dmitrievich Studitsky. Both of these figures became closely associated with the problem of the development of the Northern Sea Route, namely its development by foreign rather than domestic actors. The origins of this problem lie much deeper than is usually represented in historical literature. The development of the sea route and the Siberian Arctic began at the moment when the public of most European countries experienced and new heroic awakening. Unlike earlier heroic images, the new hero was now a struggling self-sacrificing martyr. Victory was no longer the objective, however enduring hardships and suffers in the name of an idealistic goal was mandatory. These goals varied across cultures. Thus, the Scandinavians sacrificed themselves in the name of science; the British went on in the name of the triumph of free trade; while the Russians fought on in the name of national interests. M.K. Sidorov became the embodiment of precisely this image. In the public consciousness, he remained as a tireless fighter against foreign attempts to seize the Russian North, taking advantage of the fruits, including his own, of many years of intense labor aimed at making sea voyages to Siberia a reality. He also suffered at the hands of the ignorant and inert local officials, who, according to M.K. Sidorov, also conspired against Russia in the Arctic. And yet, as revealed by the 1878 expedition to the Yenisey, the failures propagated by M.K. Sidorov in order to convince the public of the existence of a foreign conspiracy directed against Russian plans for Arctic exploration turned out to be just accidents, quite typical of sailing on such dangerous waters. However, despite his regular exaggeration of minor incidents, the search for those responsible in the person of foreigners and officials, changeability and inconstancy, and sometimes outright amateurism, M.K. Sidorov was and remains a Russian champion of Arctic exploration.
Publishing: 28/12/2023
The article has been received by the editor on 11/12/2023
How to cite: Goncharov A.E. Who Shipwrecked the SS Tsaritsa? M.K. Sidorov and the 1878 Polar Expedition to the Yenisey // Historical Courier, 2023, No. 6 (32), pp. 50–71. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2023/ISTKURIER-2023-6-05.pdf]
Links: Issue 6 2023
Keywords: Mikhail Konstantinovich Sidorov; Northern Sea Route; Kara Sea; Yenisey River; baron Ludwig von Knoop; Eduard Dallmann; geographical press