Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (also known as _ru. Фаддей Фаддеевич Беллинсгаузен; "Faddey Faddeyevich Bellinsgauzen") (OldStyleDate|20 September|1778|9 September–OldStyleDate|25 January|1852|13 January) served as a naval officer of the Russian Empire and commanded the second Russian expedition to circumnavigate the globe. During this expedition Bellingshausen became one of three Europeans to first see the continent of Antarctica.

Biography

Born to a Baltic German family in Lahetaguse manor (in German: Lahhentagge) in Saaremaa (Ösel) in Estonia - then part of the Russian Empire - von Bellingshausen enlisted as a cadet in the Imperial Russian Navy at the age of ten. After graduating from the Kronstadt naval academy at age eighteen, he rapidly rose to the rank of captain. A great admirer of Cook's voyages, he served from 1803 in the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth. The vessel "Nadezhda" ("Hope") was commanded by Krusenstern, completing the mission in 1806. Von Bellingshausen's career continued with the command of various ships in the Baltic and Black Seas.

When Czar Alexander I authorized an expedition to the south polar region in 1819, the authorities selected Bellingshausen to lead it. Leaving Portsmouth on September 5, 1819 with two ships, the 600-ton corvette "Vostok" ("East") and the 530-ton support vessel "Mirnyi" ("Peaceful") (captained by Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev), the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle (the first to do so since Cook) on January 26, 1820. On January 28 1820 (New Style) 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 [http://www.polarmuseum.sp.ru/Eng/index.htm 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. During the voyage Bellingshausen also visited the South Shetland Islands, and discovered and named Peter I, Zavodovski, Leskov and Visokoi Islands, and a peninsula of the Antarctic mainland which he named the Alexander Coast but which has more recently borne the designation of Alexander Island. Bellingshausen Island in the South Sandwich Islands is named after him. The Faddey Islands in the Laptev Sea are named after Bellingshausen's first name.

The expedition continued to make discoveries in the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Returning to Kronstadt on 4 August 1821 to no great acclaim, Bellingshausen continued to serve his tsar. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829 and attained the rank of admiral. He became the military governor of Kronstadt (from 1839) and died there in 1852.

A minor planet 3659 Bellingshausen, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh in 1969 is named after him. [cite book | last = Schmadel | first = Lutz D. | coauthors = | title = Dictionary of Minor Planet Names | pages = p. 308 | edition = 5th | year = 2003 | publisher = Springer Verlag | location = New York | url = http://books.google.com/books?q=3659+Bellingshausen+1969+TE2 | id = ISBN 3540002383] There is a memorial stone of von Bellingshausen on the previous site (on the ruins) of Lahhentagge/Lahetaguse manor in Oesel/Saaremaa.

Named in his honor

* Bellingshausen Island in the south Atlantic Ocean.
* Bellingshausen Sea in the Southern Ocean
* Bellingshausen Station, a Russian (former Soviet) base on King George Island, Antarctica
* Bellingshausen Plate, an ancient tectonic plate
* Bellinsgauzen, a crater on the Far side of the Moon
* Motu One (Society Islands), also known as Bellinghausen, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean

ee also

* History of Antarctica
* Faddey Islands

References

External links

* [http://www.70south.com/resources/history/explorers/bellingshausen 70South - information on Fabian von Bellingshausen]
* [http://kapustin.boom.ru/journal/bel02.htm Двукратные изыскания в Южном Ледовитом океане и плавание вокруг света...] Bellingshausen's book in Russian with details on the Antarctic expedition lead by him
* [http://www.aari.nw.ru/projects/Antarctic/persons/bell/bell_ru.html Biography (in Russian)]
* [http://www.rubricon.com/showbigimg.asp?id=245000212 A map of his Antarctic expedition (in Russian)] , attention - all dates there are Julian
* [http://www.mois.ee/english/saare/pilguse.shtml the page of Pilguse (Hoheneichen) manor from Estonian Manors Portal] owned by the von Bellingshausens