Ferdinand von Wrangel

Baron[1] Ferdinand Friedrich Georg Ludwig von Wrangel (Russian: Барон Фердина́нд Петро́вич Вра́нгель, tr. Ferdinand Petrovich Vrangel'; 9 January 1797 [O.S. 29 December 1796] – 6 June [O.S. 25 May] 1870) was a Baltic German explorer and officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, Honorable Member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and a founder of the Russian Geographic Society. He is best known as the chief manager of the Russian-American Company and governor of the Russian settlements in present-day Alaska.

Baron
Ferdinand von Wrangel
6th Governor of Russian America
In office
1 June 1830  29 October 1835
Preceded byPyotr Yegorovich Chistyakov
Succeeded byIvan Kupreyanov
Minister of the Navy
In office
18 May 1855  27 July 1857
Preceded byAlexander Menshikov
Succeeded byNikolay Metlin
Personal details
Born(1797-12-29)29 December 1797
Pskov, Governorate of Pskov, Russian Empire
Died25 May 1870(1870-05-25) (aged 72)
Dorpat, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire
NationalityBaltic German
SpouseElisabeth Teodora Natalia Karolina de Rossillon
ChildrenWilhelm, Peter, Ferdinand, Elisabeth, Eva
Military service
Allegiance Russian Empire
Branch/service Imperial Russian Navy
 Imperial Russian Army
Years of service1815–1864
RankAdmiral
Adjutant General
Battles/warsCrimean War

In English texts, Wrangel is sometimes spelled Vrangel, a transliteration from Russian, which more closely represents its pronunciation in German, or Wrangell.

Biography

Wrangel was born in Pskov,[2] into the noble Baltic German Wrangel family and was a distant nephew of Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich von Wrangel. He graduated from the Naval Cadets College in 1815. He participated in Vasily Golovnin's world cruise on the ship Kamchatka in 1817–1819 and belonged to the cohort of Baltic-German navigators who were instrumental in Imperial Russia's maritime explorations.[3]

Kolymskaya expedition

He was appointed in 1820 to command the Kolymskaya expedition to explore the Russian polar seas. Sailing from St. Petersburg, he arrived at Nizhnekolymsk on 2 November 1820, and early in 1821 journeyed to Cape Shelagskiy on sledges drawn by dogs. He sailed afterward up Kolyma River, advancing about 125 miles into the interior, through territory inhabited by the Yakuts. On 10 March 1822, he resumed his journey northward, and traveled 46 days on the ice, reaching 72° 2' north latitude. He left Nizhnekolymsk on 1 November 1823, and returned to St. Petersburg on 15 August 1824.[2]

He established that north of the Kolyma River and Cape Shelagsky there was an open sea, not dry land, as people thought. Together with Fyodor Matyushkin and P. Kuzmin, Wrangel described the Siberian coastline from the Indigirka River to the Kolyuchinskaya Bay in the Chukchi Sea. (See Northeast Passage.) His expedition made a valuable research in glaciology, geomagnetics, and climatology and also collected data about natural resources and native population of that remote area.

Krotky world voyage

Having been promoted to commander, Wrangel led the Russian world voyage on the ship Krotky in 1825–1827. That voyage spent 8 days at Nuku Hiva, leaving when it was ambushed by local people. It also called at Hawai'i.

Governor of Russian Alaska

He was appointed chief manager of the Russian-American Company in 1829, effectively governor of its settlements in North America (present day Alaska). Wrangel was the first of a series of bachelor appointees to the office of governor who had to find a wife before assuming the duties in America, the Russian American Company rules having been changed in 1829.[4] Prior to his departure for Russia's American colonies, he was married to Elisabeth Theodora Natalie Karoline de Rossillon, daughter of Baron Wilhelm de Rossillon.

He traveled to his post early in 1829, by way of Siberia and Kamchatka. After thoroughly reforming the administration, he introduced the cultivation of the potato, opened and regulated the working of several mines, and urged upon the home government the organization of a fur company. He promoted investment, and sent out missionaries. He began a survey of the country, opened roads, built bridges and government buildings. He made geographical and ethnographical observations, which he embodied in a memoir to the navy department. Recalled in 1834, he returned by way of the Isthmus of Panama and the United States, where he visited several cities.[2]

Admiral

Wrangel was promoted to rear admiral in 1837, and made director of the ship-timber department in the navy office, which he held for twelve years. He became vice-admiral in 1847, but resigned in 1849, and temporarily severed his connection with the navy to assume the presidency of the newly reorganized Russian-American Company.[2] Wrangel had been a member of the board of directors of the Russian-American Company from 1840 to 1849.[5]

In 1854 he re-entered active service and was made chief director of the hydrographical department of the navy [2] He was the Minister of the Navy 1855–1857.

Retirement and death

Wrangel retired in 1864. He opposed the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867. Wrangel wrote the book Journey along the northern coastline of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean and other books about the peoples of northwestern America.

He lived in his last years in Ruil (Roela in Estonian) in the eastern part of Estonia. The manor was bought by him in 1840 and he gave it to his wife as a gift. Wrangel died in Dorpat, Livonia.[2] He's final resting place is in Viru-Jaagupi cemetery.[6]

Writings

An account of the physical observations during his first journey was published in German (Berlin, 1827), and also in German extracts from Wrangel's journals, Reise längs der Nordküste von Sibirien und auf dem Eismeere in den Jahren 1820-1824 (2 vols., Berlin, 1839), which was translated into English as Wrangell's Expedition to the Polar Sea (2 vols., London, 1840). The complete report of the expedition appeared as "Puteshestvie po severnym beregam Sibiri, po Ledovitomu Moryu, sovershennoe v 1820, 1821, 1822, 1823 i 1824 godakh" (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1841), and was translated into French with notes by Prince Galitzin, under the title Voyage sur les côtes septentrionales de la Sibérie et de la mer glaciale (2 vols., 1841). From the French version of the complete report an English one was made under the title A Journey on the Northern Coast of Siberia and the Icy Sea (2 vols., London, 1841).[2] The book influenced Charles Darwin's thinking on animal navigation, leading him to propose that humans and animals possess an innate ability for dead reckoning. Darwin wrote:[7]

With regard to the question of the means by which animals find their way home from a long distance, a striking account, in relation to man, will be found in the English translation of the Expedition to North Siberia, by Von Wrangell. He there describes the wonderful manner in which the natives kept a true course towards a particular spot, whilst passing for a long distance through hummocky ice, with incessant changes of direction, and with no guide in the heavens or on the frozen sea. He states (but I quote only from memory of many years standing) that he, an experienced surveyor, and using a compass, failed to do that which these savages easily effected. Yet no one will suppose that they possessed any special sense which is quite absent in us. We must bear in mind that neither a compass, nor the north star, nor any other such sign, suffices to guide a man to a particular spot through an intricate country, or through hummocky ice, when many deviations from a straight course are inevitable, unless the deviations are allowed for, or a sort of "dead reckoning" is kept.[7]

Wrangel also published:[2]

  • Ocherk puti iz Sitki v Sankt-Peterburg (Report of Travel from Sitka to St. Petersburg) (1836)
    • French translation: Journal de voyage de Sitka à Saint Pétersbourg (Paris, 1836)
    • English translation prepared from the French: Journal of a Voyage from Sitka to St. Petersburg (London, 1837)
  • Nachrichten über die Russischen Besitzungen an der Nordwestküste America's (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1839)
    • French translation: Renseignements statistiques et ethnographiques sur les possessions Russes de la côte Nord-Ouest de l'Amérique (Paris, 1839)
    • English translation: Statistical and Ethnographical Notices on the Russian Possessions in North America (London, 1841)

Ancestry & Legacy

Wrangel's descendants Peter-Friedrich Krienitz ja Hermann von Wrangell, from Germany, did visit first time Ferdinand von Wrangel last home in Roela and grave first time in 1990. After the Estonian Restoration of Independence in 1991, they together created the Fondation von Wrangell on his behalf - a society to assist Estonian and Latvian schools in 1992. They also began to assist Estonian legal professionals to transition to the European legal system by creating Forum Academicum in Roela.

29th Dec. 1996 with old calendar and 1997 January by new calendar, Ferdinand von Wrangel's 200th birthday was celebrated with scientific conferences, a pipe organ concert and exhibitions in the University of Tartu, the Estonian Maritime Museum and in Saint Petersburg. A series of notebooks „FvW in itinere“ was released by the Fondation von Wrangelli in Estonian, Russian and German to introduce his scientific legacy. Over the next 10 years his birthday was celebrated in Tartu with scientific presentations, coffee and kringel.[6]

Pro Scola opened opportunity for Lääne-Virumaa language teachers to learn more about Germany and also gave large input extending Rakvere Reaalgümnaasium library with English and German books. Pro Scola ceased its activities in 2005 with final seminaries in Rakvere, Tartu and in Latvia.[8]

List of places named after Wrangel

Coat of Arms of Ferdinand von Wrangel

See also

References

  1. Regarding personal names: Freiherr is a former title (translated as Baron). In Germany since 1919, it forms part of family names. The feminine forms are Freifrau and Freiin.
  2. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1889). "Wrangell, Ferdinand Petrovitch, Baron von" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  3. Daum, Andreas (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.
  4. Alix O'Grady: From the Baltic to Russian America 1829–1836, pp. 21–25. Alaska History no. 51, The Limestone Press, Kingston, Ontario & Fairbanks, Alaska.
  5. Richard A. Pierce: Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary, Alaska History no. 33, Limestone Press, Kingston, Ont. and Fairbanks, Alaska, 1990, p. 547.
  6. "LounaLeht.ee". www.lounaleht.ee. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  7. Darwin, Charles (24 April 1873). "Origin of Certain Instincts". Nature. 7 (179): 417–418. Bibcode:1873Natur...7..417D. doi:10.1038/007417a0.
  8. "Parun aitas kooliõpetust jalule". Arhiiv. 13 April 2005. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
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