Historians examining the transmission of western culture into Russia typically focus on the reforms of Tsar Peter the Great in the eighteenth century, yet the early nineteenth century was equally consequential, as Russians dispatched a series of naval expeditions to circumnavigate the globe, prompting new levels of interaction between Russians and the peoples of Europe, America, and the Pacific. Using novel archival sources, this project sets out to trace diverse transmissions of culture between Russians, Europeans, and Pacific peoples in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to assess their impact on Russia’s empire and identity in this period.

Russians undertook many voyages of exploration across the Eurasian continent in the eighteenth century, but beginning in 1803, a series of circumnavigations took Russian explorers further afield. For the next three decades, an unprecedented number of ships disembarked from St. Petersburg, seeking out the Northwest and Northeast passages, securing supply routes and colonies serving Russian interests in Alaska, and demonstrating Russian power to other European empires. Fulfilling these objectives led Russian voyagers to many novel encounters with European, Arctic and Pacific peoples, prompting transmissions of skills, knowledge, and techniques whose paths and adaptations this project will explore. In preparation for their voyages, Russians thus travelled west to train with the British navy, while expedition leaders were often Baltic Germans, bringing Baltic expertise to Russian navigation and science. Skills co-mingled as circumnavigators visited Britain, South America, Tahiti, Hawaii, Easter Island, New Zealand, Australia, and Alaska. In turn, knowledge, artifacts, instruments and observations gleaned during these visits were returned to St. Petersburg and presented to the Russian public in travel accounts, scientific journals, exhibitions, and debates, often translated and commented upon by western Europeans.

Examining these travelling skills and techniques will illuminate both the nature of cultural transmission and the significance of imperial exploration for Russian history. Voyages transformed the empire, via the establishment of colonies in Hawaii, California, and Alaska, and via the imitation of European techniques of imperial administration, observed during the circumnavigations and then set to work inside the Russian empire. Perceptions of Russia’s geography also changed. New sea routes made America seem closer to St. Petersburg, and brought the arctic regions of empire into Russian consciousness, with significant environmental consequences later. Imitating the British, circumnavigators also founded Russia’s Geographical Society and promoted geographical research across the empire. Using diaries and correspondence rarely studied by historians, I hope to reveal in detail the scientific and cultural legacy of these exchanges. Finally, how did circumnavigations bear on one of the central questions among Russians in this era - “Whither Russia?” Slavophiles and Westernizers vigorously debated the place of Russia in the world over several decades, and their answers profoundly effected the future direction of Russian politics, empire, and history. How did recent Russian encounters with the peoples of the Pacific, America, and the Arctic, and the scientific and literary legacy of these encounters, contribute to such debates?