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Birthday anniversary of Admiral Gennady I. Nevelskoy, Russian navigator and researcher of the Far East
Gennady Nevelskoy was born on November 23 (December 5), 1813. He came from an old noble family of Kostroma, and his father, Ivan, was a naval officer. Gennady was educated at home, then entered the Sea Cadet Corps, headed at the time by the famous navigator I. F. Krusenstern. After graduating from the corps in 1832, Nevelskoy, promoted to warrant officers, among the best students was assigned a student in the officer class - the prototype of the future Naval Academy. In 1836, after passing the examination, he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned officer to the ship "Bellona", which was part of a squadron of Admiral F. P. Litke. In the following few years Nevelskoy served in various positions on the ships "Prince of Warsaw", "Aurora" and "Ingermanland", participated in several long-distance trips, and was the officer of the watch and the actual teacher of the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich.
In 1846, Gennady was promoted to captain-lieutenant and appointed commander of the military vehicle "Baikal". A year later, it was decided to send a new ship with a cargo from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka. Nevelskoy decided to take advantage of the situation to implement his old idea to study the mouth of the Amur River, which had long been considered unfit for navigation. Supported by the newly appointed governor of Eastern Siberia, N. N. Muravyov and Chief of the General Naval Staff A. S. Menshikov, Nevelskoy sent a petition to Nicholas I asking him to authorize the expedition.
The navigation which began in early September 1848 ended 8 months later in the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Without receiving the imperial authorization for his research, Nevelskoy decided to act independently. In June, "Baikal" reached the northern tip of Sakhalin, and rounding it from the west, moved toward the Amur estuary. Soon the entrance to the estuary and the mouth of the Amur were discovered. The command of Nevelskoy examined the mouth a few miles up the river.
Thus, the expedition led by Gennady Ivanovich made an important geographical discovery, proving that Sakhalin is an island, not a peninsula, as was previously believed, and confirmed the theory of Nevelskoy that the Amur is good for navigation. Soon Nevelskoy and Muravyov received the imperial order for further action: it expressly prohibited to go down the Amur again because of the possibility of worsening relations with China and Japan. However, Gennady at his own risk breached such strict requirements, and in August 1850 founded a military settlement at the mouth of the Amur, called Nikolaevsky Post which later became the city of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. Nevelskoy ordered to raise the Russian military flag and announced the annexation of the Amur region to Russia. After Gennady’s return at the end of that year in St. Petersburg, his actions were considered by the Special Committee, which considered them audacious and arbitrary. It was offered to demote Nevelskoy to the sailors, but Nicholas I, having considered the circumstances of the case, appended the famous instructions on the decision of the committee: "Where Russian flag was once raised, there it should not be lowered."
In 1851, Nevelskoy was again sent to the Far East with the aim of studying and describing the coast of Sakhalin, Amur and Ussuri. In subsequent years, he did not make sea voyages due to undermined health, and held various positions in scientific societies, worked on the systematization and analysis of the materials collected during expeditions, and began working on the book, which described the progress of the development and study of the Amur region . In 1874, he was promoted to the rank of Admiral.
Gennady I. Nevelskoy died on 17 (29) April 1876 in St. Petersburg at the age of 62.
Lit.: Алексеев А. И. Дело всей жизни: книга о подвиге адмирала Г. И. Невельского. Хабаровск, 1972; Он же. Любовь, Амур, счастье. Адмирал Г. И. Невельской (1813-1876). Петропавловск-Камчатский, 2003; Он же. Сподвижники Г. И. Невельского. Южно-Сахалинск, 1967; Баранов А. Е. На реке Амуре в 1854–55 гг. Воспоминания офицера из отряда H. H. Mуравьёва // Русская Старина. 1891. Т. 71. № 8. С. 327-354; Винокуров И., Флорич Ф. Подвиг адмирала Невельского. М., 1951; Задорнов Н. П. Капитан Невельской. М., 1963; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://militera.lib.ru/bio/zadornov_np/index.html.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Буссе Н. В. Остров Сахалин и экспедиция 1853-54 гг. СПб., 1872;
Reclamation of the Far East and Alaska // Territory of Russia: [digital collection].