The Presidential Library marking the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica

200 years ago, on January 16 (28), 1820, Antarctica was discovered by the first Russian Antarctic expedition led by Faddey Faddeevich Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev. Research papers on this significant event for the whole world are presented in the form of an “Antarctic” collection in the extensive collection of the Presidential Library Russian Voyages Around the World of the First Half of the 19th Century. The discovery of Antarctica as a new continent made it possible to overcome the long-standing delusion that it is either not in nature at all, or it is simply impossible to achieve it.

The hypothesis of the existence of the Southern land was put forward by geographers of the ancient world and was supported by scientists of the Middle Ages. Starting from the XVI century, it was searched by the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan, the Dutchman Abel Janszon Tasman, the Englishman James Cook. The latter, in search of the mysterious southern continent, made his second voyage around the world in 1772–1775 and, returning with nothing, said: “... I can safely say that not a single person will ever dare to penetrate south further than I managed to. The lands that may be in the south will never be explored”.  

According to A. Kizevetter in the publication The Geography of the 18th Century and Lomonosov (1912), even more than half a century before the sending of the first Russian Antarctic expedition, the famous Russian encyclopedist Mikhail Lomonosov substantiated the possibility of the existence of the Unknown Southern Land, based on the study of icebergs “padons” - chipped from huge white rocks. Since in the high latitudes of the south there are much more such “pads” than in the north, then, following the scientist’s logic, one can justifiably assume that it is in the south that one should look for Terra Australia Incognita.

On July 4 (16), 1819, an expedition consisting of two sloops left Kronstadt to Rio de Janeiro with the goal of "continuing their research to a distant latitude that can be reached". The crews consisted of naval volunteers led by commanders who were able to solve incredibly complex tasks.

Thus, Lieutenant Commander F. F. Bellingshausen, a graduate of the Naval Cadet Corps, in 1803–1806 participated in the first Russian circumnavigation of the ship Nadezhda under the command of I. F. Krusenstern. Numerous merits of Lazarev are listed in the collection Famous Russian military figures: a brief biography of them (1911).

The round-the-world trip of Bellingshausen and Lazarev became one of the most difficult and dangerous, however, Russia brought Russia among the leading powers of that time in its geopolitical significance.

The preparations for the expedition and the first phase of the sea advance to the South Pole were described in detail by Bellingshausen in the two-volume edition “Two-time surveys in the South Arctic Ocean and sailing around the world in the course of 1819, 20 and 21 years, carried out on Vostok and Mirny sloops under the command of Captain Bellingshausen, commander The boat of the East. Lieutenant Lazarev ruled the sloop of Peace”.

It was difficult to go towards aim. It seemed to lure the sailors into some kind of trap, into a white hassle, from which its eyes blinded; in moments of weakness of spirit.

The instructions received by the expedition from the emperor and the naval minister included, among other things, two very important points: the first of them demanded that Thaddeus Bellingshausen discoveries “in the possible proximity of the Antarctic Pole”, while the second stipulated that they should be made with “vigilant care of maintaining the health of the crews, which at all times and in all cases should be the subject of his efforts”.  

Both conditions were fully met. During one of the most important and difficult Antarctic expeditions, a total of 4 thousand 972 miles were covered - this is a path two and a quarter times the length of the equator. The voyage lasted 751 days, of which the sloops were on the move 527 days, with 122 days south of the 60th parallel and 100 days in ice. In addition to geographical discoveries (the mainland of Antarctica and 29 islands), the expedition made a lot of valuable astronomical, oceanographic, synoptic and ethnographic observations.

But most importantly, the first Russian Antarctic expedition discovered the very Unknown Southern Land!.. According to the New York Evening Post in February 1820: “Only Russians were able to get close to this cold, stabbing white land and take it like they take a fortress".