The Able Seaman

Abstract

Chapters 7, 8 and 9 present accounts by three more eye-witnesses, in chronological order of their composition. In the late 1930s Yakov Tarnopol’skii discovered the manuscript diary of Able Seaman Yegor Kisilëv (K1) in a pile of old books at the monastery town of Suzdal. He published extracts from it several years before the Soviet Union began claiming absolute Russian priority in Antarctica (Kiselev, 1941). Its appearance and contents also support its authenticity. K1 is now held by the Russian State Library in Moscow, and with the aid of Soviet transcriptions it is almost completely legible. It may have been written down by more than one person. Although the handwriting is similar throughout, certain characters, such as ‘v’, differ widely in different entries. And a sort of primitive punctuation, consisting largely of enormous commas, is present in a few entries but not throughout.

The Russian Navy does not receive the able seaman, but makes him of the peasant when sent to complete the number required.

Nautical Magazine (1838)