48B. MAHR, August C. The Visit of the “Rurik” to San Francisco in 1816.... Stanford: Stanford University Press, etc., 1932. 194 pp., frontispiece halftone of California poppy, halftone plates after iconography from the expedition. 8vo, original maroon cloth. Spine light and with a few spots, interior fine.
          Scholarly edition. Stanford University Publications, University Series, History, Economics, and Political Science vol. 2, number 2. Zamorano 80 #48n (Robert J. Woods): “An extract from the California portion of Kotzebue’s report. It also contains Chamisso’s observations, Choris’s description of San Francisco, and the Spanish documents dealing with his visit. These are printed in the original language with the English translation. [Mahr] questions Kotzebue’s motive for visiting California.”           ($30-60)

The Enlightenment came to Russia under the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-1796) and the eastward expansion begun under Peter the Great saw fruition in the establishment of Kodiak by Grigor I. Shelikhov and the Russian-American Company in 1783. With a base in America, the Russian Academy of Sciences entered the field of scientific exploration, and, given that communication and supply to Alaska overland through Siberia via Yakutsk, Irkutsk, Okhotsk, and Petropavlovsk required over two years and was extremely arduous, maritime routes from St. Petersburg to Kodiak were established by the Admiralty and its modernized fleet.
          The first Russian circumnavigation was achieved by Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenstern and Iurii Lisianskii in 1803-1806 via Kodiak and Sitka, founded in 1804, and was a success. The Napoleonic Wars interrupted a continuation of such voyages, resulting in isolation of the Alaskan colonies from St. Petersburg, and the Russian-American Company expanded to Bodega and Ross north of San Francisco in 1812 in an attempt to establish agricultural and stock-raising enclaves, and initiated voyages from Alaska to Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands.
          The defeat of Napoleon in 1814 reopened the possibilities of maritime supply to Alaska and scientific circumnavigation, and Lieutenant Otto von Kotzebue (1788-1846), a native of Tallinn and young cadet on the Kruzenstern voyage, was appointed to command the second Russian circumnavigation in 1815 with a single ship, the brig Rurik. With thirty-three men, first officer G. S. Shishmarev, artist-naturalists Adelbert von Chamisso, M. Wormskiold, and Ludwig Choris, physician Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz, and navigators V. Khromchenko and V. Petrov, there was no space for scientific work aboard. Sailing from Kronstadt on July 30, 1815, the expedition crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn, reached Concepción, Easter Island, and the Tuamotu Archipelago, and arrived at Petropavlovsk on June 7, 1816. From Kamchatka, Kotzebue conducted an extensive exploration of Bering Strait and rested at the outpost of Unalaska in the Aleutians from August 26 to September 3 before sailing southward.
          On October 2, Rurik anchored in San Francisco Bay where Kotzebue was well received by commandant José Darío Argüello who agreed to supply the expedition with every necessity. Governor Pablo Vicente Solá traveled from Monterey on October 16 to receive Kotzebue and the officers and scientists and, conversing in French, arrangements were made for supplies for Fort Ross, and for the release of Russian prisoners held for illegal hunting of sea otter in Spanish territory. Solá, nonetheless, registered his complaint over Russian encroachment at Ross and Bodega, and on October 25 Ivan Aleksandrovich Kuskov, commandant of Ross, traveled to San Francisco to negotiate differences. After three days of discussion, Kuskov declined to treat the legality of the Russian presence or abandon Ross, and Kotzebue agreed to present the matter before the Imperial Court on his return. In the interim, the naturalists made extensive geographic, ethnographic, botanical, and zoological observations, with the earliest description of the California poppy made by Eschscholtz and extraordinary drawings realized by Choris.
          Sailing from San Francisco on November 1, Kotzebue proceeded to Kauai where he remained from November 24 to December 14 and, following further exploration in the south, returned to Unalaska on April 12, 1817, where he repaired Rurik. On June 17, the expedition sailed for the Bering Strait, but finding it still iced, returned to Unalaska until August 16, when the homeward voyage was begun. After making further repairs in Manila, Kotzebue rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Kronstadt on July 22, 1818. Although Kuskov complained of Kotzebue’s interference in the affairs of the Russian-American Company, the expedition was considered a success and from 1823 to 1826 he commanded a second circumnavigation with Eschscholtz, again visiting San Francisco, from October 8 to December 6, 1824.
          The narrative of Kotzebue’s first voyage, notable for its finely engraved plates and maps, appeared in a second German-language edition in Vienna in 1825. An English translation was published in London in 1821 and in facsimile in New York in 1967. A Russian translation was published in St. Petersburg in 1821. The narrative of Chamisso appeared in his Werke (Berlin, 1856), and that of Choris with lithographs of his drawings in Voyage pittoresque autour du monde (Paris, 1822). The results of Kotzebue’s second circumnavigation were published in St. Petersburg in 1828, in Weimar, St. Petersburg, London, and Haarlem in 1830, in New York in 1967, and in Moscow in 1959 and 1987.

——W. Michael Mathes