Fyodor Petrovich Litke - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Count Fyodor Petrovich Litke , born Friedrich Benjamin Lütke, ( – ) was a Russian navigator

Navigator

A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigator's primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times. Responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the Captain or aircraft Commander of estimated timing to...

, geographer

Geographer

A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...

, and Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

explorer. He became a count

Count

A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

in 1866, and an admiral

Admiral

Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...

in 1855. He was a Corresponding Member (1829), Honorable Member (1855), and President

President

A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...

(1864) of the Russian Academy of Science in St.Petersburg. He was also an Honorable Member of many other Russian and foreign scientific establishments, and a Corresponding Member of the French Academy of Science in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Count Fyodor (or Fedor) P. Litke came from a family of Russianized Germans. Count Litke’s grandfather was Johann F. Lütke, a German Lutheran preacher and writer on physical science and theology. In 1745, Johann Lütke went from Germany to Moscow as pastor of a Lutheran parish in order to spread Protestantism to Russia. As a youth, Fyodor attended a Lutheran school and learned German, the language of his ancestors. He remained a practicing Lutheran.

A book, in English, about Fyodor P. Litke, published in 1996 by The University of Alaska, entitled Fedor Petrovich Litke by A.I. Alekseev, ISBN 0-912006-86-2, is a 262-page biography of this 19th Century Russian scientist. This book was originally published in Russian in Moscow in 1970.

Litke started his naval career in the Imperial Russian Navy

Imperial Russian Navy

The Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist fleets prior to the February Revolution.-First Romanovs:Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, construction of the first three-masted ship, actually built within Russia, was completed in 1636. It was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein...

in 1813. He took part in Vasily Golovnin

Vasily Golovnin

Vasily Mikhailovich Golovnin .-Early life and career:Vasily Mikhailovich Golovnin was born in April 1776, in the village of Gulyniki in Ryazan Oblast, on his father's country estate. Both his father and grandfather had served in the Russian military as officers in the elite Preobrazhensky...

's world cruise on the ship "Kamchatka" from 1817 to 1819. Then from 1821 to 1824, Litke led the expedition

Exploration

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...

to explore the coastline of Novaya Zemlya

Novaya Zemlya

Novaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...

, the White Sea

White Sea

The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of...

, and the eastern parts of the Barents Sea

Barents Sea

The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...

. From 1826 to 1829, he headed the world cruise on the ship "Senyavin
Senyavin
Senyavin is a Russian noble family , famous for its Imperial Russian Navy officers.*Aleksey Senyavin , a Russian admiral...

", sailing from Cronstadt and rounding Cape Horn

Cape Horn

Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...

.
He was accompanied in his venture by Capt. Mikhail Nikolaievich Staniukovich who was in command of the sloop Moller.
During this voyage he described the western coastline of the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

, the Bonin Islands off Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, and the Carolines

Caroline Islands

The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...

, discovering 12 new islands.

In 1835 Fyodor Litke was appointed by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia

Nicholas I of Russia

Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...

as tutor of his second son, Grand Duke Constantine Nicholaievich of Russia.

Litke was the first one to come up with the idea of a recording tide measurer

Tide gauge

A tide gauge is a device for measuring sea level and detecting tsunamis.Sensors continuously record the height of the water level with respect to a height reference surface close to the geoid...

(1839). They were built and installed along the coastlines of the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

and the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

in 1841. Litke was one of the organizers of the Russian Geographic Society and its president in 1845–1850 and 1857–1872. He was appointed Chairman of the Naval Scientific Committee in 1846. Litke was a commander-in-chief

Commander-in-Chief

A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...

and a military governor of the ports of Reval (today's Tallinn

Tallinn

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

) and later Kronstadt

Kronstadt

Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...

in 1850–1857. In 1855, Litke became a member of the Russian State Council (Государственный совет in Russian; a legislative entity that predated the Duma

Duma

A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...

, which came into existence only on 1906).

In 1873, Russian Geographical Society

Russian Geographical Society

The Russian Geographical Society is a learned society, founded on 6 August 1845 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.-Imperial Geographical Society:Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, it was known as the Imperial Russian Geographical Society....

introduced the Litke gold medal. They named a cape

Headlands and bays

Headlands and bays are two related features of the coastal environment.- Geology and geography :Headlands and bays are often found on the same coastline. A bay is surrounded by land on three sides, whereas a headland is surrounded by water on three sides. Headlands are characterized by high,...

, a peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

, a mountain

Mountain

Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

and a bay

Headlands and bays

in Novaya Zemlya after Litke, as well as a group of islands of the Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land, Franz Joseph Land, or Francis Joseph's Land is an archipelago located in the far north of Russia. It is found in the Arctic Ocean north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard, and is administered by Arkhangelsk Oblast. Franz Josef Land consists of 191 ice-covered islands with a...

, Baydaratskaya Bay

Baydaratskaya Bay

Baydaratskaya Bay is a gulf in Russia, located in the southern part of the Kara Sea between the coastline of the Northern termination of the Ural Mountains and Yamal Peninsula. The length of the gulf is approx. 180 km, mouth width - 78 km, depth - up to 20 m. Surface water temperature...

, and Nordenskiöld Archipelago

Nordenskiöld Archipelago

The Nordenskiöld Archipelago or Nordenskjold Archipelago is a very large and complex cluster of islands in the eastern region of the Kara Sea. Its eastern limit lies west of the Taymyr Peninsula....

. A strait

Litke Strait

Litke Strait is a strait in the Bering Sea off the northeastern coast of Kamchatka, Russia, which separates the Karaginsky Island from the mainland. It is named after explorer Fyodor Petrovich Litke....

between Kamchatka

Kamchatka Peninsula

The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...

and Karaginsky Island

Karaginsky Island

Karaginsky Island or Karaginskiy Island is an island in the Karaginsky Gulf of the Bering Sea. The 40 km wide strait between the Kamchatka Peninsula and this island is called Litke Strait....

, as well as a Russian icebreaker

Icebreaker Feodor Litke

The icebreaker Fyodor Litke was active in the Soviet era in the Arctic, until the late 1950s. It was built in 1909 in England for the Saint Lawrence River service and initially named CGC Earl Grey after Albert Grey, Governor General of Canada...

also were named after him.

Litke's contribution to the geography of Alaska

During his voyage round the world on the Russian corvette

Corvette

A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...

Seniavin Litke arrived at Sitka in 1827. From there he sailed to Unalaska, surveying the Pribilof Islands

Pribilof Islands

The Pribilof Islands are a group of four volcanic islands off the coast of mainland Alaska, in the Bering Sea, about north of Unalaska and 200 miles southwest of Cape Newenham. The Siberia coast is roughly northwest...

, St. Matthew Island

St. Matthew Island

St. Matthew Island is a remote island in the Bering Sea in Alaska, WNW of Nunivak Island. The island has a land area of , making it the 43rd largest island in the United States. Its most southerly point is Cape Upright which features cliff faces which exceed...

and the Commander Islands, before arriving to Petropavlovsk

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the main city and the administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultural center of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. Population: .-History:It was founded by Danish navigator Vitus Bering, in the service of the Russian Navy...

, a harbor which he used as a base for further surveys along the Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

n coast all the way to St. Lawrence Bay

St. Lawrence Bay, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

The Saint Lawrence Bay is a bay in the Bering Sea on the eastern coast of the Chukotka Peninsula, Russian Federation. It is located very close to the Bering Strait, which lies only a few km to the NE....

by the Bering Strait

Bering Strait

The Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...

.

After finally returning to Kronstadt

Kronstadt

Litke published an 3-volume account of his explorations with atlases in Russian and in French, the latter being published in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and entitled Voyage autour du monde, : exécuté par ordre de sa majesté l’empereur Nicolas Ier, sur la corvette Le Séniavine, dans les années 1826, 1827, 1828 et 1829, par Frédéric Lutké, ... commandant de l’expédition. Partie historique, avec un atlas, litographié d’après les dessins originaux d’Alexandre Postels et du baron Kittlitz. Traduit du russe sur le manuscrit original, sous les yeux de l’auteur, par le conseiller d’état F. Boyé. Tome I–III. Very few copies were printed and especially the Russian original work with its nautical part became an extremely rare item.

The nautical volume contains hydrographic and geographic details on the then little-known Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

and Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

obtained not only from Litke's own work but also from various previously unpublished Russian sources. Even though there were errors and delays in the publication that didn't satisfy the author, Litke's work is a valuable source of information on the evolution of geographic knowledge of Alaska and the Bering Sea. When W. H. Dall

W. H. Dall

William Healey Dall was an American naturalist, a prominent malacologist, and one of the earliest scientific explorers of interior Alaska...

published an index for the book, Litke's name was given as "Lutke", which reflects the spelling under which the book was published in Paris.

Certain geographic features of the Alaskan coast, like the Walrus and Kritskoi Islands

Walrus and Kritskoi Islands

Walrus Island, in the southeastern shore of Bristol Bay in Aleutians East Borough, should not be confused with the Walrus Islands in the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary, located close to Hagemeister Island in the Dillingham Census Area in the northern edge of the bay, or with tiny Walrus Island...

, Kudobin Islands

Kudobin Islands

The Kudobin Islands are a group of small islands in the Bering Sea, near the coast of Alaska, West of Port Moller; Bristol Bay Low. The group includes a cluster of other small coastal islands, Walrus and Kritskoi Islands, forming a geographical whole....

and numerous other features in the Aleutians, were named by Count Feodor Litke in the maps that were subsequently published.
The landhead now named Cape Lutke

Cape Lutke, Alaska

Cape Lutke is a landhead in Unimak Island, the largest island in the Aleutian Islands chain of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located on the southern central coast of the island....

in Alaska was named after this Russian explorer by the Imperial Russian Hydrographic Service in 1847, but the misspelling of Litke's name as "Lutke" endures in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Litke's contribution to the geography of Alaska

See also