In the Lands of the Romanovs: An Annotated Bibliography of First-hand English-language Accounts of the Russian Empire (1613-1917)/Reign of Alexander I (1801-1825)

6. REIGN OF ALEXANDER I (1801-1825) edit

 
Fig. 40 Alexander I (c.1814/1815), by François de Gérard.


See also D65

F1 edit

Atkinson, John Augustus and Walker, James, Picturesque representation of the manners, customs, and amusements of the Russians, in one hundred coloured plates; with an accurate explanation of each plate in English and French. London: printed by W. Bulmer & Co. for the proprietors, 1803-04. 3 folio vols.

Walker (see D42) had been accompanied to Russia in 1784 by his wife Mary and stepson John (1775-1829?), who revealed a precocious talent as an artist that blossomed during Paul’s reign. Atkinson had been making very lively sketches of Russian scenes and types for over a decade before etching them for publication two years after their return from Russia. Walker provided the informed commentary to each plate.


F2 edit

Robinson, Thomas Philip, Baron Grantham, The Grand Tour 1801-1803, being letters from Lord Grantham to his mother, from Prussia, Saxony, Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Italy & France. Penzance: Triton Press, 1979. x+105pp.

A typical young aristocratic tourist, the 3rd Baron Grantham (1781-1859) departed for Europe soon after graduating from St John’s College, Cambridge. He arrived in St Petersburg at the end of August 1801 and proceeded to Moscow for the coronation of Alexander I. He left St Petersburg for Berlin in mid-February 1802. Seventeen chatty letters to his mother were sent from Russia (pp. 16-50).


F3 edit

Wilmot, Martha, and Wilmot, Catherine, The Russian journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot; being an account of two Irish ladies of their adventures in Russia as guests of the celebrated Princess Daschkaw, containing vivid descriptions of contemporary court life and society, and lively anecdotes of many interesting historical characters 1803-1808. Edited, with an introduction and notes, by the Marchioness of Londonderry and H.M. Hyde. London: Macmillan, 1934. xxvi+423pp.

Martha Wilmot (1775-1873) arrived in Russia in 20 July 1803 to become companion to the famous Princess Ekaterina Dashkova whom her father had met in England. In August 1805 she was joined by her eldest sister Catherine (1773-1824). Catherine returned in the summer of 1807 but Martha only at the end of the following year. Also included are two long letters by Catherine’s maid, Eleanor Cavanagh (pp. 179-90).


F4 edit

Reuilly, Jean, Travels in the Crimea, and along the shores of the Black Sea, performed during the year 1803. London: Richard Phillips, 1807. 84pp.

Baron de Reuilly (1780-1810) accompanied the new governor of Taurida, the duc de Richelieu, to Odessa. Translation of Voyage en Crimée et sur les bords de la mer Noire pendant l’année 1803 (Paris, 1806).


F5 edit

Rochechouart, Louis Victor Léon, Memoirs of the Count de Rochechouart, 1788-1822 in France, southern Russia, in the Napoleonic Wars, and as commandant of Paris. Authorised translation [from the French] by Francis Jackson. London: John Murray, 1920. xv+329pp.

The comte de Rochechouart (1788-1858) arrived in Russia in 1804 and became aide-de-camp to the new governor-general of New Russia, the duc de Richelieu, in 1806. He served with the Russian army in Circassia, before returning to St Petersburg (pp. 48-142). He was Alexander I’s aide-de-camp in 1812-14, leaving Russia in April 1813 as the allies advanced towards Paris (pp. 143-73).


F6 edit

Carr, John, A northern summer; or, travels round the Baltic, through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and part of Germany, in the year 1804. London: printed by T. Gillet for Richard Phillips, 1805. xii+480pp.

Sir John (1772-1832), inveterate traveller and Byron’s “Green Erin’s knight and Europe’s wandering star”, undertook a conventional northern tour that brought him to St Petersburg in May-November 1804. Much given to anecdotes, he paints a very favourable picture of the emperor and of the delights of his capital and its environs (pp. 196-420).


F7 edit

Seume, Johann Gottfried, A tour through part of Germany, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, &c., during the summer of 1805. Translated from the German. London: Richard Phillips, 1807. 104pp.

Seume (1763-1810), a German author, who had been an officer in Russian service in the 1790s in Warsaw, revisited Poland as part of a northern tour that took him to Russia in May 1805 and he visited St Petersburg and Moscow before leaving via Vyborg at the end of July (pp. 14-56). The German original, Mein Sommer, 1805 appeared in 1806.


F8 edit

Reinbeck, Georg, Travels from St Petersburgh through Moscow, Grodno, Warsaw, Breslaw, etc., to Germany in the year 1805; in a series of letters. Translated from the German. London: Richard Phillips, 1807. iv+160pp.

Reinbeck (1766-1849), dramatist and poet, who had been a teacher of English and German in St Petersburg since 1792, returned to Germany for reasons of health in 1805 (pp. 5-46). German original: Flüchtige Anmerkungen auf einer Reise von St. Petersburg über Moskwa, Grodno, Warschau, Breslau nach Deutschland im Jahre 1805 (1806).
F9 edit

MacGill, Thomas, Travels in Turkey, Italy and Russia, during the years 1803, 1804, 1805, & 1806; with an account of some of the Greek islands. London: John Murray, and Edinburgh: A. Constable, 1808. 2 vols.

The author, “engaged almost continuously in the pursuits of commerce”, visited Taganrog and Odessa between the beginning of June and the end of July 1805 (letters XVI-XX, vol. I, pp. 194-243). Vol. II is devoted wholly to Turkey, but contains as an appendix an interesting ‘Letter respecting Odessa’, dated August 1804 and written by John Henry Sievrac, “traveller for the House of Boesner and Co. of Brody and Odessa” (vol. II, pp. 193-207).


F10 edit

Bentham, Samuel, The correspondence of Jeremy Bentham. Vol. VII (January 1802-December 1808). Edited by J.R. Dinwiddy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. xxxii+599pp.

Bentham (see D35-36), sent on a government mission to arrange for warships to be built in Russian dockyards for the British navy, arrived with his family in St Petersburg in early September 1805 and returned to London in December 1807. Letters from Samuel and members of his family to Jeremy (pp. 338-447 passim).


F11 edit

Heber, Reginald, The life of Reginald Heber, D.D., lord bishop of Calcutta; with selections from his correspondence, unpublished poems and private papers; together with a journal of his tour in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Hungary and Germany, and a history of the Cossaks. By his widow [Amelia]. London: John Murray, 1830. 2 vols.

Heber (1783-1826), Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, accompanied by his old school friend John Thornton, arrived in St Petersburg in October 1805, remaining for nearly three months. After six weeks in Moscow, they set out on 13 March 1806 for Taganrog, and then proceeded through the territories of the Don Cossacks, before visiting the Crimea and the towns of New Russia. They left Odessa for Poland in June 1806 (vol. I, pp. 95-278). The unfinished ‘History of the Cossaks’ (vol. I, pp. 563-684).


F12 edit

Campenhausen, Leyon Pierce Balthasar, Travels through several provinces of the Russian Empire; with an historical account of the Zaporog Cossacks, and of Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and the Crimea. London: Richard Phillips, 1808. 134pp.

Baron Campenhausen (1746-1807), German author, who had been attached to Potemkin’s staff in the 1780s and was later vice-governor of Livonia, records his journeys through the southern border regions of the Russian empire (pp. 1-60). German original, Bemerkungen über Russland, nebst einer kurzgefassten Geschichte der Zaporoger Kosaken, Bessarabiens, der Moldau und der Krimm, was published in Leipzig in 1807.


F13 edit

Porter, Robert Ker, Travelling sketches in Russia and Sweden, during the years 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808. London: Richard Phillips, 1809. 2 vols.

Invited to paint a series of historical canvases for the new Admiralty in St Petersburg, Sir Robert (1777-1842) arrived at Cronstadt on 12 September 1805. Based on some fifty letters sent to his late friend Captain Henry Caulfield and enhanced by his drawings of people and places, the printed volumes describe his life in St Petersburg and two long trips to Moscow (February-June 1805 and November 1806 to February 1807) before he was obliged to leave the Russian capital in December 1807, following the treaty of Tilsit (vol. I, pp. 15-303;II, pp. 1-81).


F14 edit

Green, George, An original journal from London to St. Petersburgh, by way of Sweden; and, proceeding from thence, to Moscow, Riga, Mittau, and Berlin; with a description of the post towns, and every thing interesting, in the Russian and Prussian capitals, &c.; to which are added, the names, distances, and price, of every post; and a vocabulary of the most useful terms in English and Russian. London: T. Boosey and J. Hatchard, 1813. xii+224pp.

According to its editorial (pp. iii-vi), offered as a useful guide-book and based on travels in 1805-07 by Green, a merchant “many years resident in Russia”. Cronstadt, St Petersburg and post roads to Novgorod, Tver and Moscow. Russia, pp. 1-159. Vocabulary, pp. 177-224.


F15 edit

Salvo, Carlo, marchese di, Travels in the year 1806, from Italy to England, through the Tyrol, Styria, Bohemia, Gallicia, Poland and Livonia: containing the particulars of the liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith, from the hands of the French police, and of her subsequent flight, effected and written by the Marquis de Salvo. [Translated from Italian by W. Fraser.] London: Richard Phillips, 1807. lx+236pp.

The young di Salvo (1787-1860) engineered the escape of Mrs Frances Anne Smith, wife of a British diplomat and best known for her brief affair with Byron in 1809, on a long journey that eventually took them through Russian Poland and to the port of Riga in Livonia, where they took boat for England at the end of August 1806 (pp. 207-36). Of marginal interest, apart from the remark that “the Livonians do not like to be mistaken for Russians, notwithstanding their attachment to the government”.


F16 edit

D’Wolf, John, A voyage to the North Pacific and a journey through Siberia more than half a century ago. Cambridge, Mass.: Welch, Bigelow, and Co., 1861. 147pp.

D’Wolf, sometimes De Wolf (1779-1842), a sea captain from Bristol, Rhode Island, considered himself, wrongly, as “probably the first American who passed through Siberia” and recounted “principally from memory” a trading voyage that began in America on 13 August 1804 and took him eventually to Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka on 22 September 1806. On 26 May 1807 he sailed for Okhotsk and on 3 July began the long journey overland through Siberia, arriving in Moscow on 8 October and St Petersburg on 21 October, just as war was declared between England and Russia (pp. 73-142).


F17 edit

Royston, Philip Yorke, The remains of the late Viscount Royston. With a memoir of his life by the Rev. Henry Pepys B.D., prebendary of Wells, and late Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. London: John Murray, 1838. 332pp.

Viscount Royston (1784-1808), heir to 3rd Earl of Hardwicke, made an extensive tour through Russia to the Caucasus and the Crimea, described in letters to his father and friends in 1806-07 (pp. 42-181). Died in shipwreck on return journey on 7 April 1808.


F18 edit

Wilson, Robert Thomas, Life of General Sir Robert Wilson, from autobiographical memoirs, journals, narratives, correspondence, &c. Edited by his nephew and son-in-law, the Rev. Herbert Randolph. London: John Murray, 1862. 2 vols.

The last of the three works edited by the Rev. Randolph about Sir Robert (1777-1849), but left unfinished. It, however, covers events up to the end of 1807 and thus includes Wilson’s first visits to Russia in the second half of that year. Wilson, already a seasoned and much decorated officer and author of several military works, was a member of a secret mission to the Prussian court, headed by Lord Hutchinson, in November 1806 and met many prominent Russian officers, including Mikhail Vorontsov and Hetman Platov. He went on to St Petersburg, where he arrived in August 1807 but was soon obliged to depart for the injudicious circulation of a lampoon against the Russo-French alliance.


F19 edit

Wilson, Robert Thomas, Brief remarks on the character and composition of the Russian army; and a sketch of the campaigns in Poland in the years 1806 and 1807. London: Printed by C. Roworth, and sold by T. Egerton, 1810. xxix+276pp.

The fruit of Wilson’s first experience of service with the Russian army in the months before the treaty of Tilsit. A Russian translation appeared in 1812.


F20 edit

[Kelsall, Charles], Horae viaticae. By Mela Britannicus [pseud.] Clifton and Bristol: for the author, 1830. xii+412pp.

Kelsall (1782-1857), a young Cambridge graduate, visited St Petersburg, Moscow and the Crimea in 1806-07. His Journal of a tour from St Petersburgh to Vienna in the year 1807 appears on pp. 1-17. The more interesting account of his journey to the Crimea was published only in French in his Esquisses de mes travaux, de mes voyages, et de mes opinions (1830).


F21 edit

Campbell, Archibald, Voyage round the world, from 1806 to 1812, in which Japan, Kamschatka, the Aleutian Islands, and the Sandwich Islands were visited; including a narrative of the author’s shipwreck on the Island of Sannack, and his subsequent wreck in the ship’s long-boat;.with an account of the present state of the Sandwich Islands and a vocabulary of their language. Edited by James Smith. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable & Co., 1816. 288pp.

According to the editor, the work was based partly on documents but mainly on the oral narrative of Campbell (b. 1787), who returned from his voyage with both feet amputated after frost-bite and eked out an existence as a street musician in Edinburgh. Sailed on the Eclipse, a ship belonging to the Russian American company, that took him to Kamchatka (between 6 July and 8 August 1807) before continuing to Aleutian Islands (pp. 33-41).


F22 edit

Klaproth, Julius Heinrich von, Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia, performed in the years 1807 and 1808, by command of the Russian government, by Julius von Klaproth. Translated from the German by F. Shoberl. Henry Colburn, 1814. xv+421pp.

Klaproth (1783-1835) was invited to St Petersburg in 1804 as an associate of the Academy of Sciences and took part in the Golovkin embassy to China. In 1807 he was a member of a new expedition to the Caucasus and studied Ossetian and other languages. He returned to St Petersburg the following year and in 1811 he left Russia for good.


F23 edit

Caulaincourt, Armand-Augustin-Louis de, Memoirs of general de Caulaincourt, duke of Vicenza. Edited by Jean Hanoteau. Translated by Hamish Miles. London: Cassell & Co. 1935-38. 3 vols.

Caulaincourt, duc de Vicence (1773-1827), Napoleon’s Master of the Horse, arrived in St Petersburg on 17 December 1807 as ambassador extraordinary. He remained until May 1811 (vol. I, pp. 8-80). In 1812 he was in Russia again but this time with the Grande armée and served throughout the campaign, accompanying the fleeing Napoleon in his carriage to Paris (vol. I, pp. 123-417). French original: Mémoires du général de Caulaincourt (1933).


F24 edit

Adams, John Quincy, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, comprising portions of his diary from 1795 to 1848. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1874. 2 vols.

On 5 August 1809 Adams (1767-1848), who had visited St Petersburg for the first time in the winter of 1781-82, sailed from Boston as American minister plenipotentiary and arrived at Cronstadt on 22 October. He was to remain in St Petersburg until 20 May 1814 (vol. II, pp. 45-629).


F25 edit

Everett, Alexander Hill, Critical and miscellaneous essays to which are added a few poems. Boston: James Munroe, 1845. 2 vols.

The young Harvard graduate Everett (1792-1847) accompanied Adams to Russia in 1809 as (unpaid) secretary of legation. His stay and experiences in Russia mentioned only passim.


F26 edit

Coggeshall, George, ‘Second voyage in the schooner Eliza, from New York to Sweden and Russia, and back to New York in the years 1810 and 1811’, in his Second series of voyages to various parts of the world, made between the years 1802 and 1841, selected from his ms. journal of eighty voyages. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1852. 335pp.

American sea captain left New York on 30 August 1810 with a valuable cargo of sugar, coffee, and other commodities. After visiting various ports in the Baltic he made the harbour of Riga on 20 November but because of the ice and Napoleon’s blockade was obliged to remain there until 25 May 1811, when he began the return voyage with a new cargo of canvas and other cloths. Some interesting remarks on Riga and its social life (pp. 94-103).


F27 edit

[Freygang, Wilhelm and Frederika von], Letters from the Caucasus and Georgia; to which are added, the account of a journey into Persia in 1812, and an abridged history of Persia since the time of Nadir Shah. Translated from the French. London: John Murray, 1823. xiv+414pp.

In 1811 Freygang (1783-1835), born in St Petersburg to a German physician, together with his wife (née Kudriavskaia) and children, journeyed to Tiflis to serve under the governor-general, the marchese di Paulucci. His wife’s letters describe the perilous outward journey from 1 September to 30 November 1811, their stay in Tiflis, and their return journey in 1812 which ends with their sight of a burnt Moscow on 16 January 1813 (pp. 3-258). Then follows her husband’s description of his diplomatic mission from Tiflis to Persia between 28 April and the end of June 1812 (pp. 259-367).


F28 edit

Choiseul-Gouffier, Sophie, de, Historical memoirs of the Emperor Alexander I and the court of Russia. Translated from the original French by Mary Berenice Patterson. Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1900. 321pp.

Born Sophie de Tisenhaus, the daughter of a Polish nobleman, she was the wife of the French aristocrat M. de Choiseul-Gouffier. She first met Alexander I on 27 April 1812 and her memoirs essentially chart their friendship until his death in 1825, a year after the author left Russia. The translation is from the first (longer) edition of 1862.


F29 edit

Staël-Holstein, Germaine, de, Ten years’ exile; or, memoirs of that interesting period of the life of the Baroness de Staël-Holstein, written by herself. Published by her son [Auguste de Staël-Holstein]. London: Treuttel and Würtz, Treuttel jun. and Richter, 1821. xvi+434pp. [Facsimile edition, with introduction by Margaret Crosland, Fontwell, Sussex: Centaur Press, 1968.]

The famous author of Delphine, ou l’Italie and De l’Allemagne and exiled from France by Napoleon, baronness de Staël-Holstein, née Necker (1766-1817), better known as Mme de Staël, arrived in Russia on 14 July 1812. She travelled from Poland to Kiev and on to Moscow, thence ultimately to St Petersburg. After only two months and in the wake of Napoleon’s invasion, she left Russia for Finland (pp. 301-425).


F30 edit

Dobell, Peter, Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia; with a narrative of a residence in China. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830. 2 vols.

Dobell (1772-1852), who had previously spent many years in China, arrived in Kamchatka on 21 August 1812. He describes his travels in 1812-13 through Kamchatka and mainland Siberia (with much on towns such as Okhotsk, Iakutsk, Irkutsk, and Tomsk), ending his narrative when he reaches the Urals and “Russia” en route for St Petersburg, but he was to spend many years living in the region and adds observations of further residences and journeys up to the beginning of 1828 (vol. I, pp. 1-351; II, pp. 1-124). Two years after the appearance of his own travels, Dobell published, under the pseudonym “a friend to truth”, his polemical pamphlet Russia as it is, and not as it has been represented; together with observations and reflections on the pernicious and deceitful policy of the new school.


F31 edit

Bonaparte, Napoleon, The Corsican: a diary of Napoleon’s life in his own words. With preface by R.M. Johnston. London: Grant Richards, 1911. vi+526pp.

Relatively few words by the French Emperor (1769-1821) about the disastrous Russian campaign from July to December 1812, re-arranged from various sources in diary form (pp. 347-66).


F32 edit

Ségur, Philippe-Paul, de, History of the expedition to Russia, undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the year 1812. By General, Count Philip de Ségur. London: H.L. Hunt and C.C. Clarke, 1825. 2 vols. [2nd edition, carefully revised and corrected, Treuttel and Wurtz, Treuttel jun., and Richter, 1825.]

Comte de Ségur (1780-1873), the son of the former ambassador to Catherine’s court, was a general attached to Napoleon’s staff during the Russian campaign. The French original, Napoléon et la grande armée pendant l’année 1812, appeared in 1825, as did a third edition with the title La campagne de Russie.


F33 edit

Labaume, Eugène. A circumstantial narrative of the campaign in Russia, embellished with plans of the battles of the Moskwa and Malo-Jaroslavitz; containing a faithful description of the affecting and interesting scenes, of which the author was an eye-witness. Translated from the French [by E. Boyce]. London: Samuel Leigh, 1814. xii+408pp. [2nd edition, ‘considerably improved’, 1815. viii+412pp.]

Labaume (1783-1849), an engineer officer serving under Prince Eugene, provided an eye-witness account of Napoleon’s Russian campaign.


F34 edit

Marbot, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcelin, de, The memoirs of Baron de Marbot late lieutenant-general in the French army. Translated from the French by Arthur John Butler. London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1892. 2 vols.

Baron de Marbot (1782-1854), highly critical of the works of Labaume and Ségur, served throughout the Russian campaign as a major commanding the 23rd chasseurs (vol. II, pp. 498-600). Mémoires appeared in 3 vols. in Paris in 1891.


F35 edit

[Vaudoncourt, Frédéric-François-Guillaume, de], Critical situation of Bonaparte in his retreat out of Russia; or, a faithful narrative of the repassing of the Beresina by the French army in 1812. By an eye witness. Translated from the French, with notes written by an officer who was with the Russian army at the same period. London: printed by Haines and Turner for J. Hatchard, 1815. vi+65pp.

Translation of Relation impartiale du passage de la Bérézina, par l’armée française en 1812 (1814), published anonymously by baron de Vaudoncourt (1772-1845), who was captured by the Russians at Vilna and was taken to Grand Duke Constantine’s palace at Strelna to recover from typhus.


F36 edit

Roeder, Franz, The ordeal of Captain Roeder. From the diary of an officer in the first battalion of Hessian life-guards during the Moscow campaign of 1812-13. Translated and edited by Helen Roeder from the original manuscript. London: Methuen, 1960. 248pp.

Unusual perspective of the Russian campaign from a Prussian officer, Captain Roeder (1774-1840) of the tenth corps, including his imprisonment in Vilna (pp. 96-218)


F37 edit

Fezensac, Raimond-Emery-Philipp-Josephe de Montesquiou, de, A journal of the Russian campaign of 1812. Translated from the French of lieut.-general de Fezensac, with an introductory note of some passages connected with the campaign by W. Knollys. London: Parker, Furnivall, and Parker, 1852. cxxi+192pp.

Duc de Fezensac (1784-1867), of a distinguished noble family and career officer, served with the fourth regiment of infantry of the third corps under Marshal Ney throughout the Russian campaign. The French original appeared in 1849.


F38 edit

Coignet, Jean-Roch, The narrative of Captain Coignet soldier of the Empire 1776-1850. Edited from the original manuscript by Lorédan Larchey and translated from the French by Mrs M. Carey. London: Chatto & Windus, 1897. 316pp.

Coignet (1776-1858?), a veteran of some thirteen years’ service, was promoted to lieutenant at the beginning of the Russian campaign (pp. 208-44).


F39 edit

Bourgogne, Adrien-Jean-Baptiste-François, Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne (1812-1813). Authorized translation from the French original. Edited by Paul Cottin and Maurice Hénault. London: William Heinemann, 1899. xvi+356pp.

Bourgogne (1785-1867) was a sergeant of the vélites (skirmishers) at the beginning of the Russian campaign. His memoirs are linked with those of Coignet in conveying directly the horrors of the retreat from Moscow.


F40 edit

Walter, Jakob, A German conscript with Napoleon. Jakob Walter’s recollections of the campaigns of 1806-1807, 1809, and 1812-1813. According to a manuscript found at Lecompton, Kansas. Edited and translated by Otto Springer, with historical collaboration by Frank E. Melvin. Lawrence: University of Kansas, Department of Journalism Press, 1938. v+231pp. [See also The diary of a Napoleonic foot soldier. Edited and with an introduction by Marc Raeff, Moreton-in-Marsh: Windrush Press, 1991, xxx+170pp.]

Often harrowing description of the march to Moscow and the retreat, June-December 1812 by Walter (1788-1864), a Westphalian stonemason (pp. 17-109). German and English texts on opposite pages. German original: Denkwürdige Geschichtsschreibung über die erlebte Militärdienstzeit des Verfassers dieses Schreibens.


F41) [Guillemard, Robert], Adventures of a French serjeant during his campaigns in Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, &c., from 1805 to 1823, written by himself. [Translated from the French by his editors, Charles-Ozé Barbaroux and Joseph-Alexandre Lardier.] London: Henry Colburn, 1826. xvi+345pp.

Allegedly the man who shot Nelson at Trafalgar, Guillemard (1792-1867) served in Russia and was made an officer by Napoleon after Borodino, but was soon taken prisoner and marched off to Nizhnii Tagil in Siberia with other French prisoners until 1814 (pp. 135-84).
F42 edit

François, Charles, From Valmy to Waterloo: extracts from the diary of Capt. Charles François, a soldier of the Revolution and the Empire. Translated and edited by Robert B. Douglas. With a preface by Jules Claretie. London: Everett & Co., 1906. 332pp.

François was seriously wounded in the leg in the assault on a redoubt near Moscow. Short on detail, except for the gore (pp. 231-69).


F43 edit

Vossler, Heinrich August, With Napoleon in Russia 1812: the diary of Lt. H.A. Vossler a soldier of the Grand Army 1812-1813. Translated [from the German manuscript] by Walter Wallich. London: Folio Society, 1969. 176pp.

Vossler (1791-1848) was an officer with the Württemberg contingent from south Germany. In Russia, pp. 44-93.


F43a edit

Brandt, Heinrich August von, In the legions of Napoleon: the memoirs of a Polish officer in Spain and Russia, 1808-1813. Translated and edited by Jonathan North. London: Greenhill Books, 1999. 287pp.

Brandt (1789-1868) served in the Vistula Legion, part of the Polish troops withdrawn from Spain to take part in the Russian campaign. His regiment, attached to the Imperial Guard and 3000 strong in June 1812, numbered in December a mere sixty, among whom was Brandt, wounded in the foot outside Moscow (pp. 190-261).


F43b edit

Chlapowski, Dezydery, Memoirs of a Polish lancer: The Pamietniki of Dezydery Chlapowski. Translated by Tim Simmons. Chicago: Emperor’s Press, 1992. 158pp.

A young cavalry officer in the Peninsular War and promoted by Napoleon to lt.-colonel in the Polish Lancers of the Imperial Guard, Chlapowski (1788-1879) lived through the horrors off the Russian campaign. Polish original: Pamiętniki. Cz. 1, Wojny napoleońskie 1806-1813 (Poznan, 1899).


F43c edit

Hausmann, Franz Joseph, A soldier for Napoleon: the campaigns of Lieutenant Franz Joseph Hausmann, 7th Bavarian infantry. Translated by Cynthia Joy Hausmann. Edited by John H. Gill. London: Greenhill Books, 1998. 272pp.

Succinct military or marching diary (pp. 114-25) and twenty-four detailed letters to his parents (pp. 126-79), covering the period 4 March 1812 to 16 June 1813, written by Hausmann (1789-1856), a German lieutenant with Napoleon’s armies in Russia. Translated from German by descendant of Hausmann from family papers.


F44 edit

Uxkull, Boris von, Arms and the woman: the diaries of Baron Boris Uxkull 1812-1819. Edited by Detlev von Uexküll. Translated by Joel Carmichael. London: Secker & Warburg, 1966. 319pp.

Baron Uxkull (1793-1870), an Estonian nobleman attached to the Russian headquarters staff, was eighteen when the war against Napoleon began. He was involved in all the action of the Russian campaign (pp. 15-112).


F45 edit

Wilson, Robert Thomas, Narrative of events during the invasion of Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte, and the retreat of the French army, 1812. Edited by the Rev. Herbert Randolph. London: John Murray, 1860. xxv+412pp.

In 1812, after a gap of some four years, General Wilson was again in Russia and fighting with the Russian army.


F46 edit

Wilson, Robert Thomas, Private diary of travels, personal services, and public events, during mission and employment with the European armies in the campaigns of 1812, 1813, 1814: from the invasion of France to the capture of Paris. Edited by his nephew and son-in-law, the Rev. Herbert Randolph. London: John Murray, 1861. 2 vols. [A skilfully edited abridgment by Antony Brett-James appeared in 1964 under the title General Wilson’s journal 1812-1814, London: William Kimber, 240pp.]

When war was declared between France and Russia in June 1812, Wilson was in Constantinople with the British ambassador Robert Liston, negotiating a peace between Turkey and Russia. Travelling via Bucharest, Kiev and Smolensk, he arrived on 27 August in St Petersburg, where he was warmly received by the tsar and members of the imperial family and court. On 15 September he left to join Kutuzov and the Russian army, which he was to accompany throughout the campaign as they advanced towards Paris (Russia, vol. I, pp. 142-246).


F47 edit

Cathcart, George, Commentaries on the war in Russia and Germany in 1812 and 1813. London: John Murray, 1850. xvi+383pp.

Colonel Carthcart (1794-1854), who was killed at Inkerman during the Crimean War, was aide-de-camp and private secretary to his father, Lord Cathcart, when the latter was both British ambassador to Russia and military commissioner with the Russian army from 1812 (pp. 33-109). He was present at all the major battles in 1813.


F48 edit

Werry, Francis Peter, Personal memoirs and letters of Francis Peter Werry, attaché to the British embassies at St. Petersburgh and Vienna in 1812-1815. Edited by his daughter [Eliza F. Werry]. London: Charles J. Skeet, 1861. 298pp.

Werry (1788-1859) accompanied Lord Cathcart to St Petersburg in October 1812 (pp. 125-84).


F49 edit

Paterson, John, The book for every land: reminiscences of labour and adventure in the work of Bible circulation in the north of Europe and in Russia. Edited, with a prefatory memoir, by William Lindsay Alexander. London: John Snow, 1858. xxxv+412pp.

Rev. Paterson (1784-1858) arrived in Russia for the first time in August 1812 after some years in Scandinavia and Finland to continue his missionary work for the British and Foreign Bible Society. He was to remain until May 1827, a period of fifteen years during which he travelled extensively throughout Russia on behalf of the Russian Bible Society, including the Caucasus, as well as visiting Scandinavia. He was witness to many of the momentous events of the time – his first visit to Moscow was on the eve of the battle of Borodino and subsequent devastation of the city, he was in St Petersburg at the time of the great flood of 1824 and of the Decembrist uprising (pp. 165-412).


F50 edit

Gallatin, James, A great peace maker: the diary of James Gallatin secretary to Albert Gallatin U.S. envoy to France and Holland 1813-1827 and negotiator of the treaty of Ghent. Edited by Count Gallatin with an introduction by Viscount Boyce. London: William Heinemann, 1914. xv+316pp.

The envoy’s eldest son, James (1796?-1876), accompanied his father on a mission to St Petersburg following the Russian offer to mediate a peace treaty between Britain and America. Brief extracts from his diary, 21 July 1813-26 January 1814 (pp. 4-13).


F51 edit

Bayard, James Asheton, Letters of James Asheton Bayard, 1802-1814. Edited by Henry C. Conrad. Wilmington: Historical Society of Delaware, 1901. 44pp.

Bayard (1767-1815) was a member of the three-man commission (the others were Adams and Albert Gallatin) appointed to negotiate peace with Britain. He arrived in St Petersburg with Gallatin on 21 July 1813. Two letters he sent from the Russian capital (pp. 31-34).


F52 edit

Lyttelton, Sarah Spencer, Correspondence of Sarah Spencer Lady Lyttelton 1787-1870. Edited by her great-granddaughter the hon. Mrs Hugh Wyndham. London: John Murray, 1912. xxiii+444pp.

Lady Sarah (1787-1870) and her husband William Lyttelton, later 3rd Baron Lyttelton, followed their marriage in March 1813 with extensive travels which took them to Sweden and to St Petersburg, where they arrived on 5 November 1813. Left Russia on 12 June 1814. Letters and extracts from Sarah’s diary (pp. 166-90).


F53 edit

[Kolbe, Eduard], Recollections of Russia during thirty-three years’ residence. By a German nobleman. Revised and translated, with the author’s sanction, by Lascelles Wraxall. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable and Co., and London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1855. 328pp.

The title would indicate that Kolbe’s acquaintance with Russia dates back to the last years of Alexander I’s reign, but the German original was published in 1846 and thus points to c.1813, although there are few dates in Kolbe’s very negative portrayal of Russia from the day of his arrival at the Russian frontier in Courland. He witnessed the great flood of 1824, but his references are in the main to Nicholas’s reign and to the early 1840s.


F54 edit

James, John Thomas, Journal of a tour in Germany, Sweden, Russia, Poland, during the years 1813 and 1814. London: John Murray, 1816. viii+527pp.

James (1786-1828) and an Oxford friend William Macmichael visited Russia during their northern tour, arriving in St Petersburg from Finland in March 1814. After a stay of some two months in the capital, they left on 12 June for Moscow, describing the devastation they found there and visiting the battlefield at Borodino. They then journeyed to Smolensk and Kiev, before entering Poland on 22 July (pp. 222-481).


F55 edit

James, John Thomas, Views in Russia Sweden Poland and Germany, drawn by the Rev. J. T. James. London: John Murray, 1826-27. 5 parts.

Shortly before he left England to become bishop of Calcutta, James, who had studied painting in Italy subsequent to his Russian trip of 1814, decided to produce his own lithographs from twenty-one of his original sketches, fifteen of which are of Russian scenes. They have facing explanatory texts from the extended 1819 edition of James’s Journal. An album containing 162 drawings by James, many of them with Russian subjects and never reproduced, is held in the Department of Drawings of the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg.


F56 edit

Johnston, Robert, Travels through part of the Russian empire and the country of Poland, along the southern shores of the Baltic. London: J.J. Stockdale, 1815. vii, xiv+460pp.

Johnston (1783-1839), an Oxford graduate, travelled through Germany to reach St Petersburg in July 1814. Detailed description of the towns and villages on the road from the capital to Moscow. In September he left Moscow for Poland via Smolensk and Borodino (pp. 79-374).


F57 edit

Walpole, Horatio, Records of stirring times based upon unpublished documents from 1726-1822. By the authoress of ‘Old days in diplomacy’ [C.A.A. Disbrowe]. Edited by M. Montgomery-Campbell. London: William Heinemann, 1908. xii+323pp.

Includes six letters written to Edward Disbrowe in 1814-15 from St Petersburg by Lord Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford (1783-1858) who had arrived in St Petersburg with Lord Cathcart in October 1812 and was appointed British minister to Russia, ad interim, on 4 August 1814 (pp. 178-81, 192-97).


F58 edit

[Prior, James], A voyage to St Petersburg in 1814; with remarks on the imperial Russian navy. By a surgeon in the British navy. London: Richard Phillips, 1820. 74pp.

Prior (1790?-1869) was a surgeon and already author of accounts of earlier voyages with the British navy, when he was assigned to the Russian squadron under Admiral George Tate returning to Cronstadt from Sheerness in June 1814. He writes very interestingly about Cronstadt and St Petersburg and provides an extensive portrait of Alexander I (pp. 30-74). Prior rose to be deputy-inspector of hospitals and was knighted in 1858. He was the author of biographies of Burke and Goldsmith and other works.


F59 edit

Holderness, Mary, New Russia: journey from Riga to the Crimea, by way of Kiev; with some account of the colonisation, and the manners and customs of the colonists, of new Russia; to which are added, notes relating to the Crim Tatars. London: Sherwood, Jones & Co., 1823. viii+316pp. [2nd edition in 1827 was entitled A journey from Riga.]

Holderness recounts her family’s arrival at Riga in November 1815 and travel through Ukraine to Odessa and to the Crimea, also adding observations made on the return journey in 1820. Her notes on ‘the Crim Tartars’, revised and enlarged (pp. 208-316), were reprinted from her preceding book (see F60).


F60 edit

Holderness, Mary, Notes relating to the manners and customs of the Crim Tatars; written during a four years’ residence among that people. London: John Warren, 1821. vi+168pp.

Holderness with her husband and three children lived in the village of Karagos in the Crimea from early 1816 until March 1820 (although it is nowhere specified what they did). Her sketches were well received and incorporated in New Russia.


F61 edit

Lyall, Robert, The character of the Russians, and a detailed history of Moscow; illustrated with numerous engravings; with a dissertation on the Russian language; and an appendix, containing tables, political, statistical, and historical; an account of the Imperial Agricultural Society of Moscow; a catalogue of plants found in and near Moscow; an essay on the origin and progress of architecture in Russia, &c. &c. London: T. Cadell, and Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1823. cliv+639pp.

Dr Lyall (1789-1831) left Scotland for St Petersburg in 1815 and became house physician for four years on the estate of Countess Orlova-Chesmenskaia. He then married and moved, again as house physician, to an estate near Moscow. His book, which was to incur the wrath of the Russian authorities for its critique of the nobility and serfdom, was published soon after his final return from Russia in August 1823.


F62 edit

Henderson, Ebenezer, and Paterson, John, Extracts of letters from the Rev. John Paterson, and the Rev. Ebenezer Henderson, during their respective tours through the East Sea provinces of Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Jutland, Holstein, Swedish Pomerania, &c. to promote the object of the British and Foreign Bible Society. London: Tilling and Hughes for the Society; Edinburgh: Oliphant, Waugh and Innes, 1817. 58pp.

The Revs Henderson (1784-1858) and Paterson (see F49) were agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Extracts from letters by Paterson from 27 April 1816 to 26 January 1817 from St Petersburg and the Baltic Provinces (pp. 1-28) and by Henderson, arriving in St Petersburg at the end of December 1816 (pp. 52-58).


F63 edit

Henderson, Ebenezer, Biblical researches and travels in Russia; including a tour in the Crimea; and the passage of the Caucasus: with observations on the state of the Rabbinical and Karaite Jews, and the Mohammedan and pagan tribes, inhabiting the southern provinces of the Russian Empire. London: James Nisbet, 1826. xii+538pp.

Henderson’s first visit to St Petersburg in 1816-17 was followed by an extensive stay from 1819 to 1825, during which time he also travelled to Kharkov, Odessa, Taganrog, Astrakhan and Tiflis.


F64 edit

Henderson, Ebenezer, Memoir of the Rev. Ebenezer Henderson, D.D., Ph.D., including his labours in Denmark, Iceland, Russia, etc. etc. By Thulia Susannah Henderson [his daughter]. London: Knight & Son; Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1859. viii+476pp.

Compiled by Henderson’s daughter, Thulia Susannah Henderson (afterwards Engall), this extensive memoir includes material on Russia, previously found in his earlier publications (see F62-63) (pp. 207-22, 243-97).


F65 edit

Pinkerton, Robert, Extracts of letters from the Rev. Robert Pinkerton, on his late tour in Russia, Poland, and Germany to promote the object of the British and Foreign Bible Society; together with a letter from Prince Alexander Galitzin to Lord Teignmouth (‘Regarding the cause of the Bible Society in Russia’). London: printed by Tilling and Hughes for British and Foreign Bible Society, 1817. 67pp.

In 1812 the Rev. Pinkerton (d. 1855), who had originally been sent by the Edinburgh Missionary Society to its mission at Karass in the North Caucasus in 1805, joined the Revs John Paterson and Ebenezer Henderson in St Petersburg to promote the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society. On 22 March 1816 he undertook a tour of some seven thousand miles that took him to Tver, Moscow, Tula, Voronezh, Novocherkask, Taganrog and through the Crimea and on to Odessa by the end of July (pp. 1-27), before he crossed into Poland and on to Vienna and Berlin. He was back in Russia by the end of October and reached St Petersburg on 2 December 1816 (pp. 53-62).


F66 edit

Pinkerton, Robert, Russia; or, miscellaneous observations on the past and present state of that country and its inhabitants; compiled from notes made on the spot, during travels, at different times, in the service of the Bible Society, and a residence of many years in that country. London: Seeley & Sons, 1833. viii+486pp.

Pinkerton, who had left Russia for the last time in 1825, produced what he called a work of “miscellaneous character”, mixing excerpts from travel diaries and journals of various years, notably his journey south to Odessa in 1819, with information derived from Russian sources to illustrate Russia’s ecclesiastical and social history as well as its literature, folklore and proverbs.


F67 edit

Venning, John, Memorials of John Venning, esq. (formerly of St. Petersburgh, and late of Norwich), with numerous notices from his manuscripts relative to the imperial family of Russia. By Thulia Susannah Henderson. London: Knight & Son, and Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1862. 320pp.

Venning (1776-1858), prison reformer, curator of lunatic asylum in St Petersburg and well-known to members of the imperial family, returned to England in 1830 after nearly forty years in Russia (pp. 9-304). Mrs Henderson follows her memoir of her father (F64) with a similarly substantial account of Venning who arrived in St Petersburg in 1793 and established himself as a prominent merchant but after some years in London returned to devote himself to philanthropic causes in Russia (pp. 23-34).


F68 edit

Venning, Walter, Memoir of the life and character of Walter Venning, esq. A member of the committee of the London society for the improvement of prison discipline, &c. who died at St. Petersburg, January 10th , 1821, from a fever contracted in visiting one of the gaols of that city. By Richard Knill. With a preface by Robert Winter, D.D. London: printed by J. Haddon, sold by J. and A. Arch, 1822. 102pp.

Contains extracts from letters and memoranda written by Venning (1781-1821) from 1817, when he returned to Russia (he had been there previously between 1799 and 1807) and helped create the Russian society for prisons. (For the Rev. Richard Knill in St Petersburg, see F87.)


F69 edit

Macmichael, William, Journey from Moscow to Constantinople, in the years 1817, 1818. London: John Murray, 1819. vii+272pp.

Dr Macmichael F.R.S. (1784-1839), who had first visited in Russia in 1814 with the Rev. J.T. James (see F53), returned at the very end of 1817 with a Mr Legh, “one of the most enterprising travellers of the present age”, to see how Moscow was recovering from the disastrous fire of 1812. After a stay of nearly two weeks (4-16 December), they travelled south to Kiev and then into Moldavia and Bulgaria on their way to Constantinople. In his preface Macmichael suggested that the rapidity of the trip excused “the very imperfect observations contained in its recital” (pp. 1-71).


F70 edit

Wheeler, Daniel, Memoirs of the life and gospel labors of the late Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends. [Edited by his son Daniel Wheeler]. London: Harvey and Darton; Charles Gilpin, 1842. xxviii+793pp.

The eminent Quaker Wheeler (1771-1840) was invited to supervise agricultural improvements at Okhta near St Petersburg. He paid a preliminary visit in June 1817 (pp. 58-64) and returned to England. He set out again with family and assistants (20 people in all) in June 1818 and apart from visit to England in late 1830-June 1831, remained until he resigned in July 1832 (pp. 69-162, 179-95). He returned for a last time in March 1833.


F71 edit

Benson, Jane, From the Lune to the Neva sixty years ago; with Ackworth and ‘Quaker’ life by the way. By J.B. London: Saml Harris & Co., 1879. 115pp.

Mrs Benson, née Edmondson (1823-1906) tells the story of her father George Edmondson (1798-1863), who as a young man followed Wheeler to Russia in 1818 and remained until illness forced him to return in 1825 with his wife and infant daughter (pp. 72-115). Mrs Benson based her account on family documents but changed the names of people involved.


F72 edit

Benson, Jane, Quaker pioneers in Russia. London: Headley Bros., 1902. 120pp.

Mrs Benson refers briefly to her earlier book (F71) but re-tells the story of her parents in more detail and quoting from their letters in the general context of the experiences of Wheeler and Thomas Shillitoe (pp. 32-98).


F73 edit

Gordon, Peter, Fragment of the journal of a tour through Persia, in 1820. London: K.J. Ford, 1833. 126pp.

Curious compilation of various, mainly Russian journeys by land and sea by Captain Gordon, who lamented the loss of his other travel journals. As captain of the schooner Brothers he sailed from Calcutta to Okhotsk, where he arrived on 27 September 1817 and departed on 19 October (pp. 2-11). Then follows ‘Extracts from the journal of a traveller through Siberia, on his route from Ochotsk to India’, when he left Okhotsk in September 1819, sailed across Baikal and reached the edge of Siberia in January 1820 (pp. 11-42). The tour through Persia of the title begins in fact in Astrakhan in March 1820 and he travelled through the Caucasus to Tiflis and arrived in Persian territory only in mid-April (pp. 43-60).


F74 edit

Wilson, Robert Thomas, A sketch of the military and political power of Russia, in the year 1817. London: James Ridgway, 1817. xv+208pp.

Wilson’s final work on Russia and the Russian army, from which he had been transferred on 7 September 1813 to become British commissioner with the Austrian army (see F18, F19, F46). Wilson never visited Russia again, but remained keenly interested in its past, present and future role in the European balance of power (pp. 1-158).


F75 edit

Johnson, John, A journey from India to England, through Persia, Georgia, Russia, Poland, and Prussia, in the year 1817. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818. x+376pp.

Johnson, a lieutenant-colonel returning to England in 1817 after service in India, visited the Caucasus and Ukraine, including Kiev, and meeting the renowned General Ermolov, before leaving for Poland (pp. 236-349).


F76 edit

Porter, Robert Ker, Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c., &c., during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821-82. 2 vols.

Porter (see F13), called back to Russia by Alexander I in 1811 and soon afterwards marrying his Russian princess, embarked on extensive travels in August 1817 that took him south from St Petersburg into Georgia (including a memorable meeting with Hetman Platov in Novocherkask) and through the Caucasus to Persia and beyond (vol. I, pp. 1-170). He was to return to St Petersburg on 14 March 1820 after three years of travel.


F77 edit

Taitbout de Marigny, Edouard, Three voyages in the Black Sea to the coast of Circassia: including descriptions of the ports, and the importance of their trade; with sketches of the manners, customs, religion, &c., &c., of the Circassians. Translated from the French. London: John Murray, 1837. xvi+303pp.

Le chevalier Edouard Taitbout was appointed Dutch vice-consul for the ports of the Black Sea on 9 January 1821 and the last two voyages he describes were to Anapa in north Circassia in 1823 and 1824 (pp. 141-261). He had been in the region, however, since at least 1813, seeking commercial ties with Circassia, and he provides the journal of a voyage he made in May-July 1818 from Kerch to various ports (pp. 13-141). British interest in his work was stimulated by the ongoing Russian expansion in the Caucasus. During the Crimean War Taitbout’s detailed surveys of the Black Sea, such as The Black Sea pilot (1855), were much reprinted and used.


F78 edit

Grellet du Mabillier, Etienne de, Memoirs of the life and gospel labours of Stephen Grellet. Edited by Benjamin Seebohm. London: A.W. Bennett, 1860. 2 vols.

Born into a French noble family, Grellet (1773-1855), assuming the English form of his name on becoming a Quaker in 1795, left on missionary work in northern Europe in the summer of 1818, arriving in the Russian capital in November. From St Petersburg he and William Allen travelled to Moscow and then south to the Crimea. They sailed from Odessa for Constantinople on 8 July 1819 (vol. I, pp. 343-426).


F79 edit

Allen, William, Life of William Allen, with selections from his correspondence. London: Charles Gilpin, 1846. 3 vols.

Allen (1770-1843) accompanied his fellow Quaker Grellet on missionary travels to St Petersburg and thence to the Crimea and Odessa between November 1818 and February 1819 (vol. I, pp. 420-68; II, pp. 1-93).


F80 edit

Ramble, Rayford, Travelling opinions and sketches, in Russia and Poland. London: John Macrone, and Smith, Elder & Co., and Dublin: John Cumming, 1836. 226pp.

Ramble sailed from London to Cronstadt in the early summer of 1819, although his account was written up only in 1835-36. From St Petersburg he went by boat via Lake Ladoga and eventually to Nizhnii Novgorod, returning to Moscow via Iaroslavl, “a town of no interest”. Left Moscow at end of September for Poland and Germany (pp. 9-178).


F81 edit

Bowring, John, Autobiographical recollections of Sir John Bowring. With a brief memoir by Lewin B. Bowring. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1877. viii+404pp.

Sir John (1792-1872), later editor of the Westminister Review, travelled from Hamburg overland to St Petersburg, where he spent the winter of 1819-20, making the acquaintance of leading literary figures and collecting materials for his renowned Specimens of the Russian poets (pp. 117-25).


F82 edit

Cochrane, John Dundas, Narrative of a pedestrian journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, from the frontiers of China to the Frozen Sea and Kamstchatka, performed during the years 1820, 1821, 1822, and 1823. London: John Murray, 1824. xvi+564pp. [Three further editions were followed by a new edition with a necessary change in the title: A pedestrian journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, to the frontiers of China, the Frozen Sea, and Kamchatka, London: Hurst, Chance & Co., and Edinburgh: Constable, 1829. 2 vols. See also the abridged Folio Society edition of 1983, edited and with an introduction by Mervyn Horder, 217pp.]

Cochrane (1780-1825), a Royal Navy captain, had already earned a reputation as the “pedestrian traveller” before he embarked on his ambitious plan to travel round the world, on foot where possible. He reached St Petersburg on 30 April 1820 and set out on 24 May, walking, but using any form of transport when the opportunity arose. Reaching Okhotsk in June 1821, he proceeded to Kamchatka, where he married a local woman. Abandoning his original itinerary, they eventually arrived back in St Petersburg in May 1823, having met in Moscow the blind Holman (see F89), about to embark on his travels to Siberia (pp. 41-564).


F83 edit

Reichard, Heinrich August Ottokar, An itinerary of Denmark, Sweden, Norway & Russia, being a complete guide to travellers through those countries; containing a minute description of the post and cross roads, cities, towns, rivers, canals, inns, coins, modes and price of travelling; also a concise account of soil, produce, manufactures, population, naval and military forces and curiosities of each country. London: printed for Samuel Leigh by G. Schulze, 1820. lxvii+220pp.

An early and useful guide, said by the translator to be even more useful in English than in the original German, by Reichard (1751-1828). Information on Russia, pp. xlvii-lxiv, 117-220.


F84 edit

Halen, Juan van, Narrative of Don Juan van Halen’s imprisonment in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Madrid, and his escape in 1817 and 1818; to which are added, his journey to Russia, his campaign with the army of the Caucasus, and his return to Spain in 1821. Edited from the original Spanish manuscript by the author of ‘Don Esteban’ and ‘Sandoval’ [Valentin Llanos Guttiérez]. London: Henry Colburn, 1827. 2 vols.

Spanish soldier-of-fortune, van Halen, Count de Perecamps, joined Russian service in 1819 and was assigned to the army in the Caucasus under General Ermolov. Allegedly expelled from Russia at the end of 1820 on the orders of the emperor, he returned to Spain via Austria and Switzerland. Virtually the whole of vol. II (pp. 30-469) is devoted to Russia and particularly Georgia.


F85 edit

Lumsden, Thomas, A journey from Merut in India to London, through Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Austria, Switzerland, and France, during the years 1819 and 1820. London: Black, Kingsbury, Parberry, & Allen; Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, and Macredie, Skelly, & Co., 1822. vi+272+12pp.

A long-serving lieutenant in the Bengal Horse Artillery, Lumsden requested leave in England and travelled there on a year-long journey. He left Merut on 3 October 1819 and travelled via Persia, Armenia, Georgia, reaching Odessa on 2 September 1820. Leaving Russian Poland on 15 September for Austria and France, he reached Dover on 30 October 1820. Georgia and Russia, pp. 151-214.


F86 edit

Glen, William, Journal of a tour from Astrachan to Karass, north of the mountains of the Caucasus; containing remarks on the general appearance of the country, manners of the inhabitants, &c.; with the substance of many conversations with effendis, mollas, and other Mohammedans, on the questions at issue between them and Christians. Edinburgh: Printed [by David Jack] for David Brown, John Wardlaw & Co., Edinburgh; William Turbull & Co., Wardlaw and Cunninghame, & M. Ogle, Glasgow; J. Finlay, Newcastle; Ogle, Duncan & Co., & J. Nisbit, London, 1823. 227pp.

Rev. Glen (1778-1849) was sent in 1818 by the Edinburgh Missionary Society to Astrakhan, where he and his wife were to live for some five years, during which time he acquired his mastery of Persian and other languages. He set out from the Astrakhan mission on 8 October 1820 on his journey to the mission at Karass, near Georgievsk, arriving on 19 October. Describes life in the mission and travels around the region until 9 November, when the account simply finishes.


F87 edit

Knill, Richard, The life of the Rev. Richard Knill, of St Petersburgh: being selections from his reminiscences, journals, and correspondence, with a review of his character, by the late Rev. John Angell James. By Charles M. Birrell. London: James Nisbett, 1860. viii+268pp.

Knill (1787-1857) arrived in St Petersburg in November 1820 to promote the work of the Bible Society and met up with the Revs Paterson and Henderson. He finally left Russia in January 1833 (pp. 89-190). Includes his description of the Petersburg flood of 1824.


F88 edit

Brooke, Arthur de Capell, A winter in Lapland and Sweden, with various observations relating to Finmark and its inhabitants, made during a residency at Hammerfest, near the North Cape. London: John Murray, 1827. xvi+612pp.

In the delayed sequel to his Travels through Sweden, Norway, and Finmark (1823), Sir Arthur (1791-1858), a half-pay officer who had left England in May 1820, describes his remarkable travels into Russian Finmark or Lapland in December 1820 (pp. 504-60). He returned to England in February 1821. He also published in 1827 his Winter sketches in Lapland, or illustrations of a journey from Alten, on the shores of the Polar Sea, a series of twenty-four folio-size drawings on stone by D. Dighton and J.D. Harding from sketches by Brooke, including four specifically of Russian Lapland scenes.


F89 edit

Holman, James, Travels through Russia, Siberia, Poland, Austria, Saxony, Prussia, Hanover, etc., etc., undertaken during the years 1822, 1823, and 1824, while suffering from total blindness, and comprising an account of the author being conducted a state prisoner from the eastern parts of Siberia. London: G.B. Whittaker, 1825. 2 vols.

Holman (1786-1857), the famed blind traveller, followed his earlier European travels with more ambitious plans to circuit the world. He arrived in St Petersburg in 1822 and travelled through Siberia as far as Irkutsk, but was then arrested on suspicion of being a spy for the Russian American Company. He was conducted back forcibly to the frontier with Poland and expelled. Holman’s correspondence with Cochrane (see F82), who doubted his claims, is included as an appendix.


F90 edit

Lyall, Robert, Travels in Russia, the Krimea, the Caucasus, and Georgia. London: printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, and Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1825. 2 vols.

Dr Lyall (see F61) acted as guide and physician to the Marquis Pucci, Count Salazar and Edward Penrhyn on travels from Moscow to southern Russia that took place between April and August 1822. The detailed itinerary is in vol. II, pp. 530-34. A work overloaded with references and quotations from the works of other travellers.


F91 edit

Jones, George Matthew, Travels in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Turkey; also on the coasts of the Sea of Azof and of the Black Sea; with a review of the trade in those seas and of the systems adopted to man the fleets of the different powers of Europe, compared with that of England. London: John Murray, 1827. 2 vols.

Jones, a long-serving captain in the Royal Navy and meticulous diarist, followed earlier European tours with extensive travels that took him to St Petersburg at the end of September 1822. He spent some four months in the capital with an excursion to Revel before, following in the footsteps of his admired E.D. Clarke, he travelled to Moscow and then south, visiting Tula, Taganrog, Azov, and the Crimea, before arriving in Odessa, whence he sailed for Constantinople on 12 June 1823 (vol. I, pp. 283-582; II, pp. 1-390).


F92 edit

Zwick, Heinrich August, Calmuc Tartary; or, a journey from Sarepta to several Calmuc hordes of the Astracan government; from May 26 to August 21, 1823, undertaken, on behalf of the Russian Bible Society, by Henry Augustus Zwick and John Golfried Schill, and described by the former. London: Holdsworth and Ball, 1831. iv+262pp.

In 1818 Zwick (1796-1855), admitted into the Moravian Brotherhood in 1809, arrived in Sarepta on the Volga (the town founded by the Brotherhood in 1765) and made several missionary journeys among the Kalmyks prior to the journey recorded in this work. At the request of the Russian Bible Society, Zwick and his fellow missionary Schill were to distribute copies of a Kalmyk translation of the Matthew Gospel and other tracts among the five native hordes. They arrived back just days after the great fire that had devastated Sarepta (pp. 25-262). (German original: Reise von Sarepta… (Leipzig, 1827)). Zwick’s pioneering linguistic studies were reflected in his West-Mongolian (Kalmyk) grammar of 1851.


F93 edit

Clairmont, Claire, The journals of Claire Clairmont 1814-1827. Edited by Marion Kingston Stocking, with the assistance of David Mackenzie Stocking. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968. xxii+571pp.

Clara Mary Jane (Claire) Clairmont (1798-1879), mistress of Byron and mother of his daughter Augusta, arrived in Moscow in late 1823 as governess to daughters of a Countess Zotova, before moving to a similar position in the Posnikov family. She left Russia in May 1828. Incomplete journals cover period from May 1825 to January 1827 (pp. 305-411).


F94 edit

Clairmont, Claire, The Clairmont correspondence: letters of Claire Clairmont, Charles Clairmont, and Fanny Imlay Godwin. Edited by Marion Kingston Stocking. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1995. 2 vols.

Letters from Moscow to Jane Williams and Mary Shelley, September 1824–July 1827 (vol. I, pp. 211-50).


F95 edit

Hutchinson, William, ‘Letter from Belaia tserkov’, 13 September 1824’, in Autobiography of A. B. Granville, M.D., F.R.S.: being eighty-eight years of the life of a physician who practised his profession in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, the West Indies, Russia, Germany, France, and England. Edited, with a brief account of the last years of his life, by his youngest daughter, Paulina B. Granville. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1874. 2 vols.

Dr Hutchinson (1793-1850), editor of the London medical and physical journal, was briefly physician to Count and Countess Vorontsov in Odessa in the early months of 1824, suffered ill health, and was replaced by Dr Robert Lee (vol. II, pp. 228-30). Alexander Pushkin, who met Hutchinson in Odessa, dubbed him “the deaf philospher, the only intelligent atheist I have as yet met”.


F96 edit

Wilson, William Rae, Travels in Russia. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1828. 2 vols.

Fellow of the Society of Arts and author of other books of travel, Wilson travelled through Germany to reach the Russian frontier on 6 June 1824 (despite his asserting that his tour was “during the summer of 1825” (vol. I, p. 2)) and spent the rest of the summer in St Petersburg and Moscow. He returned to the capital and left for Finland at the end of September. He is increasingly vague about dates, which allows him to add information about events that happened long after his departure, such as the death of Alexander and the Decembrist revolt (vol. I, pp. 162-383; II, pp. 1-144).


F97 edit

Keppel, George Thomas, Personal narrative of a journey from India to England, by Bussorah, Bagdad, the ruins of Babylon, Curdistan, the court of Persia, the western shore of the Caspian Sea, Astrakhan, Nishney Novogorod, Moscow, and St. Petersburgh, in the year 1824. London: Henry Colburn, 1827. xii+338pp.

Captain, later General Keppel (1799-1891), who became 6th Earl of Albemarle in 1849, left India in January 1824, entering Russian territory on 23 June and following the Volga from Astrakhan to Moscow. He then travelled to St Petersburg, where he arrived on 31 August but of which he left no description, and was home in early November (pp. 276-338).


F98 edit

Keppel, George Thomas, Fifty years of my life. London: Macmillan and Co, 1876. 2 vols.

A shortened version of his account of 1827, but with the added information about his three-week stay in St Petersburg and intriguing encounters with the Sablukovs, General Jomini and Sir Robert Ker Porter (vol. II, pp. 200-17).


F99 edit

Prince, Nancy Gardner, A narrative of the life and travels of Mrs Nancy Price. Boston: for the author, 1850. 87pp. [Re-issued as A black woman’s odyssey through Russia and Jamaica: the narrative of Nancy Prince. Introduction by Ronald G. Waters. New York: Markus Wiener, 1990.]

The extraordinary autobiography of an African-American woman, known only through her own account of her life. Née Nancy Gardner (1799-c.1856), she married Nero Prince, who had arrived in Massachusetts from Russia, and in April 1824 she accompanied him to St Petersburg, where he was employed at the court. She witnessed the flood of November 1824, the Decembrist uprising, and the first years of Nicholas’s reign, before her departure from St Petersburg on 14 August 1833.


F100 edit

Moore, John, A journey from London to Odessa, with notices of New Russia, etc. London: for the author, 1833. vii+320pp.

Eleven letters from the author to his friend C****, as he travelled from Calais through Poland to Odessa, “that remarkable city”, where he spent three months from 19 August 1824. He returned by the same route (pp. 77-215).


F101 edit

Shillitoe, Thomas, Journal of the life, labours, and travels of Thomas Shillitoe, in the service of the gospel of Jesus Christ. London: Harvey and Darton, 1839. 2 vols.

Shillitoe (1754-1836), a Quaker since 1778, arrived in St Petersburg from Denmark in early September 1824, was witness to the great flood in November, and remained in the city until 9 February 1825, when he left with Daniel Wheeler by sled for Riga (vol. II, pp. 69-117).


F102 edit

Wassenaer, Marie Cornélie de, A visit to St Petersburg 1824-1825. Translated by Igor Vinogradoff [from the French manuscript]. Norwich: Michael Russell, 1994. 160pp.

The immensely rich young Dutchwoman, Cornélie Wassenaer (1799-1850) left Brussels on 8 September 1824 in her capacity as maid of honour to the Princess of Orange-Nassau (Anna, youngest daughter of Paul I) and spent a month at Gatchina before the royal party was installed in the Winter Palace on 17 November (two days before the great flood). They began their return journey on 28 July of the following year.


F103 edit

Schnitzler, Jean Henri, Secret history of the court and government of Russia under the emperors Alexander and Nicholas. London: Richard Bentley, 1847. 2 vols.

Born in Strasbourg, Schnitzler (1802-71) spent four years between 1824 and 1828 in Russia, as a private tutor. He was an eye-witness to the events of 14 December 1825 and was present in Moscow for the coronation of Nicholas I. He was to write at least five books on Russian history and economic development, although his Histoire intime de la Russie (1847), in which he analyses the causes and effects of the Decembrist revolt, was the only one to appear in English.


F104 edit

Disbrowe, Edward Cromwell, and Disbrowe, Anne, Original letters from Russia, 1825-1828. Edited by C[harlotte] A[nne] A[lbinia] D[isbrowe]. London: printed for private circulation at the Ladies’ Printing Press, 1878. 296pp. [Later partially incorporated into Old days in diplomacy: recollections of a closed century. By the eldest daughter of the late Sir Edward Cromwell Disbrowe, G.C.G. With a preface by M. Montgomery-Campbell. London: Jarrold & Sons, 1903. 327pp. (Russian letters, pp. 73-165).]

Disbrowe (1790-1851) arrived in St Petersburg on 7 April 1825 as British minister plenipotentiary and was soon joined by his wife, her father, and her brother, John Kennedy (who was also to work in the embassy). Extracts of letters, written mainly by Mrs Disbrowe (1795-1855), are found in both editions, covering the death of Alexander I and the Decembrist revolt. The Disbrowes left the Russian capital on 23 February 1828.


F105 edit

Bloomfield, Benjamin, Memoir of Benjamin, Lord Bloomfield G.C.B., G.C.H. Edited by Georgiana Lady Bloomfield. London: Chapman and Hall, 1884. 2 vols.

Lord Bloomfield (1768-1846), British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Sweden from 1822 to 1832, made a ten-week tour of Russia in the summer of 1825 (29 June-7 September), visiting St Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhnii Novgorod and Kazan (vol. II, pp. 1-101).


F106 edit

Lee, Robert, The last days of Alexander, and the first days of Nicholas (emperors of Russia). London: Richard Bentley, 1854. 210pp.

Dr Lee (1793-1877), appointed personal physician to Count Mikhail Vorontsov, arrived in Odessa (via Poland) on 8 January 1825 and remained almost two years until November 1826, when he returned to London with the Vorontsovs. He provides a detailed account of the last illness and death of Alexander I, to whom he had been presented a few days earlier. There is also much on the Decembrist revolt.


F107 edit

Wolff, Joseph, Missionary journal and memoir of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, missionary to the Jews. Written by himself. Revised and edited by John Bayford. London: Printed for the editor by James Duncan and I.B. Seeley & Son, 1827-29. 3 vols.

Dubbed “the eccentric missionary” and best known for his journey to Bokhara in 1843 to seek the British officers Stoddart and Conolly (already executed), Rev. Wolff (1795-1862), born in Bavaria, was involved in the work of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews from 1819 and travelled extensively on its behalf. On 19 June 1825 he entered Georgia and over the next eight months travelled and preached in many towns and settlements, including the German colonies, in Georgia and the Crimea. Arriving in Taganrog, he received an invitation to meet the tsar, who was to die before they met. Wolff left Odessa for Constantinople on 8 February 1826 (vol. III (1829), pp. 189-288).


F108 edit

Wolff, Joseph, Travels and adventures of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, D.D., LL.D. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1860-61. 2 vols.

Dictated and in the third person, Wolff’s memoirs published shortly before his death include a brief account of his one excursion into Russian territory in 1825-26 (vol. II, pp. 363-69).


http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0042.06


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