Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen

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File:BellingshausenWappen.jpg family]]

Bellingshausen was born into the Baltic German noble Bellingshausen family in the {{ill|Lahetaguse Manor|lt=Lahhetagge Manor|et|Lahetaguse mõis}}, Ösel County in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire; now Saare County, Estonia. His paternal family had Holsteinish origins; the surname Bellingshausen was first recorded in Lübeck. He enlisted as a cadet in the Imperial Russian Navy at the age of ten. After graduating from the Kronstadt naval academy at age eighteen, Bellingshausen rapidly rose to the rank of captain.

{{main|First Russian circumnavigation}}

File:Nadezhda krusenstern.jpg, on which Bellingshausen served under captain Krusenstern during the first Russian circumnavigation.]]

A great admirer of Cook's voyages, Bellingshausen served from 1803 in the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth. He was one of the officers of the vessel Nadezhda ("Hope"), commanded by Adam Johann von Krusenstern.{{sfn|Postnikov|2007|p=108}} The mission was completed in 1806.{{sfn|Postnikov|2007|p=108}} After the journey, Bellingshausen published a collection of maps of the newly explored areas and islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Bellingshausen's career continued with the command of various ships in the Baltic and Black Seas.{{sfn|Postnikov|2007|p=108}} From 1812 to 1816, he commanded the frigate Minerva and from 1817 to 1819 the frigate Flora, both in the Black Sea Fleet. During 1812 he met on Macquarie Island, half-way between New Zealand and Antarctica, Richard Siddins, the Australian captain of the ship Campbell Macquarie.{{cite book|last1=Ellis|first1=Richard|title=The Empty Ocean|date=2013|publisher=Island Press|isbn=978-1597265997|page=172|edition=Herzien|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9fWQed5be58C}}

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{{main|First Russian Antarctic Expedition}}

Image:Bellingshausen-fr.svg

File:Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.jpg]]

When Emperor Alexander I authorized an expedition to the south polar region in 1819, the authorities selected Bellingshausen to lead it as an experienced captain and explorer, and a prominent cartographer. The expedition was intended to explore the Southern Ocean and to find land in the proximity of the South Pole. The preparation work on the two ships, the 985-ton sloop-of-war Vostok ("East") and the 530-ton support vessel Mirny ("Peaceful") was carried out by Mikhail Lazarev, who had captained his own circumnavigation of the globe before. Bellingshausen became the captain of Vostok, and Lazarev captained Mirny. The journey started from Kronstadt on 4 June 1819. They stopped briefly in England, where Bellingshausen met with Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society. Banks had sailed with Captain James Cook fifty years earlier and supplied the Russians with books and charts for their expedition.{{Cite web|url=https://antarctic-logistics.com/2010/08/28/fabian-gottlieb-von-bellingshausen/|title=Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen|date=28 August 2010}}

Leaving Portsmouth on 5 September 1819 the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle (the first to do so since Cook) on 26 January 1820 (New Style). On 27 January, the expedition discovered the Antarctic mainland approaching the Antarctic coast at a point with coordinates 69º21'28"S 2º14'50"W and seeing ice-fields there. The point in question lies within twenty miles of the Antarctic mainland. Bellingshausen's diary, his report to the Russian Naval Minister on 21 July 1821 and other documents, available in the Russian State Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic in Saint Petersburg, Russia, were carefully compared with the log-books of other claimants by the British polar historian A. G. E. Jones in his 1982 study Antarctica Observed. Jones concluded that Bellingshausen, rather than the Royal Navy's Edward Bransfield on 30 January 1820 or the American Nathaniel Palmer on 17 November 1820, was indeed the discoverer of the sought-after Terra Australis.

During the voyage Bellingshausen also visited Meretoto / Ship Cove in New Zealand,{{cite encyclopedia |date=1966 |title =Ship Cove |encyclopedia=An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand |editor=A.H. McLintock| publisher=Ministry for Culture and Heritage/Te Manatū Taonga, Government of New Zealand |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/ship-cove |access-date=5 October 2018}} the South Shetland Islands,L. Ivanov. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318420186_General_Geography_and_History_of_Livingston_Island General Geography and History of Livingston Island.] In: Bulgarian Antarctic Research: A Synthesis. Eds. C. Pimpirev and N. Chipev. Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2015. pp. 17-28. {{ISBN|978-954-07-3939-7}} and discovered and named Peter I, Zavodovski, Leskov and Visokoi Islands, and a peninsula of the Antarctic mainland that he named the Alexander Coast, but that has more recently borne the designation of Alexander Island.

File:Lazarevpetrovich.jpg, captain of Mirny and second-in-command to Bellingshausen during the Antarctic expedition.]]

Bellingshausen and Lazarev managed to twice circumnavigate the continent and never lost each other from view. Thus, they disproved Cook's assertion that it was impossible to find land in the southern ice fields. The expedition also made discoveries and observations in the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean.{{citation needed|date=October 2018}}

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Returning to Kronstadt on 4 August 1821, Bellingshausen was made {{ill|captain-commodore|ru|Капитан-командор|vertical-align=sup}}, and received the rank of counter admiral from tsar Nicholas I in 1826. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, — particularly in the siege of Varna,{{sfn|Novitsky|Schwarz|Apushkin|Schoultz|1911}} was promoted to vice admiral in 1830, served as a military governor of port Kronstadt at the approaches to St Petersburg, and gained the rank of admiral in 1843. In 1831, he published the book on his Antarctic travel, called Double Investigation of the Southern Polar Ocean and the Voyage Around the World.{{efn|name=World}}

In 1839 he became a military governor of Kronstadt, the main base of Russian Baltic Fleet, and died there in 1852.

File:RR5415-0010R.gif of the Bank of Russia dedicated to the first Russian Antarctic expedition]]

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen is remembered in Russia as one of its greatest admirals and explorers. In the Antarctic, multiple geographical features and locations, named in honor of Bellingshausen, remind of his role in exploration of the southern polar region.

There is a memorial stone of Bellingshausen on the previous site (on the ruins) of Lahhentagge/Lahetaguse manor in Ösel/Saaremaa.

There is a monument to Bellingshausen in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, as well as in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and in Montevideo, Uruguay.

There is a monument to Admiral Bellingshausen in Kronstadt, near Saint Petersburg in Russia.

File:Памятник Ф. Ф. Беллинсгаузену.jpg, Russia]]

• Bellingshausen Island (was) in the Aral Sea.
• Bellingshausen Island in the south Atlantic Ocean, part of the South Sandwich Islands
• Bellingshausen Sea in the Southern Ocean
• Bellingshausen Station, a Russian (former Soviet) base on King George Island, Antarctica
• Bellingshausen Plate, an ancient tectonic plate
• Bellinsgauzen, a crater on the far side of the Moon
• Faddey Islands in the Laptev Sea coastal region on the north Russian coast, named after Bellingshausen's first name in Russian
• Motu One (Society Islands), also known as Bellinghausen, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean
• A minor planet 3659 Bellingshausen, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh in 1969{{cite book | last = Schmadel | first = Lutz D. | title = Dictionary of Minor Planet Names | pages = 308 | edition = 5th | date = 2003 | publisher=Springer Verlag | location = New York | isbn = 3-540-00238-3}}

• History of Antarctica
• List of Baltic German explorers

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|author=Hotimsky, C. M. |url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bellingshausen-faddei-faddeevich-fabian-1767/text1975|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|year=1966|chapter=Bellingshausen, Faddei Faddeevich (Fabian) (1778–1852)|title=Australian Dictionary of Biography}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Novitsky |first1=Vasily F. |last2=Schwarz |first2=Alexey V. von |last3=Apushkin |first3=Vladimir A. |last4=Schoultz |first4=Gustav K. von |url=https://archive.org/details/bmk-brz-4/page/450/mode/2up |title=Военная энциклопедия |trans-title=Military Encyclopedia |publisher=Типография Т-ва И. Д. Сытина |volume=IV: Б – Бомба |year=1911 |pages=450–451 |language=ru |author-link1=Vasily Fedorovich Novitsky |access-date=4 November 2023 |place=Moscow}}
• Oliver, Steven. 'Bellingshausen, Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin von', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1b17/bellingshausen-fabian-gottlieb-benjamin-von (accessed 15 January 2024)
• {{cite book |last1=Postnikov |first1=Alexey |authorlink1=Alexey Postnikov |editor1-last=Buiisseret |editor1-first=David |title=The Oxford Companion to World Exploration |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-514922-7 |pages=108–109 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Oxford_Companion_to_World_Exploratio/xyAjAQAAIAAJ |language=en |chapter=Bellingshausen, Fabian}}
• {{cite web |title=BELLINGSHAUSEN, THADDEUS GOTTLIEB THADDEVICH von (also FABIAN GOTTLIEB BENJAMIN) |url=https://www.falklandsbiographies.org/biographies/bellingshausen_thaddeus |last=Savours |first=Ann |author-link=Ann Savours Shirley |access-date=11 January 2024 |website=Dictionary of Falklands Biography}}

{{Commons category}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050729074652/http://www.70south.com/resources/history/explorers/bellingshausen 70South – information on Fabian von Bellingshausen]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050326181156/http://kapustin.boom.ru/journal/bel02.htm Двукратные изыскания в Южном Ледовитом океане и плавание вокруг света...] Bellingshausen's book in Russian with details on the Antarctic expedition led by him
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120118213614/http://www.aari.nw.ru/projects/Antarctic/persons/bell/bell_ru.html Biography (in Russian)]
• [http://www.rubricon.com/showbigimg.asp?id=245000212 A map of his Antarctic expedition (in Russian)], attention – all dates there are Julian
• [http://www.mois.ee/english/saare/pilguse.shtml The page of Pilguse (Hoheneichen) manor from Estonian Manors Portal] owned by the von Bellingshausens

{{Polar exploration|state=collapsed}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellingshausen, Fabian Gottlieb von}}

Category:1778 births

Category:1852 deaths

Category:People from Saaremaa Parish

Category:People from Kreis Ösel

Category:Baltic-German people from the Russian Empire

Category:Explorers of Antarctica

Category:Estonian explorers

Category:19th-century explorers from the Russian Empire

Category:Imperial Russian Navy admirals

Category:Cartographers from the Russian Empire

Category:Circumnavigators of the globe

Category:Russian polar explorers

Category:Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Fourth Degree

Category:Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st class

Category:Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Russia)

Category:Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 1st class

Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath

Category:Order of Saint Louis recipients