Edited on behalf of the Francke Foundations in Halle and the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, this edition of primary sources is dedicated to publishing the archival records of the Second Kamtschatka Expedition (1733–43), carried out on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences, founded by Tsar Peter the Great in 1725. With over 3,000 participants, the so-called Great Nordic Expedition was one of the largest expeditions in modern times. Its documents are mainly held at the Archives of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The volumes comprising this edition are published either in German or Russian. The German edition, distributed through the Harrassowitz Verlag, focuses on the documents of the so-called “Akademiegruppe”. The scholars, who mainly hailed from Western Europe, including Gerhard Friedrich Müller, Johann Georg Gmelin, Louis De lʼIsle de la Croyere, Georg Wilhelm Steller, etc., comprehensively studied nature, the peoples and the history of Siberia, laying for example the foundations of modern ethnography.
Contact:
Franckesche Stiftungen
Metta Scholz
scholz@francke-halle.de