Viktor I. DIERJAVIN Institute of Archaeology Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ulianov 19 11703036 Moscow, RUSSIA

Wyprawy Geograficzne па Spitsbergen UMCS. Lublin. 1995

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THE THIRD VOYAGE OF BARENTS IN RUSSIAN MANUSCRIPTS OF XVII CENTURY

At the end of the last century, a famous Russian historian S. A. Belokurov published two documents stored in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The former is entitled "Why it is impossible to sail from Arkhangielsk to China and then to East India". The latter included two sources, i.e. "About the voyage of two Dutch ships to Northern Countries in order to find passage past Novaya Zyemlya to China and then to East India" and "A description of Novaya Zyemlya". The publisher noted that the documents were related to the tsardom of Alexey Mihailovich. This was the only remark about the sources which was published without any additional information. These papers are now stored in the Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts in fond N27 of Secret Order.

In the first document, which is a sort of official note, it is said that before that time, the English and the Dutch sent their ships past Novaya Zyemlya to find a way to China and India.

But because of ice, frost, long polar night, and other dangers they could not manage to reach even the Ob River. Further along in the Description, the island of Novaya Zymelya is brought in question and it is supposed that it might connect with North America. At the end of the text, there is a conclusion that a passage by land through Astrakhan and Yaik-Kamenniy is the only possibility to reach China and India. Yaik-Kamenniy town corresponds to modern Guryev situated in the orifice of the Ural River.

This document is written in XVIth century cursive on holland paper with filigran (water-mark) of Amsterdam's coat of arms, i.e. a crown with two lions and a flag with three crosses. It is known that holland made paper was widespread in Russia in the second half of XVII century. In the catalogue of water marks, very similar marks date from 1667 and 1678.

The copy with the story of two Dutch ships voyage to Northern countries includes eight pages and is ended by a separate description of Novaya Zyemlya. This is also written on holland paper with a filigran of a jester's head that was widespread in the second half of the XVII century, the similarities of the watermark dated from 1663-1682.

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This copy is a translation of a short diary (to be more exact, an extraction from it) of the third voyage of V. Barents and Ya. Gemskerk. As is evident from the text, the diary was published at the end of the XVI century. The content of the diary is very terse. Nevertheless, in spite of a number of unimportant divergences such as the story of D'Ferr, the diary describes the last voyage of Barents in some passages quite accurately. It is known that a lot of brief versions and extracts from a Dutch magazine appeared in Europe after the return of the Dutchmen and publication of their mishaps. One can suppose that a Russian translation for tsar Alexey Mikhailovitch was made from such a version. It is interesting, that in the manuscript there was not even a single name of the voyage participants. The narrative begins with the departure of two ships from Amsterdam and a description of such rare astrophysical phenomenon as a halo. Futher on an appearance of the first blocks of ice at 74° is mentioned, and two days later, a skirmish with bears on a nameless island. Undoubtedly, this was Medvegyii Island, situated on halfway from Nordcap to Spitsbergen. The latter also remains unnamed in the copy, but can be clearly defined from the date given of a declension and rather detailed description of nature on the archipelago, which is in accordance with D'Farr's diary, i.e. uninhibitance, the lack of trees, low grass, ice mountains (glaciers), a lot of deer. As it is known, after passing Spitsbergen in the vicinity of the same Medvegyii island, the ships went their own way. In the Russian translation, it was established as the 25 August, when only one ship reached the north end of Novaya Zyemlya, and the other one, as it was written, lagged behind. In the text, only three toponyms of Novaya Zyemlya were mentioned, i.e. Lombayskaya River, Nassau coast and Utesheniya coast. The main part of the translation is a description of circumstances and privations which the Dutch suffered from. On the whole, the mentioned data coincide with the story of D'Ferr rather well, and is some cases there are no divergences in the dates at all. The manuscript is ended by the description of the return journey, which was made in boats made by the winterers. On the way back, they met Russian Pomors, which offered them help, and finally reached Kola at the end of August.

One of the sources of the description of Novaya Zyemlya, which completes the copy and has a compilative manner, was an extract from the ship's journal. It follows with whole phrases taken from the diary. Geographical names used in the description as well as the fact that it follows the diary, directly denote the West European origin of the description. It means that a translation from a foreign edition of both sources at the same time is not excluded.

An appearance of a note about the impossibility to reach India and China by sea was evidently a result of an analysis of both of the above mentioned documents. The note was based not only on these translated documents, but on other unknown works, which the author of the note referred to. It should be

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noted that numerous details of the note repeat almost word for word the facts mentioned in the diary.

Thus, judging from the filigran of paper used, one can conclude that both the note and the copy were written in the last years of Alexey Mikhailovitch's tsardom. In turn, D'Ferr's short diary that was used for a Russian translation, might be dated from the last years of XVI century, i.e. 1598 year, if one reduces the date to Gregorian style. Finally, from the postscript made by Alexey Mikhailovitch, it follows that the tsar himself read the manuscripts and realized their meaning. An appearance of these documents in Secret Order is evidently explained by the wishes of Moscow authorities to send a new embassy to China by the other way which might be shorter and safer as compared with the one that led through south Siberia and Mongolia. An analysis of foreign sources containing data about voyages of the English and the Dutch convinced the tsar of the impossibility to reach China and then India by sea. In this connection it was not by chance that soon after the note was written, the next Russian embassy to China headed by Nikolay Spaphariy was sent like the previous ones through Tobolsk by land.