Dmitri Leontjewitsch Owzyn

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Dmitri Leontjewitsch Owzyn ( Russian Дмитрий Леонтьевич Овцын ; * 1708 on the Tscheglowka estate in Kostroma Governorate , Russian Empire ; † 1757 ) was a Russian naval officer, hydrograph and polar explorer . During the Second Kamchatka Expedition (also known as the Great Nordic Expedition ) he mapped the Siberian coast between the mouths of the Ob and the Yenisei . With Vitus Bering he landed in Alaska in 1741 .

Life

Dmitri Owzyns came from an old Russian noble family . He attended the Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation (Russian Школа математических и навигацких наук) and took part in 1725 as a student on the first long-distance voyage of the still young Russian fleet to Spain and Portugal . In 1726 he joined the Imperial Russian Navy and soon became adjutant to the port commander of Kronstadt Admiral Thomas Gordon (1658–1741).

In 1733 the Second Kamchatka expedition began under the direction of Vitus Bering. A central task of the company was the mapping of the entire Russian north coast from Arkhangelsk to the mouth of the Anadyr . Owzyn had the difficult task of mapping the coastline between the mouths of the great Siberian rivers Ob and Yenisei. Up to this point in time, no ship had reached the mouth of the Yenisei from the west across the Kara Sea . Owzyn began his voyage in Tobolsk with the two-masted schooner Tobol , the construction of which he himself supervised, on May 14, 1734. 56 men were on board, including the helmsman Dmitri Sterlegow and two geodesists . Over the Tobol and the Irtysh , Owzyn reached the Ob and began with the actual work at its confluence with the Obbusen . The drive north through the over 800 km long obbus was slow, as it was necessary to land on the eastern bank at short intervals in order to carry out the measurements. Stepan Muravyev was responsible for mapping the west bank, but he was replaced by Stepan Malygin in 1736 . On August 5th at 70 ° 4 ′ north the Tobol lost her rudder on a sandbank . The expedition had to turn around and drive back to Obdorsk for repairs and wintering .

In 1735 the ice conditions were much more complicated. The Tobol was only able to cast off again on May 29th . By July 10, it was only at a latitude of 68 ° 40 ′ north. Owzyn waited a week to be able to continue and then decided to abandon the attempt because the crew was suffering from scurvy . This time he withdrew as far as Tobolsk because there was a better chance of dealing with the disease and making necessary repairs to the ship. Owzyn traveled to Saint Petersburg and convinced the Admiralty to provide him with a second ship. Before this was completed, he cast off again on May 23, 1736. With significantly less ice, the Tobol reached the exit of the Obbusen into the open sea at 72 ° 40 ′ north on August 5th. However, further progress was impossible, so that Owzyn had to withdraw to Obdorsk again. In winter he drove to Berjosowo to send his report and met Prince Ivan Dolgoruki (1708–1739), who was exiled here, which was to have consequences for him. In 1737 the second ship, the Ob-Potschtaljon , was completed. This time Owzyn advanced to 74 degrees north and was able to reach the mouth of the Yenisei between the islands north of the Gydan Peninsula . After another hibernation, he came to Jenisseisk in 1738 and had done his job. On the way to Saint Petersburg, however, he was arrested by the secret police. Accused of conspiracy with Dolgoruki, he was demoted to a common soldier and exiled to Okhotsk . Bering, who had his headquarters here, made him his adjutant. With the St. Peter , the flagship of the Great Nordic Expedition, he reached Alaska in late July 1741. On the way back, the ship got into severe storms and ran onto a reef off Bering Island . The team, which was badly affected by scurvy, had to spend the winter here. There were numerous deaths, Bering died in December. It was not until the following summer that the survivors were able to cross to Kamchatka in a boat made from the remains of St. Peter . Here Owzyn learned that his case had been reviewed and that he had been rehabilitated.

Owzyn returned from Siberia and was retired. He and his family retired to the Tscheglowka estate. In 1744, however, he rejoined the Baltic Fleet as a second rank captain and commanded various ships for the next 13 years. He died in the summer of 1757.

The strait between the Siberyakov and Oleni islands and Cape Owzyn on the Taimyr peninsula are named after Dmitri Owzyn . The same applies to the Owzyn Nunatak in Antarctica.

literature

  • Owzyn, Dmitri Leontjewitsch . In: Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона - Enziklopeditscheski slowar Brokgausa i Jefrona . tape 21 a [42]: Нэшвилль – Опацкий. Brockhaus-Efron, Saint Petersburg 1897, p. 685–686 (Russian, full text [ Wikisource ] PDF ).
  • А. А. Григоров: Из истории костромского дворянства . Костромской фонд культуры, Кострома 1993, ISBN 5-7184-0005-9 , p. 260–264 (Russian, costroma.k156.ru ).
  • William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 2 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 493–495 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f А. А. Григоров: Из истории костромского дворянства, 1993
  2. ^ Owzyn, Dmitri Leontjewitsch in the Encyclopedic Dictionary by Brockhaus and Efron, 1890-1907.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia, 2003, p. 494
  4. ↑ Orcutt William Frost: Bering. The Russian Discovery of America . Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2003, ISBN 0-300-10059-0 , pp. 246 ff . (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
personal data
SURNAME Owzyn, Dmitri Leontjewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Овцын, Дмитрий Леонтьевич (Russian name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian naval officer, hydrograph and polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH 1708
PLACE OF BIRTH Tscheglowka Manor, Kostroma Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 1757