Frigate Pallas

The frigate Pallas

The frigate Pallas ( Russian Фрегат "Паллада" ) is a travelogue of the Russian writer Ivan Alexandrowitsch Goncharov (1812-1891), which was first published in 1858 as a two-volume book with the original title Фрегат Паллада. Очерки путешествия в двух томах ( Eng .: Frigate Pallas. Travel records in two volumes) appeared.

Emergence

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov

Goncharov traveled from 7 October 1852 to August 1854 as secretary to the vice-admiral Evfimij Putyatin on the Russian frigate Pallas of Kronstadt over England , the west coast of Africa , the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian Ocean with stations on Java , in Singapore and Hong Kong up to the coast of Japan , only to go ashore in the Russian port of Ayan in the Sea of Okhotsk after an evasive maneuver to China and the Philippines . From there he traveled back to Petersburg via Siberia .

Putjatin had been commissioned by the Russian Tsar Nicholas I to set out on a secret mission to Japan in order to establish trade relations with the East Asian country. Goncharov held at that time (1852) the rank of collegiate professor in the foreign trade department of the Russian Ministry of Finance.

Gončarov first wrote letters about the trip to his friends in Petersburg. After his return, some of these letters were published in non-chronological order in various Petersburg literary journals between 1855 and 1857. They appeared in book form in 1858. The third edition from 1879 in particular was subject to such extensive revision by the author that literary studies have to start from a carefully composed and stylized travelogue.

meaning

Today this travel text seems almost forgotten in Western Europe, after it was counted by Arthur Luther as one of the “most beautiful travelogues in world literature”. Hans Rothe considers Fregat Pallada in a certain sense to be the author's most important book, since Goncharov developed his aesthetic in it.

Individual evidence

↑ Ornatskaja, T. (1986) Istorija sozdanija Fregata Pallada In: Gončarov, I. (1986) Fregat Pallada. Očerki putešestvija v tvuch tomach izd. TI Ornatskaja, Leningrad: Nauka, pp. 763–787.
↑ Luther, Arthur (1924) History of Russian Literature , Leipzig, p. 233.
↑ Rothe, Hans (1994) "The dream ship or on the theoretical foundation of realism in Gončarov" in: Thiergen, Peter [ed.] Ivan A. Gončarov. Life, work and effect. Contributions from the 1st International Gončarov Conference Bamberg, October 8-10, 1991 , Cologne 1994, p. 109.

[1] Ornatskaja, T. (1986) Istorija sozdanija Fregata Pallada In: Gončarov, I. (1986) Fregat Pallada. Očerki putešestvija v tvuch tomach izd. TI Ornatskaja, Leningrad: Nauka, pp. 763–787.

[2] Luther, Arthur (1924) History of Russian Literature , Leipzig, p. 233.

[3] Rothe, Hans (1994) "The dream ship or on the theoretical foundation of realism in Gončarov" in: Thiergen, Peter [ed.] Ivan A. Gončarov. Life, work and effect. Contributions from the 1st International Gončarov Conference Bamberg, October 8-10, 1991 , Cologne 1994, p. 109.