Rubakin, N.A.: Travels to the Edge of the World

Title

Puteshestviia na krai sveta, Sankt-Peterburg 1919 (first edition: 1902)

Travels to the Edge of the World

Keywords

Summary

The book is divided into seven chapters and includes illustrations and a conclusion. The overall tone is informative, with the author providing scientific information about geography, physics, astronomy, and natural history in an accessible way. The illustrations support this aim by clarifying the author’s explanations. In the opening chapter, the author describes how indigenous populations travel around the world, including an explanation of the ways in which they orient themselves, follow the sun, draw maps, and navigate the sea, providing examples of boats constructed by African indigenous populations. The author concludes that these groups of people are poor sea travellers. Chapter two delves into how the ancient Greeks travelled, using Ulysses as an example. Chapter three focuses on the Phoenicians, while chapter four provides information about the planet Earth, including its oceans, continents, the planet’s shape, and its poles. Chapter five is devoted to general astronomy and how it helps study the Earth. Chapter six tells the story of Eratosthenes, and chapter seven discusses how people discovered that the Earth is round.

Bio

Nikolai Rubakin was a Russian book historian, bibliographer, writer, and theorist of education, as well as a social activist. He graduated from the Saint Petersburg University in 1887. A pioneer in the theory of self-education, he authored works such as The Practice of Self-Education (1914), engaging in correspondence with 15.000 readers and developing individual self-education plans for them. Rubakin laid the groundwork for the sociology of reading with Etudes on the Russian Reading Public (1895). Active in politics, he was a member of the Social Revolutionary Party from 1901 to 1909, collaborating with the Social Democrats. Facing multiple expulsions from Saint Petersburg, he emigrated to Switzerland in 1907. Rubakin had the largest private collection of Russian literature abroad (around 100.000 volumes). Following his will, the collection was transferred to the Lenin State Library of the USSR after his death. Rubakin contributed to the field of bibliology with the theory of bibliological psychology (bibliopsychology). In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Rubakin authored journalistic works, popular science books, historical and adventure novels, as well as science fiction stories.

Sources

N. Ianovskii-Maksimov, Nasledie N. A. Rubakina, “Voprosy literatury”, 1959, 12, p. 147-157;

L. Razgon, Pod shifrom “Rb”: kniga o N. Rubakine: (1862-1946), Moskva 1966;

A., Rubakin, Rubakin (Lotsman knizhnogo moria), Moskva 1967;

K. Mavricheva, N.A. Rubakin, Moskva 1972;

I. Khomiakova, “Rubakin, Nikolai Aleksandrovich”, in Bol’shaia rossiiskaia entsiklopediia, v. 28, Moskva 2015, p. 734;

Iu. Stoliarov, Vozvrashchennyi Rubakin, Moskva 2019.

M.E.