Abramov, Ia.V.: Henry Morton Stanley. His Life, Travels, and Geographic Discoveries

Title

Genri Morton Stenli. Ego zhizn’, puteshestviia i geograficheskie otkrytiia, Sankt-Peterburg 1891

Henry Morton Stanley. His Life, Travels, and Geographic Discoveries

Keywords

Summary

The book is part of the series The Lives of Remarkable People founded by Florentii Pavlenkov, and it is complemented by Stanely’s portrait and a geographic map of his travels. It is divided into five chapters (“Stanley’s Childhood and Youth,” “In Search of Livingston,” “Across Africa,” “Congo Free State,” “To the Aid of Emin Pasha”), and is supplemented with an author’s introduction and a list of bibliographical sources. In the introduction, the author describes the figure of Stanley as a “brave explorer” who made four significant expeditions in the heart of the African continent. Abramov notes that while Stanley gained fame thanks to numerous achievements, his individuality has been studied very little. And yet, according to the author, it is precisely thanks to the “extraordinary energy and moral and intellectual qualities” that Stanley achieved so much in his life, the life of a man who always “fought for human dignity.” The author finds that this aspect of the figure of Stanley remains virtually unknown in Russia, where Stanley has been regularly mischaracterized as a cruel and greedy figure. Hence, with this biography the author aims to highlight Stanley’s moral and intellectual character rather than his well-documented scientific and political achievements in Africa. This approach allows the author to provide a deeper understanding of Stanley as an individual. The sources for the book include Stanley’s own writings, books and articles by Adolphe Burdo, Captain Glave, Wauters, J. Scott Keltie, and an 1886 interview with Stanley’s mother published in the “Western Mail”.

Bio

Iakov Abramov was a Russian author and journalist. Born in Stavropol’, he enrolled at the Saint Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy, from which he was expelled in 1878 for the “distribution of books with criminal content”. He was also exiled from the capital. Upon returning to Saint Petersburg in 1880, he dedicated himself to a literary career, publishing his texts (essays and short stories) in journals like “Otechestvennye zapiski”, “Delo”, “Severnyi vestnik”. Known as a zemstvo writer and a researcher on Russian sectarianism, Abramov was a populist and an advocate of the “theory of the small deeds”, which even lead to the coinage of the term “Abramovshchina”. In 1890 he returned to Stavropol’, where he became a member of the Stavropol’ City Duma, contributing to local newspapers and writing for F. Pavlenkov’s series “The Lives of Remarkable People” and “Popular Library”.

Sources

S. Vengerov, “Abramov, Iakov Vasil’evich”, in Kritiko-biograficheskii slovar’ russkikh pisatelei i uchenykh (ot nachala russkoi obrazovannosti do nashikh dnei, I, Sankt-Peterburg 1889, p. 21-23;

T. Agapkina, “Abramov Iakov Vasil’evich”, in Russkie pisateli 1800-1917. Biograficheskii slovar’, I, ed. by P. Nikolaev, Moskva 1989, p. 12-13;

V. Golovko, Iakov Abramov: samoaktualizatsiia v khudozhestvennom tvorchestve, Stavropol’ 2008;

Za luchshuiu budushchnost’ Rossii: k 150-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia Iakova Vasil’evicha Abramova, obshchestvennogo deiatelia, publitsista, kritika, ed. by M. Agarkova, V. Golovko, E. Kempinskii, Stavropol’ 2011.

M.E.