Goncharov, I.A.: Frigate “Pallada”

Title

Fregat “Pallada”, Sankt-Peterburg 1858

Frigate “Pallada”

Keywords

Summary

The book recounts, in the form of travel notes, Goncharov’s trip around the world on board the frigate “Pallada” (1852-1854). It is divided into two volumes: the first one is devoted to the departure from Kronstadt and the journey through Portsmouth, Madeira, Cape Verde, Cape of Good Hope, Java, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Bonin Islands. The second book is dedicated to China and Japan, as well as to the journey home through Siberia. Chapters 3-4 of the first volume deal with Africa (Cape Verde and South Africa). Though the events narrated reflect Goncharov’s experience and the general outline of the trip, the book is considered by some critics a fictionalised account, due to omissions and to the impossibility of considering the narrator as a full representative of the author’s voice.

After some chapters appeared in journals, the book was published in 1858 and was immediately a success: not only was it praised by critics of the likes of Dobroliubov and Pisarev, but it was also a commercial triumph. As a matter of fact, it was republished five times during Goncharov’s lifetime alone.

The author’s ambiguous views towards colonialism and European interests in Africa have recently resurfaced in scholarly literature, which has also analysed Goncharov’s attitude towards 19^th-century world order and the role of Russia in international relations.

Bio

Ivan Goncharov was a Russian writer and civil servant, active for many years as a censor. Born in Simbirsk, he attended Moscow University and, after graduating, moved to Saint Petersburg, where he started his service as private tutor and translator and began to write. He is mostly known for his novels The Same Old Story (1847), Oblomov (1859) and The Precipice (1869). In 1852 Goncharov was asked to join the Frigate “Pallada” expedition to the Far East as a secretary, under the supervision of vice admiral Evfimii Putianin. The official mission of the expedition was to establish diplomatic relations with Japan. At the time, Goncharov’s resulting travelogue, Frigate “Pallada”, was more widely read and known than the novels for which he is now famous, effectively becoming an imperial-era bestseller.

Sources

L. Geiro, “Goncharov Ivan Aleksandrovich”, in Russkie pisateli. 1800-1917. Biograficheskii slovar’, t. 1, ed. by P. Nikolaev, Moskva 1992, p. 624-632;

S.S. Lim, Whose Orient Is It?: Frigate Pallada and Ivan Goncharov’s Voyage to the Far East, “The Slavic and East European Journal”, 2009, 53 (1), p. 19-39;

I. Kleespies, Russia’s Wild East? Domesticating Siberia in Ivan Goncharov’s The Frigate Pallada, “The Slavic and East European Journal”, 2012, 56 (1), p. 21-37;

E. M. Bojanowska, A World of Empires. The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada, Cambridge [MA]-London 2018.

A.F.