Captain Wiggins and Admiral Makarov

Commerce and politics in the Russian Arctic (1874–1904)

Bibliographic Data

ID9218861
AuthorsDavid Saunders (0000-0003-4248-5491, Newcastle University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume53
Issue4
Pages427-435
Publication date2017-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolar Record (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-2474 • E-ISSN: 1475-3057
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0032247417000377
OpenAlexW2743287940
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited12

This paper discusses the motives underlying two approaches to the development of the Russian Arctic in the late nineteenth century. The first, the brainchild of the British merchant seaman Joseph Wiggins (1832–1905), derived principally from private commercial instincts. The second, the work of Sergei Witte (1849–1915), Russia's Minister of Finance, and the innovative Russian Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov (1848–1904), had much less to do with trade and much more to do with projecting Russian national ambitions. The first required no great technological insight, but the second required the construction of the greatest of nineteenth century icebreakers. Although both approaches, the commercial and the political, the ‘low tech’ and the ‘high tech’, failed in the short term, both made a mark on subsequent developments. The paper concludes that although, at the time of their conception, political and diplomatic considerations made it unlikely that commercial and political approaches to the development of the Russian Arctic could be harmonised, the time for dovetailing them may be getting nearer

Arctic · Economic history · Instinct · Political science · Politics · The arctic · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · History · Law · Oceanography · Polar Research and Ecology

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