Great Northern Expedition - Background: First Scientific Investigation of Siberia and Bering's First Expedition

Background: First Scientific Investigation of Siberia and Bering's First Expedition

The start of the systematic exploration and scientific discovery in the eastern part of Asia in the 18th century was due to the initiative of Tsar Peter the Great (1672–1725). In 1697 and 1698, he made an exploratory trip through a number of European nations, and became enthused with the idea of founding a scientific academy in Russia. This plan came to fruition in 1723/24 when he decided to draw foreign scholars to Russia and create a scientific academy in St. Petersburg. He hoped to create an extension of the scientific culture of Europe in his own land, and eventually to educate native scholars.

In December 1725, the institution was inaugurated with celebrations. Young, mostly German speaking scholars formed the core of the Academy's personnel in the first decades of its existence. One of their tasks consisted of organizing and eventually accompanying scientific expeditions to the then unexplored parts of the Russian empire. During Peter’s lifetime, the German doctor Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685–1735) made a journey from 1720 to 1727 to western and central Siberia. This marked the beginning of investigations in the areas of geography, mineralogy, botany, zoology, ethnography, and philology, in this zone, as well as opening up the region to trade and economic development. Messerschmidt's Expedition was the first in a what proved to be series of scientific explorations of Siberia.

Shortly before his death in February 1725, the Tsar signed an order authorizing a second great expedition to the east. Over the course of his life, Peter had met many times with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). At their final meeting at Bad Pyrmont in 1716, Leibniz posed the question as to whether a land bridge existed between northeastern Asia and the North America, a point of great relevance in the contemporary discussion about the origins of humanity, among other matters. It was generally desired that the belief in the common origin of humans not be abandoned, which posed the problem of the origins of human settlements in the New World. In order to resolve the question about the existence of a land bridge between the two continents, Peter the Great sent in 1719 the geodesists Iwan Jewreinow (1694–1724) and Fjodor Luschin (died 1727) to the easternmost reaches of his empire. The expedition was unsuccessful, as least in regard to the land bridge question, and in 1724, Peter gave the same aim to another expedition, the First Kamchatka expedition.

This undertaking, lasting from 1728 to 1730, was led by the Danish captain Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681–1741). Bering had been an officer in the Russian imperial navy since 1704. Using the ship St. Gabriel, which had been built at the outlet of the Kamchatka River, Bering made two voyages north east in successive years (1728 and 1729), and at one point reached 67 degrees north, from which point the coast no longer extended towards the north. In both cases, he failed to reach the North American coastline due to adverse weather. Despite the newly acquired knowledge about the geography of the north east coast of Siberia, Bering's report on the expedition prepared after his return led to divisive debate because the question about the connection with North America remained unanswered, and this prompted Bering to propose a second Kamchatka expedition.