The three earliest charts of Akhtiar (Sevastopol') Harbour

Abstract

During the Russian‐Turkish war of 1768–1774, and again in 1783 in connection with the annexation of Crimea, intensive cartographical work was carried out in the Black Sea by the Russian Navy. European maps owe much to these efforts, as becomes dear from a comparison of, for example, Andrew Dury's This Map of the present Seat of War between the Russians, Poles, and Turks. (London, 1769), with the Map of the Sea of Azov and part of the Black Sea (1774) and the Map of Crimea (1776) both by Jan‐Hendrik van Kinsbergen, the Dutch hero of the Russians’ first naval battles in the Black Sea. Naval exploration along the Crimean coast led the Russians to the important discovery of the bay of Akhtiar, future site of Sevastopol’ (founded 1783) and key post of the Russian Empire. In this paper, the three earliest manuscript charts of the bay of Akhtiar are described for the first time, and the circumstances of their production and relationship to other known manuscript charts of the harbour discussed. Copies of all three charts are now in the State Historical Museum, Moscow. They are the now‐lost chart compiled by Ivan Baturin (1773), in the version by Karp Vilfing (c.1782); Nikolay Sorokin's unique chart (1777); and half of a copy of the original of Ivan Bersenev's chart (1783).