Russian Navy Research Articles

Obcokrajowcy w rosyjskiej flocie bałtyckiej w 1722 r. w świetle dokumentów brytyjskich

Even before the Great Northern War, Tsar Peter I began building the Russian Baltic Fleet, which played a very important military role in the second phase of that conflict in the aforementioned body of water. Before the conflict, Russia did not have a sufficient number of ships and educated officers, master shipbuilders, or skilled shipyard workers. As a result, foreigners were hired, who were in the vast majority of the Russian fleet at the time. They also received very high honoraria, as mentioned in the reports of British diplomats from Russia, which will be the source basis for this discussion. They did not overlook the training of their cardinals both at home and in other European countries. Ships, on the other hand, which formed the basis of the Baltic fleet, were most often purchased from England and the Netherlands. Based on the surviving documents of British diplomats, it is possible to reconstruct the state of the fleet and the composition of the foreigners serving in it, the number of fees they received, and the number of ships purchased abroad for the Russian Navy.

ADOPTERs of Innovation in a Crisis: The History of Vera Gedroits, Kanehiro Takaki and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

The 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War was the first "modern" conflict, using rapid-firing artillery and machine guns, fought over imperial ambitions in Korea and Manchuria. During the war, Princess Vera Gedroits pioneered early laparotomy for penetrating abdominal wounds with unprecedented success. Her techniques were then adopted by the Russian Society of Military Doctors. However, Allied forces took 10 years to adopt operative management of penetrating abdominal wounds over conservative management. Gedroits was later appointed in Kyiv as the world's first female Professor of Surgery. Kanehiro Takaki, a Japanese Naval surgeon, showed in 1884 a diet of barley, meat, milk, bread, and beans, rather than polished white rice, eliminated beriberi in the Japanese Navy. Despite this success, the Japanese Army failed to change the white rice rations until March 1905. During the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, an estimated 250,000 Japanese soldiers developed beriberi, of whom 27,000 died. Japan's 1905 defeat of Russia sowed the seeds of discontent with Tsar Nicholas' rule, culminating in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Although the Russian Navy was destroyed, Japan ceded North Sakhalin Island to Russia in peace negotiations, and Russia seized Manchuria, South Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands in 1945. We highlight the contributions of Gedroits and Takaki, 2 intellectual prodigies who respectively pioneered rapid triage and surgical management of trauma and a cure for beriberi. We aim to show how both these surgeons challenged entrenched dogma and the cultural and political zeitgeist, and risked their professional reputations and their lives in being ADOPTERs of innovation during a crisis.

Shipping Company on the Lake Baikal: From the First Idea to the Implementation of the Plan

The article discusses the formation of steamship communication on the lake. Baikal. Based on a corpus of sources from the collections of the Russian State Historical Archive and the Russian Navy Archive, the process of establishing a shipping company on Lake Baikal is studied in detail. An attempt is made to trace the relationship between the dissolution of the Irkutsk Admiralty and the granting of the privilege to open steamship routes along the Siberian rivers to the richest Siberian gold miner N.F. Myasnikov, whose petition, although it was far from the first, but given the confluence of circumstances, turned out to be submitted very timely. Proposals about the possibility of starting voyages through Baikal on steamships were received repeatedly back in the 1820s. and, although they were expressed by naval officers who were serving on Lake Baikal at that time and who saw the advantages of using steam ships, all their ideas were recognized by the state as premature. First of all, this was due to the costs that the state would have to bear if a decision was made on the need to organize steamship routes through Baikal. Request from N.F. Myas­nikova’s proposal to grant the privilege of steamship communication on the Siberian rivers received considerable sympathy in the highest echelons of power, and a positive decision was made on it very quickly. Archival material containing correspondence between the Main Directorate of Eastern Siberia and the Main Directorate of Communications and Public Buildings made it possible to trace how the process of implementing N.F. Myasnikov’s plan went, what difficulties the entrepreneur had to face during the construction of steamships and the opening of permanent steamship routes across Baikal. Only the presence of solid capital could allow the first owners of shipping companies to carry out their plans without going bankrupt, given that the income from the shipping company, as a rule, did not significantly exceed the costs of its maintenance.

A new cold war at sea: Fishing rights vs. the proliferation of military activities in the EEZ

With the oceans covering 70% of the world’s surface, one might be under the illusion that every State might find sufficient space for their activities, nothing could be further from the truth. This was proven once more in January 2022 and August 2023 when Russian vessels sought to engage in military exercises within strategic areas of the Irish and Norwegian exclusive economic zones (EEZs), choosing some of the local fishermen’s preferred locations in the process. Unlike their governments, the local fishermen refused to accept the Russian intrusions and via continuous protest through presence succeeded in forcing the Russian Navy to move the exercises to another area. This example is proof that to this day, the legal framework of the EEZ still gives rise to significant questions and uncertainties, often to the benefit of lawfare lawyers, especially in regards to foreign military activities and overlapping uses of the same area. Art. 56 LOSC awards sovereign resource rights to the coastal State, but arts. 58 and 87 LOSC grant the maritime user State the freedom to navigate. How to reconcile these different uses has for a long time occupied the minds of law of the sea lawyers. In this article, an attempt is made - utilizing a selection of national and international jurisprudence - to clarify the relation between these different uses of the EEZ, their permissibility and why the fishermen’s success in these cases might not so easily be translated into general international law.

Chaplains in the Imperial Russian Navy, 1890–1914

Naval chaplains in the Imperial Russian Navy faced particular difficulties at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They initially had little training and were not paid as part of the naval establishment. They were therefore treated with condescension or contempt and it proved difficult to recruit chaplains to the naval service. Despite their low status within the navy, many served with distinction in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5. New regulations came into force in 1908 that required chaplains to monitor the political as well as religious well-being of the crew following the revolutionary events of 1905–7. Reforms to the naval chaplaincy in 1911–12 saw a professionalization of the service and an influx of clergy who were educated. Despite this their status and influence remained limited, and they were unable to combat anti-government sentiment resulting in the sailors becoming the ‘vanguard of the revolution’ in 1917. This article provides an insight into the chaplaincy service of the Imperial Russian Navy at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Karazin Family: A New Reading (To the 250th Anniversary of the Birth of V. N. Karazin)

The article, dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the birth of the founder of Kharkiv Imperial University Vasyl Karazin, details little-known episodes of his life and traces the genealogy of the entire Karazin family. Based on a thorough study of archival materials, the author for the first time discusses not only the Bulgarian, but also Ukrainian, Greek, and Polish roots of the Karazin family, calling into question the one-sided views that have long dominated the literature on the subject (for example, regarding the alleged Greek roots of the founder of Kharkiv University). The author’s arguments and observations are rooted in the analysis of the records of the Department of Heraldry in the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg and personal papers of Nazar Karazin preserved in the Russian State Military Historical Archive. The article provides a wealth of biographical information on all members of the Karazin family, starting with Oleksandr Karazin, who settled in the lands of the Sloboda regiments and whom the author considers as the family’s founder. The biography of Vasyl Karazin’s father, Nazar Oleksandrovych, a colonel in the Russian army during the time of Catherine II, is explored in more detail. On the basis of archival records, the author describes in particular Nazar Karazin’s military and diplomatic service during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774. New light is shed on the life of Vasyl Karazin’s grandson Mykola Mykolayovych Karazin, a well-known artist, member of the Russian Academy of the Arts, and writer, who left to posterity a diary and reports from the frontlines of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. These writings are published by the author of the article in a separate edition. Furthermore, research in the Russian State Naval Archive enables the author to flesh out little-known episodes of the life of one of the sons and another grandson of Vasyl Karazin – Filadelf senior and Filadelf junior, who served in the Russian Navy. The author has also discovered new facts from the lives of descendants of the Karazin family currently living in Ukraine and abroad.

THE RUSSIAN-SWEDISH WAR OF 1741-1743 IN THE ASSESSMENTS OF THE BRITISH AMBASSADORS IN RUSSIA

The article covers the important aspects of the Russian-Swedish war of 1741-1743, which has attracted little attention in Russian historiography. The war was waged over three campaigns, witnessed by two British ambassadors in Russia, Edward Finch and Cyril Wyche. Based on the diplomatic correspondence of the British ambassadors, previously unexplored in the Russian historical science, the author analyzes the information which they received from high-ranking Russian officials, including commanders of the troops, and then passed on to London. In particular, it concerned the state of the Russian armed forces on the eve of the war with Sweden. The diplomats noted and informed their superiors about the weaknesses of the Russian navy. Keeping track of the course of the war, the ambassadors briefed the Secretary of State about its causes, the main being the desire of the Swedes to abrogate the conditions of the Nishtad peace and regain the territories lost during the Northern War of 1700-1721. Both ambassadors acknowledged the courage and heroism shown by the Russian soldiers in battles with the enemy, as well as their humane treatment of the captured Swedes. At the same time, they drew attention to the manifestations of cruelty inflicted by irregular troops who participated in the raids in Finland. The dispatches of the ambassadors also reveal the stance taken by a number of countries towards the conflict between Russia and Sweden: hostile on the part of France and generally benevolent on the part of official London, which did not want to spoil relations with the Russian court on the eve of the conclusion of the 1742 Treaty of Alliance. Other documents of indisputable interest are manifestos (included in the correspondence of diplomats) addressed by the Swedish king and the Russian empress to the population of the border territories and aimed at showing goodwill towards the enemy troops. The facts about the Russian-Swedish war presented by the British ambassadors and analyzed in the article fill the existing gap in one of the episodes of Russian-Swedish relations in the middle of the eighteenth century.

A Concept for Setting Up Jam-Resistant Radio Links for Sonar Systems in Prospective Aircraft Patrol Complexes of the Russian Navy

A Concept for Setting Up Jam-Resistant Radio Links for Sonar Systems in Prospective Aircraft Patrol Complexes of the Russian Navy

Admiral Cornelius Kruis, the foundation of the Baltic Fleet and the Naval Hospital of St. Petersburg

The role of Admiral Cornelius Kruys (16551727), one of the closest, and loyal associates of Peter the Great, who stood at the foundation of the regular Russian navy, was considered. Kruys was recruited into the Russian duty by Peter I in 1698 with the rank of Vice Admiral and devoted his entire life to serve in Russia and the Russian fleet. Having extensive professional experience and knowledge of maritime affairs, Kruys played a special role in organizing, building, and arming the Baltic fleet according to the European model. Taking over access to the sea, Russia became one of the greatest maritime powers of Europe.
 The article is based on a large amount of documentary material from the funds of the Russian State Naval Archive (Saint Petersburg). All the reforms of Peter I were focused on the formation and development of Russia along the European path, which include implementation of the advanced achievements of Europe in the field of military and naval affairs, science, technology, construction, culture, and medicine. The main time of the reign of Peter I falls in the period of the Great Northern War between Russia and Sweden (17001721). The Sovereign always paid special attention to the organization of the regular army and navyand recruiting the best military specialists from the leading European countries for this purpose. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in European countries, the military medical service, hospitals, and infirmaries were an integral part of the army and navy. Such an organization of the armed forces of Russia was necessary for Peter I. On October 30, 1704, Vice Admiral Kruys presented the project of organization and construction of the Baltic fleet to Peter I. The project contained A list of needs for His Royal Majestys ship fleet: in the sovereignty of the government of Ingermonland, which should be hastily prepared to fill stores. Along with a list of the necessary marine specialists, materials, and equipment for the construction and equipment for ships, Kruys emphasized the need for the simultaneous establishment of a Naval Hospital or a clinic for at least 500600 patients for the personnel of the Ingrian Navy (zelo potrebno yest). This critical project was approved by the Sovereign and was soon put into production. The birth of the Naval (Admiralty) Hospital of Saint Petersburg took place simultaneously with the Baltic fleet. Since then, the Naval Hospital has become an integral part of the Russian Navy. On November 5, 1704, the Admiralty fortress-shipyard was laid in Saint Petersburg, and soon the construction of the Baltic fleet under the control and leadership of Kruys was launched.

VERIFICATION OF THE WAVE FACTORIZATION METHOD FOR CALCULATION OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS DURING TOWING IN A FLOW IN ACCELERATION MODE

For purposes of asymmetric confrontation with the Russian Navy, distributed systems (DS; cable, tethered, etc.) for unmanned underwater vehicles need further development and improvement. To date, specifics and methods of designing such DSs are insufficiently covered in scientific and technical literature. Distributed systems include towed systems of constant or variable length in a flow of liquid, underwater communication cables, pillars of offshore oil platforms, etc. This definition includes mechanical objects with one of the linear dimensions at least 10 – 20 times larger than the other two. The main limitations for application of the finite difference method (FDM) for numerical modeling of wave propagation and reflection in DS are the peculiarities of the defining quasi-linear equations. They are related to the need of simultaneous calculation of variables responsible for fast and slow wave processes. The term "singularly perturbed system of equations" is used for such systems of equations. These perturbations are the result of a significant difference in propagation velocities of longitudinal, configurational, bending, and torsional waves in DS at the physical level, etc. In this regard, it is necessary to apply the special step-by-step methods of regularization and filtering of numerical results. This imposes certain limitations on the possibility of simulating real processes and on the accuracy of obtained results, and forces the use of the implicit difference schemes and high-frequency filtering. The method of parallelization of the finite-difference operator and the program code according to the wave type is considered. The idea of parallelization by waves is based on the physical feature of propagation of different types of waves in distributed systems – a difference of 10 – 100 or more times between the propagation velocities of the longitudinal, transverse (configurational), bending and torsional waves in DS. The increase in productivity of the MPI version of a programming code when performing calculations on the SMP system is on average at least 30 – 100%, depending on the required accuracy of calculations and parallelization options. The version of the parallelized code, which uses the wave factorization method, is relevant when solving tasks of DS control, operational numerical analysis of transient modes of motion, etc., where performance is critically necessary. The comparative assessment of the accuracy of the experimental data, the original (non-parallelized) algorithm and the parallelized algorithm was carried out using the example of the numerical solution of the problem of the towing vessel’s movement in the acceleration mode when towing the DS.

РАЗРАБОТКА И ЭКСПЛУАТАЦИЯ ГЛУБОКОВОДНОГО ОКЕАНОГРАФИЧЕСКОГО КОМПЛЕКСА В СОСТАВЕ БУКСИРУЕМЫХ АППАРАТОВ «ЗВУК»

The article presents a technical review on the development of deep-sea complex with a working depth of immersion and towing of 6000 m in the 1980s at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The complex was devoted to studies of the bottom surface and underwater objects in the interests of the Hydrographic Service of the Russian Navy. The complex consists of two towed uninhabited underwater vehicles “Sound-Complex” and “SoundMAFT”. A special hydrographic vessel with a displacement of 2600 tons was converted for deep-sea towing and storage of these devices. Computer CM1420 was used for the ship’s automated system for collecting and processing information coming from an underwater hydro acoustic navigation system, a proton magnetometer, a TV system, and side and frontal sonars. The complex was operated until 1992 in the Atlantic Ocean, the Black, Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, and was decommissioned in the early 1990s. Modern issues of the operation of industrial pipelines require understanding of experience and the creation of towed uninhabited underwater vehicles at a new technological level.

Fleet Support to the Army Offensive on the Caucasus Front in 1916

At the beginning of 1916, the Caucasus was the only theatre of operations of the Great War from which good news for the Entente were coming. The Russian Caucasus Army successfully advanced on Erzurum and captured this Turkish fortress in early February. In February 1916, the forces of the Russian Caucasus Army’s right flank group started an offensive along the southern coast of the Black Sea. It soon became clear that the main factor of its success will be naval support. Mountainous territory and the absence of roads made the Army entirely dependent on the Russian Navy. It provided the land forces with artillery support, logistics, communication and reconnaissance. Even tactical maneuvers were not possible without the Navy: the only way to envelop a Turkish defensive line was to land troops in its’ rear. The Russian Black Sea Fleet managed to establish an effective system of communication and coordination with the advancing army units, helping them reach their goals. This is one of not well-known examples of the dominant role of naval support in the success of the army offensive. In this article, the author examines the scope and forms of interaction between the Army and the Navy in order to demonstrate how the warfare conditions could force to overcome traditional mistrust and misunderstanding of the two Services.

The Swedish Origin of the Russian Naval Artillery Drill Regulations during the Time of Peter the Great

The article is devoted to the study of the origin of the Russian Naval artillery drill regulations (so called exercise) of the era of Peter the Great. Previously only one Russian Naval artillery exercise of the 18th century, introduced by F. M. Apraksin in 1718, was known. The comparison of two printed treatises of D. Grundell (the head of the Swedish Naval artillery in 1712–1716) with the exercise of Apraksin has revealed their obvious similarity. The author has discovered the Russian exercise of the late 1740s. Its analysis enables to prove that in the Russian Navy (at least from 1717 to the middle of the 18th century) there existed one exercise, and this exercise was a translation and adaptation of the Swedish one. Russian and Swedish exercises were totally different compared to the French and English ones. The study confirms that two articles of the Russian Naval Charter of 1720 are a translation of the two passages of D. Grundell’s treatise of 1705, and this treatise itself was in circulation in Russia and, possibly, was known to Peter I. The biography of D. Grundell, who joined the Russian service in 1698 but did not actually serve, has been clarified. The current research raises questions of the dissemination of scientific, technical, and regulatory information of the 18th century. This process could take a variety of forms (oral, written, printed) — from the transfer of information by the teacher to the student to publications that referred to their approval by the relevant authorities or officials.

Herzen publications and officer circles in the Russian Navy in the first half of the 1860s

Herzen publications and officer circles in the Russian Navy in the first half of the 1860s

New Materials about the Russian Admiral Matija Zmajević in the State Archives in Zadar

During the reign of Peter I, the Republic of Venice and the Russian Empire cooperated in various fields. Primarily, however, they fortified their maritime relations, with subjects of Serenissima playing a major role in the creation of the modern Russian navy, passing on their knowledge and experience. Of these Venetian subjects, those from the eastern Adriatic coast were the most prominent, among whom was Matija Zmajevic (1680–1735), a representative of an influential seafaring family from Perast in the Bay of Kotor. Matija served in Russia during the reign of Peter the Great and his successors, reaching the rank of admiral and laying the foundation for the subsequent establishment of the Russian Black Sea fleet. The article introduces new archival information about his interesting and controversial personality, based on documents from the Karaman family's collection in the State Archives in Zadar. Members of the Karaman family were related to Zmajević, with especially close relations between Matija and his brother Vicko Zmajević with Matej Karaman, who himself lived in Russia for some time and left valuable written testimony about that period. The review of the works on this topic and analysis of materials from the aforementioned collection aims at encouraging historians to conduct further research into the life and works of Admiral Matija Zmajević.

ТОПОГРАФИЧЕСКОЕ ОПИСАНИЕ ЧЕРНОМОРСКИХ ПРОЛИВОВ, СДЕЛАННОЕ РУССКИМИ МОРСКИМИ ОФИЦЕРАМИ ВО ВРЕМЯ БОСФОРСКОЙ ЭКСПЕДИЦИИ 1833 Г. ( К 190-летию экспедиции)

The Bosphorus expedition of the Russian fleet in 1833 was a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian-Turkish relations throughout their existence. Never before had the Russian navy entered the Black Sea straits at the invitation of the Ottoman authorities, and its troops were not stationed on the shores of the Bosphorus. However, when describing the actions of the Russians, “internal” expeditions along the Straits that were made by the officers of the Russian fleet during its stay near Constantinople still remain ignored. The “small” expeditions of A.O. Dugamel along the Dardanelles and A.I. Menda along the Bosphorus were designed to compile a topographic description of the area adjacent to the Straits, measure their depth and currents, evaluate Turkish weapons in the fortresses - both in the Straits themselves and at the mouth of the Dardanelles. All these documents, received by topographical engineers and naval officers in the form of maps and detailed descriptions, were transferred to the General Staff and classified as the most valuable information about the state of Turkish weapons and the features of the natural landscape of one of the most important political and strategic regions, which attracted close attention of European powers.

The Officer Corps of the British Navy in the Observations and Assessments of Russian Representatives to the Grand Fleet, 1914–1918

In this article, the author examines the assessment of the Royal Navy’s command staff contained in official reports, correspondence, memoirs, and diaries of naval officers Mikhail Kedrov, Mikhai Smirnov, Gustav von Schultz, and Sergei Izenbek, who were official Russian representatives to the Grand Fleet during the Great War. The purpose of this article is to summarise the views of representatives of the Russian Navy on the traditions, general and professional culture of British naval officers, the level of their maritime, special and tactical training, the specifics of their mentality, service subordination, relationships in a naval environment, the ways of service and everyday life. Considerable differences in the professional qualities of the officers of the British and Russian fleets were noted, stemming mainly from the different principles of recruitment and training of the command staff, as well as the growing distrust of the British naval corporation towards Russia as an ally during the war. The author concludes that professional analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Royal Navy's command staff significantly complemented and updated the image of the British ally formed in the Russian naval milieu during the Great War and in the years following, and contributed to a more balanced self-assessment of Russian naval personnel.

Formation of the Scientific Community at the Naval Department of the Russian Empire (1805–1827)

The article explores the composition of the learned assembly of the State Admiralty Department (SAD). The learned assembly was a special organization within SAD, which was established in 1805 to provide scientific support to the Russian Navy and existed till 1827. The author identifies the persons who comprised the learned assembly, their professions and institutional affiliation, and analyzes the variations in the SAD staff composition. The complete list of the learned assembly members is reconstructed based on the administrative records deposited in the Russian State Naval Archive and the published sources. The available historiographic works allowed elucidating the details of the learned assembly members’ biographies as well as the areas of their scientific interests. It is shown that, rather than a closed community of naval officers, the SAD learned assembly included the members of different professional groups, associated with the Academy of Sciences and other scientific institutions of the Russian Empire. The number of naval officers and the naval department officials in the learned assembly increased over time, suggesting a gradual formation of the corporate scientific community in the naval sphere who, however, maintained their ties with the representatives of the academic science.

Contribution of Eminent Mathematicians to the Development of the Russian Navy in the XVIII - First Third of the XIX Century

Contribution of Eminent Mathematicians to the Development of the Russian Navy in the XVIII - First Third of the XIX Century

“We Arrived Openly and Without any Disguise on this Coast…”: The Schooner “Vixen” Case in the Investigation Papers and British Press of the Late 1830s

In this article, the author examines the details of the detention of the British schooner “Vixen” on the north-east coast of the Black Sea in November 1836. Although the analysis of the Russian-British diplomatic controversy surrounding the incident has been undertaken in Russian historiography, it has not made use of original investigative material or official accounts of the perpetrators in the English-language press of the late 1830s. The use of historical computer reconstructions can significantly clarify both the “Vixen” Inquiry materials and correct the conclusions of some contemporary researchers who have addressed the political background of the incident. It also allowed the author to check the credibility of the investigative material collected between 1836 and 1837 as part of the original “Vixen” files. It also clarifies the political conclusions drawn by both Russian imperial authorities and British politicians, and corrects some of the assumptions of contemporary historians focused on examining the political repercussions of the case. The author also examines the conditions of the Russian blockade of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus at the end of the 1830s. This is consistent with the aim of the study, namely to recreate a complete picture of the capture of the schooner “Vixen”. The latter was beyond the scope of previous studies. The study is based on materials from the Russian Navy State Archives (RGA VMF), as well as publications in British, American, and Australian newspapers. The author used the memoirs of the owner of the “Vixen”, James Stanislaus Bell, and the captain of the Russian ship, N.P. Volf, as additional primary source material. The study corroborates the conclusions that the “Vixen” incident was a premeditated provocation, but disputes the popular perception that the ship was actually carrying a cargo of weapons and gunpowder, as insisted on by the Russian side. The breach of the blockade by “Vixen” was a clear reconnaissance operation, which allowed the British to observe not only the technical inferiority of Russian ships in terms of modern requirements, but also the excessive bureaucratisation of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet's management system. This gave British diplomacy, which had contested the terms of the Treaty of Adrianople, additional arguments for its diplomatic efforts.