 | You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Russian. (September 2024)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Vladimir Arsenyev | |
|---|---|
Владимир Арсеньев | |
 Arsenyev in 1917 | |
| Born | (1872-09-10)10 September 1872 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Died | 4 September 1930(1930-09-04) (aged 57) Vladivostok,Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Alma mater | Vladimir Military School |
| Occupation | Explorer |
| Years active | 1906–1930 |
| Known for | exploringRussian Far East |
| Awards | Order of Saint Vladimir Order of Saint Anna Order of Saint Stanislaus Medal for China Campaign Russo-Japanese War Medal Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the 1812 War" Medal "In Commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Romanov dynasty" |
Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev,FRGS (Russian:Влади́мир Кла́вдиевич Арсе́ньев; 10 September 1872 – 4 September 1930) was a Russian explorer of theFar East who recounted his travels in a series of books—Po Ussuriyskomu krayu (По Уссурийскому краю, "Along the Ussuri land," 1921) andDersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала, "Dersu Uzala," 1923)—telling of his military journeys to theUssuri basin withDersu Uzala, a native hunter, from 1902 to 1907. He was the first to describe numerous species ofSiberian flora and the lifestyles of the local ethnic groups.
Vladimir Arsenyev was born inSaint Petersburg,Russian Empire, on 10 September 1872. His father Klavdy Arsenyev was the illegitimate son of Fyodor Goppmayer, a Tver townsman, and Agrafena Filippovna, a serf woman who was later freed and married Goppmayer. Klavdy Arsenyev, who took the surname of his godfather, was raised to the status of burgher (meshchanin) after the death of his father. He spent most of his life as a clerk for the Nikolayevskaya (Saint Petersburg–Moscow) Railway.[1] (Later, when Vladimir was already an adult, his father served as chief of the Moscow District Railway.)[2] Vladimir's mother, Rufina Kashlachevaya, was the daughter of a serf from the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate.[1]
Arsenyev graduated from the Saint Petersburg Infantry Cadet School in 1896. He began his service inVladivostok in 1900 and made his first military expedition in the Far East in 1902. His most important expeditions were toSikhote-Alin, in 1906, 1907–08, 1908–10 and 1912–13.[3] The main purpose of the missions was to draw up maps of the region,[3] but Arsenyev documented a large amount of data not directly related to this task, including botanical, zoological, archaeological and ethnographic information.[4] He studied various local peoples, especially theUdeges. Ethnographic materials collected by Arsenyev are held at the Russian Museum of Ethnography in Saint Petersburg, theKhabarovsk Regional Lore Museum, and elsewhere. He conducted an expedition toKamchatka in 1918 and another to theCommander Islands in 1923. In 1927 he led a large expedition along the routeSovetskaya Gavan–Khabarovsk. He served as the director of the Khabarovsk Regional Lore Museum from 1910 to 1918 and again from 1924 to 1925.[3]
Arsenyev lived in Vladivostok through the years of the Russian Civil War and was a Commissar for Ethnic Minorities (Komissar po delam inorodcheskim) of the independentFar Eastern Republic.[5] In 1918 his parents and two siblings were murdered in their home by burglars. He married Margarita Nikolayevna Solovyоva, the daughter of a Vladivostok official, in 1919.[6] After the Far Eastern Republic was absorbed bySoviet Russia in 1922 Arsenyev refused to emigrate and stayed in Vladivostok.[5] He gave lectures on ethnography, anthropology, archeology, and the history of "primitive societies" at the universities of Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. He played a major role in the preparation of the1926 Soviet census and helped draft an ethnographic map of Siberia.[3]
In 1930, Arsenyev made his final trip, this time to the lower part of the Amur River to oversee expeditions for the identification of possible railroad routes. He caught a cold during the trip and died of a heart attack en route back to Vladivostok on 4 September 1930, at the age of fifty-seven.[4] His widow Margarita was arrested in 1934 and again in 1937 after being accused of being a member of an underground organization of spies and saboteurs allegedly headed by her late husband. The military court hearing of the case (21 August 1938) lasted ten minutes and sentenced her to death. She was executed immediately. Arsenyev's daughter Natalya also was arrested in April 1941 and sentenced to theGulag.[5]
Arsenyev is most famous for authoring many books about his explorations, including some 60 works on the geography, wildlife and ethnography of the regions he traveled. Arsenyev's most famous book,Dersu Uzala, is a memoir of three expeditions in theUssuriantaiga (forest) of Northern Asia along theSea of Japan and North to Vladivostok. The book is named after Arsenyev's guide, an Ussurian native of theGoldi tribe (referred to as theNanai people today). Eventually the book was made into two films, one by Soviet directorAgasi Babayan in 1961, the other by Japanese filmmakerAkira Kurosawa in 1975. Kurosawa'sDersu Uzala won that year'sOscar forBest Foreign-Language Film, only the second Russian film, the first beingWar and Peace (1966–1967), to win the award.[7] The third book of Arsenyev's trilogy,In the Sikhote-Alin mountains, was published posthumously in 1937.
Arsenyev's books have been translated into multiple languages including English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. The "Dersu Uzala trilogy" was first translated in 1924 into German as a two-volume set (In der Wildnis Ostsibiriens).[8] More recently, in 2016 an uncensored, annotated edition of 1921'sAcross the Ussuri Kray was translated to English.[9]
Arsenyev's family home in Vladivostok has been made into amuseum.[10] A town,Arsenyev, and a river, the Arsenyevka, both located in thePrimorsky Krai, are named after him.[3] In 2018Vladivostok International Airport was renamed after him.[11]
{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
RussianWikisource has original text related to this article:Владимир Клавдиевич Арсеньев