Seminar Series: Abstract

Russian encounters in the South Pacific: shaping the past. Work-in progress seminar
Elena Govor

Over thirty Russian visits to the Pacific Islands in the first third of the nineteenth century furnish us with an exceptional resource for the exploration of cross-cultural contacts and Russian impressions of human difference in Oceania. The textual and visual records of these Russian South Pacific visits are as rich as those of the better-known British and French voyages, but have not been explored thoroughly in terms of the light they shed on actual encounters. Not that these encounters were entirely neglected in Soviet historiography, which recruited them in support of the Soviet imperial myth – an interesting field for investigation in its own right. My current project addresses the specific details of these South Pacific encounters, noting Russian accounts of human difference and considering a number of promising insights which emerge at the intersection of the varying perspectives produced by different members of the Russian expeditions, often reflecting their diverse ethnic and social backgrounds.