July/August 2016
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including Bering, his wife and his two
youngest children, left on April 29, 1733.
Gmelin and the Academy scholars didn’t
leave until January 1734.
Steller was still without a university
appointment and decided he might do
better showing up in person in Russia.
Sometime in early spring 1734, he set out
for Russia. He got as far as Danzig when
he ran out of money. He eventually found
a job as a physician aboard a Russian
transport carrying wounded Russian
soldiers back from the Russian campaign
in Poland. He arrived in St. Petersburg in
November 1734.
In St. Petersburg, through contacts in
the Lutheran community, Steller was
introduced to Orthodox Archbishop
Theophan Prokopovich. The Archbishop
was impressed with Steller and made him
his personal physician. Steller moved into
the Archbishop’s palace. It appears that
at this point he changed his name from
Stöller to Steller to make it more easily
spelled and pronounced in Russian.
The archbishop also introduced Steller
to various members of the Academy of
Sciences and made sure he had access
to the academy’s growing library.
6
Steller was blatantly trying to influence
the academy to name him to the
Kamchatka expedition. To help his
campaign along, he sought out Daniel
Gottlieb Messerschmidt, a reclusive,
poverty stricken naturalist who had
spent eight years in Siberia for Peter the
Great.
7
Steller was able to spend three
to four months in close association
with Messerschmidt before he died.
Steller also enjoyed the company of
Messerschmidt’s attractive young wife
and his seven-year-old daughter.
In 1736, Gmelin and Muller requested the
Academy send them two more scholars for
the expedition, Archbishop Prokopovich
and Dr. Amman used their influence
to make sure Steller received one of the
appointments. On July 28, 1736, Steller
was nominated an adjunct professor to
the second Kamchatka expedition. His
appointment was finally confirmed on
February 7, 1737.
Steller married Messerschmidt’s widow,
Brigitta Helena Von Boeckler in November
1737. The two left for Moscow in December
of that year. The plan was for Brigitta to
remain in Moscow for one year and then
return to St. Petersburg. However, when
Steller left Moscow for Siberia in May 1738,
she immediately left for St. Petersburg.
Steller knew nothing of Siberia except
what he had learned from Messerschmidt.
He couldn’t speak, read or write Russian.
Luckily he had an old Siberia hand as
his guide and translator, Fedorovich
Danilov, a hunter by trade. His artist,
Johann Cornelius Decker also traveled
with him. The group traveled like the
Siberian backwoods men he encountered
along the way. Steller collected specimens
continuously as he traveled. He also treated
patients in the isolated villages he passed,
8
and had acquired a great number of friends
and a sterling reputation. He finally met up
with Gmelin and Muller in Yenuseisk in
January 1739.
By the time Steller reached them, Gmelin
and Muller were ready to go home, and
Muller was ill. In addition, they were
at odds with Bering. They had insisted
on luxurious living conditions that had
exhausted Bering’s budget. He had recently
cut their funding. Both Gmelin and Muller
had both posted requests to the Academy
to be relieved. Gmelin had gone so far as to
offer a bribe to the Secretary of the Senate
to have him recalled. With Steller’s arrival,
they turned their artist, Johann Christian
Beckham over to him, gave him several of
their books, assigned one of their students,
Aleski Gorlanov as his corresponding
secretary
9
and left for St Petersburg.
10
Steller left Yenuseisk in March 1739. He
was traveling the same route taken by the
naval contingent, and found that they had
cleaned out the route of almost all available
food and transportation. He diverted to a
route in the Lake Baikal region and found
it much easier going. He collected along
the way, and by this time had identified
over 1,000 plants, 60 varieties of birds, and
over 100 insect species.
In Yatursk, Steller made contact with
Spanberg, who was returning on orders
of the Empress to make a second voyage
to Japan. The two continued together to
Okhotsk to meet Bering. By this time,
Bering had no physician attached to the
expedition, and the only scientist left was
one of Gmelin’s students, Krasheninnikov,
who was also anxious to return home.
However, Krasheninnikov had one valuable
asset to pass on to Steller, his guide
and interpreter, Toma Lopekhin, who
accompanied Steller from that point on
until Steller’s death.
11
Bering was very impressed with Steller.
Mainly because he traveled and acted like
a Siberian, but also because he filled four
roles Bering couldn’t otherwise fill from
the personnel at hand: physician, naturalist,
mineralogist, and Lutheran minister.
The expedition was scheduled to sail on
September 1, 1740, but promptly ran
aground. As a result, a small work party
left on September 8, but Steller was free
to continue exploring Kamchatka. He
traveled for the most part by dog sled.
Although he was mainly interested in
collecting specimens, the more contact he
had with the local natives, the Itelmen, the
more obsessed he became with studying
and recording their customs and culture.
12
He was fascinated by their underground
winter dwellings and thought highly of
their society. He opposed Bering’s harsh
treatment of the Itelmen and wrote the
6. Steller developed a close friendship with Dr. Johann Amman, a Swiss botanist who was planning
the academy garden.
7. Messerschmidt’s health had been ruined by the time he returned to St. Petersburg. Then he had been forced
to give his collection and notes to the Imperial Academy and had nothing to show for his eight years.
8. He too fell ill in Tomsk in November of 1738.
9. Steller wrote only in Latin. All Russian dispatches and correspondence was done by Gorlanov.
10. The two were not formally relieved until July 1742.
11. Lopekhin is referred to as “my cossack” in Steller’s journal.
12. Steller undoubtedly had sexual relationships with native women.
historical
