Synopsis
Utility in Natural History: Some Eighteenth-Century Russian Perceptions of the Living Environment
The issue of scientific utility – the idea that science should contribute to human well-being, either directly or indirectly – was one that greatly exercised the minds of those who initiated scientific societies and academies in European states during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to Francis Bacon, the purpose of the newly-emerging science was to make a difference in the world, to advance human dominion over nature. This was a vision that moved the initiators of London’s Royal Society, founded in 1660, and was to find considerable resonance over the next two centuries.
Perhaps nowhere was the notion of scientific utility to find greater emphasis than in the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, founded by Peter the Great and opening just after his death in 1725. Throughout the eighteenth century, the Academy’s principal activity became that of surveying and mapping the Russian empire’s vast territory with a view to ascertaining its resource endowment and to the promotion of national development. The major vehicle for the attainment of these goals was to be the scientific expedition. Eighteenth-century Russian scientific expeditions were typically furnished with a set of instructions specifying the principal goals and objectives of the venture. Utilitarian concerns generally loomed large in such instructions.
Utility can, of course, mean different things depending on the context in which science is practised and on the values of the practitioners themselves. For the eighteenth-century Russian scientific expeditions, it was usefulness to the state that appeared paramount. The present paper examines the writings of two Russian naturalists of the period, Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (1713-1755) and Petr Ivanovich Rychkov (1712-1777), and considers whether their emphasis on utility also had other connotations. The conclusions drawn are based on the empirical observations and understandings of the two writers only, but the question is raised concerning what if anything their experience tells us about the practice of natural history in the eighteenth century.
Stepan Krasheninnikov is best known for the fruit of his participation in what became known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733-43) and particularly for his botanical and ethnographic studies in Kamchatka. During part of his time there, he was accompanied by the German naturalist Georg-Wilhelm Steller (1709-46). Krasheninnikov, a Russian and native of Moscow, was the son of a soldier and was educated at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in that city. Presumably, as happened so often at this early juncture in Russian scientific education, his talents were recognised at an early stage and he was recruited as a student to participate in the Second Kamchatka Expedition, specialising in natural history. His book The History of Kamchatka, which described his studies in Kamchatka, was published by the Academy of Sciences in two volumes in St Petersburg in 1756. It was translated into English and published by James Grieve in Gloucester in 1764.
Perusal of the book’s chapters on natural history reveals its strongly utilitarian orientation, particularly focusing on the uses to which the locals put resources. Thus chapter V of part II, ‘Of Trees and Plants’, begins by focusing on the abundant larch and the various uses to which it is put. Attention then moves to the birch with the same utilitarian emphasis. Understanding of the usefulness of local environmental resources, in other words, comes from close observation of the activities and ways of life of the local population, both the indigenous peoples and the Russian settlers. Not least among the traits of the locals to interest the naturalists is their food and medicines. Having discussed the ‘Trees and Plants’ in chapter V of part II, the following chapter of Krasheninnikov’s book turns to consider ‘the Land Animals’. Here again the author’s approach is markedly utilitarian.
Like Krasheninnikov, Petr Rychkov was born into fairly modest circumstances. He was the son of a Vologda merchant but apparently moved to Moscow when he was about eight years old. He seems to have had an elementary education of some kind and is said to have excelled in mathematics and languages. Eventually he began work as a book-keeper and translator for the port of St Petersburg. Here he evidently attracted the attention of Peter the Great’s associate, Ivan Kirilov (1695-1737), who was responsible for organizing the cartographic survey of Russia together with other endeavours of a geographical and scientific kind. In 1734, Kirilov recruited Rychkov as book-keeper for the newly created Orenburg Expedition. The latter was not an expedition in the normal sense but rather a government agency responsible for the defence, settlement and economic exploitation of the huge Orenburg territory that spanned the southern Urals and extended southeastwards towards Central Asia. Among other activities, the expedition was responsible for the mapping and scientific survey of the territory over which it presided, including investigating the mineral wealth of the Urals. As head of the organisation, Kirilov was anxious to recruit capable young men into its service, hence, one assumes, his interest in Rychkov. Kirilov evidently encouraged in his young associate an interest in science, cartography and geographical description.
As a state official, Rychkov was only partially engaged in scientific work and was obliged to undertake such activities in the midst of many other official duties. Nevertheless his work obliged him to travel frequently across the region, in the course of which he acquired a close acquaintance with both its natural and human features. Following the opening of the Geographical Department of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg in 1739, the idea arose of producing an atlas of the Orenburg territory. Since the latter region was only just in the course of settlement and economic development, its detailed mapping and study was regarded as an important state task. Rychkov evidently played an important role in this endeavour, and the atlas was completed in 1755. As was often the case with Russian maps and atlases in the eighteenth century, the Orenburg atlas was to be accompanied by a detailed geographical description of the region. This was the origin of Rychkov’s Topografiia Orenburgskaia, the first part of which he sent to the Academy of Sciences in 1755 where it was approved for publication. The rest subsequently appeared in serial form before the entire work was published as a single volume in 1762.
Rychkov’s account is, on the whole, more systematic and ordered than Krasheninnikov’s with little in the way of personal reference. It subsequently became a model for the large number of ‘topographical descriptions’ that were to follow. A notable absence in Rychkov’s book is a systematic discussion of the region’s vegetation. Clearly, unlike Krasheninnikov who was able to rely on Steller, Rychkov suffered from a lack of botanical advice. What he does give us, however, clearly reflects both the knowledge derived from his duties as a government official and what must have been a keen amateur interest in aspects of the physical environment, derived no doubt from his many travels in the area and long residence there. Thus there are detailed descriptions of weather and climate, physiography, minerals and fauna. No doubt he was able to obtain much information in the course of his official duties, as he clearly did when it came to statistics on commerce and the like, and from discussion with locals, but much also seems to derive from personal observation.
With regard to the local fauna, like Krasheninnikov, Rychkov demonstrates the same interest in their appearance and habits, and gives details regarding their habitats. Again a utilitarian interest is very apparent, with discussion of the uses to which the locals put animals, the ways in which they are hunted, and their roles in market trade. In their studies of the local fauna, the two Russian naturalists display certain common concerns. They clearly wish to know what animals exist within their regions, ranging from the land and sea mammals to insects, birds and fish. They frequently describe the appearance of the animals, sometimes in considerable detail. The behaviour and habits of animals, particularly their feeding habits, also interested them. Furthermore, the naturalists often allude to the animals’ habitats, to the environments in which they survive. This may be linked to their interest in the usefulness of the animals to the local human populations, and in the ways in which animals are caught or hunted. But the naturalists write not only about those animals that are useful to humans. They also describe the seemingly non-useful ones, and particularly those that are harmful.
Clearly one important factor that motivated both writers was the need to respond to the general demand on the part of government and the Academy for practical information about nature and its possible uses. An emphasis on utility and practicality was a common feature of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century natural histories. However, the question also arises whether, in the case of our two Russian naturalists, the accent on utility is purely the product of a more instrumental view of nature abetted by the processes of modernisation and the onset of capitalism. In other words, might it not also be that the utility of animals to human beings was one of the ways in which animals might be understood – one of the ways of making sense of nature? Despite the effects of the Scientific Revolution, the eighteenth century was a period still steeped in religious ideas and imagery when the notion of a meaningful universe was widely accepted. In these circumstances, the idea that nature exists or is somehow constructed to serve human ends must have made a great deal of sense. That being so, seeking to know the utility of natural phenomena would have been an essential element in trying to understand them.
Stepan Krasheninnikov and Petr Rychkov studied some of the remoter parts of the Russian empire whose natural environments and endowments were little known. Their contributions to the science of their day were considerable. If our argument here makes sense, their emphasis on the utility of the natural phenomena they studied may reflect not only the increasingly pragmatic approach to nature that was characteristic of the eighteenth century, but also the way in which remote and unfamiliar regions were then understood. In other words, their practical orientation may have been as traditional as it was modern.
- Denis Shaw, University of Birmingham, Birmingham (UK)
denisjbshaw@hotmail.com
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