Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen Net Worth

Background and career

Faddey Faddeyevich Bellingshausen or Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin von Bellingshausen (20 September [O.S. 9 September] 1778 – 25 January [O.S. 13 January] 1852) was a Russian cartographer, explorer, and naval officer of Baltic German descent, who attained the rank of admiral. He participated in the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe, and subsequently became a leader of another circumnavigation expedition that discovered the continent of Antarctica. Like Otto von Kotzebue and Adam Johann von Krusenstern, Bellingshausen belonged to a cohort of prominent Baltic German navigators which helped Russia launch its naval expeditions.

Bellingshausen was born on the island of Saaremaa (Ösel), to the Bellingshausen family. He started his service in the Russian Baltic Fleet, and after distinguishing himself joined the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth in 1803–1806, serving on the merchant ship Nadezhda under the captaincy of Adam Johann von Krusenstern. After the journey, he published a collection of maps of the newly explored areas and islands of the Pacific Ocean. Subsequently, he commanded several ships of the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets.

As a prominent cartographer, Bellingshausen was appointed to command the Russian circumnavigation of the globe in 1819–1821, intended to explore the Southern Ocean and to find land in the proximity of the South Pole. Mikhail Lazarev prepared the expedition and was made Bellingshausen's second-in-command and the captain of the sloop Mirny, while Bellingshausen himself commanded the sloop Vostok. During this expedition, Bellingshausen and Lazarev became the first explorers to see the land of Antarctica on 27 January 1820 (New Style), disproving James Cook's contention that it was impossible to find land in the southern ice-fields. They circumnavigated the continent twice and never lost each other from view. The expedition discovered and named Peter I, Zavodovski, Leskov, Alexander, and Visokoi Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula, and made other discoveries in the tropical waters of the Pacific.

Made captain-commodore on his return, Bellingshausen participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829. Promoted to vice admiral, he again served in the Baltic Fleet in the 1830s. From 1839, he was a military governor of Kronstadt, and gained the rank of admiral in 1843. In 1831, he published the book on his Antarctic travels, called Double Investigation of the Southern Polar Ocean and the Voyage Around the World.