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Twelve
days at Nuku Hiva : Russian encounters and mutiny in the South
Pacific / Elena Govor. - Honolulu : University of Hawai'i
Press,
2010. - XI-301 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
ISBN
978-0-8248-3368-8
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NOTE
DE L'ÉDITEUR :
In August 1803 two Russian ships, the Nadezhda and the Neva,
set off on
a round-the-world voyage to carry out scientific exploration and
collect artifacts for Alexander I’s ethnographic museum in
St.
Petersburg. Russia’s strategic concerns in the north Pacific,
however, led the Russian government to include as part of the
expedition an embassy to Japan, headed by statesman Nikolai Rezanov,
who was given authority over the ships’ commanders without
their
knowledge. Between them the ships carried an ethnically and socially
disparate group of men : Russian educated elite, German
naturalists, Siberian merchants, Baltic naval officers, even Japanese
passengers. Upon reaching Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas archipelago on
May 7, 1804, and for the next twelve days, the naval officers
revolted
against Rezanov’s command while complex crosscultural
encounters
between Russians and islanders occurred. Elena Govor recounts the
voyage, reconstructing and exploring in depth the tumultuous events of
the Russians’ stay in Nuku Hiva ; the course of the
mutiny,
its resolution and aftermath ; and the extent and nature of
the
contact between Nuku Hivans and Russians.
Govor
draws directly
on the writings of the participants themselves, many of whom left
accounts of the voyage. Those by the ships’ captains,
Krusenstern
and Lisiansky, and the naturalist George Langsdorff are well known, but
here for the first time, their writings are juxtaposed with recently
discovered textual and visual evidence by various members of the
expedition in Russian, German, Japanese — and by the
Nuku
Hivans themselves. Two sailor-beachcombers, a Frenchman [Joseph Kabris]
and an
Englishman [Edward
Robarts] who acted as guides and interpreters, later
contributed
their own accounts, which feature the words and opinions of islanders.
Govor also relies on a myth about the Russian visit recounted by Nuku
Hivans to this day.
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Elena Govor is research fellow at the Division of
Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University. |
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MARIE-NOËLLE
OTTINO-GARANGER
: […]
Si
le titre laisse augurer d’une étude à
échelle microscopique tant par la durée du
séjour
(douze jours, ce qui est plutôt long pour une escale aux
Marquises), que le cadre géographique : une
île Nuku
Hiva, sur les six habitées que compte l’archipel,
l’étude va bien au-delà. Au fil des
pages, des
univers parallèles d’une immense richesse et
d’une
grande complexité fournissent les
éléments
d’un scénario digne d’un roman
d’aventure,
agréable à lire. S’y
entremêlent science,
sagesse et rigueur, rêves exotiques et de grandeur,
affrontements
de personnalités, collectes, menace de mutinerie,
l’érotisme né du voyage et de corps
d’une
beauté sauvage et tatoués, une déesse
très
humaine, un français et un anglais en parfaite opposition
devenant d’utiles intermédiaires, un aristocrate
fantasque
le comte Fedor Tolstoï et son singe, l’aube de
désillusions… pour finir par un
succès, celui de
ce tour du monde et de la maîtrise de son commandant A.J. von
Krusenstern à maintenir un objectif encore largement
inspiré par l’esprit des Lumières.
Au
final, cette brillante étude aboutit à un ouvrage
original de grande valeur. Il livre non seulement de
précieux
approfondissements sur des témoignages essentiels, pour
beaucoup
méconnus, concernant les Marquises et les Marquisiens, ce
qui
est rare, le Pacifique et ce type d’expédition,
mais il
offre aussi une unique occasion de saisir les multiples facettes de
regards portés entre mondes très dissemblables.
[…]
→
« Compte
rendu de Twelve days at
Nuku Hiva. Russian Encounters and Mutiny in the South Pacific, de
Elena Govor », Journal de la
Société des
Océanistes 1/2014 (n° 138-139) ,
pp. 237-239 [en
ligne]
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| EXTRAIT |
In April 1826 the Krotky
was sailing towards Nuku Hiva, following Krusenstern's route.
[Ferdinand] Wrangel chose to make a halt at Port Chichagov [Hakaui], so
highly extolled by Krusenstern, where Wrangel believed “ the
inhabitants were pleasant and obliging ”. The only Russian
ship to visit this port since Krusenstern was the RAC vessel Suvorov, which anchored at Port Chichagov in March 1818, but its captain Zakhar Ponafidin, did not live any account of his visit.
Guided
by Krusenstern's map, Wrangel entered the magnificent bay. It was like
entering a book known and loved since youth : the high rock wall
surrounded the quiet waters of the bay, and a crowd of islanders
swarmed round the ship, including women who “ shamelessly
offered the sailors their charms ”. […] The
rediscoveries continued : a brook with sweet water in the eastern
cove with its sandy shore and the stream baptized Nevka by Lisiansky in
the western cove, in the picturesque and densely inhabited valley.
Wrangel praised “ the meek behavior and helpfulness of the
islanders ” who assisted them with watering and cutting
firewood. Like Krusenstern and Lisiansky before him, Wrangel exchanged
friendly visits with an elderly airiki
(chief) of the valley, “ Magedede ”
(Makate'ite'i), remarking on his “ limited
power ”, and with the influential taua
(priest) “ Togoyapu ” (Tokoi'apu'u) […].
Even beachcombers appeared, seeming to have emerged from the pages of
Krusenstern's book […]. Following the humane example set by his
predecessors […] Wrangel showed the islanders every kindness and
respect. He entertained the distinguished visitors on board with music
and food, and offered gifts ans fair pay to those islanders who
assisted them on shore.
Everything resembled his favorite books,
and yet it was different. The paradise they had found crumbled away
with every passing minute. Makate'ite'i, Tokoi'apu'u and his son
“ Otomogo ” (To'omoko) refused gifts from the Russians,
being interested only in gunpowder and guns. […] Their
beachcombers, unlike Robarts and Kabris, were rotten with veneral
diseases, […]. Even the dances that the islanders performed for
them seemed to be hollow, and at the end of the day the islanders asked
for rum.
☐ Epilogue : Nuku Hiva revisited, pp. 263-264 |
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COMPLÉMENT
BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE
(La bibliographie réunie par Elena Govor couvre les pages 275 à 287.) |
- Adam
von Krusenstern, « Voyage autour du
monde : la première
expéditione maritime russe autour du monde à bord
de la
Nadiejeda et la Neva, 1803-1806 » (1812),
Besançon : La
Lanterne magique, 2012
- Georg
Heinrich von Langsdorff, « Voyages and travels in various
parts of the world, during the years 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, and
1807 » Part I, London : Henry Colburn, 1813
- Urey
Lisiansky, « A voyage round the world, in the years 1803, 4, 5,
& 6 (…) in the ship Neva », London : John
Booth, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1814
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- Christophe Granger, « Joseph Kabris, ou les possibilités d'une vie, 1780-1822 », Paris : Anamosa, 2020
- Edward Robarts, « The Marquesan journal of Edward Robarts, 1797-1824 » ed. with an introduction by Greg Dening, Canberra : Australian national university press (Pacific history series, 6), 1974
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| mise-à-jour
: 27 avril 2021 |
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