This was the Russian Polar explorer, Georgy Sedov’s (1877-1914), first published work, originally submitted as a paper for the XI Congrès International de Navigation in St Petersburg, 1908. Having had the paper rejected, he published it at his own expense.
The paper not only advocates for an equality between men and women at sea, but for a separate branch of the navy where women would receive a maritime education; the freedom to stay on merchant ships; and the right to captain and navigate merchant vessels. (The world’s first woman to serve as a captain of an ocean-going vessel was Anna Shchetinina (1908-1999), a Soviet merchant marine sailor, who was 27.)
Sedov, a thirty-seven-year-old officer in the Imperial Navy is widely considered of the greatest of the Russian arctic explorers. He led a Russian expedition to the North Pole in 1912. Departing Arkhangel’sk in late September, this under-provisioned expedition immediately ran into trouble. Bad weather forced them to land at Nova Zembla rather than Franz Josef Land and was forced to winter there. In September 1913 the party left for Franz Josef Land, stopping at Northbrook and then Hooker Island. From there, despite suffering scurvy, Sedov attempted to reach the pole on foot with two volunteers (Grygori Lynnik and Aleksandr Pustoshniy). However his health deteriorated quickly, he lost use of his legs, and was carried by sledge. He died on 3 March 1914 about two kilometres south of Prince Rudolph Island.
Rare, there are no copies in OCLC.
Barr, W., “Sedov’s Expedition to the North Pole 1912-1914” in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol.15, No.4, pp.499-524; Howgego III, S15.
