The order to establish the society came directly from Emperor Nicholas I.[2] The motive for the establishment was to encourage geographical research on domestic topics,[2] which has later been described as a Russian nationalist political goal.[3]
The filial societies were established at the Caucasus (1850), Irkutsk (1851), Vilnius (1867), Orenburg (1868), Kiev (1873), Omsk (1877), and other cities.
The Society pioneered the systematic exploration of the Northern Urals in 1847–1850, of the farthest reaches of the Amur River in 1854–1863, of the vast areas of Kashgaria, Dzungaria, and Mongolia from the 1870s onward.
By 1917 the RGO was composed of eleven subdivisions and 1,000 members.
Members and presidents
The founding members of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society included:[4]
The Constantine Medal was a gold medal worth 200 silver roubles and was the highest award of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. It was established and named after the Society’s first chairman, Great Duke Constantine and was awarded from 1849 to 1929 to explorers who had made a significant geographical discovery or to authors of outstanding publications in geography, ethnography or Russian statistics. From 1924 to 1929 the Medal was referred to as “The highest award of the Russian Geographical Society”.[5]
Recipients of the medal included:
1849 Ernst Reinhold von Hofmann, for his excellent work during the first expedition of the Russian Geographical Society to the Northern Urals (first award)
1858 Ivan Aksakov, for his research into trade fairs in Ukraine
1907 Grigory Grum-Grshimailo, for all his works in Asian geography and for his Description of a Journey in Western China Volume III
1907 Fridtjof Nansen, for his remarkable feats, which constitute a whole era in the Arctic Ocean exploration
1914 Boris Vilkitsky, for hydrographic expeditions in the Arctic Sea.
All-Union Geographical Society
Library of the Russian Geographical Society in 1916
The Society changed its name to the State Geographical Society in 1926 and to the Geographical Society of the USSR in 1938. After Shokalsky its presidents were geneticistNikolai Vavilov (1931–1940), zoologistLev Berg (1940–1950), parasitologistEvgeny Pavlovsky (1952–1964), glaciologistStanislav Kalesnik (1964–1977), and polar explorerAleksei Treshnikov (1977–1991). The Society has convened numerous congresses and has awarded four types of medals, the tri-annual Grand Gold Medal, three bi-annual medals named after Litke, Semyonov, and Przhevalsky,[7] and also the bi-annual Semen Dezhnev prize. By 1970, it had published more than 2,000 volumes of geographical literature, including the annual Zapiski (since 1846) and Izvestiya (since 1865).
Post-Soviet era
The society reverted to its original name upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The main offices of the Society are in St. Petersburg.
Since 2002 the society has sponsored an annual seasonal ice base in the Arctic, Camp Barneo.[8]
In 2009, the Minister of Defence of RussiaSergei Shoigu was elected the President of the Society. As of March 2022[update], he is still in office. In 2010, the Board of Trustees of the Society was established. The president of RussiaVladimir Putin was appointed chairman of the Board.[9] Other board members included Russian oligarchs, politicians and Albert II, Prince of Monaco. The appointments of Shoigu and Putin resulted in the Society getting more subsidies from the Russian state.[10]
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine led to BP CEO Bernard Looney's resignation as a trustee of the Society[11] and membership of Russia within International Geographical Union (IGU) was suspended as of 7 March 2022, pending a formal decision on its membership at the next IGU General Assembly in July 2022.[12][needs update] Nevertheless, while suspending Russia’s formal membership, the IGU maintains an open door for continued engagement with colleagues in Russia.[12]
In October 2023 an investigation revealed that two people purporting to be employees of the RGS tried to recruit a Norwegian as a spy.[13]
Divisions
The Imperial Society comprised four departments:
Department of Physical Geography
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Department of Mathematical Geography
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Department of Ethnography
Nikolai Nadezhdin was involved in the foundation of this department, when the RGO was originally set up. During the 1850s and 1860s the ethnographic division gathered and published material such as works of folklore and the byt or "way of life" which they regarded as reflecting the "essence" of the indigenous people of the Russian Empire. In 1909 Dmitry Nikolayevich Anuchin, Vladimir Bogdanov and Vsevolod Miller convened the ethnographic sub-section of the Twelfth Congress of Russian Natural Scientists and Physicians held in Moscow. Here they pushed for more professionalism to distinguish ethnographers from missionaries and amateurs.
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Further reading
Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky. История полувековой деятельности Императорского Русского географического общества. Volumes 1-3. SPb, 1896.
Lev Berg. Всесоюзное Географическое общество за 100 лет. 1845-1945. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946.
Географическое общество за 125 лет. Leningrad, 1970.
Hirsch, Francine. 2005. Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN0-8014-4273-7
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