13 
OCEANOGRAPHY “” 
In addition to the number of geographical discoveries by the Rus- 
sians, many of which were associated with commercial undertakings, 
the first Russian expedition to study the northern and eastern shores 
of the country and to describe the seas, the so-called Great Northern 
Expedition, was ordered by Peter the Great and conducted after his 
death (1725-30 and 1733-43). During the around-the-world voyage 
of the Predpriyatiye (1823-26), the physicist Lents measured water 
temperature, salinity, and density.8° The famous scientific cruise of 
the British research ship Challenger (1872-76) had a considerable 
influence upon the development of oceanography and especially the 
Russian approach to it. The Challenger Expedition, in effect, 
established a methodical approach which has been used in general 
up to the present time. The Russian expedition aboard Vityaz, in 
which a young S. Makarov participated, was the first Russian attempt 
to follow it. 
The collection of data and facts mainly through expeditions was 
still considered to be one of the major tasks at this stage of develop- 
ment of oceanography. Up to the quite recent past, hydrography and 
meteorology were the two best developed disciplines, for they were 
in fact the ones needed most for navigation. The level of development 
of science and technology, particularly the latter, had been the major 
limiting factor to the scope of oceanographic work. 
During the first few years of Soviet power, the activity of Soviet 
oceanography was, for obvious reasons, very limited, and centered 
around hydrography. In 1922 the Soviet flag was raised over the 
first scientific research ship, the modernized schooner Dorsey, which 
became the center of the newly organized Polar Floating Marine 
Research Institute (Plavmornin). Naval (military) hydrographers, 
whose corps were established in Russia in 1827, formed the backbone 
of early Soviet work which was performed mainly in the northern 
seas. During the Second International Polar Year (1932-33), rather 
extensive oceanographic research was conducted by the Soviet Union. 
Work in the Black Sea started in 1923, where the Black Sea Oceano- 
graphic Expedition was organized and conducted its work up to 1935. 
In the Far East, oceanographic research started in 1924. In 1928 
the work was enlarged. A joint expedition of Soviet Navy hydrog- 
raphers and the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences was organized. 
During the second half of the 1930’s a number of Soviet expeditions 
in the Greenland and Norwegian seas began seasonal hydrological 
surveys of the ice-free regions of these seas. The work was of great 
importance in providing the basis for ice forecasts along the northern 
sea route.®! During the 1930’s Soviet oceanographers undertook the 
study of wind waves and surveys of the coastal wave motion. During 
the 1930’s the knowledge of currents in the seas around the Soviet 
Union was expanded considerably. The observations of tidal 
phenomena expanded considerably, resulting in the publication at the 
end of the 1930’s of tables and handbooks containing the charac- 
™In the Soviet literature on the subject, the terms oceanography and oceanology are used in- 
terchangeably and are synonomous. The latter seems to be preferred by Soviet scientists. 
40N. F. Medvedev, Suda dlya Issledovaniya Mirovogo Okeana (Ships for the Research of the World 
Ocean), Sudostroyeniye, Leningrad, 1971, p. 215. 
*!““Morskoy Sbornik” No. 7, 1967, p. 46. 
