Three Accounts of the Vasil'ev-Shishmarev Expedition of 1819-1822

3001 Veazey Terrace N. W. #317 Washington, D. C. 20008 9 July 1970

Mr. Edward Connery Lathem Librarian of the College Dartmouth College Library Hanover, New Hampshire 03755

Dear Mr. Lathem:

I was delighted to get your letter of 2 July yesterday with your encouraging news, and as soon as I can get together with Mrs. Jo -sephson, I shall send you copies of original pages with translations. Because so little of this particular journey was needed for my exact geographic area, we translated most of the applicable parts orally after I had read through the articles. We shall, therefore, write down various parts for your consideration.

When I send you the pages and translations, I shall also send the exact pages with approximate number of words, although I think it is around 48,000 words. Adding an introduction and explanatory notes might put it somewhere around 55,000 words, although this is just a rough guess. If the project meets with your approval, the translation and tping costs will not exceed $750.00. I do not expect any compensation for my editing of Mrs. Josephson's translation or for writing introductory material or notes. I will just be happy to see it published as an addition to our knowledge of the north, and would be very much interested in your exploring publication possibilities if it meets your expectations.

Here is the history of this project, and an outline of the material to be included so that you will know its exact scope and can further form an opinion about it.

Working up this material has been somewhat like following a detective story. I have been gathering material for an ethnohistory of the Bering Strait Eskimos for about 10 years, but the writing has been considerably slowed by writing numerous other papers and books, not mention taking time out to learn to read Russian. This was necessary because I am utilizing explorers' first-hand observations of early Eskimo life, and a number of these accounts were untranslated. After I had gained a certain control over the Russian I set out to track down the voyages mentioned casually in some of the general histories of Alaska. I have had no success in some quarters, but (I think!) a spectacular success with Vasiliev's and Shishmarev's expedition, which started out from Europe in 1819 and spent the years 1820 and 1821 in the arctic as far north as Icy Cape, Alaska.

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Alaska published before 1868 (Yale 1969), but I found that he discusses this book under his No. 88, page 312. However, he says that this is Wickersham's No. 6585 5685, but in checking the Wickersham, I find that 6585 refers to Berkh's Aleutian Island history. Thereofre, LadaMocarski's Bibliography is the first reference to this publication, although I vaguely recall a reference in some German account to something like "Berkh's journeys to the north" -- I can't dredge it up at the moment. The Library of Congress does not have Volume II of this history--only Volume I, which has only a little applicable [attn for] Alaska.

Therefore, my entire project is this: Combine Berkh's summary of the expedition, Hillsen's account of the Good Intent (1820-1821), Shishmarev's observations of the Chukchi (1821), and the short progress reports into one publication about this expedition. It will be tied together with my bibliographic observations and an introduction and notes that will place it historically and ethnographically, geographically, etc. with northern affairs at that time, including the overlapping journeys of Khromchenko and Etolin in 1821 and 1822.

I have just finished this chapter of Russian exploration so all of the material is still fresh in mind.

I shall forward the pages and translations as soon as Mrs. Josephson and I have been able to get together, hopefully this week-end.

With best of wishes, and many thanks,

Sincerely yours, Dorothy Jean Ray Dorothy Jean Ray

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journeys cover a much larger territory than the Bering Strait.

It seems to me that this entire journey (as found in accounts 1, 3, and 5) should be translated verbatim. I would edit the translations and write a preface to place the journey in its proper geographical, historical, and ethnological perspective.

My problem is wondering where to get some money to pay Mrs. Josephson for the translating. She is a semi-retired lawyer, and I can't ask her to do all of this gratis, even though I would be willing to do all the rest of the work without compensation as a contribution to knowledge if need be. Since I am not now connected with any institution it is sometimes difficult to get research funds; but it is doubly difficult to get funds for such projects as translating. Do you know of any fund or foundations that I could apply to for translating this material--it would probaly run between $700-900; I'm not at all sure of the exact amount because my estimate of the Russian length (English is always longer in translation) of these accounts is a rough guess.

I'm not sure where it would be published. I think that Arctic Anthropology would be interested, but I haven't written yet to Chet Chard; perhaps even Anthropological Papers of University of Alaska. I did write to Henry Michael, editor of the Anthropology of the North: Translations from Russian Sources, Arctic Institute of North America, thinking they might have funds for translating, but he said they don't even have funds for further publishing, and I have heard rumors that the end of the series may not be far off.

This project might even make a nice little book. I wrote Mr. Cuningham, editor-in-chief of the University of Washington Press, who wrote me that he would be delighted to publish it because they hoped to inaugurate a Russian translations series, BUT he could not give me any encouragement right at the moment because they have not yet found funds for such a program. I thought that by publishing it on a royalty basis, Mrs. Josephson could be compensated in that way.

You can see that things are bad all over. But I think this idea is a worth-while project, and I thought I would tap your experience in such matters of translating and publishing funds first of all. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

The University of Washing Press tells me that they have only a few copies of Eskimo Masks left, and they are not planning to reprint it in the near future, but it is to be translated into Danish and possibly one or two more Scandinavian languages by Rhodos of Copenhagen.

I wrote a long (70 pages) manuscript about Bering Strait Eskimo place names for a journal called Names (American Name Society), but it is so lengthy that they might have to publish it in two parts. It won't

7 March 1972

MEMORANDUM

To: Mrs. Parmi From: E. C. Lathem

Herewith I am forwarding to you a Xerox of a typescript which consists of translations by Mrs. Rhea Josephson of three accounts of the 1819-1822 Vasilev- Shishmarev expedition to the Arctic. This translation work was done under a grant from the College Library (Montgomery Fund), with the intention that it be included in a projected volume by Mrs. Dorothy Jean Ray (the page numbering relates to its position, pages 34-225, within her "manuscript" for the book). The Xerox should be catalogued as an addition to the Stefansson Collection.

ECL

ECL/cp