BRINGING HOME THE EXOTIC:
Philip Johan von Strahlenberg
An Historico-Geographical Description
of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia
(1738)
In 1700, Sweden was the major power on the Baltic Sea, and its King Charles XII bestrode the globe
after defeating Russia at the Battle of Narva. With him was a young German officer, Philip Johan
Tabbert, who in 1707 would be promoted and ennobled for his acts of valor, becoming Philip Johan von
Strahlenberg.
Between 1700 and 1707, however, the Russian Tsar Peter the Great built his once-paltry army into a
force surpassing even Charles' and seized the Swedish provinces of Estonia, Ingria and Livonia. Charles
mustered his forces and marched for Moscow the next year, with Strahlenberg in his train and disaster
looming. The Swedes were cut off from their supply wagons, their Cossack allies were betrayed to the
Tsar, and an unbelievably cold winter killed between three and four thousand men. Soldiers used up
their gunpowder seasoning their only foods, moldy bread and horsemeat. Charles himself remained
the one inspiration throughout this hardship, and he would not share authority even with his highest
officers; when asked for orders for an impending battle, he said, "I have no plan."
The Swedish army limped to meet the Russians at the Battle of Poltava (or Poltowa) on the Vorskla River
in the Ukraine in 1709. The king was removed from view early on with a minor wound, and without
him his army fell into total confusion. As Frederick II of Prussia disapprovingly summarized, "The
Swedes lost 6,000 killed and 2,000 prisoners, including one field-marshal, four major-generals and five
colonels, while the Russian casualties amounted to no more than 1,300." Among the prisoners of war was
Strahlenberg.
Many Swedish prisoners would be set to work building Peter's new capital of St. Petersburg in Ingria,
one of the disputed territories. Strahlenberg and several thousand others were deported to Tobolsk in
western Siberia. Russia had been gradually exploring Siberia and absorbing or conquering its native
peoples for 200 years; the war with Sweden caused almost the first break in their progress there. With
Russia vaulting from victory at Poltava to become the dominant Baltic power, it was the final opportunity
to observe what was left of native Siberia.
Beginning in 1711, Strahlenberg traveled through the province drawings maps and studying the local
tribes, including the Uzbeks, the Kirghiz, and many others. The result,
An Historico-Geographical Description,
is a jumble of priceless information on natural features, customs, religions, history, and art.
The former soldier discovered a talent for languages and made detailed tables of the native dialects, along
with careful reproductions of rock paintings and writing. He also created enormous maps of the region,
the first to be widely available in the West.
In 1721 the Treaty of Nystad ended the Great Northern War and Strahlenberg returned to Stockholm.
The book was published in German in 1730 and was immediately translated into several other languages,
satisfying a widespread curiosity about Russia and Central Asia. Strahlenberg's preference for the
Ural Mountains as the border between European and Asian Russia was accepted by Tsarina Anna.
Strahlenberg is also noted today for the first known reference to the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in
shamanic rituals, which even then sparked a debate about the uses and morality of such substances.
Strahlenberg's work fell into some obscurity after his death, but it has been suggested that Robert
Southey's pre-Goldilocks version of the fairy tale "The Three Bears," published in 1849, was directly
adapted from Strahlenberg's description of a Vogul ritual. In 1870 August Strindberg took an interest
in the history of Swedish explorers and revived Strahlenberg's reputation in the journal of the Swedish
Society of Anthropology and Geography and a 1910 book, Tal till Svenska Nationen. By that time, the
Trans-Siberian Railway and the Gulag had partitioned the vast plains, and Strahlenberg's record was all
that was left of many of their original inhabitants.
Further Reading:
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