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Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (October 10, 1861 - May 13, 1930) - Norwegian polar explorer, scientist - Doctor of Zoology, founder of a new science - physical oceanography, political and public figure, humanist, philanthropist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 1922, awarded many countries, including Russia. Geographical and astronomical objects, including a crater at the Moon's North Pole, are named after Nansen.

In his youth, he became known as an athlete-skier and speed skater. At the age of 27, for the first time in history, he crossed the ice cap of Greenland on skis, which was perceived by the general public as a great sporting achievement. In the course of an attempt to reach the North Pole - an expedition on the ship "Fram" - on April 8, 1895, he reached 86 ° 13 ′ 36 "N. Although after that Nansen did not participate in pioneering enterprises, the methods of movement and survival in ice and the equipment he used became a role model for many world-class polar explorers; Nansen regularly consulted polar explorers from different countries.

Romance is essential in a person's life, and it is it that gives a person the divine powers to travel beyond the ordinary ...

Nansen Fridtjof

Nansen studied zoology at the University of Christiania, worked at the Bergen Museum; his research on the structure of the central nervous system of invertebrates was summarized in his doctoral dissertation in 1888. After 1897, Nansen's main scientific interests switched to the newly created science - oceanography; the explorer participated in several oceanographic expeditions in the North Atlantic.

As a patriot of Norway, Nansen advocated the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905, after which politics became his main occupation for many years. Between 1905 and 1908, he served as Norway's envoy in London, helping to establish Norway's high international status.

The last decade of Nansen's life is associated with the League of Nations. Since 1921, he has been its High Commissioner for Refugees. He made a great contribution to the establishment of ties between Europe and Soviet Russia, rendering assistance to the starving in the Volga region. In 1922, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the repatriation and naturalization of people displaced by the First World War and the resolution of related conflicts. His most important initiative was the Nansen Passports, which allow stateless refugees to find refuge in other countries. After Nansen's death, his work was continued by the Nansen Refugee Organization, whose headquarters received the Nobel Prize in 1938 for efforts to distribute Nansen's passport.

In his youth, he became known as an athlete-skier and speed skater. At the age of 27, for the first time in history, he crossed the ice sheet of Greenland on skis, which was perceived by the general public as a great sporting achievement. In the course of an attempt to reach the North Pole - an expedition on the ship "Fram" - on April 8, 1895 reached 86 ° 13? 36 "N. Although thereafter, Nansen did not participate in pioneering ventures, the methods of movement and survival in the ice and the equipment he used became a role model for many world-class polar explorers; Nansen regularly consulted polar explorers from different countries.

Nansen studied zoology at the University of Christiania, worked at the Bergen Museum; his research on the structure of the central nervous system of invertebrates was summarized in his doctoral dissertation in 1888. After 1897, Nansen's main scientific interests switched to the newly created science - oceanography; the explorer participated in several oceanographic expeditions in the North Atlantic.

As a patriot of Norway, Nansen advocated the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905, after which politics became his main occupation for many years. Between 1905-1908 he served as Norway's ambassador in London, helping to establish Norway's high international status.

The last decade of Nansen's life is associated with the League of Nations. Since 1921, he has been its High Commissioner for Refugees. He made a great contribution to the establishment of ties between Europe and Soviet Russia, rendering assistance to the starving in the Volga region. In 1922, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the repatriation and naturalization of people displaced by the First World War and the resolution of related conflicts. His most important initiative was the Nansen Passports, which allow stateless refugees to find refuge in other countries. After Nansen's death, his work was continued by the Nansen Refugee Organization, whose headquarters received the Nobel Prize in 1938 for efforts to distribute Nansen's passport.

Origin

The Nansen family is of Danish origin, its ancestor was the merchant Hans Nansen (1598-1667), who at the age of 16 made the first voyage in the White Sea, and at the age of 21, at the invitation of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, explored the Arkhangelsk coast. In 1621-1636 he served in the Icelandic Company, making trips to the North every year. Later he lived in Copenhagen and, having a good command of Russian, served as a translator for King Christian IV. In 1633 he published Cosmography, which was largely based on the experience of his travels. In 1654, Hans Nansen was appointed burgomaster of Copenhagen, and in 1658 he led its defense during the war with the Swedes. He died in the office of the supreme judge, in the last years of his life he headed the political struggle of the Danish burghers against the nobles. Fridtjof Nansen, according to the recollections of his daughter Liv, highly appreciated the personality of his great-great-great-grandfather.

Only in the 18th century did the Nansens move to Norway: in 1761, Anker Antoni Nansen (1730-1765) was appointed to the position of a notary in Itre-Sogn (in the Yehren district south of Stavanger), where he married a local native, but after his death the family returned to Denmark. It is characteristic that A. Nansen did not speak Norwegian at all, but "was considered a good Norwegian." His only son Hans Leyerdahl Nansen (1764-1821) was a judge in Trondheim, and at the first emergency Storting in 1814 he became an active supporter of union with Sweden. From his first marriage, he had six children. The Nansen family believed that his second wife, Vendelia Christian Luisa Möller, was the illegitimate daughter of King Frederick VI. She was the mother of Baldur Fridtjof Nansen (1817-1885) - the father of Fridtjof Nansen. If this version is correct, then Fridtjof Nansen was a second cousin of King Frederick VIII, father of the Norwegian King Haakon VII.

Baldur Nansen was an extremely strict and religious man; as a lawyer, he enjoyed unlimited trust with his clients. First marriage married to Minna Mo - sister-in-law of the poet Jorgen Mo. Minna died in December 1854, a week after the birth of her sickly son Hans, who died at the age of 12 in August 1867. The second wife of Baldur Nansen was Baroness Adelaide Johanna Tekla Isidorea Wedel-Jarlsberg (1832-1877), from a clan of German origin, originating from the princes of Nassau-Siegen. Her uncle - Count Johan Kaspar Hermann Wedel-Jarlsberg (1779-1840) - served as Viceroy of Norway and was the author of the Norwegian Constitution of 1814. For the first time, Adelaide married the son of a baker, Lieutenant Jacob Bölling, from whom she had five children. Widowed in 1853, Adelaide married in 1858, after consulting with her older children, to Baldur Nansen, who was her chargé d'affaires. After the wedding, the Nansen couple moved to the Sture-Frön estate (now Nansen-Frön in the city of Oslo). The second marriage had six children: the first-born Fridtjof, born in 1859, died at the age of one. The second son, born October 10, 1861, was given the same name. In 1862, he had a brother, Alexander.

Becoming

Childhood and youth

Nansen referred to the events of his childhood in his autobiography "In the Free Air" (Norwegian Friluftsliv), published in 1916. All memoirists noted that the Nansen family was characterized by order and discipline, as well as an admiration for sports, especially skiing - it was cultivated by Adelaide Nansen. Fridtjof was taught to ski from the age of two. The children did not have purchased toys, Fridtjof made himself a bow and arrow, fishing rods, and windmills on the stream. As a teenager, he and his brother Alexander were allowed to spend a lot of time in the forest, Nansen even compared himself to Robinson. At the age of 10, Nansen tried to jump from a springboard in Huseby and was not crippled only by a miracle, from the age of 15 he regularly participated in ski competitions with his older (half-brother) brother Einar Bölling. In 1877, Nansen became a member of the newly founded Christiania Ski Club and in the same year finished 14th in the youth competition.

At school - he was sent to the prestigious institution of Yu. Osh and P. Foss - Nansen did not show any specific abilities, was distinguished by stubbornness and self-confidence, willingly participated in fights. Restlessness did not interfere with her favorite subjects: mathematics and physics. Once he tried to make a gun on his own from a cut of a water pipe and during his trials he almost lost an eye.

In 1877, Adelaide Nansen died suddenly. The older children had already left the parental home by that time; Fridtjof and Alexander remained with Baldur Nansen. My father sold the estate and moved to Christiania. In the same 1877, Nansen set the world record for ice skating for 1 mile (1.6 km), and in 1878 for the first time he became the winner of the national championship in cross-country skiing. In total, he won this championship twelve times.

In 1880, Fridtjof Nansen graduated from high school and passed the Examen artium, receiving top marks in science and drawing. He was not attracted by a career as a lawyer (Alexander Nansen began to study as a lawyer), on the advice of his father, he applied to a military school, but soon took him away. He hesitated for a long time and entered the Christian University, eventually choosing zoology, which greatly disturbed his father. The main reason for the choice was that "due to his youthful inexperience, he thought that the study of zoology is associated with a constant stay in the middle of nature - in contrast to chemistry and physics, for which he felt a special attraction." Nansen began his studies at the university at the beginning of 1881, at the same time he won second place in the national ice skating competition.

Nansen's scientific advisor was Professor Robert Collett (1842-1913), a longtime friend of the family, who was also the head of the zoology cabinet. He convinced Nansen to study the biology of seals, for which he had to go on a fishing boat to the Arctic Ocean. The necessary formalities were settled personally by Baldur Nansen, Fridtjof was to go under the command of Captain Axel Krefting (1850-1886) on the Viking schooner.

Swimming on the Viking

Swimming in the Arctic Ocean was described in detail by Nansen in his declining years in the book "Among the seals and polar bears" (Nor. Blant sel og björn, 1924). He frankly wrote that he himself did not know why he chose the North; young Nansen did not possess scientific training, but he was already an experienced shooter and hunter. The schooner Viking left Arendal on March 11, 1882 and headed for Jan Mayen, where harp seal puppies were housed. The first six days of the voyage, Nansen suffered greatly from seasickness; recovered, he performed any work assigned to him: loading coal, washing dishes in the galley, working as a lookout. If there were no storms, he was diligently engaged in collecting scientific data: he measured the temperature of sea water at different depths and, as a result, refuted the theory of the Swedish physicist E. Edlung, who argued that sea ice forms at depths of about 100 m, where supercooled water descends from the surface. Nansen also collected meteorological data and caught small marine animals, part of the catch (king prawns) went to the galley. When the seals appeared, Nansen finally gained prestige among the crew members with his marksmanship. On April 16, Nansen discovered a plaster in the ice - a tree carried into the ocean by a river - and at first thought that it was an American pine brought to the Arctic by the Gulf Stream, but then he made sure that the tree was brought by ice from Siberia. This fin first gave Nansen the idea that there was a constant drift of ice that could be used for an expedition to the Arctic Ocean.

By the beginning of May, the Viking approached Svalbard, the hunt was unsuccessful throughout this period. The vessel went south, on May 24, the team visited the southern coast of Iceland, after which they moved to Greenland. Navigation was extremely difficult due to the huge amount of icebergs and broken ice, but Nansen managed to make an important discovery. He found a brownish coating on perennial ice and found out that the coating consists of dust and lumps of silt. The samples taken by him were examined only in 1888 and showed that they contain mineral inclusions, humus and particles of lichens, probably originating from Siberia. Diatoms were also found, further convincing Nansen that a current existed between the northern coast of Siberia and the eastern coast of Greenland.

On June 27, the Viking was overwhelmed by continuous ice fields, and an unplanned drift began. The schooner was drifted to the northwest, sometimes 12-13 miles from the Greenland coast. While examining icebergs in early July, Nansen discovered that they can carry significant amounts of mineral material, giving an idea of ​​the geological structure of unexplored areas of Greenland. Nansen wanted to land on the coast, but Captain Krefting categorically forbade him to do so.

Only on July 16, the ice began to thin, the schooner lit couples ?, and on July 18 the ship rushed to Norway. On July 26, Nansen returned to Arendal. In 1884, in the Geographical Journal, Nansen published an article "Along the East Coast of Greenland," which first showed his extraordinary talent as a writer.

Bergen

Returning from the Arctic, Nansen did not begin to recover at the university. In return, Professor Collett offered him the then vacant position of the zoology department preparator at the Bergen Museum. At the age of 21, Nansen joined the director of the museum, Professor Daniel Cornelius Danielsen, and served in this position for the next six years. Danielsen was an honorary member of the Copenhagen Museum and Lund University, co-founder of the literary society, art gallery and theater in Bergen. Nansen was also looked after by Gerhard Armauer Hansen, the discoverer of the causative agent of leprosy, who introduced Fridtjof to Darwinism and instilled in him atheistic views.

In Bergen, Nansen settled in the house of the priest Wilhelm Holt and devoted himself to scientific work. At the same time, he was extremely interested in art and literature, especially appreciated the dramas of Ibsen and the poetry of Byron. By that time, he was fluent in English, French and German. His talent for painting manifested itself in his childhood, and in Bergen, Nansen began to take lessons from the artist Franz Schirtz, a pioneer of depicting the Arctic in painting, a participant in Arctic expeditions, who even advised him to quit science. The elder (half-uterine) sister of Nansen, Sigrid Bölling, at that time became a famous artist.

In October 1883, Nansen wrote to his father that he was extremely moved by the news of the successful use of skis and sleds by Adolf Nordenskjold to explore the interior of Greenland. In February 1884, he set another sports record: he single-handedly crossed the mountains from Bergen to Christiania, after which he took part in the ski jumping competition in Huseby and won them. Before Nansen, no one risked long skiing in the mountains; both Baldur Nansen and Professor Danielsen expressed a sharply negative attitude towards Fridtjof's act. Nansen's first romantic infatuation, Emmy Kaspersen, dates back to 1884, but the engagement was upset due to the deplorable financial situation of the scientist.

In 1883, the scientific direction of Nansen's activity was determined. In the summer, he received an invitation to the United States from the professor of paleontology at Yale University Charles Marsh, but declined it, because Baldur Nansen had recently suffered a stroke. However, Nansen fell under the influence of a professor at Jena University, Willy Kückenthal, who suggested that he study the central nervous system of invertebrates. In 1884, the founder of microbiology, Louis Pasteur, attended the international chemical congress in Norway, whose speeches directed Nansen's attention to acquaintance with the latest achievements of science abroad.

Internship in Europe

On April 2, 1885, Baldur Nansen died of a second stroke. Soon after, Nansen was awarded the Friela gold medal for his first scientific work - "Materials on the anatomy and histology of the misostome" (Norwegian Bidrag til myzoostormernes anatomi og histologi). Danielsen invited Nansen, who suffered greatly after the death of his father, to go abroad. In order to receive the funds necessary for the trip, Nansen asked to be given a medal in bronze, and the difference in cost to be paid in cash. The trip was necessary for him, first of all, to defend his doctoral dissertation. At the beginning of 1886, Nansen left for Germany, but in March he went to Pavia, where he studied new methods of staining microscopic preparations of nervous tissue with Professor Camillo Golgi. In April 1886, Nansen moved to Naples to the marine biological station of Anton Dorn, a friend of N.N.Miklouho-Maclay.

In Naples, Fridtjof Nansen became seriously interested in the Scottish Marion Sharp, who was traveling with her mother in Europe. When mother and daughter left Naples, Nansen gave up all his studies and went after them to Switzerland, where, however, relations between him and Marion were severed. The main reason for the rupture was Nansen's plans to cross the Greenland ice sheet. Nevertheless, F. Nansen and M. Sharp maintained friendly relations until the end of their lives.

In the summer of 1886, Nansen spent in Norway at a military training camp, in the second half of the year his second work was published, based on materials from a European trip, - "The structure and composition of the histological elements of the central nervous system" (Eng. The structure and combination of the hystological elements of the central nervous system), which became the basis of the doctoral dissertation. The work was written in English, according to some sources, it was M. Sharp who ruled the English text. This was unusual for that time: German was considered the language of science of the 19th century, Great Britain and the USA were scientifically peripheral.

Greenland expedition of 1888-1889

Plans

The idea to cross the Greenland ice sheet was first conceived by Nansen in the summer of 1882 aboard the Viking seal-cracking vessel. In 1883, he read an article in the newspaper describing the safe return of Nordenskjold from the Greenland expedition. Especially Nansen was struck by the words of the Sami accompanying the Swedish explorer that the surface of the glacier is very comfortable for skiing and allows you to cover great distances in the shortest possible time.

The principal difference between Nansen's plan and all previous ones was the direction of movement of the expedition. He himself wrote about it this way:

Nansen also paid great attention to the fact that when landing on the eastern coast of Greenland, which was then considered uninhabited, "bridges would be burned":

According to the plan, it was necessary to land in the Sermilik fjord to the west of Angmagssalik (65 ° 35? N) - there was a camp of the Eskimos. Further, the path went to the upper reaches of the fjord, from where the ascent to the ice sheet began. Glacier course - northwest to the Danish colony Christianshob in Disko Bay, where, according to Nansen's assumption, there was a gentle descent from the glacier. The planned distance was 600 km.

Preparation

After a trip to Stockholm, Nansen presented to the University of Christiania a petition for the leave of 5000 kroons he needed (about 2500 rubles at the rate of 1888). It began with the phrase: "I intend to undertake a summer trip across the mainland ice of Greenland", and ended with an extensive quote from Nordenskjold: "At present, one can hardly point to a more important task for a polar expedition than the study of the interior of this country." The university accepted and approved the plan, applying for funding from the government. At the same time, Nansen applied to the Norwegian Academy of Sciences for funding. The project of the expedition was published in the journal Naturen in January 1888. In February 1888, on a ski trip, Nansen first met his future wife Eva Sars, but then did not pay the slightest attention to her, as he was experiencing a stormy romance with the representative of the artistic bohemia Dagmar Engelhart (Norwegian Dagmar Engelhart; 1863-1942), known by the nickname "Klenodie" (Norwegian Klenodie - Jewel).

Funding was denied with a very harsh wording: "the government does not see the need to issue a significant amount for a private person's pleasure trip." A real anti-Anansen hysteria was unleashed in the press. Liv Nansen quotes in The Book of Father the text of a mocking announcement published in one of the humorous magazines:

Nansen was defended mainly by Danish specialists, for example, the famous polar explorer and connoisseur of Greenland Henrik Johan Rink (1819-1893), the creator of the theory of the ice age, who first suggested that the Greenland ice sheet was the last relic of the Quaternary glaciation. Rink taught Nansen and his companions the basics of the Greenlandic language. In the press, a geologist, Professor Amund Theodor Helland (1846-1918), publicly spoke in support of Nansen, his article attracted the attention of the Danish businessman Augustin Gamé? L (1839-1904), who already on January 12, 1888 provided Nansen with the required 5000 crowns. Nansen gladly accepted the gift, for which he was attacked by Norwegian patriots. While visiting Copenhagen on May 2, 1888, Nansen met Christian Maigor, a companion of Robert Peary, in his attempt to cross Greenland in 1886. Maigor assured Nansen that nothing is impossible in his enterprise.

Despite the hostile attitude of the press, there were people in Norway who wanted to participate in the expedition. The team included:

1. Fridtjof Nansen, 27 years old - head of the expedition, also served as a cook.
2. Otto Sverdrup, 33 years old - Captain of an Arctic fishing vessel by profession.
3. Olaf Christian Dietrickson, 32 - Prime Captain of the Norwegian Army, cartographer. Carried out the program of meteorological research.
4. Christian Christiansen, 24, is a North Norwegian peasant from the Trana farm (after which he is often called).
5. Samuel Johannessen Baltu, 27 years old - Sami, reindeer herder and musher.
6. Ole Nielsen Ravna, 46 years old - Sami, reindeer herder and musher.

All of those listed were experienced skiers and hunters with the skills to survive in the arctic nature. The Sami were supposed to be used as reindeer herders, but after they had to do without draft animals, their specific skills were not in demand. Nansen was introduced to Sverdrup by his brother Alexander, who by that time was working as a lawyer in the north of Norway, his estate was adjacent to the Sverdrup farm.

Defense of the thesis

On April 28, 1888, 4 days before the departure of the expedition, Nansen defended his doctoral dissertation "Nervous elements, their structure and interconnection in the central nervous system of ascidians and myxines." The defense passed with a scandal, one of the opponents said: "It is hardly possible to hope that the young man will return from this trip alive, and if he is happier that he received his doctorate before leaving, so why not give it to him?" According to the recollections of Nansen's daughter, Liv Nansen-Heyer, the work was appreciated already at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Nansen himself publicly stated that it would be better to have bad protection than bad equipment. Roland Huntford, by contrast, argues that negative reviews of Nansen's doctoral work were justified.

In Greenland

The expedition set off on May 2, 1888. Nansen, along with five comrades through Denmark, Scotland and Iceland, reached the east coast of Greenland. On July 17, there was a landing on floating ice 20 km from the coast. At the cost of tremendous efforts, the group in boats passed through the floating ice and reached the coast on 17 August. Initially, the hike was planned from the Ammassalik fjord, but in fact the expedition started to the south, from the Umivik fjord. Further advancement was carried out on skis through an unknown territory, the people themselves served as a draft force (each had more than 100 kg of cargo). Frosts reached -40 ° C, woolen clothes did not protect well from the cold, and there was almost no fat in the diet (Sverdrup even asked Nansen to give him a linseed oil-based boot ointment for food). On October 3, 1888, the expedition reached the western coast, making the first crossing over the ice of Greenland at a distance of about 470 km. During the entire trip, Nansen and his companions carried out meteorological observations and collected scientific materials.

Having reached the fjords of the western coast of Greenland, in particular the Ameralikfjord, Nansen and Sverdrup separated from the rest of the team, built a makeshift boat and tried to find help. The members of the expedition were reunited only on October 11. Back on October 6, reaching the coast, Nansen and Sverdrup learned that they were late for the last steamer heading home. The Eskimo messenger, who was sent by kayak that same day, managed, however, to hand over letters and telegrams from the members of the expedition to be sent to Norway. There was a winter stay in Gothob: Nansen categorically rejected the offer of the Danish governor to live in his house and settled in an Eskimo dwelling in order to study the life of this people from the inside. He participated in the hunting and fishing of the Eskimos, and mastered the Greenlandic language quite well.

On April 15, 1889, the steamer "Widbjörn" (date. Hvidbj? Rnen) arrived in Gothob, on which the members of the expedition sailed to Copenhagen, where they arrived on May 21. In the capital of Denmark, travelers became guests of the sponsor of the trip - A. Hamel. They returned to their homeland by steamer "Melchior" on May 30, 1889 as triumphs. Professor Brugger wrote in his biography of Nansen:

Greenland Expedition Results

Nansen received two awards in recognition of his services: the Vega Medal of the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography and the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain. The Danish government awarded him the Order of Danebrog, in Norway he was awarded the Order of St. Olaf. The enthusiasm of the population and the elite was so great that in 1890 the independent Geographical Society of Norway was founded.

As a result of the expedition, Nansen wrote two books: a two-volume "Skiing through Greenland" (Norwegian Paa ski over Grönland) and an ethnographic description of the Life of the Eskimos (Norwegian Eskimoliv), immediately translated into English. In pre-revolutionary Russia these books were not translated, and by 1926 a short retelling of The Life of the Eskimos by O. Popova had stood five editions. In 1928, Nansen greatly reduced the description of the crossing over Greenland. It was from this version that all subsequent Russian translations of the book were made (1930, 1937).

These books testify to Nansen's commitment at that time to the ideas of social Darwinism. In particular, he believed that the Eskimos of Greenland live under communism, and the so-called "progress" destroys their own perfect traditional culture, in which there are no prohibitions, violence and even swear words, and called for the immediate decolonization of the island and stop the accession of the Eskimos to achievements of civilization.

The general public viewed the Greenland Expedition primarily as a tremendous sporting achievement: the Greenland ice dome was crossed for the first time. However, the same enterprise brought a large amount of information on physical geography, summarized in two volumes of the scientific results of the expedition: Nansen was the first to determine the nature of the spread of continental glaciation on both the eastern and western coasts of Greenland. The hypothesis of A. Nordenskjöld about the existence of oases in the inner regions of the island was refuted. Nansen's conclusion that the Greenland Glacier should be considered a fairly accurate model of Quaternary glaciation, which affects the atmospheric processes of the Northern Hemisphere, was extremely important.

An important discovery by Nansen was that the surface of the Greenland Glacier is not ice, but snowy, and even in the warmest summer, the amount of snowfall does not decrease due to melting. AI Voeikov, who published in 1893 the article "Scientific results of Nansen's journey to Greenland", called the expedition one of the most memorable voyages of modern times, and the observations made by Nansen in the interior regions of Greenland - having a price of discovery.

In Gothob, Nansen discovered a strange tablet decorated with Chinese beads. Later it was found out that this is a spear thrower used by the Eskimos of Alaska. It was brought in by drifting ice, like all the wood used by the Greenlandic aborigines. Soil and mineral samples taken by Nansen from the drifting ice of the east coast of Greenland contained diatoms identical to those found by Nordenskjold in the ice of the Bering Strait. For the practice of hiking in ice, Nansen's mastery of the survival skills of the Eskimos: the cut of polar clothing, the use of sled dogs, sledges and kayaks played a huge role.

Marriage

Nansen met Eva Helena Sars (1858-1907) by chance on a ski trip in February 1888. Eva Sars was the daughter (20th child) of the famous Norwegian zoologist - priest Mikael Sars (1805-1869) and Maren Katrin Velhaven (1811-1898), sister of the famous poet Johan Sebastian Velhaven. Eva was by that time a famous chamber singer (mezzo-soprano), a performer of romances, in 1886-1887 she studied in Berlin with Desiree Artaud. In addition to music, Eva Sars was fond of painting and sports. A lover of skiing, she invented a women's ski suit, modeled on the Sami. Eve's second meeting with Nansen took place at the Music Cafe in Christiania shortly before his departure for Greenland.

After his return, Nansen received the position of curator of the zoological office of the University of Christiania - practically it was a sinecure that did not imply certain duties, but with a rather significant salary (before that, Nansen was considered to be on a one-year leave with the same salary). The whole year of 1889 passed for Nansen under the sign of hard work - writing two books, a report on the expedition, lecture tours. Nansen was ready to publicly announce the preparation of an expedition to the North Pole (the Australian government invited Nansen to lead an expedition to Antarctica, in response to this proposal he announced a plan to reach the Pole by the Norwegians).

On August 11, 1889, the engagement of Fridtjof Nansen and Eva Sars was announced. One of the conditions of the engagement was Eve's consent to Nansen's participation in the campaign to the North Pole. Otto Sverdrup, just learning about the betrothal, recalled:

The wedding took place on September 6, 1889. Nansen did not want to get married and by that time had officially left the state Lutheran church. Eve was the daughter of a priest, and Nansen gave in at the last moment. The day after the wedding, the couple went to Newcastle for a geographic convention, and after it ended - to Stockholm to award Nansen. The first joint New Year was celebrated in a very original way - with a ski trip to Mount Norefjell.

For the family home, Nansen chose the Svartebukte shore in Lusaker, where Eve's cousin, the architect Hjalmar Velhaven, built a log house in the Old Norse style, and Nansen himself thought out the interior design. The house received the name "Gothob" ("Good Hope"), since its construction was carried out on credit - against a future fee from a book about the Greenland Expedition.

In 1890, Eva Nansen became pregnant, but miscarried in the third month. In 1891, Eva gave birth to a child, who died just a few hours later, as a result, Nansen, who often traveled, became close to Dagmar Engelhart again (she also married in September 1889). In the absence of her husband, Eva returned to music and pedagogy. The reason for a serious conflict was also the impossibility of Eve's participation in the expedition to the North Pole. During the third pregnancy of Eva, Nansen was in London and, in particular, made a report to the Royal Geographical Society. On January 8, 1893, the first daughter of the Nansens was born, named Liv - Life (Norwegian Liv Nansen). "Now she was in Eve's arms, and Fridtjof could hit the road."

Expedition on the "Fram"

Theoretical basis. Planning

In his memoirs of the 1920s, Nansen argued that the plan for a voyage through Greenland and the project to reach the North Pole using pack ice drift were formed at about the same time - based on the results of the voyage on the Viking. In 1883-1884, the remains of an unsuccessful expedition were found on the east coast of Greenland on the ship Jeannette, commanded by US Navy Lieutenant George De Long. This expedition crashed in 1881 northeast of the New Siberian Islands. The Norwegian meteorologist Professor Henrik Mohn published an article in 1884 in which he analyzed these findings and confirmed Nansen's conjecture about the existence of a transpolar current; Mona's article became the rationale for the idea of ​​an expedition to the Pole.

On February 18, 1890, Nansen spoke at a meeting of the newly founded Geographical Society of Norway (the lecture was published in the March 1891 issue of Naturen). In his report, he analyzed in detail the reasons for the failures of previous Arctic expeditions and reported:

Nansen said that he assumes the existence of a sea transpolar current passing from the Bering Strait region through the circumpolar space to Greenland. According to his calculations, ice masses move from the New Siberian Islands to Greenland in 700 days. This meant that a practical use of the flow was possible.

Nansen's plan was to build a ship as small as possible and as strong as possible. The most important thing in a vessel is its ability to withstand ice pressure, for this the sides must be rounded so that the ice pressure squeezes the hull to the surface. Initially, Nansen intended to go through the Bering Strait in order to quickly reach the New Siberian Islands. Upon arrival at the site, it was supposed to go as far north as possible in open water, then moor to the ice floe and leave the rest to the ice. In case of misfortune and the need to evacuate, or, on the contrary, the expedition will be carried to the shores of an unknown land, Nansen intended to use sled dogs.

In Norway, Nansen's plans were unconditionally supported by intellectuals and the government. A new report to the Geographical Society was read by him on September 28, 1892. The report presented new evidence of the transfer of Siberian forest and river silt to the coast of Greenland in ice. The unicellular algae, diatoms, were also reliably identified.

A completely different attitude awaited Nansen abroad, especially after the report on November 14, 1892 at the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain. After the lecture, a debate took place (the materials were published in The Geographical Journal 1893, v. I, p. 1-32), which showed that Nansen was left completely alone. All reputable British polar explorers spoke out against Nansen, and Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock declared that "this is the most daring plan ever reported to the Royal Geographical Society." Most critics did not question Nansen's theoretical arguments, but argued that it was practically impossible to implement the plan. None of the disputants attached much importance to the discovery of things from "Jeannette".

Back in 1891, the leading American polar explorer of the time, Adolph Greeley, drew attention to Nansen's plan. He proved the absolute falsehood of Nansen's postulates, suggesting that the things found in 1884 in Greenland did not belong to members of the De Long expedition. According to Greeley, the North Pole is unattainable, as it is occupied by a powerful land mass pressed by a glacier, which serves as a source of pack ice (in the terminology of that time, paleocrystal ice). Likewise, he was skeptical of the ideal ice ship project, calling Nansen's intentions "a senseless suicide project." Typically, American public opinion was in the opposite mood, and the New York Times reporters did not hide their enthusiasm for the Nansen project.

In Russia, the Nansen plan was immediately met with the most benevolent attitude. At the request of the government of Norway, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire provided Nansen with a "recommendation sheet" similar to the one that was issued to Nordenskjold when sailing along the northern Russian shores, and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs notified the coastal authorities of Arkhangelsk and all Siberian provinces about this expedition and ordered to provide her with every possible help. At the request of the Geographical Society, the Main Hydrographic Directorate sent Nansen copies of all maps of the polar seas available in Russia. E. V. Toll personally in 1892 made the hardest trip to the New Siberian Islands, where he laid three evacuation bases for Nansen. Toll bought 40 Ostyak and 26 Yakut dogs for Nansen, which were to be delivered to the coast of the Yugorsky sphere and the mouth of the Olenek River.

Preparation

Initially, Nansen laid an estimate of 300 thousand Norwegian kroner (16 875 British pounds = 168 750 rubles), including the cost of the ship, equipment, salaries for the crew and the maintenance of the families of the members of the expedition. By a decree of the Storting of June 30, 1890, Nansen was allocated 200 thousand crowns on the condition that the expedition would have a purely Norwegian nationality. At the meeting of the Storting, there was a lively debate on the issue of Nansen's expedition, and the budget commission spoke out against state funding. As a result, the subsidy was put to a vote: 73 deputies voted for and 39 against. To cover the remaining expenses, a national subscription was opened in January 1891, which began with a donation of 20 thousand crowns by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway. Nansen avoided foreign financial support whenever possible, fearing public opinion. All expenses amounted to 445 thousand kroons (25 thousand pounds sterling).

From the very beginning, Nansen intended to turn to Colin Archer, a leading shipbuilder in Norway. Nansen sent his first (very careful) letter on March 6, 1890. Archer hesitated for a long time, the contract was signed on June 9, 1891. Three projects were proposed: Nansen, Sverdrup and Archer himself, which were agreed upon for a long time. The laying of the ship took place at the Archer shipyard in Larvik on September 11, 1891. Launching took place on October 26, 1892. Eva Nansen presided over the ceremony, she also christened the ship "Fram" ("Forward").

Back in Greenland, Nansen was convinced of the advantage of a small team of professionals, in which everyone carries an equal share of the work. The total number of applications for participation in the expedition exceeded 600, Nansen selected only 12 of them (including himself), but in Vardø, an hour and a half before sailing, the 13th member of the crew, sailor Bernt Bentsen, was received, who intended to go only as far as Yugorsky Shar. however, remained until the end of the expedition. One of the applicants was the famous English polar explorer Frederick Jackson, who submitted an application back in 1890, but he was refused due to origin, since the expedition was supposed to be national - Norwegian.

Swimming and drifting "Fram"

The Fram sailed on June 24, 1893 from Piperwick Bay from Nansen's Gothob estate in Lusaker. Until July 15, the ship sailed along the coast of Norway, loading supplies, and Nansen gave a series of public appearances to cover the expedition's financial shortfalls. After leaving Vardø, "Fram" set sail across the Barents Sea in a continuous fog that hung for four days. On July 29, "Fram" entered the Yugorsky Shar, in the Nenets camp of Khabarovo, where E. V. Toll's envoy - a half-Russian, half-Norwegian, Tobolsk bourgeoisie Alexander Ivanovich Trontheim - delivered 34 Ostyak huskies. We crossed the Kara Sea safely, ending up on the traverse of the Yenisei on 18 August. Here, in the continuous fog, groups of small islands were seen, one of which was named after Sverdrup.

By September 7, the expedition was near the Taimyr Peninsula, having previously discovered several groups of small islands, which were named after the assistant commander (Scott-Hansen Islands) and in honor of the expedition sponsors (Firnley Islands and Heiberg Islands). A series of islands, first noticed by Nordenskjold, was named after him by Nansen. Cape Chelyuskin was overcome on September 9 in a strong snow storm that threatened a forced winter. Nansen decided not to go to the mouth of the Olenek River, where Toll prepared a coal warehouse and a batch of sled dogs. Instead, the Fram went north along the open waters, skirting Kotelny Island. Nansen expected to reach 80 ° latitude, but solid ice fields stopped the Fram on September 20 at 78 ° N. sh. On September 28, the dogs were lowered from the board onto the ice, and on October 5, the start of the drift was officially announced.

On October 9, 1893, the Fram design was tested in practice: the first ice compression took place. All this time the vessel drifted randomly in shallow water (130-150 m). By November 19, the Fram was located farther south than at the time of the start of the drift. Nansen sank into depression. The polar night began on October 25, by which time a wind generator had been installed on board. In general, the main enemy of the Fram team was boredom, which led to conflicts between people squeezed in cramped living quarters, as well as Nansen's constant depression: he was very difficult to endure separation from his wife. In January 1894, Nansen first began to think about trying to reach the North Pole by sleigh. According to his biographer Huntford, this was a revolution in the way of transportation in the Arctic: dogs had to drag the load on sleds, and people had to go light on skis, saving energy. This method was to be used for the first time to reach the North Pole.

Only on May 19, 1894 "Fram" crossed 81 ° N. sh., moving on average at a speed of 1.6 miles per day (Nansen feared that if the drift speed was constant, it would take at least 5-6 years to cross the polar basin). During this period, a remarkable discovery was made: on the site of the shallow Polar Basin, an ocean with a depth of up to 3850 m was discovered. By the end of the summer of 1894, Nansen was convinced that the ship would not reach the Pole, and firmly decided in 1895 to go on a toboggan trip.

On November 16, 1894, Nansen announced to the crew that he was leaving the ship next year. "Fram" by that time was 750 km from Cape Fligeli and at a distance of about 780 km from the North Pole. Nansen hoped that two people, 28 dogs with a load of 1050 kg (37.5 kg per dog) would go on the hike. After reaching the pole (50 days were allotted for this), it will be possible to go either to Svalbard or to Franz Josef Land. Nansen identified Hjalmar Johansen, the most experienced skier and musher on the expedition, as his companion. The offer was made to him on November 19, and he immediately agreed.

The following months were devoted to feverish gatherings. It was necessary to build individual sledges and kayaks according to the Eskimo model. From 3 to 5 January 1895 "Fram" experienced the strongest ice compression during the entire expedition, so the team was ready to evacuate to the ice. The main danger was hummocks, which could fall on the deck with their entire mass; with such a load of hundreds of tons, the Fram could not rise from the ice bed (the ice around the vessel was 9 m thick). By the end of January, the expedition was carried out by currents to a latitude of 83 ° 34? from. sh. Thus, Greeley's record of 1882 was broken - 83 ° 24? from. sh.

Hike to the North Pole

The sledging expedition was equipped in a limited time (about two months), using only the materials available on board the expedition ship. Initially, it was supposed to perform on four sledges, but an unsuccessful start on February 26, 1895 showed that the chosen design of the sleds was unreliable - the crossbars broke. An attempt to start on February 28 on six sledges also failed: a small number of dogs (28) actually forced to go the same distance six times. Because of this, food supplies were significantly reduced (850 kg: 120 days for humans and only 30 for dogs). It turned out that the polar wolf fur suits were poorly tailored, and Nansen and Johansen were sweating a lot. Taken off for the night, the fur suits froze. Nansen decided to go back to the wool knitted suits tested on the Greenland Expedition of 1888. They were also uncomfortable: they did not protect well from the cold, they froze on the move, and at night they thawed in a sleeping bag and were constantly wet.

Finally, Nansen and Johansen performed on March 14, 1895 on three sledges. The trip to the north turned out to be extremely difficult: headwinds were constantly blowing, hiding the distance traveled due to ice drift (on average, travelers covered from 13 to 17 km per day), dogs were weakened and could not sleep, woolen suits resembled ice armor. Nansen and Johansen repeatedly fell through the young ice, frostbitten their fingers. The temperature was constantly kept between? 40 ° C and? 30 ° C. Finally, on April 8, 1895, Nansen decided to stop fighting for the pole: reaching 86 ° 13? 36 ?? from. sh., they turned to Cape Fligeli. About 400 km remained to the North Pole.

On April 13, 1895, the exhausted polar explorers went to bed without starting the chronometer, and it stopped. The tables necessary for calculating the time by the lunar distance method were forgotten on the "Fram", it remained to determine the distance from the place of the last observation. On Easter April 14, Nansen determined the latitude, longitude and magnetic declination, while calculating Greenwich time, Nansen was mistaken: already in 1896 it turned out that his chronometer was in a hurry for 26 minutes. When determining geographic coordinates, this gave an error of 6.5 ° longitude.

In April, the direction of the ice drift changed to the north, which greatly restrained the polar explorers. By April 19, food for dogs remained for three days, and the polar explorers began to slaughter the weakest animals, feeding them to the rest. On April 21, Nansen and Johansen discovered a larch log frozen into the ice, which confirmed Nansen's theory of pack ice drift from the Siberian coast to Greenland. Only in this way the natives of Greenland could obtain the timber necessary for economic purposes. Nansen and Johansen carved their initials on the log. By the beginning of June - the time of the ice melting - they had 7 dogs left. From June 22 to July 23, 1895, Nansen and Johansen were blocked by continuous fields of melting hummocks, they called their forced camp the "Camp of languor". The temperature sometimes exceeded zero, I had to sleep in wet sleeping bags with skis underneath. They had to kill the last dogs and abandon most of the equipment, as well as chop off the three-meter sledges, making them suitable for dragging by one person.

In Franz Josef Land. Wintering

On August 10, Nansen and Johansen reached the archipelago, which Nansen gave the name White Land (Norwegian. Hvidtenland) - this was the northernmost spurs of Franz Josef Land. The neighboring island, covered with a glacier, Nansen took for two islands, giving them the name of his wife and daughter: Eve and Liv.

Inaccurate maps of that time could not help them in any way, it remained to go as far as possible before the onset of winter. Finally, on August 28, 1895, Nansen decided to stay for the winter in an unknown country. Wintering took place from August 28, 1895 to May 19, 1896 at Cape Norway (80.2, 55.616667) in the western part of Jackson Island. Nansen and Johansen built a dugout from walrus skins and stones. The stones were broken out of the moraines, a piece of sled runners served as a lever, the gravel was loosened with a ski pole, a spade was made from a walrus blade, tied to the sled crossbar, and a walrus tusk served as a pick. Construction began on September 7, housewarming was celebrated on September 28.

The temperature in the dugout was maintained at the level of freezing of water, the only means of lighting and cooking was a fat lamp made from the binding of sled runners (nickel silver). Polar explorers ate exclusively bear and walrus meat and bacon, leaving the supplies taken from the Fram for the next year's journey. The chosen place for wintering was also unsuccessful, with frequent gale winds (once the wind broke Nansen's skis and carried away and badly crushed Johansen's kayak) and large flocks of Arctic foxes, which plundered the meager property of the winterers (for example, a tench or a thermometer). Since March, I had to switch to starvation rations: stocks ran out, and the remnants of supplies from the "Fram" were covered with a fungus from dampness. Only on March 10 was it possible to shoot a bear, the meat of which the winterers ate for 6 weeks.

Return

On May 21, 1896, the winterers set out on a further journey, hoping to reach the Spitsbergen archipelago. Since all the dogs were eaten back in 1895, they had to walk on foot, and the waterways were overcome by kayaking. If the wind allowed, impromptu sails made of blankets were placed on the sleds (this was the case when crossing McClintock Island). On June 12, a catastrophe almost happened: the polar explorers settled on the shore for hunting, when a strong wind swept the kayaks into the sea. Nansen, risking his life, swam to the kayaks and returned the property piled on board. On June 15, Nansen nearly drowned when a walrus ripped open the canvas side of the kayak, fortunately without inflicting bodily harm on the traveler.

On June 17, 1896, Nansen heard a dog barking while cooking. Not believing his ears, he decided to go on exploration and accidentally stumbled upon Frederick Jackson, who with his expedition had been at Cape Flora since 1894.

Nansen described it this way:

Jackson at the first meeting was sure that "Fram" was dead, and Nansen and Johansen were the only survivors. He soon became convinced of his mistake, both from the words and diaries of Nansen, and from the results of a medical examination. At the Jackson base, the weighing showed that after a difficult wintering and crossing, Nansen gained 10 kg, and Johansen - 6 kg. Nansen wrote: “This, therefore, is the effect of winter when eating only bear meat and lard in the Arctic climate. This is not at all like the experience of other polar travelers ... ”. Polar explorers spent more than a month at Cape Flora, getting used to civilized life and doing geological research. Comparison of the maps of Nansen and Jackson made it possible to clarify the size of the archipelago. In addition, it turned out that in March, Jackson did not reach the Nansen and Johansen winter quarters only 35 miles, since he did not have the means to overcome the floodplains. On July 26, 1896, the yacht Windward arrived at Cape Flora, on which Nansen and Johansen returned to Norway, setting foot on Vardø land on August 13. Nansen immediately sent a telegram to Prime Minister F. Hagerup, ending with the words: "I expect the return of Fram this year." Nansen's plans were fully justified: "Fram" arrived in Skiervö on August 20, without suffering any damage and with a full team.

In Nansen's absence

Since 1894, one of the main topics for newspaper "ducks" has become the fact of Nansen's conquest of the North Pole. One of the first sensations of this kind was inflated by the newspaper Le Figaro in April 1894. Eva Nansen received a letter from a clairvoyant in 1895, allegedly sent from the North Pole. Liv Nansen cites the text of a telegram received on September 11, 1895 from Police Chief Kopperwick, which said that a bottle with Nansen's letter was allegedly found in the sea, thrown at the North Pole on November 1 of the previous year. The New York Times in 1895 published a series of reports allegedly from Irkutsk from "Agent Nansen", which caused a stir even in the National Geographic Society. Serious researchers ignored the rumors. The first to meet Nansen in his homeland was the initiator of his theory - Professor H. Mon, who was in Tromsø. The famous meteorologist believed Nansen was long dead.

A few weeks after Fridtjof's departure, the impresario Vogt-Fischer came to Eva Nansen with a request to arrange several concerts, later he was proud that he had managed to persuade her. Nansen himself, in one of his last letters, also persuaded his wife to return to artistic activity. The return of Eva Nansen to the stage, according to the recollections of her daughter Liv, was a triumph, and in November 1895 she performed in Stockholm in the presence of the royal family. The Nansen couple reunited again at Hammerfest on August 18, 1896.

National triumph

The return of "Fram" has become a national holiday. All the way from Tromsø to Christiania (August 20 - September 9, 1896) there was a celebration in every port. The vessel was in tow and a temporary crew was hired. On the way to Bergen, E. V. Toll sat on the "Fram", he also congratulated Nansen on behalf of Russia at the royal banquet. In Christiania, the Fram met the navy in full force, and on the way to the royal audience, Nansen's team passed through a triumphal arch formed by the bodies of 200 gymnasts. University students crowned the team with laurel wreaths.

Nansen was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olaf; Sverdrup and Archer received First Class Commander Crosses; Blessing, Scott-Hansen and Johansen became knights of St. Olaf. All of the above were awarded the "Fram" commemorative medal, the remaining 7 team members did not receive any awards on the grounds that they "did not have higher education."

In the United States of America, Nansen was awarded the highest honor of the National Geographic Society - the Callum Medal.

In 1897, the Russian government, at the request of the Russian Geographical Society, awarded Nansen the Order of St. Stanislav 1st degree, and the Council of the Society approved the awarding of the Konstantinovskaya gold medal, the highest award "for a perfect unparalleled feat that constitutes an era in the exploration of the Arctic Ocean ..." ... On April 18, 1898, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences elected Nansen as its honorary member.

On December 8, 1896, the Nansen Foundation for the Advancement of Science and the Nansen Prize for Best Scientific Research were established in Stockholm. The initiator of the foundation was Professor Bregger, Nansen himself was appointed a life member of the board. In the shortest possible time, 500 thousand crowns were collected - an amount exceeding the cost of the expedition.

Results of the Norwegian Polar Expedition

Although Nansen did not manage to reach the North Pole, in the words of Sir Clement Markham (Chairman of the Royal Geographical Society), "the Norwegian expedition solved all the geographic problems of the Arctic." The expedition proved that there is no land in the North Pole region, instead establishing the existence of an ocean basin. Nansen discovered that the Coriolis force due to the rotation of the Earth plays a huge role in the drift of pack ice. Based on the analysis of the results of the expedition in 1902, Nansen deduced two simple rules describing the speed and direction of ice drift, known as "Nansen's rules" and which were widely used in polar expeditions of the 20th century. In addition, Nansen was the first to describe in detail the process of growth and melting of pack ice, and also described the phenomenon of "dead water".

For polar explorers and athletes, Nansen's technological discoveries play a huge role. For the first time, he used the experience of survival of the Eskimos on a large scale, and a number of his inventions (light bamboo sledges with metal runners and an apparatus for cooking food and simultaneously melting drinking ice with an efficiency of 90%) are still in use.

Criticism

Contemporaries highly appreciated Nansen's feat, two Americans were the exception of polar explorers: Robert Peary, the future conqueror of the North Pole, expressed bewilderment why Nansen and Johansen could not return to the Fram after their three-week dash to the Pole. Adolphe Greeley, who categorically rejected all of Nansen's arguments, already in 1896 did not fail to reproach the researcher for the fact that he "abandoned his people hundreds of miles from the inhabited land" and thus "neglected the most sacred duty of the head of the expedition." Nansen brought his judgments in the introduction to the description of his journey without any explanation. The commentator on Nansen's travels, Mikhail B. Chernenko, wrote about this:

Also, not all compatriots accepted Nansen as a national hero. Among the main critics in Norway were those whom Nansen himself admired - Knut Hamsun and Henrik Ibsen. Even after the end of the Greenland expedition, Hamsun published an article in the Dagbladet newspaper in which he stated that her main achievement was the measurement of temperatures below? 40 ° C.

According to the Norwegian researcher Thor Bumann-Larsen, Ibsen perceived the popularity of Nansen as a threat to the spiritual life of the country, because after his achievements "there are too many sports, exercise and skiing in Norway." In other words, Nansen promoted "life in the air" to the detriment of "life in the library." Ibsen's dislike for Nansen intensified in 1897 for personal reasons: the playwright's son Sigurd was denied the post of professor of sociology at the University of Christiania, but Nansen received his professorship just 14 days later - and without the obligation to lecture. Ibsen brought Nansen out in the drama When We Dead We Awake as the landowner Ulfheim, a frantic bear hunter.

Nansen's activities 1896-1905

Scientific work

Nansen's most important task was to write a report on the expedition, based on travel diaries and primary processed scientific materials. R. Huntford asserted that Nansen had prepared a report of 300,000 words already in December 1896, and in English it was published in January 1897. Nevertheless, the preface to the first Norwegian edition by Nansen himself was dated September 27, 1897. The description of the trip is dedicated to Eva Nansen - "She, who gave the name to the ship and had the courage to wait." The book was titled "Fram in the Polar Sea: The Norwegian Polar Expedition 1893-1896" (Norwegian Fram over Polhavet. Den norske polarf? Rd 1893-1896) and became extremely popular all over the world: its translations were published in 1897-1898 into English, German, Swedish and Russian (the latter is based on the Swedish edition). The royalties from editions and reprints made Nansen a wealthy man. However, this publication caused the breakdown of relations between Nansen and Sverdrup: the captain of the "Fram" wanted to see himself as a co-author of the book, since it contained his "Report on the voyage of the" Fram "from March 14, 1895 to August 20, 1896", and believed that that he did not receive a fee. At the same time, he was appointed commander of the new Norwegian polar expedition on the Fram. Again, relations between them improved only by 1927.

In 1897, Nansen was appointed professor at the University of Christiania with an exemption from lecturing until the end of the processing of scientific materials of the expedition. The work took about 10 years, the last (sixth) volume of the report was published in English already in 1906. The third volume was written solely by Nansen and was devoted to the oceanography of the Polar Basin. Since 1900, Nansen gave lectures on oceanography at the university, and since 1908 he was approved as a professor of oceanography, not zoology.

In 1899, Nansen took part in the Stockholm meeting, which discussed the creation of the International Council for the Study of the Sea. The council was created in 1902, from Norway it included Nansen, Ekman, Helland-Hansen and others. The Council established permanent hydrological sections, on which two-week measurements were to be carried out four times a year (February, May, August, November) at the same points with the same type of instruments. In the same 1902, the Central Laboratory for International Marine Research was created in Christiania, headed by Nansen and which became the main scientific center for oceanographic research.

Antarctic project

Even before the end of the processing of materials from his own polar expedition, Nansen was planning a Norwegian expedition to Antarctica. Her plan was outlined in a lecture delivered to the Royal Geographical Society during a lecture tour of England in 1897. Nansen believed that a successful expedition to the South Pole should consist of two groups - a ship and a coastal one. Since Antarctica, according to Nansen, is a giant volcanic archipelago covered with glaciers, sleds and sled dogs are ideal for getting around. The ship's squad is used to transport equipment and dogs (about 100 in number) and is used for oceanographic research. The coastal detachment, having found a base for wintering, will make a march to the Pole. The expedition began to be carried out, but the "Fram" seemed unsuitable for Nansen's new plans (especially since the ship was occupied at that time by the Sverdrup expedition). In 1899, Colin Archer developed a project for a new South Pole vessel, but it was not implemented.

Immediately after the return of "Fram" Nansen became the main specialist in polar research in the world, in the words of R. Huntford - "an oracle for all researchers of the polar latitudes of the North and South." Nansen advised the Belgian Baron Adrien de Gerlache, who was planning his expedition to Antarctica in 1898, one of the team members was Roald Amundsen. Knud Rasmussen, the famous explorer of Greenland, compared the visit to Nansen with being knighted. At the same time, Nansen categorically refused to meet with his compatriot Carsten Borchgrevink, considering him a fraud, although it was he who made the first successful wintering on the Antarctic coast. In 1900, Robert Scott came to Norway for consultations with his patron Clement Markham, Nansen's longtime friend who was preparing the British expedition to Antarctica. Despite the fact that the British practically ignored all the advice, Nansen and Scott remained on good terms.

Swimming on "Mikaela Sars"

In 1900, Dr. J. Yort began a permanent oceanographic expedition aboard the ship "Mikael Sars" (named after Eva Nansen's father), specially built for marine research. Nansen was responsible for equipping the expedition with the necessary scientific equipment and himself took part in it (described in the book "On the Free Air"). The purpose of the trip was a comprehensive study of the physical structure of the ocean, marine fauna and flora, conditions and resources of fishing. On July 23, 1900, Mikael Sars left Christiania and headed for Iceland. After conducting several oceanographic stations, the team visited the fjords of Iceland, and Nansen visited the Icelandic writer Sigvator Grimsson on July 31, who created the fundamental history of the Icelandic church and lived like Job. On August 4, the ship approached the edge of the pack ice: Nansen was especially interested in the boundary of the mixing of warm Atlantic and polar waters. The station on August 5 showed that for several miles the distance traveled by the vessel, the water temperature can change by 3 ° to 5 ° C. Then, due to heavy fogs, it was necessary to go to Jan Mayen for some time, and on August 17 the team returned to Norway. The main result of the expedition was the discovery of the fact that sea bass leads a deep-sea lifestyle. Nansen confirmed his long-standing guess that giant waves (up to 40-50 m in height) can form in the deep layers of the ocean, resulting from the mixing of light and heavy layers of water with different temperatures, but invisible from the surface. It was also found that in the Norwegian Sea, below the 800-1100 m horizon, the water temperature drops to? 1.2 ° C, while its salinity remains unchanged. The three-week voyage of 1900 marked the beginning of systematic oceanological research in the North Atlantic, such voyages have since become annual.

A family

According to the testimony of the eldest daughter of Fridtjof and Eva - Liv, Nansen found it difficult to adapt to family life after the expedition on the Fram. He became irritable and uneven in handling, and he could hardly bear general attention and worship. In his diary, Nansen wrote:

Eva Nansen went on a tour at the end of 1896, leaving Fridtjof alone for three months. In her absence, Nansen reconnected with Dagmar Engelhart, and Professor Bregger informed Eve about this. Nevertheless, on foreign trips and at official events in 1897, Eva accompanied Nansen everywhere, although he did not break with D. Engelhart and did not hide his relationship with her too much.

On September 16, 1897, Kore (Norwegian K? Re Nansen) was born - the second child and first son in the Nansen family, immediately after that Fridtjof went to the United States on a lecture tour, which was supposed to bring funds for the construction of a new house and an expedition to the South pole. He was unable to return home by Christmas, and the spouses' correspondence shows that they were on the verge of breaking up. The situation was complicated by the fact that in the United States, Nansen was offered to head the concern for the colonization and arrangement of Alaska, where the "Gold Rush" was just taking place. On the advice of Eve and his brother Alexander, Nansen rejected this offer, and in January 1898 terminated the contract with the company that organized the trip to America, and was forced to pay a large penalty. From the USA, Nansen went to Great Britain, and in 1899 he toured Germany, where his fee reached 1,500 marks per performance.

Around the Nansen estate in Lusaker in the period 1896-1899, a circle of artistic elite was formed, artists E. Werenscheld, E. Petersen, G. Munte settled here, scientists - brothers E. and O. Sars (relatives of Eve), opera singer T. Lammers , Professor M. Mo, writer H. King, publisher O. Thommesen and others. Eva Nansen continued to give singing lessons during this period, one of her students was Dagmar Engelhart. In 1899, E. Nansen ceased her concert activity forever, but she often organized home musical evenings. This social circle had a great influence on the personality and hobbies of Nansen, in particular, E. Werenskjold convinced Nansen to return to painting, especially since Nansen himself illustrated his books.

The Nansen family grew: in 1899 the daughter Irmelin (Norwegian Irmelin Nansen), whose home nickname was Immi, was born, in 1901 - the son of Odd (Norse Odd Nansen). During this period Fridtjof Nansen bought a plot of forest in Forneby with an area of ​​55 mol (5 hectares) and decided to build a large house in which it was possible not only to house a family, but also to engage in scientific work and arrange social events. Liv Nansen wrote in The Book of Father that she does not know at what point this decision was made.

The house was built by Hjalmar Velhaven in 1901 in the style of a Norwegian fortress, the housewarming was celebrated on April 4, 1902. The manor was named "Pulhogda" (Norwegian Polh? Gda, "Polar height"). Liv Nansen proudly wrote that the house had a bathroom that none of the neighbors had. At the same time, Nansen bought the Sirkje farm, which became the family's summer residence. In 1903, the fifth child of the Nansens was born - the son of Osmund (Norwegian? Smund Nansen), who suffered from cerebral paresis.

In 1904, Nansen bought the 32-ton yacht Veslemöy (Norwegian Veslem? Y, "Maiden from the Mountains"), named after a cycle of songs written for Eva Nansen by E. Grieg to lyrics by A. Garborg. The yacht could be used both for family vacations and for scientific research: Nansen made oceanographic voyages on it in 1904, 1909, 1911 and 1912.

Nansen - politician and diplomat

Liv Nansen wrote:

Nansen was interested in politics from an early age - when he was 17, he attended a meeting in Christiania on March 13, 1879, dedicated to the Norwegian flag with his father and older brothers. Nansen's father and all relatives were unionists, and Baldur Nansen even entered into a controversy with Bjornson on this matter. Fridtjof's younger brother Alexander at the university led the pro-Swedish student movement. The Swedish-Norwegian contradictions escalated at the very beginning of the 1890s, and the formal reason for them was the question of Norway's own consular service. Nansen closely followed the course of the political struggle and, having become a symbol of the national revival of Norway, joined the struggle to expand the rights of his native country. While preparing to sail on the Fram, Nansen published several articles in the London Times in which he explained to the European public the true status of Norway in the union (before that Norway was portrayed as a rebellious country, like Ireland). He returned to this issue in 1898, publishing in the Times a detailed account of Norway's constitutional struggle against Sweden.

According to T. A. Schrader, Nansen was first connected with the affairs of big politics during his first visit to Russia in April 1898. In St. Petersburg, he was awarded an audience with Nicholas II, during which the issue of Norway's non-intervention in the event of a Russian-Swedish conflict was discussed. At the request of Prime Minister J. Steen, Nansen explored the possibilities of revising trade agreements between Russia and the Norwegian-Swedish state and met with Finance Minister S. Yu. Witte. The negotiations ended unsuccessfully, as Nansen telegraphed from Vienna, fearing that he could be followed by intelligence agencies.

Independence of Norway

Another aggravation of Swedish-Norwegian relations took place in February 1905, when negotiations on a settlement with the consular service came to a standstill. The cabinet of F. Hagerup, which took a moderate position, was replaced by the cabinet of K. Mikkelsen (the former mayor of Bergen), who declared Norway's withdrawal from the union as the main point of his program. Nansen responded to the events with a series of five articles ("Our Way", "Men", "Courage", "Frivolity" and "Will"), published in February - March in the newspaper "Verdens Ganges". Nansen had a great influence on public opinion, Mikkelsen succeeded in passing through the Storting a law on an independent Norwegian consular service. Mikkelsen really wanted to see Nansen in his office, but the national hero invariably refused (Mikkelsen tried to persuade him to return to the state church, without which public service was impossible), but yielded to the prime minister's request for assistance and went in March to Berlin and London, where he explained to the representatives of the elite and the broad masses of Norway's problem. If the trip to Germany was unsuccessful, then in England Nansen achieved a breakthrough: he published an article in the Times newspaper on the situation in Norway, immediately reprinted in Switzerland and France and became a serious blow to Swedish diplomacy.

On May 17, 1905 - on the Day of the Constitution of Norway - Nansen spoke at a rally in Christiania, where, in particular, he declared:

On May 23, the Storting decided to create a separate Norwegian consular service, King Oscar II refused to ratify the law; in response, on May 27, the Norwegian cabinet resigned, but the king refused to accept it. On June 7, the Norwegian government transferred its powers to the Storting, and the parliament, by unanimous decision of both chambers, again did not accept the resignation of the government. The decision stated that from now on the government should exercise the powers that were previously in the hands of the king, and, therefore, the Swedish king ceases to fulfill the duties of the Norwegian king. At the same time, the Storting sent a report to Stockholm about the incident, as well as a request that one of the princes of Bernadotte become king of Norway. Nansen sent an article to England the next day explaining the position of the Norwegian side. On June 9, the Norwegian national flag was raised over Akershus.

The Swedish side considered the severance of the union illegal and refused to accept it, and no response was given to the request for the seizure of the Norwegian throne by one of the Bernadottes. Norway responded by announcing mobilization, to which Sweden demanded a plebiscite to break the union. Voting took place on August 13, 1905, its results were very indicative: 368 892 votes against and only 184 for its preservation. On September 23, the Swedish government agreed to the peaceful dissolution of the union. Immediately after the plebiscite, Nansen left for London, on the way to Copenhagen, meeting with the Ambassadors of Great Britain and Germany in Denmark, as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Count Raben. When he arrived in England, the British Parliament was still on vacation and Nansen was secular; Eva remained in Norway. Norwegian-Swedish negotiations were underway in Karlstad, the final text of the agreements was approved by the Storting on October 9, and by the Riksdag on October 13.

Back in July 1905, Mikkelsen sent Nansen to Copenhagen with a secret mission to convince Prince Karl of Denmark to take the Norwegian throne. Nansen wrote about the negotiations in his diary:

After the break of the union in Norway, the positions of radical liberals were strong, calling for the establishment of a republic. Nansen believed that the propaganda of the liberals weakened Norway's authority abroad, and sought to hold the election of the Norwegian king as soon as possible; he went to Copenhagen for the second time on October 20, 1905. On October 23, Nansen telegraphed the terms of Prince Charles - a plebiscite to the government, and he himself took an active part in its conduct. The referendum was held on November 12 and 13: 259,563 voters voted for the monarchy, 69,254 for the republic. On November 18, the Storting approved the results of the plebiscite and elected Prince Charles as King of Norway Haakon VII, his two-year-old son Alexander - Crown Prince Ulaf. On November 25, King and Queen Maud arrived in Christiania, where they were greeted by Fridtjof and Eva Nansen.

Ambassador in London

After gaining independence, Norway had to take its place in the world, it was especially important to maintain neutrality and territorial integrity. In April 1906, Nansen was appointed the first Norwegian envoy (with the rank of minister) to Great Britain and left for London. His main task was constant interaction with representatives of the largest world powers in order to maintain a neutral position in Norway and prepare a Norwegian-British treaty, since Nansen was extremely popular in Great Britain. Nansen's daughter Liv described the start of work as difficult: Foreign Secretary Edward Gray was absent, and Nansen himself could not find a suitable embassy room in London, and he placed the mission directly at the Royal Palace Hotel in Kensington overlooking Hyde Park.

Despite his immense popularity in the secular circles of London and good personal relations with King Edward, Nansen did not consider diplomatic duties to be his profession and in letters often complained of boredom. However, his permanent stay in London allowed Nansen to communicate with many representatives of the scientific community and work in the Royal Geographical Society: Nansen again returned to plans to conquer the South Pole, and also began to write a large book on the history of polar research. At the same time, he arranged for King Haakon VII and Queen Maud to visit London on 12 November 1906. From this visit, the royal couple and Nansen had strong ties of friendship.

The Norwegian-British treaty was signed on November 2, 1907 in London, after which Nansen considered his task to be fully completed. Despite the persuasion of King Edward, Nansen resigned on November 15.

Death of Eva Nansen

In early 1905, Nansen entered into an affair with Sigrun Munte (née Sandberg, 1869-1957), the wife and student of the famous artist Gerhard Munte. Her mother Jenny Sandberg was at one time married to Bjornson's eldest son. The Muntés were the Nansens' neighbors in Lusaker, Sigrun became famous as a tapestry maker in the Old Norse style, of which even Prince Eugene of Sweden was an admirer. Distinguished by beauty, she was the model for many painters; for example, the painting "Three Princesses" by E. Werensheld, in which S. Munte was captured, adorned the wardroom at the "Fram". It is noteworthy that at the ceremony of raising the national Norwegian flag on June 9, 1905, Nansen was with Sigrun Munte, and not with Eve. This connection, which Eve was aware of, became the reason for the strongest cooling in the relations of the Nansens, therefore F. Nansen left for London without his family, E. Nansen was not present at the coronation of Haakon VII in Nidaros Cathedral, at which the envoy in England was obliged to represent. Liv Nansen in his memoirs describes in sufficient detail the relationship between Fridtjof and Eva Nansen of these years, citing numerous epistolary evidence, but the name Sigrun Munte does not mention. This was probably due to the fact that Sigrun, being a very exalted person, threatened Nansen with suicide if he did not marry her.

In October 1906, Eva Nansen visited Fridtjof in London, which coincided with the official visit of the Norwegian royal couple, the Nansens lived with them in Windsor and returned to their homeland by Christmas. For the second time E. Nansen visited her husband in London in April 1907, but in June she returned to Norway. There was another reason for disagreement: at the end of April 1907, Nansen spoke at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society with a report on the immediate goals of polar research. In his report, he emphasized that the most important task is a comprehensive study of the Arctic Ocean basin both from the point of view of geography and geophysics. The study of the Arctic will provide a better understanding of the mechanics and physics of the earth's atmosphere, and will also allow the development of a methodology for long-term weather forecasts and ice forecasts. At the same time, Nansen's South Pole Expedition was being prepared. Amundsen's biographer Thor Boumann-Larsen wrote:

In late September or early October 1907, Roald Amundsen appeared at Pulhögde, asking for Fram to try to reach the North Pole according to Nansen's old plan - drifting from the Bering Strait. Further from different points of view, Nansen himself and his daughter described. In a letter to Sir Clement Markham dated 4 April 1913, Nansen wrote:

Liv Nansen recalled that her father did not dare to talk with Eve about his polar plans, Amundsen's visit only exacerbated previous problems, especially since for Nansen - in his own words - the conquest of the South Pole was "the final chord of the polar explorer's career." After talking with Eve (Amundsen was waiting in the living room), Nansen said briefly: "You will receive a Fram."

In November 1907, Nansen's eldest son, Kore, fell ill with pneumonia, his father was in London, and the family doctor did not bother Fridtjof with details. However, on November 21, while nursing her son, Eva Nansen became seriously ill. Only on December 1 did they decide to notify Nansen by writing about the symptoms. On December 7, on the day of Eve's 49th birthday, a sharp deterioration followed (a complication in the heart), after which a telegram was sent to Nansen in London. On December 8, he left for Norway, on December 9, in Hamburg, he was greeted by a telegram about the death of Eve. The Nansen's attending physician, Dr. Jensen, wrote to Sigrun Munte that the course of the disease was mysterious and inexplicable.

Eva Nansen bequeathed not to bury herself and burn her body. There was no crematorium in Norway at that time, Fridtjof Nansen and Dr. Jensen took the body to Gothenburg, where it was cremated. The place where the ashes were scattered is unknown: according to Liv Nansen, it was scattered at the dacha in Serkje, one of the legends says that Eve's ashes fertilized the rose bush in Pulhogda.

According to Liv Nansen, upon arrival, Fridtjof had completely crazy eyes, and he cried like a child. After the funeral, he plunged into melancholy: he did not receive anyone, did not talk to anyone. All worries about the family fell on the eldest daughter Liv, who even had to leave school at the age of 15.

Friends of the family and faithful servants took care of Nansen's children, later the eldest daughter Liv Nansen was assigned to a boarding school in Switzerland, which she herself perceived "as exile." Nansen raised his eldest son Kore himself and from 1909 he took him on his scientific and hunting trips, but he spent most of his time outside the family. Odd's son spent his school years in the family of Ph.D. K. Lange in Vinderen. The childless Sigrun Munte took care of Nansen's youngest daughter, Irmelin (Immi), with whom Nansen continued to maintain. In early 1913, at the age of 9, Nansen's youngest son, Osmund, died of tuberculous meningitis. His body was cremated, Liv Nansen wrote that in her father's office there was a vase in which, as she assumed, Osmund's ashes were, but she did not dare to ask about it.

Nansen's activities in 1908-1918

On May 1, 1908, Nansen's formal resignation from the diplomatic service was accepted, on the same day he was approved by the professor of oceanography at the University of Christiania. This position was created especially for him, it did not involve lecturing, although Nansen taught oceanography since 1900. It also shows his attention to purely scientific activities. In the period 1908-1911, Nansen embarked on two voyages on his own yacht "Veslemieux" and one on the ship "Mikael Sars". The 1912 voyage on the Veslemieu with a stop at Spitsbergen made it possible to solve the problem of the transfer of Atlantic waters to the Arctic Ocean, as well as to establish the nature of the deep waters of the Polar Basin. Then he put forward the idea of ​​the so-called "Nansen's threshold", which is the natural border between the Greenland Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

While sailing on the Weslemjo in 1909, Nansen received news of the conquest of Piri's North Pole. Liv Nansen described the episode as follows:

In 1909, Nansen, together with Bjorn Helland-Hansen, published a generalizing monograph on the oceanology of the Norwegian Sea, based on the materials of the voyage of the "Mikael Sars" in 1900. In the same year, the publication of the monograph “North in the Fog of the Past” (Norwegian Nord i Täkeheimen), which was published in full in 1911, began in separate issues. It was devoted to the history of Arctic exploration from ancient times to the beginning of the 16th century and was based on numerous primary sources, and Nansen ordered translations from languages ​​unknown to him (for example, Latin or Arabic) from specialists in London, and he himself analyzed the content of the Scandinavian sagas. Then he published an article in the "Geographical Journal" about the Normans in America.

During the same period, Nansen actively helped Amundsen in financing the expedition to the Fram, establishing a special fund for this. Already then Amundsen decided to change his plans - to go to the South, not to the North Pole, but he sent a letter to Nansen with a notice of this only after leaving Norway. Nansen completely sided with his compatriot, although later he confessed to his son Odd that he saw the departure of the Fram from his office in Pulhogda, and this was one of the most sorrowful events in his life. R. Scott had previously turned to Nansen for advice, preparing his own trip to the South Pole. Already in Australia, Scott learned about the change in Amundsen's plans - the "polar race" began - and turned to Nansen with a request. Nansen replied with a short telegram: "Not in the know," although this was not true. Nansen, on the other hand, acted as Amundsen's defender before public opinion in Norway and Great Britain, who accused the polar explorer of unfair competition.

At the turn of 1911-1912, a whirlwind romance began between Nansen and Kathleen Scott, the wife of Robert Scott, and Nansen did not break off relations with Sigrun Munte, and indeed acquired a strong reputation as a ladies' man. Nansen was not present at the celebration of Amundsen in Norway, being with his eldest son Kore on the expedition to Spitsbergen, and he was not at the funeral of Hjalmar Johansen, who committed suicide in January 1913.

After the death of Osmund's son, Nansen accepted the offer of the Norwegian American businessman Jonas Crane to travel on the Correct steamer along the Northern Sea Route, mainly to explore the possibilities of using it for trade between Asian Russia and Europe. It was not a scientific expedition, Nansen was only a passenger. Descending at the mouth of the Yenisei - in Dudinka, the polar explorer reached Krasnoyarsk and then via the Trans-Siberian Railway reached Vladivostok, from where he returned to Norway through Yekaterinburg, where he took part in a meeting of the Russian Geographical Society, reporting on the sailing along the Yenisei. As a result of his trip to Siberia, Nansen wrote the book "In the country of the future" and since then has always been interested in the problems of Russia. Shortly before the start of the First World War, Nansen, together with B. Helland-Hansen, made a short oceanographic voyage to the Azores.

Since the outbreak of World War 1914, Norway has declared its neutrality, as have Sweden and Denmark. Nansen was appointed president of the Norwegian Defense League, although he did not relinquish his duties at the university. In April 1917, the United States entered the war and, in connection with this, imposed an embargo against Europe. Norway faced the problem of food shortages: most of it was purchased in the United States. In addition, all ships built at US shipyards for foreign customers, among which there were many Norwegian firms, were requisitioned. Nansen was sent to Washington as a Norwegian envoy and, after months of negotiations, was able to secure supplies of food and other essential goods to Norway, but the country had to introduce a rationing system. Since the Norwegian government hesitated - the terms of the agreement were extremely tough, Nansen signed it under his personal responsibility. Nansen also rendered considerable assistance in equipping Amundsen's new expedition aboard the Maud.

Nansen and the League of Nations

In October 1918, Nansen was elected rector of the University of Christiania without asking his consent, but he flatly refused the post. Then he was elected chairman of the Norwegian Union for the creation of the League of Nations, this predetermined all his activities for the next 12 years, until his death. R. Huntford argued that for Nansen this was the best application of his irrepressible energy. Nansen, despite the traditional neutrality of the Scandinavian states, achieved the election of Norway as a full member of the League in 1920 and became one of the three delegates to the General Assembly of the League.

Since April 1920, Nansen was involved in the repatriation of about half a million prisoners of war scattered throughout the world through the League of Nations. More than 300,000 of the repatriates were natives of Russia, engulfed in the civil war. Already in November 1920, Nansen reported to the Assembly that he had achieved the return of 200 thousand people to their homeland, and stressed that he could not have imagined that he would face so much human suffering. In the final report of 1922, he stated that 427,886 prisoners of war from over 30 countries had been repatriated. Some biographers argue that Nansen's venture is at least as good as his Arctic endeavors.

Back in 1920, analyzing the situation in Russia, Nansen predicted the beginning of a serious famine. At the suggestion of the British delegate Philip Noel-Baker, on September 1, 1921, Nansen took over as High Commissioner of the League for Refugees. From now on, his main task was to return to their homeland more than 2 million Russian refugees scattered across different countries of the world due to the vicissitudes of the Russian revolution. At the same time, he, on his own initiative, tackled the problem of hunger, which directly affected more than 30 million people in a country engulfed in civil war. This greatly damaged the reputation of Nansen, who was accused of "Bolshevism" and upholding the interests of the Soviet government, the League refused to take part in helping the hungry. Nansen had to attract private organizations to help, so his efforts had a rather modest result. Having visited Russia, Nansen spoke with indignation at the session of the League on September 30, 1921:

Nansen's work on the repatriation of refugees was also hampered by the fact that most of them did not have documentary evidence of origin or citizenship, as well as no legal status in the host country. Nansen proposed the idea of ​​the so-called "Nansen passport" - an identity card for people who have lost their citizenship. In the early 1920s, Nansen passports were recognized by more than 50 governments, which allowed refugees to legally cross borders, look for work, etc. Among the holders of a Nansen passport were world famous figures, for example, Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Anna Pavlova.

Initially, Nansen's passport was intended only for Russian emigrants, but over time it began to be issued to other groups of refugees. After the Greek-Turkish War of 1919-1922, Nansen traveled to Istanbul, then the capital of Turkey, to relocate hundreds of thousands of ethnic Greeks who fled Turkey after the failure of the Greek intervention, and the Greek state was unable to accept them. Nansen managed to develop a population exchange scheme, according to which half a million Turks from the Balkans were returned to Asia Minor. The donations made it possible to provide compensation for their property losses; they also allowed the repatriated Greeks to find work and housing in their homeland. Despite many financial disagreements, the plan was largely implemented.

While at the Lausanne Conference, Nansen received the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the recollections of his daughter Liv, he had no idea that the governments of Denmark and Norway had nominated him, first of all, for his services in the repatriation of prisoners of war and for helping the starving in Russia, as well as for the contribution that he made by his activities to achieving mutual understanding between peoples and establishing peaceful relations between countries. The prize was 122 thousand kroons. Nansen spent most of the money received on the construction of two demonstration agricultural stations in Rostash and Mikhailovka in the USSR, and donated the rest to the Greek refugees. Following the Nobel Prize, Nansen received the same amount from the Danish publisher Eriksen; he completely spent this money for the same purposes. The Fram Museum has stands dedicated to the humanitarian aid organized by F. Nansen to the victims of the famine in the Volga region during the civil war in Russia.

In 1924, Nansen received an assignment from the League of Nations to deal with the Armenian refugees. However, even before that, at the first session of the League, Nansen made a proposal to admit Armenia to its membership, stressing that the Armenians need help more than ever. Since 1925, Nansen devoted many efforts to helping the Armenian refugees - victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Its purpose was to return refugees to Soviet Armenia; it is noteworthy that the main assistance to Nansen was provided by Vidkun Quisling - the future head of the puppet Norwegian government during the German occupation. Nansen actively visited refugee camps, including in Egypt, and after a trip to Soviet Armenia, he offered the League of Nations to finance the irrigation of 36 thousand hectares of land (360 km?), Which would accommodate and provide jobs for 15 thousand people. This plan failed, but Nansen has since become one of the heroes of the Armenian people. In total, Nansen saved about 320 thousand people from the Armenian genocide, who later were able to obtain asylum in various countries, including Syria, with the help of Nansen passports. Upon his return to his homeland, the Norwegian wrote a book full of sympathy and respect for the Armenian people, Around Armenia (Norwegian Gjennem Armenia).

In addition to his direct duties as a commissioner, while working in the General Assembly of the League of Nations, Nansen spoke out on many other major world problems. He believed that the main merit of the League of Nations was the opportunity for small countries like Norway to participate in solving major international problems. Nansen signed the Slavery Convention of September 25, 1926, which outlawed the use of forced labor. At the same time, he showed an ardent participation in the question of the admission of Germany into the ranks of the League of Nations, which took place in September 1926.

last years of life

On January 17, 1919, Nansen married Sigrun Munta, who had divorced her husband the year before. Nansen told his children about the wedding retroactively, Liv Nansen writes in his memoirs about his father's new marriage more than restrainedly. Before that, Nansen made an offer to Kathleen Scott, who rejected the eminent groom under the pretext of a difference in age: she was 41 years old, Nansen was 58 years old. In her diary, K. Scott wrote that "Sigrun suits Fridtjof better, because she has long loved him, is kind and sweet and comes from the same country as he." Nansen maintained relations with S. Munte constantly, and after the death of Eva Nansen she actually became a member of the family. R. Huntford wrote that Nansen's new marriage was unsuccessful, and "the relationship of the spouses was saturated with hatred." However, according to N. Budur, the surviving correspondence testifies to the opposite. At the same time, N. Budur writes that “Sigrun was perceived by Fridtjof as something self-evident - exactly something, not someone, because, by and large, he was never interested in her feelings. He was terribly angry with her when she did something against his will or when she failed. "

The secular society did not accept Nansen's new marriage, and the royal couple's communication with him almost ceased. In particular, Sigrun Nansen did not receive an invitation due to her status for the marriage of Crown Prince Olaf and Crown Princess Martha, which took place on March 21, 1929. Nansen himself was then in the United States.

Despite his employment in the League of Nations, Fridtjof Nansen found time for scientific work and continued to actively publish. In 1926, he began the development of a complex expedition aboard the Graf Zeppelin airship and met several times with its designer Hugo Ekenner. Aeroarktika society was founded, which even published its own magazine. However, there were not enough funds, so Roald Amundsen turned out to be the pioneer of crossing the Arctic in an airship upon reaching the North Pole. Nansen said an obituary in honor of Amundsen, who died, presumably, in the waters of the Barents Sea in June 1928.

In 1926, Nansen was elected Honorary Rector of the University of St Andrews, becoming the first foreigner to receive this honor. His inaugural speech was a kind of philosophical testament to the scientist, in particular, he said:

For the last two years of his life, Nansen suffered from heart disease (atrial fibrillation) and phlebitis, but he still led an active lifestyle. In America, in 1929, Nansen's last novel began - he met the journalist Brenda Uland (1891-1985). Brenda, 30 years his junior, was a prominent feminist activist. Nansen constantly corresponded with her after returning to Norway, until his death. The degree of closeness of the relationship is evidenced by the fact that Nansen even sent her several of his photographs in the nude. At the beginning of the 21st century, the correspondence between Nansen and Uland was published.

On May 13, 1930, Fridtjof Nansen died on the veranda of his home; the funeral was scheduled for the national holiday of 17 May. As Nansen left the official church, a civil funeral service was held in the assembly hall of the University of Oslo, and a salute was given from Akershus. The funeral was attended by King Haakon VII, Bjorn Helland-Hansen, Otto Sverdrup, Philip Noel-Baker (on assignment from the League of Nations), Major General Dietrickson, an ally in Greenland, and others. According to his will, Nansen's body was cremated; daughter Liv recalled that there were no speeches, only the orchestra played Death and the Maiden (String Quartet No. 14 in D minor) by Schubert, which Eva Nansen loved to perform. The urn with the ashes of the scientist was buried under one of the birches in "Pulhogda".

Personality

All authors who wrote about Nansen emphasized his patriotism. Biographer Thor Boumann-Larsen wrote: "The glory of the fatherland is the cornerstone of Nansen's universe, a goal that both earth-penetrating and scientific achievements are called to serve." However, being a consistent Norwegian patriot, he strongly opposed nationalism, as, for example, in 1905-1909 during the discussion about the national language. This also explains the practical non-participation of Nansen in the internal political affairs of Norway in the 1920s. In addition, the vicissitudes of relations between the king and the parliamentary parties (which led to a political crisis in 1911) contributed to Nansen's disillusionment with the ideals of democracy.

Likewise, many authors who have looked at Nansen's legacy have emphasized the extreme complexity, versatility, and contradictory nature of his nature. Thus, the poet Arne Garborg, as early as 1890, recognized Nansen as the personification of the contradictions of Peer Gynt. However, Nansen himself recognized his deep spiritual kinship with the characters of Ibsen, and Brand deliberately made his ideal.

Nansen's daughter Liv in the 1950s characterized him as follows:

According to Liv Nansen, her father professed the following credo: the world was created without any specific purpose, the properties of people are inherited, and all human actions are dictated by instinct, need and feeling. The soul is inseparable from organic matter, respectively, there is nothing otherworldly, like God. The only purpose of life is to develop your abilities so that you can pass them on to future generations. Nansen outlined his philosophical views in detail in the article "My Faith", published by the American magazine "Forum" in December 1929, it shows that Nansen's worldview has changed little compared to his youth.

The consistent implementation of ideals in life was often difficult for others to bear. Nansen's daughter - Liv - recalled that it would be much easier for everyone if Nansen did not keep his children in strictness, but he himself believed that in this way he brought up character in children. He never saved on donations to people of art and everyone in need of help, but he kept the family in a Spartan atmosphere.

Nansen's character traits were also noted by his expedition companions. For example, after the Fram left Vardø (22 July 1893), Nansen discovered that one bottle of beer was missing from onboard supplies. The crew was lined up on deck, and Nansen showed his anger - for the first and last time on the entire expedition. The bottle, however, was never found. The Norwegian writer T. Sannes, commenting on this episode, noted that "Nansen ... in everyday life was simple and sociable, but he became stern and withdrawn, almost harsh when something was done not in the way he thought was necessary." Sverdrup, in the words of N. Budur, "sprinkled poison", describing in his diary the details of Nansen's exit to the North Pole. According to him, "the entire crew is tired of their 'leader', his gloom and gloom, as well as endless egocentrism." These features of Nansen were also emphasized by his second wife, Sigrun Munte. In one of the letters she pointed out (addressing her friend): "Never contradict Nansen, it is absolutely impossible."

Nansen's companion on the trip to the North Pole, Hjalmar Johansen, also got it. On March 31, 1895, Johansen fell into a wormwood at −40 ° C. Nansen moved further, and when Johansen said that it would be nice to get rid of the ice armor, Nansen called him "baba". He himself described this episode only in the 1913 obituary. According to Johansen's recollections, until the onset of the new year, 1896, he and Nansen were on "you", and Johansen called him "doctor" and "mister head of the expedition." Only after six months of living in a dugout did the relationship become less formal.

An interesting feature of Nansen was his love of cold, which he considered beneficial to health. From his youth, he was accustomed to walking in a knitted ski suit without outerwear in winter, his private office in both "Gothob" and "Pulhogda" was never heated. Eva Nansen recalled that sometimes the water for washing her face froze in their bedroom. This was well known to his contemporaries: a caricature was published in one of the newspapers in which Nansen was depicted sitting naked on an ice block, with sweat streaming down his forehead from the heat.

Memorialization

In 1954, the UN established the Nansen Medal, which was transformed in 1979 into an award in his name, awarded annually on behalf of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

In honor of Nansen, numerous geographic features are named: the Nansen Basin and the Nansen-Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean; in the central Yukon, a stratovolcano is named after Nansen. In Antarctica, two mountains, discovered at the time by Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen, and the island are named after Nansen. Two islands in the Arctic are also named after Nansen. In total, the name of Nansen is mentioned 25 times on the map of the Arctic and Antarctic.

Astronomer Sergei Belyavsky named the asteroid No. 853 - Nansenia discovered by him on April 2, 1916. In 1964, the International Astronomical Union named Nansen an impact crater near the North Pole of the Moon

The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, an independent institution dedicated to environmental research, energy research and the development of resource management practices and policies, has been located in Nansen's former estate "Pulhögda" since 1948. In honor of the scientist, she received the name Nansenia - a mesopelagic fish of the genus Microstomatidae.

In 1968, Soviet director Sergei Mikaelyan, together with Norwegian filmmakers, created the film "There is only life - the story of Fridtjof Nansen" (Norwegian Bare et liv - Historien om Fridtjof Nansen). The plot of the film includes three key episodes: Nansen's expedition to the North Pole, his work in the League of Nations and his participation in the elimination of hunger in Russia. In the main role - Knut Wigert.

In the early 2000s, frigates of the Fridtjof Nansen type entered service with the Norwegian Navy. The lead ship Fridtjof Nansen entered service in 2003, the next two ships were named Otto Sverdrup and Roald Amundsen.

Back in 1930, the Moscow Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies decided to erect a monument to Nansen, but the plans were not implemented. And only 72 years later, on September 18, 2002, a monument by People's Artist of the USSR V.G. Tsigal was erected in Bolshoy Lyovshinsky Lane, opposite the building of the Russian International Red Cross. The monument was made with donations from the UDI (Norwegian Directorate for Foreigners) and the "Fram Museum", the Union of Armenians of Russia and commercial firms. The installation costs were covered by the Moscow Government.

In 1995, on the initiative of Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Fridtjof Nansen Foundation was established, which in 2002 was moved to Armenia and registered in Yerevan.

On January 26, 2011, it was announced that a house-museum dedicated to the Norwegian humanist would be opened in Gyumri, Armenia, and commemorative medals and coins were printed. In November 2011, the 150th anniversary of Nansen was widely celebrated in Armenia. As part of the event in Yerevan, in the presence of high-ranking officials of the Armenian and Norwegian states, a monument to Fridtjof Nansen was unveiled. After that, the President of Armenia presented his granddaughter Marit Greve with a passport of the status of special residence in the Republic of Armenia. Expressing gratitude, he noted that with such a passport Fridtjof Nansen gave thousands of Armenians the opportunity to find their place in the world. On the same day, the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Norway canceled the postage stamp. In connection with the anniversary of the Norwegian, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan issued a special message in which he noted that "for the Armenian people, the name of Fridtjof Nansen will remain a symbol of the concentrated embodiment of the conscience and kindness of the world." In 2011, in Armenia, the name of Nansen bears an orphanage in Gyumri, schools in Armavir, Yerevan, Spitak, Stepanavan and a special boarding school in Dilijan. A hospital named after Nansen was opened in Spitak with the assistance of the Norwegian Red Cross.

On 23 January 2011, the anniversary year of Nansen-Amundsen officially opened in Tromsø, as 2011 coincided with two great dates for Norwegians - the 150th anniversary of the birth of Fridtjof Nansen and the 100th anniversary of the expedition of Roald Amundsen reaching the South Pole. The opening of the year was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre. The ceremony took place in the open air next to the Fram Center, named after the famous ship, and the Polaria Arctic Museum.

) in the estate of Sture-Frön, owned by his father, a successful lawyer Baldur Nansen. The Nansen family is of Danish origin; they settled in Norway since the 17th century. From his youth he was an excellent skier, he won the Norwegian championships several times. After graduating from high school, he seriously chose between painting and science, and as a result entered the university at the department of zoology. Already at the age of 20, he took part in a four-month voyage in the Arctic Ocean: c - went on a ship of the Viking seal company to sail among the ice (as a biological practice). It was this journey that was decisive for the direction of all his subsequent activities. Upon his return from sailing, he devoted himself to scientific pursuits. In, after graduating from the University of Christiania, Fridtjof was appointed curator of the zoology department at the museum in the city of Bergen. In 1885-1886. worked at the University of Parma and at the first marine biological station in Europe in Naples. In 1886 he was awarded the Grand Gold Medal of the Royal Academy of Sciences for his research on the structure of the cellular apparatus of the nervous tissue. He received his doctorate a few months before leaving for Greenland.

Greenland expedition 1888

Nansen set himself an extremely large and difficult task - crossing the entire ice plateau of Greenland from its east coast to its west. He took over all the work on the equipment of the expedition; a sponsor from Denmark provided meager funding. Part of the funds was given by the rewarding of him with a gold medal: Nansen asked for a bronze duplicate, and the difference in cost went to the equipment of the expedition.

The expedition included:

1. Fridtjof Nansen- the head of the expedition.
2. Otto Neumann Sverdrup- An experienced polar captain, a specialist in survival in the Arctic.
3. Olaf Dietrichson- an experienced skier.
4. Christian Christiansen Trana- a North Norwegian peasant, an experienced skier (the farm of his parents was adjacent to the farm of Sverdrup's parents).
5. Samuel Johannessen Baltu- Sami musher (originally it was supposed to be used as a traction force of reindeer). In 1902 he emigrated to the USA, lived in Alaska. He met Nansen in 1882 while sailing on the Viking seal-hunting ship.
6. Ole Nielsen Equals- Sami by nationality, reindeer herder and musher.

The expedition set off on May 5. Nansen, together with five comrades through Scotland and Iceland, reached the east coast of Greenland and on July 17, they landed on floating ice, 20 km from the coast. At the cost of incredible efforts, the group in boats passed through the floating ice and reached the coast on 17 August. Further advancement was carried out on skis through unknown territory, the people themselves served as the draft force. Frosts reached -40 ° C, woolen clothes did not protect well from the cold, and there was almost no fat in the diet (Sverdrup even asked Nansen to give out ski ointment for food). On October 3, the expedition reached the western coast, making the first crossing over the ice of Greenland at a distance of about 660 km. During the entire trip, Nansen and his companions carried out meteorological observations and collected scientific materials.

The members of the expedition missed the last steamer heading home, but managed to deliver letters and telegrams. The six travelers returned to Norway in 1889 and were honored by the entire nation. Nansen was appointed curator of zoology at the University of Christiania (he was promoted to professor with no obligation to lecture).

In 1890 and 1891. books describing the Greenland expedition were published: Paa ski over Grønland("On skis through Greenland", 2 vols., In 1928, greatly abridged by the author) and Eskimoliv("Life of the Eskimos"). These books testify to Nansen's commitment at that time to the ideas of social Darwinism.

Expedition on the "Fram" 1893-1896

Having finished with the analysis of the results obtained, Nansen began preparations for an even more daring and grandiose expedition to the North Pole.

Previous observations convinced him of the existence of a strong east-west current, which should have flowed from Siberia to the North Pole and further to Greenland. This conclusion, in particular, is that the remains of the unsuccessful American expedition were found aboard the Jeanette under the command of US Navy Lieutenant George De Long. This expedition crashed in 1881 northeast of the New Siberian Islands, and items from it were found off the southwestern shores of Greenland. The Norwegian meteorologist, Professor G. Mon, published an article in 1884 that confirmed Nansen's guesses and became the basis for an expedition to the Pole.

Determined to test his theory, Nansen designed a vessel ("Fram") strong enough to withstand ice compression. The plan was to sail this ship along the Northeast Passage to the Novosibirsk Islands, where it was supposed to freeze into the ice. The crew was to remain aboard the ship while it drifted along with the ice to the North Pole and the straits between Svalbard and Greenland.

The expedition plan drew sharp criticism in Great Britain (it was reported at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in the city), but was supported by the Norwegian parliament, which singled out in and years. subsidies for the construction of a ship in 250 thousand kroons, with a prerequisite - the expedition will have a purely Norwegian ethnic composition (Norway from to years was part of Sweden). Other expenses of 200 thousand kroons were covered by a national subscription and subsidies from private investors, including foreign ones: O. Dixon supplied electrical equipment, and Baron E. Toll built evacuation bases on the New Siberian Islands in case of a disaster, and gave Nansen 35 West Siberian sled dogs ... The expedition was sponsored by Ellef Ringnes' brewery, Knorr food concentrate firms and the Kedbury chocolate firm.

The expedition departed from Christiania on June 24 with a five-year supply of provisions and six months of fuel at full speed. More than 600 people applied for participation in the expedition, in the end the team included 13 people:

1. Fridtjof Nansen- Head of the expedition, zoologist, hydrologist and oceanologist.
2. Otto Neumann Sverdrup- the commander of "Fram", acting head of the expedition from March 14, 1895
3. Sigurd Scott-Hansen- Assistant Commander, Senior Lieutenant of the Norwegian Navy. On the expedition he was the chief meteorologist, astronomer and specialist in magnetic and gravitational research.
4. Henrik Greve Blessing, PhD in Medicine - physician, veterinarian and botanist of the expedition.
5. Theodore Claudius Jacobsen- navigator of "Fram". Navigator of the Norwegian and New Zealand fleets.
6. Anton Amundsen- senior machinist of "Fram". Engineer of the Norwegian Navy.
7. Adolph Ewell- food master and cook of the expedition. From 1879 he served as navigator of the Norwegian fleet.
8. Lars Peterssen- the second machinist and blacksmith of the expedition. He served in the Norwegian Navy. From 1895 he also served as cook and meteorologist. Already on board, it turned out that he was a Swede by nationality (real name - Petersson), posing as a Norwegian, to take part in the expedition. Nansen's book indicates that his parents are Norwegians living in Sweden.
9. Frederic Hjalmar Johansen- fireman and meteorologist. Lieutenant in the Norwegian Army.
10. Peder Leonar Hendricksen- sailor and harpooner. Skipper of the Norwegian Navy, took part in the expedition of Sverdrup in 1898-1902.
11. Bernard Nurdal- fireman, electrician and sailor. He also served as a meteorologist. Non-commissioned officer of the Norwegian Navy.
12. Ivar Otto Irgens Mugstadt- sailor, musher and watchmaker. Before the expedition, he changed many professions, including a forester and overseer of a psychiatric hospital.
13. Bernt Bentsen- sailor. From 1890 he served as navigator of the Arctic fishing fleet of Norway. Joined the expedition half an hour before sailing from Tromsø. Killed during an expedition to Spitsbergen in 1899.

The Fram proceeded along the northern coast of Siberia. Before reaching the New Siberian Islands about 100 miles, Nansen changed course to a more northerly. By September 22, having reached 79º N. , "Fram" is firmly frozen into the pack ice. Nansen and his team prepared to drift west towards Greenland.

The Fram did not drift as close to the pole as Nansen had hoped. He decided to make an attempt to throw to the pole, taking with him one of the strongest and most enduring members of the expedition, Hjalmar Johansen. On March 14, 1895, Nansen, accompanied by Johansen, left the ship, which at that time was at 84 ° 05 north latitude and 101 ° 35 east longitude. Their attempt was unsuccessful. The conditions turned out to be more difficult than expected - they were often blocked by ice hummocks or areas of open water, which created obstacles. Finally, reaching 86º14'N, they decided to turn back and set off for Franz Josef Land. Nansen and Johansen did not reach the Pole, but they came closer to it than all previous travelers.

Three months later, Nansen and Johansen managed to reach Franz Josef Land, where they hibernated in a dugout built by them from walrus skins and stones (September 28, 1895 - May 19, 1896). This winter of Nansen, during which he led the life of a real Robinson, is a shining example of how courage and ability to adapt to the harsh conditions of the Arctic allows a person to emerge victorious even in extremely difficult circumstances.

In the summer of 1896, Nansen unexpectedly met Jackson's English expedition on Franz Josef Land, on the ship of which "Windward" he returned to Vardø on August 13, having stayed in the Arctic for three years. Exactly a week later, the Fram returned to Norway, brilliantly completing its historical drift. Nansen's theory was confirmed - the ship followed the current, the existence of which he assumed. In addition, the expedition collected valuable data on currents, winds and temperatures and confidently proved that from the Eurasian side in the circumpolar region, not land, but a deep, ice-covered ocean. The voyage of "Fram" was of particular importance for the young science of oceanology. For Nansen, this marked a significant turn in his activities. Oceanography became the main subject of his research.

For several years, Nansen was involved in the processing of the results of the expedition and wrote several works, including a popular description of the expedition in two volumes Fram over Polhavet. Den norske polarfærd 1893-1896(1897). This book was immediately translated into German, English and Russian, but came out under different titles: In Nacht und Eis: Die norwegische Polarexpedition 1893-96("Into the Night and Ice: The Norwegian Polar Expedition 1893-1896") Farthest North("Further North"). Russian pre-revolutionary translations were usually called "In the land of ice and night" (1898, 1902), and Soviet-era translations - "Fram" in the Polar Sea "(1940, 1956, reprinted 2007).

Further activities

Without stopping oceanographic research, Nansen took up social activities. B - was appointed Ambassador of Norway to the UK. At the end of the First World War, he was Norway's representative to the United States, in - the High Commissioner of the League of Nations for the repatriation of prisoners of war from Russia. In 1921, on behalf of the International Red Cross, he created the Nansen Aid Committee to save the starving people in the Volga region. He was one of the few public figures in the West who was loyal to Bolshevik Russia and the young USSR. The following year, he became High Commissioner for Refugees and established the Nansen Passport Office. In was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Nansen International Refugee Agency in Geneva, founded by V.

Nansen did not interrupt his scientific activities: in 1900 he made an expedition to Spitsbergen, and in 1913 sailed on the steamer "Correct" to the mouth of the Lena, and made a trip along the Trans-Siberian Railway. He also planned an expedition to the Antarctic on the Fram, but in 1905, due to his wife's illness, he abandoned this idea, handing over the ship to Amundsen. From 1928 he took part in the preparation of the German expedition to the Arctic aboard the airship "Graf Zeppelin", but it took place after his death. The last years of his life he suffered from cardiovascular diseases. Nansen died in Lusaker near Oslo on May 13, 1930, playing with his granddaughter on the veranda of his estate. At his request, he was cremated, and the ashes were scattered over the Oslofjord. The cenotaph is located in his "Pulhogda" estate.

The annual Human Rights Award of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Nansen Medal, is named in his honor.

Personal life

Nansen was married since 1890 to Eva Sars (1868-1907), daughter of the famous zoologist Mikael Sars. It was Eve who consecrated the "Fram" when it was launched in 1892, the epigraph describing Nansen's journey is dedicated to her " The one who gave the name to the ship and had the courage to wait". In 1893, they had a daughter, Liv, who first saw her father at the age of three. During Nansen's absence, Eva made a career in music, performing professionally as a singer.

In honor of Eve and Liv, Nansen named the islands in Franz Josef Land (now it turned out that this is one island, therefore on the maps it is called Evaliv). After 1898, the Nansens had four more children: Kore, Irmelin, Odd and Osmund. Odd Nansen (1901-1973) is a famous Norwegian architect, writer and philanthropist who created a fund during the war to help Jewish refugees from European countries occupied by Nazi Germany.

Eva Nansen died in 1907 when Nansen was ambassador to London. He married for the second time in 1919 at Sigrun Mount. Daughter Liv left a memoir about her father and mother.

Sources of

• Professor V. Yu. Vize "FRITJOF NANSEN" (to the book by F. Nansen "" Fram "in the polar sea")]
• H. Sides, The Drift Between Life and Death: Naional Geographic Russia, January 2009, p. 142-153.
• Brogger, V.G., Rolfsen N. Fridtjof Nansen. Per. from dates. SPb: Ed. Devriena. 1896 365 p.
• A. Talanov. Nansen. Series: ZhZL. Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1960.304 p.
• Liv Nansen-Heyer. The book is about the father. M. Gidrometeoizdat 1973.390 p.

Russian editions of Nansen's books

• Fritiof Nansen. In the darkness of the night and in the ice. Travel of the Norwegian expedition on the Fram ship to the North Pole. 31 figures on separate sheets and in the text. Travel map in color. Saint Petersburg: Wolf, 1897.337 p.
• Nansen F. In the land of ice and night v.1-2 SPb. A type. Br. Panteleev, 1897.320, 344 p.
• Nansen Fridtjof (compiled by Annenskaya A.) Skiing through Greenland. Seedling Library SPb .: Ed. magazine for children Shoots 1897.198 p.
• Nansen Fritiof. In the darkness of the night and in the ice. Journey of the Norwegian expedition on the Fram ship to the North Pole. 2 vols. Full translation, edited by N. Berezin. SPb. Publishing house of O. N. Popova. 1901 g.
• Nansen Fridtjof. To the country of the future. The Great Northern Route from Europe to Siberia through the Kara Sea. With a portrait of the author, 155 drawings and 3 maps. Authorized translation from Norwegian by A. and P. Hansen. Petrograd Published by K.I.Ksido. 1915 454 s (Modern ed. 2004)
• Fritiof Nansen. Russia and the world. Translation from fr. S. Bronsky. With a foreword by N. Meshcheryakov. M.-Pg. State publishing house. 1923 147 s.
• Nansen F. Collected Works. In 5 vols. M .: Geografgiz, 1939-1940.
• Nansen F. Fram in the polar sea. In 2 volumes. Moscow: Geografgiz, 1956.368, 352 p.
• Nansen F. "Fram" in the Polar Sea. Per. from norv. Lopukhina ZI, introductory article. Glushkova V.V. Series: Travel Library. M .: Bustard 2007 992 p.

Complete list | (1901-1925) | (1926-1950) | (1951-1975) | (1976-2000) | (2001-2025)

And ethnographer, biologist, historian, author of talented books, illustrated by himself with the skill of a gifted artist. It began with the name of Nansen for many generations of polar explorers of different nationalities. Nansen is a hero who never reached the North Pole.

In 1893-1896. Nansen carried out the famous expedition on the Fram. Having previously frozen the ship into the drifting ice, Nansen decided to act in concert with the elements: let the currents and ice carry the Fram to the Central Arctic, to the circumpolar space, and there it will be a stone's throw to the longed-for pole. When it became clear that the drift was going to the south, F. Nansen, together with the young navigator, dared to leave the Fram in order to reach the desired pole on skis and dogs.

The risk was very high, since it was possible then not to find the ship carried away by the drift. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1895, two Norwegians headed for the Pole. Having traversed over 200 km of ice and reaching a record for those times latitude of 86 ° 14`, they were forced to retreat: the chaos of ice blocks blocked their way, and F. Nansen turned back. For several months they walked on the ice to the south to the nearest Earth, and in the end, at the limit of their strength and food supplies, they set foot on solid land, remaining there for the winter in a shack they had built of stone. They ate polar bear meat, warmed themselves by the warmth of a lamp filled with bear fat.

In the summer of 1896, F. Nansen unexpectedly met the British polar expedition and returned home on their ship. A few days later, the Fram returned here from a three-year, three-thousand-mile drift. F. Nansen became the number one polar explorer. During the winter, he also studied the ice and the sparse arctic vegetation.

In F. Nansen, he plunged into social activities, he became the ambassador of Norway, which had just gained independence, in London. Deep down, the scientist hoped that it would not be long, that he would return to science, to the Arctic. But then life dealt him several merciless blows: his beloved wife died, and soon he lost his youngest son. Nansen found solace in his work by writing several books. And in the end, he managed to cope with the troubles that befell him, gradually regaining his former self-confidence. Before his eyes, blue and white ice shone again, but the First World War began, and he joined the ranks of its opponents.

The war ended, devastation and hunger reigned in the world, and Nansen gives all of himself to human troubles and sorrows: representatives of the Nansen mission work in regions affected by cholera, plague, and malaria; he organizes donations to Nansen from all over the world for the hungry in Russia; organizes assistance to emigrants forced to leave their homeland. In 1922, the work of the great Norwegian was crowned with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Desperately, painfully, Nansen yearned for the failed expeditions. But he was not destined to return to his former life as a polar explorer, although two weeks before his death, Nansen was preparing an expedition on an airship.

A long-term and loyal friend of our country, he called Russia "the country of the future", was interested in its science, culture and believed in its prosperity.

The world's largest oceanographer, the Norwegian Harald Sverdrup, said of Nansen: "He was great as a polar explorer, greater as a scientist, even greater as a man ..."

Nansen's expedition finally established that there is a deep sea basin in the center of the Arctic, and the Fram's drift confirmed the direction of ice movement from east to west.

Fridtjof Nansen - biography

Fridtjof Nansen (Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen, 1861-1930) - Norwegian polar explorer, zoologist, founder of a new science - physical oceanography, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 1922.

Biography

Fridtjof Nansen was born on October 10, 1861 near Christiania (now Oslo) in the Sture-Frön estate, owned by his father, a successful lawyer Baldur Nansen. The Nansen family is of Danish origin; they settled in Norway since the 17th century. From his youth he was an excellent skier, he won the Norwegian championships several times. After graduating from high school, he seriously chose between painting and science, and as a result entered the university at the department of zoology. Already at the age of 20, he took part in a four-month voyage in the Arctic Ocean: in 1882 - went on a ship of the Viking seal company to sail among the ice (as a biological practice). It was this journey that was decisive for the direction of all his subsequent activities. Upon his return from sailing, he devoted himself to scientific pursuits. In 1883, after graduating from the University of Christiania, Fridtjof was appointed curator of the zoology department at the museum in the city of Bergen. In 1885-1886. worked at the University of Parma and at the first in Europe marine biological station in Naples. In 1886 he was awarded the Grand Gold Medal of the Royal Academy of Sciences for his research on the structure of the cellular apparatus of the nervous tissue. He received his doctorate a few months before leaving for Greenland.

Greenland expedition 1888

Nansen set himself an extremely large and difficult task - crossing the entire ice plateau of Greenland from its east coast to its west. He took over all the work on the equipment of the expedition; a sponsor from Denmark provided meager funding. Part of the funds was given by the rewarding of him with a gold medal: Nansen asked for a bronze duplicate, and the difference in cost went to the equipment of the expedition.

The expedition included:

1. Fridtjof Nansen - head of the expedition.
2. Otto Neumann Sverdrup is an experienced polar captain and arctic survival specialist.
3. Olaf Dietrichson is an experienced skier.
4. Christian Christiansen Trana - a North Norwegian peasant, an experienced skier (his parents' farm was adjacent to the farm of Sverdrup's parents).
5. Samuel Johannessen Baltu - Sami by nationality, reindeer herder and musher (originally it was supposed to be used as a traction force of reindeer). In 1902 he emigrated to the USA, lived in Alaska. He met Nansen in 1882 while sailing on the Viking seal-hunting ship.
6. Ole Nielsen Equally - Sami by nationality, reindeer herder and musher.

The expedition set off on May 5, 1888. Nansen, together with five comrades through Scotland and Iceland, reached the east coast of Greenland, and on July 17 they landed on floating ice, 20 km from the coast. At the cost of incredible efforts, the group in boats passed through the floating ice and reached the coast on 17 August. Further advancement was carried out on skis through unknown territory, the people themselves served as the draft force. Frosts reached -40 ° C, woolen clothes did not protect well from the cold, and there was almost no fat in the diet (Sverdrup even asked Nansen to give out ski ointment for food). On October 3, 1888, the expedition reached the western coast, making the first crossing over the ice of Greenland at a distance of about 660 km. During the entire trip, Nansen and his companions carried out meteorological observations and collected scientific materials.

The members of the expedition missed the last steamer heading home, but managed to deliver letters and telegrams. The six travelers returned to Norway in 1889 and were honored by the entire nation. Nansen was appointed curator of zoology at the University of Christiania (in 1897 he was promoted to professor without the obligation to lecture).

In 1890 and 1891. books describing the Greenland expedition were published: Paa ski over Grønland ("On skis across Greenland", 2 vols., in 1928, greatly abbreviated by the author) and Eskimoliv ("Life of the Eskimos"). These books testify to Nansen's commitment at that time to the ideas of social Darwinism.

Expedition on the "Fram" 1893-1896

Having finished with the analysis of the results obtained, Nansen began preparations for an even more daring and grandiose expedition to the North Pole.

Previous observations convinced him of the existence of a strong east-west current, which should have flowed from Siberia to the North Pole and further to Greenland. This conclusion, in particular, is that the remains of the unsuccessful American expedition were found aboard the Jeanette under the command of US Navy Lieutenant George De Long. This expedition crashed in 1881 northeast of the New Siberian Islands, and items from it were found off the southwestern shores of Greenland. The Norwegian meteorologist, Professor G. Mon, published an article in 1884 that confirmed Nansen's guesses and became the basis for an expedition to the Pole.
$ 50 1988 - Cook Islands Commemorative Coin dedicated to Fridtjof Nansen

Determined to test his theory, Nansen designed a vessel ("Fram") strong enough to withstand ice compression. The plan was to sail this ship along the Northeast Passage to the Novosibirsk Islands, where it was supposed to freeze into the ice. The crew was to remain aboard the ship while it drifted along with the ice to the North Pole and the straits between Svalbard and Greenland.

The expedition plan drew sharp criticism in Great Britain (it was reported at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in 1892), but was supported by the Norwegian parliament, which allocated in 1890 and 1893. subsidies for the construction of the ship in 250 thousand kroons, with the obligatory condition - the expedition will have a purely Norwegian ethnic composition (Norway from 1814 to 1905 was part of Sweden). Other expenses of 200 thousand kroons were covered by a national subscription and subsidies from private investors, including foreign ones: O. Dixon supplied electrical equipment, and Baron E. Toll built evacuation bases on the New Siberian Islands in case of a disaster, and gave Nansen 35 West Siberian sled dogs ... One of the sponsors of the expedition was Ellef Ringnes' brewery.

The expedition departed from Christiania on June 24, 1893, with a supply of provisions for five years and fuel for six months at full speed. More than 600 people applied for participation in the expedition, in the end the team included 13 people:

1. Fridtjof Nansen - head of the expedition, zoologist, hydrologist and oceanologist.
2. Otto Neumann Sverdrup - commander of the "Fram", acting head of the expedition from March 14, 1895.
3. Sigurd Scott-Hansen - Assistant Commander, Senior Lieutenant of the Norwegian Navy. On the expedition he was the chief meteorologist, astronomer and specialist in magnetic and gravitational research.
4. Henrik Greve Blessing, MD - physician, veterinarian and botanist of the expedition.
5. Theodore Claudius Jacobsen - navigator of the Fram. Navigator of the Norwegian and New Zealand fleets.
6. Anton Amundsen - Fram's senior machinist. Norwegian Navy driver.
7. Adolf Ewell - food master and cook of the expedition. From 1879 he served as navigator of the Norwegian fleet.
8. Lars Peterssen - the second machinist and blacksmith of the expedition. He served in the Norwegian Navy. From 1895 he also served as cook and meteorologist.
9. Frederick Hjalmar Johansen - fireman and meteorologist. Lieutenant in the Norwegian Army.
10. Peder Leonar Hendriksen - sailor and harpooner. Skipper of the Norwegian Navy, took part in the expedition of Sverdrup in 1898-1902.
11. Bernard Nurdal is a fireman, electrician and sailor. He also served as a meteorologist. Non-commissioned officer of the Norwegian Navy.
12. Ivar Otto Irgens Mugstadt - sailor, musher and watchmaker. Before the expedition, he changed many professions, including a forester and overseer of a psychiatric hospital.
13. Bernt Bentsen is a sailor. From 1890 he served as navigator of the Arctic fishing fleet of Norway. Joined the expedition half an hour before sailing from Tromsø. Killed during an expedition to Spitsbergen in 1899.

The Fram proceeded along the northern coast of Siberia. Before reaching the New Siberian Islands about 100 miles, Nansen changed course to a more northerly. By September 22, having reached 79º N. , "Fram" is firmly frozen into the pack ice. Nansen and his team prepared to drift west towards Greenland.

The Fram did not drift as close to the pole as Nansen had hoped. He decided to make an attempt to throw to the pole, taking with him one of the strongest and most enduring members of the expedition, Hjalmar Johansen. On March 14, 1895, Nansen, accompanied by Johansen, left the ship, which at that time was at 84 ° 05 north latitude and 101 ° 35 east longitude. Their attempt was unsuccessful. The conditions turned out to be more difficult than expected - they were often blocked by ice hummocks or areas of open water, which created obstacles. Finally, reaching 86º14'N, they decided to turn back and set off for Franz Josef Land. Nansen and Johansen did not reach the Pole, but they came closer to it than all previous travelers.

Three months later, Nansen and Johansen managed to reach Franz Josef Land, where they hibernated in a dugout built by them from walrus skins and stones (September 28, 1895 - May 19, 1896). This winter of Nansen, during which he led the life of a real Robinson, is a shining example of how courage and ability to adapt to the harsh conditions of the Arctic allows a person to emerge victorious even in extremely difficult circumstances.
Route of Nansen's expedition in the Arctic

In the summer of 1896, Nansen unexpectedly met Jackson's English expedition on Franz Josef Land, on whose ship "Windward" he returned to Vardø on August 13, having spent three years in the Arctic. Exactly a week later, the Fram returned to Norway, brilliantly completing its historical drift. Nansen's theory was confirmed - the ship followed the current, the existence of which he assumed. In addition, the expedition collected valuable data on currents, winds and temperatures and confidently proved that from the Eurasian side in the circumpolar region, not land, but a deep, ice-covered ocean. The voyage of "Fram" was of particular importance for the young science of oceanology. For Nansen, this marked a significant turn in his activities. Oceanography became the main subject of his research.
Nansen (left) and Johansen (right) June 17, 1896 at Cape Flora near Jackson's base.

For several years Nansen was involved in the processing of the results of the expedition and wrote several works, including the popular description of the expedition in two volumes of Fram over Polhavet. Den norske polarfærd 1893-1896 (1897). This book was immediately translated into German, English and Russian, but came out under different titles: In Nacht und Eis: Die norwegische Polarexpedition 1893-96 ("In the night and ice: Norwegian polar expedition 1893-1896") Farthest North ( "Further North"). Russian pre-revolutionary translations were usually called "In the land of ice and night" (1898, 1902), and Soviet-era translations - "Fram" in the Polar Sea "(1940, 1956, reprinted 2007).

Further activities

Without stopping oceanographic research, Nansen took up social activities. In 1906-1908 he was appointed Norwegian Ambassador to Great Britain. At the end of the First World War, he was Norway's representative to the United States, in 1920-1922 the High Commissioner of the League of Nations for the repatriation of prisoners of war from Russia. In 1921, on behalf of the International Red Cross, he created the Nansen Aid Committee to save the starving people in the Volga region. He was one of the few public figures in the West who was loyal to Bolshevik Russia and the young USSR. The following year, he became High Commissioner for Refugees and established the Nansen Passport Office. In 1922 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1938 the Nansen International Refugee Agency in Geneva, founded in 1931, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nansen did not interrupt his scientific activities: in 1900 he made an expedition to Spitsbergen, and in 1913 sailed on the steamer "Correct" to the mouth of the Lena, and made a trip along the Trans-Siberian Railway. He also planned an expedition to Antarctica on the "Fram", but in 1905 due to illness of his wife he abandoned this idea, handing over the ship to Amundsen. From 1928 he took part in the preparation of the German expedition to the Arctic aboard the airship "Graf Zeppelin", but it took place after his death. The last years of his life he suffered from cardiovascular diseases. Nansen died in Lusaker near Oslo on May 13, 1930, playing with his granddaughter on the veranda of his estate. At his request, he was cremated, and the ashes were scattered over the Oslofjord. The tombstone is in his Pulhogda estate.

The annual Human Rights Award of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Nansen Medal, is named in his honor.

Personal life

Nansen was married since 1890 to Eva Sars (1868-1907), daughter of the famous zoologist Mikael Sars. It was Eve who consecrated the "Fram" when it was launched in 1892, the epigraph of Nansen's journey description "The one who gave the name to the ship and had the courage to wait" is dedicated to her. In 1893, they had a daughter, Liv, who first saw her father at the age of three. During Nansen's absence, Eva made a career in music, performing professionally as a singer.

In honor of Eve and Liv, Nansen named the islands in Franz Josef Land (now it turned out that this is one island, therefore on the maps it is called Evaliv). After 1898, the Nansens had six more children.

Eva Nansen died in 1907 when Nansen was ambassador to London. He married for the second time in 1919 at Sigrun Mount. Daughter Liv left a memoir about her father and mother.

Russian editions of Nansen's books

• Fritiof Nansen. In the darkness of the night and in the ice. Travel of the Norwegian expedition on the Fram ship to the North Pole. 31 figures on separate sheets and in the text. Travel map in color. Saint Petersburg: Wolf, 1897.337 p.
• Nansen F. In the land of ice and night v.1-2 SPb. A type. Br. Panteleev, 1897.320, 344 p.
• Nansen Fridtjof (compiled by Annenskaya A.) Skiing through Greenland. Seedling Library SPb .: Ed. magazine for children Shoots 1897.198 p.
• Nansen Fritiof. In the darkness of the night and in the ice. Journey of the Norwegian expedition on the Fram ship to the North Pole. 2 vols. Full translation, edited by N. Berezin. SPb. Publishing house of O. N. Popova. 1901 g.
• Nansen Fridtjof. To the country of the future. The Great Northern Route from Europe to Siberia through the Kara Sea. With a portrait of the author, 155 drawings and 3 maps. Authorized translation from Norwegian by A. and P. Hansen. Petrograd Published by K.I.Ksido. 1915 454 s (Modern ed. 2004)
• Fritiof Nansen. Russia and the world. Translation from fr. S. Bronsky. With a foreword by N. Meshcheryakov. M.-Pg. State publishing house. 1923 147 s.
• Nansen F. Collected Works. In 5 vols. M .: Geografgiz, 1939-1940.
• Nansen F. Fram in the polar sea. In 2 volumes. Moscow: Geografgiz, 1956.368, 352 p.
• Nansen F. "Fram" in the Polar Sea. Per. from norv. Lopukhina ZI, introductory article. Glushkova V.V. Series: Travel Library. M .: Bustard 2007 992 p.

Fridtjof Nansen - biography