Maria Pronchishcheva
Maria Pronchishcheva (Russian: Мария Прончищева; before 1713 – 23 September [O.S. 12 September] 1736), also known as Tatiana Fyodorovna Pronchishcheva (Russian: Татьяна Фёдоровна Прончищева),[1] was a Russian explorer. She is considered the first female polar explorer.
Life
[edit]Tatiana Kondyreva was born in Beryozovo near Aleksin in the family of Fyodor Stepanovich Kondyrev. In 1721, her family moved to Kronstadt, where Tatiana met Vasili Pronchishchev. They married in May 1733. Soon Tatiana joined her husband in the Great Northern Expedition.[2]
In 1735, Pronchishcheva and her husband Vasili Pronchishchev went down the Lena River from Yakutsk on Vasili's sloop Yakutsk, doubled its delta, and stopped for wintering at the mouth of the Olenyok River. Many members of the crew fell ill and died, mainly owing to scurvy. Despite the difficulties, in 1736, they reached the eastern shore of the Taymyr Peninsula and went north along its coastline. However, Pronchishcheva and her husband succumbed to scurvy and died on the way back.[3]
Name
[edit]
Pronchishcheva is not mentioned in either her husband's reports or the ones of Chelyuskin, Bering or Chirikov. Even the record of her death in the logbook of Yakutsk does not contain her first name.[1]
In 1913, the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition named the cape at the entrance to one of the nameless bays on the Taymyr coast in her honor. It was marked on maps as "m. Pronchishchevoy" (where "m." stands for mys, Russian for cape, and "-oy" ending denotes genitive case). When preparing the map for publication, it was perceived as belonging to the bay and transformed into “M. Pronchishcheva Bay”. The letter M was decoded into "Maria". Her real name, Tatiana, was revealed in 1983 research by V.V. Bogdanov.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Первая полярная путешественница Татьяна Федоровна Прончищева (1713-1736)" [The first female polar explorer Tatyana Fyodorovna Pronchishcheva (1713-1736)] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2009-04-22.
- ^ "Vasili and Tatiana Pronchishchev". Arctic and Antarctic Museum (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2010-09-23.
- ^ Historical data
- ^ Burial site excavations
 | This Russian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This article about an explorer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- 1710s births
- 1736 deaths
- People from Tula Oblast
- Explorers of the Arctic
- Explorers from the Russian Empire
- Explorers of Asia
- Explorers of Siberia
- Laptev Sea
- Female polar explorers
- Great Northern Expedition
- 18th-century women from the Russian Empire
- 18th-century people from the Russian Empire
- 18th-century explorers from the Russian Empire
- Deaths from scurvy
- Russian people stubs
- Explorer stubs