Captive in Japan
Golovnin, Vasily / De Lange, William
Vasilii Golovnin (1776-1818) was already a celebrity when, in the spring of 1811, twenty years into his career in the Russian Imperial navy, he was commissioned to captain an expedition to map the Kuril Islands from the Strait of Hope to the island of Kunashir, just off the north-east coat of Hokkaido. Only two years earlier, having been seized at the Cape of Good Hope, he had outwitted the British and managed to escape with his ship the Diana...