= George_Kennan_(explorer) =

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= George_Kennan_(explorer) =
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Introduction
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George Kennan (February 16, 1845 – May 10, 1924) was an American
explorer noted for his travels in the Kamchatka and Caucasus regions
of the Russian Empire. He was a cousin twice removed of the American
diplomat and historian George F. Kennan, whose birthday he shared.

Early life
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George Kennan was born in Norwalk, Ohio, and was keenly interested in
travel from an early age. However, family finances made him begin work
at the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company telegraph office at 12.

Career
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In 1864, he secured employment with the Russian-American Telegraph
Company to survey a route for a proposed overland telegraph line
through Siberia and across the Bering Strait. Having spent two years
in the wilds of Kamchatka, he returned to Ohio via Saint Petersburg
and soon became well known by his lectures, articles, and a book about
his travels.

In his book 'Tent Life in Siberia', Kennan provided ethnographies,
histories and descriptions of many native peoples in Siberia, that are
still important for researchers. They include stories about the Koraks
(modern spelling: Koryaks), Kamchatdal (Itelmens), Chookchees
(Chukchis), Yookaghirs (Yukaghirs), Chooances (Chuvans), Yakoots
(Yakuts) and Gakouts. During 1870, he returned to St. Petersburg and
travelled to Dagestan, in the northern Caucasus region, which had been
annexed by the Russian Empire only ten years previously. There, he
became the first American to explore its highlands, a remote Muslim
region of herders, silversmiths, carpet-weavers and other craftsmen.

Kennan subsequently (1878) obtained a position with the Associated
Press based in Washington, D.C., and as a war correspondent travelled
throughout his career to many conflict areas of the world. He also
contributed articles to magazines, such as 'Century Magazine',
'Atlantic Monthly', 'McClure's Magazine' (a muckraker magazine),
'National Geographic' and 'The Outlook'. He was the first
Corresponding Secretary for the 'National Geographic Society' upon its
founding in 1888.

In May 1885, Kennan began another voyage in Russia, this time across
Siberia from Europe. He had been very publicly positive about the
Tsarist Russian government and its policies and his journey was
approved by the Russian government. However, in the course of his
meetings with exiled dissidents during his travel, notably Nikolai
Mikhailovich Yadrintsev (1842-1894), Kennan changed his mind about the
Russian imperial system. He had been particularly impressed by
Catherine Breshkovsky, the populist "little grandmother of the Russian
Revolution." She had bidden him farewell in the small Transbaikal
village to which she was confined by saying, "We may die in exile and
our grand children may die in exile, but something will come of it at
last." He also met a teenage Leonid Krasin during this journey.

On his return to the United States in August 1886, he became an ardent
critic of the Russian autocracy and began to espouse the cause of
Russian democracy. Kennan devoted much of the next twenty years to
promoting the cause of a Russian revolution, mainly by lecturing.
Kennan was one of the most prolific lecturers of the late 19th
century. He spoke before a million or so people during the 1890s,
including two hundred consecutive evening appearances during 1890-91
(excepting Sundays) before crowds of as many as 2000 people. His
reports on conditions in Siberia were published serially by 'Century
Magazine', and in 1891, he published a two-volume book 'Siberia and
The Exile System'. It, with first-hand interviews, data, and drawings
by the artist George Albert Frost, had an influential effect on
American public opinion.

Kennan befriended other émigrés as well, such as Peter Kropotkin and
Sergei Kravchinskii. He became the best-known member of the Society of
Friends of Russian Freedom, whose membership included Mark Twain and
Julia Ward Howe, and also helped found 'Free Russia', the first
English-language journal to oppose Tsarist Russia. In 1901, the
Russian government responded by banning him from Russia.

Kennan was not completely consumed by Russian matters. As a reporter
and war correspondent, he also covered American politics, the
Spanish-American War, the assassination of President William McKinley,
and the Russo-Japanese War, as well as World War I and the Russian
Revolution. He also published a book, 'E. H. Harriman's Far Eastern
Plans', (1917, The Country Life Press) about Harriman's efforts to
secure a lease to the South Manchuria Railway from Japan, as well as
'The Chicago and Alton Case: A Misunderstood Transaction', (1916, The
Country Life Press), defending Harriman's purchase of the Chicago
& Alton Railroad from politically motivated criticism by the ICC
and Teddy Roosevelt.

Kennan was vehemently against the October Revolution because he felt
the Bolsheviks lacked the "knowledge, experience, or education to deal
successfully with the tremendous problems that have come up for
solutions since the overthrow of the Tsar." President Woodrow Wilson
read and weighed Kennan's report in 1918 criticizing the Bolsheviks,
but Kennan eventually criticized Wilson's administration for being too
timid in intervening against Bolshevism.

Kennan's last criticism of Bolshevism was written in the 'Medina
Tribune', a small-town newspaper, in July 1923:

Death
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Kennan died at his home in Medina, New York, on May 10, 1924, and was
buried in Boxwood Cemetery.

Works
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* [https://archive.org/details/tentlifeinsiberi00kenn 'Tent Life in
Siberia: Adventures Among the Koraks and Other Tribes in Kamtchatka
and Northern Asia.'] New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1870.
*
[https://abaicenter.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/kennan-steppes-of-irtish.pdf'Steppes
of the Irtish.'] New York: The Century Co., 1888.
* 'Siberia and the Exile System.' New York: The Century Co., 1891.
[https://archive.org/details/siberiaexilesyst01kennuoft Vol. 1] |
[https://archive.org/details/siberiaexilesyst02kenn Vol. 2]
* [https://archive.org/details/campaignincuba00kennrich 'Campaigning
in Cuba.'] New York: The Century Co., 1899.
* "The Fight for Reform in San Francisco," 'McClure's,' Sept. 1907
& Nov. 1907.
* [https://archive.org/details/russiancomedyofe00kennuoft 'A Russian
Comedy of Errors, With Other Stories and Sketches of Russian Life.']
New York: The Century Co., 1915.
* 'Folk Tales of Napoleon'
* 'The Tragedy of Pelee'

See also
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*Nerchinsk katorga

Sources
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* .
* Frith Maier (ed.), 'Vagabond Life: The Caucasus Journals of George
Kennan.' Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2003.
* Frederick F. Travis, 'George Kennan and the American-Russian
Relationship: 1865-1924.' Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 1990.

External links
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*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100615172019/http://wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ACF2B0.pdf
George Kennan and the Russian Empire]
*
*

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