Fyodor Petrovich Litke
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Litke, Fyodor Petrovich (Литке, Федор Петрович in Russian) (9.17(28).1797 — 8.8(20).1882), Russian navigator and geographer, Arctic explorer, count (since 1866), admiral (1855), Corresponding Member (1829), Honorable Member (1855), and President (1864) of the Russian Academy of Science in St.Petersburg. Honorable member of many other Russian and foreign scientific establishments, Corresponding Member of the French Academy of Science in Paris.
Litke started his naval career in 1813. He took part in Vasily Golovnin's world cruise on a ship "Kamchatka" in 1817-1819. Litke led the expedition to explore the coastline of Novaya Zemlya, the White Sea, and eastern parts of the Barents Sea in 1821-1824. In 1826-1829, he headed the world cruise on the ship "Senyavin", during which he described the western coastline of the Bering Sea, Pribilof Islands, Bonin Islands, and Caroline Islands (discovering 12 new islands). Litke was the first one to come up with the idea of a recording tide-measurer (1839). They were built and installed along the coastlines of the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in 1841. Litke was one of the organizers of the Russian Geografic Society and its president in 1845-1850 and 1857-1872. He was appointed Chairman of the Naval Scientific Committee in 1846. Litke was a commander-in-chief and a military governor of the ports of Reval (today's Tallinn) and later Kronstadt in 1850-1857. In 1855, Litke became a member of the Russian State Council (Государственный совет in Russian; a legislative entity along with the Duma).
In 1873, Russian Geographic Society introduced the Litke gold medal. They named a cape, a peninsula, a mountain and a bay in Novaya Zemlya after Litke, as well as a group of islands of the Franz Josef Land, Baydaratskaya Bay, and Nordenskiöld Archipelago. A strait between Kamchatka and Karaginsky Island also bears his name.de:Fjodor Petrowitsch Lütke