The true story of Robinson Crusoe. Whose adventures are retold in the famous novel? Was Robinson Crusoe on... Baikal

Daniel Defoe's novel “Robinson Crusoe” is one of the most popular and read books in the world. In many languages, a new word “Robinson” even appeared, which means a person living away from other people. But stories about how someone ends up on a desert island and spends several years there completely alone have happened in real life. Sometimes the adventures of non-fictional Robinsons are even more incredible than the plot of Robinson Crusoe. Here are some of them.

Story one
The most famous non-fictional Robinson

The world's most famous non-fictional Robinson was named Alexander Selkirk. It was his memoirs that became the basis for Daniel Defoe’s novel and it was his adventures that are described in “Robinson Crusoe” - although not exactly, but in a slightly modified form.

Selkirk was a Scot and served as a boatswain on the pirate galley Sank Port. Because of a quarrel with the captain, he had to leave the ship on the small deserted island of Mas a Tierra in the Pacific Ocean. This happened in May 1704.

The sailor built himself a hut from logs and leaves, learned to make fire by rubbing one piece of wood against another, and even managed to tame wild goats, which other travelers had brought to Mas a Tierra many years ago. He ate sea turtle meat, fish and fruits, and made clothes from goat skins.

Alexander Selkirk had to spend more than four years on a desert island. On February 2, 1709, two English warships, the Duke and the Duchess, moored to the shore. Imagine the surprise of the captains and sailors when a man with a thick beard, dressed in goat skin and almost forgot how to speak, came out to meet them. Selkirk was accepted aboard the Duke, and after a long voyage, it was only in 1712 that he finally managed to return to his homeland.

The real story and the plot of the novel differ in many ways. Robinson Crusoe spent 28 years on the island, and Alexander Selkirk - only 4. In the fictional story, the hero of the book had a savage friend Friday, but in reality, Selkirk spent all the years on the island completely alone. And another interesting difference is that Defoe in his novel described a completely different island, which is located several thousand kilometers from Mas a Tierra (and in 1966 Mas a Tierra was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island) - in a different ocean and even in another hemisphere!

The uninhabited island described in the novel “Robinson Crusoe” was placed by Daniel Defoe near the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean Sea. The author took the nature of the southern Caribbean islands as the basis for the descriptions of his uninhabited island.

But the real island of Robinson Crusoe is not tropical at all and is located much further south. This island now belongs to Chile and is located 700 kilometers west of the coast of South America. The climate here is mild, but not as hot as on the Caribbean islands. The flat part of the island is mainly covered with meadows, and the mountainous part is covered with forest.

Picture from here
Robinson Crusoe Island (formerly Mas a Tierra), where Alexander Selkirk lived for 4 years

Story two
Robinson on a sand spit

This story took place a century and a half earlier than Alexander Selkirk's Robinsonade, but in approximately the same part of the Pacific Ocean.

Spanish sailor Pedro Serrano was the only survivor of a shipwreck that occurred in 1540 off the coast of Peru. Pedro's new home was an uninhabited island, which is just a narrow strip of sand 8 kilometers long.

The island was completely deserted and lifeless; there was not even fresh water to be found here. This is how the unfortunate sailor would have died if not for the sea turtles - the only guests of the island. Pedro was able to satisfy his hunger with turtle meat dried in the sun, and from turtle shells he made bowls to collect rainwater.

picture from here
Pedro Serrano hunts turtles (illustration for the book)

Pedro Serrano was able to get fire using stones, for which he had to dive into the sea many times. There were no stones on the island itself; they could only be found at the bottom of the ocean.

By burning dry seaweed and fragments of trees carried by the waves, the sailor could cook food and keep warm at night.

So 3 years passed. And then something amazing happened - another person suddenly appeared on the island, also a survivor of the shipwreck. His name, unfortunately, has not been preserved due to the remoteness of the events.

Together, the Robinsons spent another 7 years on the island, until they were finally picked up by a passing ship.

Picture from here
The island where Pedro Serrano robinsoned looked something like this

Story three
Robinson among the seals

Our next hero's name was Daniel Foss. He was an American and was traveling on a ship called the Merchant in the South Pacific. But it so happened that on November 25, 1809, the Negotiant collided with an iceberg and sank, and only Daniel Foss managed to escape and get to the nearest island. The island, as in the story of Pedro Serrano, turned out to be completely deserted, but not sandy, but rocky. The only inhabitants of the island were numerous seals. Poor Robinson had to eat their meat for several years. And he quenched his thirst with rainwater, which accumulated in the stone recesses of the island.

The only wooden object on the island was an old oar, brought here by the waves. On this oar, Foss made notches so as not to get confused in counting the days, and at the same time, in small, small letters, he cut out notes about his stay on the island.

From seal skins, Foss was able to sew himself warm clothes, and from stones he built a strong house with walls about a meter thick. Robinson also built a stone pillar 10 meters high. Every day, Foss climbed onto it and peered into the distance, looking for a rescue ship. Only after 3 years of staying on the island did he manage to see a sail in the distance, which soon disappeared beyond the horizon. This incident gave our hero a little hope, because if one ship passed nearby, then others may well pass too.

Fortune smiled on Fost only after two more years. A man waving an oar was spotted from a passing ship, but the ship was unable to get close to the island due to dangerous rocky shoals. Then Robinson, risking his life, swam to the ship on his own and was finally rescued.




Picture from here
This is what the rocky shores of the island looked like, where Daniel Foss spent 5 long years



Story four
Russian Northern Robinson

Russia also had its own Robinsons. One of them was the hunter Yakov Minkov, who managed to live alone on Bering Island (one of the Commander Islands, not far from Kamchatka) for seven whole years. Unfortunately, we don’t know very much about this man and the details of his Robinsonade.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Yakov Minkov, together with other hunters, sailed on a fishing vessel around the northern islands. The main task of the voyage was to hunt Arctic foxes (these animals with very valuable fur are found only in the far north). In 1805, the captain of a fishing vessel landed a hunter on Bering Island “to guard the catch” and promised to return for him in two months.

But the ship lost its course and could not find its way back, and the poor hunter had to survive all alone on the northern island with a harsh climate. He lived in a small fishing hut left by someone, caught fish, and made himself warm clothes and shoes from the skins of arctic foxes and fur seals.

It was especially difficult during the long and frosty northern winters. For wintering, Yakov Minkov built himself a yurt. It happened that it was completely covered with snow during snowstorms.

Despite all the difficulties, the Northern Robinson managed to survive, wait for a schooner passing by the island and escape. In 1812, Yakov Minkov finally returned home.

Picture from here
Bering Island, where Russian hunter Yakov Minkov spent 7 years

Story five
Volunteer Robinson

Survival alone on a desert island is voluntary. One of the most famous volunteer Robinsons in the world is New Zealander Tom Neal.

In 1957, he settled on the deserted coral island of Suvorov in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. You may immediately ask, where did the island named after the Russian commander come from? Everything is very simple - Suvorov Island was discovered by the Russian traveler Mikhail Lazarev (he also discovered Antarctica), who traveled on a ship called “Suvorov”.

Tom Neal was well prepared for life on the island. He took with him a large supply of fuel, matches, blankets, soap, and brought with him cereal seeds. He also brought chickens and pigs with him to the island. Robinson's lunch menu included fish, sea turtle eggs and nuts from numerous coconut trees.

In 1960, an American ship unexpectedly arrived on Suvorov Island. Tom Neal was not at all happy to meet people. “I am very disappointed, gentlemen, that I was not warned in advance of your arrival. I apologize for my suit,” he mockingly replied to the American sailors. Tom Neal even refused American newspapers and magazines offered to him. “Your world doesn’t interest me at all,” he said.

In 1966, after 9 years of Robinsonade, Tom Neil came to his homeland for a short time to publish his book “An Island for Yourself”, and in 1967 he returned to Suvorov Island again.

And only in 1977, the already very old Tom Neil left his island forever and moved to the mainland.

Picture from here
Bird's eye view of Suvorov Island

Picture from here
Tom Neill's book "Alone on an Island"

The prototype of Daniel Defoe's novel was Alexander Selkirk. Unlike many Robinsons who became such by the will of a tragic accident, the 27-year-old boatswain of the ship "Sank Port" Selkirk became a victim of his own character.

The very first. Alexander Selkirk

Hot-tempered and capricious, he constantly came into conflict with the ship's captain, Stradling. After another quarrel that occurred near the island of Mas a Tierra, Selkirk demanded to be dropped off. No sooner said than done, the brawler’s request was granted. Attempts to return to the ship led nowhere. The disgraced boatswain spent four years on the island. Here he built two huts and an observation post, and hunted wild goats. Upon returning home, he talked a lot about his adventures. Selkirk was again drawn to the sea, he entered the Royal Navy with the rank of lieutenant and died on board the royal ship Weymouth from yellow fever.

Today's. Jose Ivan

In early 2014, on Ebon Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, two locals found a man who they said had been at sea for about 16 months. His boat was wrecked during this trip and lost its propeller. It was possible to find out that Jose Ivan and his friend sailed from Mexico in the fall of 2012 and headed to El Salvador. After the accident, they wandered around the ocean for a long time; Jose’s friend died a few months ago. They ate fish, birds, drank rainwater and turtle blood. The found sea robinson now looks appropriate: he has long hair and a beard.

The youngest. Imayata

In February 1977, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the girl Imayata went with her friends to fish in the river. While fishing, the boat capsized. The girl did not return home. Everyone believed that Imayata was dead. She was met by chance already in 1983. A twelve-year-old girl who lived alone for more than six years even forgot her native language. The parents, who had long buried their daughter in their thoughts, immediately recognized her.

Record holder. Jeremy Biebs

In 1911, the English schooner Beautiful Bliss sank during a hurricane in the South Pacific. Only 14-year-old cabin boy Jeremy Bibs was lucky enough to get to the shore and escape on a desert island. The boy was literally saved by literature - he loved and knew the novel by Daniel Defoe by heart. Biebs started keeping a wooden calendar, built a hut, learned to hunt, ate fruit and drank coconut milk. While he lived on the island, two world wars occurred in the world, an atomic bomb and a personal computer were created. The Biebs knew nothing about this. We found it by accident. In 1985, the crew of a German ship unexpectedly discovered the record holder among Robinsons, who had already reached 88 years of age, and brought him home.

From brokers to Robinsons. David Glasheen

What does a person do when he loses $6.5 million as a result of a stock exchange transaction? There may be many answers, but David Glasheen came up with his own version: in 1993, he leased a third of Restoration Island, off the northeast coast of Australia, for 43 years. Under the terms of the deal, he must establish fishing and tourism infrastructure here. David, apparently, had no intention of fulfilling his promise. He pays £13,000 a year and leads a hermit's life here. David earns money by playing the stock market via the Internet. He grows vegetables and brews his own beer. A court order orders him to leave the island, but Robinson the broker does not want to return to the big world. He lives quite comfortably on the island alone with his dog Kwazii.

Dream Island. Brendon Grimshaw

In the early 60s, Brandon went on a business trip to the Seychelles. This work trip changed his life forever - he decided to stay on the uninhabitable island of Moyen. Grimshaw was an entrepreneur and had enough money to provide a legal basis for his hermitage. Brandon bought the island and began searching for those who lived here before. His search was crowned with success; he found the Creole Rene Lafortuno. He was so imbued with Grimshaw's story that he left his wife and children and kept Brandon company. “Robinson and Friday” not only live on the island, but do their best to support nature; they planted 16,000 trees, breed turtles and create all the conditions for a comfortable life for birds. To do this, Brandon even brought water to his island. Their efforts were appreciated: the island acquired the status of a national park in 2008. Today, Grimshaw's story is widely known and the island is constantly visited by tourists. As a memory of those days when Brandon's hermitage was just beginning, he wrote the book "The Story of a Man and His Island."

In harmony with nature. Masafuni Nagasaki

Masafuni Nagasaki was once a photographer and worked in the entertainment industry, but the norms set by society were against his freedom-loving character. Then he decided to leave the human world. For more than 20 years, Masafuni has lived on Sotobanari Island, off the west coast of Iriomote Island, Okinawa Prefecture. Volunteer Robinson eats rice and drinks rainwater, which he collects in pots placed throughout the island. Masafuni dresses only once a week, when he has to go by boat to buy rice in the nearest settlement (an hour's journey across the ocean). His family sends him money. The purpose of his voluntary imprisonment on the island of Nagasaki is defined extremely simply: “Finding a place where you want to die is very important, and I decided to find peace here.”

Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe was not just a fiction by an English writer, but was based on a true story of harsh survival. The prototype of Robinson Crusoe was a very real person - the Scot Alexander Selkirk, who lived on a desert island for more than 4 years. In those days, the island was called Mas a Tierra, and received its modern name in 1966, more than 200 years after the publication of the famous novel.

Robinson Crusoe Island is located off the western coast of South America and belongs to Chile. The distance to the mainland is more than 600 kilometers. It is one of the three islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago and has an area of ​​47.9 sq. km. The archipelago is of volcanic origin and has a characteristic mountainous topography. The climate here is Mediterranean, that is, there are distinct seasons of the year: moderately warm winters (when the temperature drops to +5 ºС) and hot summers.

The events that formed the basis of the famous novel took place in 1704. Alexander Selkirk served as a boatswain on the ship "Sank Port", which sailed to the shores of South America. At that time he was 27 years old. The sailor had a hot temper and constantly came into conflict with the captain of the ship. As a result of another quarrel, at the request of Selkirk himself, he was dropped off on the island of Mas a Tierra, past which the ship was sailing at that moment. It turns out that the reason for his stay on the island was not a shipwreck, as Daniel Defoe described in his work, but his obstinate character. But otherwise, the boatswain’s life on the island was in many ways similar to what the famous Englishman described in his novel.

He built himself a hut, discovered wild goats on the island, got food for himself and read the Bible so as not to go wild at all. True, she did not meet the natives or Friday there, and she lived incomparably less time. It is interesting that during the English sailor’s stay on the island, Spanish ships moored to him twice. But since Spain and England were sworn enemies at that time, Selkirk considered it best not to show himself to them. The sailor was saved by the English ship "Duke" (4 years after he landed on the island). The fact that this story is genuine is also evidenced by the fact that a Selkirk site was discovered on the island. In 2008, a British archaeological expedition reported finding the remains of a hut, a mountaintop observation post, and early 18th-century navigational instruments.

Today, just over 600 people live on Robinson Crusoe Island, who are mainly engaged in seafood production and work in the tourism business. The largest settlement on the island, San Juan Bautista, is located in the northern part of the island. Despite the original history, the tourism sector here is poorly developed, with only a few hundred people visiting the island per year. The lack of sandy beaches and high-quality roads, the far from “heavenly climate” (about half the year) and the distance from the mainland attract only true connoisseurs of a secluded lifestyle who want to touch the story of Robinson Crusoe. In addition to the famous character, the island is famous for another attraction. The German cruiser Dresden sank off its shores during the First World War. And today, divers are organized at its location. By the way, the name of Alexander Selkirk also went down in history. This is the name of a neighboring island within the same archipelago.

If anyone has not read Daniel Defoe’s book “The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,” then he has certainly heard about it. And about the fact that Defoe, on the crest of a wave of his own popularity, is hastily writing its sequel? About how his hero, in old age, again leaves his quiet home to wander around the world for the last time, and how he ends up in Russia? From China, through the Argunsky post. With extraordinary adventures, Robinson travels through Nerchinsk (here he and his companions burn a pagan idol, hastily flee to escape the revenge of the natives, and the governor of Udinsk assigns fifty guards to foreigners), Eravna, Udinsk, Yeniseisk to Tobolsk. Here he spends the long Siberian winter, and in the summer he goes on a dangerous journey again. Through Tyumen, Solikamsk to Arkhangelsk and from there, finally, sails to his homeland.

Defoe does not always spoil readers with details. For example, we will not know how his hero got from Udinsk to Yeniseisk. But why is there not a word in the novel about Lake Baikal, which a traveler could never bypass?! Maybe Defoe didn't know about the existence of the lake?

It turns out he couldn’t help but know. While researching the famous author’s novel, academician Mikhail Alekseev discovered back in 1924 that, while describing Robinson’s journey through Siberia, Defoe used maps and a whole library of books on geography. And from this list I singled out the travel diary of the Russian envoy Izbrandt Ides, who was heading to China. Robinson repeats the envoy's path, only in reverse order.

There is a rather striking episode in the diary related to Baikal. Ides had to cross the lake on a sleigh, on ice, since it was winter. Local residents warned him that he should treat Baikal with respect and call it nothing other than the sea, so as not to provoke anger and not die. Eden stopped the sleigh, uncorked a bottle of wine and, pouring a glass, exclaimed: “Before God and my companions, I affirm that Baikal is a lake.” And Baikal bore this insult! We crossed in clear weather.

Could Defoe have missed such an episode while reading his diary? The issue is most likely something else.

Robinson arrives in Russia on April 13, 1703. According to calculations, his caravan would have approached Baikal at the beginning of summer, when the lake was free of ice and presented a serious obstacle: there was, of course, no convenient road around Baikal then. Defoe, who always strived for verisimilitude, understood that as soon as he mentioned the crossing, it would be immediately necessary to lay out at least some details that would give the event credibility: the type of ship, the pier, their names. But he did not have any information about Baikal shipping.

But every cloud has a silver lining, says Academician Alekseev. By hastily describing Robinson's journey, Defoe managed to achieve a curious effect: his hero does not travel, but literally runs through Siberia, which the author himself obviously imagined as a huge, wild, deserted space.

From the magazine "BAIKAL"

I am sure many of you know about the life of Robinson Crusoe. But few people know that Daniel Defoe described a story that is actually real...

When the sailor from Scotland Alexander Selkirk turned 19 years old, he left his family and joined the crew of the ship “Cinque Ports”, which in the Pacific Ocean in 1703 took part in the corsair raid of the pirate Dampier’s squadron. Alexander was treated well, so he was appointed assistant captain. And after the death of the first captain, Thomas Stradling took leadership of the ship. He was a rather tough man and treated everyone badly, including Selkirk.

It was too difficult for Alexander to be on the ship, which went closer to Chile, to the Juan Fernandez archipelago. At this time, he made a conscious decision to leave the ship and remain on one of the islands. Alexander hoped that the British or French would take him away sooner or later, so he took with him only what he considered necessary: ​​a knife, an ax, bullets, gunpowder, navigation instruments and a blanket.

Loneliness on the island did not break Selkirk. And his analytical mind helped him survive among the wild. He built a home for himself, learned to get his own food (hunted sea creatures, ate plants), and tamed wild goats. This went on for a long time. While waiting for at least some ship, he had to live alone, making various things necessary for existence (clothes, a calendar, for example). One day he saw a Spanish ship sailing near the shore. But, remembering that England and Spain had become rivals, Selkirk decided to hide.

So four years passed. The expedition of Woods Rogers, passing near the island, kindly took Alexander. He looked, of course, wild: long hair, a fairly grown beard, clothes made of goat skins, and had forgotten human speech, which was restored after some time. Defoe, based on the stories of eyewitness Rogers, wrote a novel that is still known today. The island where Selkeers lived until today is called Robinson Crusoe Island, which attracts many curious tourists.