The Invention of Nature

A few of his party were swept along, though, including Humboldt’s old Parisian acquaintance Count Polier. Having accompanied the expedition for several weeks and observed the search for diamonds, Polier departed from Humboldt on 1 July to inspect his wife’s estate near Yekaterinburg where they mined gold and platinum. Fired up by Humboldt’s determination, Polier immediately instructed his men where to look for the gems. A few hours after his arrival they found the first diamond in the Urals. News spread quickly across the country and Europe when Polier published an article about the discovery. Within a month, thirty-seven diamonds had been found in Russia. Humboldt’s predictions were proved correct. Though he knew that his guess had been based on hard scientific data, to many this seemed so mysterious that they believed he had dabbled in magic.

The Urals, Humboldt excitedly wrote to Cancrin, were a ‘true El Dorado’. For Humboldt his accurate prediction might have been an act of beautiful scientific analogy but for the Russians it held the promise of commercial advantage. Humboldt chose to ignore this – and it wasn’t the only detail he brushed aside during the expedition. In Latin America Humboldt had criticized all aspects of Spanish colonial rule, from the environmental exploitation of the natural resources and the destruction of forests to the mistreatment of indigenous people and the horrors of slavery. Back then, he had insisted that it was up to travellers who witnessed grievances and oppressions ‘to bring the laments of the wretched to the ears of those who have the power to assuage them’. Only months before he left for Russia, Humboldt had enthusiastically told Cancrin that he was looking forward to seeing the peasants in the eastern ‘poorer provinces’. But this was certainly not what the Russians had in mind. Cancrin had sternly replied that the only aims of the expedition were scientific and commercial. Humboldt was not to comment on Russian society or serfdom.

Tsar Nicholas I’s Russia was one of absolutism and inequalities, not a country that encouraged liberal ideas and open criticism. When the first day of his reign, in December 1825, had seen a revolt, Nicholas I had vowed to control Russia with a tight fist. A network of spies and informers infiltrated every part of the nation. The government was centralized and firmly in the hands of the tsar. Strong censorship restricted every written word from poems to newspaper articles, and a web of surveillance made sure that any liberal ideas were suppressed. Those who spoke out against the tsar or the government were promptly deported to Siberia. Nicholas I regarded himself as the guardian against revolutions.

He was a ruler who adored meticulous order, formality and discipline. Only a few years after Humboldt’s Russia expedition, the tsar would declare the triad of ‘Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality’ as the ideological doctrine of Russia: orthodox Christianity, the rule of the House of Romanov and a focus on Russian tradition as opposed to westernized culture.

Humboldt knew what was expected of him and had promised Cancrin to focus only on nature. He would avoid anything related to governmental rule and ‘the conditions of the lower classes’, he said, and would not publicly criticize the Russian feudal system – however badly the peasants were treated. Somewhat insincerely, he had even told Cancrin that foreigners who couldn’t speak the language were bound to misunderstand the conditions of a country and would only spread incorrect rumours across the world.

Humboldt quickly discovered just how far Cancrin’s control extended because all along his route officials seemed to have lined up to meet him and to report back to St Petersburg. Though far from Moscow and St Petersburg, this was no untamed wilderness. Yekaterinburg, for example, 1,000 miles east of Moscow and the gateway to the Asian part of Russia, was a large industrial centre – a city of around 15,000 inhabitants, many of whom were employed in the mines and in manufacturing. The region had gold mines, iron works, furnaces, stone-grinding workshops, foundries and forges. Gold, platinum, copper, gems and semi-precious stones were among the many natural resources. The Siberian Highway was the main trade route that connected the manufacturing and mining towns across the vast country. Wherever Humboldt and his team stopped, they were welcomed by governors, city councillors, officers and other officials garlanded with medals. There were long dinners, speeches and balls – and no time to be alone. Humboldt despised these formalities because his every step was watched and he was held by the arm ‘like an invalid’, he wrote to Wilhelm.