GOLOVNIN, Vasilii Mikhailovich, & Petr Ivanovich Rikord.

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Voyage de M. Golovnin, Capitaine de Vaisseau de la Marine Impériale de Russie, First edition in French of Golovnin's narrative, detailing his two-year imprisonment in Hokkaido. Combining personal experiences, ethnographic observation, and early Russo-Japanese diplomacy, it provides extended descriptions of Japan during its period of seclusion. Volume II contains Rikord's account of the mission to free Golovnin and his crew from internment. Voyage covers the diplomatic crisis known as the Golovnin Incident. The episode occurred in 1811, when Golovnin (1776-1831), commanding the sloop Diana on Russia's second official circumnavigation, was seized with some of his officers and crew during a surveying mission of the Kuril Islands. The internment followed the failed embassy of Nikolay Rezanov in 1804, and subsequent Russian raids on Sakhalin, the Kurils, and Hokkaido, which the Japanese regarded as acts of war.Golovnin's narrative, composed after his release, reflects him as a "talented and educated naval officer who... read extensively in the history of sea exploration and philosophy as well as the works of the philosophes" (Wortman, p. 113). Rikord (1776-1855), the second-in-command on the Diana, escaped to Russia. His account details rescue operations and the negotiations, facilitated by the merchant Takadaya Kahei, that secured a release in October 1813.Golovnin's account was first published in instalments in a journal of 1815. The accounts of Golovnin and Rikord first appeare

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