A mirror in the South Seas: Russian perspectives on New Caledonia during the nineteenth century

The observations of nineteenth-century Russian visitors to New Caledonia have not previously been addressed. During the latter half of the century, a small but vocal number of Russians, including officers of the Imperial Navy and independent travellers, visited and documented their impressions of the new French colony. New Caledonia served as a mirror in the South Seas for a limited range of topics, each of which enjoyed contemporary currency in Russian domestic debates: colonial governance, penal colonisation, and the management of ‘native affairs’. While the visits of these Russian observers were fleeting, their observations inevitably cursory, and their criticisms occasionally misdirected, their ability to identify issues of central concern both in New Caledonia and at home generated accounts that were vivid in their incidental detail and revealing both of themselves and their hosts.