This thesis is the only complete and unabridged English translation of Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov’s Opisanie Zemli Kamchatki (The Description of the Land of Kamchatka), first published in 1755 by the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Krasheninnikov (1711-1755) was a member of the Second Bering Expedition (1733-1741), one of the most ambitious scientific expeditions of any age. Its purpose was sixfold: 1) to explore and map Siberia; 2) to establish whether Asia and America were separated by water; 3) to explore Kamchatka; 4) to chart all waters between Kamchatka, America and Japan; 5) to map the entire Arctic coast from the White Sea around to the mouth of the Kamchatka River; 6) to explore the northwest coast of America. Krasheninnikov, a young Russian student when the explorations began, was assigned to assist the distinguished expedition scientists from the Academy of Sciences. As the years went by and his abilities became manifest he was assigned the responsibility of exploring and describing Kamchatka. Still in his mid-twenties, he walked, worked and recorded three and a half years of scientific notes about this still forbidding land. He included detailed descriptions of the geography and natural history of Kamchatka, ethnographic studies of the native tribes and their language, customs, appearance, beliefs and way of life, and the history of Kamchatka from the first Russian penetration late in the seventeenth century. His work is a great scientific tour de force which remains the classic treatise on Kamchatka. Although Opisanie Zemli Kamchatki has been published several times in Russia and has been translated into German and French, the only previous English translation is an interesting but very free and drastically abridged version by James Grieve, a Scottish physician in Russian service, which was published in London in 1764 and reissued by photo offset in Chicago in 1962. The present annotated translation includes an introduction which gives some background on Russian eastward expansion, the fur trade, and the two Bering expeditions. A bibliography is appended.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 272-296).

A restrained relationship between the Soviet Union and Japan, great military and economic powers and geographically close neighbors in Northeast Asia, is an international anomaly of considerable magnitude. Resolution of this anomaly has been delayed for the last forty-five years by several factors, but none more so than that of what has commonly been referred to as the "Northern Territories" dispute. The territorial dispute of the Northern Territories, otherwise known as the four islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai group is discussed in relation to both the historical and contemporary policies of Japan and the USSR. According to the Soviet’s perspective these islands belong to them on the basis of their military annexation in 1945. Japan fails to recognize this sovereignty, hence, leaving Japan and the USSR in a technical state of war, impeding normal Soviet-Japanese relations. Presently, Gorbachev’s policy of Perestroika has indicated the possibility of concessions and rapprochement over the islands after forty-five years of consistent deadlock. This new Soviet policy is aimed at improving relations with Japan and moving toward more economic and political cooperation, allowing the Soviets to participate in the economic prosperity of the Pacific Basin. However, Japan refuses to comply with such concessions, and demands Soviet recognition of the territorial issue prior to negotiations. Furthermore, opposition toward such conciliation exists in the USSR since any concession might lead China and other nations to press their own territorial claims. Thus, the political, economic and strategic implications of the Northern Territories problem ensures that it will remain a critical contemporary geopolitical issue in Northeast Asia. / Master of Science