Amazing stories of non-fictional Robinsons. The real story of Robinson Crusoe Modern Robinson Crusoe

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 wildlife. 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.

Robinson Crusoe on his island, alone, deprived of the help of his own kind and any tools, obtaining, however, everything necessary for existence and even creating a certain well-being - this is a topic interesting for all ages, and there are a thousand ways to make it fascinating for children.

(Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

“The life and amazing adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a sailor from York, who lived twenty-eight years all alone on an uninhabited island off the coast of America, near the mouth of the Orinoco River, where he was thrown by a shipwreck, during which the entire crew of the ship, except him, died, with an account of his unexpected liberation by pirates, written by himself."

The book under this long name, written by Daniel Defoe, appeared in England on April 25, 1719. More than two hundred and fifty years have passed since then, but to this day children and adults in all countries of the globe read this novel with enthusiasm.

It is based on a true incident with the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who, after a quarrel with the captain of the ship, was landed on desert island Mas-a-tiera, one of a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean called Juan Fernandez, 560 kilometers off the coast of Chile. Selkirk lived alone on this island for four years and four months.

Currently, the island of Mas-a-tiera is called Robinson Crusoe Island. In the XVIII and 19th centuries this island served as a place of exile. The population of all the Juan Fernandez Islands is small - only about 450 people engaged in fishing and lobster fishing.

In the past, Crusoe grew up on Robinson Island a tropical forest with very valuable sandalwood trees. Sandalwood trees they began to cut down. The rapidly multiplying goats and rabbits brought to the island destroyed all the grass and shrubs. Now heavy tropical downpours are eroding the bare ground and forming deep gullies. Winds raise dust and sand. High banks fall into the sea. The once flourishing island of Robinson Crusoe has turned into a wasteland.

Life on a desert island was not invented by Daniel Defoe, which is why it is described so believably, and the book about Robinson Crusoe is read with particular interest. There is, perhaps, not a single literate boy or girl who has not read Robinson Crusoe.

A former student of the Yasnaya Polyana school, V. S. Morozov, in his memoirs about L. N. Tolstoy, writes about his love for this book: “The second and third grades were already dismissed to go home, and we stayed until evening, since Lev Nikolaevich loved to read to us in the evenings books. Our favorite evening book was Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson is any person who finds himself in a place where there are no people, no ordinary food, no conditions for the normal life of a civilized person. Let's look at Robinson Crusoe from this point of view.

Did Robinson Crusoe really have nothing and use only what was in the nature around him?

The ship on which Crusoe was sailing ran aground near an uninhabited island.

The entire crew of the ship, who tried to escape on the boat, died, and only one Robinson Crusoe was thrown ashore by a wave. The next day, at low tide, Robinson swam to the ship. From there he brought three chests on a raft, which contained: “rice, crackers, three circles of Dutch cheese, five large pieces of dried goat meat and the remains of grain. In addition, a carpenter’s box with all the working tools, boxes of wine, three barrels of gunpowder, two fine hunting rifles and two pistols, various clothes.” Not satisfied with these things, Robinson went a second time and brought back “three scrap iron, two barrels of gun bullets, seven muskets, another hunting rifle and some gunpowder.” In addition to these things, Robinson “took from the ship all the clothing that he found, and also grabbed a spare sail, a hammock and several mattresses and pillows.” Robinson visited the ship eleven times, dragging ashore everything that a pair of hands could drag.

As you can see, Robinson was provided with almost everything he needed, even pillows. He had large supplies of food. Moreover, when all the crackers were eaten, it turned out that the grains he shook out of the bag onto the ground had already sprouted barley and rice. He had guns, and there was an abundance of game around, so he was provided with meat.

Only ten months later did Robinson decide to explore the island and see if there were any animals and plants on it that were not yet known to him. In one “charming valley” he found “many coconut palms, orange and lemon trees” and grapes. As you probably know, he drank water with lemon juice, and by drying the grapes, he got raisins. He did not use other wild trees: there was no need for it, and most importantly, he did not know them.

Robinson himself admits his botanical ignorance: “I was looking for cassava, from the root of which the Indians of those latitudes make flour, but I did not find it... There were other plants that I had never seen before: it is quite possible that, if I knew their properties, I I could benefit from them..."

“During my stay in Brazil, I paid so little attention to the local flora that I did not know even the most ordinary field plants...”

Robinson keenly felt the incompleteness of his flora: “I went home, thinking along the way about how I could learn to recognize the properties and goodness of the fruits and plants that I would find.”

But Robinson did not go further than reflect on this topic: he did not discover and use the treasures of the plant world. He would have had a very bad time if the ship had crashed on some island in the North, where there were no coconuts, no oranges, no grapes.

What is more beautiful than such adventures,

More fun than discoveries, victories,

Wise wanderings, happy crashes...

(Sunday Christmas)

Robinson Crusoe turned out to have many followers, fictional - in books and real - in life. Daniel Defoe's fascinating book caused many imitations: “The New Robinson” by Kampe, “Swiss Robinson” by Wyss, etc.

You probably know the five brave daredevils - the engineer Cyrus Smith, the correspondent Gideon Spillett, the sailor Pencroff, the Negro Neb and the boy Harbert - whom the balloon brought to the mysterious Lincoln Island (in the novel by Jules Verne " Mysterious Island"). These were almost real Robinsons. They smelted iron from ore and made working tools, made gunpowder, made sugar from the sap of a sugar maple, brought wild spinach, lettuce, horseradish, and turnips from the Yacamara forest and planted them in their garden.

“Nab prepared agouti soup, the ham of a wild pig seasoned with fragrant herbs, and boiled tubers of a herbaceous plant that grows into a dense bush in the tropical zone...”

But still they did not use enough natural resources. So, they could not replace bread with anything. Remember Harbert's remarkable find?

“It was pouring rain that day. The colonists gathered in the great hall of the Granite Palace. Suddenly Herbert exclaimed:

Look, Mr. Cyrus, a grain of bread!

And he showed his comrades the grain, the only grain that had fallen into the lining through a hole in his jacket pocket.

In Richmond, Herbert was in the habit of feeding the pigeons that Pencroft gave him. That's why he kept the grain in his pocket.

Bread grain? - the engineer asked with liveliness.

Yes, Mr. Cyrus, but one thing, just one thing.

What importance! - exclaimed Pencroft. - What can we make from one grain of bread?

Bread,” answered Cyrus Smith.

Well, yes, bread, cakes, pastries! - picked up Pencroff.

You won't choke on bread made from this grain.

Herbert did not attach much importance to his discovery and was about to throw away the grain, but Cyrus Smith took it and, making sure that it was in good condition, said, looking intently at Pencroff:

Do you know how many ears of bread one grain of bread can produce?

“One, of course,” Pencroff answered in surprise.

No, Pencroft, ten. How many grains are there in each ear?

Really, I don't know.

Eighty on average. This means that if we sow this grain, we will receive eight hundred grains at the first harvest, sixty-four thousand at the second, five hundred and twelve million at the third...

On November 15, the third harvest was taken. This field has grown greatly in the eighteen months since the first grain was sown!

Soon there was a magnificent loaf on the table in the Granite Palace.”

The glorious settlers of Lincoln Island did not manage without outside help. The good Captain Nemo gave them a zinc chest with tools, weapons, appliances, clothes, books, dishes... and mysteriously delivered quinine when Herbert fell ill.

In Jules Verne’s novel “The Robinson School,” Godfrey and Tartellet were given a chest of tools, clothes, and weapons by their cousin Fina on the island. It also contained tea, coffee, ink, quills and a Manual of Culinary Arts.

The Robinsons were lucky to get their chests!

It is interestingly told by E. Seton-Thompson in the book “Little Savages” about how two American boys, Ian and Sam, decided to imitate natural Robinsons - the Indians.

They built an almost real wigwam (hut), made Indian costumes and weapons, well, in the Indian way, they learned to light fires, but still they were not able to fully use the forest treasures. Samu had to make “raids” home for food supplies.

“There was a pantry next to the kitchen. I made my way there myself and found a small bucket with a lid. He took the bucket and, grabbing a meat pie lying on the shelf along the way, went down the same stairs again to the cellar, filled the bucket with milk, then climbed out through the window into the yard and took off running. The next time he found a note in the cellar, written in his mother’s hand:

“Enemies of the Indians.

Another time during a raid, bring back the bucket and do not forget to cover the jugs with lids.”

As you can see, the Robinsons did not know how to live among nature, using only its riches.

But the Indians, true Robinsons, whose whole life was spent among the forests, took everything they needed for existence only from the nature around them.

See how the Indian chief Longfellow used various trees to build a pirogue in the Song of Hiawatha:

“Give me the bark, O Birch!
Give me yellow bark, Birch!
You who rise in the valley
A slender camp above the river!
I'll knit myself a pirogue
I’ll build myself a light boat,
And he will swim in the water,
Like a yellow autumn leaf,
Like a yellow water lily...
Give, O Cedar, green branches,
Give me flexible, strong branches,
Help make the pie
And more reliable and durable!”
And, having cut down the cedar branches,
He knitted a frame from branches,
Like two bows, he bent them,
Like two bows, he tied them together.
- Give me your roots, O Tamrak!
“Give me fibrous roots:
I'll tie my pirogue
So I will bind her with roots,
So that water does not penetrate,
Didn't leak into the pie!
Give me, El, viscous resin,
Give your resin and juice:
I'll tar the seams in the pie,
So that water does not penetrate,
It didn’t leak into the pie.”
And he collected the tears of the spruce,
I took its viscous resin,
I covered all the seams in the pie,
Protected the pirogue from the waves.
So he built the pirogue
Above the river, in the middle of the valley,
In the depths of the dense forests,
And all the life of the forests was in it,
All their secrets, all their charms:
Flexibility of dark larch,
The strength of powerful cedar branches
And the slender lightness of the birch,
And she swayed in the waves,
Like a yellow autumn leaf,
Like a yellow water lily.

All the eyes of the world

They converge on the ice floe.

On the black dot

A handful of people

What is being broadcast -

Lifeless and blue -

Hope for exhausted nights.

(Sunday Christmas)

Is it worth talking about Robinsons at all? They live in books, exciting the imagination of readers; in life, especially modern life, when all Earth investigated, it is unlikely that there could be Robinsons.

But still, there are Robinsons, and each of you knows them.

Aren't the four Papanins Robinsons?

Four volunteer Robinsons lived for many months on an icy floating island. Life on an ice floe floating on the Arctic Ocean, in the continuous polar night, in a snowstorm, in freezing temperatures... No writer has ever come up with such a fantastic novel. The polar robinsons did not have the opportunity to use natural resources, since they lived on a bare ice floe. But the Papaninites enjoyed such comfort that none of the Robinsons had. They had a tent lined with eiderdown, a radio, a gramophone, a primus, a forty-six various types edibles. These were Robinsons who provided themselves with everything they needed in advance.

The life of the Robinson-Papaninites is full of selfless heroism. For the sake of science, they exposed their lives to mortal danger. Their icy floating island was melting, cracking, and the Arctic Ocean threatened to swallow four brave heroes of science. It was not for nothing that every day the entire Soviet country and the whole world followed a radio broadcast reporting on the life of Soviet researchers floating on an ice floe in the middle of a gloomy ocean, near the North Pole.

Now research of the Arctic Ocean is carried out constantly and on several drifting ice floes - the North Pole stations.

Another modern Robinson is the pilot Marina Raskova, who parachuted from the Rodina plane into the uninhabited forests and swamps of the Far East. M. Raskova, P. Osipenko and V. Grizodubova made a non-stop flight Moscow - Far East. Before Komsomolsk there was not enough fuel. It was necessary to land in a swamp, among the taiga. There was a danger that the plane would tip over on its nose, and in this case it was dangerous for M. Raskova to remain in the rear navigation cabin. The commander ordered her to immediately parachute out of the plane...

A bold long jump into the taiga...

“I am surrounded by a dense, impenetrable forest. There is no light anywhere... I am alone,” writes M. Raskova in her diary.

The taiga is uninhabited for hundreds and thousands of kilometers. In Raskova’s pocket is a revolver, a box of waterproof matches, two chocolate bars and seven mints. None of the Robinsons described in the novels was in this position. Excerpts from the diary of navigator Raskova show that the life of the brave pilot in the Siberian taiga was full of dangers. “I’m walking from bump to bump. The swamp is covered with thick, tall grass almost waist-deep... I suddenly fall neck-deep into the water. I feel like my legs are heavy and, like weights, pulling me down. Everything on me instantly got wet. The water is cold as ice. For the first time in all my wanderings, I feel alone. No one will pull you out of the water, you have to save yourself... You grab onto a hummock, and it sinks into the water with you... I take a stick in both hands, throw the stick over several hummocks at once and thus pull myself up...

… Hooray! Mushrooms. Real good mushrooms, big strong russulas. They will make a wonderful dinner. She wet the birch bark, prepared a box from it, strong enough and impervious to liquid, and began to make a fire... She struck a match and moved the bark closer. I put the matches on the grass next to me... The flame shot up so quickly that I barely had time to jump away. By the time I realized what was happening, my entire box of matches had perished in the fire. A real taiga fire has begun... Goodbye, delicious dinner, goodbye, sleep in a dry place! The unfortunate fire victim collects his belongings and runs into the swamp...

... Suddenly, a whole rowan bush comes across. I collect as many rowan berries as I can: in a scarf, in my pockets.”

There were four cartridges left in M. Raskova’s revolver; she shot the rest in the hope that her shots would be heard on the plane, which might have survived. And suddenly, M. Raskova recalls, “about fifteen meters from me, a bear, disheveled, black, rises from behind a bush. He stands on his hind legs... I shoot without looking anywhere.” Fortunately, the bear, frightened by the shot, began to run. Only on the eleventh day, towards nightfall, Marina Raskova finds her plane, her friends and the pilots from Komsomolsk who flew in to help.

In 1947, Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl and five companions made an unusually daring journey along the ancient Inca route from Peru to the Polynesian islands. Over the course of a hundred days, they sailed across the Pacific Ocean on the Kon-Tiki, a raft of nine logs tied with ropes, 4,300 miles until they hit the reefs of a small uninhabited island.

Six brave explorers were the real Robinsons of our time!

A feeling of complete helplessness came over me at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo when I saw a raft only fourteen paces long and six wide. On it there is a small hut and a large sail.

It becomes especially creepy in the lower room of the museum, where you see the Kon-Tiki raft from below. The logs were overgrown with algae and shells, there were schools of mackerel in the water and a huge shark the entire length of the raft. Only after seeing the Kon-Tiki raft can you not only appreciate, but also feel all the heroism of those who dared to sail on it across the ocean.

It was so beautiful... and so lonely: before my eyes there was a garden, flowers, a wire fence, and all around were high fortress walls.

(Vera Figner)

There are Robinsons, and not only among nature: revolutionaries, imprisoned for many years, also felt like Robinsons, cut off from the whole world and deprived of the most necessary things.

M. V. Novorussky, who spent twenty-five years in prison, in his interesting book “Prison Robinsons,” describes how he invented a homemade incubator in the Shlisselburg fortress and hatched chickens in a cell, how he grew lilies of the valley in winter and how he grew strawberries. Here is the story of M.V. Novorussky himself:

SEED IN AN OLD BOOK

Forest, or field, strawberries appeared in our country in an unusual way.

There was not a single bush on our island. Yes, we couldn’t look for her outside our fence. It was not on sale.

It didn’t occur to us to ask the gendarme to bring at least one strawberry bush from the neighboring sandy shore. So we would have lived without her, if not for one happy accident.

One day in March, my friend Luka was reading an old volume of the historical magazine “Russian Archive”. While skimming the lines, he noticed among the letters a small seed that stuck tightly to the page. He peeled it off and, examining the seed, thought:

Whose could it be?

But he didn’t know whose exactly.

“Let me,” he thought, “I’ll sow it, maybe something will come out.”

No sooner said than done.

The pot with the sown seed remained in the chamber for quite a long time under constant surveillance. Luka was already beginning to lose hope, when suddenly, one clear morning, he noticed that a shoot seemed to be appearing in place of the seed. Three weeks later, under the rays of the sun, we received the fourth leaf of our sprout and, looking at it, exclaimed with one voice:

Bah, it's strawberries! And a forest one at that.

I now took the bush into my care and, when it grew up, I planted it free in the ground. By autumn it had already become a large bush, but did not bloom. The next summer I received my first harvest from it - two dozen berries of real fragrant strawberries, which I had not eaten for nine years. But, most importantly, I received half a dozen long vines, on which there were at least fifteen young shoots. I rooted them in the soil.

They overwintered well, and the next year there were more than one hundred and sixty of them, that is, an entire plantation of wild strawberries.

Every other day, sometimes two, I regularly picked berries.

Following the example of M.V. Novorussky, other revolutionary prisoners began to grow strawberries. In winter, they grew lilies of the valley to present to each other on their birthdays.

We know that we have had bitter days,

unprecedented troubles threaten

but the Motherland is with us, and we are not alone,

and victory will be ours.

(O. Berggolts)

During the Great Patriotic War, the residents of an entire huge city found themselves in a kind of Robinson position.

At the end of 1941, Leningrad was surrounded by fascist troops and cut off like an island from Mainland, - that’s what everyone was called then Soviet Union. Food warehouses were destroyed by bombs and fires. Food and fuel became scarce. Residents of Leningrad, like Robinsons, made stoves from tin and smokehouse lamps from cans; they made lighters to replace matches.

In the spring, when small grass began to emerge between the stones and asphalt on the streets, people began to look for edible and vitamin-rich plants. On Nevsky Prospekt, forest plants grew from the soil that littered the windows of large stores. On the roofs of houses and on balconies, fireweed inflorescences suddenly turned pink. But not all residents knew which plants were edible and nutritious, and which were harmful.

Employees Botanical Garden The Academy of Sciences, having studied the nutritional properties of plants, gave lectures, wrote articles and brochures about which wild plants can be eaten. On the windows of the school corridors, plants dug up from the streets were displayed in pots and jars, and near them on pieces of paper there were instructions on how to use them. In canteens and grocery stores there were plants in jars with recipes for eating them. Many weeds turned out to be nutritious and even tasty. This supported the forces of Leningraders at the critical moment of the blockade.

While the battle was going on there, in the clearing, in the ravine, in the juniper thickets, there must have been a medical company located.

(B. Polevoy)

During World War II, the editorial office of a children's literature publishing house received a letter from the front. Lieutenant Gruzdev asked to send books for his soldiers about life in the forest, about tracking, and about the use of wild plants. “These books,” he wrote, “help a warrior learn the nature of the Motherland, the inhabitants of its forests, rivers and meadows. Without basic knowledge of nature, it is difficult to conduct observational reconnaissance. The skills of a tracker and observer, knowledge of the forest help the scout to completely merge with the terrain. Nature itself protects him. He sees everything, while remaining invisible. Knowledge of edible plants and mushrooms will increase the possibilities of camp cooking and increase the consumption of vitamins. We must understand that you cannot escape nature: battles take place among it, our soldier’s life flows among it.”

Lieutenant Gruzdev is right: in order to become a good fighter, you need to study nature. In war conditions, anyone can find themselves in Robinson's position. These “Robinsons” were partisans who lived in the forests and successfully fought the fascist occupiers. They knew nature well and how to use its inexhaustible riches.

Thus, two centuries after the appearance of the book about Robinson, people began to understand the name “Robinson” much more broadly. Robinson is a man who not only lives on a desert island, but also a man who, being among nature, having nothing, can obtain and make himself everything necessary for life.

Robinson Crusoe knew how to do a lot with his own hands, he was a “jack of all trades,” but in his time the science of nature - biology - was poorly developed. Robinson had little interest in nature and did not study it to expand his knowledge.

Now we know nature and its laws better and can use it more fully. Robinson was armed with guns, we are armed with knowledge. Knowledge and the desire to expand it, to explore nature more deeply help us discover many interesting and useful things in the plant world.

The forest has everything a person needs.

(E. Seton-Thompson)

When spring comes, everyone is filled with excitement. Fishermen begin to prepare their fishing rods, hunters clean their guns and prepare ammunition, tourists put the things they need for their trip into their backpacks, and city dwellers gather for their dachas. The pioneers are rushing to the camp, into the “wilds” of the wild. It is not for nothing that they are called pioneers, that is, advanced people settling in new, unexplored places.

The famous explorer Charles Darwin wrote in his diary entitled “A Naturalist’s Voyage Around the World on the HMS Beagle”:

“I always remember our little expeditions in boats and overland excursions into unexplored places with such delight as no spectacles of the civilized world aroused in me.”

Spring. Every day I feel more and more drawn into the distance, into the wide expanses of fields, under the emerald canopy of forests.

It’s good to walk along a path overgrown with ant grass, “bird buckwheat” clinging to the ground, and watch how everything around you changes in colors and sounds during the day! Flowers open and close, birds, butterflies, and beetles fly by.

It’s good to cook dinner over a fire, eat porridge that smells of smoke, sleep in a spruce hut or on a tree, like Robinson Crusoe.

Curiosity, the desire to see new things, to discover the unknown, the unusual call us to travel. Guided by this feeling, this passion, travelers discovered new lands, met unknown peoples and described unprecedented animals and wonderful plants.

Geologists travel in search of minerals - ore, coal, oil, shale; botanists travel, discovering wild-growing riches; geographers and archaeologists travel. Everyone is driven by a burning desire to find new values ​​that our people need.

It’s time for you and me, dear reader, to go into the forest!

When you enter the forest, fragrant and cool
Among the spots of sunshine and strict silence,
Your breast greets you so joyfully and greedily
The breath of wet herbs and the aroma of pine.
Your foot slides on a scattering of needles
Or the grass rustles, dropping drops of dew,
And the gloomy canopy of broad-legged fir trees
Intertwined with the foliage of alder and young birch trees.
Sometimes it smells stuffy, sometimes it smells like last year’s smell,
That mushroom smell from a felled stump,
The oriole will burst into a short, clear trill,
And the wind will rustle in the dry languor of the day.
Hello to you, haven of freedom and peace,
Unpretentious forest of the native north!
You are full of freshness, and everything in you is alive,
And you have so many mysteries and miracles!
From time immemorial you have become friends with a person,
He takes for himself from your “generosity”
Mushrooms and berries in sunny clearings,
And food, and shelter, and ship masts.
Here in the forest thickets, where everything is sweet to the heart,
Where it’s so sweet to breathe clean air,
Herbs and flowers have healing powers
For everyone who knows how to solve their mystery.

This is what a nature lover, passionate fisherman, and poet Vsevolod Aleksandrovich Rozhdestvensky says about the forest.

Let's go into the forest to explore the secrets of nature! Let's put the backpack on our shoulders, take a stick in our hands and follow in Robinson's footsteps!

Who among us did not read in childhood, either voluntarily or “under pressure” (as required by the school curriculum), Daniel Defoe’s adventure novel about Robinson Crusoe? The novel is written in the relatively rare genre of “fictional autobiography” or “Robinzoad”, so it is not surprising that the name of the main character became a household name two hundred years ago. Defoe himself wrote not one novel, but four. Moreover, the latter tells about the adventures of the already elderly Robinson in Siberia... However, the last novels of the series were never fully translated into Russian.

The adventures of Robinson and his faithful companion Friday are written so realistically that no one doubts the reality of the “autobiography”. However, alas, real Robinson Crusoe never existed.

“Robinson” is a collective image from many stories about sailors surviving on uninhabited islands, of which there were many in that era.

Pirates in Her Majesty's Service

The fact is that, although Defoe avoids this topic in his novel, all (or almost all) real prototypes of his novel were pirates. As a last resort - privateers, i.e. the same pirates, only working under a contract for one of the warring countries (most often they were used by Great Britain to rob Spanish “golden caravans”).

Since pirate ships were not equipped with guardhouses, such sailors were either killed for their misdeeds or left on a desert island “to be judged by God.” In the latter case, the islands were used as "natural prisons". Indeed, you can’t escape from such an island, and it’s not easy to survive there. This was the “divine judgment”: if after a year or a couple of years the sailor remained alive, then he was again taken away by his own “colleagues” in the pirate “workshop”, but if not... No, as they say, there is no trial.

Alexander Selkirk

It is believed that Defoe's greatest influence was the story of the Scot's survival. Alexandra Selkirk. It was a sailor who served on a galley (small warship) " Sanc Por", where he was a boatswain. In 1704, as part of a small privateer flotilla under the leadership of the famous captain Dampierre, he was supposed to rob Spanish ships off the coast South America. However, like a true Scottish privateer, Selkirk had a very bad character and violent disposition, which is why he constantly quarreled with other sailors and superiors (and arguing with pirate captain- more expensive for yourself). Because of one of these quarrels, he was demoted in rank, after which he “in his hearts” declared that he now had no place on this ship. The captain took his words literally and ordered him to land on the nearest uninhabited island...

Despite the fact that the unlucky boatswain repented and asked to cancel the order, the captain equipped the sailor with everything necessary and landed him on the small island of Mas a Tierra, 600 km from the coast of Chile.

A good start to Robinson's story

It must be said that Selkirk received excellent equipment for those times. He was given spare clothes and underwear (a luxury for those times), tobacco, a cauldron for cooking, a knife and an axe. And most importantly, our hero was provided with a flintlock rifle, quite modern at that time, with a pound of gunpowder, bullets and flint. They also included the Bible, without which the “divine judgment” would not have been a trial. 300 years later, archaeologists at the site of his camp in the tropics also found navigational instruments, thanks to which Selkirk probably observed the stars, thus determining the day and month.

Let us note that the boatswain himself was an experienced man, although he was only 27 years old at the time of disembarkation. Alexander, the son of a shoemaker, ran away to a ship as a sailor at the age of 18. However, his ship was almost immediately captured by French pirates, who sold Selkirk into slavery. However, the brave young man escaped, joined the pirates himself and returned home as an experienced sailor with a large wallet full of ill-gotten gold coins...

Finding himself on a desert island, our sailor began a vigorous activity. He built an observation post and two huts: an “office” and a “kitchen”. At first he ate local fruits and roots (he found, for example, a local variety of turnip), but then he discovered a small population of goats, which he hunted with his gun. Then, when gunpowder began to run out, he tamed goats and began to receive milk, meat and skins from them. The latter came in handy when, a couple of years later, his clothes became unusable. Using a nail he found, he sewed himself simple clothes from goat skins. The experience of working in my father's shoe shop came in handy. From half a coconut I made myself a “cup” on a leg, “furniture”, etc. That is, Selkirk has settled down quite thoroughly on the island.

Preserve humanity in solitude

Alexander Selkirk never met his “Friday”, so he suffered most from loneliness. The main tests, by his own admission, were loneliness and the fight against the rats that flooded this island. The rats ate food supplies and spoiled all his other property. Selkirk even made his own chest (which he decorated with carvings) to protect things from the weather and rats.

However, the boatswain found wild cats on the island, which he tamed, and thus protected himself from tailed pests. The presence of goats, rats and feral cats indicated that the island was once inhabited, but Selkirk never found traces of other people. In order not to forget human speech, he talked to himself and read the Bible aloud. Despite the fact that the boatswain was not the most righteous person, it was the Bible, as he himself later admitted, that helped him remain human in a wild environment.

One day, two Spanish ships arrived on the island, probably in search of fresh water, but Selkirk, who was a British privateer, was afraid to go out to them because... The Spaniards would probably have hanged him on the yards for piracy. The ships left, and the boatswain was again left alone with the goats and cats.

Robinson's rescue and the end of the story

But he was still saved. Four years after he arrived on the island, on February 1, 1709, his own flotilla under the leadership of Dampier returned for Selkirk. However, its composition was already different, and the ship "Saint Port" was not there. It is noteworthy that Woods Rogers, the captain of the Duke, which was directly involved in the evacuation of the Robinson, indicated in his logbook that he was rescuing the “governor of the island.”

Once on civilized land, Alexander Selkirk became a regular at taverns, where he told stories of his adventures on a desert island over a glass of beer. Probably one of the witnesses to his drunken performances was Daniel Defoe. The Scot himself did not stay on land for long. After some time, he returned to privateering again, but ten years later, off the coast of West Africa, he died of yellow fever and was “buried at sea” (that is, thrown overboard with full honors). Thus ended the story of the real Robinson.

By the way, the island where Alexander Selkirk lived was named “ Robinson Crusoe", and the neighboring one - " Alexander Selkirk" But this happened after the inglorious death of the brave Scottish boatswain with a bad character, who died without knowing that he had become a legend.

According to the novel by Daniel Defoe, on June 10, Robinson Crusoe returned to England after 28 years on a desert island. Website columnist Alexey Baykov tells stories of real Robinsonades.

Robinson Crusoe, aka Captain Blood

It is generally accepted that the prototype of the main character in Defoe’s novel was Alexander Selkirk. This fact now seems generally known and indisputable. Just wake up any high school student who has read anything and ask, “What was the name of Robinson Crusoe?” and he, without hesitation, will answer - “Selkirk!” Because that’s what it says in the preface to the book.

Only when comparing the adventures of the book Robinson with the story of the Robinsonade of the real Selkirk, a number of inconsistencies immediately emerge. We’ll talk about them a little later, but for now it’s worth immediately dispelling any theories and saying that this is in the order of things for fiction. Especially for an adventure story written in the centuries before last, when it was impossible to say much directly. And even without any politics, turning the life of a real person into entertaining reading was simply not interesting for many authors, and in some particularly difficult cases this was also fraught with a lawsuit.

It was much easier to “assemble” your character from several real-life people and pepper the fictional circumstances with hints that allowed the understanding public to guess what it was really about. For example, Dumas hid in the story about Milady and the diamond pendants a hint of the famous “necklace scam,” which, according to Mirabeau, became the prologue to the Great French Revolution. And many fiction authors did exactly the same thing, both before and after him.

So, as of today, at least three people are vying for the place of the prototype of Robinson Crusoe: Alexander Selkirk himself, Henry Pitman and the Portuguese Fernao Lopez. Let’s start with the second one, in order to at the same time explain where Captain Blood suddenly came from in this story from a completely different book.

An unremarkable English doctor, Henry Pitman, once went to visit his mother in the small town of Sanford, in South Lancashire. This happened exactly in 1685, when James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and part-time bastard of Charles II, landed in the port of Lyme, Dorset, to lead all those dissatisfied with the accession to the English throne of the “papist” James Stuart. Pitman joined the rebels not at all because he was a supporter of the idea of ​​​​"good old England", but rather out of curiosity and assuming that someone "might need his services." The services were indeed required - the young doctor was quickly noticed by Monmouth himself and appointed as his personal surgeon.

The uprising did not last even a year. On July 4, at Sedgemoor, the royal troops completely defeated Monmouth's army, which consisted mainly of farmers and townspeople armed with scythes, sickles and other pickaxes. The Duke, dressed in a peasant dress, tried to bury himself in a roadside ditch, but was pulled out and hanged. And while they were getting him out of there, the royal troops carefully combed the surrounding area in search of not only the fled rebels, but also those who could provide them with at least some help. Pitman was lucky - he was captured and tried, and many others, less fortunate, were killed on the spot on the mere suspicion that they had shared even a piece of bread with one of Monmouth’s supporters.

From this moment, the story of Peter Blood as we know it actually begins. According to one of the points adopted after the defeat of the “Bloody Asiz” uprising, healing the rebels was equated with participation in the uprising. And all participants were in fact entitled to one and a half meters of official rope for their brother. But here, again, fortunately for the real Pitman and the fictional Blood, the crown discovered a small financial hole, so everyone who had not yet been hanged was decided to be sold into slavery in the West Indies. At that time, this was a quite common practice, similar to the Stalinist sentence of “10 years without the right to correspondence.”

Then everything again matches down to the letter. A batch of “convict slaves” was delivered to Barbados, where Pitman was bought by planter Robert Bishop (those who have read Sabatini sigh again at the abundance of coincidences). The former doctor categorically did not like chopping and carrying sugar cane. He tried to protest, for which he was mercilessly beaten with whips, and then subjected to the most terrible punishment for tropical latitudes - he was put in stocks for a day under the scorching sun. After lying down, Pitman firmly decided that it was time to run. He secretly purchased a boat from a local carpenter and, together with nine comrades, choosing a darker night, sailed to nowhere.

This is where the life of Peter Blood ends, and the story of Robinson Crusoe, who interests us, begins. Finally, we may remind you that the navigator on the Arabella was named Jeremy Peet. The hint is quite obvious.

Well, in reality, Pitman's boat was caught in a storm. It is not clear what they were counting on - apparently that they would be picked up quite quickly by a French, Dutch or pirate ship. But the sea judged differently. All passengers on the boat died except Pitman, who washed up on the uninhabited island of Salt Tortuga off the coast of Venezuela. There he settled down and even found his Friday, an Indian whom he had captured from Spanish corsairs who accidentally sailed onto the island. In 1689, he finally returned to England, was granted amnesty and published the book A Tale of Great Suffering and amazing adventures surgeon Henry Pitman." It was published 30 years before the first publication of Daniel Defoe's novel. Most likely, they were old friends, given that the author of "Robinson Crusoe" also took part in the Monmouth mutiny, but somehow escaped punishment.

Alexander Selkirk himself

We've sorted out "Robinson No. 2", it's time to say a few words about No. 1. Alexander Selkirk was a pirate, that is, excuse me, a corsair or a privateer, whichever you prefer. The only difference was that while some robbed in the Caribbean at their own peril and risk, others did the same with an official patent in their pockets, and even crowned heads invested in the organization of their expeditions. It was on such a ship that 19-year-old Alexander Selkreg was hired by a certain captain Thomas Streidling.

Yes, yes, no typo, that’s exactly what his real name sounded like. Just before boarding the ship, he changed it because of a quarrel with his father and brother. Among the Selkregs, the obnoxious character seems to have been a family heritage and was inherited through the male line. At sea, this trait of his manifested itself in full force, and within a year the new ship's carpenter had become so annoying to Captain Streidling and the entire crew that while they were stationed on the island of Mas a Tierra off the coast of Chile, they decided to get rid of him.

In fact, landing on a desert island was considered by pirates to be a more brutal alternative to the famous “walk the plank.” As a rule, such punishment was assigned to crew members guilty of mutiny, or to the captain if the mutiny was successful. The island was selected as far away from busy sea routes as possible and preferably without sources of fresh water. Those sentenced to disembark were given a gentleman's kit: some food, a flask of water and a pistol with one bullet in the barrel. The hint is more than transparent - you could drink and eat everything, and then carry out the death sentence yourself, or die painfully from hunger and thirst. Edward Teach, nicknamed Blackbeard, treated the characters of the famous song “Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest” even more cheerfully, handing them a bottle of rum instead of water. Strong alcohol in the heat causes acute thirst, and Dead Man's Chest is the name small rock in the group of British Virgin Islands, completely devoid of any vegetation. So the song, in general, is not far from the truth.

Illustration by Igor Ilyinsky for the book "Robinson Crusoe"

But Selkirk was not a rebel, and his only fault was that he did not know how to get along with people. Apparently, that’s why they gave him not a “suicide bomber’s kit,” but everything he needed to survive: a musket with a supply of gunpowder and bullets, a blanket, a knife, an axe, a spyglass, tobacco and the Bible.

Having all this, the hereditary carpenter could easily arrange his Robinson life. Walking around the island, he discovered an abandoned Spanish fort, where he found a small supply of gunpowder hidden just in case. Feral goats, brought by the same Spaniards, grazed peacefully in the surrounding forests. It became clear that he was certainly not in danger of starvation. Selkirk's problems were of a completely different kind.

Since Mas a Tierra was first discovered by the Spaniards, it was their ships that most often passed by the island, stopping here to replenish fresh water supplies. The meeting with them did not promise anything good for the sailor expelled from the British corsair ship. With a high degree of probability, Selkirk could have been hanged immediately, without unnecessary ceremony, or he could have been “thrown” to the nearest colony to be tried there and sold into slavery. That is why the real Robinson, unlike the book one, was not happy with every potential savior, and when he saw a sail on the horizon, he did not light a fire to the skies, but rather tried to hide as best as possible in the jungle.

After 4 years and 4 months, luck finally smiled on him in the person of the British privateer Duke, which accidentally landed on the island, commanded by Woods Rogers, the prototype of the governor of the same name from the series Black Sails. He treated Selkirk kindly, cut his hair, changed his clothes, fed him and returned him to England, where he overnight became a national celebrity and also published a book about his adventures. True, he never managed to sit at home - like a true sailor, he died on board the ship, and his body rested somewhere off the coast West Africa. The island of Mas a Tierra was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island by the Chilean authorities in 1966.

Poor, poor Lopez

Robinson candidate No. 3 was discovered relatively recently by Portuguese researcher Fernanda Durao Ferreira. In her opinion, Defoe was inspired by the adventures of Fernao Lopez, described in the maritime chronicles of the 16th century. Like Selkirk, Lopez became a reluctant Robinson - he was a soldier in the Portuguese colonial contingent in India and defected to the enemy during the siege of Goa. When military luck changed once again and the troops of Admiral Albuquerque nevertheless recaptured the city from Yusuf Adil Shah, the defector was captured, his right hand, ears and nose were cut off, and on the way back he was landed on that very island of St. Helena, where Napoleon ended his days 300 years later.

There he spent the next few years, settled down and even got himself Friday, a Javanese thrown out by a storm. And as a pet he had a trained rooster that followed him everywhere like a dog. During this time to St. Elena was repeatedly molested by ships, but Lopez categorically did not want to go out to people. When he was finally found, for a long time he refused to even talk to his rescuers, but instead muttered “Oh, poor, unfortunate Lopez.” So there are still parallels with Defoe’s hero - he also constantly repeated under his breath, “I am poor, unfortunate Robinson.”

Illustration by Igor Ilyinsky for the book "Robinson Crusoe"

Eventually, Lopez was persuaded to board the ship. There he was cleaned up, fed and taken to Portugal, where he had already become something of a legend. He was offered forgiveness from the king and a plenary indulgence from the Pope, as well as lifelong maintenance in any of the monasteries, but he chose to return to the island, where he died in 1545.

Robinsons and Robinsons

If someone one fine day gathers the strength to write a complete history of survivors on uninhabited islands, then its reader may get the impression that there were no uninhabited islands in the World Ocean in principle. Each piece of sushi is larger football field at least someone once lived, and these are only the famous Robinsons, that is, those lucky few who were eventually found and saved. There were many more of those who remained on their island; they would be lucky to return to history only by pure chance, if tourists or archaeologists suddenly stumbled upon their remains. But the list of survivors and rescued in itself is impressive - what amazing individuals they were and how non-trivial the circumstances were, thanks to which they eventually ended up on a desert island. An ordinary person could not always find the strength in himself so that, finding himself in an almost hopeless situation, not break down and literally force himself to survive, in spite of everything. We can say that these people were “preparing” to become Robinsons from childhood, without knowing it.

Margarita de la Roque - Robinson by love

A young and inexperienced girl just wanted to see the world - women from the noble class in those days had such happiness extremely rarely. When in 1542, either her own or cousin, Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval, was appointed governor of New France (Canada), Margarita begged him to take her with him. Well, along the way it turned out that absolute power and going beyond the boundaries of civilization can corrupt a person beyond recognition and turn him into a real monster.

On board the ship, Margarita began an affair with one of the crew members. When everything was discovered, Jean-Francois was furious at such an attack on family honor and ordered his sister to be landed on the deserted Demon Island off the coast of Quebec. According to other sources, her lover was ordered to be dropped off, and she followed him voluntarily along with her maid.

Illustration by Igor Ilyinsky for the book “Robinson Crusoe”

They barely had time to somehow rebuild and, with the help of muskets, explain to the wolves and bears that they were no longer welcome in this part of the island, when it turned out that Margarita was pregnant. Her child died almost immediately after birth, then was followed into the next world by a maid and, finally, by her lover. Margarita de la Roque was left alone on the Island of Demons. Since practically nothing edible grew there, she had to learn to shoot and hunt to feed herself. In 1544, Margarita was discovered by Basque fishermen who were accidentally brought there by a storm and brought home. She was immediately granted an audience with Queen Margaret of Navarre, who recorded her story for her collection Heptameron, thanks to which the story has survived to this day.

"Pomeranian Robinsons"

In 1743, the merchant Eremey Okladnikov from the city of Mezen, Arkhangelsk province, equipped a koch at his own expense, hired a crew and sent it to hunt for whales off the island of Spitsbergen. The base for the expedition was to be the Starotin camp located on the shore, which consisted of three huts and a bathhouse - trappers from all over the Russian North stayed there.

At the moment of leaving the neck of the White Sea, a strong north-westerly blow knocked the koch off course and carried it to the shore of Maly Brown Island east of Spitsbergen, where the ship was frozen solid in the ice. This land was well known to the Pomors, and the feed manager Alexey Khimkov also knew that not long ago hunters from Arkhangelsk had visited here, who seemed to be planning to spend the winter and had built a hut for this purpose. Four people were sent to search for her: the helmsman himself, sailors Fyodor Verigin and Stepan Sharapov, and a 15-year-old boy named Ivan. The reconnaissance was successful - the hut was in its place and its previous inhabitants had even managed to build the stove. There they spent the night, and in the morning, returning to the shore, the scouts discovered that all the ice around the island had disappeared, and with it the ship. Something had to be done.

In principle, they had everything for a successful Robinsonade: going in search of a hut, the party took with them guns and a supply of gunpowder, some food, an ax and a pot. The island was full of deer and arctic foxes, so at first they were not in danger of starvation, but gunpowder tends to run out. In addition, Little Brown was by no means in the Caribbean; winter was just setting in, and there was practically no vegetation above the top of a boot on the island. They were saved by the “fin” - in this place the sea regularly washed a wide variety of pieces of wood to the shore, from the wreckage of dead ships to trees that had fallen somewhere into the water. There were nails and hooks sticking out of some of the debris. Having exhausted their reserves of gunpowder, the Pomors made themselves bows and arrows, and during their Robinsonade they killed an unimaginable amount of local fauna: about 300 deer and about 570 arctic foxes. From the clay found on the island they made their own dishes and fat-smoking lamps. They learned to sew clothes from animal skins, repeating Defoe’s novel almost word for word. They even managed to avoid the scourge of all polar explorers - scurvy, thanks to herbal decoctions that Alexey Khimkov brewed.

Six years and three months later, they were discovered and picked up by one of Count Shuvalov’s ships. All four returned to Arkhangelsk, successfully sold the fox skins they had collected during their imprisonment on Maloye Braun, and became quite rich from it. But the fate of their boat and the remaining crew members on board is still unknown.

Leendert Hasenbosch - Dutch loser

In 1748, the British captain Mawson discovered on one of the islands of the Ascension archipelago the sun-bleached bones and diary of a Dutch sailor sentenced to marooning (as the punishment of landing on a desert island was officially called) for homosexual cohabitation with another member of the crew. They even left him some utensils, a tent, a Bible and writing materials, but they forgot about gunpowder, so his musket turned out to be a useless piece of iron.

Illustration by Igor Ilyinsky for the book "Robinson Crusoe"

At first, the Dutchman ate seabirds, which he shot down with stones, and turtles. The worst thing was with water - its source was located several kilometers from the coast, where he obtained his food. As a result, the poor guy had to carry water in pots for almost half the day. Six months later, the source dried up and the Dutchman began drinking his own urine. And then he slowly and in terrible agony died of thirst.

Juana Maria - the sad maiden of the island of San Nicolas

Initially, this island off the coast of California was quite inhabited - a tiny Indian tribe settled there, living in their own isolated little world and little by little hunting sea animals. At the beginning of the 19th century, it was completely exterminated by a party of Russian sea otter hunters that accidentally sailed to the island. Only a couple of dozen people survived, and the holy fathers from the Catholic mission of Santa Barbara began rescuing them. In 1835, they sent a ship for the surviving Indians, but right as they were landing, a storm began, forcing the captain to give an urgent order to set sail. As it turned out later, in the confusion, one of the women was forgotten on the island.

There she spent the next 18 years. And by the way, thanks to the skills I learned from childhood to transform the gifts of nature into things useful for the household, I got a good job. From the bones of whales that washed up on the shore, she built herself a hut, from the skin of fur seals and feathers of seagulls she sewed clothes for herself, and from the bushes and algae that grew on the island she wove baskets, bowls and other utensils.

In 1853, it was found by the captain of the hunting vessel George Neydver. He took the 50-year-old woman with him to Santa Barbara, but there it turned out that no one was even able to understand what she was saying, since by this time the rest of her tribe had died for various reasons and their language had been completely forgotten. She was baptized and named Juana Maria, but she was not destined to start a new life under this name - two months later she burned out from amoebic dysentery.

Ada Blackjack - fearless Inuit girl

She was driven in search of adventure by need - her husband and elder brother died, and her only son fell ill with tuberculosis. To earn at least some money, she hired herself as a cook and seamstress on the ship of the Canadian polar explorer Viljamur Stefansson, who intended to establish a permanent settlement on Wrangel Island. On September 16, 1921, the ship landed the first batch of five winterers, including Ada. And next summer they were promised to send a replacement.

At first, everything went well - the settlers killed a dozen polar bears, several dozen seals and countless birds, which allowed them to create quite good reserves of meat and fat. Winter passed, summer came, and the ship he promised never appeared. The following winter they began to starve. Three participants in the winter camp decided to get to the mainland across the ice of the Chukchi Sea, went into an impenetrable icy hell and disappeared without a trace. Ada, the sick Lorne Knight, and the ship's cat, Vic, remained on the island. In April 1923, Knight died and Ada was left alone. With a cat, of course.

Ada Blackjack with her son

She spent the next five months hunting arctic foxes, ducks and seals in conditions that would make the adventures of the 18th-century Pomeranian Robinsons seem like a picnic. In the end, she was removed from the island by another member of Stefansson's expedition, Harold Noyce. Ada took with her a good supply of fox skins obtained during the Robinsonade, by selling which she was finally able to pay for her son’s treatment.

Pavel Vavilov - wartime Robinson

On August 22, 1942, the Soviet icebreaker "Alexander Sibiryakov" took on an unequal battle with the German cruiser "Admiral Scheer" off the coast of the island. Homemade in the Kara Sea. During these events, first class fireman Pavel Vavilov found himself in a part of the ship cut off by fire, and therefore simply did not hear the command to open the seacocks and leave the ship. The explosion threw him into the water; nearby lifeboats were torn apart, in one of which Vavilov found three boxes of biscuits, matches, axes, a supply of fresh water and a revolver with a supply of cartridges for two drums. On the way, he rescued a sleeping bag with warm clothes folded inside and a burnt dog from the water. Armed with such a set, he swam to Belukha Island.

There he discovered a small gas lighthouse built of wood, in which he settled. It was impossible to hunt - a family of polar bears that had settled on the island was in the way, so Vavilov had to survive on a brew of biscuits and bran and wait for at least someone to notice him and save him.

But the ships passing by seemed to deliberately ignore the lighted lighthouse and the fire lit on the shore. Finally, after 30 days, a seaplane flew over the island and dropped a bag of chocolate, condensed milk and cigarettes, which contained a note “We see you, but we can’t sit down, very a big wave. Tomorrow we will fly again." But the storms raged such that the famous polar pilot Ivan Cherevichny was able to make his way to Belukha Island only after 4 days. The plane landed on the water and the rubber boat that approached the shore finally completed Vavilov’s 35-day Robinsonade.

Kennedy's Coconut Diet

The future president of the United States also had a chance to wear armor - in 1943, the torpedo boat PT-109, which he commanded, was attacked by a Japanese destroyer. Two crew members were killed and two more were wounded. Eight sailors, along with their captain, ended up in the water. They quickly built a raft from the debris floating around, loaded the wounded into it, and in a few hours reached a tiny piece of land called Raisin Pudding Island.

John Kennedy. Photo: AP/TASS

There were no edible animals or water on the island, but coconut palms grew in abundance, which provided them with food and drink for several days. Kennedy came up with the idea of ​​scratching messages on coconut shells asking for help and indicating coordinates. Soon one of these messages washed aboard the New Zealand torpedo boat, who removed the Americans from the island. For saving the lives of his subordinates, the future president received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal from his command, and from his grateful compatriots he received the nickname “The Red Prince of America,” with which he would enter politics after the war

Williams Haas - get the savior in the face

In 1980, a yacht driven by athlete Williams Haas was torn to pieces by a storm in the area Bahamas. Without any problems, Haas managed to swim to the tiny island of Mira por Vos.

The problems started further. In this area, shipping was quite busy, but no matter how hard Haas tried, not a single ship responded to the fire he had lit. The poor fellow had to build himself a hut, build a desalination plant for drinking water and learn to catch lizards. As it turned out later, among the sailors of the World who sailed in this area, Vos was considered a cursed place and they were afraid to land on its shores. Because of this superstition, Haas sat on his island for three whole months and managed to become a complete misanthrope. His hatred of humanity took such an aggressive form that he greeted the helicopter pilot who came after him not with cries of joy, but with a direct hook to the jaw.

The fictional hero of Daniel Defoe's novel spent 28 years on a desert island. This record was broken in real life.

World map with marked points where the Robinsons were

1. 1515, Portuguese, 30 years old

In 2000, historian Fernanda Durao Ferreira discovered references in 16th-century chronicles to Fernao Lopes, a soldier in the Portuguese colonial contingent in India. He defected to the enemy during the siege of Goa and allegedly converted to Islam. When the Portuguese caught the defector, they cut off his right hand, ears, nose and landed him on the island of St. Helena - after 300 years Napoleon Bonaparte would end his life there.

Like the literary Robinson, Fernao had his own Friday - a Javanese survivor of a shipwreck. Instead of a parrot there is a trained rooster.

Ships occasionally landed on the shores of St. Helena to replenish fresh water supplies. The sailors knew about the hermit and considered him a saint. Realizing his ugliness, Fernand did not want to leave the island. He was persuaded to board the ship only after 10 years. The soldier received a pardon from the King of Portugal and an indulgence from the Pope, but chose to return to the island and lived there for another 20 years.

Liberation from punishment for sins.

Admiral di Albuquerque recaptured Goa from Adil Shah, founder of the Bijapur Sultanate, in 1510. The former owners made several attempts to return it.

View of Saint Helena from space. Photo: NASA

2. 1540, Spaniard, 10 years old

Sailor Pedro Serrano was the only survivor of the sinking of a Spanish galleon off the coast of Peru. The island was unlucky: only 8 kilometers long, with a minimum of vegetation and no sources of fresh water. But there were a lot of turtles on it.

Pedro made fire by hitting stones, burning seaweed and pieces of wood washed ashore. The turtles provided food, their shells served as bowls for collecting rainwater and made it possible to make a canopy from the sun.

Three years later, another sailor sailed to the island, also a victim of the crash. They lived together with Serrano for 7 years, until the smoke of their fire was noticed by a passing sailboat.

Aerial view of Serrano Bank Island, where Pedro Serrano lived for 10 years. Source: militar.org.ua

During the wars of that time, private shipowners received official permission to plunder enemy merchant ships. These were called privateers. At the beginning of the 18th century, the War of the Spanish Succession took place. The famous English navigator (who was the first to circumnavigate 3 times around the world) William Dampier equipped two ships for the expedition. One of them was Cinque Ports.

3. 1704, Scotsman, 4 years old

The navigator of the galley “Cinque Ports” (“Five Ports”), Alexander Selkirk, had a difficult character even by the standards of privateers. The captain got rid of him while staying on the island of Mas a Tierra off the coast of Chile, leaving him on the shore with a musket, a blanket, an ax, a knife and a telescope.

After the discoverers of Mas a Tierra, feral goats remained there. They became a source of milk and meat for Selkirk. The sailor built a hut from trunks and leaves and learned how to make fire. He often saw sails on the horizon, but they were the Spaniards, from whom the British pirate could not ask for help. His compatriots rescued him after 4 years and 4 months - they were again privateers led by William Dampier. The ship's commander was impressed by Selkirk's physical fitness and peace of mind:

“We have seen that loneliness and separation from the world are not as painful as people believe, especially if the person in this situation had no other choice, just as this person did not.”

The rescued man continued to swim with pirate crews. The island of Mas a Tierra is now named after Robinson Crusoe - according to one version, the story of the Scot formed the basis of the novel by Daniel Defoe. In 2007, archaeologists found the remains of Selkirk's hut and his navigational instruments on the island.

Selkirk awaits rescue, sculpture by Thomas Stuart Burnett. Photo: Herbert A. French/Library of Congress

4. 1742, Russians, 6 years old

A fishing vessel with a crew of 14 people was locked in ice near one of the islands of eastern Spitsbergen. The sailors sent four people ashore to find a wooden hut left over from previous wintering quarters. The scouts found her and stayed overnight, but in the morning they did not find the ship, which was carried away and broken by the waves. Thus began the misadventure of Alexei Khimkov and his comrades.

The sailors made spears and bows, fished, ate half-raw meat of fur-bearing animals - in the Arctic there was a tight supply of wood, and driftwood thrown out by the waves was used to heat the hut. One sailor died of scurvy, three were picked up by a merchant ship. They returned home wealthy people, because they brought about 200 skins of hunted bears, deer and arctic foxes.

A disease caused by acute deficiency of vitamin C.

Spitsbergen Archipelago. Photo: ashokboghani/Flickr

5. 174?, Dutch, 6 months

In 1748, the crew of an English ship discovered on Ascension Island in the Atlantic human remains and a diary with the story of a Dutch sailor. Leendert Hasenbosch was the ship's purser. He was accused of homosexuality and sentenced to marooning, given various equipment, a Bible, a gun without gunpowder, a tent and writing materials.

The Dutchman knocked down birds with stones, ate turtles, and fresh water went to the other end of the island. The diary tells of desperate daily attempts to get food. Six months later, the water source dried up, the prisoner drank the blood of birds and turtles, then urine, then died of thirst. A permanent settlement was established on Ascension only in the 19th century.

Punishment by landing on a desert island.

Ascension Island in the Atlantic. Photo: Drew Avery/Flickr

6. 1805, Russian, 7 years old

Yakov Minkov was a hunter on a fishing vessel. He was landed on Bering Island near Kamchatka for fur harvesting and was promised to be picked up in two months. But the ship did not return. Yakov ate fish and animal meat, built a yurt, and sewed clothes from the skins of fur seals and arctic foxes. In 1812, it was taken by a passing schooner.

Steller Arch on Bering Island. Photo: Chuyan Galina Nikolaevna / CC BY-SA 4.0

7. 1809, American, 5 years old

When the brig Negociant collided with an iceberg in the southern part Pacific Ocean, 21 crew members managed to get into the lifeboat. For a month and a half, the boat was carried along the waves, people died.

Only sailor Daniel Foss made it to land. A rocky piece of land inhabited by seals became his home. Robinson ate their meat and made clothes from their skins. Collected from cavities in stones fresh water. Five years later, the man was spotted from a passing ship. Because of the shoals, the ship could not land, and Foss got to it by swimming.

Seal rookery. Photo: Judith Slein/Flickr

8. 1835, Indian, 18 years old

St. Nicholas Island off the coast of California was inhabited by Indians. By 1835, there were about two dozen of them left, and the Catholic mission decided to take the survivors to mainland. In a hurry due to a storm, one woman was forgotten on the island.

Only 18 years later, fur hunters found the lost one; she was in good health. The islander lived in a hut made of whale bones, wore clothes made of seal skin and seagull feathers, and wove baskets from bushes and seaweed. She could not communicate with anyone - the tribe died out, and no one understood her language. The woman was named Juana Maria. Two months later she died of dysentery.

Possible photograph of Juana Maria. Photo: Edwin J. Hayward and Henry W. Muzzall/Southwest Museum of the American Indian

9. 1921, Eskimo, 2 years old

Ada Blackjack joined a Canadian Arctic expedition as a cook and seamstress to earn money and cure her son, who had tuberculosis. Five polar explorers reached Wrangel Island and stayed for the winter. But supplies quickly depleted, and the hunt was unsuccessful. Three members of the expedition decided to return. Ada remained in the hut with the seriously ill Lorne Knight and the cat Vitz. The departed companions disappeared along the way, and Knight died soon after.

The woman learned to survive in extreme cold, and a year and a half later a rescue expedition stumbled upon her. Ada took the skins of the hunted animals home, sold them at a profit, and cured her son. The fate of the cat is unknown.