MYSTERIOUS STRAIT OF ANIAN: THE FATE OF A ONE GEOGRAPHICAL IDEA
The article studies the issue of the origin and evolution of one of the speculative geographic concepts of the 16th-17th centuries - the idea of the Strait of Anian separating Asia and America. Summing up the existing historiographic approaches to this problem, the author relates the origin of this geographic fiction to the attempts of cartographers and seafarers to align the Columbus’s discoveries with the preceding geographic tradition - the Ptolemy’s picture of the world and the Marco Polo’s description of the East Asian lands. According to the author the critical role in the appearance and popularization of the idea of the existence of a strait at the meeting point of the continents of Asia and America was played by a systemic geopolitical factor - the general configuration of rivalry between the leading European sea powers in their search for the shortest possible sea route to China and India. The author offered a hypothesis that the escalation of the myth about the Strait of Anian was part of intentional policy of Spain aimed at the defense of its Pacific possessions: it served as a means of distracting attention of the competing European powers and redirecting it to the American Arctic. The article emphasizes the substantial role of the idea of the Strait of Anian in the history of both European and Russian geographical discoveries in the Arctic.