"Sakhalin is an island!": the changing mental maps of the Amur Region, 1848-1855
This article explores the changing place of Sakhalin on mental maps of the Priamur Region in the mid-nineteenth century held by explorer G.I. Nevels’koi and by Russian statesmen in St. Petersburg. It analyzes the significance, as well as insignificance, for the Russian state of the discovery that Sakhalin was an island, and the divergence between knowledge of the physical geography and the imagined geographies of the region, along with their role in Russia’s annexation of the territory.