Maurice Benyovszky

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BACKGROUND MATERIALS and LINKS

Please find below several groups of background materials relating to Benyovszky's life, adventures and autobiography.

Most of the material is stored on external websites, and will open in a new window. For older texts, the host is usually Google Books.

Lists of Names

• The names of Benyovszky's companions who escaped with him in the escape from Kamchatka (mostly factual, but in places not so much...).

Editions and Sources

Benyovszky Memoirs 1790 London edition - Printed in two volumes:

• Ippolit Stepanov's account (as contained in the second volume of the German translation of the Memoirs of 1791, pp.283-292)

• Benyovsky's Memoirs - French edition of 1791

• Ivan Ryumin's account of the voyage from Kamchatka to Macao. In Russian. (First published 1822)

• Mor Jokai's Hungarian biography of Benyovszky and edition of his Memoirs (1888)

• A small collection of Benyovszky's letters collected and edited by the Polish historian Szymon Drej (2004).

Contemporary Documents

• Stepan Krashenninikov's description of the Kamchatka peninsula and Kuril islands, dating from the 1750s. (1764)

• The French explorer Fayd'herbe de Maudave's account of his attempts to colonise Madagascar in the 1768.

• Nathaniel Barlow's account (1771) of the arrival of Benyovszky in Macao.

• Thesby de Belcour's description of his service in the Polish war against Russia. (1776)

• Captain James Cook's encounter with Gerasim Izmailov on the Aleutian islands in September 1778. (pp.455-464)

• William Coxe's 1780 history of Russian Far East exploration.

• The French explorer Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen's account (1782) of Benyovszky's activities on Madagascar. (pp.154ff)

• Abbé Alexis Rochon's account (1793) of Benyovszky's activities in Macao and Madagascar (pp.206-264)

• Digitised material from the French Foreign Ministry Archives, relating to the "Benyovszky Volunteers" who went with him to Madagascar in 1774. Names, professions, death or other fate etc. This material further supplemented and complemented here... (All in French.) (With many thanks to Robert Waglowski of Warsaw, who informed me of these links, and the Dutch one which follows.)

• Dutch archival material recording and commenting on Benyovszky's letters written to the Dutch traders at Nagasaki, while he was sailing down the coast of Japan. (In Dutch)

Critiques and Reviews

• Review of the Memoirs in The Gentleman's Magazine Vol.60 1790 (pp.725ff)

• Review of the Memoirs in The Scots Magazine Vol.52 1790 (pp.318ff, 369ff, 445ff)

• Lajos Kropf's review of Pasfield Oliver's 1893 edition of Benyovszky's Memoirs. Contains useful background information on Benyovszky. Spread over two volumes of the journal Notes & Queries -

• Hungarian historian Vilmos Voigt's article (2007) summarising the critical literature on Benyovszky and including a useful bibliography

• An investigation into Benyovszky's Polish military service by the Slovak historian Patrik Kunec (2008). pp.119-36. Please note that this article is written in Slovakian.

Biographies and Studies

• The Russian historian A. S. Sgibnev's short history of the events in Kamchatka (Bunt’ Benyovskavo v’ Kamchatke). (Written in Russian.) See specifically pp.526-547 & 757-769.)

• Germain Lefèvre-Pontalis' report on Benyovszky and the fictitious Russian Invasion of Japan - an article published in France in 1889.

• Prosper Cultru's in-depth analysis of Benyovszky's Madagascan and European adventures (1906)

• V.I.Stein's investigation into 'The Self-Proclaimed Emperor of Madagascar' (1908).
In Russian. Contains much relevant material concerning the participants in the escape from Kamchatka. Published in two parts:

• Professor Ian Inkster's article on Benyovszky's (doubtful) activities on Formosa (2010)

• Dr. Patrik Kunec's article on the Benyovszky brothers' activities in the American War of Independence (2010)

Sundry genealogical & biographical records

• Maurice Benyovsky's baptismal record of 1746 - look for the very last entry at the foot of the right-hand page... ( Sourced from here - but available only by account login)

• Genealogy profile of Maurice Benyovszky

• Copy of document making Benyovszky a "Count" - official Imperial document from April 1778 (in Latin and Hungarian)

• Benyovszky family-tree (as defined by Mor Jokai in 1891)

• The Benyovszky family-tree on Slovak peerage genealogy website...

• Anna Hönsch's death record of 1826 - the very last entry at the foot of the right-hand page... "Debilitas senectutis" - died of old age.
• Sourced from here - ( but available only by account login)