Five real Robinsons who know everything about life on a desert island (6 photos). Real Robinson Stories

Robinson

It is used as a symbol of a person who is forced to live away from people and obtain everything necessary for life with his own labor.

Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova. T. F. Efremova. 2000 .

See what "Robinson" is in other dictionaries:

Robinson- (Kaliningrad, Russia) Hotel category: 3 star hotel Address: 22A st. Dostoevsky, Kalin … Hotel catalog

The hero of the novel "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1719) by the English politician, writer, founder of the English realistic novel Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), who spent long years on a desert island. Name… … Dictionary winged words and expressions

See Descending Devices. Samoilov K.I. Marine Dictionary. M. L.: State Naval Publishing House of the NKVMF USSR, 1941 ... Marine Dictionary

The hero of the novel by Daniel Defoe. Complete dictionary foreign words that have come into use in Russian. Popov M., 1907 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Robinson (eng. Robinson, obsolete pronunciation: Robinson) surname. Notable speakers: Robinson, Abraham (1918-1974) American mathematician. Robinson, Arthur Napoleon Raymond (b. 1926) President of Trinidad and Tobago. Robinson, Henry Crabb (1775 ... ... Wikipedia

A well-known English engraver with a chisel and a dotted line, in which our engraver F.I. Jordan; in 1834 he was elected an honorary free member of our Academy of Arts (at the same time as Vernet). Engraved by order of the Kiev-Pechersk printing house ...

ROBINSON- (lit. character) The estate is besieged Already from all sides ... Ah! close languishes The same Robinson. Ahm916 (104.1) ... Given name in Russian poetry of the XX century: a dictionary of personal names

BUT; m. About a person who lives away from people. ● Named after the hero of D. Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) ... encyclopedic Dictionary

robinson- but; m.; unfold About a person who lives away from people. By the name of the hero of the novel by D. Defoe Robinson Crusoe (1719) ... Dictionary of many expressions

Writer. Genus. in 1877 in Novogrudok (Minsk province), in a rabbinical family. He was brought up in the Yeshibots of Slobodka, Volozhin and Telsha; in 1898 he received a rabbinical diploma ("semichah"). From the same year, his journal activity begins in ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

Books

Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe. A novel about the life of Robinson Crusoe on a desert island, about his adventures, about bloodthirsty pirates and about finding a true friend Friday, the English writer Daniel Defoe wrote based on ...
Robinson Crusoe. The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe, main character novel by Daniel Defoe, by the will of fate abandoned on a desert island. He has to go through many difficulties on a piece of land cut off from the world, not to lose ...

The novel "Robinson Crusoe" immortalized the name of Daniel Defoe, and the name of the protagonist has long become a household name. Any child in childhood imagined how he would end up on a desert island and survive here. What can I say, not only a boy. So, just recently we talked about a ruined millionaire who celebrated the 20th anniversary of his stay on the island. But what else are there real stories robinsons?

Robinson Crusoe Island, where Alexander Selkirk spent 4 years

Lived on a desert island: 4 years and 4 months

The story of the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk just inspired Defoe to write the novel, it was he who became the prototype of Robinson Crusoe. True, the literary hero stayed on the island for 28 years, and for this long time alone with nature and with himself he grew spiritually. Selkirk stayed on the island for 4 years, and he got there not as a result of a shipwreck, but after a quarrel with the captain. And no Friday friend for you, and, of course, cannibals. However, Alexander managed to survive in harsh conditions, he ate shellfish, tamed feral goats and built two huts. In 1709, the sailor was discovered by English ships. When Selkirk returned to London, he told his amazing story writer Richard Steele, who published it in a newspaper.

By the way, the island on which Selkirk lived alone was later called Robinson Crusoe. And 150 kilometers from it there is another island - Alexander-Selkirk.

Traveler Daniel Foss

Lived on a desert island: 5 years

The story of another traveler, Daniel Foss, is also surprising. A man at the end of the 18th century traveled on the ship "Negociant" with a crew through the northern seas, where they hunted seals. The ship collided with an iceberg, and 21 people managed to escape by boat. For a month and a half they sailed on the waves until two people were left alive. Soon the boat was thrown ashore, where Foss lost his last comrade. And this island turned out to be far from paradise: a small rocky piece of land, where there was nothing but a rookery for seals. Actually, seal meat helped Daniel survive, and he drank rain water. Only five years later, in 1809, Foss was picked up by a passing ship. At the same time, the poor fellow had to swim before him, as the captain was afraid that he would run the ship aground.

Tom Neal - voluntary hermit

Lived on a desert island: approximately 16 years

But there are stories about voluntary seclusion. So, for almost 16 years, the coral island of Suvorov became the home of Tom Neil, a native of New Zealand. He first visited the island in 1952. The man domesticated chickens, started a garden, caught crabs, shellfish and fish. Thus, the New Zealander lived on the island for almost three years, and after a serious injury he was taken out. But this did not stop him from returning: Tom returned to his paradise in 1960 for three and a half years, and then in 1966 for ten years. After his second stay, Neil wrote the book An Island for Myself, which became a bestseller.

Jeremy Beebs - Robinson, who managed to grow old on the island

Lived on a desert island: 74 years

In 1911, the ship "Beautiful Bliss" was shipwrecked. Only Jeremy Beebs survived. Then he was only 14 years old. Due to his age, he was very fond of adventure novels, and what do you think was one of his favorite books? Of course, Robinson Crusoe. Here he learned basic survival skills, learned how to keep a calendar, hunt and build huts. The young man managed to grow old on the island: they took him only in 1985 as an 88-year-old man. Just imagine, during this time two world wars have passed and man has mastered space.

Alexey Khimkov with friends - polar Robinsons

Lived on a desert island: 6 years

This story is even more severe: without tropical forests and warm seas. IN arctic ice the team lived for six years. In 1743, headed by helmsman Alexei Khimkov, a merchant ship went fishing and got stuck in the ice. A team of four went to the coast of the Svalbard archipelago, where they found a hut. Here they planned to spend the night, but fate decreed otherwise: a strong Arctic wind carried the ice floes along with the ship into the open sea, where the ship sank. The hunters had only one way out - to insulate the hut and wait for rescue. As a result, they lived on the island for 6 years, during which time the team made homemade spears and bows. They hunted bears and deer and also fished. So the harsh Arctic winter turned out to be tough for men. However, there was an outbreak of scurvy in their small camp, and one of the travelers died.

Six years later, a ship sailed past the island, which saved the polar Robinsons. But they did not board empty-handed: during this long time they managed to get about 200 skins of a large animal and about the same amount of arctic fox. About the misadventures of the Russian Robinsons, the book “The Adventures of Four Russian Sailors Brought to the Island of Spitsbergen by a Storm” was later published, which was translated into several languages.

Which of us did not read in childhood, voluntarily or "under duress" (as required by school program), an adventure novel by Daniel Defoe about Robinson Crusoe? The novel was written in the genre of "fictitious autobiography" (1719), which was relatively rare in those days.

The fact that the biography is fictitious did not immediately reach the readers, and many believed that everything in the novel was the pure truth from beginning to end: the adventures of Robinson and his faithful companion Friday are so realistically written that the reality of the "autobiography" does not cause anyone doubt.

As the years passed, when there were more and more books in the style of "Robinsonade", and the name of the protagonist became a household name (two hundred years ago), it became more and more difficult to believe in the truth of the adventures of numerous Robinsons.

However, interest in this work, which in four years will "knock" three hundred years, does not decrease. Therefore, it is not surprising that the question - did Robinson Crusoe really exist - pops up again and again.

Various versions are being put forward. However, it should be said right away: the Robinson Crusoe described in the novel, alas, never existed ... However, there were prototypes.

The hero of the novel "Robinson Crusoe" is a collective image of many stories about sailors who survived on uninhabited islands, of which there were many in that era.

The fact is that, although Daniel Defoe avoids this topic in his work, all (or almost all) of the real prototypes of his novel were pirates.

IN last resort- privateers, that is, essentially the same pirates, only not "wild", but "working" under a contract for one of the warring countries (they were most often used by Great Britain to rob Spanish "golden caravans").

Since a guardhouse was not provided for on pirate ships in principle, for misconduct such sailors were either killed or left on a desert island "for the judgment of God."

In the latter case, the islands were used as "natural prisons". (In that era of uninhabited islands, as they say, you could eat at least with a spoon ...) Indeed, you can’t escape from such an island, and it’s not easy to survive there. This was the "divine court": 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", if not ... No, as they say, there is no court.

It is believed that Daniel Defoe's greatest influence was the story of the survival of the Scotsman Alexander Selkirk. This was a sailor who, since 1703, sailed on the galley (small military vessel) "Cinque Ports", where he served as a boatswain (according to other sources, as an assistant to the captain).

In 1704, he, as part of a small flotilla of marque under the leadership of the famous pirate captain William Dampier, was supposed to rob Spanish ships off the coast. South America. The captain treated him very well. However, after the death of the captain, Thomas Stradling became the head of the ship.

He was a very tough person. And apparently not very smart. And if we also take into account the fact that Selkirk - like a true Scottish privateer - had a nasty character and violent temper, because of which he constantly quarreled with other sailors, then the picture emerges disappointing. It would be fine with the team, but Selkirk argued with the captain. And to quarrel with the captain of the pirates is more expensive for yourself.

Due to one of these quarrels (Selkirk urged the captain to fix a hole in the hold by landing on one of the islands, and the captain claimed that this required a dock), he was demoted.

Selkirk called Stradling "the devil's captain" and said that he would feel safer on a deserted island than on a ship commanded by such mediocrity. The captain took his words literally and ordered to land on the nearest uninhabited island...

The ship at that time was sailing closer to Chile, to the Juan Fernandez archipelago. Despite the fact that the unfortunate boatswain repented and asked to cancel the order, Stradling equipped the sailor with everything necessary and landed on the small island of Mas a Tierra, 600 km from the coast of Chile. Smiling wickedly, the captain wrote in the ship's log that Alexander Selkirk was missing...

I must say that Selkirk received excellent equipment for those times - even despite the quarrel with the captain. He was given spare clothes and underwear (a true luxury for those times), a blanket, tobacco, a cooking cauldron, a knife and an axe.

And most importantly, our hero was supplied with a completely modern flintlock gun with a pound of gunpowder, bullets and flint. They also included the Bible, without which "God's judgment" would not have been a judgment.

Three hundred years later, archaeologists also found navigational instruments at the site of his camp in the tropics, thanks to which Selkirk probably observed the stars, thus determining the day and month.

It should also be noted that important fact: equipment with equipment, but the boatswain himself was a seasoned man, although he was only 27 years old at the time of the landing (people in those days grew up much faster). Selkirk was the son of a shoemaker, but a quiet, calm life did not satisfy him, he raved about the sea and ran away from home at the age of eighteen and hired himself as a cabin boy on a ship.

However, he did not sail long: his ship was almost immediately captured by French pirates, who sold Alexander into slavery. Nevertheless, the brave young man fled, then joined the pirates and returned home as an experienced sailor with a voluminous wallet full of gold coins obtained by unrighteous means ... However, our modern look unrighteous. In those days, they thought quite differently ...

Once on a desert island, our sailor started a stormy activity, although he hoped that sooner or later the British or French would take him away. To begin with, he examined his possessions and almost immediately discovered a source of fresh water.

Then he built an observation post and two huts: an "office" and a "kitchen". Of course he had to rely on own forces and learn everything: and build, and get food ...

At first, he ate local fruits and roots (he found, for example, a local variety of turnip), hunted marine life, turtles, crabs and shellfish.

So only a very lazy person could die of hunger here. Moreover, a little later, Selkirk discovered a small population of goats, which he hunted with his gun.

Then, when the gunpowder began to run out, he tamed goats, began to receive milk, meat and skins from them. The latter came in handy when a couple of years later his clothes fell into disrepair. Using the found nail, he sewed himself simple clothes from goatskins: his experience in his father's shoe workshop came in handy.

From half a coconut he made himself a "cup" on a leg, "furniture", etc. In other words, Selkirk settled down on the island quite thoroughly. Although, no doubt, his life is on the verge of insanity...

Here, however, Selkirk never met his “Friday” (or was it his? Here the opinions of researchers differ regarding the sex of Defoe’s Friday), so he suffered most from loneliness.

The main tests, by his own admission, were precisely loneliness. But it didn't break him. And his analytical mind helped him survive in the wild.

The second problem was the fight against the rats that infested this island. The rats ate food and ruined everything else in his possessions. Selkirk even made a chest (which he decorated with carvings) on his own to protect things from bad weather and rats.

However, the boatswain found wild cats on the island, which he tamed, and thus protected himself from tailed pests. Some researchers believe that the presence of goats, rats and feral cats indicated that this island was once inhabited, but Selkirk never found traces of other people.

The statement is controversial: rats could sail on the wreckage of wrecked ships or on ships that stopped at the island of ships; cats and goats were originally wild animals, so why shouldn't they also live on this island?

In order not to forget human speech, Selkirk 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 a man 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, since the Spaniards would probably hang him on yardarms for piracy. The ships left, and the boatswain was again left alone with the goats and cats.

However, fate was merciful to him: he was still saved. Four years after he hit the island, on February 1, 1709, his own flotilla returned for Selkirk. However, its composition was already different, and the vessel "Cinque Ports" was not there: it soon fell into a storm and sank.

According to some reports, the team died, according to others, it was picked up by the Spaniards and was put on trial for piracy. So, in the end, Selkirk won by not staying on this ship and ended up on a desert island. But, of course, he could not know this at the time of landing, and he repented because of a quarrel with the captain.

It is noteworthy that Woods Rogers, the captain of the ship "Duke", which was directly involved in the evacuation of the prototype of the hero "Robinson Crusoe", indicated in his ship's log that he was saving the "governor of the island". And which, in principle, did not greatly sin against the truth ...

Although the “governor” had the same vision: a thoroughly feral man in excellent physical shape (running for food and constant physical labor on fresh air contributes greatly to this) with long hair and a beard in clothes made of goat skins with a thoroughly forgotten speech. Speech, however, quickly recovered.

Arriving two years later in his native place (he sailed on the "Duke" until 1711), the former "Robinson" Selkirk became a frequenter of taverns, where he told stories of his adventures on a desert island over a mug of beer. Probably one of the witnesses of his drunken speeches was Daniel Defoe.

So the novel was based on the life of Selkirk. How truthfully did the Scot tell about what happened to him? After all, it is known that sailors, pirates, fishermen have always considered it simply necessary to brag. What a holy thing! Who will check something?

However, it is most likely that Defoe read Woods Rogers's book "A Journey Around the World", published in 1712 in London, where Rogers described his meeting with Selkirk.

It must be said that after his release from the uninhabited island, Selkirk did not stay long on land. After some time, he again returned to the craft of marque, but ten years later, off the coast West Africa, 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 Selkirk lived was called "Robinson Crusoe", and the neighboring one - "Alexander Selkirk". But this happened already after the inglorious death of the brave Scottish boatswain with a bad character, who died without knowing that he had become a legend. Nowadays, many curious tourists come to these islands.

In conclusion, I would like to note one fact that is not directly related to the story about the prototype of the hero of the novel: Daniel Defoe wrote not one novel, as is commonly believed, but four.

Moreover, the latter tells about the adventures of the already elderly Robinson in ... Siberia! Unfortunately, the latest novels in the series have not been fully translated into Russian.

Alexander Selkirk was born in 1676 in Scotland on the North Sea coast to a shoemaker's family. He was bored in his father's workshop. But irresistibly attracted to the Red Lion tavern, where experienced sailors gathered. Hiding behind the barrels, he listened to stories about the "Flying Dutchman" - a sailing ship with a crew of the dead, about the country of gold El Dorado, about brave sailors and fierce storms, about daring raids by corsairs and looted wealth.

At the age of eighteen he left home and went to sea. Alas: soon the ship was captured by French pirates. The young sailor was captured and sold into slavery. But he managed to free himself and get hired on a pirate ship.

He returned home with a gold earring in his ear and a purse stuffed tightly. But the quiet life soon bored. And at the beginning of 1703, in the London Gazette, Selkirk read that the famous Captain Dampierre was preparing to sail to the West Indies on two ships for gold. Such a prospect suited the Scot who was “sick” with the sea and adventures, and Alexander signed up as a member of the crew. He was to serve as a boatswain on the 16-gun galley Sank Pore. In addition to her, the flotilla included the 26-gun brig St. George, a gift from the King of England.

The purpose of the campaign is an attack on Spanish ships, the capture of cities on land. Well - south seas, country Latin America. In a word, a predatory expedition, common for that time, under the slogan of the struggle between England and hostile Spain.

Written ashore

At first, the ship's life proceeded calmly, but the captain of the Senkpor ship, on which Selkirk served, suddenly died. Dampier appointed a new one - Thomas Stradling, a man famous for his tough temper and cruel character. The difficult journey began. And not only because the boatswain Selkirk did not have a good relationship with the new captain. Ships now sailed across almost unexplored seas. For a year and a half, the ships roamed the Atlantic Ocean, making daring raids on Spanish ships, and then, following the path of Magellan, went to Pacific Ocean. Off the Chilean coast, the British ships parted ways. The Senkpore headed for the islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, where it hoped to stock up fresh water. It was here that the events took place, thanks to which the name of Selkirk remained in history.

After another skirmish with Captain Stradling, boatswain Selkirk decided to leave the Senkpor, by that time already pretty battered and leaking. In October 1704, an entry appeared in the ship's log: “Alexander Selkirk was decommissioned from the ship according to own will". They loaded a flintlock gun, a pound of gunpowder, bullets and flint, clothes and linen, tobacco, an ax, a knife, a cauldron into the boat, they did not even forget the Bible.

Selkirk chose to commit himself to fate on the uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra, part of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, 600 km west of Chile, instead of staying on a decrepit ship under the command of a hostile captain. In his heart, he hoped that he would not have to stay on the island for long. After all, ships often came here for fresh water. But before the ship appeared on the horizon, he had to take care of the food - he was left with food supplies only for one day.

Fortunately, there were many wild goats on the island. So, as long as there is gunpowder and bullets, food is provided. However, time passed, and the rescue ship did not appear. Willy-nilly, I had to settle seriously on a piece of land lost in the ocean. Having examined the "possessions", Selkirk found that the island is covered with dense vegetation and is about 20 km long and 5 km wide. On the shore it was possible to hunt turtles and collect their eggs in the sand. Birds abounded, and lobsters and seals were found off the coast.

Life on the island

The first months of the newly-minted Robinson were especially difficult. And not so much because of the hourly struggle for existence, but because of loneliness. As he told later, it took 18 months to come to terms with hermitage. Sometimes Selkirk was seized with fear: what if this voluntary exile is for life?! And he cursed the land that sheltered him in the ocean, as well as the hour when he decided on a rash act. If he had known then that the ship "Sankpor" had crashed shortly after its landing and almost the entire crew perished, perhaps he would have thanked fate.

Every day Selkirk climbed the highest high mountain and stood gazing at the horizon for hours. A lot of work and invention was required to establish a "normal" life on the island. Like primitive people, he learned to make fire by friction, and when gunpowder ran out, he began to catch wild goats with his hands. Once, during such a hunt, he fell into an abyss with a goat and lay there unconscious for three days. After that, Selkirk began to cut the tendons of the legs of the kids, which made them lose their agility.

More than four years have passed. One thousand five hundred and eighty days and nights one on one with nature! What a strain of physical and moral strength, so as not to fall into despondency, not to let despair prevail! Diligence, perseverance in achieving goals, enterprise - all these qualities were inherent in Selkirk, just as his literary colleague Robinson Crusoe will be endowed with them to an even greater extent.

Sail on the horizon

In early 1709, Selkirk's hermitage came to an end. January 31 at noon from his observation post, he noticed a point. Sail! First time in years! But will the ship pass by? We need to signal soon! But even without that, it was clear that the ship was heading towards the coast of Mas a Tierra. The ship anchored, a boat set sail from it. These were the first people he saw after 4.5 years of loneliness. One can imagine how surprised the sailors were when they met on the shore a “wild man” in animal skins, overgrown, who at first could not utter a word. It was not until he was aboard the Duke, that was the name of the ship that had saved Selkirk, that he was able to speak and tell what had happened to him.

Selkirk himself was also surprised a lot: it turns out that he owes his salvation to ... William Dampier! It was Dampier who managed to equip the expedition, which included the Duke, and, making a round-the-world voyage, again visit the archipelago in order to pick up the unfortunate boatswain.

Only on October 14, 1711, Alexander Selkirk returned to England. When Londoners found out about the adventures of a fellow countryman, he became popular. But soon Selkirk got bored with the public. He was unable to express his experience vividly. After 8 years, this gap was brilliantly filled by Daniel Defoe.

There are people who have not yet heard of Robinson Crusoe. But the English writer Daniel Defoe described a story that actually happened.

When the Scottish sailor Alex Selkirk was 19 years old, he left home and got into the command of the ship "Cinque Ports", which in 1703 took part in the corsair raid of the squadron of the pirate Dampier. For diligent service, Alex was appointed assistant captain. But soon, after the death of the first captain, Thomas Stradling took over the ship. He was very tough and treated everyone badly, including his assistant. Life on the ship became completely unbearable. Selkirk found himself in conditions similar in intensity to the situation of the hero of the film "Setup". It's hard to disagree with kohtekct.com, who called this film fatal, as well as the story of Alex.

It was too hard for Alex to be on a ship that went closer to Chile, to the Juan Fernandez archipelago. At this time, he made a conscious decision to leave the ship and stay on one of the islands. He hoped that the British or the French would take him sooner or later, so he took with him only what he saw fit: a knife, an ax, bullets, gunpowder, navigational instruments and a blanket.

Loneliness on the island did not break Selkirk. And his analytical mind helped him survive in the wild. He built a dwelling for himself, learned how to get his own food (hunted marine life, ate plants), tamed wild goats. This went on for a long time. In anticipation of at least some kind of ship, he had to live alone, doing various things necessary for existence (clothing, a calendar, for example). One day he saw a Spanish ship sailing near the shore. But, remembering that England and Spain became rivals, Selkirk decided to hide.

So four years passed. The expedition of Woods Rogers, passing near the island, kindly took Alex. His appearance was, of course, wild: long hair, a fairly grown beard, clothes made of goat skins, having forgotten human speech, which recovered after a while. Defoe according to the eyewitness Rogers and wrote a novel that is still known. The island where Selkirs lived to this day is called the island of Robinson Crusoe, which attracts many curious tourists.