Quarneroli - Croats conquering the Arctic 1872-1874
Naziv
Quarneroli - Croats conquering the Arctic 1872-1874
Kategorija
Klasifikacija prema RKD
Vrsta baštine
Grad
GEO Karta
Valorizacija
The epic story of Croatian seamen in the Arctic as part of the Austro-Hungarian scientific expedition in 1872-74 and the discovery of the Land of Francis Joseph and the establishment of Cape Fiume, which preserves the maritime heritage as the legacy for the future at the Lovran Maritime Museum. The exhibition is the story of the expedition crew, the 24 of them, 12 of whom were Croats, mostly from Kvarner, which is why they were nicknamed Quarneroli, and their contribution to the success of the expedition.
Opis
The Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition on board the sailing ship Tegetthoff,
lasted from 1872 to 1874. The ship, named after the Austrian admiral who won the Battle of Lissa (Vis) over the Italian fleet in 1866, was specially adapted to sailing in the icy ocean and equipped with a 100 HP steam engine with propeller propulsion. The crew was selected according to the strictest criteria because of the great efforts that would be required. Of the 24 members, half were from Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia. They were known as the Quarneroli. The Tegetthoff put out to sea in 1872 from Bremerhaven in Germany with supplies for three years and coal for 50 to 60 days of sailing. The commanders were Austro- Hungarian officers and the researchers Carl Weyprecht and Julius Payer. The goal of the expedition was to discover a route between the Asian mainland and the North Pole to the Bering Strait and further on to the Pacific Ocean. However, as early as the end of August 1872, the ship had become trapped by ice and remained so, carried by sea currents, for two years. The expedition nevertheless made new discoveries, most prominently the discovery of a new archipelago, which they called Franz Josef Land, and one of its capes, Fiume, was given the Italian name for Rijeka. After two years and two long polar nights, realising that the ship would remain trapped in ice, the members of the expedition left the Tegetthoff on 20 May 1874 and headed south, towing boats with supplies. The exhausting return by dog sleigh and then by boat lasted 96 days until the crew was rescued by Russian fishermen near Novaya Zemlya and transferred to the small Norwegian port of Vardoe on 3 September 1874, bringing this polar expedition to a happy end after 812 days. All the members of the expedition, except for the engineer Krisch, who died of tuberculosis, returned home via Norway, Sweden and Germany, and entered Vienna in triumph, where they were honoured by Emperor Franz Joseph I. This expedition, its discoveries and happy outcome, in spite of the numerous troubles it encountered, are to a great extent testimony to the exceptional skill and courage of the Quarneroli sailors.
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