The Experimental Demonstration of the Work of Chateau's Optical Telegraph in St. Petersburg in 1833 (By Memoirs of I.F. Blaramberg)

The article is devoted to the history of the optical telegraph in Russia. In Russia, the creator of the optical telegraph was the outstanding Russian inventor Ivan P. Kulibin (1794). The Frenchman Claude Chappe (1791) is best known among the first foreign inventors of the optical telegraph. In the Russian Empire, the optical telegraph of Jacques Chateau, Chappe's pupil, found application in 1833. However, the question of how the first experimental demonstration of Chateau's optical telegraph was held in the Winter Palace in 1833 has not been considered in detail by contemporary authors. Meanwhile, this event influenced the decision of Emperor Nicholas I to draw a line of optical telegraph from Petersburg to Kronstadt. The aim of this article is to consider the episode connected with the demonstration of Chateau's optical telegraph in the presence of Emperor Nicholas relying on the memoirs of Ivan F. Blaramberg, some fragments of which have not yet been translated into Russian, and to show how this event influenced the further development of optical telegraphy in the Russian Empire. The source for this article is the memoirs of the German Johann von Blaramberg (Ivan Fedorovich Blaramberg), who converted to Russian citizenship in 1824. Emil von Sydow compiled the memoirs on the basis of Blaramberg's diaries. Then Sydow published them in 1872 under the title "Memoirs from the Life of Lieutenant-General of the Russian Empire Johann von Blaramberg. By his Diaries of 1811-71". Thanks to Blaramberg's memoirs, it is known that he was a participant in the demonstration of the work of Chateau's optical telegraph in St. Petersburg in 1833. In the course of the conducted research, the authors came to the following conclusions. The use of Chateau's telegraph influenced the increase in the speed of the transmission of urgent messages, even if the scale of application of this type of communication was not as great as required for such a huge state as the Russian Empire. Blaramberg, who was a participant in the successful experiment of demonstrating Chateau's telegraph in the Winter Palace in 1833, executed the order of Emperor Nicholas I and contributed to the introduction of Chateau's optical telegraph in St. Petersburg and in its environs. In 1839, the line of the optical telegraph (then longest in the world) between Petersburg and Warsaw (1200 km) was built. Chateau was involved in the construction.

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