I think everyone knows and many people love the book by Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe. But does everyone know who became the prototype of the protagonist of this book?

Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721) - Scottish sailor who spent 4 years and 4 months (in 1704-1709) on the uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra, which is part of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, located in the Pacific Ocean, 640 kilometers from the coast of Chile. It was this man who served as the prototype of the literary hero of the novel.

Alexander came to the island not after a shipwreck, but of his own free will. In 1704, after another skirmish with the captain of the ship, on which Selkirk, being a member of the team (boatswain), went on a predatory expedition, usual for that time, in order to capture and rob Spanish ships, he decided to leave the ship, which by that time was already pretty worn out and leaking.

Selkirk chose to commit himself to fate on a deserted island than to remain on a dilapidated ship under the command of a hostile captain. In his heart, he hoped that he would not have to stay on the island for a long time. After all, ships often came here for fresh water. In the meantime, in order not to die of hunger, it was necessary to take care of food - food supplies were left to him only for one day. And besides, he took with him: a flintlock gun, a pound of gunpowder, bullets and flint, clothes and linen, tobacco, an ax, a knife, a cauldron, he did not even forget the Bible.

In total, Alexander Selkirk spent 4 years and 4 months on the island, and was rescued in January 1709. But only on October 14, 1711, he returned to England, and 8 years later Daniel Defoe wrote the book "The Life and Amazing Adventures of the Sailor Robinson Crusoe", which has been read all over the world for almost three centuries.

Spanish sailor Pedro Serrano 1540 - 1547:

In 1540, a Spanish galleon was wrecked off the coast of Peru. The only survivor was the sailor Pedro Serrano. His salvation was a small piece of land on which there was no water and the only vegetation was dry algae. Also, there was not a single stone on the sandy spit, and in order to get fire, the sailor had to search the seabed and get a few small pebbles. The only thing you could eat in this place - turtles. After three years of loneliness, fate gave Serrano a companion - a sailor from a ship that was wrecked off the coast of this island. So together these two lived on the island for another 4 years, until they were rescued by sailors passing by the ship.

English sailor Daniel Foss (late 18th century):

This tragic story began when the Negociator ship, which was hunting seals in the northern seas, collided with an iceberg and sank. 21 crew members managed to lower the boat and escape. After 1.5 months of wandering on the waves, only two survived. The boat was washed ashore, and Foss lost his last comrade. He lived on the island for five years, eating only seals, and rainwater saved him from thirst. After this long time, the poor fellow was noticed on a passing ship, but it was impossible to approach the island. Then, seizing his oar, the optimistic sailor threw himself into the water and swam to the ship.

Four Russian sailors (approximately 1742-1749):

A ship with a crew of 14 people fell into an ice trap near one of the islands of the eastern Svalbard. It made no sense to stay on the ship, and the sailors decided to land on the island and spend the winter here. From the previous wintering on the island, a wooden hut should have been preserved. The scouts sent to the island discovered it and stayed overnight, and in the morning they hurried to the shore, but to their horror there was no ship - the storm raged all night and the ship, most likely, either crashed or was carried away to the open sea.

People ate half-baked meat obtained on the hunt, because. were forced to save precious fuel for heating the hut. After seven long years, when only three survived - one of the sailors Verigin died of scurvy - a ship belonging to a rich merchant approached the island, and he returned them to their homeland. The sailors took with them all their savings, bear and deer skins, fox skins, etc. in September 1749, the Pomors returned to Arkhangelsk.

This story formed the basis of two books - the first (1766) by the French scientist Pierre Leroy, the second by the American writer David Roberts.

dutch sailor (name not known):

In 1748, the English captain Mawson discovered human remains and a diary on one of the gloomy islands of the Ascension archipelago, which told the sad story of a Dutch sailor accused of a terrible crime and left on this island. At that time, the island was far from sea routes and was uninhabited.

The convict was left with some equipment and weapons, which were useless, because. forgot to leave gunpowder. The sailor at first ate birds, which he knocked down with stones and turtles. Instead of water, he chewed shellfish. Later, the Dutchman found water, but it was located far from the place where he got his livelihood. Every time, languishing from the heat, he carried water in bowlers. These journeys took him a whole day, and it all ended with the fact that the source that gave him water dried up, and the man slowly died of thirst and hunger. Plus, he was tormented by remorse and hallucinations appeared, which made his end even more terrible.

Vavilov Pavel Ivanovich, sailor of the Arctic fleet (1942):

On August 24, 1942, the icebreaker "Alexander Sibiryakov" left the city of Dikson, carrying out a voyage with equipment and personnel for a new polar station on Severnaya Zemlya. The next day, near Beluga Island in the Kara Sea, a Soviet icebreaker met the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer. A battle broke out between the ships, the Sibiryakov was sunk, and the surviving part of the crew was taken prisoner by the enemy. Fireman Pavel Vavilov was the only survivor who managed to escape capture.

After the ship went under water, most of the sailors were drawn into the resulting water funnel, Pavel Vavilov was lucky to grab hold of the wooden remains of the ship and stay on the surface. With the last of his strength, he was able to get out onto an empty lifeboat floating nearby and was able to get to the uninhabited island of Belukha. In the boat, the sailor found food, matches, an ax, a loaded revolver, fished out a sleeping bag and a bag of clothes from the water. There was a lighthouse on the island, in which Vavilov found refuge.

According to various sources, Pavel Ivanovich Vavilov spent 34 to 37 days on a polar rocky island. Passing steamers did not notice the sailor, hoping to wave his jersey on the shore. However, when the food was almost over and frosts were approaching, he was noticed from the Sakko steamer passing by and a seaplane was sent for the sailor.

In history, another polar robinsonade is known, this time single-handedly committed by a Russian hunter Yakov Minkov who lived on Bering Island (from the Commander Islands group) in the Pacific Ocean for seven whole years.

It happened in 1805, when the navigator Potapov left him in a yurt for
this island to protect fox pelts caught during the fishing season. The schooner was to return here in a few days. Weeks, months passed, and she was still gone. However, deprived of the most necessary things, Minkov did not lose his presence of mind: his ingenuity and ingenuity saved him. Nearby was a river rich in fish. To provide himself with food, Minkov made
hook and started fishing. Fire was made with flint. Only in 1812, Yakov Minkova took off a passing by from a deserted island.
schooner.

And in 1983 in the jungle of the famous Indonesian island
Sumatra, on the banks of the river South Sarmat, hunters accidentally met
12 year old girl Imayatu who lived here alone from above
six years old. In February 1977, she went with her friends to fish on the river.
ku did not return. Everyone believed that Imayata died when the boat with the unlucky fishermen capsized.

The girl went wild, forgot her native language, but her happy parents immediately
did know. It is interesting that they found the girl just 20 km from her native
villages. This is probably the youngest of the known modern Robinsons.

A few examples of "voluntary Robinsons":

1. Japanese pensioner Masafumi Nagasaki has been living alone on the island of Sotobanari (Okinawa) for 20 years without a source of fresh water. Once the Japanese worked as a photographer, then he fully experienced the dark side of the entertainment industry. He says he wanted to get away from all this once and for all.

2. David Glashin and his dog Quasi are the only residents on tiny Recovery Island near Cape York. Glashin, 65, is a former businessman who traded laptop bags about 2 decades ago after the stock market crash in 1987. His first marriage, from which he has two daughters, ended at the same time. The former CEO of the company considers the loss of his entire fortune one of the best things that happened in his life.

Glashin moved to the island in 1993. He improved the island somewhat, but it still remains a "wild" place. I liked its simplicity and remoteness Russell Crowe And Daniel Spencer who stopped there to spend their honeymoon.

Apart from the occasional tourist visits and passing yachts, he admits he gets lonely in his little paradise, which is why the now divorced father of three puts up ads looking for a woman who loves a quiet and lonely life without any neighbors.

3. The unusual experience of Swiss snowboarder Xavier Rosset - he decided to try to survive on a deserted island in the South Pacific for ten months, with only the essentials. The island with an area of ​​60 km2 lies 1600 km from New Zealand, with an active volcano, a rocky coast 20 meters wide and a large crater lake. There are many wild boars on the island and the vegetation is so dense that it is impossible to pass without a machete.

A machete, a knife, a first aid kit, and equipment to upload new videos to his site weekly are all that is in his backpack.
Rosset says the lonely island project combines his dream of adventure with a strong belief in being able to live in harmony with nature without harming it. “It's really important for me to show that I can live 300 days without polluting the environment. But mostly I will do it because it's great to make your dreams come true."

4. A mechanic from Munich, disappointed in life, decided to settle on a small island in the South China Sea, renting the island for 99 years. Friedrich Texter was able to rent this island for as much as 99 years for the amount he paid for the rent of his apartment per year, namely 6,000 German marks. Friedrich settled in a small hut made of bamboo. His clothes are all quite simple, which is made from various pieces of fabric. On the islet, Texter has a mini-farm for chickens, numbering about five dozen birds. He grows a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. All the food he easily suffices for a good existence. By the way, the space owned by Friedrich Texter reaches approximately 5 square kilometers, including only the jungle, sand and rocks.

Most importantly, the temperature here is constantly sunny and warm, it does not fall below 22 degrees. Sometimes this inhabitant of the island gives special signals thanks to mirrors and some friends from Palawan sail to him. Texter is constantly trading. He sells personally grown food, and buys the most necessary things for his existence.

Thank you all for your attention!

The exciting adventures of the protagonist of Daniel Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe" have long become classics. But history knows many cases when people found themselves alone on uninhabited islands, and everything turned out to be much more prosaic than in an adventure novel. How real "Robinsons" managed to survive in extreme conditions - further in the review.

Alexander Selkirk

Once, after another skirmish, the boatswain began to exclaim that he was landed on the nearest island, because. he cannot bear the whole crew. The captain with great satisfaction did what the sailor so hastily asked for. When Selkirk was escorted to the coast of Mas a Tierra, he would have been glad to apologize, but it was already too late.

Fortunately for Selkirk, colonists once lived on the island. As they left, they abandoned the cats and goats, which had already run wild. The boatswain managed to re-domesticate animals, thereby providing himself with food.

After 4 years and 4 months, a ship under the British flag "Duke" landed on the shores of the island. The Selkirk was brought back to Scotland. There, the former sailor became a real celebrity. Reporters vying with each other interviewed him, ordinary onlookers over a glass of alcohol with their mouths open listened to the wonderful story of salvation. One such listener was the writer Daniel Defoe, who based his novel about Robinson Crusoe on the adventures of the sailor Selkirk.

Pavel Vavilov

A month and three days lasted Vavilov's survival in the Arctic on a desert island. When food supplies were already running out, Vavilov managed to attract the attention of the Sakko ship passing by. The stoker was rescued.

Sergei Lisitsyn

If in the famous novel about Robinson Crusoe the protagonist finds himself on a tropical island, then in the case of Lisitsyn, it happened in a much colder climate.

For seven months the unfortunate hussar was alone. Then, after another storm, he found a man lying on the shore. The rescued man introduced himself as Vasily and said that the ship he was on had leaked. Everyone sailed away, but he was forgotten. To the delight of Lisitsyn, there were large and small cattle on the ship.

At the same time, the Chinese began to more actively raid the Amur region, so Russian warships began to arrive there. One of them discovered "Russian Robinsons". Isolation lasted 7 months.

Gerald Kingsland and Lucy Irvine

Sometimes it happens that people consciously refuse the benefits of civilization and go to a desert island. This is exactly what journalist Gerald Kingsland did in the early 1980s. It was a kind of social experiment in which it was necessary to hold out for a whole year. Kingsland advertised looking for a partner. Lucy Irwin agreed to go with him. The experiment took place in 1982. The couple arranged a fictitious marriage in order to go to the island, which was located between Australia and New Guinea, without delays at the border.

As it turned out, the newly-made spouses had little in common. Moreover, they constantly quarreled on domestic grounds. A few months later, a severe drought led to the fact that voluntary hermits were without fresh water. They were rescued by natives from a neighboring island.

Upon arrival in the UK, Kingsland and Irvine immediately filed for divorce. Each of them wrote a book, outlining their personal experience of being on a desert island. Literary works became bestsellers, and films were made based on them.

Englishman Brandon Grimshaw earned the nickname of the modern day Robinson because

After the appearance of Daniel Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe", the name from the title of the book quickly became a household name. Robinson began to be called anyone who, on his own initiative or by the will of fate, was away from people.

Sometimes the adventures of the most famous non-fictional Robinsons turn out to be even more interesting than the stories about hermits described in books.

Alexander Selkirk - the prototype of Robinson Crusoe

Being the boatswain of a pirate ship, Selkirk fell into disfavor with the captain in May 1704. The consequences of the quarrel was the landing of a sailor on the deserted island of Mas-a-Tierra, which is located in the Pacific Ocean, and where Friday was not even heard of a friend. Despite the difficult living conditions, Alexander was able to achieve some success during his stay on the island.

For example, tame wild goats. It was in the company of these horned ones that English ships found him in 1709, and already in 1712 Selkirk managed to return home. The editors of the site recall that Defoe had Robinson's stay on the island for 28 years.

Traveler Daniel Foss

This piece of land was deserted, and there was nothing here but a rookery for seals. An ordinary wooden oar helped the hero to survive, which was washed to the shore of the island by waves. The hero was waving it like a flag when he was seen from a passing ship 5 years later. Moreover, Daniel got to him by swimming, because the captain was afraid to land the ship on a rocky bottom.

Volunteer Robinson – Tom Neal

In addition, the island was rich in its tropical gifts. When, after 3 years, Tom's stay in paradise was violated by the Americans, he did not even want to hear anything about the world of people. Nevertheless, in 1966, Tom made a brief foray into civilization to publish his memoirs and earn money.

With the book "Island for myself" he returned to the island. His inspiration lasted another 10 years, after which Tom Neal left an uninhabited piece of land and went to live out his life in his native New Zealand.

The Magic of Defoe's Book

He learned his knowledge of calendar keeping, hunting and primitive architecture from a book about Robinson Crusoe, and fresh fruits and coconut milk helped to maintain health until old age. Only in 1985, at the age of 88, he found himself on a German ship that happened to pass by.

The story about the famous hermit from the book by Daniel Defoe is reflected in the cinema. In 2000, the film Cast Away starring Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks was released.

Alexey Khimkov - Russian "Robinson"

Khimkov had no choice but to insulate the discovered building for wintering. Rifle cartridges did not last long, but with the help of handy items, the brave team made homemade bows and spears. This was enough to hunt deer and bears. The island was also rich in small game and fish, and salt was mined straight from sea water.

Unfortunately, it was not hunger or cold that lay in wait for them, but ordinary scurvy. In conditions of lack of vital vitamins, one in four died five years later. Another year and a half passed before, in the summer of 1749, a passing ship led by Commander Kornilov noticed the wild Robinsons.

News of the surviving hunters eventually reached Count Shuvalov himself, who was listed at the royal court. It was he who instructed the French citizen Le Roy to write a book about the misadventures of Khimkov called "The Adventures of Four Russian Sailors Brought to the Island of Svalbard by a Storm", which was subsequently published in several languages ​​​​in different countries of the world. We invite you to learn the stories of the most famous travelers.
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The brave Scottish boatswain, who spent 4 years and 4 months on a desert island, managed not only to survive, but also to become the prototype of the legendary Robinson Crusoe.

In April 1703, Alexander Selkirk became a member of the British expedition to the coast of South America. In just one year, the Scot, who had an extremely scandalous character, managed to piss off the entire crew of the Cinque Ports. That is why, when Selkirk, during another quarrel, demanded to be landed, Captain Charles Pickering breathed a sigh of relief and immediately granted this desire. Of course, realizing his prospects, Selkirk still tried to take his words back, but it was too late: the team left him in the Pacific Ocean on the uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra (now it is called - long live recursion! - Robinson Crusoe Island).

Before Selkirk, settlers had already managed to live on the island, leaving behind goats and cats, which, however, managed to run wild over the years. The Scot had plenty of free time, so he managed to tame goats and get a constant source of fresh meat and milk, as well as skins from which it was possible to build a semblance of clothing. Selkirk used cats as protection from rats (and probably for mental relaxation). Among other things, thickets of wild turnips and edible berries were discovered on the island.

At the beginning of 1709, the British ship Duke anchored off the coast of Mas-a-Tierra, whose crew discovered and rescued Selkirk, who had already settled down on the island. Returning to his homeland, the Scot became a celebrity: articles were written about him in newspapers, and in pubs there was a line of people who wanted to treat him to a drink and listen to stories from the life of a hermit. A few years later, Alexander Selkirk joined the Royal Navy and sailed to the shores of West Africa, where he died during a yellow fever epidemic.

Pavel Vavilov, 34 days

On August 25, 1942, the team of the famous icebreaker "Alexander Sibiryakov" entered into an unequal battle with the Nazi cruiser Admiral Scheer near Domashny Island in the Kara Sea. Almost all crew members and passengers died during a fire on board or were captured. Only the stoker Pavel Vavilov managed to avoid the same fate, who ended up in the water, and later managed to climb onto the surviving rescue whaleboat. Finding an emergency supply in the boat, consisting of matches, biscuits and a barrel of water, as well as catching a bag of bran and a set of warm clothes from the water, Vavilov set off towards the lighthouse that was giving signals and ended up on the uninhabited island of Belukha.

For 34 days, the stoker survived on an island inhabited exclusively by polar bears. Having settled down on the upper platform of the lighthouse, in relative safety, he ate bran stew and drank melt water, since in September it had already snowed in those parts.

By the time when the food supplies were almost over, Vavilov was noticed by the crew of the Sakko steamer passing by. A seaplane was sent for the survivors, flown by the famous polar pilot Ivan Cherevichny.

After the rescue, Pavel Vavilov, as the Soviet man should have done, did not rest on his laurels, but quickly returned to normal life. Until the end of his life, he managed to work on the icebreakers Georgy Sedov and Lenin.

Ada Blackjack, 2 years old

The life of a simple Inuit girl Ada Blackjack (nee - Delutuk) was not very joyful: two of her three children died in infancy, and her young husband died a little later. Due to the difficult financial situation, Ada had to temporarily give her only son to an orphanage and go to work. Work was quickly found: Canadian Alan Crawford invited Ada to join the Arctic expedition as a cook and seamstress.

On September 16, 1921, five people - Ada, Alan and American polar explorers Milton Galle, Fred Maurer and Lorne Knight - set off towards Wrangel Island in order to get ahead of the Japanese expedition, who were about to claim their right to own the island. The very first wintering was too hard for the team: food supplies were quickly depleted, and the hunt, which had high hopes, did not bring results. In January, Halle, Crawford and Maurer made the decision to head back home. Ada refused to return and stayed on the island with Knight, who was seriously ill and unable to move, and an expedition cat named Witz.

Since the polar explorers who went back disappeared on the way, and Knight died suddenly, Ada and the cat were left alone for a whole year and a half. In August 1923, the girl, who learned to hunt and survive in extreme cold, was taken from the island by the rescue expedition of Harold Noyce. Returning home with the money she earned, Ada took her son from the orphanage and moved with him to Seattle.

Lucy Irvine and Gerald Kingsland, 1 year old

Once on Taina, the couple realized that they had nothing in common, but since there were not only people on the island, but also a registry office in which to file a divorce, they had to learn to get along and endure the hardships of tropical life together. According to Irwin and Kingsland, the lack of mutual understanding was harder for them than everyday discomfort.

In 1983, a drought struck the island, leaving the couple without fresh water supplies. They were rescued by natives from the nearby island of Badu. Returning to Britain, Gerald and Lucy finally divorced and wrote best-selling books: Discarded (the novel was made into a film in 1986) and The Islander.

Robinson Crusoe on his island, alone, deprived of the help of his own kind and of any tools whatsoever, but obtaining everything necessary for existence and even creating a certain well-being - this is a topic that is interesting for all ages, and you can make it exciting for children in a thousand ways.

(Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

"The life and wonderful adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a sailor from York, who lived for twenty-eight years all alone on a desert island off the coast of America, near the mouth of the Orinoco River, where he was thrown by a shipwreck, during which the entire crew of the ship, except him, died, with an account of his unexpected release by pirates, written by himself."

A book with such a long title, written by Daniel Defoe, appeared in England on April 25, 1719. Since then, more than two hundred and fifty years have passed, but even today, children and adults in all countries of the globe read this novel with enthusiasm.

It is based on a true incident with the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who, after a quarrel with the captain of the ship, was landed on the uninhabited island of Mas-a-Tiera, one of a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean called Juan Fernandez, 560 kilometers from the coast of Chile. On this island Selkirk lived alone for four years and four months.

Mas a Tiera is now called Robinson Crusoe Island. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this island served as a place of exile. The population of all the Juan Fernandez Islands is small - only about 450 people engaged in fishing and lobster fishing.

In the past, on the island of Robinson Crusoe grew a rainforest with very valuable sandalwood trees. Sandalwood trees were cut down. The rapidly breeding goats and rabbits brought to the island destroyed all the grasses and shrubs. Now heavy tropical downpours are eroding the bare land and forming deep ravines. Winds raise dust and sand. The high shores crash into the sea. The once blooming island of Robinson Crusoe has turned into a wasteland.

Life on a desert island is not invented by Daniel Defoe, which is why it is described so believably, and the book about Robinson Crusoe is read with particular interest. There is, perhaps, not a single literate boy and girl who would not have read Robinson Crusoe.

A former student of the Yasnaya Polyana school, V. S. Morozov, in his memoirs about L. N. Tolstoy, writes about his love for this book: “The second and third grades were already sent home, and we stayed in the evening, because Lev Nikolayevich liked to read books to us in the evenings. Our favorite evening book was Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson is any person who has found himself in places where there are no people, there are no ordinary foodstuffs, there are no conditions for a normal life of a civilized person. Let's look at Robinson Crusoe from this point of view.

Did Robinson Crusoe really have nothing and use only what was in the nature around him?

The ship on which Crusoe sailed ran aground near a desert island.

The entire crew of the ship, who tried to escape on a boat, died, and only one Robinson Crusoe was thrown ashore by a wave. The next day, at low tide, Robinson swam to the ship. From there, he brought three chests on a raft, in which were: “rice, crackers, three rounds of Dutch cheese, five large pieces of dried goat meat and the remains of grain. In addition, a carpenter's box with all tools, boxes of wine, three kegs of gunpowder, two fine hunting rifles and two pistols, various clothes. Not satisfied with these things, Robinson went a second time and brought back "three scrap irons, two barrels of rifle bullets, seven muskets, another hunting rifle, and some gunpowder." In addition to these things, Robinson "took from the ship all the clothes that he found, and also grabbed a spare sail, a hammock and several mattresses and pillows." Robinson has been on the ship eleven times, hauling ashore everything a pair of hands can carry.

As you can see, Robinson was provided with almost everything necessary, even pillows. He had a large supply of food. Moreover, when all the crackers were eaten, it turned out that the grains he had shaken out of the bag on the ground had already sprouted barley and rice. He had guns, and there was an abundance of game around, so that he was also provided with meat.

Only ten months later Robinson decided to explore the island and see if there were any animals and plants on it that were not yet known to him. In one "enchanting valley" he found "many coconut trees, orange and lemon trees" and grapes. As you probably know, he drank water with lemon juice, and dried grapes to get raisins. He did not use other wild trees: there was no need for this, and most importantly, he did not know them.

Robinson himself admits his botanical ignorance: “I was looking for cassava, from the root of which the Indians of those latitudes make flour, but I did not find ... There were other plants that I had never seen before: it is very possible that, if I knew their properties, I could benefit from them for myself ... "

“During my stay in Brazil, I paid so little attention to the local flora that I did not even know the most common field plants ...”

Robinson acutely felt the incompleteness of his knowledge of the plant world: "I went home, thinking along the way about how I could learn to recognize the properties and good quality of the fruits and plants that I find."

But Robinson did not go further than reflections on this topic: he did not discover and use the treasures of the plant world. It would be very bad for him if the ship crashed off some island in the North, where there are no coconuts, no oranges, no grapes.

What is more beautiful than such adventures,

More fun discoveries, victories,

Wise wanderings, happy crashes...

(Sun. Christmas)

Robinson Crusoe turned out to have many followers, fictional - in books and real - in life. The fascinating book by Daniel Defoe has caused many imitations: "New Robinson" by Campe, "Swiss Robinson" by Wyss, etc.

You probably know five brave daredevils - the engineer Cyres Smith, the correspondent Gideon Spillet, the sailor Pencroff, the negro Neb and the boy Harbert - who were brought by a balloon to the mysterious Lincoln Island (in Jules Verne's novel "The Mysterious Island"). They were almost real Robinsons. They smelted iron from the ore and made working tools, made gunpowder, boiled sugar from the sap of the sugar maple, brought wild spinach, lettuce, horseradish, and turnips from the Yakamara forest and planted them in their garden.

“Nab prepared agouti soup, wild pig ham flavored with fragrant herbs, and boiled tubers of a herbaceous plant that grows into a dense shrub in the tropical zone ...”

But still, they did not use natural resources enough. So, they could not replace bread with anything. Remember Harbert's remarkable find?

“It was raining heavily that day. The colonists gathered in the great hall of the Granite Palace. Suddenly Herbert exclaimed:

Look, Mr. Cyres, a grain of bread!

And he showed his comrades a seed, the only seed that had fallen through a hole in his jacket pocket into the lining.

At Richmond, Herbert was in the habit of feeding the pigeons that Pencroff had given him. That's why he kept a seed in his pocket.

Bread grain? the engineer asked briskly.

Yes, Mr Cyres, but one, just one.

What an importance! exclaimed Pencroft. - What can we make from one grain of bread?

Bread, said Cyrus Smith.

Well, yes, bread, cakes, pastries! said Pencroft.

You will not choke on bread from this grain.

Herbert did not attach much importance to his find and was about to throw away the grain, but Cyrus Smith took it and, making sure that it was in good condition, said, looking intently at Pencroff:

Do you know how many ears one grain of bread can produce?

One, of course, - answered Pencroft in surprise.

No, Pencroff, ten. How many grains are in each ear?

Right, I don't know.

Eighty on average. This means that if we sow this seed, we will get eight hundred grains at the first harvest, sixty-four thousand at the second, and five hundred and twelve million at the third ...

On November 15, the third harvest was taken. This field has grown greatly in the eighteen months since the first seed was sown!

Soon, a magnificent loaf flaunted on the table in the Granite Palace.

The glorious settlers of Lincoln Island did not do without outside help. The good captain Nemo gave them a zinc chest with tools, weapons, appliances, clothes, books, utensils ... and mysteriously delivered quinine when Harbert fell ill.

In Jules Verne's novel "School of the Robinsons", Godfrey and Tartellet were thrown by their cousin Fina on the island with a chest with tools, clothes, and weapons. In addition, it contained tea, coffee, ink, pens, and the Culinary Arts Manual.

The Robinsons were lucky for chests!

It is interestingly told by E. Seton-Thompson in the book "Little Savages" about how two American boys, Jan and Sam, decided to imitate the natural Robinsons - Indians.

They built an almost real wigwam (hut), made Indian costumes and weapons, well, in an Indian way, learned how to kindle fires, but still they were not able to fully use the forest treasures. For food, Sam had to make "raids" home.

“There was a pantry next to the kitchen. He made his way there and found a small bucket with a lid. He took a pail and, on the way, seizing a meat pie lying on a shelf, went down the same stairs again to the cellar, filled the pail with milk there, then climbed out through the window into the yard and took to his heels. The next time he found in the cellar a note written by his mother:

"Enemies of the Indians.

Another time during a raid, bring back a bucket and do not forget to cover the jugs with lids.

As you can see, the Robinsons did not know how to live among nature, using only its riches.

But the Indians, genuine Robinsons, whose whole life passed among the forests, only took everything necessary for existence from the nature around them.

See how the Indian chief in the Song of Hiawatha, Longfellow, used various trees to build pirogues:

“Give me the bark, O Birch!
Give me yellow bark, Birch!
You who rise in the valley
Slender camp over the river!
I'll make myself a pie
I will build a light boat for myself,
And he will swim in the water
Like a yellow autumn leaf
Like a yellow water lily...
Give, O Cedar, green branches,
Give me flexible, strong branches,
Help make a pie
And more reliable and stronger!
And, having cut down the branches of the cedar,
He tied a frame out of boughs,
Like two bows he bent them
Like two bows, he tied them.
- Give me your roots, O Temrak!
“Give me fibrous roots:
I'll tie my pirogue
So I will bind it with roots,
So that water does not penetrate
Didn't ooze into the pie!
Give me, Spruce, viscous resin,
Give your resin and juice:
I will grind the seams in the pie,
So that water does not penetrate
Didn't ooze into the pie."
And he collected the tears of fir,
I took her viscous resin,
I smeared everything in the pie,
Protected from the waves of the pirogue.
So he built a pirogue
Over the river, in the middle of the valley,
In the depths of dense forests,
And all the life of the forests was in it,
All their secrets, all their charms:
Flexibility of dark larch,
Fortress of powerful branches of cedar
And birch slender lightness,
And in the waves she swayed
Like a yellow autumn leaf
Like a yellow water lily.

All the eyes of the world

They converge on the ice.

On the black dot

A handful of people

What is being broadcast

Lifeless and blue -

The hope of exhausted nights.

(Sun. Christmas)

Is it worth talking about Robinsons at all? They live in books, exciting the imagination of readers; in life, especially modern life, when the entire globe has been explored, there can hardly be Robinsons.

And yet there are Robinsons, and each of you knows them.

Aren't the four Papanins Robinsons?

Four volunteer Robinsons lived for many months on an ice floating island. Life on an ice floe floating across the Arctic Ocean, in a continuous polar night, in a blizzard, in frost ... No writer has yet come up with such a fantastic novel. The polar Robinsons did not have the opportunity to use natural resources, as they lived on a bare ice floe. But the Papanins enjoyed such comfort as none of the Robinsons had. They had a tent lined with eiderdown, a radio, a gramophone, a primus stove, and forty-six different kinds of food. They were Robinsons, who provided themselves with everything they needed in advance.

The life of the Robinson-Papanins is full of selfless heroism. For the sake of science, they put their lives in mortal danger. Their icy floating island was melting, cracking, and the Arctic Ocean threatened to swallow the four brave heroes of science. It was not for nothing that every day the entire Soviet country and the whole world followed a radio broadcast that reported on the life of Soviet researchers floating on an ice floe in the midst of a gloomy ocean, at the very North Pole.

Now the study of the Arctic Ocean is carried out constantly and on several drifting ice floes - stations "North Pole".

Another modern Robinson is the pilot Marina Raskova, who parachuted from the Rodina plane into the uninhabited forests and swamps of the Far East. M. Raskova, P. Osipenko and V. Grizodubova made a non-stop flight from Moscow to the Far East. There was not enough fuel in front of Komsomolsk. It was necessary to make a landing in a swamp, in the middle of the taiga. There was a danger that the plane would tip over on its nose, and in this case it was dangerous for M. Raskova to remain in the rear navigational cockpit. The commander ordered her to immediately jump out of the plane with a parachute ...

A bold long jump into the taiga ...

“I am surrounded by a dense, impenetrable forest. There is no light anywhere ... I am alone, ”M. Raskova writes in her diary.

Taiga, uninhabited for hundreds and thousands of kilometers. In Raskova's pocket is a revolver, a box of waterproof matches, two bars of chocolate and seven mints. None of the Robinsons described in the novels was in such a position. Excerpts from the diary of navigator Raskova show that the life of a brave pilot in the Siberian taiga was full of dangers. “I walk from bump to bump. The swamp is covered with dense, tall grass almost to the waist ... I suddenly fall into the water up to my neck. I feel how my legs become heavy and, like weights, they pull me down. Everything on me instantly got wet. The water is cold as ice. For the first time in my entire wandering, I feel alone. No one will pull you out of the water, you have to save yourself ... You grab onto a bump, and it plunges into the water with you ... I take a stick in both hands, throw a stick on several bumps at once and thus pull myself up ...

… Hooray! Mushrooms. Real solid mushrooms, big strong russula. They will make a great dinner. She wetted the birch bark, made a box out of it, strong enough and impervious to liquid, and began to build a fire ... She struck a match, moved the bark closer. I put the matches on the grass next to me ... The flame shot up so fast that I barely had time to jump back. By the time I figured out what was going on, my whole box of matches perished in the fire. A real taiga fire has begun ... Goodbye, delicious dinner, goodbye, sleep in a dry place! The unfortunate fireman gathers his belongings and flees into the swamp ...

... Suddenly, a whole bush of mountain ash comes across. I collect rowan as much as I can: in a scarf, pockets.

There were four cartridges left in M. Raskova's revolver, she shot the rest in the hope that her shots would be heard on the plane, which might have survived. And suddenly, recalls M. Raskova, “fifteen meters from me, a bear rises from behind a bush, disheveled, black. He stands on his hind legs ... I shoot without looking, anywhere. ” Fortunately, the bear, frightened by the shot, rushed to run. Only on the eleventh day, towards nightfall, does Marina Raskova find her plane, her friends, and the pilots from Komsomolsk who have flown in to help.

In 1947, the Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl and five companions made an unusually daring journey along the ancient Inca route from Peru to the Polynesian Islands. For a hundred days, they sailed across the Pacific Ocean on the Kon-Tiki, a raft of nine logs tied with ropes, 4,300 miles until they hit the reefs off a small uninhabited island.

Six brave explorers were real Robinsons in our time!

A feeling of utter defenselessness seized me at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo when I saw a raft only fourteen paces long and six wide. On it is a small hut and a large sail.

It becomes especially creepy in the lower room of the museum, where you see the Kon-Tiki raft from below. The logs were overgrown with algae, shells, flocks of mackerels in the water and a huge shark the entire length of the raft. Only when you see the Kon-Tiki raft, you can not only appreciate, but also feel all the heroism of those who dared to sail the ocean on it.

It was so beautiful ... and so lonely: before my eyes - a garden, flowers, a wire fence, and all around - high fortress walls.

(Vera Figner)

There are Robinsons, and not only in nature: the revolutionaries, imprisoned for many years, also felt like Robinsons, cut off from the whole world and deprived of the most necessary things.

M. V. Novorussky, who spent twenty-five years in prison, in an interesting book “Prison Robinsons” describes how he invented a home-made incubator in the Shlisselburg fortress and hatched chickens in the cell, how he grew lilies of the valley in winter and how he bred strawberries. Here is the story of M. V. Novorussky himself:

SEED IN AN OLD BOOK

Forest, or field, strawberries appeared with us in an unusual way.

There was not a single bush on our island. Yes, we could not look for her outside our fence. It was not on sale.

It did not occur to us to ask the gendarme to bring at least one strawberry bush from the neighboring sandy shore. So we would have lived without her, if not for one happy accident.

One day in March, my comrade Luka was reading an old volume of the historical journal Russkiy Arkhiv. Running through the lines, he noticed among the letters a small seed, which stuck tightly to the page. He peeled it off and, examining the seed, thought:

Whose could it be?

But whose it was, he did not know.

"Let me," he thought, "I'll sow it, maybe something will come out."

No sooner said than done.

The pot with the sown seed remained in the cell for quite a long time under constant supervision. Luka had already begun to lose hope, when suddenly one clear morning he noticed that in place of the seed, it was as if a seedling was appearing. Three weeks later, under the rays of the sun, we received the fourth leaf of our sprout and, examining it, exclaimed with one voice:

Bah, it's a strawberry! And also forest.

I now took the bush into my care and, when it grew up, planted it free in the ground. By autumn, he had already become a large bush, but did not bloom. The following summer, I received the first harvest from him - a dozen or two berries of real fragrant strawberries, which I had not eaten for nine years. But, most importantly, I received half a dozen long lashes, on which there were at least fifteen young shoots. I rooted them in the soil.

They overwintered well, and the next year there were more than one hundred and sixty of them, that is, a whole plantation of wild strawberries.

Every other day, sometimes two, I regularly picked berries.

Following the example of M.V. Novorussky, other revolutionary prisoners began to breed strawberries. In winter, lilies of the valley were grown to present to each other on their birthdays.

We know that bitter days fell on us,

unforeseen disasters threaten

but the Motherland is with us, and we are not alone,

and our victory will be.

(O. Bergholz)

During the Great Patriotic War, the inhabitants of a whole huge city found themselves, as it were, in the position of Robinsons.

At the end of 1941, Leningrad was surrounded by fascist troops and cut off, like an island, from the mainland - that was the name of the entire Soviet Union then. Food warehouses were destroyed by bombs and fires. Food and fuel became scarce. Residents of Leningrad, like Robinsons, made stoves out of tin, smoke lamps out of cans; made lighters to replace matches.

In the spring, when small grass began to break through on the streets between stones and asphalt, people began to look for edible and vitamin plants. On Nevsky Prospekt, forest plants grew out of the earth that was littered with the windows of large stores. Ivan-tea inflorescences suddenly turned pink on the roofs of houses and on balconies. But not all residents knew which plants are edible and nutritious, which are harmful.

Employees of the Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences, having studied the nutritional properties of plants, gave lectures, wrote articles and brochures about which of the wild plants can be eaten. Plants dug up from the streets were displayed in pots and jars on the windows of the school corridors, and instructions on how to use them on pieces of paper were displayed next to them. Canteens and grocery stores stocked plants in jars with recipes for eating them. Many weeds have proven to be nutritious and even tasty. This supported the forces of Leningraders at the critical moment of the blockade.

While there, in the clearing, a battle was going on, in the hollow, in the thickets of juniper, there must have been a sanitary company.

(B. Field)

During the Patriotic War, a letter from the front came to the editorial office of the publishing house of children's literature. Lieutenant Gruzdev asked to send books for his fighters about life in the forest, about tracking, about the use of wild plants. “These books,” he wrote, “help the warrior to learn the nature of the Motherland, the inhabitants of its forests, rivers and meadows. Without an elementary knowledge of nature, it is difficult to conduct reconnaissance by observation. The skills of a tracker and observer, knowledge of the forest help the scout to merge completely with the terrain. It is protected by nature itself. He sees everything while remaining invisible. Knowledge of edible plants and mushrooms will increase the possibilities of camp cooking, increase the intake of vitamins. You have to understand that you can’t get away from nature: battles take place among it, our soldier’s life flows among it.”

Lieutenant Gruzdev is right: in order to become a good fighter, you need to study nature. In a war, everyone can be in the position of Robinson. Such "Robinsons" were partisans who lived in the forests and successfully fought against the fascist invaders. They knew well the nature and ways of using its inexhaustible riches.

Thus, the name "Robinson", two centuries after the appearance of the book about Robinson, people began to understand much more widely. Robinson is a person who not only lives on a desert island, but also a person who, being in the midst of nature, having nothing, can get and make everything necessary for life.

Robinson Crusoe knew how to do a lot with his own hands, he was a "jack of all trades", but in his time the science of nature, biology, was poorly developed. Robinson had little interest in nature and did not study it to supplement his knowledge.

Now we know nature and its laws better and can use it more fully. Robinson was armed with guns, we are armed with knowledge. Knowledge and the desire to expand it, to explore nature more deeply, help us discover many interesting and useful things in the plant world.

The forest has everything that a person needs.

(E. Seton-Thompson)

At the onset of spring, every person is seized with excitement. Fishermen begin to prepare fishing rods, hunters clean their guns, prepare cartridges, tourists put things they need on a hike in a backpack, city residents gather at their dachas. Pioneers are rushing to the camp, to the "wilds" of the wild. No wonder they are called pioneers, that is, advanced people who settle in new, unexplored places.

The well-known explorer Charles Darwin wrote in his diary entitled “A naturalist's journey around the world on the ship Beagle”:

"I always think of our little expeditions in boats and of land excursions to unexplored places with such delight as no spectacle of the civilized world aroused in me."

Spring. Every day it pulls more and more into the distance, into the wide expanses of fields, under the emerald canopy of forests.

It's good to walk along a path overgrown with grass-ant, clinging to the ground like "bird's buckwheat", and watch how during the day everything around changes in colors and sounds! Flowers open and close, birds, butterflies, beetles fly by.

It’s good to cook dinner on a fire, eat porridge smelling of smoke, sleep in a spruce hut or on a tree, like Robinson Crusoe.

Curiosity, the desire to see something new, to discover the unknown, the unusual call us to travel. Guided by this feeling, this passion, travelers discovered new lands, got acquainted with unknown peoples and described unprecedented animals and wonderful plants.

Geologists travel in search of minerals - ores, coal, oil, shale; botanists travel, discovering wild riches; travel geographers, archaeologists. Everyone is driven by a burning desire to find new values ​​that our people need.

It's time for you and me, dear reader, to go to the forest!

When you enter the forest, fragrant and cool
Among the spots of sunshine and strict silence,
Meets your chest so joyfully and greedily
The breath of wet herbs and the scent of pine.
Your foot slides on a scattering of needles
Or rustling grass, dropping drops of dew,
A gloomy canopy of broad-pawed trees
Intertwined with the foliage of alder and young birches.
It smells stuffy, then last year's prel,
That smell of mushrooms from a felled stump,
The oriole will fill with a short clear trill,
And the wind will rustle in the dry languor of the day.
Hello, haven of freedom and peace,
Unpretentious forest of the native north!
You are full of freshness, and everything in you is alive,
And you have so many mysteries and wonders!
From time immemorial you have made friends with man,
He takes for himself from your "generosity"
Mushrooms and berries along sunny clearings,
And food, and housing, and the masts of ships.
Here in the thickets of the forest, where everything is sweet for the heart,
Where clean air is so sweet to breathe,
There are healing powers in herbs and flowers
For everyone who knows how to solve their mystery.

This is what a nature lover, passionate fisherman, poet Vsevolod Alexandrovich Rozhdestvensky says about the forest.

Let's go to the forest to explore the secrets of nature! Let's put a backpack over our shoulders, take a stick in our hands and follow in the footsteps of Robinson!