Vasili Golovnin, a Russian navigator, born in the government of Riazan in 1770, died in St. Petersburg in 1832. He entered the imperial navy at an early age, and soon became noted for skill and courage. In 1807 he was commissioned by Alexander I. to make a survey of the Pacific coast of the empire. He sailed from Cronstadt in command of the sloop | of war Diana, and was occupied till 1811 in examining the coasts of Kamtchatka and Russian America. In May, 1811, he sailed from Petropavlovsk in Kamtchatka to make a survey of the southern Kurile islands and the coast of Tartary. In 1803 a Russian ambassador named Resanoff had endeavored to open an intercourse with Japan, hut had been repulsed,, as he thought, with insult. In retaliation the ship of war which conveyed him to and from Japan plundered and burned a number of Japanese villages on the Kurile islands. These outrages excited the indignation of the Japanese, and when Golovnin with his vessel appeared in their waters, he was fired at and peremptorily ordered away.

Being in want of water and provisions, he persisted in landing, and finally went on shore, July 11, with two officers, four seamen, and a Kurile interpreter, on the island of Kunashir. The Japanese received him apparently in a friendly manner, but having enticed him and his companions into a castle garrisoned by 300 or 400 soldiers, they seized the Russians and hurried them over to the large island of Yesso. They were removed thence to Hakodadi, and in September to Matsmai, the capital of Yesso, where they were kept in cages in a prison erected for them, and subjected to a continual cross-examination which was very annoying. After several months they escaped, wandered for a number of days in the forests, and were recaptured. Finally, after an imprisonment of 26 months and 26 days, Golovnin and the other Russians were given up in November, 1813. Golovnin reached St. Petersburg July 14, 1814, after an absence of seven years, was promoted, and received a pension. He was afterward sent on an exploring expedition around the world in command of the sloop of war Kamtchatka, from which he returned in 1819, and of which he published a narrative (2 vols. 4to, St. Petersburg, 1822). He wrote in Russian "Observations upon the Empire of Japan" (2 vols. 8vo, 1816), and an account of his adventures among the Japanese, both of which works have been translated into English under the title of "Memoirs of a Captivity in Japan during the years 1811, '12, and '13, with Observations on the Country and the People" (2d ed., 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1824). At the time of his death he was vice admiral and general superintendent of the Russian navy.

Golovnin was an accurate observer, and his narrative is one of the most interesting of the works upon Japan. He wrote also a book containing narratives of shipwrecks and disasters at sea, which appeared in a complete edition of his works published by his son (5 vols., 1864).