Russia – Haas (also Ha(a)se, Hasio), Johann Matthias (Augsburg 1684 – Wittenberg/Augsburg 1742). Imperii Russici et Tartariae universae tabula novissima. Kaert van Het geheele Russische Keizerryk. Mitsgaders Groot en Klein Tartaryen … nu vermeerdert met nieuwe ontdekkingen in’t Jaer 1739 door den Kapitein Span(g)berg. (Map of the whole Russian empire. Together with Major and Minor Tartary … now enlarged with new discoveries in the year 1739 by captain Span(g)berg.) With title riband + cartouche as well as threefold miles indicator. Coloured map engraving of Russia for Johannes Broedelet (1722-1769) in Utrecht. 1743. 54.4 x 61.8 cm.

Literature

BMC K.112.9; Niemeyer, Russia’s Start into Modernity – Peter the Great and the Development of Russian Cartography, Bonn 1991, 3 + illustrations (in German)

Early  impression  of  extraordinary  freshness  and still with fine plate dirt, especially in the outer area of the up to 3.5 cm wide platemark. Furthermore with slender, only below somewhat narrow paper margin. Centre fold largely took out.

Haas, professor for mathematics, early turned to geography and cartography. After his appointment to Wittenberg

“ (he) devoted himself … with eagerness to cartography, established contacts with Homann’s publishing house and by means of his larger historical map works, as by single, at his time much used maps he published – ‘very fine and accurate maps … of the Russian empire’, Jöcher II, 1392 f. – he has contributed to bring German cartography on independent ways near to the French models without slavishly imitating these”

(Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie X, 743 f.).

in this map published first 1730, then 1739 at Homann Heirs the use of newest, mostly Russian cartographic knowledge. So i. a. the representation of Sakhalin as an island, as shown first by Ivan Kirilov 1734 in the first Russian general map that is followed here, too, in regard of Hokkaido and the Kuriles, though its nearly left white outline is filled with rich local designations. This even much more eye-catching in the representation of Japan together with the smaller and smallest islands adjacent to both SE and SW. Here also Shikoku appears correctly as island and Noto Peninsula as such.

Of significant interest the entry of the Volga-Don Canal highly topical in those years in both its versions then. So, based on a venture started by Sultan Selim II in 1568, the

plan  Leibnitz  sketched  in  1697

connecting the tributaries Ilovlya + Kamyshenka as also repeated in a map of Cornelis Cry’s atlas of the River Don from 1703. Then, situated somewhat southerly, the connection Zarizyn (Volgograd) – Katchalinsk first appearing in the great manuscript travel map of Russia of c. 1683 and almost similar to the course of the canal completed in 1952. For more see Leo Bagrow, The Volga-Don Canal, in IMAGO MUNDI X, 97 f.

In the area of the Asian northern coast some omissions reveal the use of old material though. So for Nowaja Semlja – among its numerous entries Cape Nassau, today Cape Mauritius, the Asian North Cape, and the Ice Harbour where Barents passed the winter from August 1596 till June 1597 – shown with an eastern continental connection as Terra Jelmer detecta 1664. Here Haas had, as further data of that time entered in this area show, dated material. For the character of an island was already stated in Homann’s guiding map of Russia of 1725. The same goes for the Szalaginskoi (Shelagskiy) Islands before the northeastern coast of Chukchi (Chukotsk) Peninsular , recorded already in Ides’ map of 1704 as also on a local map by L’vov, 1711, that together served Homann for his new map and which by now had been treated finally in regard of the position, too. In the general map of the Atlas Russicus published 1745 by the Petersburg Academy they are also missing though.

In the recording of the Asian region

now  already  going  far  beyond  Kirilov

and, since reaching besides of  Taiwan  till south of Canton – Hong Kong – Macao and the northern part of the province Tonkin,

comprising  almost  all  of  China .

Further North India up to Kathiawar Peninsula, Persia with the northern end of the Persian Gulf, Mossul – Black Sea – Danube Delta – Krakow – Brunswick – Hanover – Bremen – York – Isle of Man – Northern Ireland . With Spitsbergen and the North Pole. – Text in Latin, occasionally – so miles indicator + denomination of the Null Meridian – also with Dutch parallel text.

Quoting Otten’s omnibus atlasses as source for the one here it does not figure, however, in the map index preserved in Wolfenbüttel, published between 1737 and before 1750, but may originate from the edition Phillips 3495 for which 1745 is thought to be the likely year of publishing. The copy here numbered by hand on the back as sheet 96 though while Phillips quotes it as sheet 97. Tooley’s Dictionary only mentions the predecessor G. Broedelet there as publisher of Relandus’ map of Japan (1715) + Hennepin’s North America (1697). Before both Broedelets not in Bagrow and Bonacker.
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