Erik Laxmann

Erik Gustavovich Laxmann (Russian: Эрик (Кирилл) Густавович Лаксман) (July 27, 1737 – January 6, 1796) was a Finnish-Swedish clergyman, explorer and natural scientist born in Savonlinna (Nyslott) in Finland, then part of Sweden.

In 1764, he was appointed as a preacher in a small parish in Barnaul in Southwestern Siberia, whence he undertook a number of exploratory journeys, reaching Irkutsk, Baikal, Kyakhta and the border to China.

Laxmann noticed that Shelikhov, along with the Irkutsk Governor-General's Office had tried to pressure Daikokuya Kōdayū, a Japanese castaway, into staying in Russia and serving as a translator for the merchant.

In 1789, while doing research in Irkutsk, Laxmann came across six Japanese who had been found in Amchitka, one of the Aleutian Islands, by Russian furriers whose leader was a person called Nivizimov.

Laxmann escorted the castaways to St. Petersburg, where Daikokuya Kōdayū, their nominal leader, pleaded with Empress Catherine the Great to be allowed to return to Japan.

During this stay in the capital, Laxmann began discussions on various matters with Alexander Bezborodko, but succumbed to a bout of typhoid fever which left him incapacitated for three months.

Laxmann wrote letters to two Japanese scholars, Nakagawa Junan and Katsuragawa Hoshū, at the recommendation of Carl Peter Thunberg, their teacher.