Professor Martens' Departure is a 1984 historical novel set in czarist Russia by Estonian writer Jaan Kross.

Friedrich Fromhold Martens, born in Pärnu, Estonia on 27 August 1845, was a renowned expert in international law.

Some of the recollected events, for example, the Great Flood of Hamburg in 1770 and a fire in a wooded suburb of Göttingen actually took place during Georg's life and not his own.

He describes his affair with an art student, Yvette Arlon, a woman that later bore his child, married and fled to the Congo.

Friedrich discusses politics with a fellow train passenger, an Estonian lady and socialist, Hella Wuolijoki.

He remembers Mr. Saebelmann, the son of the man who was rumored to have ousted Friedrich's father from the parish clerk's cottage.

Jaan Kross graduated from the Law Faculty of Tartu University, and his historical fiction is noted for careful research and fidelity to actual events and personages.