On the basis of the “text” of the Siberian Map of 181 (1672-1673), it had been conjectured in Russia since the nineteenth century that the Siberian Map was made up around the years 1672-1673. The original Map of Siberia of 181 (1672-1673) has never discovered yet, but fortunately we have what are believed to be its threedifferent copies.
L. Bagrow, regarding these copies as having much to do with the “text” of 181, asserted that they were reproductions of the original Map of Siberia of 181 (1672). In spite of some opposition, not a few scholars of the Soviet Union have followed Bagrow.
B.P. Polevoy, at the February 1954 conference of the U.S.S.R. Geographical Society, held in Leningrad, presented a report, saying that at least the eastern half of the Map of Siberia of 181 was made by S.V. Polyakov in 1673, and that the author of the “text” of the Siberian Map of 181 was also Polyakov. A.I. Andreyev supports this opinion almost completely.
This view is so plausible that most probably the Map of 181 will hereafter be called the “Map of Siberia of 1673.”
However, I do not believe the view will survive criticism and become an established theory before Polevoy's report, still not made public, be published.
