725 days in the Arctic ice. Austro-Hungarian polar expedition of 1871-1874.

The second half of the 19th century. The North Pole will be conquered many decades later. Even the area lying to the north and east of Novaya Zemlya is practically unexplored. What is there: continuous ice, open sea, or - perhaps? - some new lands? Is it possible to sail by sea along the Siberian coast from Europe to the Bering Strait? To find an answer to at least one of these questions, Austria-Hungary organized an expedition. On August 30, 1873, an expedition led by K. Weyprecht and J. Payer on the ship "Tegetthoff" during a 725-day drift in the Arctic Ocean, saw an unknown land. Thus, a new archipelago was discovered, named by the expedition participants in honor of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Joseph Land. The archipelago, discovered by the Austro-Hungarian expedition, was declared Russian territory in 1914, and a large part of the geographical features retained the names given by Julius Payer.
On the 150th anniversary of the discovery of Franz Joseph Land, the "Paulsen" publishing house is publishing the work of J. Payer, supplemented by an article by the honorary polar explorer B. A. Kremer (1908–1976) from the collection "Russian Arctic Expeditions of the 17th-20th centuries" (1964), as well as excerpts from the diaries of other expedition participants and maps of walking and sleigh routes in the archipelago.