Chamisso's divided allegiance to France and Germany made the political situation of the times very trying for him, and it was with joy that he welcomed an appointment as scientist to a Russian polar expedition, fitted out under the direction of Count Romanzoff, and commanded by Captain Kotzebue (1815-1818). The record of the scientific results of this expedition, as published by Kotzebue, was full of misstatements; and to correct these, Chamisso wrote the 'Tagebuch' (Journal) in 1835, a work whose pure and plastic style places it in the first order of books of travel, and entitles its author, in point of description, to rank with Von Humboldt among the best writers of travels of the first half of the century.
After three years of voyaging, Chamisso returned to Berlin, and in 1819 he was made a member of the Society of Natural Sciences and received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, was appointed adjunct custodian of the botanical garden in New Schöneberg, and in September of the same year he married Antonie Piaste.
An indemnity granted by France to the French emigrants put him in possession of the sum of one hundred thousand francs, and in 1825 he again visited Paris, where he remained some months among old friends and new interests. The period of his great activity was after this date. His life was now peaceful and domestic. Poetry and botany flourished side by side. Chamisso, to his own astonishment, found himself read and admired, and everywhere his songs were sung. To the influence of his wife we owe the cycles of poems, 'Frauen-Liebe und Leben' (Woman's Love and Life), and 'Lebens Lieder und Bilder' (Life's Songs and Pictures), for without her they would have been impossible. The former cycle inspired Robert Schumann in the first days of his happy married life, and the music of these songs has made 'Woman's Love and Life' familiar to all the world. 'Salas y Gomez,' a reminiscence of his voyage around the world, appeared in the Musenalmanach in 1830. The theme of this poem was the development of the romantic possibilities suggested by the sight of the profound loneliness and grandeur of the South Sea island, Salas y Gomez. Chamisso translated Andersen and Béranger, made translations from the Chinese and Tonga, and his version of the Eddic Song of Thrym ('Das Lied von Thrym') is among the best translations from the Icelandic that have been made.