Istoriia Russkoi Ameriki, 1732-1867 by N. N. s> Bolkhovitinov (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 345 Chechens led to soil erosion, siltation, and the spread of malaria; and its efforts to provision the cossack settlements with grain from the lower Volga were inadequate.This forcedthe TerekCossackstojoin in the more developed economy of their ostensible enemies, the Muslim mountain peoples, for their grain, lumber, livestock, cloth, and even their horses and guns, which they obtained throughlegal tradeaswell asthroughsmugglingand raiding.Barrett shows how such exchange 'drewthe Cossacksinto the world of the mountain people, nativized their materialculture, and occasionally led them to subvert state policy', as when cossack trade and smuggling undermined the government 's effortsto tame the mountain people by making them dependent upon the state saltmonopoly (p. II4). Barrett'saccount turnsespeciallypoignant when it describesthe change in Russian military strategy on the North Caucasus frontier in the early nineteenth century. The traditional mode of mountain warfarepractised by the Terek Cossacksagainstthe mountain peoples had been waged for limited objectives containment, retribution, booty, and ransoms. By contrast the war of conquest waged by General Ermolov's army denied mountain communities the opportunity to choose neutrality or mediation and it employed increasingly savage tactics against an ever-widening range of enemies united in defense of theirfaithand culture. Department ofHistory BRIAN DAVIES University ofTexas atSanAntonio Bolkhovitinov, N. N. (ed.) IstoriiaRusskoiAmeriki,I732-I867. Mezhdunarodnyeotnosheniia ,Moscow,3 vols. 1997, 1999, I999. 479, 470, 558 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Price unknown. ACADEMICIAN Nikolai Nikolaevich Bolkhovitinov, the doyen of historians of Russian America, acts as general editor for this large-scalecoverage of a vast theme as well as introducing all three volumes and writingsome of the text in all three. All the contributors,includingJames R. Gibson from Canada and Lydia Black from Alaska in addition to several Russians, observe Bolkhovitinov 's own high standards of scholarship with an impressive use of archival sources and full bibliographies.With a colourfulrepresentationof the flag of the Russian-American Company superimposed upon appropriate nautical scenes on each of the dust-covers,thisisvery nearlyas evocative and thorough a treatmentof its subjectas anybody could wish for. While the epic tale of the activitiesof a motley host of seafarers,merchants and promyshlenniki began with the expeditions of Vitus Bering first commissioned by Peterthe Great in I 725, therewas a prologue compounded of myth and legend concerning the 'stone barrier',the 'impassablenose' and the 'big land' beyond before the Dutchman N. C. Witsen (thoroughly investigated elsewhere by Bruno Naarden) stood out among those igniting Peter'sinterest in the subjectof linksbetween the continents of Eurasiaand North America. Alaskawas 'discovered'by Gvozdev and Fedorovin 1732 and the Northwest of America by Bering in his second expedition along with Chirikov in 174.I But the foundation of the firstpermanent settlementsacrossthe waterwas not 346 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 made by the Shelikhovbrothersuntil I783-86, afterwhich consolidation was achieved under Baranov. An especially significant feature of eighteenthcentury activity was contact with the indigenous peoples which took on two main forms: trade for their furs;and negotiations for their souls. Under the latter heading, scholarly analysis of missionary operations was virtuallynonexistent throughout the Soviet period. Now, the route to New Valaam can be more completely charted before, during and afterthe firstsubstantialmission of I793-94. (In fact, the projected monasterywas never built, but the smaller settlementof St Herman became known as New Valaam in its stead.) A central part in the story, the rise and fall of the Russian-American Company, is given full coverage here. Activitiesin Californiaas well as in the North-West are scrutinized afresh by his colleagues, while Bolkhovitinov himself examines in detail Russian contacts with Hawaii, with renewed focus on the adventures of Dr Georg Anton Schaffer. Full due is also given to pertinent international relations, the Nootka Sound crisis, the conventions with the USA and Great Britain of I824 and I825 respectively, and remote ramificationsof the Crimean Warleading towardsthe sale of Alaska. Instead of a conclusion, Academician Bolkhovitinov rightly itemizes the distortionsin many of the Soviet publications on Russian America as well as the enormous difficultiesthat he himself encountered in publishing some of his own workbefore I99I, inparticularconcerning the saleof Alaska.He then goes on to dismisspost-I99I ultra-nationalistdemandsforthe returnofAlaska while patriotically defending the renewal made in i990 by the...