Russian America Research Articles

The Expedition of Ilya G. Voznesensky to Russian America in 1839–1849 and the Formation of the American Collections in St. Petersburg Academic Museums

The Expedition of Ilya G. Voznesensky to Russian America in 1839–1849 and the Formation of the American Collections in St. Petersburg Academic Museums

Book Review: Glorious Misadventures, Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of Russian America

Book Review: Glorious Misadventures, Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of Russian America

Materials on the Russian-American Company in the Iudin Collection

The paper describes the manuscript and archival collections of Siberian bibliophile Gennadii Vasil’evich Iudin (1840–1912) and discusses the fate of these materials in the Soviet era, when they were distributed to a number of archives in the Soviet Union. The paper concentrates on the archival holdings of the Russian-American Company, which was responsible for the settlement of Russian America, including Alaska.

ЭВОЛЮЦИЯ ВЗАИМООТНОШЕНИЙ РОССИЙСКОГО ГОСУДАРСТВА С КОРЕННЫМ НАСЕЛЕНИЕМ СИБИРИ, ДАЛЬНЕГО ВОСТОКА И РУССКОЙ АМЕРИКИ В XVII – XIX ВВ.

The work sets the priorities and methods of realization of policy of the Russian state towards the indigenous population of Siberia, Far East and Russian America, reveals the changes in economical and legal status of non-Russians, as well as describes the transformation of social structure of aborigines in the process of entrance thereof to the state authorities system. Upon the performed research the series of causes of alteration of the character of interrelations between central authorities and indigenous population were revealed. The equalization of the status of domiciled non-Russians and peasants and the replacement of yasak (tribute in furs) with national tax were attributable both to furs catch decline and internal changes within the aboriginal society including the alteration of economical life basis, the acculturation with Russian colonists and the transformation of closed communities of aborigines to agricultural peasant communities. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-9-38

Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867

Book Review| July 01 2013 Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867 Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867. By Ilya Vinkovetsky. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 272 pp. $49.95 (cloth). Norman E. Saul Norman E. Saul Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2013) 32 (4): 99–101. https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.32.4.0099 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Norman E. Saul; Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2013; 32 (4): 99–101. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.32.4.0099 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of American Ethnic History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2013 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2013 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Guest Editor's Introduction: Individuals and Groups of Mixed Russian-Native Parentage in Siberia, Russian America, and Alaska

Guest Editor's Introduction: Individuals and Groups of Mixed Russian-Native Parentage in Siberia, Russian America, and Alaska

“A Class of People Admitted to the Better Ranks”: The First Generation of Creoles in Russian America, 1810s–1820s

This article argues that the creation of a creole estate in early nineteenth-century Russian America was motivated by cultural rather than racial concerns. Creoles were the offspring of Russian or indigenous men and native women. An analysis of the earliest known list of creoles allows the author to examine the social structure of the new creole class and to note that there was a high degree of social stratification within the estate.

The Legacy of the Russian-American Company and the Implementation of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in the Kodiak Island Area of Alaska

A Creole social group or estate, primarily the offspring of Russian men and Native women, was established in Alaska by the 1821 Russian-American Company charter. The Creoles enjoyed special rights and privileges in Russian America until the United States took over the jurisdiction of Alaska from Russia in the 1867 Treaty of Cession. Creoles then lost their privileged status and were positioned at the bottom of the American socioeconomic ladder. Many Creoles then began to deny their Native heritage and identify as Russians in attempts to avoid discrimination. Under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, anyone with one-quarter Native blood quantum could participate. Most descendants of Creoles met this requirement and enrolled, angering many Natives who had not identified as Russians. This paper examines the history of the Creoles on Kodiak Island through the eyes of the author, a descendant of Creoles, Natives, and Russians of the Russian America era.

Dena'ina Resistance to Russian Hegemony, Late Eighteenth and Ninetenth Centuries: Cook Inlet, Alaska

The almost one hundred years of Russian colonial occupation of Alaska resulted in the Russian-American Company's (RAC) controlling only a small territory with a small population and operating a generally unsuccessful economic enterprise. Contemporary Russian writers were critical of RAC administrative decisions, suggesting far more could have been done to further the interests of Russia in Alaska. Less attention has been given to the agentive actions of the Tlingit, Ahtna, Alutiiq, and Dena'ina in controlling the Russian occupiers and minimizing European hegemony. Three aspects of the Dena'ina response to occupation played a significant role in maintaining their indigenous sovereignty. First, the 1797 Battle of Kenai expelled Russian occupiers from Dena'ina territory, resulting in only a small population of Russians for the duration of Russian America, until 1867. Second, the Dena'ina contextualized the turmoil not as the oppressive actions of invaders but as shaman-induced intracultural turmoil, thereby shaping the narrative in their own historical terms and negating the power of the occupier to frame history. Third, after the 1836–40 smallpox epidemic, many Dena'ina were baptized as Orthodox; however, Orthodoxy was highly indigenized, with many concepts filtered through the lens of Dena'ina culture, thus limiting religion as a tool of “governmentality.”

Review: Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867, by Ilya Vinkovetsky

Review: <i>Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867</i>, by Ilya Vinkovetsky

From the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean: Three Governor’s Wives in Russian America

While some work has recently been done on native women in Russian America, very little has been written about Russian women and even less about the European non-Russian women who went to Russia’s North American colonies in Alaska—the easternmost outpost of the Russian empire in Alaska—from the western periphery of the empire. This paper is about three such women, Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholen and Anna Furuhjelm, and their experiences as governors’ wives in Russian America between 1829 and 1864. As the wives of governors, these women had a semi-official role as representatives of the Russian empire, which meant that they were expected to contribute to its civilizing mission in the colonies. The paper aims to understand the experiences of these women as governors’ wives in the light of prescriptive notions of true womanhood and of the role of women in the civilizing mission. What was it like to be a young woman in the most remote part of the Russian empire and how can these experiences be related to the cult of domesticity and the new ideal of womanhood that took form in the nineteenth century? What was expected of them as representatives of the Russian empire and how did they themselves perceive this role?

Russian America in Russian and American Historiography

Dawn Lea Black and Alexander Yu. Petrov, eds. and trans., Natalia Shelikhova: Russian Oligarch of Alaska Commerce. xlix + 237 pp. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1602230736. $29.95. Mitropolit Kliment (Kapalin), Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov na Aliaske do 1917 goda. 607 pp. Moscow: OLMA Media Grupp, 2009. ISBN 978-5373016186. Sonja Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule. xx + 204 pp. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1602230231. $19.95. Gwenn A. Miller, Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America. xvii + 216 pp. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0801446429. $55.00. Ilya Vinkovetsky, Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804-1867. xiii + 258 pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0195391282. $49.95. The five books reviewed here investigate the history of Russian America, which was sold to the United States in 1867 and became Alaska. Before that date, Russian America was a part of the Russian Empire, which extended to the North American continent. Works on the subject must thus deal with both Russian and American aspects of the area. Few specialists possess equal expertise in both contexts; and this, combined with language barriers and the peripheral location of Russian America/Alaska to both Russian and American national historiography, has hindered scholarship on the region. Yet with the publication of the three-volume Istoriia Russkoi Ameriki (History of Russian America), edited by the late N. N. Bolkhovitinov, and the increasing attention the field is receiving from serious Russian and Western scholars, the field is definitely progressing. (1) Even so, it continues to be marred by some historians' nationalist sentiments. Russian nationalists have been increasingly attracted to Russian America's history, which they see as a tragedy for Russia. (2) Similarly, there is an American nationalist narrative in some writing on Russian America, which criticizes the Russian period and celebrates the American presence in Alaska, in what is nearly a mirror image of Russian nationalist historiography. (3) Such authors tend not to know the Russian language or Russian history. The flaws in both bodies of work underline the need for serious scholarship on the topic to navigate between two national and historiographical extremes. The books under review here do begin to fill this need, although with varying success. The first book under consideration, Dawn Lea Black and Alexander Petrov's Natalia Shelikhova: Russian Oligarch of Alaska Commerce, is a collection of primary sources on the wife of Grigorii Shelikhov, who established the first permanent Russian settlement in what would become Russian America. She accompanied Shelikhov on his conquest of Kodiak between 1783 and 1786 and played a key role in securing the approval of the Russian American Company (RAC) as a monopolistic trading company in 1799 after Shelikhov's death in 1795, as has long been acknowledged. However, she has not been studied in her own right and is shown here as a canny businesswoman who protected her company from a host of ill wishers after her husband's death. These primary sources, including many of Shelikhova's letters, as well as petitions, reports, and the like, are important for scholars because they enrich our understanding of the early history of the RAC and deepen our appreciation of the difficulties Shelikhova had in defending her interests. The conflict between Shelikhova's company and its rivals is apparent in the sources, as is her mobilization of a broad range of contacts to prevail over them. It is useful to have these materials together in one volume. The introductions to the book as a whole and to the documents, which are chronologically arranged in six chapters, however, are somewhat diffuse and give footnotes only for direct quotations. Even paraphrased archival sources lack references that would allow scholars to find the original source in each case. …

Health aspects of Arctic exploration – Alaska's medical history based on the research files of Dr. Robert Fortuine

BackgroundRobert Fortuine provided basic medical care to Alaska Native people, chronicled the Health Aspects of Arctic Exploration and through a number of influential publications, was the first to thoroughly document and analyse Alaska's Medical History. This overview of his published work will provide the reader with a detailed overview, so that they can begin to explore Dr. Fortuine's many published works in more detail.ObjectiveThis review will explore Alaska's Medical History and the Health Aspects of Arctic Exploration through the research files and the 10 most significant publications of Dr. Robert Fortuine.DesignReview of Dr. Fortuine's major works and the master bibliography has over 3,000 references and 81 subjects. The master bibliography is a merger of 55 separate bibliographies, which provides a wealth of bibliographic information. This paper will describe his 10 most significant publications, 2 of which began as a journal issue.ResultsDr. Fortuine was a prolific writer throughout his career, publishing 134 articles and books. He wrote papers and books on Alaska's medical history, tuberculosis and health care delivery from Russian–America through the Public Health Service efforts in the territory and then the State of Alaska. The master bibliography has over 3,000 references and 81 subjects. This list has a significant number of entries for tuberculosis with almost one-third of the entries including this heading. Others dwell on the history of “pre-contact” health, the history of Alaska Native health care, the history of the Alaska Department of Health, especially the tuberculosis programme, the role of the US Public Health Service and traditional medicine. He completely reviewed every Governors’ and the US Surgeon General's reports in regard to Alaska content. This paper describes his 10 most significant publications.ConclusionsRobert Fortuine's published works offer a wealth of information and insight into Alaska's Medical History and the Health Aspects of Arctic Exploration. As is probably true for many historians, he began small, creating a bibliography and adapting a talk before tackling his first full-length book. Readers who sample his many works will be enriched and enlightened.

Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867

Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867

Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America by Gwenn A. Miller (review)

Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America by Gwenn A. Miller (review)

Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America, by Gwenn A. Miller.

<i>Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America</i>, by Gwenn A. Miller.

ReviewRussian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xiii + 258 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95.) Ilya Vinkovetsky

Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867 Get access Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867. By Vinkovetsky Ilya. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xiii + 258 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95.) Steven Sabol Steven Sabol University of North Carolina at Charlotte Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, Issue 2, Summer 2012, Pages 233–234, https://doi.org/10.2307/westhistquar.43.2.0233 Published: 01 May 2012

Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804-1867 (review)

Reviewed by: Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804-1867 Ryan Jones Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804-1867. By Ilya Vinkovetsky. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 272 pp. $49.95 (cloth). Ilya Vinkovetsky's Russian America follows a number of recent scholarly works addressing Russia's only overseas colony. The subject has proved contentious for historians both in Russia and North America, with Lydia Black's synoptic and polemical Russians in Alaska, 1732-1867 (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2004) serving as a lightning rod for discussion. In many ways Vinkovetsky's new book, which covers the second half of Russia's hundred-plus years in the New World, takes the opposite approach from Black. Russian America is a dispassionate, technical autopsy of the structures and practices that gave strength to the Alaskan empire. In these goals the book is eminently successful, and it will likely serve as the standard work on the subject for many years. Just as importantly, Vinkovetsky for the first time has made a strong case for Russian America's inclusion in broader discussions of European empires. Vinkovetsky takes as his starting point not the traditional question about Alaska—why did the Russian empire in America fail?—but rather, what structures allowed it to persist for so long? Russian [End Page 440] America's answers hinge on two recurrent fulcra. First, Russia produced a hybrid imperial strategy, composed of elements taken from its own Siberian expansion plus some tactics borrowed from Western European imperialism. Before around 1800 Alaska had been run by the same Sibiriaki (common Russians in Siberia) who had colonized much of the land east of the Russian heartland. They were men who pursued a violent but flexible imperialism based on intermarriage with local women and the lucrative collection of fur tribute. Whatever this model's merits for a terrestrial empire, the Russian state found it insufficient to deal with its first attempt at an oceanic empire, a venture undertaken, moreover, in a part of the world fiercely contested by other European empires. Several innovations marked a new approach. First, in 1799, St. Petersburg chartered the Russian American Company, the empire's first joint-stock enterprise. As Vinkovetsky puts it, the RAC served as a "contractor of empire" (p. 66), a way of pushing the risks and most of the costs of overseas management on the empire's subjects, while still bringing profits and prestige to the state. The company was conceived in imitation of the British joint-stock companies, and was thus part of the recognition that Alaska would be a very different Russian frontier. Following the first Russian round-the-world voyage, 1803-1806, which delivered supplies to the ailing colony and defeated a Tlingit force at the site of the future capital of New Arkhangelsk (Sitka), Russian America diverged even further from the rest of the empire. The naval officers who were prominent expedition members imported European ideas of racial difference and pushed for a greater cultural transformation of the subject people there. After 1820 the naval officers themselves would run the RAC and Alaska, taking the colony even further from its beginnings as an offshoot of Siberian expansion. Russian America's second fulcrum involves the colony's dependence upon the pelts of the sea otter and fur seal for its existence. The problem from the Russians' point of view was that they were poor maritime hunters and thus depended entirely on Alaska's natives to make the empire work. Nor, in contrast to other North American fur-trading ventures such as the Hudson's Bay Company, could the Russians supply the indigenous people with enough trade goods to encourage voluntary hunting. Therefore, they enveloped Aleuts, Koniags, and (to a much lesser extent) Tlingits within the hierarchy of more traditional monarchical and estate structures, which meshed poorly with ideas adopted from Western Europe. Such tensions were manifested in the curious use of the word "Creole" in Russian America. The term, borrowed from the Spanish, was used only in Alaska, and it had none of the original's ethnic precision and little of its stigma. In a sense, the Creoles were a [End...

Review: Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America, by Gwenn A. Miller

Book Review| February 01 2012 Review Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America. By Gwenn A. Miller. (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 2010. xxvi + 216 pp.$55) Stephen Haycox Stephen Haycox University of Alaska, Anchorage Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (2012) 81 (1): 95–96. https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2012.81.1.95 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Stephen Haycox; Review. Pacific Historical Review 1 February 2012; 81 (1): 95–96. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2012.81.1.95 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentPacific Historical Review Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2012 by the Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America

Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America