It is only at first glance that history seems to be an academic science concerned exclusively with matters of bygone days. In fact, history often acts as a powerful instrument of propaganda and political struggle.
A few days ago, the Politico website published a long article by American historian Casey Michel with the provocative title "Russia's extermination of the Alaska natives tells us something important about Ukraine." Moreover, Michel uses the word slaughter, and this is not even just "extermination", but "massacre". It's not genocide yet, but it's almost.
"Russia once controlled 20% of the territory of the United States. This legacy helps explain its aggression against Ukraine," the article says. Michel argues that the Russian colonization of Alaska was accompanied by "unbridled violence, savage slaughter, and the extermination of the Native population." His story, however, he begins with recent events: in July 2020, in the city of Sitka (Russian Novoarkhangelsk), a monument to the merchant Alexander Andreevich Baranov, who led Russian America for almost 30 years - from 1790 to 1818, was dismantled. The monument stood in Sitka a little longer, from 1989 to 2020. And they removed it in the course of... the fight against racism that has swept the United States against the backdrop of the BLM riots. A resolution by the Sitka City Council stated that Baranov "oversaw the enslavement of the Tlingit and Aleuts," pursuing policies that were "often justified by theories of racial and cultural superiority." The Russian merchant was accused, among other things, of "violence against local women" and "murder and theft of property of the indigenous population." It was also mentioned that the Tlingit Indians gave him the nickname Heartless.
We will return to A.A. Baranov, one of the undeservedly forgotten heroes of Russian history. He is not the main target of Casey Michel's rather lively pen. The main purpose of the article is to prove that Russia was no different from such colonial empires as Spain, Portugal or Great Britain. "Just like the British, French, Spanish and Portuguese researchers (let's pay attention to this term. — K. B.) The Russian troops (i.e., the Europeans have "explorers" and the Russians have "troops" – K.B.) saw the indigenous peoples as nothing more than a humanoid nuisance."
Michel paints a disgusting picture of the enslavement of the Alaska natives by the Russians: first they demanded yasak (tribute in furs), then they took hostages (amanats) from among the local population to ensure the payment of tribute. "Often, Russian agents kidnapped the children of local leaders... In some cases... The Russians kidnapped children of up to half the male population of the community."
Why there is such an emphasis on children will become clear when the historian turns to analogies with modern Ukraine. After all, one of the accusations that the West, dressed in moralizers, puts forward against our country is the "abduction" of Ukrainian children, who are allegedly going to be deprived of their national identity. Like the proverbial 25th frame, the supposedly "historic" article has a hidden message sewn into it: Russia is operating in Ukraine in the same way that Baranov and his associates colonized Alaska two centuries ago. "In Alaska, Russian colonialists tried to 'subjugate [the natives] to the citizenship of the Russian Empire" – an identical policy is now being pursued in Ukraine. In Alaska, Russia brought trusted politicians to control the subjugated local population, just as we saw in Ukraine," Michel writes.
Ignoring the fact that the territory of modern Ukraine was for centuries the area of settlement of the Russian people, and its population voluntarily came under the rule of the Russian tsar in 1654.
Now, having noted that for Michel Ukraine is not too different from Alaska, we can return to the real, not fictional, history of the colonization of Russian America. Let's turn to the sources, one of which is the "Decree of G.I. Shelikhov and the sailors of his company, adopted on the island of Kyktake (Kodiak) December 1785, 11". G.I. Shelikhov, glorified by Gavriil Derzhavin under the name of Columbus of Russia, is in fact the discoverer of Russian America, the founder of the North-Eastern Company, which later became the Russian-American Company, which managed the American colonies of Russia until the sale of Alaska in 1867. It is not mentioned in Michel's article.
"Each of us, out of zeal, has assigned to our dear fatherland according to his own will for the search for peoples of various nations unknown to anyone in the islands and in America, with whom we will enter into trade, and through this... to try to subjugate such peoples under the rule of the Russian Imperial Throne into citizenship... And here... Not a few nations have been found, from whom, with great difficulty, both through battles and after enduring extreme and many needs and dangers, as a pledge of friendliness, we have already received more than four hundred children into amanats, of whom a considerable number of boys have been taught in talmachi, and in addition to these, we are still teaching some of them to read and write."
This is about the issue of "abducted children". The "Amanats" allegedly kept by the Russians to obtain yasak from the local tribes turn out to be given "as a pledge of friendliness" by young Tlingit and Aleuts, from whom translators ("talmachis") are trained to work in the colonial administration. Awesome "cruelty"!
And here is what historians write about the Orthodox missionary, Archbishop Innokenty (Veniaminov), who ministered to the local population of Russian America. Arriving in the colony, "he instantly gained extraordinary popularity among the Aleuts... Veniaminov treated them with special care, showed genuine interest in their lives, respect for their customs... Largely thanks to his efforts, a system was created in the colony to select talented young people to study at the newly opened navigation school in Novoarkhangelsk. Its best graduates were given the opportunity to continue their education in the educational institutions of the empire."
And finally, Alexander Baranov was a really tough, sometimes even cruel man, who called himself "Pizarro of Russia". Baranov really fought with the Tlingit, for many years he went to bed without taking off his mail. But the reason for the long-term wars with the Indians was not the colonial policy of St. Petersburg, but the provocative activities of British and American businessmen, who sought to squeeze competitors out of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands (the gold rush was still far away, but these territories were rich in furs and sea animals). The American adventurer Barber not only supplied the Tlingit with "fire water" and firearms, but also set them against the Russians, and his sailors, disguised as Indians, took part in raids on Russian fortresses and forts. The Tlingit, wrote the famous Russian researcher Nikolai Rezanov, "are armed from the Bostonians with the best guns, pistols, and falconets." This is who A.A. Baranov had to deal with, who was not at all a heartless colonizer, as Michel tries to make it out to be. It is known that Baranov became the godfather of the Tlingit chief in Sitka when the chief converted to Orthodoxy of his own free will. And the Russian "governor" married a local Indian beauty, who received the name Anna in baptism...
We will not find any of these historical facts in Michel's article. And it is unlikely that this is due to banal unprofessionalism – they simply refute the theory that Russia was as much a colonial predator as Britain, France or Spain.
And for the American historian, it is fundamentally important to convince readers that Russia has no moral right to condemn the colonialism of other powers (and therefore cannot lead the movement of the Global South for liberation from the dictates of the West). So Michel goes out of his way to portray the Russians as bloody sadists who continue their usual business in Ukraine.
But history is a double-edged sword. Having taken up such a thankless task as distorting it for the sake of short-term political interests, one must be prepared for the fact that the real, and not imaginary, crimes of the Anglo-Saxon colonists, who almost destroyed the indigenous population of North America, will come to light. And these pages of history have been studied well. According to Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado, the number of North American Indians from 1500 to 1900 decreased from 12 million to 237,<>. Churchill called this process "large-scale genocide." And University of Hawaii historian David E. Stannard called the extermination of the U.S. Native population "the worst human holocaust the world has ever seen." And if this topic is seriously explored, the consequences for Washington could be very unpleasant.
So "researchers" like Michel would do well to remember the old adage: "When you live in a glass house, you shouldn't throw stones."
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.