A history of Slavic studies in the United States — Context and Discussion

Strangely enough, the Russians failed to cross the coastal mountains either in Alaska or further to the south. They contented themselves with the hunting of marine animals, especially the sea otter, sending the skins back to Siberia for Asiatic distribution. They apparently did not realize that the American continent could be crossed by land, a peculiar oversight when we remember their rapid crossing of the whole of Asia. Rezanov had hoped to make Kodiak a center of Russian culture. He had come to Russian America by sea from St. Petersburg and brought with him a large library of books for an academy which he proposed to establish. Apparently Shelikov had spread excessive stories of the Russian achievements, for Kodiak was only a wretched frontier village and not an embryonic metropolis, Slava Rossii, as he boasted. Rezanov’s collection remained in Kodiak until its destruction by fire on July 18, 1943.

The Russian Orthodox Church also sent a mission to the colony. The monks, largely from Valamo, were devoted men and at least one was a martyr. The greatest of the Russian clergy was Ivan Venyaminov, later Archbishop Innokenty, Metropolitan of Moscow and one of the great figures of the Russian Church. This mission converted the majority of the Aleuts and Eskimos in the neighborhood and the Russian language was long the common speech on most of the Aleutian Islands.

Russian expansion thus had begun to take shape seriously at about the same time the Americans began to push westward. After buying the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent an expedition under Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the northwest. In 1806 the expedition reached the mouth of the Columbia River. Then followed the settlement of Astoria by agents of the American fur trader, John Jacob Astor. By the time the Russians were ready to advance to the south, the Americans were established in the center of the area and the Russian colonies never formed a solid belt on the west coast. For some reason the Russians did not try to eliminate the Americans and the southern settlements began to wither away from inability to expand. In 1841, Fort Ross was sold to a group of Americans and the Russians withdrew northward.

The lively trade between Sitka and Boston was interrupted by the War of 1812 and when peace came, commerce was further hindered by Russian efforts to impose trade restrictions that were unacceptable to the Americans. These came at the same time as the revolutions and declarations of independence of the Spanish colonies and the adherence of Tsar Alexander I to the Holy Alliance to aid Spain in recovering them. The Russian efforts at controlling the north Pacific and the American sympathy for the Spanish colonies led to the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 which doomed European expansion in the New World. Both President Monroe and his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, had held diplomatic posts in Russia and were aware of the differences between the Russian and American points of view.

The Monroe Doctrine and the settlement of the northwest determined the fate of Russian America. It was blocked to the south by the United States and the British settlements in the Canadian West. In 1867, Russia realized the hopelessness of its position and sold the territory now known as Alaska to the United States. The Russians then established their bishopric in San Francisco but during the next years the Russian colony in the far west remained an isolated group and it was only toward the end of the century that it merged with the general Slavic immigration.

This, then, is the first phase of Slavic contact with the New World. Relatively little imprint was left on American life, although we must not undervalue certain ideas that did pass into the young republic. They were the result of individual effort rather than organized or mass movements which came later.

CHAPTER 2 MASS IMMIGRATION

As the middle of the century approached the situation began to change radically. There came a marked improvement in the accommodations and regularity of the trans-Atlantic ships and contacts between North America and Europe began to multiply.

Then came the Spring of the Nations, the year 1848, with the efforts of the Germans and the peoples of Austria-Hungary to put an end to the prevailing absolutism. This movement failed but it led a large number of Germans who had supported the Frankfort General Assembly to leave their native land and to seek refuge in the United States. Most of them drifted west, settling in many of the Central States and the Middle West. They took up free land and settled down to become prosperous farmers. The rumors of their success in adapting themselves to their new environment spread beyond Germany and fired the resolution of other discontented peoples.