Chia Yin Hsu, Assistant Professor at Portland State University with expertise in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia, reviews Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867. By Ilya Vinkovetsky

Hsu, Chia Yin

PDXScholar (Portland State University)

Portland State UniversityPDXScholarHistory Faculty Publications and Presentations History5-2013Book Review of, Russian America: An Overseas Colony of aContinental Empire, 1804–1867Chia Yin HsuPortland State University, hsuc@pdx.eduLet us know how access to this document benefits you.Follow this and additional works at: http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/hist_facPart of the Asian Studies Commons, and the Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies CommonsThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications and Presentations by anauthorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu.Citation DetailsRussian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867. By Ilya Vinkovetsky. (New York, Oxford UniversityPress, 2011. xiii þ 258 pp. $49.95)Reviews of BooksRussian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867.By Ilya Vinkovetsky. (New York, Oxford University Press, 2011. xiii þ258 pp. $49.95)An illuminating overview of what the author calls the empire’s‘‘sole overseas colony’’ (p. 4), Russian America is an invaluable studyfor understanding how possession of Alaska fit into the largercontext of the Russian Empire’s continuous expansion since thesixteenth century. Russian arrival in Alaska followed the pursuit offur by Russian inhabitants of Siberia, the sibiriaki, and by Russiantraders and merchants based in Siberia, the promyshlenniki. IlyaVinkovetsky argues that the formation of a semi-private enterpriseto manage Alaska, the Russian American Company (RAC), signaleda deliberate shift on the part of the Russian state toward adoptinga western model of colonial rule. This shift was made more evidentas naval officers staffing the RAC increasingly replaced the promysh-lenniki in running Russian America. The officers brought with thema paternalistic view of the indigenous peoples that was absent amongthe sibiriaki, Vinkovetsky asserts, who neither saw the Natives of Alaskaas ‘‘exotic’’ (p. 38), nor sought to acculturate them to civilized ways, asdid the officers.Highlighting the departures marked by Alaska from the Russianperspective, this monograph also brings out the ways Russian exploi-tation of the colony differed from the conduct of other colonialcompanies in North America. For instance, the RAC devised ‘‘a un-ique form of organizing the Aleut and Koniag labor force’’ (p. 23) forsea-otter hunting that Vinkovetsky calls a ‘‘hybrid’’ between slaveryand serfdom (p. 81). In conjunction with the 1821 empire-widereform, a new ‘‘estate’’—that is, a legal-administrative category—of‘‘Creoles’’ was created for the mixed children of Russians and indig-enous peoples of Alaska. Regarding the Tlingit, Russian tacticsemphasized deepening trade ties as part of a larger program topacify, co-opt, and acculturate an indigenous group that continuedto pose a threat to the Russian settlement of Novo-Arkhangel’sk(now Sitka) into the 1860s. Tracing the Christianizing aspect of theRussian agenda of acculturation, the final chapter of the bookPacific Historical Review, Vol. 82, No. 2, pages 279–330. ISSN 0030-8684© 2013 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through theUniversity of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp DOI: phr.2013.82.2.279. 279concerns the work of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the1830s, the church actively began to proselytize among the Aleuts,Creoles, and Tlingit, in part through the use of an indigenouslanguage and developing a written form for it.The possession of an ‘‘overseas’’ colony, Vinkovetsky finds,‘‘facilitated the transition of the Russian empire-state from a morecontinental dynastic to a hybrid-colonial type of empire’’ (p. 188).This argument, which follows the typology delineated by theories ofimperialism that separated ‘‘continental’’ from ‘‘overseas’’ empires,may be overly geographically deterministic for considering modes ofcolonial contact. When Russian practices began to resemble those ofWestern European colonial rule—especially at the empire’s south-ern and eastern frontiers—it was perhaps propelled more by ever-widening circles of elite and educated Russians who participated inthe civilizing discourses that shaped these practices, rather than byRussians’ experience in Alaska. But for considering changing modesof imperial expansion, this study’s focus on Alaska’s location ‘‘over-seas’’ sheds much light on the new prominence of the Russian Navyand the repositioning of the Russian Empire as a maritime power.The decision to sell Alaska, Vinkovetsky shows, was based not ona sense of setback or failure in Alaska, but on a redirection of theRussian imperial state’s priorities toward China and the building ofa new Pacific port at Vladivostok. For the Russian Navy, this redirec-tion of resources was a fitting end to a colony that had served,according to Vinkovetsky, as a ‘‘stepping stone for the navy’senhanced role in Russia’s Far East’’ (p. 187).CHIA YIN HSUPortland State University280 Pacific Historical Review

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

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

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