The Great Misadventure

RUSSIAN AMERICA by Hecfor Chevigny. 274 pages. Viking. $5.95.

A century ago, Russia and the U.S. were next-door neighbors. Fort Ross, the southernmost outpost of Russia's vast American colony, lay only 100 miles up the California coast from San Francisco. American ships regularly anchored at New Archangel (now Sitka), a thriving capital that boasted two scientific institutes, a public library, a college, and such civilized amusements as the theater, whist parties and formal balls. Then in 1867, Russia ceded its American possession to the U.S. for $7,200,000--a price that comes to about $12 per square mile. It was the crowning irony of one of the more ironic chapters in Russian history. For Russia did not really want to sell Alaska--any more than the U.S. really wanted to buy.

Sought Bridge. Perhaps the first irony was that private Russian initiative developed Alaska for the imperialist Czars. In 1741, when Russia sent two ships east from the Kamchatka peninsula in Siberia, it was interested mainly in settling a debate over the existence of a land link between Asia and America.

That first voyage contributed nothing to either side of the argument. But by avoiding the treacherous northern route, which would have taken them to that point where Asia and America nearly touch, the voyagers found the more southerly Aleutian Islands chain. And Siberia's promyshlenniki (freelance explorers) drooled at the thought of the cargo brought back by the crew: fox, seal and otter pelts. Soon these 18th century venture capitalists, some in flimsy river boats that were bound with leather thongs, were spanning the 1,500 sea miles to the Aleutian fingertip and beyond.

Although they sent home a fortune in furs, the colonists were repaid largely with official indifference and hostility. "It is for traders to traffic where they please," pronounced the Empress Catherine. "I will furnish no men, ships, or money." Not until 1810, nearly 70 years after Russian eyes first beheld America, did a ship from the imperial navy enter New Archangel harbor, and then only with mischief in mind. Its captain, one Vasilii Golovnin, coveted the lucrative colony, which was in the hands of businessmen. In time, the navy pulled its rank and took control. Aleksandr Baranov, resident manager for 27 years, was fired without honors or pension.

Doomed Business. Author Chevigny, who has written two earlier books on Russia's American misadventure, suggests in this one that the colony was probably doomed from the start. The Czars never opened the new land to immigration. Alaska was run as a fur business, whose board members voted themselves handsome dividends and occupied a luxurious building on St. Petersburg's Moika Quai.

As early as 1819, reports reached Russia that U.S. seizure of the colony was imminent (it wasn't). The conviction grew that as long as U.S. takeover was inevitable anyway, it would be a shrewd move to surrender Alaska for a song. Such a show of friendship would surely improve the already cordial U.S.Russian relations. The trouble was that the U.S. showed little appetite for the gift--even though the Russians asked only $7,200,000 for the territory. In the end, the U.S. bought Alaska with the feeling that it was doing a favor for a friend, taking some worthless real estate off Russia's hands.

The ironies did not end with cession. Russia was kept waiting 15 months for its money while the U.S. House of Representatives--informed by the Foreign Affairs Committee that Alaska's bountiful resources were worthless and the land itself "unfit for civilized men"--overcame its feeling that the price was excessive. Instead of the full rights of citizenship promised by the U.S., the Russians in Alaska got military occupation by U.S. troops, who looted their churches and raped their women. For the next 17 years, Alaska was operated as a U.S. customs district, without government or laws. By then, the evidence of Russia's 126 years in Alaska had dwindled to a few onion-domed churches and a sprinkle of Russian place names on the map.

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