The “Monument Fall” that engulfed the USA reached Alaska. But there he first encountered the interests of Russia. In former Russian America, protesters demanded that the statue of the pioneer Alexander Baranov be removed. In their opinion, the monument offends the feelings of the indigenous people. Baranov really fought with the Indians. However, the development of new lands rarely occurred without clashes with local peoples.
In a provincial American town with a population of 8 thousand people, local activists are demanding to demolish the monument to the governor of the beginning of the century before last. Against the backdrop of more high-profile stories of the overthrow of monuments to “racists” in other US cities, such news would go unnoticed. If not for one circumstance: we are talking about the former capital of Russian possessions in America, the city of Sitka, which, before the sale of Alaska in 1867, bore the name Novoarkhangelsk.
Sitka manager John Leach on Friday reported: a group of residents demanded the destruction of the statue of Alexander Baranov, an explorer of new lands, an industrialist and the first chief ruler of Russian settlements in America at the very beginning of the 19th century.
A native of the Arkhangelsk province, industrialist and traveler Baranov in 1799 founded Fort Novoarkhangelsk, a shipyard on the island of Sitka, and several outposts on the Alaskan coast. In 1812, Baranov went down to the south and founded the famous Fort Ross fortress in California. At his direction, another traveler, Nikolai Rezanov (well known as the romantic character of the rock opera Juno and Avos) established contacts between Russia and Spain. We add that the island on which Sitka stands is still called Baranoff Island, Baranova Island.
The statue of Baranov has been located in the center of Sitka since 1989, when it was donated to the municipality by the locals themselves. But, according to Leach, now the discontented declared the monument “an insult to the feelings of indigenous peoples.” Lich’s boss, Sitka’s mayor Gary Paxton, proposed “as a compromise” to erect a monument in the city to one of the representatives of the indigenous peoples of Alaska – the Tlingit Indians.
An attempt to revise the history of their former colony was not left unattended in Russia. “America was swept by barbaric madness. We cannot ignore this, ”- declared newspaper VZGLYAD, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Andrei Klimov. – We need to talk about this, because we are talking about our history, our heroes. At the same time, you need to understand that everything is being demolished in America now. ”
In fact, the Sitka authorities do not hide – the residents ’speech is caused by the general mood that swept the“ mainland ”. Disorder, erupted in the usa after the death of Negro George Floyd, they quickly took the form of a struggle with the past – either the rioters, or the city authorities themselves at the suggestion of “activists” demolished monuments to those who were involved in the slave trade or simply allowed themselves racist statements.
In Oregon, even the statue of US founder George Washington was dumped. In California, in San Francisco, a monument was demolished to the founder of the city, the missionary of the times of the Spanish rule, Junipero Serra (by the way, the Vatican ranked him blessed). Monuments to Christopher Columbus have already been dismantled in several states.
The researcher and conqueror of the new lands of Baranov, who himself compared himself with the famous Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, is perhaps not out of the general row. Clashes with the Indians can really be blamed on the Russian industrialist, the Americanist Boris Mezhuev admitted in an interview with VZGLYAD.
“There were many attacks on the inhabitants of Fort Novoarkhangelsk, who were harvesting furs (gold in Alaska was not found then). Conflicts occurred, as in many cases of developing new lands, ”the source said. In 1802, the Tlingit Indians captured and destroyed the fort, but after a series of battles, called the Russian-Tlingit war, the fortress was restored.
“In the wonderful novel by Konstantin Badigin“ Shipwreck on the island of Hope ”, which I read as a child, there is a very detailed story about Baranov’s conflicts with the local population. Indeed, this happened quite often there, ”Mezhuev noted. – In this sense, the Russians are no exception, although they may even rather differ in a positive way. “There was still no mass genocide of Indians in the Midwest in Alaska.”
“In this case, it seems to me that there is no direct attack against the Russians, because Columbus also suffered a similar blow from the crowd,” Mezhuev complained. Note that now of the approximately 740 thousandth population of Alaska 88 thousand are “indigenous” – Indians (including the same Tlingit), Eskimos and Aleuts.
“If Americans are so offended by their own monuments, maybe it makes sense for us to take them to Russia?”
– asks TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov. “Wait until the people come to their senses there and then put them in their place, return them?”
Soloviev believes that we should no longer talk about politics, but about education, or rather, about its lack in that part of American society that calls for the demolition of monuments. “I don’t even know if there is a limit after which the Americans themselves will say“ Enough! ” This is not even leftist radicalism; these are already questions for Freud. This is an attempt to fight the past, the denial of their own past, because it is so difficult. Big Oedipus complex, – the TV presenter tells the newspaper VZGLYAD. “So deeply, Americans never dug into their story.”
Soloviev emphasizes that such an ideological “digging” is dangerous for the very foundations of the American state. “They did not stop at the Black lives matter.” If now the indigenous peoples of the North are outraged by colonization, then it is clear that the American Indians will come out next, Soloviev warns. – They will look at the protesters and say: Guys, of course, you are sorry, but actually you are all illegal immigrants. So we gathered quickly – and home, from America! ”
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