The American war with monuments has reached the Russian heritage
In Alaska, a group of representatives of the Tlingit aboriginals demanded that the authorities of the city of Sitka remove from its center the monument to the first ruler of Russian America, Alexander Baranov, who had founded this city, then called Novo-Arkhangelsk, more than 30 years ago, located there for more than 200 years.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Local authorities told RG that no decision has been made on this matter yet, but the initiative of the Indians caused a wide resonance among representatives of the Russian diaspora, who opposed the attempt to remove the monument.
According to Anna Vernaya, director of the Russian Cultural Center in Alaska, the monument has always been a certain irritant for a small but influential group of Sitka residents, mainly representatives of the Tlingit and Haida peoples. She claims that the Tlingit and Haida were constantly at war with each other, while Baranov was striving for peaceful relations with the local population.
“Reading correspondence on social networks from supporters of the demolition of the monument, I realized that they do not know the history that was conveyed to them in a distorted form. They were told about Baranov’s cruelty, although he was one of the most peace-loving rulers of Russian America,” says the director of the Russian cultural center.
She also calls the accusations that the Russians imposed Orthodoxy on the locals and forced them to forget their religion unfounded, and suggests going to any Russian church in Alaska and making sure that the majority of the parishioners there are the same Tlingits, Aleuts and Eskimos, whom no one stopped them from returning “ native" religion after Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867.
“These people continue to be baptized in Orthodoxy to this day, they bear Russian names, they have Russian surnames, and they oppose the “colonizer” Baranov?,” Vernaya is perplexed.
She also says that opponents of the monument are trying to rewrite history without having a single confirmed fact about Baranov’s cruelty.
“The removal of the monument will strain relations between all nationalities living in Sitka and Alaska, as well as between our countries. It would seem that this is a special case, but it entails very serious consequences for all of us,” says Vernaya.
“We hope to show local authorities that the removal of the statue will have a devastating effect not only on Russian-American relations, but especially on their own tourism industry, because many Russians from all over the world still come to Sitka as the capital of historical Russian America.” “, - in turn, Natalia Sabelnik, president of one of the oldest Russian associations in the United States, the Congress of Russian Americans, told RG.
The newspaper also draws attention to the fact that the memory of the first ruler of Russian America is immortalized in the United States not only by this monument - a US Navy ship, the island on which Sitka stands, and the archipelago in which this island is located are named after him.
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