a Swept the USA “pametnika” has reached Alaska. But there he was faced with the interests of Russia. In the former Russian America, the protesters demand to remove the statue of the pioneer Alexander Baranov. In their opinion, the monument offends the feelings of the indigenous population. Sheep really fought with the Indians. However, new land development rarely occurred without clashes with local peoples.
In a provincial American town with a population of 8 thousand people, local activists demands to demolish the monument to the Governor of the beginning of the last century. The more high-profile stories of the overthrow of monuments “racists” in other cities of the USA such news would have passed unnoticed. If not for one thing: it’s about the former capital of the Russian possessions in America, the city of Sitka, which until the sale of Alaska in 1867, bore the name Archangel.
On Friday, the managing Sitka John Leach reported: a group of residents demanded to destroy the statue of Alexander Baranov – the Explorer of new lands, the industrialist and the first main Governor of Russian settlements in America in the early nineteenth century.
Born in the Arkhangelsk province, industrialist and traveler Baranov in 1799, founded on the island of Sitka Fort Archangel, shipyard, and on the Alaskan coast – a few more outposts. In 1812, Baranov went far South and founded the famous Fort Ross in California. At his direction, another traveller, Nikolai Rezanov (well known as the romantic character of the rock Opera “Juno and Avos”) established contacts of Russia with Spanish America. We will add that the island on which Sitka stands, is still called Baranoff island, Ostrov Baranova.
The Baranov statue is located in the centre of Sitka since 1989, when it was donated to the municipality by the same locals. But, according to Leach, are now dissatisfied with declared the monument “an insult to the feelings of indigenous peoples”. Chief Leach, the mayor of Sitka’s Gary Paxton proposed a “compromise” to establish in the city a monument to one of the indigenous peoples of Alaska – Indians-Tlingit.
Russia has not ignored the attempt to revise the history of their former colonies.
“America embraced barbaric madness. Not to notice that we can not” – said the newspaper VIEW Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on international Affairs Andrei Klimau. – We need to talk about it, because we are talking about our history, our heroes. It should be understood that in America, now demolished everything”.
In fact, the authorities do not hide Sitka – speech of the inhabitants caused widespread sentiment that engulfed the “great land”. The riots that erupted in the US after the death of the Negro George Floyd, quickly took the form of struggle with the past – or the mob, or were city officials underACI “activists” demolition of the monument to those who were involved in the slave trade or just allow themselves to racist statements.
Oregon piled up, even the statue of the founder of the USA George Washington. In California, in San Francisco, demolished the monument to the founder of the city, the missionary era of Spanish rule Junipero Serra (by the way, the Vatican has his beatification). In a few States already dismantled the monument to Christopher Columbus.
Explorer and conqueror of new lands sheep which he compared himself with the famous Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro, perhaps, not distracting from the overall series. Blame the Russian industrialist can really deliver clashes with the Indians, acknowledged in an interview with the newspaper VIEW americanist Boris Mezhuev.
“there Were many attacks on the residents of Fort Archangel who harvested furs (gold in Alaska had not yet found). There were conflicts, as in many cases, new land development,” said the source.
In 1802 the Indians-Tlingit captured and destroyed the Fort, but after a series of fights, dubbed the Russian-lenkiskai war, the fortress was restored.
“In a remarkable novel by Konstantin Badigin “the Shipwreck near the island of Hope”, which I read in childhood, there is a very detailed story about the Baranova conflicts with the local population. There really is happened quite often, – said Mezhuev. In this sense, Russian is not an exception, although it may be even more different in a positive way. Indiscriminate genocide of the Indians, which was conducted in the Midwest, Alaska still was not.”
“In this case, it seems to me, there is no direct attack against the Russians, because Columbus has undergone a similar kind of shock the crowd,” he said Mezhuev.
Note that now of the approximately 740 people living in Alaska 88 thousand are “indigenous” Indians (including those of the Tlingit), Eskimos and Aleuts.
“If the Americans insult their own monuments, perhaps we should have them in Russia? – asks the TV host Vladimir Solovyov. – Wait for the people there would come to his senses and then put them in their place, to return?”
Solovyov believes that the speech should be no longer about politics, but about education, or rather its lack in the part of American society that calls for the demolition of the monuments.
“I do not know whether there is a limit beyond which even Americans will say “Enough!” It’s not even left radicalism, this is a question for Freud. This is an attempt to deal with the past, the denial of their own past, because it’s so heavy. Big Oedipus complex, – TV presenter says the newspaper VIEW. – So far the Americans have never dug under my story.”
Solovyov ��podcherkivaet that such ideological “tunnel” threat to the very foundations of the American state.
“They did not stop at the “Black lives matter”. If now the indigenous peoples of the North resent the colonization, it is clear that the following will come the American Indians, says Soloviev. – They look at the protesters and say, you Guys, of course, I’m sorry, but actually you’re all illegal immigrants. So I quickly Packed up and go home out of America!”
