Rossiisko–amerikanskaia kompaniia: deiatel’nost’ na otechestvennom i zarubezhnom rynkakh (1799–1867). [Russian–American Company: Activity in the Home and Foreign Markets (1799–1867)] (review)

The daring expeditions of the Danish-born Russian, Captain Vitus J. Bering, to the coasts of Alaska and other “unknown lands” in 1728–29 and 1741, marked the beginning of Russia’s century-long presence in North America. During the era of the early republic, the Russian–American Company (RAC) became the principal instrument for tsarist commercial and colonial enterprise. Based on materials in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress; the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; the Archive of Imperial Russian Foreign Policy; and a wide array of regional and personal archives in the United States, Russia, and Estonia, A. Iu. Petrov’s Russian–American Company is a prime example of the recent efforts by Russian scholars to contribute to the study of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

Like most incarnations of former doctoral kandidat dissertations, Petrov’s book begins with a lengthy appraisal (7–42) of the archives and historiography. Focused primarily on economic issues, the book’s core analyzes the RAC’s contracts, commerce, and finances from the period of the first charter (1799–1821) to the last (1841–67). Petrov complements and mildly revises the classic study by Semen B. Okun, Russian–American Company (Moscow: State Socio-Economic Press, 1939/trans. 1951).

Founded with imperial sanction under the leadership of the merchant–explorers Grigorii I. Shelikhov and Nikolai P. Rezanov, the RAC monopolized exploration and exploitation of resources in Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, and the Pacific Northwest. The promotion of trade, the establishment of permanent settlements, and the spread of Eastern Orthodoxy in these vast and often dangerous territories ranked high among the RAC’s multifarious responsibilities. In what was initially a risky business, the first “ruler” of Russian America, RAC’s Alexandr A. Baranov, adroitly transformed posts on Kodiak Island, Sitka Island, and Fort Ross (north of San Francisco) into thriving fur markets.

The War of 1812 marked a turning point, as Russian ships benefited from the blockade of American merchant vessels by British warships. Stock values and profits soared until 1821, when a government decree forbidding foreign ships from sailing within Russian territorial waters proved impossible to enforce. The RAC faced serious problems for the next few years, until personnel changes, conservation measures, and efforts at gaining firmer access to Chinese markets proved relatively successful. Recovery followed, and the RAC grew hundreds of thousands of rubles in value, in part due to a series of ambitious round-the-world expeditions. Although RAC was financially poised to expand further, the strong hand of the imperial family jealously limited the number of investors. The thorough reconstruction of the relatively small group of shareholders is a unique feature of Petrov’s book (129–45).

Although the RAC reached the high point of its economic activity during the middle decades of the century, the populations of seals, sea lions, otters, and other fur-bearing animals decreased significantly. Petrov’s exhaustive analysis of the 1841 charter (160–68) sheds light on administrating a company with global interests, although comparison with the British East India Company and Hudson Bay Company would have enriched the overall picture. By the 1850s, revenues reached three million rubles a year, about half of which came from exchange with America (an increase of 30 percent from 1818). Frustrations emerged, however, sparked by personnel issues, market fluctuations, and shipping costs. At its peak, the RAC was valued at five million rubles. It paid generous dividends and made banking firms in London and Hamburg eager to invest (241). However, Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War and Tsar Alexander II’s decision to modernize the Russian Empire placed the sprawling activities of the RAC in danger. The sale of Russian–American to the United States in 1867 for 7.2...