AEMI

92 AEMI JOURNAL 2015
in any present day publications covering
the history of Russian America.
3) All those seamen, below the rank of
Navigator, numbering in the hundreds,
working on ships, either hired by the
Company, or on the Company’s own
ships, sailing the rout: Kronstadt-Sitka-Okhotsk
later -Ajan-Petropavlovsk
- Sitka-Kronstadt are hardly ever noted,
even more seldom mentioned, and even
less even recognized by Alaska’s Russian
Era historians. Still, neither a captain
nor a navigator can sail a ship without
a crew. However by steadfast held tradition
each crew included an older experienced
seaman (easily identified by
his age on most every preserved crew list
found in the many seaman archives of
Finland), who in a pinch was capable to
sail a ship to the nearest port. In other
words commanders are dependent of
their crew they cannot sail without. As
the household servants discussed above,
these seamen are also made by will invisible,
even though at any time in question,
a truly significant number of these
upward mobile seamen who, no matter
what social standing they had in society,
Noble-man or crofter’s boy, all had to
start starting at the lowest rung as Cabin
Boys, to earn their way up the ladder,
worked on whatever rung they for the
moment happened to stand on, would
within a few years pas the required
exams for Skipper and later Sea Captain
(Stenius 1874).
4) Throughout years scholars on the
history of Russian America have paid
scant or no attention to that OTHER
church, the first Lutheran church on
the North Pacific Rim, and most likely
also the first around the entire Pacific
rim: Alaska’s Russian Era Evangelical
Lutheran Church and what it did represent
from 1840 to 1867 and who this
OTHER parish served there, as this
ignored church-building stood there
sticking up as a sore thumb smack in
the middle of their scholarly sphere
of study: Alaska’s Russian Era’s dominant
Russian Orthodox community.
The fact is that the membership of this
OTHER church (spanned as well from
lofty governors down to those Invisibles,
the household-servants, as well as filled
the gap in-between with most every social
and professional category a community
wishes for, needed or craved) has by
this exclusion of interest been pushed
into an invisibility equal to that of the
house-servants and the seamen below
the ranks of Skipper, Sea Captain and
Navigator.
Long ago I had the unpardonable
nerve to scold an eminent historian in
my own country, telling him he just had
to choose to either be a historian or a
politician, as both he ethically couldn’t
possibly be.
Unfortunately there still seem to be
ample reason to do so, as what some
historians of Russian America seem to
ignore is that it makes far more sense to
use an inclusive approach than an exclusive
one. It’ seems foolish to ignore
the historical fact that Sitka’s Russian
Era Evangelical Lutheran church and
parish did only come about though the
Company’s own formal application for
it. And the Company was only granted
this request through Czar Nikolai Is
documented signature, guarantying
His Imperial Majesty’s official approval
of it (Enckell 1996:11-12). Thereafter,
most all of its Lutheran parish members
were recruited, through-out those