REZANOV

This article appears in Volume V23, Page 230 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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REZANOV , NICOLAI PETROVICH DE
Russian nobleman and administrator under Catherine II.,
Paul I. and Alexander I., was one of the ten barons of Russia, and, for his services to the empire, was rewarded with the court title of chamberlain. In 1803 he was made a privy councillor and invested with the order of St Ann. He was also the author of a lexicon of the Japanese language and of several other works, which are preserved in the library of the St

Petersburg

PETERSBURG

Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member. He was the first Russian

ambassador

AMBASSADOR (also EMBASSADOR, the form sometimes still used in America; from the Fr. ambassadeur, with which compare Ital. ambasciatore and Span. embajador, all variants of the Med. Lat. ambassiator, ambassiator, ambasator, &c., derived from Med. Lat. amba

to Japan (1804), and instigated the first attempt of Russia to circumnavigate the globe (18o3), commanding the expedition himself as far as Kamchatka. But Rezanov's monument for many years after his death was 'the great Russian American Fur Company; and his

interest

INTEREST

to students of history centres round the policy involved in that enterprise, which, thwarted by his untimely death, would have changed the destinies of Russia and the United States.
Meeting (in 1788) Shelikov,

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

of the Shelikov-Golikov Fur Company, Rezfinov became interested in the merchant's project to obtain a monopoly of the fur trade in those distant dependencies. Conscious of latent energies, and already tired of the pleasures of a dissolute court, he became a partner in the company, and rapidly developed into a keen and tireless man of business. At the death of Shelikov in 1795 he became the leading spirit of the wealthy and amalgamated but harassed companies, and resolved to obtain for himself and his partners_privileges analogous to those granted by Great Britain to the

East

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

India Company. He had just succeeded in persuading Catherine to sign his charter when she died, and he was obliged to begin again with the ill-balanced and intractable Paul. For a time the outlook was hopeless; but Rezanov's skill, subtlety and address prevailed, and shortly before the assassination of the emperor Paul he obtained his signature to the momentous

instrument

INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumentum, from insincere, to build up, furnish, arrange, prepare)

which granted to the Russian-American Company, for a term of twenty years, dominion over the coast of N.W. America, from

latitude

LATITUDE (Lat. latitudo, latus, broad)

55 degrees northward; and over the chain of islands extending from Kamchatka northward and southward to Japan. This famous " Trust," which crowded out all the small companies and independent traders, was a source of large revenue to Rezanov and the other shareholders, including members of the Imperial family, until the first years of the 19th century, when mismanagement and scarcity of nourishing food threatened it with serious losses if not ultimate ruin. Rezanov, his humiliating embassy to Japan concluded, reached Kamchatka in i8o5, and found commands awaiting him to remain in the Russian colonies as Imperial inspector and plenipotentiary of the company, and to correct the abuses that were ruining the great enterprise. He travelled slowly to Sitka by way of the Islands, establishing

measures

MEASURES

to protect the fur-bearing animals from reckless slaughter, punishing or banishing the worst offenders against the company's laws, and introducing the civilizing influence of schools and libraries, most of the books being his personal gifts. He even established cooking schools, which flourished briefly.
At the end of a winter in Sitka, the headquarters of the company, during whi h he half-starved with the others, he bought a ship from a Yankee skipper and sailed for the Spanish settlements in California, purposing to trade his tempting cargo of American and Russian wares for food-stuffs, and to arrange a treaty by whose terms his colonies should be provisioned twice a year with the bountiful products of New Spain. He cast anchor in the harbour of San Francisco early in April 18o6, after a stormy voyage which had defeated his intention to take possession of the Columbia river in the name of Russia. Although he was received with great courtesy and entertained night and day by the gay Californians, no time was lost in informing him that the laws of Spain forbade her colonies to trade with foreign powers, and that the

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

of all the Californias was in-corruptible. Rezanov, had it not been for a love affair with the daughter of the comandante of San Francisco, Don Jose Arguello, and for his personal address and diplomatic skill, with which he won over the clergy to his cause, would have failed again. As it was, when he sailed for Sitka, six weeks after his arrival, the " Juno's " hold was. full of bread-stuffs and dried meats, he had the promise of the perplexed

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

to forward a copy of the treaty to Spain at once, and he was affianced to the most beautiful girl in California. Shortly after his arrival in Sitka he proceeded by water to Kamchatka, where he despatched his ships to wrest the island Sakhalen of the lower Kurile group from Japan, then started overland for St

Petersburg

PETERSBURG

to obtain the signature of the tsar to the treaty, and also personal letters to the pope and king of Spain that he might ask for the dispensation and the royal consent necessary to his

marriage

MARRIAGE

. He died of fever and exhaustion in Krasnoiarsk, Siberia, on the 8th of March 1807.
The treaty with California, the bare suggestion of which made such a commotion in New Spain, was the least of Rezanov's projects. It was sincerely conceived, for he was deeply and humanely concerned for his employees and the wretched natives who were little more than the slaves of the company; but its very obviousness raised the necessary amount of dust. His correspondence with the company, and with Zapinsky, betrays a clearly defined purpose to annex to Russia the entire western coast of North America, and to encourage immediate emigration from the parent country on a large scale. Had he lived, there is, all things considered, hardly a doubt that he would have accomplished his object. The treaty was never signed, the reforms of Rezanov died of discouragement, the fortunes of
the colonies gradually collapsed, the Spanish girl who had loved Rezanov became a nun; and one of the ablest and most ambitious men of his time lies forgotten in the cemetery of a poor Siberian town.
See Bancroft's History of California, and Alaska; Tikm6nev's Historical Review of the Origin of the Russian American Company; Rezanov-Zapisky Correspondence; Travels of Krusenstern and Langsford, &c. (G. A. *)

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