By the 80s of the 18th century, through the works of Bering, Chirikov, Sarychev, Krenitsyn, Levashov and their associates, Russia had created a mighty - in potential - geopolitical bastion on the eastern borders. The Bering Sea actually became Russian. Having disposed of these historically justified and legitimate acquisitions in a businesslike manner, Russia could enter the 19th, and then into the 20th century "with good success."
The ideological base was given by Peter I and Lomonosov, the supreme power in the person of Catherine II was set accordingly. However, the enormous distance from the capital to the theater of geopolitical actions created equally great difficulties in the implementation of any ideas, even the most urgent ones. People were required who did not need to be prodded and nudged, enterprising and initiative without orders. And there were such. Grigory Shelikhov became their leader and banner.
Gregory Pacific
In 1948, the State Publishing House of Geographical Literature published a collection of documents entitled “Russian discoveries in the Pacific Ocean and North America in the 18th century”. The collection began with a dedication: “In memory of Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov. On the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth (1747-1947)”, and on the next page was placed an expressive portrait of Shelikhov, depicted with a sword and a telescope.
By this time, his name was borne by the strait between Alaska and Kodiak Island, a bay in the northern part of the Sea of Okhotsk between Kamchatka and the mainland. And in 1956, by decree of the Supreme Soviet, a new settlement (since 1962 - a city) was named in honor of Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov (Shelekhov) in the Irkutsk region, which arose during the construction of an aluminum plant. A rare case - the memory of a Russian merchant was honored by both tsarist and Soviet Russia, which in itself speaks of his exceptional services to the Fatherland.
Grigory Shelikhov was born in 1747 in Rylsk, Kursk province. The guy from his youth was versed in furs - his father traded them and in commerce too, since he had wealthy merchants Ivan, Andrei and Fyodor Shelikhovs among his relatives. It was no longer a wonder for natives of central and northern Russia to explore Siberia, and in 1773, at the age of twenty-six, an energetic chicken man entered the service of the Irkutsk merchant Ivan Golikov, also a native of Kursk. And two years later, Shelikhov, as a companion of Golikov, organized with him and his nephew Mikhail a merchant company for fur and animal hunting in the Pacific Ocean and Alaska. In 1774, Shelikhov, together with the Yakut merchant Pavel Lebedev-Lastochkin, later his rival, volunteered to equip a secret expedition to the Kuril Islands in pursuance of the decree of Catherine II, for which the ship "St. Nicholas" was purchased. That is, Shelikhov very early falls into the field of vision of the Siberian authorities and establishes strong ties with them. Grigory Ivanovich's business activity increased, he became a shareholder in eight companies, and in August 1781 Shelikhov and Golikovs established the North-East Company, the prototype of the future Russian-American company. In 1780, Shelikhov, upon the successful return from the Aleutian Islands of the ship "St. Paul", sold it for 74 thousand rubles and received sufficient capital for further enterprises.
Having moved from Irkutsk to Okhotsk, the entrepreneur builds three galiots (flagship - "Three Saints") and together with his wife, two children and two hundred working people goes to Alaska.
"Shelikhiada", described by him later in the book "Russian merchant Grigory Shelikhov's wandering in the Eastern Ocean to the American shores", lasted five years. He plows the Beaver (Bering) Sea, hunts animals, organizes research - from the Aleut to the Kuriles, in 1784 sets up the first permanent Russian settlement on American soil on Kodiak Island, fights with the natives, takes their children hostage, but also teaches local residents to read and write, crafts and agriculture.
The archives contain an amazing document - "Resolution of GI Shelikhov and the sailors of his company, adopted on the island of Kyktake (Kodiak) in 1785 on December 11". On the one hand, this is essentially the minutes of the general meeting of the Shelikhov expedition, at which very specific pressing issues were discussed. She was in a difficult situation, because "a lot of the Russian peoples of our society, by the will of God, died of various diseases, and so it was important to deprive our little strength." It was decided in the summer of next year to return to Okhotsk, to sell the fur obtained there and equip the ship for a new campaign. On the other hand, the "Resolution …", clearly bearing traces of Shelikhov's authorship, is a kind of program for future actions. In the collection of documents "Russian discoveries in the Pacific Ocean and North America in the 18th century" published in 1948, this significant historical "Resolution …" of ten lengthy paragraphs occupies four pages. The following quotation is from the first paragraph: “We each determined from the zeal of our dear fatherland of our own free will to find hitherto unknown to anyone on the islands and in America of different peoples, with whom to start a trade, and through that try to conquer such peoples under the rule of the Russian imperial throne into citizenship ".
According to the decree at Kodiak on December 11, 1785, it came out. In 1786, Shelikhov's people set up fortresses on the Afognak Island off the southeastern coast of Alaska and on the Kenai Peninsula. And in 1789, the first borders of Russian America were marked with 15 metal signs.
Bering's spirit
Alexander Radishchev jokingly called Grigory Ivanovich "Tsar Shelikhov", and Derzhavin - Russian Columbus by merit and importance. The famous figure of the epoch of Alexander I, Mikhail Speransky, noted that Shelikhov had drawn up "an extensive plan for himself, which was only peculiar to him at that time." Actually, Shelikhov was implementing Lomonosov's program, although he was hardly familiar with it. He doesn't just "rip off the money." Fishing and colonization activities are carried out in a unified connection with research and civilization activities.
Someone may notice that the Dutch and English merchants did about the same. But Western Europeans were driven primarily by self-interest, and secondly by national arrogance. It hardly occurred to any of them to consider the interests of the aborigines as an element of state-building of the state. They bore the "burden of a white man" solely in their own interests, and they treated "civilized" peoples as slaves and demi-people - there is enough evidence of this. Shelikhov, on the other hand, was concerned about the benefits of the state, and was driven primarily by national pride.
In the same years, when Shelikhov worked in the North Pacific Ocean, James Cook also got there. In his diary, on October 15, 1778, he wrote on the island of Unalashka: “Here a Russian landed, whom I considered the chief among my compatriots on this and neighboring islands. His name was Yerasim Gregorov Sin Izmailov, he arrived in a canoe, in which there were three people, accompanied by 20 or 30 single canoes. " That is, Cook had an ocean-class ship "Resolution", and Izmailov had a canoe. There is no canoeing across the ocean, so Izmailov was here at home. He turned out to be a hospitable owner: he provided the British with the most valuable data about these waters, corrected errors on their maps, and even gave them to copy two Russian maps of the Okhotsk and Bering Seas.
The youngest friend of Shelikhov, a pupil of the Irkutsk navigation school, Gerasim Izmailov, was then thirty-three years old. At twenty-three he took part in the Krenitsyn-Levashov expedition. In 1775 he surveyed the Kamchatka shores, at the beginning of 1776 he was appointed commander of the ship "St. Paul" on an expedition to the Fox Islands with a base on the island of Unalashka. In 1778, Izmailov and Dmitry Bocharov completed the discovery of the northern coast of the Gulf of Alaska from the Kenai Peninsula to Yakutat on the Three Saints Galiot. Based on the results of the survey, Bocharov made a map of the "Alyaksa Peninsula". Then the Russians called Alaska that way, although, for example, the participant of the Second Bering Expedition Sven Waxel proposed to name the newly discovered land "New Russia". The proposal did not pass, but the pioneering spirit of Bering and his associates Shelikhov and his associates fully embraced. With such people it was possible to move mountains.
Which New Russia is more important?
The first wide and constant contacts of Russian industrialists with the natives of the Pacific Islands, including the Aleuts, should be attributed to the early 50s and especially the 60s of the 18th century. There were conflicts, and by no means the fault of the Russians. But by the end of the 80s the situation had already changed so much that the "companions" were ready to create even military formations from the inhabitants of the island. To expand their activities in the north of the Pacific coast of America, Shelikhov and Golikov asked Ekaterina for an interest-free loan of 200 thousand rubles for a period of 20 years, promising to use this money to strengthen existing outposts in every possible way and open new ones. However, Catherine refused what she asked, partly because she was reasonably not ready to aggravate the Pacific situation, and the expansion of Russians in America would inevitably lead to this. The Empress had enough problems with Turkey, it was not easy with Sweden. There was a complex of very different reasons, including the secret machinations of England. On March 27, 1788, Catherine wrote: "The monarch's manual is now directed to midday activities, for which the wild American peoples and trade with them are left to their own lot." At that time, the second Catherine's war with Turkey was going on. The capture of Ochakov and Izmail, Suvorov's Fokshany and Ushakov's victories at Tendra and Kaliakria were still ahead. Catherine did not want to risk it, however, she noted Shelikhov and his companion with honorary regalia. September 12, 1788 was followed by the Decree of the Governing Senate "of the cities of Kursk to the head and the merchant Ivan Golikov and Rylsk to the merchant Grigory Shelikhov", according to which they were awarded gold medals and silver swords. The obverse of the medals depicted the empress, and the reverse was embossed with the inscription: "For zeal for the benefit of the state by spreading the discovery of unknown lands and peoples and the establishment of trade with them."
In the same decree, there was something more significant: the awardees were required to present “maps and notes detailing all the places they discovered, indicating where the island residents get iron, copper and other things they need, as well as with extensive explanations about the solid American soil …"
However, it was not for nothing that Catherine was nicknamed the Great. A great part of nature was still able to motivate her to make reasonable decisions and designs, so that a certain support for Shelikhov's undertakings on the part of the authorities increases over the years. On August 30, 1789, he wrote a lengthy business letter to the ruler of the American Russian settlements of the Northeast Company, Evstratiy Delarov. In it, among the news and instructions, he announces the appointment of a new Governor-General, Ivan Pil, to Irkutsk, certifying him: "A virtuous husband." Concerning educational activities among the aborigines: “For the literacy, singing and arichmetic of the little ones, please try to make sure that over time there will be sailors and good sailors of them; it is also necessary to teach them different skills, especially carpentry. The boys brought in Irkutsk are all teachers of music, we pay fifty rubles a year for each of them to the bandmaster; we will deliver huge music and drummers to America. The main thing about the church is necessary but I try. I will send many books of educational, mountain, sea and other types to you. Those who are good teachers will send them a gift on the ship. Then declare my goodwill and obeisances to all good hammers."
Irkutsk and Kolyvan Governor-General Pil constantly informed the Empress about the state of affairs in the Pacific Ocean. Sending on February 14, 1790 another "all-subject report" to Catherine II, Ivan Alferyevich attached to him a note "about the main islands, bays and bays that are being shown by the company Golikov and Shelikhov off the coast of America, and about the peoples living here", where, in addition to the list, it was noted: " All these islands and bays … are abundant in forest and other products, while the peoples living on them have become more committed to the Russian industrial rather than to the foreigners they visit. " As a result, on December 31, 1793, Catherine, according to Pilya's report, signed a decree to support the company of "eminent citizens of Shelekhov and Golikov of Kursk." She also authorized to give the company "from reference up to 20 artisans and grain-growers in the first case, ten families", whom they asked for the development of new lands. On May 11, 1794, Pil sent his "order" to Shelikhov with orders in the spirit of the empress's decree; on August 9, 1794, Pilya Shelikhov referred to this document in a letter to the governor of American settlements, Baranov.
At the time of Shelikhov and then his outstanding associate, the first main ruler of Russian America, Alexander Baranov, Russia was on the rise in the Pacific Ocean. Alas, the active "American" strategy of the beginning of the reign of Alexander I quickly withered away. Then came the turn of the mediocre policy in Russian America of the administration of Nicholas I, and it was replaced by the direct criminal line of the administration of Alexander II, the logical conclusion of which was the loss of Russian America, which accounted for more than 10 percent of the empire's territory. The reasons for this should be sought not only in the cooling of the autocrats to new discoveries.
The finale of Russian America turned out to be mediocre through no fault of the masses: in March 1867, more than 10 percent of Russia's territory was sold to the United States. But the history of our New World is rich in heroic events. Its two greatest figures were the first chief ruler, Alexander Andreevich Baranov (1746–1819) and the founder of Russian America, Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov (1747–1795).
This business and ideological tandem could provide the Russian business in the Pacific Ocean with not only a great, but also a sustainable future. However, already in the initial period of the development of the region by our ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons - both the British and the Yankees - not only monitored the situation, but also acted. In particular, Shelikhov's premature death has weakened Russian prospects so much that today it does not hurt to take a closer look at it.
From Moscow to the most to Hawaii
On April 18, 1795, a report was handed to the capital to Ivan Pil about the shipbuilding needs in Okhotsk and North America to the “Governmental Senate of Major General, sending the post of ruler of the Irkutsk governorship and cavalier”. In a detailed document written by the Irkutsk governor three months before Shelikhov's death, an impressive program was outlined for the development of shipbuilding in the Pacific Ocean with state support, primarily personnel. Pil reported: “And for this that companion Shelikhov, if the higher government wants to reward, on the first occasion, a business trip for the company, although four experienced and good-behaved navigators are perfectly knowledgeable, then he, Shelikhov, is responsible for the content of these reliable people from the company. In addition to these, the company has the very need for a skilled shipbuilder, a boatswain and an anchor master, all of them are needed by the company more in America, where a company shipyard should be established."
Shelikhov, as we can see, finally turned into a leading, systemic figure based on a stable financial position, vast accumulated experience, knowledge of local conditions and people, as well as on growing government support. With the energy of Grigory Ivanovich, a quick qualitative breakthrough was more than possible in ensuring the interests of Russia not only in the North Pacific Ocean and North-West America, but also significantly to the south - even to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands.
Unsolved death
In 1796, after the death of his mother, the Russian throne was occupied by Paul I, a sincere and active supporter of Russian America, who sanctioned the creation of the Russian-American Company (RAC). Alas, until the new reign, when Shelikhov most likely would have been fully understood, he did not live. He died on July 20 (Old Style), 1795, only forty-eight years old in Irkutsk suddenly. They buried him near the altar of the cathedral church in the Znamensky maiden monastery.
It is worth taking a closer look at this death, in particular, to the information of the Decembrist Baron Steingel.
After the uprising of 1825, the intellectual degree in Siberia quickly and visibly increased due to the fact that there appeared in no small number brilliant metropolitan minds exiled by Emperor Nicholas I. Among them was Steingel. He knew Eastern Siberia before exile, and well, since he served there for several years. He was also familiar with the history of Shelikhov, as well as with people close to him. From a long-term employee of Grigory Ivanovich, who was engaged in his "American" affairs as the ruler of the Russian settlements of the North-Eastern Company (later one of the directors of the RAC), Evstratiy Delarov Steingel heard the following story. In the 80s of the 18th century, Shelikhov once again went to his American "estates", leaving his wife at home. She immediately began an affair with a certain official, was going to marry him and spread the rumor that her husband, "left America for Kamchatka, died." Shelikhov's brother, Vasily, did not interfere with the daughter-in-law's matrimonial plans and the spread of rumor, but even contributed. “But suddenly,” Shteingel narrated from Delarov’s words, “a letter was received at all inopportunely that Shelikhov was alive and was following him from Kamchatka to Okhotsk. In this critical situation, his wife decided to poison him upon arrival."
Shelikhov preempted the situation and wanted to deal with the guilty coolly. Another close employee of his, clerk Baranov, dissuaded him from reprisal. The same Alexander Baranov, who later became the second legend of Russian America after Shelikhov. He allegedly convinced the owner to "spare his name." Steingel concluded: “Perhaps this incident, which could not hide from the Irkutsk public, was the reason that the sudden death of Shelikhov, which followed in 1795, was attributed by many to the art of his wife, who later, having marked herself with debauchery, ended her life unhappily, being driven to the extreme by one of their adorers."
Reconstructing the past is never easy. Sometimes it relies on direct reliable facts, and sometimes it is based only on the analysis of indirect data. In whose interests was Shelikhov's death, who benefits? Wife? Irkutsk gossips could not see any other reason, especially since the precedent, so to speak, took place. But since then, several years have passed and a lot has burned out. On the other hand, a wife once convicted of infidelity would come under suspicion if her husband suddenly died first. However, neither Baranov nor Delarov blamed her for the death of their boss. Did brother Vasily gain from Shelikhov's death? Also, it seems not - he was not a direct heir.
To whom did the active figure of Shelikhov end up in the throat? The answer can be given immediately and quite unambiguously: alive he was more and more dangerous for those powerful external forces that were absolutely not satisfied with the option of developing the geopolitical and economic situation in the Pacific in favor of Russia.
There was reason to believe that after the death of Catherine, which was possible in the coming years, and with the accession of Pavel, Shelikhov's plans and designs would find the broadest support from the new monarch. He was interested in the problem since childhood - there is information about that. And the Russian Pacific Ocean up to the tropics and Russian America were Shelikhov's “symbol of faith”.
Eliminating it in one way or another was not only desirable for the Anglo-Saxons, but simply urgent. The capabilities of the British special services were already impressive at that time. British agents infiltrated Russia and even the encirclement of the tsars not from the time of Catherine II, but much earlier - almost from Ivan III the Great. In March 1801, six years after the death of Shelikhov, the hand of London will reach out to the autocrat Paul himself, who, together with Napoleon, intended to deprive England of her colonial pearl - India.
Knowing and understanding this, Shelikhov's death can be viewed not as a tragic accident, but as a prepared logical action by the Anglo-Saxon agents in Eastern Siberia and specifically in Irkutsk.
The spy who returned from the cold
James Cook's last voyage, the one in which he was killed by the Hawaiian natives, was a strategic reconnaissance mission to clarify the objectives of Russian expansion in the Pacific ("Stolen Priority"). But if this assessment is correct, then in such a voyage, people are not picked up from a pine tree, but so that they know how to keep their mouths shut, and have considerations. Cook's ships in his northern voyage were at least three people, whose fate in one way or another was later connected with Russia. These are the British Billings and Trevenin (the first then took part in the Russian expedition just in the Pacific), as well as the American Marine Corps corporal John Ledyard (1751–1789), who later served in Russia.
The Soviet commentator on Cook's diaries Ya. M. Svet writes about him: “A man with a rather obscure past and a very big ambition, after returning to England and with the knowledge of T. Jefferson, went to Siberia, in order to then open a trade route to the United States through Kamchatka and Alaska. However, this mission was not crowned with success - Catherine II ordered to expel Ledyard from the borders of Russia."
An ordinary corporal would hardly have the opportunity to communicate with one of the US government leaders, even with the simplicity of the then American mores. And foreign guests were not simply expelled from Russia. But Ledyard was not a run-of-the-mill corporal, the marines in the royal navy were like an intelligence agency. It is significant that when Cook's ships approached the Russian Alaskan island of Unalashka, the captain sent Ledyard first ashore, where he met for the first but not the last time with Shelikhov's navigator Izmailov. Moreover, Ledyard already knew Russian at that time, and this was clearly not accidental, as was the participation of the American in the English campaign.
"Corporal" Ledyard went to Russia in 1787 at a fully mature age - thirty-six years old. And his Siberian trip looks like a pure reconnaissance action on closer inspection. Enlisting in 1786 the assistance of Jefferson, who was then the US envoy in Paris, Ledyard tried to build a route so that from St. Petersburg to pass through Siberia and Kamchatka, and from there - to Russian American settlements.
At the request of Jefferson and the Marquis of Lafayette, Baron F. M. Catherine replied: "The Ladyard will do the right thing if he chooses a different path, and not through Kamchatka."Nevertheless, the American, having walked, as he said, on foot through Scandinavia and Finland, appeared in St. Petersburg in March 1787 without permission. And in May, in the absence of Catherine, through some officer from the entourage of Tsarevich Pavel, he received documents of a dubious nature - a passport from the provincial capital government in the name of "American nobleman Lediard" (only to Moscow) and a road from the post office to Siberia. Perhaps the case was not without bribes, but it is very likely that Ledyard also used the services of Anglo-Saxon agents in Russian capitals.
On August 18, 1787, he was already in Irkutsk and on August 20 informed the Secretary of the US Mission in London, Colonel W. Smith, that he was moving in "a circle as cheerful, rich, polite and learned as in St. Petersburg." At the same time, Ledyard is not satisfied with cheerful social interaction, but seeks a meeting with Shelikhov.
They met, and immediately after the conversation, Grigory Ivanovich presented the Governor-General of Irkutsk and Kolyvan, Ivan Yakobi, "Remarks from the conversations of the former Irkutsk voyager of the Aglitsk nation, Levdar."
Shelikhov reported: “With ardent curiosity he asked me where and in what places I had been, how far from the Russian side were fishing and trading in the Northeast Ocean and on old American soil widespread, in what places and at which degrees of northern latitude there were our establishments and state signs were put up."
Faced with clearly intelligence questions, Grigory Ivanovich was outwardly polite, but cautious. He replied that the Russians had been fishing for a long time in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, "and the state signs were put at that time," belong to the Russian scepter ", and on the Kuril Islands" Russian people always live in many numbers. " Shelikhov himself began to question Ledyard about Cook's voyage, but the interlocutor "obscured arguments".
Shelikhov was outwardly frank - he showed the maps, but exaggerated the scale of Russian penetration into America and the Kuril Islands, just in case. And in order to look like a simpleton in front of the Anglo-Saxon, he invited him to sail with him next summer. He himself informed Jacobi about everything.
Life for Russian America
Lieutenant General Jacobi was a strong personality and convinced of the need to strengthen Russia in the northwestern Pacific. With Shelikhov, they understood each other very well. And in November 1787, Jacobi sent to Catherine's closest associate, Count Bezborodko, an extensive report about Ledyard, where he directly assumed that he was "sent here to investigate the situation of these places by the Aglin state."
Jacobi himself did not dare to open the mail of the "American nobleman", but recommended Bezborodko to do it. Ledyard, meanwhile, moved unhindered through Siberia. Moreover, he simply had to do what is now called recruitment - the creation of residencies and the planting of agents. It seems that his letters were not revised, but Catherine gave the order for the arrest and expulsion of Ledyard. It was received in Irkutsk in January 1788.
And then Ledyard, as Jacobi informed the Empress in a letter dated February 1, 1788, was "expelled from this day without any insult to him in the supervision of Moscow." From Moscow, the spy was deported to the western borders of the empire - through Poland to Konigsberg.
The Anglo-Saxons understood the meaning of Shelikhov perfectly. So, already Ledyard in 1788 could orient the Siberian agents to eliminate him.
By the end of the 18th century, Shelikhov's role in the creation and development of the Pacific geopolitical and economic basis of the Russian state only increased and strengthened. The plans were powerful Russian America, the probable near accession of Paul would support these projects. Accordingly, the need to eliminate Shelikhov was actualized, which could be organized most simply and reliably in Irkutsk, where there were no doubt Anglo-Saxon agents.
In Russian "American" history, Shelikhov's death was the first, but, alas, not the last. The father and son of Laxman, whose names are associated with the Japanese and Pacific plans of Catherine, Shelikhov's son-in-law Nikolai Rezanov, who is ready to become his worthy successor, died strangely. These events radically changed the possible prospects of Russian America.
It's time for us to comprehend the long-standing information for thought with certain practical conclusions.
