In literature and political speeches, the period when Alaska was under the Russian scepter is stereotypically represented as a time of unbridled exploitation - indeed enslavement - of Native peoples, and wanton rape and robbery of Alaska's natural resources. The introduction to her "Russians in Alaska" includes this story: In what I can only hope is a coincidence, Lydia Black described a Black Legend about Russian Alaska, which was both started and countered in the United States. And there is no "Black Legend" about Russian expansion for the English-speaking world. For this reason the Russian point of view dominates. Much more is translated from the Russian. How many of us read history in their languages? How much of it is translated into English? Not much. ![]() Poles? Ukrainians? Lithuanians? Balts? North Caucasus? Central Asia peoples? Unfortunately these people do not write much of history which is read by the rest of the world. (Perhaps the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 is the only exception!) So who is expected to introduce a negative meme about Russian expansion? Swedes? Finns? In the case of Russian expansion the only victor was always Russia. So they wrote most of the history that we read. In the case of British-Spanish competition the British were victors.
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