Nikolay Yakovlevich Rosenberg
Nikolay Yakovlevich Rosenberg (1807–1857) was a Jewish Russian naval officer assigned as chief manager of the Russian-American Company, effectively Governor of Russian America, from 1850 to 1853.[1] Mount Rosenberg, a 3,050-foot peak on Baranof Island, was named for him.[2]
History
A number of Jewish traders and furriers worked for the Russian-American Company, as well as Jews who had been exiled to Siberia by the Tsar. German Jewish settlers were important to development of Sitka and other Alaska settlements.[1]
Rosenberg was a Russian naval officer when he was appointed in 1850 as chief manager of the Russian-American Company and effectively Governor of Russian America. During his three years of overseeing company operations from New Archangel, Rosenberg "proved especially inept at maintaining good relationships with the Tlingits."[3]
His leadership so antagonised the Sitka Tlingit that a skirmish took place outside the settlement. Rosenberg later earned the enmity of the Stikine River-based Tlingit for failure to warn them of the hostile intentions of a Sitka band of Tlingit.[3] Rosenberg was replaced by Aleksandr Ilich Rudakov in 1853. He did not complete what was by then a standard 5-year term as governor. Serving from 1850 to 1853, Rosenberg was the first chief manager of the Russian-American Company since Semyon Yanovsky to be replaced before the end of his term.
Representation in other media
- Rosenberg is portrayed as a character in Ivan Doig's historical novel The Sea Runners (2013), which begins in Russian America in 1853.[4]
Legacy
- Mount Rosenberg, a 3,050-foot peak on Baranof Island, was named in 1935 for Governor Rosenberg[2]
References
- ^ a b Yereth Rosen, "That Great Big Jewish Alaska", Moment Magazine, January-February 2012; accessed 2 November 2016
- ^ a b [https://books.google.com/books?id=0y48AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA816&lpg=PA816&dq=Nikolay+Yakovlevich+Rosenberg&source=bl&ots=AUwrjdb43f&sig=kBFXr9x-tbzRJpqMHr9Pgf_kOjk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihlrj7wYvQAhVFPiYKHQG9DSsQ6AEIRDAI#v=onepage&q=Nikolay%20Yakovlevich%20Rosenberg&f=false Donald J. Orth, Dictionary of Alaska Place Names], US Geological Survey, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949/1967, p. 816
- ^ a b Black, Lydia T. Russians in Alaska, 1732-1867. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press. 2004, pp. 196-198.
- ^ Ivan Doig, The Sea Runners, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013
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