Nikolai Rezanov

Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov (Russian: НиколайПетровичРезанов) (1764 - 1807) was noble and Russian statesman which promoted the Russian project of colonization of the Alaska E of the California. One of the three Baron S of Russia, he was the first Russian ambassador with the Japan (1804), and encouraged the first attempt Russian to make the circumnavigation of the sphere (1803), even by ordering forwarding to him until Kamtchatka. He was also the author of a lexicon of the Japanese Langue and different plusieures works, which are preserved in the library of the Academy of Science of Saint-Pétersbourg, of which he was member. But the monument of Rezanov during much of years after its death was large the Russian-American Compagnie of the furs; and the interest of its figure for the historians is centered around the policy implied in this company, which, blocked by its untimely death, would have changed the destinies of Russia and the the United States.

Russian-American company

Rezanov was born with Saint-Pétersbourg the March 28th 1764. At the age of 14, it had a command of five languages. In 1791, he united with the team of Gavril Derjavine, which then fulfilled the function of private secretary of the Empress. Several front years, by meeting Grigory Chelikhov, of the Company of furs Chelikhov-Golikov, Rezanov had been interested in the project of merchant to obtain a monopoly of the trade of the furs in those remote dependences. Conscious of its latent energies and already tired pleasures of a court dissolue, it became associated in the company, and changed quickly in one impassioned and untiring business man. With died of Chelikhov in 1795, it became the spirit guides of the rich person and amalgamated, but so tormented company, and decided to even obtain for him and its partners of the privileges similar to those conceded by the Great Britain with the Compagnie of the Eastern Indies.

It had just succeeded in persuading Catherine II to sign her Charte quand' she died, and it was obliged to start again with incostant and intractable Empereur Paul. For one period the prospect was desperate, but the ability, the smoothness and the manners of Rezanov prevailed, and little from time before the assassination of Paul it obtained his signature with the important instrument which garantait with the Russian-American Company, for a twenty years deadline, the domination on the coast of America of the North-West, of 55 degrees of northern Latitude; and on the chain of islands extending from Kamtchatka to the Alaska in the northern direction and to the Japan in the southern direction.

This famous " Syndicat" , which drew aside all the small companies and the independent merchants, was a source of considerable profits for Rezanov and the other shareholders, included family members imperial, until the first years of the XIXe century, when the bad management and the shortage of food threatened it of serious losses if not the final ruin. Rezanov, after to have concluded its humiliating embassy in Japan, arrived at Kamtchatka in 1805, and found orders awaiting it to remain in the Russian colonies as inspector imperial and plenipotentiary of the company, and to correct deceive them which were ruining the large company. He travelled slowly towards Nouvelle Archangel through the islands, by establishing measurements to protect the animals with fur from the ill-considered massacre, by punishing or banishing the worst transgressors of the laws of the company, and by introducing the influence civilizatrice of schools and bibliotèques, the majority of the books being his personal gifts. He even founded schools of kitchen, which thrived soon.

Mission in California

At the end of one winter in Nouvelle Archangel (the central seat of the company), during which it had failed to die hunger with the others, Rezanov bought a ship of a capitain Yankee and weighed the anchor for the Spanish establishments in California, while proposing to exchange its enticing cargo of American and Russian goods with foodstuffs, and to conclude a treaty according to the conditions of which its colonies should be supplied twice a year with the produced rich person of the News-Spain. It dropped anchor in the port of San Francisco at the beginning of April 1806, after a ourageux voyage which had overcome its intention to take possession of the river Columbia in the name of Russia.

Even if it were accepted with much kindness and were maintained night and day by the Californian ones, one did not lose pad time to inform it that the laws of Spain prohibited its colonies from trading with foreign powers, and that the governor of all Californies was incorruptible. If it had not been for a history of love with Concepción Argüello, the girl of the commander of San Francisco, Don Jose Darío Argüello, and for her personal manners and her diplomatic ability, with laquel it conquered the clergy with her cause, Rezanov would have still failed.

Comm' it was, when Rezanov weighed the anchor for Nouvelle Archangel six weeks after his arrival, the hold of the Juno was full of bread and of dried meats, it had promised perplexed governor to immediately send a copy of the treaty in Spain and moreover more the beautiful young girl of California was fiancéavec. Little time before its Nouvelle Archangel arrival, it advanced by sea until Kamchatka, where it dispatched his ships to tear off in Japan the island of Sakhaline, the southern group of the Kouriles, after it left by overland route for Saint-Pétersbourg to obtain the signature of the tsar to the treaty, also like personal letters for the pope and the king of Spain, so that it could ask the exemption and the royal assent necessary for his marriage.

Unfortunately the return voyage was particularly hard, and Rezanov died of fever and exhaustion with Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, the March 8th 1807.

Evaluation

The treaty with California, the simple suggestion whose caused a disorder in News-Spain, was least projects of Rezanov. It was conceived in a sincere way, because Rezanov was deeply and humanly worried about the wellbeing of its employees and unhappy native who were little less than the slaves of the company; but its same obviousness did necessarily much noise.

Its correspondence with the company betrays a clearly definite matter to annex in Russia all the Western coast of North America, and to encourage the immediate emigration of the motherland on large scales. If he had lived, all the made account, there are few doubts that it would have carried out his objective. The treaty was never signed, reform them of Rezanov died of discouragement, fortunes of the colonies collapsed gradually, and the Spanish young girl who had liked Rezanov became a sister.

In 1979, the automatic dialling unit Aleksey Rybnikov and the poet Andrey Voznesensky wrote one of the first operas rock'n'roll, by choosing like subject the history of love of Rezanov and Concepción, and calling the opera like two of the ships of Rezanov, Juno and Avos . The original production enjoyed an immense success to the Théatre Lenkom during 25 years, and is still played with ovations upright in 2007. Original Rezanov of 1979-2005, Nikolai Karachenzov, was seriously wounded in an car accident in 2005, and was replaced in the production by Dmitry Pevzov and Viktor Rakov.

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