USSIAN America” is the name given to the Russian colonies in the New World, which began to be formed at the end of the eigh- teenth century. Sold to the United States in 1867, they are presently known as the forty-ninth state, Alaska. Participants in the colonization of Russian America were not only ethnic Russians but also representatives of other European and Asian peoples, including Ger- mans. 2 The contribution of the last to the discovery and opening up of this severe region might be made the object of special monographic research, but here only a fleeting outline is given of this large and complex topic. Both archival documents and published scholarly lit- erature and sources were used to prepare this article. Of particularly significant aid was the substantial biographic dictionary of the American scholar of the history of the Russian colonies in the New World, Richard A. Pierce. 3 Some interesting genealogical materials about several Germans in Alaska were given to the author by the very competent Finnish specialist, Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell. In the course of a prelimi- nary study of this theme, it became clear that rather more is already known about the most outstanding representatives of the German people who took part in the opening up of Russian America (Georg Heinrich von Langsdorf, Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangel, Fyodor Petrovich Litke, and others) than about other Germans who played a more modest role in the Russian coloniza- tion of Alaska. The biographical materials on the latter are quite scant or entirely lacking. Identifying German Inhabitants in Russian America Another difficulty in regard to this problem was the ethnic identification of some historical personages. Sometimes determining the German origin of this or that person is rather complex considering the similarity in the description and sound of German, Dutch, Scandi- navian, and English first and last names. In addition, these were often distorted in the Russian language (for example, the German first name Heinrich is tradition- ally written in Russian as “Genrikh”). Besides, Germans in the Russian service often obtained a new first name and patronymic. Thus, Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff became in Russian, Grigorii Ivanovich Langsdorf. “ R Finally, some individuals who had a German first and last name were in fact people of mixed ethnic origin and, being formally Germans, did not consider themselves as such. Thus, the Irkutsk governor general from 1782 to 1789, Ivan Varfolomeevich Yakobi (1726-1803), who supported in every way the well-known merchant Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov in his activity of opening up Alaska, according to some information had an Irish grandfather and hated Germans, considering it shame- ful to speak in that language. 4 A well-known traveller, Admiral Ferdinand von Wrangell, though he belonged to the Baltic Germans, came from a Danish baronial family. In connection with the above, there remain questions of the association with Germans of, for ex- ample, Baron Karl Karlovich von Gellesem (Gil’sen, or probably, Hillsen), 5 as well as several other travellers, officials, and scholars, who visited or served in the Russian colonies in Alaska. German Exploration and Contributions to Russian America The German contribution to the opening up of Rus- sian America included both Russian Germans and natives of Germany itself. Some of them were present at the initial European discovery of Alaska. Among them Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-1746) should be especially mentioned — a member of the Second Kam- chatka Expedition of Vitus Jonassen Bering-Aleksei Chirikov (1741-1742), during the course of which the southeastern coast of Alaska and the Aleutian chain of islands were discovered. Steller was the first profes- sional naturalist, and representative of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to gather local flora and fauna materials during a short disembarkment on small Kayak Island near the American coast where he discovered new species of plants and birds. After the wreck of Bering’s packet boat on the island of the same name, he con- tinued carrying out scientific observations in spite of the difficulty of wintering in an alien, inhospitable region. In particular, he described the remarkable “sea cow,” named “Steller’s sea cow” in his honor. Unfor- tunately, this rare sea mammal was completely annihi- lated by 1768 by Russian promyshlenniki (hunters of fur-bearing animals), who usually wintered in the Commander Islands on their voyages to the Aleutian chain and Alaska. 6 32 — JOW, Spring 2008, Vol. 47, No. 2 Grinev: Germans in the History of Russian America Germans in the History of Russian America A.V. Grinev, translated by Richard L. Bland 1