Russian Ship Names: Ships on the shores of Russian America

Abstract

For this article the names of all Russian ships that travelled to the shores of Alaska during the Russian–American period are collated. These include small vessels of merchant companies that helped the Russians colonize the multitude of islands in the Aleutian chain and South Alaska, warships of the Russian navy, and the sailing ships and steamships of the Russian-American Company that managed Alaska from 1799 until its sale to the USA in 1867. The author analyses and explains the dynamic processes of naming ships from strictly religious names (merchant and warships bearing names in honour of this or that saint or saints) to secular names at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, as well as the specifics and character of ships’ names. The material in this article could help future studies broadly comparing fleets of different countries.

Keywords:

• ship names
• merchant shipping
• Russian navy
• Russian–American Company
• Alaska
• Shelikhov

Notes

1 Varshavskii, S.R., Uvekovechennaya slava Rossii, 49–57.

2 Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii (Archive of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, hereafter AVPRI), F. RAK. Op. 888. D. 125, 232–3; ‘Istoricheskaya tabel’ o rossiiskikh morskikh kompaniyakh otpravlyaemykh [na] zverinyya promysla po ostrovam Severovostochnago morya (Tikhogo okeana) i dalee, vazhnye otkrytiya uchinivshikh s priobshcheniem nekotorykh istoricheskikh izvestii i priklyuchenii’ (Historical Table of Russian Maritime Companies Sent [on] Animal Hunts to the Islands of the Northeastern Sea (Pacific Ocean) and Further, Important Discoveries that Have Been Made with the Addition of Some Historical News and Adventures) in V. A. Efimov, Iz istorii russkikh ekspeditsii na Tikhom okeane, 298–309.

3 See, for example, Russkie ekspeditsii po izucheniyu severnoi chasti Tikhogo okeana, 388.

4 Ivashintsov, Russkie krugosvetnye puteshestviya, 221–45; Makarova, Russkie na Tikhom okeane, 182–7; Norchenko, Khronika poluzabytykh plavanii, 118–19; and other works.

5 A list of them is given in Sgibnev, ‘Vedomost’ po sudam Sibirskoi flotilii’, 54–63.

6 Dygalo, Otkuda i chto na flote poshlo, 98.

7 It was the flag of the Russian navy and is represented by a white background with a blue oblique cross of St Andrew. The flag of the Russian trading fleet was like that of the modern Russian state with white, blue and red stripes. The Russian–American Company, which was founded in 1799, had a similar flag but the white stripe occupied half of the cloth with a black imperial double-headed eagle.

8 For detail see Grinëv, ‘Fishing in Russian America’, 1–34.

9 A shitik was a small sailing-rowing single-masted vessel, the boards of the hull of which were fastened (shit’ (to sew), whence the name) with baleen, thongs or willow withes.

10 Arkhiv Russkogo Geograficheskogo obshchestva (Archive of the Russian Geographic Society), Razr. 60. Op. 1. D. 2, 1–184.

11 Shelikhov, Rossiiskogo kuptsa Grigoriya Shelikhova, 35.

12 ‘A. A. Baranov—G. I. Shelikhovu, Chugatskaya bukhta, 24 iyulya 1793 g.’ (A. A. Baranov to G. I. Shelikhov, Chugach Bay, 24 July 1793) in Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie obrazovaniya Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii pt II, 35–6.

13 Tikhmenev wrote its name as first time simply as ‘Ol'ga’ but later as ‘Sv. Ol'ga’, i.e. ‘St Olga’, in Istoricheskoe obozrenie obrazovaniya Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii, pt II, 40, 94).

14 See the list of ships in the collection of documents in Blinov, et al. (eds), K istorii Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii, 20–1.

15 Sokolov, ‘Ekspeditsiya k Aleutskim ostrovam kapitanov Krenitsyna i Levasheva’, 70–103; Glushankov, Sekretnaya ekspeditsiya.

16 Sarychev, Puteshestvie po severo-vostochnoi chasti Sibiri. In addition, the members of the expedition constructed the small ships Pallas (Pallas) and Yasashna (Yasashna), but these did not visit America.

17 Billings was English in origin.

18 See Kuk, Tret'e plavanie kapitana Dzheimsa Kuka.

19 Laperuz, Puteshestvie po vsemu miru na ‘Bussoli’ i ‘Astrolyabii’.

20 Malaspina, ‘Puteshestvie v Yuzhnoe more, VI, 186–276; VII, 121–223; VIII, 176–272; IX, 1–292; XII, 29–191; XIII, 10–178.

21 Danilov, Lineinye korabli i fregaty russkogo parusnogo flota, 80, 90, 108.

22 Rossiiskii gos. istoricheskii arkhiv (Russian State Historical Archive, hereafter RGIA) F. 1374. Op. 3. D. 2404, 9.

23 National Archives and Record Service (hereafter NARS). RG 261. RRAC. Roll 28. P. 15.

24 See Pod flagom Rossii.

25 From the beginning of the 1840s the positions of naval mariners also increased among the directors of the RAC in St Petersburg, when in 1844 Rear Admiral F. P. von Wrangel became the chairman of the Board of Directors of the company.

26 Howey, A List of Trading Vessels, 27, 49, 92, 94, 169; see also the list of American ships that visited Novo-Arkhangel'sk in 1801–41; Gibson, ‘Problema snabzheniya prodovol'stviem Russkoi Ameriki’, 312–5.

27 Howey, A List of Trading Vessels, 97.

28 According to Varshavskii, the sloop Konstantin received its name from the heir to the throne Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich (Varshavskii, Uvekovechennaya slava Rossii, 53).

29 See Manvelov, Obychai i traditsii Rossiiskogo Imperatorskogo flota, 41–88.

30 While almost all Russian vessels were build in Kamchatka or near Okhotsk on the Urak River in the eighteenth century, in the nineteenth century a substantial number of ships were constructed in the Russian colonies, primarily in its ‘capital’ Novo-Arkhangel'sk, though partly at the RAC's enclave of Fort Ross in California (1818–24); the last vessel launched at Okhotsk was in 1832. In addition, many ships were obtained from foreigners – Americans, British, Germans, or contracted for by the RAC in Finland, see for detail: Grinëv, ‘Foreign Ships’, 405–21. Almost all vessels purchased received new Russian names except those of Finnish origin and the American ships Juno and Amethyst. The renaming evidently emphasized Russia's ownership of the newly acquired vessels. For example, the British three-masted ship Myrtle was renamed Kadiak (Kodiak) in 1807 after being purchased by A. A. Baranov.

31 Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie obrazovaniya Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii, II, 222.

32 Grinëv, ‘Russkaya Amerika’, 321.

33 Ermolaev, Rossiisko-amerikanskaya kompaniya, 511.

34 ‘Depeshi M. D. Teben'kova v GP RAK ot 15 oktyabrya 1849 g. za no. 453, 455’ (Dispatches of M. D. Teben'kov to the Russian-American Company Board of Directors of 15 Oct. 1849, nos. 453, 455), NARS (Roll 55), 277, 278–9.

35 See ‘Dvizhenie sudov Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii s 1 yanvarya 1844 g. po 1 yanvarya 1854 goda’ (The Movement of Ships of the Russian–American Company from 1 Jan. 1844 to 1 Jan. 1854), 19:12 Morskoi sbornik (Maritime Collection) (1855, Miscellany), 109.

36 Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie obrazovaniya Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii, II, 77, 223.

37 Shubin, ‘Poseleniya Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii, 238.

38 Otchet Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii Glavnago pravleniya za 1861 god (Account of the Russian-American Company Board of Directors for 1861), 25, 27–31.

39 RGIA (F. 40. Op. 1. D. 17), 113–113 verso, 121–121 verso.

40 Alekseev, Sud'ba Russkoi Ameriki, 262.

41 Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie obrazovaniya Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii, I, 329– 331.

Additional information

Andrei Val'terovich Grinëv graduated from the History Department at the Altai State University in 1983 and completed graduate work at the Institute of Ethnography, Academy of Sciences, USSR from 1984–86. He defended his candidacy in 1987 and his doctoral dissertation in 2000. He works as a professor in the History Department at St Petersburg State Polytechnic University. He is a specialist on the history and ethnography of Russian America and the author of several monographs and about 110 scholarly articles, including ones translated and published in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Dr Richard L. Bland is an archaeologist for the State Museum of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. His interests in the history and prehistory of Alaska and its proximity to Russia have led to frequent contact with Russian scholarship. Hence he has translated and published numerous books and articles on those subjects.