Letters from the governor's wife : a view of Russian Alaska, 1859-1862
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Letters from the governor's wife : a view of Russian Alaska, 1859-1862
(Beringiana, v. 3)
Aarhus University Press, c2005
- Uniform Title
-
Correspondence
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [258]-261) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
When Johan Furuhjelm was offered the governorship of Russian America in 1858, the 37-year-old Finnish officer found himself in a quandary. He needed a wife to support him in the new post, with its mix of mercantile and administrative responsibilities, and there were no suitable candidates in the remote Siberian port where he was harbourmaster. Fortunately, on his trip back west to receive his orders, Helsinki society came to his aid, choosing for him a young woman of good family and international background, Anna von Schoultz. On their wedding day just one month later, the pair set off by sleigh for St Petersburg and eventually -- via London, Panama and San Francisco -- Sitka, where they would remain for the next five years. On the very first day of that journey, Anna wrote the first of a long series of letters to her mother, letters in which she charted her evolving responses to the two new worlds that began to unfold before her: married life and Russian America.
These letters make up the present book and provide the reader with a fascinating portrait of private and public life in Alaska shortly before it was sold to the US in 1867, as observed by a woman at a unique intersection of cultures -- Russian, European and Native American.
by "Nielsen BookData"