Book reveals struggles of Russian America's governors' wives

October 29, 2015

University Relations

The University of Alaska Press has released “Married to the Empire: Three Governors’ Wives in Russian America, 1829–1864,” by Susanna Rabow-Edling.

The Russian empire’s American holding, Alaska, was governed by men who fought to bring trade as well as “civilization” and “enlightenment” to the colony. Many histories tell that story, but there’s another side. In 1829, the Russian-America Co. decreed that women would be central to its “civilizing mission.” Any Alaska governor appointed after that date had to have a wife.

Rabow-Edling’s extraordinary scholarship sets the context for that company decision and explores the lives of three governors' wives: Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholén and Anna Furuhjelm. Each woman left behind writing that reveals personal and cultural struggles — and insights — while working to fulfill the mission that brought them to Novo-Archangel’sk (Sitka).

Rabow-Edling is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. She is the author of "Slavophile Thought and the Politics of Cultural Nationalism."

For more information about this title and many more, please visit www.uapress.alaska.edu or call 800-621-2736.