When brute force didn’t work, Russia turned to erasure. This episode dives deep into the Koryak campaigns, the Aleut slave raids in Alaska, and the violent birth of cultural extermination as policy. We follow firsthand accounts of starvation, hostage taking, and the destruction of Indigenous lifeways across the Russian Far East. Then we trace the evolution of that violence, from open slaughter to identity theft: forced Orthodox conversions, renamed children, banned languages, and burned traditions. This isn’t just Russian history. This is an empire in practice, and it echoes across continents. Anderson, David G. Identity and Ecology in Arctic Siberia: The Number One Reindeer Brigade. Oxford University Press, 2000. Black, Lydia T. Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867. University of Alaska Press, 2004. Bolkhovitinov, Nikolai N. Russia and the United States: Diplomatic Relations to 1917. Translated by Elena Marakova, University of Hawaii Press, 1987. Chaussonnet, Valérie. Native Cultures of Alaska and Siberia: The Legacy of the Bering Strait Connection. Smithsonian Institution, 1995. Fisher, Raymond H. The Russian Fur Trade 1550–1700. University of California Press, 1943. Forsyth, James. A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North Asian Colony 1581–1990. Cambridge University Press, 1992. Gibson, James R. Imperial Russia in Frontier America: The Changing Geography of Supply of Russian America, 1784–1867. Oxford University Press, 1976. Hawkes, David C. Ethnohistory in Alaska: A Regional Bibliography. University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1981. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (Australia). Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. 1997. Kan, Sergei. "History of Russian-Alutiiq Relations." Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1980. Kerttula, Anna M. Antler on the Sea: The Yup’ik and Chukchi of the Russian Far East. Cornell University Press, 2000. Krupnik, Igor, and Ludmila Vakhtin. “Indigenous Peoples of the Russian North.” Cultural Survival Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 2, 1991, pp. 23–29. Leisy, Ernest J. “The Impact of the Russian Orthodox Mission on Alaskan Native Cultures.” Alaska Journal, vol. 15, no. 3, 1985, pp. 14–19. Pierce, Richard A. Russia’s American Colony. University of Wisconsin Press, 1973. Russian Academy of Sciences. The Peoples of Siberia. Edited by M. G. Levin and L. P. Potapov, University of Chicago Press, 1964. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. Vakhtin, Nikolai. "Native Peoples of the Russian Far North." Minority Rights Group International Report, 1992. Vakhtin, Nikolai. "Language Shift among the Siberian Peoples." Études/Inuit/Studies, vol. 19, no. 2, 1995, pp. 59–78. Veniaminov, Ioann. Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District. Translated by Lydia T. Black and Richard A. Pierce, Limestone Press, 1984. Znamenski, Andrei A. Shamanism and Christianity: Native Encounters with Russian Orthodox Missions in Siberia and Alaska, 1820–1917. Greenwood Press, 1999.
