Sitka Assembly scheduled to vote Tuesday on removal of Russian governor’s statue

City officials in the Southeast Alaska community of Sitka are scheduled to vote Tuesday on a plan to remove a controversial statue of Alexander Baranov.

Baranov was the first chief manager of the Russian-American Company who directed the expansion of Russian authority in coastal Alaska in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

A final decision isn’t certain: Also on the Sitka Assembly’s agenda is a proposal to put the statue’s removal on the fall municipal election ballot.

Local Native leaders have long sought the statue’s removal, calling it a racist and imperialist symbol. The statue has occasionally been vandalized in protest.

The removal effort has gained momentum this year amid a nationwide push to remove Confederate statues and other controversial monuments in the Lower 48. In Anchorage, Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has asked the Native Village of Eklutna to decide what to do with the statue of Captain James Cook following calls on social media for the statue’s removal.

In Sitka, the Baranov statue was donated to the city in 1989, and under the proposal from Assembly members Kevin Knox and Steven Eisenbeisz would be removed to the city’s museum. Assembly members Valorie Nelson and Kevin Mosher are seeking to make that removal contingent upon a citywide vote.

As the de facto governor of Russian America, Baranov established a European settlement at what is now Sitka. The area’s Tlingit inhabitants opposed the Russian pursuit of the area’s sea otter furs and burned the settlement in 1802. Baranov, reinforced by Russian artillery, reconquered the site in 1804. His work established the foundation of Russian colonial government that would last until 1867.

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