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around Cape Barrow in 1838 and L. Zagoskin
around the Yukon Basin in 1842-44.
Russian hegemony in the area did not last
long, as English and American ships engaged in a
profitable contraband trade. Under pressure from
their governments, Russia gradually gave up its
claims to a complete trade monopoly, granting
both the United States and Great Britain favor-
able terms for navigation and trade in 1824-25.
The relative economic weakness of the Russian-
American Company and of Russia in general was
complemented by a growing sense of military
vulnerability in Russian Alaska. During the
CRI
-
MEAN WAR
of 1853-56, British forces threatened
Russian Alaska, much as they did the Russian
White Sea area. After the Crimean War, unable
to provide for the defense of Russian settlements
in North America, Russian government circles
floated the possibility of selling Alaska to either
Great Britain or the United States. Given its
ongoing rivalry with Great Britain, the Russians
preferred to sell to the United States, also hoping
for American diplomatic support for their cam-
paign to revise the Treaty of Paris, which had
ended the Crimean War. In March 1867, Alaska
was sold to the United States for $7.2 million
(less than 11 million rubles), a purchase much
criticized in American circles but that began to
pay off handsomely with the discovery of the
Klondike gold deposits soon after.
romantically involved. Serving as a village rabbi,
he devoted himself to writing, and his first Yiddish
works were published in 1883. That same year he
married his former pupil and, with all presumably
forgiven, returned to the estate of his now father-
in-law, who left him as executor of the estate after
his death. Financially comfortable, Aleichem
moved to Kiev in 1887 and entered the world of
business, while continuing to publish stories.
During these years he also contributed to the Yid-
dish Folk Library series. In 1890, however, after
several financial losses he settled briefly in Paris.
Before returning to Kiev in 1893, he also lived in
Vienna and Czernowitz (Chernovtsy) in the west-
ern Ukraine. His well-known works
Tevya the
Dairyman
and
Menachem Mendel
were written dur-
ing these highly productive years in Kiev, when
he also wrote for the Jewish and Russian press.
After the 1905
POGROM
s, he emigrated to the
United States, settling in New York City. In 1908,
while on a lecture tour of Russia, he fell seriously
ill. Although in poor health, he continued to
write and publish;
Motel Ben Pasey the Chazan
and
The Flood
belong to these years. The outbreak of
World War I found him in Copenhagen, Den-
mark, with his family, but he eventually returned
to New York, where he published his autobiogra-
phy,
From the Marketplace.
He died in New York in
May 1916. Aleichem was much beloved for his
portraits of simple Jewish folk in small Russian
towns, and his funeral was attended by more
than three hundred thousand people and he was
eulogized in the halls of the U.S. Congress. Begin-
ning with
Stempenyu
in 1913, his works were reg-
ularly translated into English. As the inspiration
for the popular musical comedy
Fiddler on the Roof
(1964), drawn from the stories about the resilient
optimist Tevye, his work gained a new interna-
tional public.
Aleichem, Sholem
(1859-1916)
writer
One of the most creative and prolific Yiddish-lan-
guage writers, Aleichem was a highly popular
author whose short stories and plays captured the
troubles and aspirations of the Jewish diaspora
with affection and gentle humor. Aleichem was
born Sholem (Solomon) Rabinowitz in the town
of Pereyaslav near Kiev in the Ukraine. The prod-
uct of a traditional Jewish education and the Rus-
sian state school system, Aleichem started writing
at the age of 17. In 1877 he first worked as a tutor
for the daughter of a Jewish landowner in Kiev,
but he was dismissed after three years when his
employer discovered that tutor and pupil were
Alekhine, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich
(1892-1946)
chess player
One of the most inventive, brilliant, egotistical,
and eccentric players in the history of chess,
Alekhine was born in
MOSCOW
to a nobleman
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