The Empire of Alaska

Just curious as to the approx. population of the European citizens of Alaska.

Good question. The total population of Alaska in 1938 is around 150,000 (about double what it was in OTL). Of that, some 35,000 are Native American or mixed-race, another 45,000 are Russian-born settlers (fewer than one might expect, but the emigre movement is more divided than I've indicated and Alaska is still remote and cold compared to Europe), and the remainder are Alyeskans (90% Russian, the rest mostly Georgian or Ukrainian with a smattering of other Russian Empire nationalities and a few Germans, Scandinavians, Canadians and Americans).
 
I've generally assumed that, had the Russians held nto Alaska, they would have deported their Jews there during the pogroms of the 1880's. Does such not occur in this timeline?
 
I've generally assumed that, had the Russians held nto Alaska, they would have deported their Jews there during the pogroms of the 1880's. Does such not occur in this timeline?

It hadn't occurred to me, but that's a good suggestion. Factor in a sizeable number of Jews among the Russian and Alyeskan population, then, and, sadly, attendant anti-Semitism especially in the 1930s.
 
Imperial Dawn
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When Umov's government began, all of Alaska was waiting anxiously to see what direction he would take the country in. A truce of sorts between red-bands and blackshirts held, more or less, during the first few days.

And then the bombshell dropped.

As Alaskans awoke on the morning of September 7, 1938, it was to the news that Alaska was no longer part of the Russian Empire. Instead, the Grand Duchy of Alaska was now the sovereign, independent Empire of Alaska. Roman I was both Czar of Russia and at the same time, Czar of Alaska. While this arrangement was far from perfect (for one thing, it raised the question of Roman's view on the Soviet government, since he had just dissolved the 'legitimate' government of Russia while still claiming to be the head of state of the Russian Empire), it did serve its primary purposes of making Alaska a "normal" country and of undercutting both
leftist and right-wing dreams of reunification.

Naturally, the September Declaration was met with some opposition, to put it mildly. Staliniks and blackshirts both took to the streets in protest. This, too, played into Roman and Umov's hands - the overreaction on the
part of left and right radicals, who were already losing popularity with their extreme tactics and in the face of a mild economic recovery, sealed their fates. The Army, the most loyal of all institutions, moved in and
crushed the party militias in two weeks of vicious urban warfare. (It was, despite reports in the censored official press, a very close thing, and recent discoveries have shown there was a government plan to smuggle
Roman across the border to Canada, one that was nearly carried out on September 19, the height of the Little War.)

While Alaska was gripped by its own concerns, events of far greater scope were taking place elsewhere in the world. The events leading up to the outbreak of the Russo-German War are well-known and need not be covered here. But their impact on Alaska was, naturally, rather large. While Alaska might now be an independent nation, nearly one in three of its citizens had been born in Russia. Few outside the Staliniks (mostly languishing in internment camps on the Aleutian Islands) had much sympathy for Trotsky's government, but few were pleased
to see holy Mother Russia invaded by Germans. Likewise, few were happy to see the 'ungrateful' minorities on the USSR's borderlands rise up in support of the German occupiers. Relations between ethnic Russians and
Georgians and Ukrainians, uneasy at the best of times, reached new lows, and a fresh wave of violence broke out despite the presence of Imperial soldiers on the streets.

In the Duma, violent debate broke out over what Alaska's reaction should be. Each new German victory put the right-wing in a greater bind. They had the least love for the Communist regime by far, and the most
sympathy for German militarism as an ideology, but to openly cheer for the enemies of Russia was a step very few were willing to make. The Radicals made it worse by openly recruiting volunteer brigades to help save Russia in her hour of need, which made both the right and the government look weak in comparison.

But if there was a man in Alaskan politics willing to defy the Czar (a man understandably reluctant to support the same regime that had driven him into exile and murdered many of his relatives), Mikhail Umov was not that man. He dithered, finally deciding to support the Communists on November 3 - by which time the German seige of St. Petersburg had already ground down to a siege and the immediate panic on the part of Trotsky's government was over.

The offer of Alaskan assistance was turned down - official assistance, that is. The Soviet Union was happy to accept any Alaskan volunteers willing to personally fight on its behalf, of course, and several thousand did. Those old-guard Whites foolish enough to cross the Straits ended up in punishment regiments if they were lucky or were just shot out of hand by Commissars in memory of Civil War crimes (real or imagined).

Civil war, foreign debacles, economic malaise... all in all, it was not an auspicious beginning for the Alaskan Empire.
 
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