Conclusion – a conflicted memory

At this point Pāʻulaʻula / Russian Fort Elizabeth remains a site of a conflicted memory between Native Hawaiians, Russian Americans, and mainland Americans. The latter are not a clear, coherent group with a specific perspective, although the official US remains a mnemonic agent through the State Park and State of Hawaii’s Board of Land and Natural Resources. Russian Americans interested in fort reconstruction are not a coherent group either. In fact, the interested party consists of Russian nationals, Russian Americans, and other non-Russian Americans who for all sorts of reasons are akin to this idea. Native Hawaiians seem to be the most coherent group of those three. They have clear representatives and precise goals. According to Michael Schudson: The full freedom to reconstruct the past according to one’s own present interest is limited by three factors: the structure of available past, the structure of individual choices, and the conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware individuals or groups⁵⁸².

The current situation on Kaua’i resembles the Schudson’s definition of limits to the full freedom to reconstruct the past. Puali‘ili‘imaikalani Rossi explains the Hawaiian perspective of the past: There is definitely a negative perception of Americans. Not necessarily other European countries. When our students learn about Hawaiian history there is definitely a negative perception of American influence here in Hawai’i. That is partly due to the fact that it was an American influence that resulted in an overthrow and annexation. When it comes to European influence, I almost feel that is less of a negative perception on part of our students and on part of our people. Primarily because there

582 M. Schudson, The Past in the Present versus the Present in the Past, [in:] Collective Memory Reader, ed. J. K. Olick, V. Vinitzky-Seroussi, D. Levy, New York 2011, p. 288.

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wasn’t as this negative result that ahs put us in this situation that we are in today. Having said that, when it comes to Russia and our relationship with Russians, students, and people in Hawaii in general don’t even realize that it had actually happened. That Kaumuali’i was using this relationship to gain leverage to maintain his sovereignty and independence.

I don’t think that there is even that perception. I don’t think that a lot of us even look at that relationship because it doesn’t really exist today. We don’t have any relationship with Russia because it was such a small time period. However, the significance of that, that moment has definitely played the part in how our history unfolded on Kauai, less so on the other islands. There’s still an influence here it’s just I don’t think a lot of people recognize it. It doesn’t really leave into the struggle we’re facing today as people who were displaced from our land, people that are struggling to retain some sort of autonomy.

Today there is definitely a push from the side of Russia to claim that Pāʻulaʻula is theirs.

Even though it’s given a name “Russian Fort”, nobody on Kaua’i really sees that as being a relationship between us and Russia. We look at this place as something that has the name ‘Russian Fort’ and maybe Russians built it or maybe we took influence from Russia when creating this fort. Everybody has a different scenario as to how the name came to be. But very, very, very few people see this as being a RUSSIAN FORT. In other words, yes, it has the name “Russian Fort”, but nobody sees it as really being “a Russian Fort”, as it belonging to Russia, that Russia has any claim to this place.

Few years ago, I was invited to come to Pāʻulaʻula with my students to take part in the presentation by Peter Mills. There were also representatives from Russia, although I’m not sure what group actually was there. They were doing some recordings. It was a situation in which we were asked to do protocol. My students brought offering, we presented chants. It was a very uncomfortable situation in that students felt like there was very little respect on a side of the visitors that were there. They [the students] were concerned that there was this sort of narrative being built upon this, again, being “a Russian Fort” and it they almost felt like they were being infringed upon in a way like they were there to present offerings and to recognize that this place was once the home of Kaumuali’i. It was one of the places that we resided at. They were vey much taken aback

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by the way they were received and they way it was sort of portrayed to them that the visitors were trying to put a claim on this site.

We have found out later that after we left, they attempted to raise a Russian flag over the fort. That was very disturbing for some of our students and some of our community members. Because we have already gone through having our flags taken down. We have already gone through this claim that we are not Hawaiian, that we are part of the United States. Now to have another country come in and raise yet another flag over a place we consider to be very sacred and a place that we consider to be Hawaiian was rather insulting⁵⁸³.

The role of a sacred sites in memory practices has already been discussed. Rossi provides yet another example of such a phenomenon in the context of Russian Fort Elizabeth / Pāʻulaʻula. For Native Hawaiians this site is both symbolic and literal lieu de memoire, as it resembles the centuries of their presence on the island as well as their historical, cultural, and political backbone through the figure of King Kaumuali’i – a yet another lieu de memoire. He is one of the strongest symbols of the island and the central character of the early 19th century events. There is little space for Russians in this narrative. If any, as a supportive role.

The flag of the Russian-American Company raising over the fort is reproduced in various media articles and the video including it is posted on the website of Fort Elizabeth initiative⁵⁸⁴. After the backlash from local community, Mihail Gilevich, one of the activists behind the Fort Elizabeth initiative tried to defend the act: Russians have great respect for the Hawaiian history there and the flag was raised to honor the Russian ancestors. It doesn’t mean someone was trying to disrespect local rules or claim anything⁵⁸⁵.

Nevertheless, flag raising, as well as the name and the vision of site’s future remain the topics of competitive memory among those two mnemonic agents. If there ever was a museum to be built there, the narrative presented on the exhibition would be a yet another

583 Interview with Puali‘ili‘imaikalani Rossi, conducted online via zoom platform by Kacper Dziekan on October 29^th 2021.

584 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk5ay0BUy_A&t=1s [access: February 2^nd, 2022].

585 https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/01/20/kauai-park-with-ties-russia-is-stirring-up-an-international-name-dilemma/ [access: February 2^nd, 2022].

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crucial challenge among those actors. Since early 2020 most of the plans and initiatives have been suspended due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and it is the matter of future on how the situation will unfold and whether or not could Pāʻulaʻula / Russian Fort Elizabeth become a site of a multidirectional memory.

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