Antonin Navasev (Napoleon's World)

Antonin Ivanovich Navasev (1844 - December 8, 1909) was an Alaskan general and politician, best known as Andrey Zukhov's successor as leader of the Army of the East and the strategic mind behind the retaking of both Mikhailgrad and Kialgory in the summer of 1886. He voluntarily designated Zukhov his successor without permission from Sitka and coordinated contact between spread out divisions across the Crescent Front, helping them maneuver to avoid annihilation by the more numerous Americans.

After the war, Navasev became the head of the People's Department and was instrumental in the reconstruction of Alaska. He encouraged the immigration of nearly two million Siberians and French Russians during the 1890's, but was eventually overthrown from his enormously influential position in 1899 by Boris Anasenko and his loyalists out of fear that he was building his own power base to eventually seize the Premiership or perhaps even topple the Tsar.

While enormously popular in his day and regarded a war hero, Navasev did not have the strong personality of his contemporaries in Anasenko, Konstantin Orlov or Stanislav Rayagev or the deific status of his close friend Zukhov and is thus an oft-neglected figure in postwar Alaska. However, Navasev has enjoyed a renaissance of recognition since the 1970's and is now regarded as one of the fathers of the modern Alaskan democratic state, as he support popular participation in government. His contributions in the war also have enjoyed broader celebration, with Alaskan historian Vladimir Mishupov stating that "the history of the campaigns of the Army of the East are often written with only Zukhov and to a lesser extent Orlov in mind; however, men such as Navasev, Buchenko and Andropov were so critical to the victories of the Alaskans over Perry and Luther that the benign neglect and borderline exclusion from praise is a tragedy of the history of the war."