Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
This lecture will focus on the recent written work of Sergei A. Kan: The Tlingit in Sitka: the Photographs of Elbridge W. Merrill— which itself focuses on the photographs of the Sitka Tlingit people (including the famous 1904 Kaagwaantaan ku.éex’) by Elbridge W. Merrill. He plans to briefly discuss Merrill’s life and work, showcasing some of his most valuable photographs. He will also discuss his own experience with his Tlingit teachers and colleagues and their work to identify the clans, houses and names of the many people Merrill photographed.
Sergei A. Kan was born in Russia in 1953 and came to America as a refugee in 1974. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1982. For his doctoral thesis he spent a year in Southeast Alaska from 1979-1980, focusing on traditional Tlingit ceremonies and the history of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Tlingit people. His published works include Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Ḵu.éex’ of the Nineteenth Century (1989), Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity Through Two Centuries (1999), and A Russian-American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska. He was adopted into the Kaagwaantaan and the Dakl’aweidí clans and given two names, and has participated in most Sharing Our Knowledge clan conferences, starting in 1993.
Learn more about Sealaska Heritage here: sealaskaheritage.org
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instagram.com/shinstitute
twitter.com/SHInstitute
This lecture will focus on the recent written work of Sergei A. Kan: The Tlingit in Sitka: the Photographs of Elbridge W. Merrill— which itself focuses on the photographs of the Sitka Tlingit people (including the famous 1904 Kaagwaantaan ku.éex’) by Elbridge W. Merrill. He plans to briefly discuss Merrill’s life and work, showcasing some of his most valuable photographs. He will also discuss his own experience with his Tlingit teachers and colleagues and their work to identify the clans, houses and names of the many people Merrill photographed.
Sergei A. Kan was born in Russia in 1953 and came to America as a refugee in 1974. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1982. For his doctoral thesis he spent a year in Southeast Alaska from 1979-1980, focusing on traditional Tlingit ceremonies and the history of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Tlingit people. His published works include Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Ḵu.éex’ of the Nineteenth Century (1989), Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity Through Two Centuries (1999), and A Russian-American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska. He was adopted into the Kaagwaantaan and the Dakl’aweidí clans and given two names, and has participated in most Sharing Our Knowledge clan conferences, starting in 1993.
Learn more about Sealaska Heritage here: sealaskaheritage.org
facebook.com/SHInstitute
instagram.com/shinstitute
twitter.com/SHInstitute
