HSENSUS ISTORIAE · RADA NAUKOWA Krzysztof Pietkiewicz (Poznań) — przewodniczący, Grzegorz A....

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Studia interdyscyplinarne

SENSUS HISTORIAEStudia interdyscyplinarneVOL. VIII (2012/3) I S S N 2 0 8 2 – 0 8 6 0

Oficyna Wydawnicza

EASTERN AFFAIRS. WORK WITH HISTORICAL MEMORY. BORDERLANDS

Edited by Karolina Polasik-Wrzosek and Ivan Peshkov

RADA NAUKOWA

Krzysztof Pietkiewicz (Poznań) — przewodniczący, Grzegorz A. Dominiak (Bydgoszcz), Hans Henning Hahn (Oldenburg), Konstantin Jerusalimsky (Moskwa), Bogumil Koss-Jewsiewicki (Québec, Canada), Krzysztof Mikulski (Toruń), Jan Pomorski (Lublin), Aldona Prašmantaitė (Wilno), Lorina Repina (Moskwa), Vołodymyr Sklokin (Charków, Ukraina), Rafał Stobiecki (Łódź), Witalij Telwak (Drohobycz, Ukraina), Wojciech Wrzosek (Poznań), Krzysztof Zamorski (Kraków)

REDAKTOR NACZELNY — Wojciech Wrzosek

KOMITET REDAKCYJNY

Grzegorz A. Dominiak (zastępca redaktora naczelnego), Piotr Kraszewski (współredaktor tematyczny działu „Sprawy wschodnie”), Karolina Polasik-Wrzosek (współredaktorka

tematyczna działu „Sprawy wschodnie”), Maria Solarska, Wiktor Werner

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Redakcja dziękuje za pomoc w wydaniu „Sensus Historiae”.

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THIS NUMBER IS DEDICATED ON THE OCCASION OF JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS PROFESSOR LORINA REPINA, THE MEMBER OF THE CORRESPONDENT FOR THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, THE DEPUTY OF THE DEPARTMENT HEAD OF THE ANM WORLD HISTORY OF RUSSIA, THE PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY OF RGGU HISTORY AND THE MEMBER OF THE SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL

OF THE “SENSUS HISTORIAE. STUDIA INTERDYSCYPLINARNE.”

Ad multos annos

C O N T E N T SVol. VIII (2012/3)

Contributors 9

E A S T E R N A F F A I R S . W O R K W I T H H I S T O R I C A L M E M O R Y . B O R D E R L A N D S

Zbigniew Szmyt, Th e History of Nation and Ethnicity in Mongolia 11

Ivan Peshkov, Social Crisis, Ethnic Distance and Memory along the Chinese—Soviet Border. Th e Chinese Russian Old-Settlers narratives about the “Chinese” Famine and Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia 29

Aleksandr Łopińska, Th e “Yellow Peril” Syndrome in Contemporary Russia 41

Dominik Mierzejewski, Reading Years of Humiliation. Sino-Russian Border and China’s National Identity 59

Viktor Innokentievich Dyatlov, Th e Blagoveshchensk Drowning—Story of How Phobias Become a Reality 71

Tatiana N. Sorokina, “Th e Blagoveshchensk Panic” of the Year 1900: the Version of the Authorities 91

Viktor Innokentievich Dyatlov, “Th e Blagoveshchensk Utopia”: Historical Memory and Historical Responsibility 115

CONTRIBUTORS

V i c t o r I . D y a t l o v is professor of the Department of World History and International Relations of Irkutsk State University, Russia and Director of the Research Center on Inner Asia (Irkutsk). He published widely on cross-border migrations in modern and late imperial Russia, on the role of ethnic migrations in the formation of settlers communities in the East of Russia and on the comparative study of diasporas.

A l e k s a n d r a Ł o p i ń s k a is Ph.D. student in the Institute of Eastern Studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. She holds an MA in international relations from AMU. Her research interests include migration issues, particularly in the North-East Asia, contemporary political situation in the Russian Federation and Russian-Chinese relations at the local and global level. She is the author of publications devoted to energy security in Asia and transborder cooperation between Russia and the Peoples Republic of China.

D o m i n i k M i e r z e j e w s k i Assistant Professor, University of Lodz. Assistant professor at the Faculty of International and Political Studies; studies at the Shanghai International Studies University (1999–2000 and 2003–2004). Internship in the Heritage Foundation (Washington D.C., 2003), Jan Karski scholarship granted by the American Center for Polish Culture (2003), postdoctoral internship at the Chinese Academy of Social Science (granted by the Polish Foundation for Science, 2010–2011), member of international organizations: Association for Asian Studies, European Association of Chinese Studies (board member) and the Chinese Association of Political Studies; member of editorial board of Th e Eastern Asia Studies, major interests: Chinese political system and foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China (ideas, concepts, strategies and rhetoric).

I v a n P e s h k o v Ph.D., is a Russian-Polish social anthropologist. He has been working as an assistant professor since 2004 (the Institute of Eastern Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University) and cooperated with the Chinese Economic Association (UK). Main fi elds of interest: transborder studies, the Chinese-Russian relations and quasi-indigenousness in Inner Asia.

K a r o l i n a P o l a s i k - W r z o s e k , Ph.D. She works at the Institute of Eastern Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University. Author of the book: Antropologiczny rekonesans historyka. Szkice o antropologii historycznej (2007). Coeditor of the work: Historia — Mentalność — Tożsamość. Studia z historii, historii historiografi i i metodologii historii (2010). Her scientifi c interest is in methodology of the humanities, anthropology, semiotics of culture.

T a t y a n a N . S o r o k i n a Candidate of History, Associate Professor of the Department of General History of Omsk F. M. Dostoevsky State University. Th e scope of scientifi c interests—the Chinese in the Far East of Russia and the Russian authorities’ migration politics in the second half of 19th—the early 20th century.

Z b i g n i e w S z m y t is a doctor of Social Anthropology, graduated at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. His scientifi c interest is in ethnic processes, migrations and social transformations in Inner Asia.

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SENSUS HISTORIAEISSN 2082–0860

Vol. VIII (2012/3)pp. 11-28

Zbigniew SzmytAdam Mickiewicz University, Poznan

Th e History of Nation and Ethnicity in Mongolia

The term “Mongol” known in the world since at least XIII century, is rather ambiguous. In broad sense with the help of this term are defi ned

representatives of the peoples, using the languages that belong to Mongolian language group. To these peoples inhabiting the territory of three states: People’s Republic of China, Russian Federation and Mongolia, is attributed possession of common identity based on historical and linguistic tradition, and also on set of cultural traits related to nomadic pastoral economy.1 In another context we call “Mongols” residents of the state Mongolia (Mongol Uls). Sometimes ethnonym “Mongol” becomes synonymous with inhabiting the state ethnic majority—Khalkhas. For this reason, we can assert that the term we are interested in, in diff erent contexts, is used for defi nition of the ethnic group, citizens of the state, or widely understood culture and language community, sometimes defi ned as super-(meta)ethnos. Th is “Mongolness” (in all three values) is used in discourses of ethnic activists, scholars and various government institutions.

Let me assume that I am dealing here with a number of discursive practices aimed at creating certain ethnic and national identities. In this paper I will focus primarily on the process of creating ethnicity and nationalism in Mongolia. Herewith I do not aspire to an exhaustive analysis

1 Of course, this is a big simplifi cation, because many Kalmucks, Buriats and a signifi cant part of Mongolian minorities in China do not use their native language any more. Th e same reservations are applied to nomadic pastoral economy. Th ere are settled Mongols farming in China that have been there for a long time, such as Mongors, Dongxiang, Baoan. In Buriatia nomadic pastoral economy dominated fi rst of all among Eastern Buriats, but now, in reduced form, it occupies a small part of the local economy. In Mongolia itself only about 1/3 of the population is engaged in cattle breeding. We can therefore say that we are dealing with stereotypes which are used to construct the identity of the groups.

EASTERN AFFAIRS. WORK WITH HISTORICAL MEMORY. BORDERLANDS

Zbigniew Szmyt

12

of ethnic processes related to Mongolian groups in Russia and China, but I cannot entirely avoid these processes. Following Frederick Barth (1969) I would focus on ethnic boundaries based on social processes of inclusion into the group of certain people and communities and their exclusion from it. I would try to analyze how some social actors (such as state institutions, ethnic activists and also ordinary citizens of Mongolia) defi ne what they have in common with some Mongolian groups, and what separates them from those. Mongolian-speaking groups from China and Russia in this perspective become “signifi cant others,” from whose point of view stand out ethnic or national boundaries. Th ese “others,” depending on discourse, are sometimes included and other times excluded from the Mongolian community, but they do not cease to be subjects. Elites (Buriat, Kalmuck, Bargut) create their own ethno-national discourses. In the next part of the text I will show an interaction of alternative group identities on the example of the Buriats, who live in Mongolia.2

As an ethnologist, I should be interested primarily in modernity understood as a period that started with the fall of communist regime in Russia and Mongolia.3 But since I consider ethnicity as a process I should take into account the historical background of social facts that I am interested in. Th is is all the more inevitable because the majority of identity constructions are legitimized by historical narratives and their “holy book” is the Sacred Legend of the Mongols. Let’s focus on scientifi c and public perceptions of Mongolian historical sources and on interpretation of pan-Mongolism. Historical context in this paper will appear in two narrative orders: fi rst, in clarifi cation of the genesis of today’s constructions of collective identities, and second, as an element of identity discourses. In the second case I will consider historical discourse as policy aimed to the past, i.e. as a specifi c form of cultural practice, serving to the creation of collective identities and legitimization of state power or groups alternative to the government. In this case I am not interested in so called “historical facts” but on functions created on their basis of views on the past. Th e above assumptions defi ne further structure of the text. First, I will analyze the two most important ethno-national concepts in the history of Mongolia in the 20th century: pan-Mongol and socialist. I believe it is necessary, because these concepts still distinguish the boundaries of modern ethnic and nationalist projects.

2 Since December 2005 until June 2006 due to the scholarship of the Ministry of Education (Poland) I had an opportunity to do a research among the Buriats living in Mongolia. As a result of this research I collected ethnographical material that is be partly used in this article.

3 Offi cially, i.e. according to the Constitution, Mongolia is on the „non-capitalist way of development.” Nevertheless, there is no doubt that it was a system created by the example of the Soviet Union.

The History of Nation and Ethnicity in Mongolia

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Next, I will ascertain what role ethnogenetic discourse plays in the problem of ethnicity and nationalism. I will show attempts to place the beginning of nation in archeological cultures, and also practice of legitimization of emerging ethnic diff erentiation with the help of texts relating to the period of, such as Th e Sacred Legend of the Mongols or Altan Tovch. In the fi nal part of the article I will represent the diff erences arising from simultaneous aspirations of the Mongolian state to the unity of the Mongolian world, and time for the construction of ethno-national nationalism.

Pan-Mongolism

In my opinion the fi rst modern nationalist ideology was pan-Mongolism. Th is ideology, unusually lively in fi rst decades of the 20th century was used in the construction of nationhood in Mongolia, in political projects of Ataman Semenov, Buriat intellectuals and in the Japanese project of colonization of Northern Asia. Th is idea also inspired various Mongolian activists from Inner Mongolia until the 50’s of the 20th century. Still today it stays on the outskirts of ethno-political discourse but more often becomes a postulate of cultural partnership between Mongolian groups living in diff erent countries.

Pan-Mongolism can surely be called a reaction to the changes caused by fi nal demise of the old interethnic orders in Russian and Manchu empires. In the fi rst decade of the 20th century the Buriat Steppe Dumas (native administration) were liquidated, and there was also an organized and massive resettlement of the peasants from European part of the Russian Empire to Transbaikalia (Atwood 2004: 66). Th e struggle for land rights exacerbated interethnic confl icts and caused political activity of the Buriats. Th e same political activity and desire to unite with Outer Mongolia was the reaction of the Tuvinians to the intensifi ed Russian colonization in the fi rst decades of the 20th century4 (Baabar 1999: 186-188).

In the same period the tottering Manchu power abolished restrictions related to the settlement of Mongolian territories by the Chinese (Han) population. Th e infl ux of Chinese agricultural colonists caused confl ict related to land leasing. Chinese colonists did not fall under the jurisdiction of local Mongolian princes, because of what the last thought that it was the theft of their territories (Bulag 2000). Among Mongolian nomads was a widespread feeling of economic exploitation by Chinese trade companies. Th e Europe’s idea of nationalism that talks about the right of nation for self-determination

4 At the beginning of the century Uriankhai de jure was a part of the Manchu empire, but it did not stop Russian colonists before building settlements, mines and sales areas.

Zbigniew Szmyt

14

and self-government brought to various Mongolian-speaking groups a language of emancipation, with the help of which they could fi ght against socioeconomic oppression. Mongolian-speaking groups tried to respond to threatening modernization with the help of the modernist language—nationalism5. Changes in the existing order of ethno-social relations, which was established by Manchu authorities, clearly characterize the example of Daurs. Daurs in the Qing Empire enjoyed certain privileges. Manchus did not consider them Mongols and called them “new Qing” that made them younger relatives of the ruling dynasty. However, after the decline of the Manchu dynasty the Daurs began to emphasize their Mongolness. In early 20’s they began to add the name “Mongol” to their ethnonym. In 1924, a Mongolian-Daurian national activist and one of the leaders of Mongolian communists, Merse, in his work “Th e Mongolian Issue” wrote about fi ve main groups that make up the Mongolian nation.

• Khalkha-Mongols residing in Outer Mongolia,• Öled-Mongols residing in Qinghai and Northern Tianshan,• Daur-Mongols from Heilongjiang, Hulun-Buir and Bhutan,• Buriat-Mongols inhabiting the Transbaikal territory and the Irkutsk

province,• Kalmuck-Mongols living on the Volga.

Th ese groups, in the author’s opinion, fi rst of all were united by the common language, Buddhism and pastoral economy (Bulag 2002: 149). Th e Daurs extensively took part in creating autonomy of Inner Mongolia, but in the 50’s they were recognized by central government as a non-Mongolian group, and in spite of the Daur identity they came to be considered a separate group of the Tungus origin.

Being in Nantong in the summer of 2009 near Hailar, I noticed that local Daurs defi ne themselves as Mongols and their Tungus origin was strongly negated by them when given assumption about it. As I got familiar with local Daurs I tried to fi nd out what they think about their ethnic origins. I have been telling them “Daurs are not Mongols, and their language has Manchu-Tungus roots.” Most of my interlocutors protested indignantly: “Th at’s not true. We are Mongols!” Others indiff erently concluded that nothing they know about that.

We have given an example of the Daurs for normally the phenomenon of pan-Mongolism is considered in relation to the three groups: Khalkhas,

5 Acceptance of the language of this kind was possible due to European education. Many Buriat-Mongols and later Mongols from Inner Mongolia, Barga and Outer Mongolia graduated from Russian or Soviet schools and universities. Th e formation of the idea of pan-Mongolism was surely infl uenced by the idea of Pan-Turkism, which Buriats had a chance to face at the Kazan University.


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Buriats and Barguts. But the pan-Mongolism ideology also infl uenced the other Mongolian groups. Certainly, the creation of nationalist discourse in a lack of statehood would be impossible without a common cultural base, historical consciousness and common sense of kinship. According to Mönh-Erdene Lhamsüren (2006: 61-61), terms that functioned at the beginning of the 20th century defi ning Mongols, such as: Monggol obogtan, togatan, izagurtan, ugsagatan, ündüsüten, jasu indicate a primordial concept of community related to the conviction about common origin, idea of kinship, and common roots. Th is idea about common origin as well as participation in one cultural, religious and linguistic sphere was used in the fi rst nationalist ideology—pan-Mongolism. Within this concept all Mongolian peoples have been recognized as one nation entitled to the unifi cation of all Mongolian peoples within one state organism. It manifested in aspiration to unite Inner and Outer Mongolia and Barga, and also in promoting the migration of Mongolian groups to the territory of liberated Outer Mongolia. Th e Proclamation of People’s Party of Mongolia of 1921 reads as follows:

Mongolian jazguurtan, struggling against an oppressive enemy-occupier—will declare our rights and power, praising our nationality [jazguur ündes], and will build the state of our real nationality. To increase the population of Mongolia it would be right to resettle Buriats, Torguts, Inner Mongols, Barguts and other Mongolian peoples to Mongolia, if they wish, and make them citizens, providing them with accommodation.

Th e purpose of unifi cation of Mongolia by establishing links with numerous aimags of the Mongolian ugsaatan is an important task for our party. Until now Barga, Inner Mongolia, Uryanhay and other Mongols of our religion and nationality [jas ündes] have not had a possibility to unite (Lhamsüren 2006: 88).

As can be seen, Buriats, Torguts, Barguts and the inhabitants of Inner Mongolia were identifi ed as mongol ündesten—people of the Mongolian nationality. So here we are dealing with ethno-cultural concept of a nation and with Gellner’s defi nition (2006: 1), the statement about compliance of national and political boundaries. Buriats Tsyben Zhamsarano and Elbeg-Dorzh Rinchino played a special role in the pan-Mongolian movement of Mongolia. Th ese two politicians, who got their higher education in Russia, also played an important role in the formation of the nationalist policy of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. It was Zhamsarano who was involved in the introduction of a new national-ethnic terminology into the state discourse that was mostly supported by the Bolshevik nationalist theory. Th e following Mongolian equivalents were defi ned for Russia: clan—ovog, tribe—aimag, nationality—yastan, nation—ündesten (Bulag 1998: 31).

Zbigniew Szmyt

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In later years this terminology was further developed and used in the ethnic policy.

Zhamsarano also introduced the concept of civic nationality directly connected to participation in state reality to the Mongolian national-ethnic discourse. He identifi ed the Mongols living in the framework of the Mongolian statehood as monggol ündesten (mongol ündesten in modern Mongolian), whereas he identifi ed Mongols living outside the borders of the same statehood as monggol obogtan (mongol ovogtan)—Mongolian tribes, groups with the common roots and language; they could become a nation only by joining the Mongolian state. A nation, according to Zhamsarano, requires a functioning common language, origin, religion, traditions and, most importantly a common state (Lhamsüren 2006: 60).

In my opinion, it is quite a constructivist position that emphasizes the importance of state discourse practices in creating a nation—the potential of ethnographic reality can be realized by institutes of the independent Mongolian state. Although until the 30’s of the 20th century there was a strong infl uence of terminological pluralism in the ethnic and national terminology the next generations of ethnologists borrowed a lot from the ideas and suggestions of this prominent Buriat-Mongol. A crisis of the pan-Mongolist movement in Mongolia and USSR came in the 30’s of the 20th century. One of the most important reasons for such a turn of events was the policy of the imperialist Japan that was trying to utilize the idea of pan-Mongolism and pan-Buddhism for the eff ectiveness of its territorial expansion. Japan propagated the idea of unifi cation of all Mongols under its aegis and the release of the Mongolian people from the oppression of the communists and Chinese. In response to this, the communist government in the USSR and later in MPR began to persecute the ideologists of pan-Mongolists as well as lamas often accusing them of spying for Japan.6 It caused massive purges and the division of the territory of the Buriat Autonomous Republic in the USSR. Th e Japanese-Mongolian-Soviet confl ict and later the Soviet-Chinese confrontation turned into a long-term mutual distrust between the Mongols of Outer Mongolia and those of the Eastern part in Inner Mongolia (Morozova 1999).

In my view, the end of ideas of pan-Mongolism in the state discourses came in the 50’s of the 20th century. During that period it was not only the Daurs who stopped being Mongols. In 1958 Buriat-Mongols were renamed into the Buriats, and the same happened with the names of the Buriat-Mongolian autonomous territories in Eastern Siberia. In Inner Mongolia

6 Th is phenomenon can be considered part of the liquidation process of the nationally oriented on the elite of the USSR.


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in 1957 attempts were taken to reform the old Mongolian writing system as it had been done in Outer Mongolia. Th ey were also considering the introduction of Cyrillic. Th e new technical vocabulary was adopted not from the Chinese language (as is the case today), but from the terminology created in Outer Mongolia. However in 1958, prime-minister Zhou Enlai declared that the national minorities in China should use the Latin alphabet pinyin as the basis for the written language. At the same time a struggle was started with so-called “local Mongolian nationalism.” Th e partnership between MPR and PRC ended with the cooling of relations between the USSR and PRC. China entered upon the domestication of national minorities (Bulag 2003: 757-758).

Ethnos, Nation, Socialism

Th e defeat of pan-Mongolist ideas became the beginning of the enhancement of the separation process of individual Mongolian groups. Th is process can be clearly seen on the example of the Buriats. In 1937, the Buriat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was divided into three parts, which undoubtedly complicated the ethnic consolidation of Western and Eastern Buriats. Literary the Buriat language also underwent some change. Originally created on the basis of the Songool dialect (with pronunciation close to the Khalhha norm), it was replaced by the Khori dialect, which is more diffi cult to understand for the rest of the Mongols. As was in Mongolia, writing was reformed in Buriatia: the Uighur-Mongolian script was abandoned in favor of the Latin alphabet, and later the Cyrillic alphabet. On the one hand, it simplifi ed the struggle against illiteracy, when new systems better refl ected modern phonetics of individual groups. On the other hand, younger generations of the Mongols in Mongolia and Soviet Union lost universal means of communication and were cut from the heritage of the Mongolian writing. In 1958, the name of the Buriat republic was also changed from Buriat-Mongolian into Buriat, and the ethnonym Buriat-Mongol was changed to Buriat. Th e ethno-genetic discourse in the Soviet ethnology emphasized the Turk and Tungus origin of many clans, what according to Bulag (1998: 32) was to emphasize the diff erence between Mongols and Buriats.

Such a policy has been associated with the eff ect of functioning of quasi-state autonomy creating a sense of national isolation among the Buriats living in Russia. Th is process, of course, was not a separate phenomenon. Th e same methods of ethnic engineering were used throughout the Soviet Union and in the countries that fell under the Soviet infl uence. According to V. Tishkov, the Soviet Union, through the creation of Soviet and Autonomous republics,

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formed new national and ethnic formations from diff erent linguistic and cultural-territorial communities. Th e author of “Requiem for ethnos” writes about:

… the Soviet ethnic engineering, including construction of “socialistic nations” on the basis of existing cultural, religious and local diff erences, through institutionalization (nationalization) of ethnicity and its sponsoring or repressions (Tishkov 2003: 146).

Today, most Buriats consider themselves a nation separate from the Mongols—often identifi ed with the citizens of Mongolia, with Khalkha Mongols in particular. Such processes also occurred in the Mongolian People’s Republic. Following a “non-capitalist way of development” Mongolia adopted a number of regulations of the Soviet ethnology based on the Marxist-Leninist theory and related to this way’s evolutionary and historical understanding of ethnicity. Th e evolutionary conceptual process was supposed to lead to disintegration of clan and tribal groups and their transformation into yastan—nationality. Ethnography was a supportive science of history, which was supposed to register the materials and spiritual artifacts of disappearing social formations. In the 70’s of the 20th century, after the theory of ethnos by Y. Bromley, the term ugsaatan began to dominate in the Mongolian ethnological discourse , which corresponded to the word ethnos. Also a term of the ethnic group—ugsaatny büleg—was introduced. In the socialist society certain ethnoses were supposed to undergo uniformization and creat a united nation—ündesten. Th e Cultural and linguistic standards of the nation were Khalkhas who formed the ethnic majority in Mongolia. Ethnic minorities defi ned as yastan were considered a relic of feudal society, the lowest stage of the ethnic process. According to this evolutionary unifi cating discourse smaller groups were assimilated by bigger ones creating large “socio-political” units and forming a socialist nation. Th e 1956 general census of Mongolia indicated 23 yastan, and only 10 of those were indicated in 1969 (Bulag 1998: 33-34). Th is idea, to my opinion, responded to the Soviet concept of the Soviet man who was supposed to replace national relics of the old society.

Ethnologists from other socialist countries also talked about ethnic unifi cation. In the early 80’s of the XX century, Polish scholar Sławoj Szynkiewicz wrote that a selection of numerous ethnic groups showed a small linguistic and cultural diff erence, so it would be a mistake to consider them separate ethnic groups (Szynkiewicz 1984: 220-225). Representing the British anthropological school U. Bulag and K. Pegg defi ned this ethno-national strategy as a trial of Khalkhaization of smaller ethnic groups. Processes of such type of linguistic and cultural standardization do not


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depart from many other nation-building projects led in the 19th and 20th centuries. An excellent example of it can be found in most of European states and nations. An extremely important consequence of this nation-building process was a compound of nationality (ündesten) with the state, with the fact of being a citizen, with the state symbolic and historical narration. Th is identity has survived the collapse of communist ideology and is eff ectively developing in the independent and democratic Mongolia. A perfect example here is young Buriats living in Ulanbaatar. Many of them do not consider themselves Buriats, but simply Mongols, without defi ning their yastan.

Th e Discourse of Ethnogenesis in the National Policy

Th e dispute concerning the ethnogenesis and the beginning of the Mongolian nation is, to my opinion, directly related to the discussion on the very defi nition of nation. Below I will give a few opinions functioning among scholars, national ideologists and also among a greater part of the society in Mongolia. I will also try to show in what way some discourses aff ect one another. Scientifi c refl ection of the 20th century on the genesis of Mongols interests, fi rst of all, Soviet and Mongolian scholars; it was under the long-term infl uence of the Soviet ethnographic school. Th e main characteristic of this school was the adoption of ethnos as the main object of research, concentration on the process of ethnogenesis and ethnic history, and also obvious infl uence of Morgan’s evolutionism and the Marxist thought (Jasiewicz 1987: 301-304). According to Darima Voronoeva (2007: 16), concentration of research eff ort on the problems of ethnogenesis came from a primordial understanding of ethnos and nation.

Th e process of ethnogenesis was tried to be reconstructed with the help of an interdisciplinary approach using ethnographic, historical, archaeological and also linguistic sources. Th is method implicite allowed the identifi cation of ethnic development beginning from Paleolithic peoples through the archaeological culture of plate graves, Donghu, Xianbi, Kidan peoples to modern Mongols. Limited access to written sources (originating mostly from the references in the chronicles of neighboring states) led to the focus on presumption of continuity of material culture, so-called cultural relics among the Mongols, because of what in the narration one could avoid issues related to the identity of the described groups. Characteristic features for the mentioned approach can be found in the ethno-historical monograph by L. Viktorova (1981) based on respectable materials of Mongolian, Soviet and European researchers. In the part “Main stages of the ethnic history” she wrote:

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Th e Man of Mountain Paleolith knew about cave paintings associated with rituals … Th e characteristic feature of painting is a contoured two-dimensional image on a fl at surface. It became traditional in the fi ne arts of Mongolia before the 19th and 20th centuries. (Ibid.: 100)

Th ese communities [talking about Neolithic communities that lived in the present Mongolia] cannot be considered only amorphous Paleolithic clans; there appeared tribes made up of several totem clans connected by marital relationships. Relics of such situations of Mongolian peoples persisted for many centuries. [Ibid.: 103]

We surely do not confi rm that the author identifi ed the Mongols with the societies of the Stone Age. Nevertheless the research questions formulated by her, the structure of work and some strategies of constructing arguments were aimed at convincing the reader in historical and cultural-genetic continuity of the development of nomadic peoples. Such an ethnogenetic way of historical description fi nds its use in the construction of national identity. What was taken in the scientifi c discourse as a hypothesis limited by number of reservations in identity discourse is subject to simplifi cation. Mongols like to say that they are descendants of the Huns. Not only territorial community with that ancient people indicates it, but also the fact that in the Mongolian language hün means ‘man.’ Distancing the rudiments of ethnogenesis of the Mongols to the period of Huns without estimating the validity of this measure7 can be considered manifestation of aspiration to archaization, which is characteristic of ethnonations. Let me give here a short fragment from a Mongolian textbook.

It is clearly seen that the core of the Mongolian gene pool formed on the territory of the state Hun with their state center, the core of today’s Mongols is inherited from the Huns who created the fi rst state in Asia (Zanhüü, Altanceceg 1999: 31).

Identifi cation of the Mongols with Huns makes an impression of immutability, timelessness of the nation, rudiments of which date back further than historical sources and which in its essence remains unchanged in addition to continuing development. Despite the fact that the roots of the ethnogenesis of Mongols should go back to the period about which only archaeologists can speak, the last realization of the national potential sleeping in Mongolian tribes is often Chinggis Khan. According to some researches, especially those of Mongolia, Mongolian-speaking peoples were

7 Th e scientifi c evidence of this hypothesis was looked for mainly by Mongolian researchers, such as Sühebaatar, Dorzhsüren. Most Mongolian scholars are accustomed to consider Huns a Turkic people. (Viktorova 1981: 121-123) Th e importance of the excavations in the Hun Ivolga grotto near Ulan-Ude led to the fact that the Huns became a permanent element of the historical identity of the Buriats.


21

able to build common state-national identity already in the 13th century due to unifi cation of the Mongols under the leadership of Chinggis Khan. It is evidenced by the terms that appeared in that period, such as Mongol uls, Mongol irgen, Mongolchin (Lhamsüren 2006: 57). Besides, the creation of the state, emergence of common ethnonym “Mongol,” and replacement of the clan-tribal social structure by the system of dividing to military tümens contributed, according to some historians, to the creation of national identity. Th is view coincides with today’s state ideology dominating in Mongolia since the 90’s of the past century. In the state discourse Chinggis Khan performs the function of a divine8 ancestor-founder who united the tribes into nation, gave them a common name, and created law (Zhasa, Ih zasag) and state (Bira 2001: 256-261).

When democratic Mongolia restored forbidden clan names from the socialist period, most of the citizens said that they belong to the clan Borjigin—the lineage of descendants of Genghis Khan. Continuity of Mongolian statehood was vividly emphasized in 2006 during the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Mongolian state in Mongolia. Th is is when in the center of Ulanbaatar on the Sühebaatar Square there was set up a huge monument of Chinggis Khan. Sitting on the throne (in front of the Parliament, in the place where used to be the mausoleum of Choibalsan) the great khan looks at the monument of Sühebaatar—a symbolic father of the socialist revolution in Mongolia. One can say that for today’s Mongolia Chinggis Khan became axis mundi of the national discourse. His fi gure threads the national symbolic, folklore, modern art, religion and many other spheres of social life. Being in an inhabited corner of Mongolia it is hard to fi nd a place that does not have his image. He looks at us from tugrigs of almost all values, from vodka and beer bottles, from carpets hanging on the walls and from youth t-shirts. His name wear hotels, restaurants, tourist camps and even a rock band9. Th ere is an impression that the Mongolian national discourse is entirely directed to the past and constantly turns back to its mythical beginning—to Chinggis Khan—who, with his divinity, lights up the whole nation. In order to demonstrate the presence of the myth I will bring a case registered by me during a fi eld research held in 2006 in the Khentei aimag.

8 Shamanists and Mongolian Buddhists both give Chinggis Khan the status of deity. Buddhists consider him the emanation of Vajrapani and bring him off erings. At the same time his image became a “trade mark” of Mongolia used more often for marketing than as a sacred image.

9 In Warsaw a Mongolian woman who taught Mongolian language placed the following advertisement: “Th is is the language of Chinggis Khan, a great leader who brought his state to such sizes that no other state ever had: from Southern China to Russia and to Vienna.”

Zbigniew Szmyt

22

In 2004, in the district Binder, in the place, where according to tradition Temujin was chosen great Khan, local Buriat shamans performed rituals that were to ensure the welfare of all Mongolia. Th e fi rst president of democratic Mongolia Bagabandi and other politicians took part in it. Th e spirit of Chinggis Khan himself was called, and numerous gifts were off ered. Chinggis Khan speaking through a shaman thanked everybody for the off erings, especially for the horses that were of the same color as his favorite horse since his childhood. He assured the audience that he would protect his people, gave some practical advice to the gathered representatives of the government, and in the end confi rmed the assumptions of historians about the place where the hurultay was held during which Temudzin was chosen the great Khan of all Mongols (interview 8.05.2006, Binder). In the abovementioned perspectives the Mongolian nation was formed in 1206 as a result of Chinggis Khan’s aspirations to unite all Mongolian tribes. Th e issue of formation of Mongolian nation is considered in a diff erent way by some researchers from the circle of Anglo-Saxon culture, such as Ch. Bowden, A. Nathanson and M. Rossabi. Leaning towards the radically constructivist perception of nation they are inclined to attribute the beginning of the Mongolian nation to the verge of 19th and 20th centuries.

Th e diff erence of views on the topic of the beginning of Mongolian nationalism on the example of interpretation of the rebellion of Chinggünjab was clearly presented by C. Kaplonski. Mongolian historians are used to interpreting this anti-Manchu rebellion of the 18th century as the manifestation of the national struggle for independence of Mongols. Suspicious-minded towards “naturalness” of a nation as a form of socio-political organization, Western historians emphasize that this period cannot yet be regarded in the sense of Mongolian nationalism. According to Ch. Bowden, attributing feudal societies with national consciousness is an ideological exertion, which using history and myth of ancient nation legitimizes the authorities. Nation here is understood as a relatively recent social project realized in the 20th century under the infl uence of ideology of nationalism that originated from Europe (Kaplonski 1993: 240-242). Kaplonski himself is inclined to more radical censorship of the beginning of the Mongolian nation, writing as follows:

I do not deny the existence of nationalist moods and aspirations among intellectual avant-garde of Mongolia at the beginning of the 20th century but it does not lead directly to the creation of national identity. I suppose that there were no attempts of creating national identity on a larger scale until later when they arose as a result of socialist activity. In other words, nationalist moods were conveyed through socialism and its


23

measures adopted in education, elimination of power of the Lamaist church and political legitimation (Kaplonski 1998: 36).

A less radical interpretation of the formation process of the Mongolian nation is represented by Polish ethnologist Sławoj Szynkiewicz. Based on the Sacred Legend of Mongols he noted that during the period preceding the empire of Chinggis Khan Mongolian people did not have a common ethnic identity. Th e center of collective identity was clan, and higher levels of collective integration formed a group of allied clans and a tribe with culturally close tribes. Half of the ethnonyms of the abovementioned Mongolian chronicle of the 13th century are names of lineages related to the Borjigid clan from which originated the clan of Chinggis Khan. Along with the growing social distance in relation to this clan groups are described in a more general way by using the names of clans, tribes and in relation to non-Mongolian peoples: ethic and state ones (Szynkiewicz 1984: 223-224). According to a Polish researcher, we cannot look in this text for vivid boundaries that distinguish Mongols as ethnos.

Th e transition of cultural boundary happens insensibly and is marked only by a type of onomastic, which prior to this moment referred only to kin groups and from this moment it relates more to political groups. It is typical that the boundary is blurred and some more distanced Mongolian groups which seem to be called by ethnonyms, more tribal than clan-like ones (for example Buriats, Oyrats). Hence we conclude that the cultural and linguistic unity was not an important criterion of identifi cation of people’s groups until the Middle Ages. … Ethnos was never a clear structural category in the social organization of steppe-dwellers, and for this reason, perhaps it was not considered a generic term. And we, too, in our model of concentrated circles of Mongolian concept of the universe place the state after the tribe. (Ibid.: 224-225)

During the period of the Mongol Empire tribal communities were to lose their signifi cance in favor of troops. Th is marked the beginning of new ethno-territorial groups which, based on military structure, were comprised of representatives of diff erent clans. New units of the social organization of the Mongols based on military division after the decline of the Mongolian dynasty in China became military-territorial units. Having returned to their native steppes 40 Mongolian tümens10 created new feudal military-territorial units. Such units often took ethnonyms derived from a clan tradition. Th ese units became the formation base of regional ethnographic groups. According

10 A unit of military organization consists of 10 000 warriors. Together with the warriors this organization included military families, for this reason the actual number of such an organizational unit was several times greater.

Zbigniew Szmyt

24

to S. Szynkiewicz, this phenomenon has its consequences in the current classifi cation of the Mongols. Diversity of Mongolian groups considered within ethnic categories can, in the opinion of Szynkiewicz, be attributed to regional diff erences (Szynkiewicz 1984: 233).

You can make a list of tens of Mongolian peoples but, in my opinion, it would be a failed eff ort, for it would contain too many unnecessary items, which would get enlisted only because of having the ethnonym. Th is, however, cannot be a criterion of cultural diff erences because it often appeared, either by happy coincidence or also largely owing to a specifi c administrative or political feature. Referring to the period discussed by Kaplonski, Szynkiewicz refutes views about the Mongols of that period as of a nation.

When, in the XVII century, Mongolian princes passed under protectorate of a new Manchu dynasty, which had only begun to govern in China, the offi cial argument of this step was the fact that the Manchu ruler became the holder of the Chakhar khan’s seal, the main symbol of khan’s power of the Mongols. It was supposed to formally legitimize the transfer of khan’s authority. Since then the ruler in Peking was called bogdokhan, like the heir of the all-Mongolia throne. Th e ethnic diff erence of the new regime was not taken under consideration. When, in 1911, Khalkha princes proclaimed independence of Mongolia, they had not used the argument of the loss of legitimate power of the khan’s mandate, together with the decline of Manchu dynasty. Th e main motive … was national oppression which at that time was expressed in the absence of an independent solution for their problems (Ibid.: 251-252).

So, we have at least two opposing theories of formation of the Mongolian nation. In the fi rst one, nation, based on ethno-cultural community, appeared due to the institute of the state established by Chinggis Khan and continued as an idea until the XX century. In the second theory, this nationalist ideology has created a historical narration distributing historical sources in such a way that the nation is primordialised creating an illusion of timelessness. It resembles a costume fi lm where actors dressed in costumes of past epochs tell a story about the past while solving the problems of the present. Not trying to fi gure out which approach is right, I will note, following Anthony D. Smith, that the identifi cation of nation with the concept of a modern nation that appeared between the XVIII and XIX centuries is an ethnocentric and arbitrary measure. According to A. Smith, a modern nation (also called massive) is a specifi c modernist ideal type. Th is ideological movement is directed by a number of rules, such as acceptance of a nation as a basic unit of division of the world, recognition of a nation as the only source of political power, right of a nation for autonomy and self-determination, and also priority of an individual’s obligations to a nation (Smith 2008: 30-34).


25

Certain elements of this defi nition lead me to confi rm that the Mongolian nation (understood within the criteria of the modernist ideology of nationalism) was formed only at the beginning of the XX century. However we are not sure that it is the only acceptable defi nition of a nation. In the conclusion I can say that certain linguistic, cultural and political community appeared in the Mongolian steppe in the XIII century and could give rise to an overlocal identity of imaginary community, which I can consider a pre-modern nation.

Not developing this subject I would like to bring to notice possible consequences of adopting of one of the abovementioned concepts of a nation. If I agree that the Mongolian nation appeared in the XIII century, then the emergence of such ethno-national groups, such as Buriats and Kalmucks, can be considered as an eff ect of disintegration of the Mongolian nation resulting from Russian colonization and seizure of most of the Mongolian territories by Qing Empire. All Mongolian-speaking peoples would compose one nation11 since the XIII century, which fell into separate ethnic groups as a result of the decline of the Mongolian Empire, and later created a separate national identity as a result of the ethno-national policy pursued by the USSR, PRC and MPR.12

Mongol to Mongol is not a Match—Discursive Schizophrenia

Inhabitants of the Mongolian state created a strong national identity largely based on ethnic culture, but excluded Mongolian-speaking groups living in PRC and RF. In the early 90’s a native of Ordos U. Bulag got convinced by it. In his book devoted to Mongolian nationalism he describes the ambivalence, with which he was perceived in Mongolia. Being an Inner Mongol he felt excluded from the national community, to which, as he used to think, he had belonged (Bulag 1998: 1-11). In my opinion, the origin of this identity dissonance comes from the confrontation of the two diff erent concepts of nation—civil nation and ethno-cultural nation. Th e ideology of assimilation was abandoned along with the democratization of the country, and pluralism began to dominate in the ethnic policy as in other spheres of public life,. Just

11 Here I note that in the framework of so understood nation they often include Tuvinians—a Turkish-language group. According to B.Batbayar, in XIX century the Uriankhai people were considered Mongols, the example of this can be participation of Uriankhai troops in liberation of Mongolia from Chinese power (Baabar 1999: 186-188).

12 Instructive here can be the discussion about the rudiments of the Buriat nation and the role which the Russian state and USSR played in its creation (see: Nimaev 2000, Chimitdorzhiev 2001).

Zbigniew Szmyt

26

as in many parts of the world of this period, Mongolia began the process of the revitalization of ethnicity: yastan, or ugsaatan, were no longer considered to be a relic, they turned into manifestation of wealth of the Mongolian people.

After the collapse of the hitherto dominating socialist ideology there arose a number of ethnic discourses in public space that often contradict each other. Ethnic leaders of Tuvinians and Buriats living in Mongolia expressed their wish to be recognized as national minorities as it was done with Kazakhs. It is interesting that almost all the Buyats from Hövsgöl, Dornod and Hentey aimags whom I met did not share the conviction about their national isolation. In contrast with the Buriats from Russia they identifi ed themselves as Buriat yastan, Mongol ündesten. However, having in mind the fact that nationalisms create nations, we can assume that such situations can be changed in parallel with the renewal of relations between Buriats from Russia and Mongolia. Th ose from Mongolia fall under the infl uence of two opposing national-ethnic ideologies. According to one of them, they are a part of the Mongolian nation, according to another; they are a Buriat national diaspora living outside their homeland. Some scientists worry about the national terminology related to ethnic roots that in certain degree can exclude non-Mongolian minorities from the concept of a nation. An interesting suggestion for changes in terminology used in the state vocabulary was given by Gombosüren. In his opinion, the term national (ündesnii)—can be replaced by the term ulsyn—state (Gombosüren 2001, from: Lhamsüren 2006: 52-53). Hence the term national could “open up” for the groups of the Mongolian origin living outside the territory of the Mongolian state.

Th is interesting suggestion becomes an attempt to overcome certain schizophrenia in the Mongolian national discourse. Mongolia continuously supports the unity of the Mongolian world off ering the idea of nation, created by Chinggis Khan. Mongolian groups residing in Russia and China in this context are often considered victims of colonization. Th ey are constantly expected to confi rm their Mongolness. During a fi eld research carried out in 2006 in Ulanbaatar we noticed that Russian-speaking Buriats are often met with hostility of the capital’s residents. Many Mongols considered shameful the loss of their native language by Buriats, which is considered a dialect of the Mongolian language. Lack of knowledge of the (Buriat-)Mongolian language sometimes was taken by the Mongols as a declaration—“I am not a Mongol”—and considered within the categories of national betrayal. Mongols from Outer Mongolia also consider Mongols from Inner Mongolia as “defective” ones. Dissatisfaction is caused by occurrences in their speech borrowed from the Chinese language. Th e fact that they do not show hostility toward the Chinese, so widely spread in Mongolia, is taken as national


27

betrayal. Inner Mongols marry to the Chinese and stop being “pure-blooded Mongols” (cever cusny Mongol). Inner Mongols do not have cultural unity which was reached by the inhabitants of Outer Mongolia due to the state practices.

Representatives of Mongolian groups, who are not the citizens of Mongolia, are perceived ambivalently, between the categories “our” and “alien”. Th e state discourse creating the identity of an ethno-civil nation excludes them because they do not participate in the sphere of the state sacrum. Simultaneously, the same discourse includes them into the community, because this sacrum continuously refers to the heritage of Chinggis Khan. Th e abovementioned diffi culties in inter-ethnic relations of Mongolian groups point to the need of discussion of general terminology, which would create a place for ethnic diff erentiation, build solidarity between groups, and at the same time would allow for expression of interests of individual groups.

Bibliography

Atwood C., 2004, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire, Bloomington.Batsaikhan E.-O., 2009, Bogdo Jebsundamba Khutuktu, the Last King of Mongolia,

Ulaanbaatar.Baabar, 1999, History of Mongolia, Cambridge.Barth F., 1969, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, Boston.Bulag U.-E., 1998, Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia, Oxford.—, 2000, ‘From Inequality to Diff erence: Colonial Contradictions of Class and

Ethnicity in Socialist’ China,’ “Cultural Studies,” Vol. 14 (3/4).—, 2002, Th e Mongols at China’s Edge. History and the Politics of National Unity,

New York.—, 2003, ‘Mongolian Ethnicity and Linguistic Anxiety in China,’ “American

Anthropologist,” Vol. 105, No. 4, December, pp. 753-763.Gellner E., 2006, Nations and Nationalism, Oxford.Gombosuren Ts., 2001, ‘Th e Conception of National Security of Mongolia,’ “Th e

scientifi c basis of the Conception of National Security,” Ulaanbaatar, pp. 18-26.

Jasiewcz Z., 1987, Radziecka szkoła etnografi czna, In: Z. Staszczak (ed.), Słownik etnologiczny. Terminy ogólne, Warszawa—Poznań, pp. 300-304.

Kaplonski C., 1993, ‘Collective Memory and Chingunjav’s Rebellion,’ “History and Anthropology,” Vol. 6, No. 2-3, pp. 223-259.

—, 1998, ‘Creating National Identity in Socialist Mongolia,’ “Central Asian Survey,” Vol. 17(1), pp. 35-49.

Lhamsuren M.-E., 2006, ‘Th e Mongolian Nationality Lexicon: From the Chinggisid Lineage to Mongolian Nationality (From the seventeenth to the early twentieth century),’ “Inner Asia,” Vol. 8, pp. 51-98.

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Morozova I., 1999, ‘Japan and its Infl uence towards Panmongolism and Panbuddhism,’ “International Journal of Central Asian Studies,” Vol. 4, Seoul.

Pegg C., 2001, Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities, Seattle-London.

Smith A.D., 2008, Th e Cultural Foundations of Nations. Hierarchy, Covenant and Republic, Michigan.

Szynkiewicz S., 1984, ‘Naród wyrosły w stepie,’ In: K. Gawlikowski (ed.), Postacie narodów a współczesność, Warszawa.

Bira Sh., 2001, ‘Chingiin “Ikh zasag” huuliin talaarkhi süüliin üeiin sudalgaany düngees,’ “Mongolyn tüüh, soël, tuukh bičlegiin sudalgaa (Büteelijn emkhtlel), III-dugaar bot,” Ulaanbaatar, pp. 256-262.

Viiktorova L., 1981, Mongoly. Proiskhozhdenie nacii i istoki kul’tury, Moskva.Voronoeva D., 2007, Buriaty i mongolskii mir v kontekste identifi kacionnoi funkcii

ètnonima. Buriaty i mongolskii mir v kontekste identifi kacionnoi funkcii ètnonima, Ulan-Udè.

Zankhüü Zh., Altanceceg T., 1999, Mongolyn tüükhiin lekcuud, Ulaanbaatar.Nimaev D., 2000, Buriaty: Ètnogenez: i ètnicheskaia istoriia, Ulan-Udè.Tishkov V., 2003, Rekviem po ètnosu. Issledovaniia po social’no-kul’turnoi

antropologii, Moskva.Chimitdorzhiev Sh., 2001, Buriat-Mongoly. Istoriia i sovremennost, Ulan-Udè.

Zbigniew Szmyt

Th e History of Nation and Ethnicity in Mongolia

A b s t r a c t

Th is article deals with ethnic and national processes in Mongolia. It analyzes the panmongolian, socialist and post-socialist ethnic/national discourses, paying special attention to the practices of inclusion and exclusion of border groups in/from the category of the “nation.” I analyze the infl uence of the ethnological discourse on the current ethnic policy in Mongolia, and consider the trials of national identity construction leading to the ambivalent perception of Inner Mongolians and Buryats as both: “us” and “strangers.”

K e y w o r d s : Mongols, Buryats, Mongolia, nationalism, ethnicity.

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Vol. VIII (2012/3)pp. 29-40

Ivan PeshkovAdam Mickiewicz University, Poznan

Social Crisis, Ethnic Distance and Memory along the Chinese—Soviet Border. Th e Chinese Russian Old-Settlers narratives about the “Chinese” Famine and Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia

The relationship between individual and social in the perception of traumatic events has been a problem of stable concern of ethnographers

and social anthropologists.1 Th is complicated relationship between the biological and cultural nature of Famine and Mass Violence experience provoked suspicions about the possibility of explanation of the research phenomena in question. Th e critique went to basic assumption of biomedical approaches to nutritional and violence crises and provoked new questions about emotional, institutional and social aspects of research investigation. Th e situation of distancing from others stemming from a diff erent cultural status can change the optics of perception considerably and result in completely diff erent adaptation strategies. Internal and external perception of a given community as partly alien to the dominant ethnic group develops more determined survival strategies (including greater solidarity, support received from befriended communities, and eff orts to receive special treatment from the state) at the time of traumatic disturbances. Viewing complex and often chaotic socialist modernization processes (repressions, expropriations, fi ghting reaction, etc.) in clear terms of an ethnocultural confl ict off ers a possibility to focus on the defense of the material, symbolic and cultural capital of a given community.

1 M.J. Maynes, J.L. Pierce, B. Laslett, Telling Stories. Th e use of Personal Narratives in the Social Science and History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London 2008, p. 1.

Ivan Peshkov

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Th e GLP Famine2 and the Great Cultural Revolution3 were extraordinary tragic events in the post-war history of China. Th e controversial legacy of these events has always inspired research interest in China and abroad. Th e development of oral history and research devoted to memory has off ered an opportunity to confront archive research on the above-mentioned traumatic events with the subjective dimension of trauma. It is worth noting that for various reasons the opinions of small ethnic minorities in Northeastern China have not been analyzed thoroughly. Th e lack of research concerns especially concerned the cases in which a minority status was combined with the residence in the Chinese-Soviet Border Area and an ex-émigré status.

Th e border system in Inner Asia (the border triangle of the USSR, PRM, and PRC) was a part of the Cold-War Sino-Soviet border management model in the area. Th e model was characterized by the closed-border policy, special attention from state authorities to the supervision of border communities (special rights, movement control, the propagandist idea of a border as a bastion, etc.), and a very strong connection between socialist modernization and militarization of the area (on the economic, cultural and social levels).4 In each case concerning the Russian, Mongolian and Chinese border regions the application of that model provoked similar results: mass migration of new inhabitants, a special role of military institutions, and a deep experience of socialist modernization. Th e transborder quasi- indigenous Inner Asian communities (Russian Old-Settlers, Transbaikalian Cossacks) have very traumatic experience of the time: coercive separation from family members, social death in their own countries, demonization as spies and bandits and very long isolation from the place of birth and members of the communities in other countries. Th at situation created a special opportunity as regards the investigation of special contacts of the communities in question both with the dominated (Han Chinese) and subaltern (Mongol) local societies at

2 Great Leap Forward Famine—a social catastrophe in China caused by attempts to increase the paste of industrialization in the years 1958–1961. Th e tragedy resulted from simultaneous occurrence of terror, expropriations, and the collapse of agriculture. Th us, F. Dikkotter called the GLF Famine „one of the most deadly mass killings of human history,” see F. Dikkoter, Mao’s Great Famine. Th e History of China’s most Devastating Catastrophe, Bloomsbury, London 2011, p. xiii.

3 Th e Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China was a sociopolitical turmoil that took place from 1966 through 1976 (black decade). Millions of people in China were violently persecuted (beating, imprisonment, rape, torture, harassment) or forcibly displaced during the Cultural Revolution.

4 И. Пешков, Граница на замке постсоветской памяти. Мифологизация фронтирных сообществ на примере русских из Трехречья, In: В. Дятлов (ред.) Миграции и диаспоры в социокультурном, политическом и экономическом пространстве Сибири. Рубежи ХIХ–ХХ и ХХ–ХХI веков, Иркутск: Оттиск 2010.

Social Crisis, Ethnic Distance and Memory

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the time of socialist modernization.5 Th is paper aims at showing—using the example of Th ree-River Delta Russians memory practices—the relationship between the special Ethnic status and memory of the social modernization trauma in the Chinese-Soviet border area. Th e group in question consisted of Transbaikalian-Cossack and Transbaikalian Old-Settler immigrants to China, who wanted to avoid Soviet Mass Violence. Most of them settled densely on the Derbul, Haul, and Gan river banks. Th at was what the term ‘Th ree-River Delta’ stems from.

Th e Mixed Communities in the Trap of Chinese-Soviet Border Management

Th e assumption of the target ethnic, confession and political coherence of the borderland area is crucial for the Russian (Tsarist) colonial experience in Asia, which based on agrarian use of nomadic frontier land and forced extruding of disloyal nomadic population to Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan and China.6 Th is model of target coherence included a special policy of frontier disloyalty prevention practices based on re-orientaion of indigenous nomadic population towards Russia by controlling the transborder movement, the separation of religious institutions from the authorities outside Russia, state support for migration and active militarization of indigenous population. In the eastern Siberian case, the “coherence” in Transbaikalian borderland was understood as a Russia-oriented agro-nomadic space with the essential role of military institutions and cultural domination of Orthodox communities.7

In contrast with Central Asia, the “Siberian waste area” was not conceptualized as the “sleepy Orient”, but as a culturally exotic space.8 In this cultural context modernity in Siberia was implemented from the Center to the Periphery in a non-evolutionary way and in extraordinary forms. In the southern part of Eastern Siberia the Siberian project was very diff erent from the one in the northern part of Siberia. Th e diff erence was caused by the government’s perception of the “vacant” land in Inner Asia as a reservoir for mass peasant migration. Th e process was based on

5 For the Chinese-Mongolian relations in Inner Mongolia see: U.E. Bulag, Collaborative Nationalism. Th e Politics of Friendship on China’s Mongolian Frontier, Lanham 2010.

6 А. Вишневский, Серп и рубль. Консервативная модернизация в СССР, О.Г.И., Москва 1998.

7 I. Peshkov, Zakładnicy „wyobrażonej przeszłości”. Problemy tożsamości etnicznej i kulturowej Guranów Zabajkalskich w Syberii Wschodniej, “Lud,” Vol. 92, 2008.

8 M. Bassin, Inventing Siberia: Visions of the Russian East in the Early Nineteenth Century, “American Historical Review,” 1991, 3 (93).

Ivan Peshkov

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the mass migration of peasant settlers from the western part of Russia and the policy of “ruralization” of nomadic communities. Before the beginning of the 20th century the ideal border settler from the Russian point of view was conceptualized as a member of military (Cossack) or cultural (Orthodox peasant) colonial formations. Th e mixture of three strategic areas of state policy (concerning the land suitable for agriculture, railroads, and border management) provoked strong pressure concerning de-nomadization and acculturation of the indigenous peoples of Transbaikalia. As a result, the mixed population of Southern Siberia could reproduce the Eastern European peasant style of living and participate in Russian culture demonstrating the Eastern European identity (of Orthodox peasants).

Th e appearance of Russians in Eastern Siberia caused the emergence of a row of groups of a near-indigenous status based on the metisation of Russians, Buryats and Evenks. Th ese mixed communities are referred to as the “Old Settlers” (starozhily). Th eir mixed origin has been at the core of the Old Settlers’ identity: there is a sharp line between the Old Settlers and the Natives, on the one hand, and between the Old Settlers and the newcomer Russians, on the other. Such communities consist of members imaginarily related to the fi rst Russian migrants to Siberia (until the late 18th century). Th e conquest resulted in the development of new forms of ethnic and cultural identity based on cultural syncretism and metisation of the members of the analyzed groups with the inhabitants of the region. Th e shaping of new mixed cultures in Siberia manifested by their “connecting” to great historical constructions. It showed new communities as resulting from the orientalization process of the ancestors of the fi rst-wave settlers in Siberia. Th ese mixed communities need to keep the balance between Russian culture and the elements of the indigenous one. Th e existence of this balance is possible thanks to their including themselves in the narrative that is understandable for everyone and justifi es the contact with indigenous culture and territory. Th e Russianization and Westernization of the past did not collide with the strong oriental elements of their culture.9 In the case of mixed communities forgetting is more important than memory. Forgetting in a systematic way off ers a possibility of very good adjustment to social and ethnic changes and preserving the local inter-racial relations and cultural prestige of the community. If the next generations recognize themselves as products of the fi rst inter-race marriage, the mixed communities can retain a special race position (mestizo) and the role of a very important component in the region’s culture.

Th e specifi city of Eastern Transbaikalia as regards most part of its population was the overlapping of the quasi-indigenous status and the

9 I. Peshkov, op. cit., 2008, p. 30.


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Cossack estate. Th is cultural pattern is very important to understanding the Soviet policy towards Transbaikalian border areas. Th e hostile attitude of the communist authorities to the Cossacks (decossackization, dekulakization, and deportations) and the new socialist border regime provoked radical ethnic and social changes in the area. Local and indigenous inhabitants still played a nominal role in the symbolic and political life of the region, but generally most inhabitants had a migrant origin and very weak ties to the non-socialist period of the region’s history and culture. In that context active border cleansing policy fi nally isolated the new Soviet Transbaikalia from old social and cultural structures. Th e fi rst three decades of the new system were particularly traumatic for the analyzed groups. Th eir mass migration to China began in 1918 and initially it concerned only richer Cossacks escaping to avoid decossackization practices.10 In time, because of terror, starvation, and persecution, they were joined by Russian peasants, the Old Believers, and the Evenki. A large percentage of Cossacks in the fi rst immigration wave established the models for perceiving migrants to borderline territories for a long time (they were perceived according to their origin and political views). Soviet propaganda for many years defi ned both countries of exile as places of refuge of politically active White Cossack emigrants.

Th e Th ree-River Delta Russians experienced the time of cultural and economic domination in their area of inhabitance,11 the genocidal policy of Soviet military troops in 1929 and strong repressions after the “liberation” in 1945.12 Th e community strengthens the Russian elements of its identity and totally “forgets” about its mixed origin. Th e elements of Tungus and Mongolian cultures are excluded from the narrative, although everyone is aware of them. Th e group’s Orthodox identity has been reinforced, its members have been provided with strong missionary activity (among the Evenki and Mongolian), and they generally reveal a tendency to stick to their “purely Russian” identity. Th e strengthened Russian identity can improve the status of the community as a cultural center of the region. In that case the border was played a crucial role in their social status, models of adaptation and contacts with regional authorities. A very special form of emigration (10-20 km from place of birth) and the domination of ex-Russian citizens in the area was a result of the cultural transition of the area and the big infl uence

10 И. Пешков, Гураны, семеновцы, местнорусские. Специфика идентичности и культуры забайкальских гуранов в Монголии, Россия в Монголии: История и современность, Улаанбаатар 2008.

11 E.J. Lindgren, An Example of Culture Contact without Confl ict: Reindeer Tungus and Cossacks of Northwestern Manchuria, “American Anthropologist,” 1938, Vol. 40(4).

12 I. Peshkov, People in the Shadow of the Soviet Border. Politicization of Quasi-Indigenousness on the Russo-Chinese Frontier, in print.

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of the Russian lifestyle on all inhabitants of the area. In many cases border localization stopped acculturation processes and caused greater acceptance of the Russian lifestyle from Chinese and Japanese authorities as “natural.” Th at introduced the quasi-indigenous population into the political sphere of border management and joined the questions of cultural syncretism and metisation (cultural coherence) with the imperative of frontier loyalty in the borderline areas (political coherence). Before 1945 Soviet and Japanese intelligence forces were competing for the soul of that mainly illiterate village community. In the period of Cultural Revolution the local Russians were accused of illegal communication with the Soviet intelligence.

From 1945 until 1956 the analyzed community was the object of the sovietization policy of the institutions in borderline territories. Th e USSR turned Russian private schools into Soviet state schools, organized access to Soviet propaganda movies, Soviet consulates encouraged to return “home.”13 Following 1956 the mass migration to the USSR and Australia started. Nowadays, the number of Cossack descendants in the region is rather minimal. Th e ones who decided to stay in China were mostly of mixed origin (Chinese and Russian) or poor, without relatives in the USSR. In that period we can talk about new Russian community in Inner Mongolia dominated by the people of a very low status in the former Russian community: Orthodox women with Chinese husbands, people from mixed (Chinese-Russian) families and poor Russian peasants excluded from two important networks of social support: the Cossack and Old Believer ones. Radical changes in the structure and cultural background of the communities did not concern the inter community racial order. It is very important since the local racial discourse has had a big infl uence of Sino-Russian cultural and geopolitical competition. Racial diff erences combined with civilizational diff erences. Th e people from mixed families were recognized as Mestizos only in the case of Chinese socialization of their parents (mainly Han Chinese). In 1966 the “dark decade” (the Cultural Revolution) in the life of the community started, since all the Russian (Orthodox) people were accused of believing in superstitions and espionage on behalf of the USSR. Apart from the physical extermination of its numerous members, the group experienced drastic bans on speaking or using Russian (even at home) and on practicing its religion. As a result most of the group members born in the late 1960s have problems with speaking Russian or do not speak the language at all. Th e situation of the group improved considerably following 1978 and nowadays one can even talk about a special support policy as regards the community.

13 Ibid.


35

Memories About (Distance and) Trauma

Th e borderline territory witnessed the emergence of a sub-culture based on the Siberian model of mixed peasant communities.14 Th e feature of this model is a network of remembering and forgetting practices which help the group to position it as a part of the Russian world and to impose its own racial hierarchy in the region. In this context memory is constant support of Russian elements and “forgetting” about non-Russians. In the situation of multicultural orientation the main goal was realized through strong dramatization of acculturation pressure and past traumas. Because of predominant illiteracy on the part of the older generation and the Chinese socialization (education) of the younger part the community does not participate in Russian historical mythology (in its Russian, Soviet or post-Soviet versions). Th e members do not diff erentiate between the World Wars and they express ambivalent attitude towards most historical dilemmas experienced by today’s Russians.15 Th e basis of their historical memory is their own version of their history (the oral version), which consists of the declaration of their Russian origin and the three traumas connected with the attempts to modernize the region: the Russian Civil War (the reason for their presence in the area), the Japanese occupation (perceived negatively), the GLF Famine and to a greater extent the Cultural Revolution.

In all three cases the group distances itself from the events, not sympathizing with any side of the confl ict and perceiving itself as a passive victim: they came, they took, they broke—it is always “them.” Th e communists took the land in Transbaikalia, the Japanese occupied it, and Chinese caused the GLF and the Cultural Revolution.16 Th e group remains a passive bystander. Th e group suggested the division between Chinese ( radical ideological) and local Russian (normality and common sense) worlds. Th is pattern transferred into narratives about the Great Famine. Because the strong agrarian skills, relatively long sedentarily stage, support from friendly nomads and special food rights of ex-Russian citizens the community memory transformed the experience of the Famine into the mostly “Chinese issue.” It was Chinese from the perspective of both its reasons and consequences. Th e causes given by the representatives of the community can be divided into global

14 Ю.В. Аргудяева, Русское население в Трехречье, “АТР,” 2006, No. 4. 15 И.П. Башаров, Русские Внутренней Монголии краткая характеристика группы, In: Б.В.

Базаров (ед.), Азиатская Россия: миграция, регионы и регионализм в исторической динамике, Оттиск, Иркутск 2010.

16 I. Peshkov, Rosjanie z Mongolii Wewnętrznej w cieniu projektowanej i praktykowanej przeszłości. Pułapki rosyjskości retrospektywnej na pograniczu rosyjsko-chińskim, “Lud,” 2010, Vol. 94, p. 225

Ivan Peshkov

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and local. Th e global ones include predominantly excessive radicalism of Chinese communists in the 1950s, poverty and unfriendly politics of the USRR in relation to China. Th e respondents generally agreed with the Maoist interpretation according to which the famine was caused by suspending economic aid and forcing China to pay its debts to the USSR. It showed that the ethnic distance and suggested diff erence from the Chinese world went hand in hand with the acquisition of basic propaganda models of the time. Th e local reasons concern the inadequacy of migrants from the South, the lack of contact with nomads that could supply the Chinese with food and the harsh social policy of the state. Th e migrants from the south faced radically diff erent climate and living conditions. Th e respondents in turn viewed themselves as hosts of the area (they had inhabited it before the Chinese arrived) who had special rights, qualifi cations and connections with nomads that enabled them to transform the tragedy of the Great Famine into the drama of undernourishment. Such a combination allowed for transferring the responsibility for the results of famine onto the social and economic weakness of starving people. Th e community in question excluded itself from the “Chinese tragedy.” Even people originating from very poor families (with strong starvation experience) distance themselves from the famine experience.

Th e experience of the Cultural Revolution, however, is the most important for the analyzed group. Th e memories of that trauma are essential when it comes to the group’s relationships with the Russians from Russia. It often happens that someone approaches the visitor and says: “Th ey treated us terribly back then”, and goes away. Apart from the natural concentration on the trauma this practice has a communicative dimension. Th e memories of the Cultural Revolution evoke empathy and sympathy on the part of all the representatives of the Russian world. Th e diff erences in experience are disregarded—what counts is ethnic solidarity. Th e Cultural Revolution destroyed the local social order changing the dominant group into the “pariah,” preserving, however, the internal racial diff erentiation of the community. Before the Cultural Revolution the analyzed group was divided into three parts: the pure Russians (whose parents were not the PRC citizens), the so cold half-Russian people (Mestizos with a Chinese parent) and the russifi ed Orthodox Mongolian and Tungus. Paradoxically, the traumatic events only strengthened that division.17 Th at changed the perspective and character of memories. At least some of the “pure Russians” say that their

17 Caroline Humphrey described similar phenomena using the example of the “u” people in her brilliant paper Th e Fate of Earlier Social Ranking in the Communist Regimes of Russia and China, In: R. Guha and J. Parry (eds.), Institutions and Inequality: Essays in Honor of Andre Beteille, Oxford University Press, Delhi 1999.


37

life was better, because they were forbidden to attend meetings (a state secret). Nonetheless, they could neither speak their language nor practice their religion. Th ey were also attacked in the streets and experienced other unpleasant situations. Th eir memories are very distanced—they describe the world of madness as seen by peasants. Th ey concentrate mostly on defending their own world—hiding icons, attempts to save Orthodox churches, ethnic solidarity. Th e Chinese (apart from family members) are viewed as strangers. Th e attacks of youth storm groups have been described from the perspective of a human versus bestial confl ict, where the human represented the world of an Orthodox village and the bestial—Communist hysteria: “Th e Chinese behaved like animals, they entered houses and broke everything they found.” It is a signifi cant manifestation of distance. As Steven Shekespeare wrote referring to Th e Animal Th at Th erefore I Am by J. Derrida,

Th e border between human and its other are negotiable and cultural. … As Derrida has argued, even to speak of “animals” as if that word has to power to gather an unimaginable diversity of being under one heading, is a travesty. It is projection of human colonizing power.18

Nowadays the group is not numerous and consists mainly of elderly women. Gender specifi city of the respondents off ers a possibility to see the Cultural Revolution through the confl ict between “sarafans” and “trousers”: “We had to dress like Chinese women—we started wearing trousers.”

Th e second group had a much worse life. Its members had to take part in the ongoing events. Th ey were beaten and murdered much more often. Nevertheless, they participated in the life of the outside world because of their knowledge of its language and culture, and their status. Th eir memories also describe the Chinese as “them,” but the Cultural Revolution is associated most of all with meetings and the bad behavior of the neighbors. Th e memories are dominated with violence and the lack of understanding as regards persecutions. Th ey include descriptions of torturing, self-accusations, suicides. Nonetheless, these people go beyond the we versus them framework. Th ey talk about Chinese victims, indoctrinated youth, and the mistakes made by politicians. Th e danger of their situation was having a Russian mother and living in the borderline area. Th ey were accused of illegal communication with the Soviet intelligence. Th e memories of the Orthodox Mongolian and Evenki are dominated with the dilemma related to renouncing the assumed Russianness (the Orthodox faith) and with the price paid for keeping their faith (years in prison).

18 S. Shakespeare, A Walk on the Wild Side: Church and Identity beyond Humanism, “Journal of Anglican Studies,” 7(1), p. 19.

Ivan Peshkov

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Following the Cultural Revolution religion and contacts with Russian culture became of secondary importance—it is history and the society that defi ned the group consisting of the above-mentioned communities as Russian. Th e Cultural Revolution trauma strengthened its identity and status in the region destroying the world of the Th ree-River Delta. Th e radical change in status (for the better) and opening the borders included the analyzed group in Chinese-Russian borderline relations as a “middleman.” Nevertheless, it has been undergoing radical transformation. Th e structure of the Siberian sub-culture is no longer adequate for both post-Soviet Siberia and modern Inner Mongolia.19 Th e group has been learning to be Russian, both for the Russians and the Chinese. It has been ceasing, however, to be Eastern European and becoming a Chinese minority with strong Russian identity.

Th e fundamental ways of conceptualization of both traumatic experiences are “distancing oneself” from it and transforming the experiences of the murderous politics regarding borderline ethnic minorities introduced by the local originators of the Cultural Revolution into a Chinese and Russian cultural confl ict, in which the Russian community fell victim of ethnic persecution. Regardless the radically diff erent tone of the stories about the Great Famine (ranging from humorous to pitying) and the Cultural Revolution (a solemn tragedy), in both cases the group has created an ethnic distance from the Chinese, which allowed for presenting all the events from the symbolic perspective the Chinese versus the Russian. Th at in turn enabled not only preserving an illusion of an independent outlook on the world, but also created the perspective of “special rights stemming from the experienced injustice” in relation to China and Russia. Th e above demonstrates a considerable infl uence of cultural, and thus social and institutional conditions on the way people experience traumas. Conscious alienation from the dominant group and minimalization of the confl ict with the state off ered a possibility to concentrate collective eff ort on the survival and transformation of the experienced trauma into social capital in the form of special injustice-related rights granted by the governments of China and Russia. In that context the ethnic distance from general social processes evoked by memory practice appears to be a powerful factor deforming both the way of experiencing traumas and post-traumatic adaptation.

19 I. Peshkov, Lokalne wymiary projektu syberyjskiego w regionach przygranicznych. Pamięć, tożsamość i status miejscowych Rosjan w Mongolii Wewnętrzne, In: M. Pietrasiak i M. Stańczyk (eds.), Problemy społeczno-gospodarcze Syberii, Wydawnictwo IBIDEM, Łódź 2011, http://www.wsmip.uni.lodz.pl/jednostki/strona_zakladu_azji/Ksiazka-o-Syberii-INTERNET.pdf


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Conclusion

Th e key feature of socialist modernization was routine use of mass violence both as a tool to eliminate the existing sociocultural structures and as a basic mechanism of social regulation. Th e literature related to the subject lists a number of issues connected with repressions, deportations and conscious provocation of malnutrition and famine in agricultural areas (connected with the preference of industry to agriculture). Th e social costs of this model of modernization as well as its destructive consequences for the society’s everyday life have been subject to numerous analyses, both descriptive and theoretical. Nonetheless, the cases of the long-standing use of mass violence towards the near-indigenous groups inhabiting North-Eastern China have hardly managed to attract researchers’ attention. Th ere are a few reasons for such a situation, i.e. the groups’ lack of clear ethnic designata, the distant geographical situation of their dwelling places, and their inability to overcome their own denial practices. Th e groups’ cultural specifi city and the process of their exclusion from the socialist modernization project in Inner Asia have not been fully analyzed. Such a situation can hardly be considered as satisfying. Th us, the perspective regarding the relations of the near-indigenous communities with the Socialist state constitutes a promising fi eld for studies. We are dealing with a special situation here, i.e. mixed ethnic groups favored by the previous colonial system became the victims of both organized and unorganized violence despite the simultaneous activation of the new ethnic and racial order. Mixed communities that originated as a result of one colonial and modernizing project were consciously and systematically eliminated after the introduction of another. From that perspective their ways of surviving and recollecting traumatic experiences constitute an invaluable source for research regarding both historical events and the role of cultural factors (ethnic distance) in microcommunities’ adaptation to social crises.

Ivan Peshkov

Social Crisis, Ethnic Distance and Memory Along the Chinese-Soviet Border. Th e Chinese Russian Old-Settler narratives about the “Chinese”

Famine and Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia

A b s t r a c t

Th e key feature of socialist modernization was the routine use of mass violence both as a tool to eliminate the existing sociocultural structures and as a basic mechanism of social regulation. Th e literature related to the subject lists a number

40

of issues connected with repressions, deportations and conscious provocations of malnutrition and famine in agricultural areas (connected with the preference of industry to agriculture). Th e social costs of this model of modernization as well as its destructive consequences for the society’s everyday life have been subject to numerous analyses, both descriptive and theoretical. Nonetheless, the cases of the long-standing use of mass violence towards the near-indigenous groups inhabiting North-Eastern China have hardly managed to attract researchers’ attention. Such a situation can hardly be considered as satisfying. Th is paper aims at showing—using the example of Chinese Russian memory practices—the relationship between the special ethnic status and memory in the social modernization trauma in the Chinese-Soviet border area.

K e y w o r d s : Inner Asia, quasi-indigenousness, transborder studies.

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Vol. VIII (2012/3)pp. 41-58

Aleksandr ŁopińskaAdam Mickiewicz University, Poznan

Th e “Yellow Peril” Syndrome in Contem-porary Russia

In the last two decades, the term “Yellow Peril” has been appearing almost at all levels of the Russian debate on the infl ux of immigrants from the

PRC. In various situations it has been permeating into public statements of politicians, social activists and representatives of scientifi c circles. It has also often appeared in the press. Th e origins of this term, as well as the social phobia which it defi nes, should be sought in times of the nineteenth-century Western colonialism. Due to the long break with tsarist tradition in Soviet times, post-socialist return of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome as a part of a mosaic of various collective phobias that aff ect the worldview of modern Russians is puzzling. Given the strong convergence of pre-revolutionary and the current perception of threat that inevitably was to come from the East, the problem of relationship between historical and contemporary “Yellow Peril” in Russia is interesting. In this context, there is a question to what extent we can talk about the possible continuation of the nineteenth-century mindset, and to what extent we can discuss its reconstruction after dismantling the Soviet Union. Due to the fact that this typical for the 19th century concept, steeped in the civilizational and racial rhetoric, cannot function today without any changes. What is more, one should also consider the new components of the contemporary “Yellow Peril” syndrome. Th ey derive partly from the Soviet past and the consequences of the radical departure from the socialist categories of understanding the reality, and partly from completely new and extremely diff erent from the nineteenth-century organization of the international life and changes in global balance of power. Finally, considering the vitality of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome, persisting for more than two decades in Russia, one should note its implications for the internal political situation in the country.

Aleksandr Łopińska

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Th e “Yellow Peril” in the 19th Century

Th e „Yellow Peril” syndrome generally can be defi ned as a complex of fears and prejudices associated with the sense of variously understood threat from the expansion and domination of representatives of the yellow race, felt and expressed by the white people indentifying themselves with the Western civillization. Distinctive for this phenomenon, civilizational and racial rhetoric, based on Europocentric colonial approach to culturally and religiously diff erent non-Western nations, permeated the political and publicist discourse and became widespread among the “white societies” at the end of the 19th century. Dangerous “yellow race” was identifi ed mainly with the Japanese, due to their expansionism at the turn of the 20th century, and Chinese, which were politically and militarily weak “humiliated nation” on the one hand, but on the other they presented a huge demographic potential and never went under the “full” colonial domination of the West.

Th e term “Yellow Peril” as such was popularized by Kaiser Wilhelm II who used it in 1895 in the context of Japan’s victory in the war with China.1 Th e idea, which was hidden under this phrase, was the racist element of geopolitical thinking in the 19th century on the one hand, and the response to the intensifi cation of Chinese and Japanese migrations to the countries of the “civilized West” on the other. Placed in the context of the refl ections on the global balance of power, it was characterized by emphasizing the signifi cance of racial diff erences rather than national or interpersonal divisions, it was derived not from fear of “... any one country or people in particular, but from a vague and omnious sense of the vast, faceless, nameless yellow horde, the rising tide, indeed, of color.”2 To some extent, in European and American perceptions such as sense of threat from “alien other” racionalized their own colonial expansion—dividing and weakening of Asia was associated with a conviction that if it was militarily strong, it would pose a great threat. In this situation, imperialism and colonization were seen as a specifi c form of prevention.3 Perception of “organized yellow force” had also an impact on the growth of resentment against Asian immigrants in Western countries. In the United States fears of a competitive labour force from China and taking control over the national agricultural areas by “strangers” resulted in enactment of Th e Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which limited the number

1 D.A. Metraux, Jack London and Th e Yellow Peril, “Education About Asia,” 2009, Vol. 1(14), p. 29.

2 J. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacifi c War, New York 1986, p. 156, In: D. Scott, China and the International System, 1840–1949: Power, Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation, New York 2008, p. 6.

3 D. Scott, op. cit., p. 7.

The “Yellow Peril” Syndrome in Contem porary Russia

43

of Chinese immigrants in the country.4 Anti-immigrant resentment and fears in the U.S. were soon “transferred” to the Japanese, arriving to California in the last decade of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, fi lling a demand gap that emerged in the labour market in the agricultural sector.5 Th e Japanese were seen as a potential “fi fth column,” Hostility and suspiciousness toward them undoubtedly increased when Japan had defeated Russia in the military confl ict in 1905. It was the fi rst time in the modern era when the representatives of the alien race had triumphed over the white Europeans.6

Th e “Yellow Peril” syndrome functioning in the 19th century in the Russian Empire was not a unique phenomenon, it was a part of the outlined above, typical of European and American colonizers system of civilizational and racial prejudices and fears toward the “yellow masses,” Firstly, it was related to the Japanese expansionism strongly aff ecting the perception of external threats in Russia due to geographic location of the country and close proximity of newly colonized Far Eastern lands to the aggressor. Secondly, it developed because of the intensive contact between the Russian Far Eastern settlers and Asian immigrants, including Chinese, which was taking place since the second half of 19th century to the 30s of 20th century. It is worth mentioning that the defeat in the war with Japan in 1905 signifi cantly contributed to the deterioration of Russian approach to the Chinese immigrant population, which was manifested, inter alia, in strenghtening of formal restrictions on immigrants and transferred the discussion about the “yellow peril” to the political level. In the early 20th century this problem was openly discussed during the sessions of the Duma.7

On the eastern borderland of the Russian Empire, the Chinese functioned mainly as a cheap labour force that enabled the implementation of construction projects and exploitation of local natural resources, suppliers of cheap goods and services, small traders and entrepreneurs.8 Th ey were

4 K. Lee, Asian and African-American Co-operation and Competition in Nineteenth Century USA, “Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacifi c Studies,” 2006, Vol. 4:1, p. 82.

5 K. Aoki, Th e Yellow Pacifi c: Transnational Identities, Diasporic Racialization and Myth(s) of Th e “Asian Century,” “University of California Davis Law Review,” 2011, Vol. 3(44), pp. 913-914.

6 Ibid., p. 920.7 Т.Н. Сорокина, К вопросу о выработке иммиграционного законодательства для дальне-

восточных областей России в конце XIX–начале XX в., „Вестник Томского государственного университета,” 2004, Vol. 281, p. 67.

8 V. Karlusov, Chinese Presence in the Russian Far East: An Economist’s Perspective, paper presented at the international seminar “Human Flows across National Borders in Northeast Asia,” Monterey Institute of International Studies, November 2–3 2001, http://gsti.miis.edu/CEAS-PUB/200104Karlusov.pdf [accessed on: 25.10.2011], pp. 45-46; А. Ларин, Китайские мигранты в России. История и современность, Moscow 2009, pp. 27-37.


44

seen by the Russian settlers as a highly competitive market participants, hardworking and having low fi nancial requirements. It released great concerns—Russians feared that such situation would discourage potential migrants from the western part of the country from moving to the Far East and, therefore, diffi culties with the progress of colonization of the region would increase. Th e growth of the sense of insecurity was also undoubtedly infl uenced by the fact that without the participation of immigrants in the economic life of the Russian Far East, the development of the region would be impossible.9 On the Far Eastern lands, newly incorporated into the Russian Empire and still sparsely populated by European settlers, the idea of potentially dangerous “masses,” “Oriental horde of many millions,” being a part of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome, gained extraordinary impact on the imagination of local society as the multi-million China was “right next to” them and demographic imbalances on both sides of the border were huge. Th e concept of a “sleeping” Chinese giant combined with the fear of his awakening and releasing vast amounts of hidden strength,10 typical of the “Yellow Peril” rhetoric, had also quite intense infl uence on the Russians, especially on the borderland. Along with the concerns about the demographic disparities, this fear caused a sharp increase in anti-Chinese moods in the Far East and the tragically ended outbreak of panic in Blagoveshchensk that took place during the Boxer Rebellion in China.11

Th e Th reat from Asia—Reconstruction of the Idea

Between 1937, when Stalin decided to deport immigrants of Chinese and Korean origins from the eastern part of the USSR, and 1988, when the Sino-Soviet border control regime was liberalized, the “Yellow Peril” syndrome vanished, along with the change in political ideology and the disappearance of migrants, which were the key factor stimulating this phobia in the society. In the 90s of the 20th century, when for the second time in the history of bilateral relations the mass infl ux of Chinese to the eastern part of Russia occurred, the discussed syndrome has been restored.

9 В. Дятлов, Е. Дятлова, Китаец в дореволюционной и современной России: ре-инкарна-ция образа?, Восточные регионы России: стратегии и практики освоения, Novosibirsk 2006, pp. 96-98.

10 D. Scott, op. cit., p. 3.11 Я.С. Гузей, Боксерское восстание и синдром „желтой опасности”: антикитайские

настроения на российском Дальнем Востоке (1898–1902 гг.), „Известия АГУ,” 2011, Vol. 4-2(72), pp. 82-86.


45

I deliberately use the term “reconstruction” as we cannot talk about undisturbed historical continuity between the nineteenth-century and contemporary idea of the “Yellow Peril,” Moreover, the “original” name of this phenomenon is used today without changes, and in contemporary Russian debate about the “Yellow Peril” premises of alleged threats from alien “masses” of immigrants are often identical to those perceived, or rather imagined in the 19th century. It does not mean, however, that the entire western colonizers’ civilizational and racial debate about the threat from “Oriental horde” has been taken unreservedly and without refl ections. However, the diff erences between the historical and contemporary, reconstructed version of the discussed syndrome are based primarily on the delegitimization of the racial and cultural segregation manifestations in the public debate, changes in China’s position on the global stage and the related consequences in the perception of this country and its citizens by contemporary Russians.

In the context of several decades interval between the two intense waves of Chinese immigration to Russia, the question is: on what basis the historical “Yellow Peril” rhetoric was reconstructed in the 90s of the 20th century? Th e generation that could remember well this pre-revolutionary syndrome was already dead, and every next generation grew in Soviet propaganda which broke with the earlier tradition. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, despite of the revolutionary transformations that took place in almost every sphere of social life, some trends have remained unchanged. One of them was undoubtedly the high rate of readership. At that very time, post-socialist transformation in the fi eld of journalism resulted in numerous references to the literature of the 19th and the early 20th century—reprinted editions of works by various Russian writers from before the revolution, including those creating on emigration and unpublished in the Soviet times, have appeared. Among them were works of Vladimir Soloviev and Dimitri Merezhkovsky, undertaking the problem of the “Oriental civilization” and, with typical of the 19th century manner, accentuating variously understood threat from the East, including the Middle Kingdom and its inhabitants. Th e return of the “forbidden” writers fell on the years 1989–1992, and the “Yellow Peril” problem described by them intertwined and harmonized with the hostility towards China as the last giant communist experiment that was expressed by the elites from the new liberal circles after the collapse of the USSR.12 Articles written in the early 20th century by Russians analyzing the threat from China and suggesting various remedies for the unfavorable, from their point of view, infl ux of immigrants from the East, were reprinted in the press in almost unchanged form. Many of them included the phrase “yellow

12 Information received during conversations with Ph.D. I. Peshkov (March 20, 2012).


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peril” in the title and attracted quite a lot of interest among readers.13 At the beginning of the 90s Russians gained wide access to this kind of publications which due to the context of the renewed Chinese immigration, very intense in comparison with the Soviet times, led to the reconstruction of specifi c, typical of the turn of the 20th century, conceptual apparatus connected to the sense of threat from the culturally alien Chinese. However, it should be noted that the popularization of such expressed concept did not came immediate after the abolition of the closed border regime,14 and the instrumentalization of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome by some Russian political elites played a catalytic role in this process, as it will be discussed further.

Renewed Edition of the Pre-revolutionary Phobia—Selected Analogies Between the Past and Present Perception of Th reat from the East

Th e ongoing Russian public debate about demographic and economic implications of Chinese immigration illustrates well the analogies between the nineteenth-century and contemporary “Yellow Peril” syndrome. At the beginning of the 21st century, these two issues were discussed most often in the alarmist approaches to the renewed infl ux of Chinese.15

Th ere is no doubt that in Russia, especially in its eastern part, the negative demographic and economic trends persist. After the collapse of the USSR the massive exodus of Russian population from the Far East to the west of the country has begun, and this direction of movements remains to be current in internal migration processes to this day.16 Th erefore, the issue of progressive depopulation of the region and the associated defi cits on the local labour markets is undoubtedly important, but presented in the context of the alleged “quiet expansion” of Chinese in Russia, it grows into the threat to the territorial cohesion of the state. It is worth to notice that the large

13 I. Saveliev, Chinese Migration to Russia in Space and Time, In: P. Nyiri, I. Saveliev, Globalizing Chinese Migration: Trends in Europe and Asia, Aldershot 2002, p. 62.

14 At the turn of the 90s of the 20th century, when it came to the actual resumption of contact between the Soviet citizens and the immigrants from the PRC, the infl ux of Chinese was taken with enthusiasm, because the concomitant economic cooperation helped to alleviate the consequences of the crisis in USSR in the period of pierestroika. See: А.В. Лукин, Медведь наблюдает за Драконом. Образ Китая в России в XVII–XX веках, Moscow 2006, pp. 291-292.

15 See: V. Gelbras, Chinese migration to the Russian Far East: a view from Moscow, http://gsti.miis.edu/CEAS-PUB/200208Gelbras.pdf, p. 144 [accessed on: 19.04.2012].

16 С.В. Голунов (ред.), Региональное измерение трансграничной миграции в Россию, Moscow 2008, p. 13.


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part of immigrants heads towards the Central Federal District,17 where their presence does not cause, though, any special controversies. In the southern part of the Russian Siberia as well as in the Far East, the situation is diff erent due to, inter alia, constantly raised issue of demographic imbalance on both sides of the border, which is to prejudge the high probability of “colonization” of eastern Russia by the Chinese, only because such disparity exists. In the extremely alarmist opinions about the “Chinese expansion,” the fact that in many cases migrations are short-term and focused primarily on achieving economic profi t18 is completely neglected. Such way of interpretation of potential threat is defi nitely not a new trend, it is a manifestation of the nineteenth-century thinking in terms of demographic determinism. Th e same fear of expansion through migrations infl uenced the approach of the inhabitants of the Russian Empire to the Chinese at the turn of the 20th century. Moreover, the fear of losing control over the national territories due to their possible “sinicization” was not specifi cally Russian phenomenon—in the 19th century the similar premises became the basis for the mentioned earlier, anti-Chinese legislation in the United States, although in the context of a completely diff erent geographical location of this country one could not talk about the sense of being “surrounded” by the racially and culturally alien Asians.

Today, as in the 19th century, tendency to holding migrants responsible for the growth of informal economy and for the complex economic and development problems of eastern borderland, permeates the rhetoric of the “Yellow Peril,” Corruption, transborder smuggling, tax off ences, avoidance of customs duties and the unfavorable, from the viewpoint of the Russian state, exchange of natural resources for cheap goods and services provided by migrants, are undoubtedly signifi cant problems for the economy. However, immigrants and their activity in the host country are not the causative factor in this case. Th e consolidation of undesirable norms of economic life in Russia is a result of transformation processes,19 while the Chinese workers and entrepreneurs adapted to the functioning in this complex reality rather than brought the qualitatively new, negative trends

17 А. Г. Ларин, op. cit., p. 151.18 M. Alexeev, Chinese Migration into Primorskii Krai: Economic Eff ects and Interethnic Hostility,

http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no2_ses/5-1_Alexeev.pdf, pp. 333-335 [accessed on: 11.03.2011].

19 More about the institutional problems in the period of the transformation: В.М. Пол-терович, Институциональные ловушки и экономические реформы, „Экономика и математичес-кие методы”, 1999, Vol. 35/2. About the regularities in the process of the post-socialist market transformation and its eff ect on the economies of the former Soviet republics: Е.Г. Ясин, Рос-сийская экономика: Истоки и панорама рыночных реформ, Moscow 2003, pp. 170-190.


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into it. However, emotionally marked, xenophobic opinions do not include such multifactorial interpretation of situation existing on the borderland. Identical views, blaming immigrants for everything that is bad, including the smuggling, “stealing” jobs from Russians, ruthless plunder of the Siberian and Far Eastern natural resources, and the broadly defi ned „demoralization” of Russian society, formed part of the pre-revolutionary rhetoric of the “Yellow Peril.”20 Indisputable is the fact that the current economic activity of Chinese immigrants on the eastern borderland takes place, at least partially, within the informal economy and, therefore, causes the increasing number of semi-legal, illegal or unregulated by the legislation of the host country transactions and activities. Nevertheless, the Russian counterparts of immigrants as well as the local and regional authorities share responsibility for the growth of the informal sector. Th e problem of gray area on the borderland followed a similar pattern at the turn of the 20th century—any attempts to enact the law which were to restrict the economically detrimental activities of immigrants, proved to be ineff ective due to existing legal loopholes, weakness of the regulatory bodies and high adaptability of both Russians and Chinese to frequent changes in legal regulations.21 Th ese issues, obvious at fi rst glance, although noticed by the scientifi c community, have rarely appeared in the alarmist press, both then and today, and thus had a limited impact on the “Yellow Peril” syndrome in the Russian society.

In the context of variously defi ned “illegality” of stay or activity of the Chinese in Russia, one more important issue intensifying the “Yellow Peril” syndrome should be discussed. Th e contemporary political science and sociological research shows that the size of migration is directly, although not always explicitly, associated with the sense of “realistic threat,”22 Meanwhile, illegal immigrants cannot be formally counted. Due to the nature of population movements on the Sino-Russian borderland (large share of shuttle migrations), and the degree of legalization of foreigners’ economic activity, recording the actual number of migrants is diffi cult, there is only the possibility of its estimation. Th e lack of clear data creates the fertile ground

20 В. Дятлов, Миграция китайцев и дискуссия о «желтой опасности» в дореволюционной России, http://otechestvo.ucoz.ru/publ/professor_vi_dyatlov/migraciya_kitaycev_i_diskussiya _ o_ zheltoy_opasnosti_v_dorevolyucionnoj_rossii/1_vstuplenie_migracija_kitajcev_i_diskussija _o_zheltoj_opasnosti_v_dorevoljucionnoj_rossii/82-1-0-324 [accessed on: 1.05.2012].

21 Е. Ли, Е. Скрипник, Борьба с „желтой угрозой” на Дальнем Востоке на рубежах XIX–XX и XX–XXI вв.: конфликт формальных правил и неформальных практик, „Известия АГУ,” 2011, Vol. 4-1(72), pp. 137-141.

22 Th e “realistic threat” might be understand as a threat to social or/and economic status of majority group. See: M. Alexeev, Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma. Russia, Europe and the United States, Cambridge University Press 2006, pp. 8-9.


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for various speculations and conjecture concerning the real number of the Chinese in Russia. In this situation not their total amount, but uncertainty and manipulation of information about it fuels a sense of threat, becoming a part of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome and perpetuating it. And again, the historical analogy can be observed—in the 19th century, the famous Russian publicist, Far Eastern entrepreneur and social activist S. Merkulow, publicly proclaimed an opinion that the offi cial data on the number of Chinese in the region are signifi cantly underestimated, and the economic engagement of migrants has become a serious obstacle on the way to the colonization of eastern territories by the Russian Empire.23

Th e mass media played a key role in the process of dissemination and perpetuation of the most alarmist opinions about the infl ux of the Chinese migrants, both in the 19th century and after the dismantling of the USSR. All the information presented were marked by rather simple, cause-and-eff ect perception of complex phenomena: if there are demographic disparities on both sides of the Sino-Russian border, the future colonization of the sparsely populated eastern Russia is inevitable; the pathologization of economic life and criminal manifestations of transborder contacts are primarily “fault” of immigrants who participate in the informal economy. Such tendency to simplifi ed interpreting of the complex socio-economic reality is not surprising, it is typical of the xenophobic reactions and the process of stereotyping of “alien” being the natural consequence of sudden ethnic and cultural clash. While comparing the nineteenth-century and contemporary Russian debate on the “Yellow Peril,” one can conclude that this simplifi cation took place twice and in each case it resulted in the stigmatization of immigrant population, based on similar, mostly irrational assumptions.

New Components of the Reconstructed Syndrome. Th e “Yellow Peril” and the “Chinese Th reat”

Despite the existence of the numerous parallels between the nineteenth-century and contemporary “Yellow Peril” syndrome in Russia, logically resulting from the reconstruction of the pre-revolutionary system of fears and prejudices after the collapse of the USSR, there are also some new elements in such perceived sense of threat. Th ese include the departure from the openly expressed manifestations of racial and civilizational segregation, global change in the role of migration processes, and the rise of the PRC taking place simultaneously with the transformation crisis in Russia and

23 В. Дятлов, op. cit.


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the depreciation of the Soviet Union’s successor international position after 1991.

As it was mentioned before, emphasis on the racial diff erences and division into the “white, civilized West” and the dangerous but highly primitive “yellow hordes,” was crucial for the nineteenth-century “Yellow Peril,” Modern political correctness and delegitimization of racial and cultural segregation led to exclusion from the common usage the term “yellow” referring to Asian people. It has preserved virtually only in the phrase “yellow peril,” due to literal restoration of the nineteenth-century term, without reference to racial diff erences between Russians and Asians. It does not mean, however, that components of racism have been completely excluded from Sino-Russian relations—one should rather assume that they aff ect the perception of foreigners in the latent manner.24 It is also worth to mention that in the past two decades there have been changes in fundamentals of distinguishing the “enemy aliens” among the Russians. We can observe an evolution from a “foreigner” or “ethnically alien” (инородец), to a stranger—“immigrant” or “immigrant worker” (гастарбайтер).25 Today, all collective fears which were previously racially or ethnically motivated, including the “Yellow Peril” syndrome, are becoming the part of more general phenomenon of anti-immigrant phobia in Russia.26

Th e contemporary role of migrations in global economy, far diff erent from the nineteenth-century, is also a very important issue. Eff ective integration into the global market is currently the goal of most countries, and Russia is no exception in this regard. In the pre-revolutionary period, in the debate on Chinese immigration to the Far East, beside the option of the effi cient use of the migrant labour, the possibility of deportation of the Chinese was taken into account.27 Today, the second of these alternatives is impossible to meet because of the internal economic and demographic problems in Russia, and the country’s need to participate in regional and global economic cooperation. Moreover, the eff ective expulsion of Asians from the territory of today’s Russia took place only once, in the late 30s of the 20th century, with the use of methods typical of the totalitarian regime. Dismantling of this regime meant the loss of the state’s ability to act radically in the fi eld of external migrations control. Th erefore, the contemporary “Yellow Peril” syndrome is

24 В. Дятлов, Е. Дятлова, op. cit., p. 112.25 В. Дятлов, Динамика формирования стереотипов, http://www.baromig.ru/experts/

stati-o-migratsii/grazhdane-blizhnego-zarubezhya-i-drugie-viktor-dyatlov-.php [accessed on: 12.04.2012].

26 From the lecture of Professor V. Dyatlov, Mythologization of the Chinese migration in contemporary Russia, Institute of Eastern Studies, AMU Poznan, November 4, 2011.

27 В. Дятлов, Динамика формирования стереотипов.


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strengthened by the sense of inevitability of infl ux of immigrants and their economic activity in the host country.

Th e new geopolitical context, strengthening the international position and impact of the PRC, introduces new signifi cant components to the contemporary, reconstructed “Yellow Peril” syndrome. While in the 19th century China was seen as a huge space and “sleeping” power, and the prospect of its possible “awakening” was the main source of fear, today this “awakening” has became a fact. Meanwhile, Russia has not inherited a superpower status from its legal predecessor—USSR, and the dissolution of the socialist giant has started the transformation crisis in the former Soviet republics, which continues to this day. In this context, the PRC is perceived as an organized power, focused on the development and expansion. Such perception pervades the contemporary rhetoric of the “Yellow Peril” and signifi cantly diff erentiates it from its historical equivalent. In Russia there is a popular theory about the China’s “plan” of domination, implemented through migrations of its citizens. In this context, the Chinese are seen as a mass, absolutely loyal to their homeland and consistently realizing its strategy of demographic, economic and territorial expansion.28 Th e phobia which concerned all representatives of the yellow race in 19th century, today is focused on the PRC and its “tools”—Chinese migrants. Th erefore, in the Russian public debate the term “Chinese threat” has appeared, which expresses more or less the same set of fears and prejudices as the phrase “yellow peril” used today. In the alarmist press releases, describing the threats coming from the Chinese presence in the eastern Russia, these two terms are often used interchangeably. Th eir close meaning is the manifestation of the earlier mentioned departure from the racial discourse and focusing of the phobia on citizens of the particular country—immigrants of Chinese nationality, and not the representatives of any particular race are in the center of attention. Th is concerns not only the offi cial rhetoric. Th e phenomenon of racism, which has not disappear but exists in a latent form, has also been “politicized” in this manner.

Th e Role of the Soviet Era and the Post-socialist Transformation

One of the factors of social popularity of the reconstructed “Yellow Peril” syndrome is the mental legacy of the Soviet Union. In the USSR, xenophobia was treated as a political tool to control and mobilize the society. Categories of

28 A. В. Лукин, op. cit., pp. 294-295; В. Дятлов, Трансграничные мигранты в современной России: динамика формирования стереотипов, „Международные исследования. Общество. Политика. Экономика,” 2009, Vol. 1, pp. 146-148.


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“internal” and “external” enemy were then in common use, therefore various divisions for “us” and “them” have been rooted in the mentality of Soviet citizens.29 Th e various lines of this divisions permeated all spheres of the country’s internal life, accentuated the ethnic and social diff erences between its citizens and conditioned the general approach to the foreigners. Given the high social acceptance of the infl ux of Chinese migrants observed shortly after the opening of the borders, it can be assumed that not the continuity of impact of the Soviet propaganda promoting fear of the PRC since the 60s of the 20th century, but rather the fi xed habit of categorizing people as “ours” and “aliens”, along with the tendency to stigmatize “aliens,” contributed to the strengthening of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome in the past two decades.

One should also notice that the mentality of inhabitants of the Sino-Russian borderland is still largely conditioned by the experiences of semi-war regime, binding in this region in the Soviet era. Th e concept of “besieged fortress” with the eastern border as its bastion, reduced to the role of barrier protecting the society from the ideological enemy and isolating citizens from any undesirable “external” infl uences, is still functioning in the consciousness of the contemporary Russians. It aff ects, however, the social relations on the borderland in a latent manner. Negation of the Chinese model of modernization and recognizing the continuity between the USSR and the Russian Federation with all its consequences, implies uncertainty and distance between Russians and anyone who is “not them,” especially the Chinese immigrants.30 During the gradual transformation of the border from barrier to intensive contact zone, the society, unable to cope with the post-socialist realities, returned to the old way of thinking in terms of “external enemy,” Th e local Russian press has contributed to increased tensions, regularly presenting the sensational reports about the criminogenic activity of Chinese migrants and the harmfulness of goods which they are selling. As a result, the view that “. . . in the ‘good old days’ of closed border life was much more peaceful and less dangerous”31 became more and more widespread.

Th e consequences of the way and pace of carrying out the deep systemic reforms also has an impact on the strengthening of infl uence of the “Yellow Peril” idea on the society. Although the transformation takes place on the both sides of the Sino-Russian border, it variously aff ects the societies involved in the transborder cooperation. Th e PRC has decided on a gradual

29 В. Дятлов, Трансграничные мигранты.30 И. Пешков, Граница на замке постсоветской памяти. Мифологизация фронтирных

сообществ на примере русских из Трехречья, In: В. Дятлов, Миграции и диаспоры в социо-культурном, политическом и экономическом пространстве Сибири. Рубежи XIX–XX и XX–XXI веков, Irkutsk 2010, pp. 601-616.

31 A.В. Лукин, op. cit., p. 293.


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transformation, controlled by the authorities as far as possible, involving only the sphere of economy. Ideological and constitutional foundations of the state remained intact and therefore, according to the intentions of the reformers, it was possible to avoid chaos comparable to that which occurred during the Cultural Revolution.32 Russia, in turn, has chosen the path of total, rapid and even revolutionary transformation. If we recognize the validity of the assumption that the accelerated transformation of values is the primary source of social phobias,33 we can conclude that the Russian society became very susceptible to the development and strengthening of various collective fears. Th e collapse of the USSR meant not only the rapid economic and political changes, but also the delegitimization of socialist ideological and moral system. However, such delegitimization might have been carried out quickly only at the political level—at the social level the Soviet mentality has been largely preserved, but in a latent form. Th e new, post-socialist system of values was only formed then, and some components of the Western way of thinking, “affi xed” to the post-Soviet reality during the neoliberal systemic changes, were simply rejected often without refl ections.

In this context, the lack of acceptance for the Chinese traders, a kind of disapproval for their activity, and the relative ease of their stigmatization are understandable. It results from associating their activity with the violation of not only legal, but also social norms. In one of her works, C. Humphrey highlights the fact that some concepts such as market, trade, democracy etc., regarded explicitly in the West, gained diff erent connotations when transferred to the new context. Trade, in the consciousness of post-socialist societies, provokes ambivalent reactions as something necessary from the economic point of view, but morally wrong, leading to enrichment without work. Th erefore, commercial activity is often linked with criminal activities.34 In Russia, which unlike the PRC has not experienced any experiments with the “socialist market economy” after the departure from the Lenin’s NEP, a there is a suspicious and full of hidden disapproval approach to the typical market relations and its participants including migrants, and it is quite common and deeply rooted in the social mentality.

Th e Russia’s post-socialist turn towards nationalism was also a problematic issue. It caused a huge internal social upheaval. Citizens of the multi-ethnic state which was the USSR, after years of silencing the

32 K. Seitz, Chiny. Powrót Olbrzyma, Warsaw 2008, pp. 242-244.33 А.Г. Янков Синофобия—Русофобия: реальность и иллюзии, „Социологические исследо-

вания,” 2010, Vol. 3, p. 71.34 C. Humphrey, Th e Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism, Ithaca

2002; see: M. Buyandelgeriyn, Post-Post Transition Th eories: Walking on Multiple Paths, “Annual Review of Anthropology,” 2008, Vol. 37, pp. 238-239.


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national discourse replaced with the idea of unity of the proletariat, faced the task of transition from Soviet to Russian identity. Th e typical reaction to this situation was the categorization of people, which along with the lack of overall agreement on what “the nation” is35, resulted in many diff erent “us” versus “them” judgments. Th e identifi cation of the “external enemy” is the simplest, and to Russians also well-known from the Soviet era, way of community consolidation.

Eff ects of Instrumentalization of Phobias—the “Yellow Peril” As a Component of the Trap Mechanism of “Delegalization” of Migrants in Russia

Th e instrumentalization of the „Yellow Peril” syndrome that took place in Russia in the 90s of the 20th century, brought signifi cant consequences for the internal situation in the country, which were felt long after the end of hostility campaigns. Th e concept of “external enemy,” identifi ed with the Chinese, became a tool in the hands of some members of the political elite, which was particularly exploited in Primorskii Krai and Khabarovsk Krai. Th e press played an important role in the process of consolidation of the society in the face of new, mostly imagined threats—at fi rst at the local and then at the countrywide level.36 Due to the involvement of the mass media, the anti-Chinese and anti-immigrant, xenophobic attitudes spread within the society. Th e politicization of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome brought many new components to it, particularly a long list of potential threats and negative elements in the image of a Chinese immigrant, and it strongly perpetuated it. Some public statements of the Russian politicians show the persistence of this phobia. For example, in 2000 the President of the Russian Federation, V. Putin, said in Blagoveshchensk: “. . . if you do not take practical steps to advance the Far East soon, after a few decades, the Russian population will be speaking Japanese, Chinese and Korean … .” In 2003, the governor of Khabarovsk Krai, V. Ishaev, once again warned the President of ongoing “Chinese expansion into the Russian Far East.”37

After 2000, the deliberate development and use of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome as a tool for achieving political goals, has virtually ceased. However,

35 A. Sevortian, Xenophobia in Post-Soviet Russia, “Th e Equal Rights Review,” 2009, Vol. 2, p. 21.

36 See e.g.: В.Л. Ларин, В тени проснувшегося дракона. Российско-китайские отношения на рубеже ХХ–ХХI веков, Vladivostok 2006, pp. 257-264; F.K. Chang. Th e Unraveling of Russia’s Far Eastern Power, “Orbis,” 2001, Vol. 2, pp. 257-264.

37 Quoted from: M. Alexeev, Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma, pp. 95 and 101.


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the consequences of such instrumentalization became important factors which, along with the other manifestations of xenophobia, triggered the mechanism of the legal-political trap, which Russia is still struggling with today. In order to protect national interests, not only against the real, but also against many imagined threats associated with transborder mobility of the population, Moscow decides to tighten the border control regime and the migration policy. However, this leads to the development of phenomena, which are detrimental from the perspective of the national economy and the state as a whole, and consequently—to further restrictions.

Knowing that one of the most important factors of formation and implementation of the migration policy in Russia is public opinion,38 it is hard to underestimate the impact of various manifestations of collective phobias, including the “Yellow Peril” syndrome, on political decisions. Legal regulations are the implementation tool of state decisions concerning management of infl ux and the adaptation of immigrants. Th e strong sense of threat among Russian inhabitants of the eastern borderland, resulted from the intense infl ux of the Chinese, along with the huge number of press releases about extralegal and illegal activities of immigrants, led to tightening of border control and legal conditions of foreigners’ activity in the Russian Federation. Such restrictions are part of the growing on the global scale trend towards “delegalization” of migrations. In conditions of globalization, it is a specifi c reaction to the states perception of the loss of control over political initiatives in other areas of their functioning. In other words, in conditions of the contemporary erosion of borders, migration law is being increasingly understood as the last bastion of sovereignty.39 Th is trend goes well with the observed in Russia, since the year 2000, progressive striving for centralization of power and reversing the excessive autonomization of individual regions, which developed in the 90s of the 20th century. In order to control eff ectively all the sections of the state border, Moscow uses the unifi ed regulatory system, often without taking into account the diff erences between regions to eliminate unfavorable phenomena associated with migrations. Th e problem lies in the fact that such measures lead to totally unexpected results.

One of these results is the feedback between the tightening of migration policy, including border control regime, and the increase of collective phobias associated with the infl ux of foreigners. Increased legal restrictions mean growth in the number of illegal migrants, which results from, inter alia, a

38 В. Мукомель, Миграционная политика России. Постсоветские контексты, Moscow 2005, p. 76.

39 C. Dauvergne, Making People Illegal. What Globalization Means for Migration and Law, New York 2008, p. 2.


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need to meet additional formal requirements in order to fulfi ll the criteria of “legality” of arrival and residence in the host country. Such situation, as it was mentioned earlier, intensifi es the sense of threat among the host society, due to inability to estimate the number of “illegals” explicitly as well as the alarming press releases about the real, although more often imagined, harmful eff ects of immigrants’ activity. Moreover, the “delegalization” of migration creates an additional line of divisions into “us” and “them,” and “they” are most often stigmatized as a group which violates “our” law. Th e symbolic border is formed in order to protect the citizens against “aliens”, while the physical boundaries can no longer fulfi ll this role. In this context, we can talk about the growing anti-immigrant sentiments and, consequently, about the increase of the social demand for enactment of more restrictive law, even if such tightening of legal regulations will not eliminate the undesirable eff ects in practice.

An additional problem is the ineff ectiveness of the existing formal restrictions on business carried on by immigrants in the host country, but it is worth to notice that not all Russians see this ineff ectiveness as something negative. Basing on the example of the analysis of extralegal exploitation of Far Eastern natural resources, N. Ryzhova has shown that regulations designed to limit this practices does not bring the desired results. Th e Russians, cooperating with the Chinese migrants, are involved in this kind of activity. Th e law, tailored to the interests of big business and politics in Russia, cannot withstand a confrontation with the specifi city of transborder cooperation and economic needs of the region, where emphasis is placed mainly on the activity of small and medium businesses.40 Moreover, the increasing competition between the regional Far Eastern political and business circles, and the Russian federal authorities for the Chinese migrants and their activity, seen as an economic “resource,” has been observed in recent years. In this context, border regions are interested in the proliferation of the informal economy since the extralegal forms of economic activity exclude the Moscow’s share in the benefi ts coming from them.41 Paradoxically, although the decision on tightening migration regulations stems from the concern to strengthening the national security, federal measures toward progressive “delegalization” of immigrants are contrary to the economic interests of the state as a whole. However, they bring signifi cant benefi ts for the border regions. In this

40 Н. Рыжова, Природные ресурсу российского Дальнего Востока: институциональные изменения и экстралегальные практики, In: В. Дятлов, Миграции и диаспоры в социокультур-ном, политическом и экономическом пространстве Сибири. Рубежи XIX–XX и XX–XXI веков, Irkutsk 2010, pp. 282-312.

41 Л. Бляхер, Н. Пенин, Представления населения Дальнего Востока о Китайских мигран-тах (на рубеже ХХ-ХХI вв.), „Диаспоры,” 2011, Vol. 1, pp. 166-171.


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situation, one should remember that the issue of “harmfulness” of informal economy, including illegal and semi-legal economic practices of foreigners which appears at all levels of the Russian debate on migration problems, is highly relative.

Concluding Remarks

Due to the long Soviet interval in contacts between the Russians and the Chinese, we cannot talk about the continuation of nineteenth-century “Yellow Peril” syndrome in contemporary Russia. However, the analysis of pre-revolutionary and post-socialist phobias, increasing along with the intensifi ed infl ux of the Chinese immigrants, allows to point out a large number of similarities between them. A debate on the allegedly growing “yellow peril”, initiated after the collapse of the USSR, is in many respects the carbon copy of the pre-revolutionary considerations about the threat from the “yellow hordes,” Th e model of interpretation of reality, based on simplifi cations and stigmatization of “aliens” and typical of the historical equivalent of discussed phobia, has been repeated, although today the focus is on the national, not racial alikeness. Also the contemporary arguments for the alleged Chinese eff orts to dominate Russia demographically and economically are almost identical to those from the past, although now the Chinese are seen as implementers of organized, multifaceted expansion of the “awakened” and strong state, while in the 19th century they were viewed as a “yellow mass,” fl owing from the “sleeping”, and at least partially enslaved by the West power. Th erefore, it can be assumed that the historical “Yellow Peril” syndrome was reconstructed after the collapse of the USSR, however the reconstruction was not full.

Social experiences gained from the Soviet era have also undoubtedly had an impact on the discussed phobia in its contemporary version. Mental shock, caused by sudden delegitimization of the ideology and system of values existing for decades, along with the resistance against the Western way of thinking, resulted in the return to the old Soviet tendency to “us” and “them” judgments as well as in the growth in demand for isolation from the enemy and from largely incomprehensible outside world. Simplifi ed interpretation of the post-socialist realities and looking for the “guilty” of growing sense of uncertainty and internal problems in the country, were the response of the society to the information chaos and crisis of values and identity. Th erefore, migrants have been made scapegoats, especially the Chinese, because as an “aliens” they perfectly fi t to the general image of “enemies.” Th ey soon became the main characters of the sensational and emotionally marked press

58

releases, alarming about threats, caused by erosion of previously strictly controlled borders. Th e mass media were co-creating and perpetuating the negative stereotypes of foreigners, and therefore they contributed to the intensifi cation of various ethnic and anti-immigrant phobias. All of the aforementioned problems, along with the instrumentalization of the “Yellow Peril” concept by some representatives of the Far Eastern regional authorities, led to the politicization of the discussed syndrome and its spreading among the whole Russian society. As a result, the discussed phenomenon has played its role in creating the trap of “delegalization” of migrants. Struggles with the consequences of this trap can be considered as a long-term and still actual eff ect of spreading of the rhetoric of anti-immigrant phobias to the Russian political debate on the regulation of migration processes in the modern era of “eroding” borders.

Aleksandra Łopińska

Th e „Yellow Peril” Syndrome in Contemporary Russia

A b s t r a c t

Th e „Yellow Peril” syndrome, defi ned as a complex of fears from the expansion and domination of representatives of the yellow race, felt and expressed by the white people indentifying themselves with the Western civilization, has been a widespread phenomenon in the pre-revolutionary Russia. Today, the syndrome has returned and became a part of a mosaic of various collective phobias that aff ect the worldview of modern Russians. Th is paper examines the relationship between historical and contemporary “Yellow Peril,” It is important to analyze, which components of the contemporary syndrome has been restored, and which are completely new. Moreover, one should consider the origin of this new components. Th e impact of the “Yellow Peril” syndrome on the contemporary political life in Russia is also an interesting issue, especially in the context of the ongoing era of “eroding” borders.

K e y w o r d s : „Yellow Peril” Syndrome, collective phobias, Russia.

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Vol. VIII (2012/3)pp. 59-70

Dominik MierzejewskiUniversity of Lodz

Reading Years of Humiliation. Sino-Russian Border and China’s National Identity

Two centuries ago, the will of the Western powers imposed the Westphalia nation-state centric system on China. Th e contrast between these two

diff erent perceptions of the World in the 19th Century plays an important role in shaping modern-day China’s national identity. In fact, Russia among the other Western powers, was an aggressor that humiliated Middle Kingdom. More to the point, as being a developing state, China needs to create its own identity, that it is usually built contrary to the other. In this study, which has been based mainly on Chinese primary sources such as books, articles and commentaries published both in paper form and on the Internet,1 the author focuses, the author mainly focuses on analyzing the role of historical spots related to the Sino-Russian border in the North-East of China in shaping China’s national identity from the central and local perspective. Th e major issues to answer are: why and to what extant Sino-Russian border problems and 19th Century history has played a role in shaping Chinese identity? What kind of argument have Chinese used to described and judge the problem from historical and political perspective?

Th e article begins with an introduction of China’s patriotic education and major steps taken by the authorities in order to cover the identity crisis. Next, the author describe the history of Sino-Russian relationship in the context of border areas and fi nally presents offi cial readings of the history in patriotic education course books as well as in historical sites in border

1 Ye Shengtao, Zhongguo jindai aiguo gushi (Patriotic histories of Contemporary China), Shandong Shaonian Ertong Chubanshe, Jinnan 1985; Qingshao nian aiguo zhuyi jiaoyu duwen (Bioghrams for patriotic education), Wuhan Daxue Chubanshe, Wuhan 1991 and Aiguo zhuyi jiaoyu cidian (Th e Dictonary of Patriotic Education) Ed. Han Zhangfeng, Beijing Yuyan Xueyuan, Beijing 1995.

Dominik Mierzejewski

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provinces mainly in Heilongjiang. In fact, Chinese government tries to shape Chinese identity, but no only through central planning but also by fl aming patriotism at the local level. At the end China becomes a composition of local “Chineseness.” Th e major defi nition of identity applied by the author has been presented by Erik Erikson whose own defi nition was based by the needs for reunify the “self” into more collective society. Next the concept of national identity off ered by Sidney Verba and Lucian Pye is the “set of individuals who fall within the decision-making scope of the state.” Th is conceptualization was determined by the boundaries and common language, ethnic or racial origin, and political culture. In this context, as argued by Habermas and Gellner there is a direct correlation between nationalism as a theory of political legitimacy, which requires that ethnic boundaries should not cut acroos political ones.2

China’s Patriotic and Historical Education—an Overview

In the early 1990s, along with the leadership change (Deng Xiaoping-Jiang Zemin), patriotic education was introduced. Due to two factor: the ‘‘three belief crises’’ namely crisis of faith in socialism, crisis of belief in Marxism, crisis of trust in the party and the weaker position of the leadership compare to its predecessors the new political campaign was started. Th e leadership, namely Deng Xiaoping acknowledged that the biggest mistake was made in the fi eld of education, primarily in ideological and political education—not just of students but of the people in general. In August 1991 the government passed two laws: ‘‘Notice about Conducting Education of Patriotism and Revolutionary Tradition by Exploiting Extensively Cultural Relics’’ and ‘‘General Outline on Strengthening Education on Chinese Modern and Contemporary History and National Conditions.’’ More to the point in August 1994 the campaign carried out at the full scale: the CPCs Central Committee issued the ‘‘Outline on Implementing Patriotic Education.’’ Realizing the previous mistakes the government admitted:

If we want to make the patriotic thoughts the core theme of our society, a very strong patriotic atmosphere must be created so that the people can be infl uenced and nurtured by the patriotic thoughts and spirit all times and everywhere in their daily life. It is the sacred duties for the press

2 L. Dittmer, S. Kim, In a search of a Th eory of National Identity, In: China Quest for National Identity, eds. L. Dittmer and S. Kim, Cornell University Press, New York 1993, pp. 7-10.

Reading Years of Humiliation

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and publishing, radio, fi lm and television departments of all levels to use advanced media technology to conduct patriotic education to the masses.3

Th e paper refers to James Pennebaker notion of collective memories, whether real or concocted, has been at the root of confl icts, prejudice, nationalism, and cultural identities. Moreover, as argued by Volkan who identifi ed a ‘chosen trauma’ and a ‘chosen glory.’ In contemporary Chinese discourse both of Volkan’s notions have been applied. On the one hand Chinese accused other of being cruel and dishonest, while at the same time underlined its own struggle against all diffi culties as a background for being proud. In fact creating people’s memory the authorities tries to built the common non-material platform for collective understanding of “self.”4 More to the point, as described by Kalpana Misra Chinese Marxists’ intellectual discourse in the Deng Xiaoping era moved from Marxist to post-Marxism to overcome the crisis of regime legitimacy.5 Although the Communist Party of China used “post-Marxism nationalism,” still tried to prove material factor as the basis of building society. In this context nationalism should be regarded as the attempt to political engineering. Th e patriotic education named as political education (zhengzhi jiaoyu) or national political thoughts education (minzu sixiang zhengzhi jiaoyu) has become an inherent part of scientifi c development (kexue fazhan guan). To some extent the scientifi c development should be understand as proving the right that people can be driven by the superior institutions, and not by believes but by scientifi cally proven experiences. Compare to Mao’s China where centrality of class in building socialism in theory and practice played a crucial role in shaping China’s political system, in post-Tiananmen China nation (Han nation) became the major factor behind building socialism in China.6 As described by Zhao Suisheng “pragmatic nationalism” was mainly based on describing China’s uniqueness: China is a beautiful, resource-full country with long tradition, heritage and history, led by Communists to achieve a new goal and secure national interests. Th e pragmatism expressed in conducting all behaviors according to the national conditions (guoqing).7 In fact Chinese

3 Zheng Wang, National Humiliation, History Education, and the Politics of Historical Memory: Patriotic Education Campaign in China, “International Studies Quarterly,” 2002, No. 52, pp. 783-806.

4 Zheng Yongnian, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China. Modernization, Identity and International Relations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, pp. 12-14.

5 Xing Guoxin, Hu Jintao’s Political Th inking and Legitimacy Building: A Post-Marxist Perspective, “Asian Aff airs,” 2009, pp. 214-215.

6 Ibid., pp. 217-218. 7 Zhao Suisheng, A nation-state by construction: dynamics of modern Chinese nationalism,

Stanford University Press, Stanford 2004, pp. 219-225.


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government has been operating via Sun Yat-sen’s concept of the nation that was a product of racial diff erence. Th e early Republican nationalism called on the Han Chinese to “recover the state for our own nation . . . [and] not allow other nations to take away our nation’s government.”8 Allen Whiting and Chen Zhimin identify three types of nationalism: affi rmative nationalism: foster patriotism and targets attitudes directed toward inward change and constructive international partnership, aggressive nationalism: arouses anger and mobilizes behavior most concerns China’s neighbors and assertive nationalism that has a potential to become affi rmative or aggressive because it “adds them” as a negative out-group referent to the us of affi rmative nationalism.9

In the 1990s and at the beginning of 21st Century the Communist Party of China strengthen its voice on national pride and Chinese nation great achievement. Chinese people led by the communist government as in late 1940 s. stood up. In order to respond and control national feelings the CCP used the slogan of “great revival of Chinese nation” (zhonghua minzu weida fuxing). For the fi rst time the slogan was used by then party secretary Zhao Ziyang in late 1980s but the popularity aroused under Jiang Zemin’s reign. Along with being revived China, as mentioned by Hu Jintao in his 17th Party Congress’ report would defend the World peace. In fact patriotism, as well as socialism with Chinese characteristic became the major theme that would build national cohesion. Using its propaganda machines the CCP tries to impose the patriotic thinking and all important policies like education or R&D expenditures that are subordinated to the project of “great revival of Chinese nation.”10

In the historical education the government tries to assess the shortage of being a victim and acknowledge greatness in Chinese history like the Boxer Uprising. By using the Marxian perception on history the major features of Chinese collapse in 19th Century the growing signifi cance of global capitalism especially after the economic crisis in the United Kingdom 1825 and 1837 and the weakness of the Qing’s government (not Chinese people). In fact China become the capitalist country, and in within the capitalist

8 Chen Zhimin, Nationalism, Internationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy, “Journal of Contemporary China,” 2005, No. 14, pp. 35-45.

9 David M. Lampton, Th e Th ree Faces of Chinese Power. Might, Money and Minds, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 2008, pp. 147-148.

10 Compare: Hu Jintao, Zai quanguo jiaoyu gongzuo huiyi shang de jianghua, (2010.07.13) [Hu Jintao’s speech at the working meeting on education], Renmin Chubanshe, Beijing 2010, pp. 7 and 9.


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economy China was exploited by the Western powers and became the victim of Japanese and Western imperialism.11

In the context of shaping identity the anti-Japanese war played an important factor. Under the certain conditions the CCP unifi ed people, not only Han Chinese, but also minorities and even people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau to take part in the anti-Japanese war.12 Th e history proved that only unifi ed society lead by the CCP would be successful and achieve new goals. Th e paradox of China’s opening up is that in the past the opening up was under capitalist pressure, but at the end China has become capitalistic itself. In this regard strengthening controlling over culture or state nationalism might played an important role in discarding society’s attention.

At the central level the Propaganda Department under the CCP is responsible for preparing materials and course books for patriotic education. Since 1997 the Central Propaganda Department pointed 353 patriotic education spots mainly referred to the CCP’s history. In 1997 only 19 referred to Chinese cultural heritage, anti-imperialist, anti-Japanese and heroic movement only 9, and revolutionary movement and building socialism 75.13 [compare table no. 1].

In the historical education the government tries to assess the shortage of being a victim and acknowledge greatness in Chinese history like the Boxer Uprising. By using the Marxian perception on history the major features of Chinese collapse in 19th Century the growing signifi cance of global capitalism especially after the economic crisis in the United Kingdom 1825 and 1837 and the weakness of the Qing’s government (not Chinese people). In fact China become the capitalist country, and in within the capitalist economy China was exploited by the Western powers and became the victim of Japanese and Western imperialism.14

In the context of shaping identity the anti-Japanese war played an important factor. Under the certain conditions the CCP unifi ed people, not only Han Chinese, but also minorities and even people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau to take part in the anti-Japanese war.15 Th e history proved that only unifi ed society lead by the CCP would be successful and achieve new goals. Th e paradox of China’s opening up is that in the past the opening up was

11 Zhongguo Jinxiandai shi gangyao (2010 nian xiuding Ban) [Th e guideline for Chinese contemporary and modern history], Gaodeng jiaoyu Chubanshe, Beijing 2010, pp. 10-14.

12 Ibid., pp. 147-148. 13 Aiguozhuyi Jiaoyu [Patriotic education], online: http://dangshi.people.com.cn/GB/

151935 /157318/9528324.html [accessed January 18, 2012]. 14 Zhongguo Jinxiandai shi gangyao (2010 nian xiuding Ban) [Th e guideline for Chinese con-

tem porary and modern history], Gaodeng jiaoyu Chubanshe, Beijing 2010, pp. 10-14. 15 Ibid., pp. 147-148.


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under capitalist pressure, but at the end China has become capitalistic itself. In this regard strengthening controlling over culture or state nationalism might played an important role in discarding society’s attention.

Sino-Russia Border in Contemporary Readings

Th e historical narratives plays an important part in shaping national identity. Historiy itself was introduced due to the national concerns, and the profession derived its authority from its role as the true spokesmen of the nation as argued by Prasenjit Duara. Th is process was taken play in Europe in the late 19th Century, while in China is important today.16 In this context, the Sino-Russian border problem has been not only the bilateral negotiations, but more important to the shaping Chinese identity of the

16 Prasenjit Duara Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China, University Of Chicago Press, Chicago 1997, pp. 20-21.

Table No. 1Th e 100 National-Level Patriotic Education Bases

External confl icts(40 sites)

20 sites—anti-Japanese War (1937–1945)7 sites—Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860)

4 sites—Korean War (1950–1953)1 site—Russian invasion (1858)

1site—the 1962 China-India War1 site—the 1662 War with the Dutch over Taiwan

1 site—Invasion of the Eight-Power Allied Forces (1900)5 sites—Other general anti-imperialism museums ⁄ sites

Civil Wars 24 sites) Civil wars between CCP and KMT (1927–1949)

Myths (21 sites)15 sites—Wonders (ancient architecture, museums of ancient

civilizations)4 sites—Relics for prehistoric civilization

2 sites—Great achievement after 1949

Heroes (15 sites)7 sites—CCP Leaders

4 sites—Model workers4 sites—Patriots

Source: Wang Zheng, National Humiliation, History Education, and the Politics of Historical Memory: Patriotic Education Campaign in China, “International Studies Quarterly,” 2008, Vol. 52, p. 796.


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North-East China. Finally, the border dispute was settled in 2007 when Under an agreement signed by the two countries’ foreign ministers in July, Russia agreed to give up Tarabarov Island, known as Yinlong in Chinese, and half of Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, called Heixiazi in Chinese. Since then, when the border issue was settle, Sino-Russian border has become to major theme in shaping Chinese identity in border areas. Th e North-East of China is a important industrial base of China’s industry as well as one of the area poses the largest number of patriotic education spots.17

In the patriotic education course book the problem of Sino-Russia border in 19th Century fails to be the most important one. In fact, as mentioned in “Guide for Contemporary Chinese History” Russia grabs Chinese territory more than one million square kilometers. Moreover the Li-Lobanov Treaty signed between China and Russia in 1896 allowed Russia to signifi cantly increase its presence in the North-East China.18 Interestingly special material for self-study of this history materials have not touch the negative feeling against the former invader, but rather strengthen Chinese people’s eff orts to fi ght against backwardness and semi-colonial status.19

Th e fi rst historical spot has been dedicated to the Treaty of Aigun (Aihun Tiaoyue) of 1858. It reversed the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) by transferring the land between the Stanovoy Mountains and the Amur River from China to Russia. Th e major problem was that Qing dynasty overexagerated Russian military strength and when Nikola Muravyov threatened China with war, the Chinese side agreed to enter negotiations with Russia.20 As argued by Victor Zatsepine Russian annexed the Amur river territory without military confrontation, as Qing fortifi cation in the region proved insuffi cient to off er any kind of resistance. Th e major problems occurred when in 1898 the Qing government leased part of Liaoning Peninsula to Russian as a base for economic and military expansion. At the end of 19th Century Russian started to enlarge their military presence and the number of troops grown to 11,300 soldiers in Port Arthur.21 Th e most crucial moment was taken by armed Russian Cossacks who forced about 3000 people to be deported across

17 Wo de zuguo (My Motherland) offi cial website: http://zuguo.cntv.cn/diqu/index.shtml#heilongjiang [accessed March 12, 2012].

18 Zhongguo Jinxiandai shi gangyao (2010 nian xiuding Ban)..., pp. 20-22. 19 Compare Self Study Materials of Zhongguo Jinxiandai shi ganyao accessed online http://

www.233.com/zikao/note/Gonggong/03708/104847680-2.html [accessed on May 15, 2012].20 For further readings see: Byron N. Tzou, China and International Law, Th e Boundary

Disputes, Praeger, New York Westport, Connecticut London 1990, pp. 81-84. 21 V. Zatsepine, Th e Blagoveshchensk Massacre of 1900: Th e Sino-Russian War and Global

Imperialism, In: James A. Flath, Norman Smith (eds.), Beyond Suff ering: Recounting War in Modern China, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver 2011, pp. 108-110.


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the river. Furthermore Russian surrounded Qing forces in Blagoveshchensk and forced them to cross the river in four directions. In the meanwhile, by mistake Qing forces open fi re to their own fellows, while Russian troops started to destruct and kill people. More to the point, in order to answer to Boxer Rebelation the Russian government decided to relocate Cossack in the Songhua River area. In August they took Sakhalin and Aigun and continued its occupation in Manchuria.22 Interestingly in mid 1980s. the special course book for patriotic educations referred to the above described issues:

Having a great tradition of self-defense the Chinese nation could not bear humiliation. Being in front of 10 thousand Russian army, bad Russian aggressors, the patriotic masses of the North-East China being fi lled with pain took ups arms and started to fi ght.23

In this unequal fi ght, when the Russian soldiers burned Chinese people, Chen Qushan a common peasant was a real hero who fought against the occupant. As mentioned in the book published in Jinan “anybody who will try to enslave the Motherland will be defeated.”24

Th e museum of Aigun Treaty in Heihe city has covered the history of Sino-Russian border problem with a special coverage of Aigun Treaty and the Treaty of Nerchinsk. It provides the wax statues of people who signed both treaties, and the monument of Chinese hero who defended China in late 17th Century under Kangxi Emperor reign – Sa Busu (?–1701). More to the point, the reading of history in Heihe museum failed to touch the problem of Blagoveshchensk’s massacre in 1900. In this context, it shown that the government tent to create rather positive feeling towards Russian people. Otherwise the negative feeling towards Other might put pressure on the government itself and it should have behaved in more assertive and aggressive way.25

In order to present a positive image of the Chinese side in popular central television series “Baijia Lutan” Yuan Chongnian presents Chinese history and culture. Regarding the border issues and Qing dynasty relationship with the Russian Empire he emphasizes the positive role of “anti-Russian treaties” (fan E tiaoyue). To some extant according to Chen Shaoying the example of the Treaty of Aigun provides pattern of non-accepted form of behavior. Although the treaty signed with Russian was the shortest the territorial

22 S.C.M. Paine, Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Th eir Disputed Frontier 1858–1924, M.E. Shape, Armonk 1996, pp. 215-220.

23 Ye Shengtao, Zhongguo jindai aiguo gushi (Patriotic histories of Contemporary China), Shandong Shaonian Ertong Chubanshe, Jinnan 1985, p. 182.

24 Ibid., p. 184. 25 http://www.hhds.net/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=266 [accessed April 24, 2012].


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losses was excessive. In fact the problem was about corrupted Chinese elites, without national spirit and courage. Th e 19th Century history should be taken as a lesson for the future of Chinese leadership to properly run the country—he said.26

Th e fi rst important spot is dedicated to Zhenbaodao “small war” between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union in March 1969. On 2 March 1969 the fi rst clashes between two armies occurred. From geopolitical point of view the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 heightened Chinese leaders’ concern about Soviet intentions. From the internal point of view the exchange of fi re was made in the eve of 9th Party Congress when Lin Biao was named Mao Zedong’s successor.27

In Chinese offi cial media the confl ict of 1969 has been named as “a self-defence and counterattack war.” Th e Chinese soldiers confronted more advanced forces, but due to Chairman Mao Zedong’s slogan “fear no pain, fear no death” they fulfi lled their revolutionary duties. Moreover they should serve as an example of securing motherland sovereignty and dignit.28

In 2001 the central government named Zhenbaodao martyrs’ cemetery as a “central level unit of patriotic education” and local authorities started to make a good usage of this. Th e revolutionary heroes cemetery is administrated by the county government of Baoqing. Yearly, during the Qing Ming festival government has organized the special “reading history” events. Pupils, students, workers and Damanskji’s veterans has been taken part in special patriotic events.29 Moreover to commemorate the revolutionary heroes the local government with the party secretary have laid a wreath on a heroes graves. In July 2002 the Central Military Committee passed a special regulation that named 10 soldiers as a “war heroes.” Sun Yuguo serves a model hero of his time. He as a very vigilant notice Soviet’s provocation and alarmed Chinese military troops.30

26 Chen Shaoying, Cong Aihui Tiaoyue shuo kai qu [From the Treaty of Aigun start], “Zhonghua Gui,” 2008, No. 4, pp. 48-49.

27 A.D. Low, Th e Sino Soviet confrontation since Mao Zedong. Dispute, détente or confl ict?, New York 1987, p. 34 oraz Chi Su, Th e strategic triangle and China’s Soviet policy, In: China, the United States and the Soviet Union. Triporality and policy making in the Cold War, ed. by R. S. Roso, M. E. Sharpe, New York 1993, pp. 44-48.

28 Yang Guihua, 1969 nian Zhenbaodao Ziwei fanji zhan [Self –defence war in 1969], online: http://www.people.com.cn/GB/junshi/192/8559/8564/20020704/768476.html [accessed May 12. 2012)].

29 http://zhaoyuan0622.blog.163.com/blog/static/1605051020113553024243/ [accessed April 24, 2012].

30 http://news.ifeng.com/history/zhongguoxiandaishi/detail_2012_03/08/13049057_0.shtml [accessed April 24, 2012].


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In April 2012 the Baoqing County organized the team of Young Pioneers to sweep the martyr’s graves. Th is remembering of heroes that “guarded the motherland dignity and the territorial integrity” has been concerned as an important is of the patriotic education. Th e government special unit urged young children to study and remember the martyrs last wishes: making swear solemnly, inheritance the glorious tradition and cherishing the memory of the revolutionary martyr.31 During the activities revolutionary martyr’s great achievements have been introduced and described. Th e young people has been taught that “the martyrs did laugh in the face of death, and served other.”32

Interestingly in building identity based on the clashes on Sino-Soviet border Chinese authorities strengthen positive image of Chinese heroes, while saying nothing on the Soviet soldiers. Of course, that was the Soviet that started the campaign against China, but still there are no negative feeling on Russian people.

Conclusion

To sum up, the Communist Party of China needs to create a positive atmosphere inside Mainland China. Th is is the major reason for promoting positive nationalism. Strengthening anti-Western feelings might easily give the government the slip, while strengthening red nationalism, positive feelings on the history of Communist Party in China and its achievements would serve as the legitimization’s tool for one party system. As China’s internal problems like disparities, popular protests the patriotic education will be changed to be more aggressive and serves as a catalyst of public unrest and the best tool for building national cohesion.

From the central perspective the discourse of unequal treaties after the Opium Wars and confl icts with Russian create a “chosen trauma.” Via building the chosen trauma the Communist Party in China presents itself in a favorable lights. Th e government is only one force to defend China’s national sovereignty, dignity and interests. But, contrary to this reading, the Author argues that as being defeated China was urged to signed the equal treaties—government to government agreement. In fact the whole tributary system with China as a center was ruined and Qing dynasty was forced to accept Westphalia World system.

31 http://www.hljbqedu.com/fuwu/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=3831 [accessed May 1, 2012].

32 Ibid.


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Th e national identity of people who signed the agreements with Russian in 19th Century contradicts to the offi cial discourse of Han people. Although the offi cial discourse counts Manchu people as Chinese, the problem of Qing Empire legacy has been still existing. On the one hand mistakes made by last dynasty revealed in “unequal” treaties builds the positive image of the current government, on the other warned of possible mistakes.

In terms of building national identity the major role is played by anti-Japanese war and victory of the communist movement in China. From the local perspective, namely in North-East China Sino-Russia, the historical memory shapes “Chineseness.” In fact, as being a large de-facto federal state Chinese government both at the central and local levels need special channels to transmit national feelings. Th e easiest way to built national platform is to portray itself in the contrast to other. In this sense, rather only at the local level. China appeared as a conglomeration of local “Chineseness.”


Reading Years of Humiliation. Sino-Russian Border and China’s National Identity

A b s t r a c t

Th e article provides a perspective on Sino-Russia border issue in shaping China’s identity. In fact, after the collapse of the Soviet Union both sides tried to resolved the border issues. Although China and Russia reached the fi nal agreement Chinese use the history of Sino-Russia relationship to shape national identity. In the historical education the government tries to assess the shortage of being a victim and acknowledge greatness in Chinese history like the Boxer Uprising. At the central level the Anti-Japanese War plays the most important role in shaping national-level identity, while the history of Sino-Russia border is rather linked to the area of North-East of China.

K e y w o r d s : China’s identity, history of Sino-Russia relationship, Sino-Russia border.

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Vol. VIII (2012/3)pp. 71-90

Viktor Innokentievich DyatlovIrkutsk State University

Th e Blagoveshchensk Drowning—Story of How Phobias Become a Reality1

The term “Blagoveshchensk Utopia” [Russian word “Utoplenie” means drowning—translator’s note] was coined by an anonymous author in

the journal “Vestnik Evropy”2 [“Messenger of Europe”—translator’s note] to describe an appalling incident which took place in 1900 in Blagoveshchensk (a town in the Russian Far East, on the Amur River). Over the course of just a few days approximately fi ve thousand Chinese people were killed—to be specifi c, they were drowned in the River Amur. Th is incident was not only appalling, but also tragic. In many ways it can be called a sign—a sign which is highly signifi cant to an understanding of the means by which the so-called “yellow peril” was manifested among the populace of the Far East of the Russian Empire. It additionally provides pause for thought about the phenomenon of the pogrom itself—how it is caused, how it happens, what forms it may take, who its participants are, and what consequences result.

However, the incident failed to become a cause for introspection among Russian society at the time—and is almost entirely forgotten today. Th is should not be interpreted as an example of Russian censorship—although this factor exercised some infl uence up to 1905. Th e incident was subject to censorship in the Soviet era too, but pre-Revolutionary publications (i.e. those printed prior to 1917) were purposely removed from libraries in any case, so that they were not generally available. It remains most likely that the

1 Th is article was prepared with funds provided under the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Competition for Individual Research Projects about Global Safety and Development.

2 Th e Blagoveshchensk Utopia, “Vestnik Evropy” (“Th e Messenger of Europe”), St. Petersburg, 1910, No. 7, pp. 231-241.

Viktor Innokentievich Dyatlov

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incident was put out of the mind of public consciousness due to other—more complex—factors which are the focus of discussion of this article.

Panic

Th e factual outline of the events is reasonably well-known—we fi nd it consecutively repeated in specialist literature—although most frequently as a discursion from material on other topics being researched by authors.3 In 1898 there had been an uprising in China led by a secret society, “Th e Boxers”—“assemblies for justice and peace.”

Th e Boxers embraced xenophobia, and opposed everything and everyone who came from the West to China. Th eir maxim was to restore the basis of traditional Chinese life—and most particularly, in the early stages of the uprising, they demanded the expulsion and annihilation of all foreigners in China.4

Eight countries—including Russia—organised a military expedition intent on defeating the Boxer Rebels and supporting the government troops who opposed them. “Th e scale of the military forces of the ‘eight interventionist powers’ was an unprecedented warlike confrontation between the Chinese Empire and the Western world.”5 Th e military actions were centred on the province of Manchuria—and thus took place directly on China’s border with the Russian Empire.

Th e most hazardous development occurred at Blagoveshchensk—the interventionist forces were drawn up on the opposite bank of the River Amur [Chinese usage: Heilongjiang River—its banks form the international border—translator’s note]—the garrison had been directed for military involvement against the Harbin region, but communications had been interrupted by low water in the Shilka River. Th e population and city fathers of Blagoveshchensk and its surrounding region experienced a very tense feeling—but the possibility of a real threat did not immediately arise. A journalist in Blagoveshchensk wrote that many people had heard about the

3 Cf: V.G. Datsyshen, Th e Russo-Chinese War. Manchuria 1900, Part 1: Fighting on the land front, St. Petersburg 1996, pp. 85-96; V.G. Datsyshen, Th e History of Russian-Chinese Relations in the Late 19th—the Early 20th Centuries, Krasnoyarsk 2000, pp. 295-298.

4 A History of China: A Textbook, Ed. A.V. Meliksetova, Moscow University Press, Moscow 1998, p. 354.

5 Ibid., p. 356.

The Blagoveshchensk Drowning

73

current events in China, and especially about the round-ups of Europeans—but that real events didn’t correlate with the stories.

Th e scornful view of China and the Chinese was so ingrained, and their cowardice was so well-known to those who bordered them, that frankly no-one expected that a serious war with China could break out in reality.6

And then unexpectedly came attacks, and attempts to capture a number of river-going Russian ships on the Amur—followed by shelling of Blagoveshchensk itself from July 2nd. Th e shelling went on for thirteen days—and although carried out by eight guns, no signifi cant damage was caused. Not a single building was destroyed—fi ve people were killed, and a further fi fteen7 were wounded. It quickly became apparent from these initial Chinese hostilities and low-level military operations that Chinese fi repower was relatively limited. But the Russian authorities were unamused by the attack, and resolved to take immediate measures—the Blagoveshchensk troops returned to their garrison, and signifi cant troop detachments were brought up from Transbaikalia and Khabarovsk. By the end of the month the Russian troops had secured their own banks of the Amur River—then crossed the river and quickly routed the Chinese forces there, and took the provincial capital of Aigun. As soon as the Chinese bank of the Amur River came under the control of the Russian forces, all danger to Blagoveshchensk was quelled.

But what had gone on in the city in those fi rst two weeks, when the situation seemed—and indeed was—most dangerous and uncertain? Unanimous agreement between participant and eye-witness sources confi rms that extensive panic broke-out from the time the fi rst shots were fi red. Crowds of people rushed aimlessly about the streets. Many fl ed the city. Th ere were sporadic, and thus fruitless attempts to raise a militia force. Weapons were looted from shops and store-rooms. Th ere were mobs of angry and boozed-up recruits prowling the streets—released from duty over the summer, not reporting to anyone, not given any weapons, and in fact unneeded by anyone. “Th ere would have been nothing easier than to take the city at that moment, even with a small Manchurian contingent” wrote one participant in the confl ict.8 A further contributing factor to the panic was the presence of a number of Chinese within the city itself.

6 In Memory of the Events on the Amur in 1900. Th e Siege of Blagoveshchensk and the Taking of Aigun, Compiled by A. Kirchner, Printed in Amurskaya Gazeta, A.V. Kirchner, Blagoveshchensk 1900. p. 5.

7 V.G. Datsyshen, Th e Russo-Chinese War, p. 88.8 In Memory of the Events, p. 24.


74

A Fifth Column?

Blagoveshchensk was founded in 1859. It was located in a gold-mining region, and had a strategically valuable location at the confl uence of the two major transportation rivers—the Amur and the Zeya. As the administrative centre of the Amur Region it was able to expand “with American speed.”9 By 1900 the permanent population numbered some fi fty thousand people, with several thousand more seasonal workers employed at the gold workings and on the river shipping traffi c on the Amur. Many of these workers were Chinese. In addition to this, almost every well-to-do family would have Chinese servants. Chinese business controlled much of small, medium, and even big business—especially restaurants, taverns, and places of entertainment; they controlled the supply of greengrocery; and they provided the labour which kept public utility services running smoothly. In short the everyday life and economic activity of a town which—by local standards—was prosperous, wealthy and cultivated was unviable without the Chinese population. Th eirs was a continuous, all-pervasive and vital presence. On the other hand, the Russian population didn’t accept them as a section of the town’s society—not even an unequal part.

It would be diffi cult not to include the following quotation from an eye-witness to the events:

For several decades a population of Chinese and Manchurians has lived amongst us, and brought great benefi t to our society by their hard work—a fact which was carefully observed by all impartial people. Th ey are hard-working, almost astonishingly modest in their own needs—the Chinese are not only noticeable by their absence of involvement in serious crime, but similarly by refraining from almost every kind of bad behaviour. Th ey are honest and trustworthy—and in many large companies, manufacturing concerns, and also in private homes, the Chinese are relied upon and trusted as both employees and household servants. Many Russian families who had occasion to employ young Chinese men as servants treated them as if they were their own relatives. Th ey often learned the Russian language, and approached this undertaking with such diligence—they would often sit with a Russian book or exercises until past midnight, and this zeal secured them rapid results. But among the less literate of our countrymen the Chinese never enjoyed any great popularity. Common folk viewed them, fi rst and foremost, as representatives of a foreign nationality who stubbornly refused to mix with Russians—and the Chinese, as we know, rarely like to

9 A Guide to the Far East 1910, BM, BG, p. 295.


75

stray from their own culture, or their form of dress. Secondly, the Russian working classes always saw the Chinese as unwanted competitors.10

But once the shelling began, Russians began to look at the Chinese diff erently. Th ey noticed how very many Chinese there were, and how far they’d become dependent upon them. But most signifi cantly they were reminded how far away Russia was, and how very close and enormous China was—easily capable of gulping down and digesting every last morsel of their remote and defenceless island of Empire. Th us the syndrome of the “yellow peril”—thereto principally a concern for publishers, analysts, government offi cials, and what the ordinary man in the street thought, if he thought anything at all about things beyond his own concern—suddenly acquired an immediate and horrifi c reality.

Th e whole horror of the situation could suddenly be seen presented among those who, only the day before, had chattered with good-natured contempt about the “coolies,” “chinks” and “slit-eyes.” Locals began to look suspiciously into the eyes of their domestic servants—who only a few days before they’d regarded, if not perhaps as members of their own family, then at least indispensable members of their domestic household. People began to see the Chinese they past in the street, to use a modern term, as a “fi fth column.” Th e city seethed with rumours of secret Chinese military factions, and their defi ant nature, and how they were making plans for a massacre. Some claimed to have seen arsenals—although searches uncovered only knives. But the searches also revealed pamphlets produced by the Boxers—which added fuel to the fl ames.11

Incidents quickly followed. Th eir initiators were often military recruits who had been billeted in the town far away from home, and who were already in unhappy mood. “Th e burly fi sts of unwanted troops don’t miss a chance to drown their woes—usually on the backs of the ‘Vankas’ they see passing silently by—meaning, the Chinese.”12 While beating them, they shouted “It’s all because of you, fi lth, that we’ve lost our jobs, been torn from our families, and dragged here to this mess!”13 All the while, local newspapers were documenting the numbers of such cases. By the end of the fi rst day of shelling, the fi rst deaths were recorded. “According to the highest authorities,

10 Sonin, Th e Bombing of Blagoveshchensk by the Chinese (An Eyewitness Account), Um, BG (A reprint of the number 4, Dawn), p. 6.

11 Th e Military Events of the Past Year on the Amur, Compiled by N.Z. Golubtsov, Published in Amurskaya Gazeta, A.V. Kirchner, Blagoveshchensk 1901, p. 15.

12 In Memory of the Events, p. 5.13 Sonin, op. cit., p. 7.


76

even the Police were advising people to murder the Chinese—they feared that they might otherwise set the town ablaze by night.”14

Th e Governor

It was clear that the town was on the verge of a full-scale pogrom. Whether that verge was crossed now depended upon the position of the local authorities, and primarily upon the city governor—Lieutenant-General Konstantin Gribsky. An analysis of his actions illustrates poor preparedness, absence of any logic, and a low level of competence in general.

On the fi rst day of hostilities, 3rd July, he had already received communications from the Minister of War, Alexander Kuropatkin, couched in the most severe tone:

I trust that by calling up the required forces and resources you will prove yourself worthy of the trust invested in you by the authorities, and will carry out an energetic and total defeat of the Chinese. Th us you may escape the severely prejudicial assessment towards you arising from your utter ignorance of what was going on the opposite bank of the Amur across from Blagoveshchensk.15

Gribsky’s incompetence becomes apparent in his actions and relations with the Chinese living in Blagoveshchensk. As early as June, when the situation was already of great concern, the Military Governor met with members of the City Council. Among several issues, the question of the possible need to defend the city was discussed. Th e Governor said he did not fi nd it necessary or appropriate to take special measures in this matter—as no state of war between Russia and China had been announced. He further revealed that representatives of the local Chinese community in the town had come to him, asking whether it might not be better if they were to quit Russian territory entirely? According to Gribsky’s account, he conveyed to them that they could safely remain, because “the Government of the great Russian Empire would not permit anyone to injure civilians.” He swiftly issued a proclamation, wherein he threatened severe punishments for anyone insulting the Chinese civilian population.16

14 Ibid., p. 8.15 Quoted from: V.G. Datsyshen, Th e Russo-Chinese War, p. 88.16 Sonin, op. cit., p. 4. Most likely, this episode is described in the “Diary of Maj. Gen.

X”, excerpts of which are listed in Th e Messenger of Europe: “Several days before the shelling, merchants and wealthy Chinese from Yulhozan and others came to the Director of the Chinese Bank for advice—what to do—to leave Blagoveshchensk, or stay. Th e Director sent them to


77

Believing in the Governor’s word, several thousand Chinese remains in the city of Blagoveshchensk—but they quickly had occasion to regret doing so. When the murder and slaughter began, the city authorities took no steps whatsoever to intervene. No kind of offi cial pronouncement was made, nor was any offi cial action taken. Moreover, it was the representatives of the local government, and especially the police, who directly prompted the violence.

On the 3rd of July—in other words, after several days of inaction at the most critical point—at the urging of the Chief of Police, the Military Governor issued orders to expel all Chinese from the cities of the Amur Region. Raids were mounted using the ranks of the Police, and volunteers who numbered both private citizens and Cossacks—as a result of which several thousand people were interned. Th ese raids were accompanied by extensive looting, lynchings and murders. No attempt was made to prevent this taking place.

Th ere were incidents in which local people from Blagoveshchensk attempted to shelter their Chinese friends, especially their domestic servants—but their neighbours gave them away. Harbouring those accused of treason was punishable by death—so in fact very few were saved. Some rich merchants saved their own lives by managing to buy off the police. But even a colossal bribe didn’t exempt them from two weeks of beatings and abuse whilst in police custody.

Massacre

Th e events which follow were more completely reconstructed by the anonymous author of the article in the Messenger of Europe journal, based on the materials in the offi cial archives of the court. Th e incidents quoted are correlated by Sonin,17 who was an eyewitness to the events. Th ere are no signifi cant discrepancies between these two accounts. We can therefore assume them to be reliable when presenting the event.

On 4th July, the fi rst group of Chinese who had been rounded-up on the previous day was dispatched to the settlement of Upper Blagoveshchensky, 10 kilometres away along the Amur River. Th ey numbered from 3500 to 4000 men (other estimates place the fi gure as high as 5–6 thousand) and were under a guard of recruits armed with axes in lieu of guns. Th e pace was quick, the road was bad, and the weather was very hot—many, especially the elderly, couldn’t keep up. Th e offi cer in charge of the cordon gave an order

ask the Governor, that is, General Gribsky, who was kind and assured them that they are under the protection of Russian law, and need not be afraid of anything—let alone needing to leave the city.” (Blagoveshchensk “Utopia,” “Th e Messenger of Europe,” 1910, No. 7, p. 237)

17 Blagoveshchensk “Utopia,” pp. 231-241; Sonin, op. cit., pp. 9-20.


78

that stragglers were to be “hacked to death with axes.” Th is order was carried out, and several dozen detainees were killed during the forced march. An investigation which followed later established that this had been accompanied with theft—both those who survived and who died were robbed along the way.

Neither during the round-ups nor the forced march was any attempt made to resist. Nor did any of the detainees attempt to escape, although the purely symbolic conditions of the cordon would hardly have made doing so a diffi cult matter.

When they reached the settlement they were joined by armed Cossack citizens, under the command of their Hetman. Th ey chose a place to make the river crossing. Th e Amur was more than 200 metres wide at this point, with a depth of up to four metres and a powerful current. Th e Chinese were led to the water’s edge, and commanded to swim. After the fi rst to enter the water drowned almost immediately, the others refused to follow. Coercion then followed—at fi rst with Cossack horse-whips, and then with fi ring at close range. Th e shooting was done by anyone who had a gun—Cossacks, peasants, the elderly, and children. After half an hour of shooting, by which time a considerable pile of corpses lined the river-bank, the offi cer in charge commanded the use of cold steel. Th e Cossacks fi xed bayonets, while the recruits used axes. Th e Chinese rushed into the water to save themselves from being bayoneted—but the fi erce current of the water drowned nearly all of them, and a maximum of one hundred succeeded in swimming to the opposite bank.

Sonin—most likely from the accounts of those who were involved—gives alarming details on what took place. He quotes one case of a young Chinese mother with breast-feeding infant—at fi rst she ran to the bank, then tried to swim without the child, then came back and tried to swim with the infant too. As a result, both were drowned.

None of the shooting party protested. A few recruits lacked the willpower to hack people down with axes—at which the Cossacks declared they should be beheaded as traitors. One recruit saved a young boy whose mother had been killed—but this was the only instance of pity which the investigation revealed. During the following days, continuing to 8th July, a similar fate fell to further parties of Chinese detainees, totalling several hundred people in all. And since offi cers in charge quickly prepared reports of what had taken place for their superiors, it is clear that the events didn’t go unnoticed by the authorities.


79

Th e Spoils

Th e event couldn’t be kept secret from the whole population—if only because in such a small and secluded community secrets are not possible. For several days afterwards large numbers of corpses fl oated past Blagoveshchensk along the river. Th ree weeks after the incident an offi cer named Alexander Vereshchagin—sailing along the Amur by steam-ship—noted that hundreds of corpses had fl oated down the river and piled up on the banks.18

During the same period lynchings took place in many villages of the area. When village elders questioned whether they should kill the Chinese or not, they were instructed to do so by the authorities. A typical replies are contained in telegrams sent by Chief of the Amur Military Command, General Volkovinsky:

Regarding killing the Chinese . . . you must be mad to keep asking permission each time, . . . you must be mad and simple-minded to ask what to do with the Chinese . . . when you are ordered to kill them, then you should get on and kill them without any further discussion . . . All of my orders are to be carried out without any exception or dissension, stop bothering me with your nonsense.

When summarising the results of the Judicial Inquiry that followed, the author of the Offi cial Report concluded: “the collective testimony of eye-witnesses to the incident leads to the unavoidable conclusion that this was no river-crossing—but instead the purposed massacre and drowning of the Chinese.”

It was only on 7th July, when it was all over, that Gribsky sent a telegram with the following message:

I wish to explain to the elders of all village councils that we are waging battle upon the armed Chinese, who wish ill towards us. No ill-will must be shown to peaceful or friendly Chinese, most especially those who are unarmed. Th ese should be sent across to their own side in boats, or in steam-ships.

Th ese self-same instructions were issued to the public by the Governor in a special memorandum dated July 9th, printed-up as pamphlets and distributed throughout the town.19

It has been brought to my attention that certain residents of the town of Blagoveshchensk, in addition to the peasant and Cossack population in

18 A.V. Vereshchagin, In Manchuria. 1900–1901 years. Memoirs and Stories, “Th e Messenger of Europe,” 1902, No. 1. pp. 116-118.

19 Quoted from: N.I. Dubinina, Amur Governor General N.I. Grodekov: A Historical and Biographical Sketch, Publishing House Priamurskie Vedomosti, Khabarovsk 2001, p. 239.


80

the region under my control, have committed certain violent acts against Manchurian and Chinese civilian people living in the area. Attacks upon an unarmed and defenceless enemy are quite out of the character of Russian people.

“Disgraceful acts of aggression” were cause by the “outpouring of anger against the appalling treachery of the Chinese—who began hostilities against us without any motivation from our side.” To eliminate any “further attacks on the person or property of Chinese people living peacefully amongst us” the Governor ordered that abuses would be punished to the fullest extent permitted in time of war. In order “to prevent the spread of infectious diseases from the large numbers of corpses of dead Chinese people fl oating down the River Amur,” such bodies were ordered to be collected and buried.

Th e pogrom was accompanied by widespread and extensive looting. Some robbed the corpses of the dead—others exploited the chaos of the situation to steal the goods of Chinese storehouses or shops. Goods were frequently stolen by the very police who claimed to be protecting them. Quite a few got rich in all this—many more found themselves relieved of the need to pay-off debts to Chinese lenders. Sonin mentions “a signifi cant role in the hideous massacre of the Chinese, and the justifi cations for it, lies in self-interest, greed, and the chance to evade payment of debts.” He goes on to list a number of cases of theft of which the entire town was aware—in which the most active pilfering was undertaken by the police and civil servants, after which he concludes:

It was clear to all inhabitants of the town that the Governor was turning a blind eye to the theft of Chinese property. Many explained his behaviour by claiming that a considerable part of the proceeds came into his hands.20

Furthermore the incoming Governor-General, D.I. Subotich, collected documents on the case, and stated:

Th e principle motive which drove the local population towards the attack on the Chinese was greed—evading Chinese creditors, and stealing the property of those who had been killed.21

Th e Position of the Authorities

Th e position of the Blagoveshchensk authorities was simple and clear. General Konstantin Gribsky, with whose permission (and possible connivance)

20 Sonin, op. cit., pp. 13-14.21 Dubinina, op. cit., p. 238.


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the pogrom took place, “washed his hands” of the matter by issuing a memorandum on July 9th. Murders were presented in this document as the work of alleged criminals—criminals who committed these acts randomly. However, Gribsky couldn’t manage to cover over the fact of mass murder, even by resorting to wartime conditions in mitigation. An Offi cial Investigation was appointed—but Gribsky decided not to inform his superior, Amur Governor-General Nikolai Grodekov, of it.

However, as publicity grew, the investigation was moved to a higher level under the authorities in Khabarovsk and St. Petersburg, and became a judicial investigation. As far as can be discerned from the documentation, the attitude of those in authority to the incident was indiff erent. Gribsky, for example, was neither commended nor condemned—on both human and professional levels. Reaction of the Minister of War, Alexander Kuropatkin, who had previously held a very low opinion of the abilities of the Military Governor of Amur, was harsh: “During the period of your governance—and thanks, perhaps, to measures not being taken in due time—a great number of innocent people were killed without due cause.”22

Th e attitude of the immediate superiors can be clearly discerned in a typical passage from the already-cited diary of “General X”:

At the Mess-Table of General Grodekov—where all of his staff habitually met—it was a breach of etiquette to talk about the Amur Region, as though it was an indelicate matter ... but occasionally a word might be raised, and then another, by which it quickly became clear that they knew all about it in Khabarovsk, but did not approve of it. Th ey alluded to G[ribsky] as if to some recently-deceased person about whom no ill should be spoken. If that unfortunate topic should happen to arise, then all would peer into their plates in confusion, and silence reigned.23

Despite the extremely tense situation and danger around the border area, there were no other places on Russia’s territory where such pogroms took place. We must assume that the pre-pogrom situation did not turn into massacres due to the attitudes and action of local commanders, which further aggravated Gribsky’s guilt. Even so, neither condemnation not disapproval resulted in any kind of action. Th e honour of the uniform was at stake, so the matter had to be hushed up. Nina Dubinina characterised Grodekov’s offi cial position—

Deeply traumatised by this tragic incident, Nikolai Grodekov rose to the defence of the Military Governor, Konstantin Gribsky. To quote the

22 Ibid.23 Blagoveschensk “Utopia,” p. 241.


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words of War Minister Kuropatkin, General Grodekov stood solidly behind Gribsky’s woe.24

Th e preliminary judicial investigation which had been started was minimized. “By the agreement of three Ministers—Jägermeister Sipyagin, State Secretary Muravyov and Adjutant-General Kuropatkin—in February 1902 it was decided to seek to bring the investigation to a close without disciplining those responsible.” In consequence of the administrative inquiry Gribsky was relieved of his command, but simultaneously noting “his former excellent service, and valour in military action in the Far East in 1900” and he was retained in military service without demotion. He was presented with claims for mismanagement—that he had not given a written order for the deportations; he limited himself to oral orders; he failed to check the feasibility of the river-crossing; and he failed to make timely report to his superiors about the incident.25 After a due period of time had passed, he was appointed Governor of one of the Western provinces of the Russian Empire.26

Th ree further instigators of the incident suff ered rather more harshly. Th e Chief of Police was removed from his post “for failure to exercise power, and mismanagement.” Th e Deputy Chief of Police pleaded guilty to “not only failing to keep the guards and private individuals from acts of violence against the Chinese as they were swimming across the river, but calling on them to open fi re at them and to hack them with axes.” In result he was “dismissed from the service without leave to appeal, and placed under arrest in a guardhouse for two months.” Colonel Volkovinsky—who, unlike Gribsky, left numerous written orders connected with the murders—was “dismissed from the service without leave to appeal, with no right to apply again to the service, and ordered to be arrested in a guardhouse for 3 months.” All others involved were entirely exonerated from blame—not only judicial, but also administrative.27

Th e logic behind the Tribunal needs no special comment—“unpleasant matters” had to be covered-over to save the honour of the uniform, to protect the reputation of the State, and to look after “their own” guilty men in the situation, while rapping their knuckles symbolically.

For exactly the same reasons restrictions were imposed—including censorship—on the distribution of information about the case. Sonin wrote about this in a publication which came out after the October Manifesto of

24 Dubinina, op. cit., p. 238.25 Blagoveschensk “Utopia,” p. 240.26 Dubinina, op. cit., p. 341.27 Blagoveschensk “Utopia,” pp. 240-241.


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1905 i.e. after the lifting, or at least extensive softening of censorship. A further issue was that unlike Soviet-era censorship, there was no total and comprehensive censorship at this time.28 Th e example, the January issue of the Messenger of Europe journal for 1902 published the travel journal of a military offi cer involved in the war, Alexander Vereshchagin. Th ese notes describe in some detail the events at Blagoveshchensk, and a description of how he saw the dead bodies of the Chinese fl oating in the River Amur.29 Th e newspaper Amursky Krai covered the story in a restrained manner, with little comment but frank detail.30

Public Reaction

Th e facts of the incident had become known to the Russian public from the outset. Or at least, information had been available. After 1905 detailed results of the public inquest were published. Th e population of Blagoveshchensk also knew all about it—at once, and in detail. Th ere was no problem, then, with either ignorance or lack of information, nor in clarifying the details. Th e public was instead confronted with the question of how it should deal with what had happened.

Th ere wasn’t a single way of dealing with it—and given the circumstances, there couldn’t be a united feeling on the matter. But if we try to identify some common core of feeling, then what is most noticeable is the absence of any kind of reaction at all—the event was actively ignored. Th is may see, strange, given the national conscience of the time, the intense discussion of the national question, the extreme polarisation of society, and strident ideological and political arguments over the Jewish pogroms, the “Dreyfus Case,” the “Bayliss Case” and so forth. But here, thousands of Chinese had been viciously murdered, merely for being Chinese—and the result was a complete lack of any public reaction.

Th ere are only two possible ways of explaining this. Either the public genuinely perceived the incident as lacking importance and signifi cance—or did indeed regard the incident as signifi cant but was unable or unwilling to discuss it. It is worth adding at this point that the author recognises the diffi culty and uncertainty of categories such as “society,” and “public opinion”—most especially in Russia. In any case, here we are discussing an

28 Sonin, op. cit., p. 17.29 A.V. Vereschagin, op. cit., pp. 112–118.30 In Memory of the Events…; Th e Military Events…, Compendium of the Amursky Krai

Newspaper. Articles about the war on the Amur, appearing in the newspaper from 1 July to 1 August 1900, Blagoveshchensk 1900, p. 152.


84

attempt to reconstruct the logic behind what the educated section of the public of the time was feeling, from the literature it left behind for us to use in such attempts. How the simpler people—peasants, Cossacks, gold-prospectors—felt about the Chinese, and their mass-murder—is a question for a separate discussion.

Best-preserved are the fragments of the reactions of the inhabitants of Blagoveshchensk itself. According to the account left by Vereshchagin, just weeks after the incident happened it had become the main talking-point for all citizens of the town. Every shade of opinion might be heard. Typical accounts are refl ected in the series of essays which were published by this military offi cer on his furlough. In the dark of evening, the steamer on which he was traveling along the Amur River approached some blackened objects in the water. “A Chinaman,” said the aged ship’s pilot in a half-voice—with the kind of tone you might talk about a pothole or an obstacle. A contemptuous smile broke out over the old man’s wrinkled face and ragged brown beard. Th e smile seemed to say “what’s the point of paying any attention to that kind of fl otsam?” Th e typical reaction of the passengers, when the bodies of the drowned appeared in the full width of the Amur River, was to rush out of their cabins to look at this unprecedented sight.” And after seeing it, they all went down to supper.

Vereshchagin recalls a conversation with an elderly servant from Blagoveshchensk—who witnessed the police driving his neighbour out of his own house with whips. Th e neighbour was “a stout, elderly Chinese, a wealthy millionaire” who had been trading in the city for thirty years. Th e interviewee felt sorry for the old Chinese man, with whom he’d been on neighbourly terms for many years—he said the man had been a friendly and good man, who had often written-off the debts of his Russian clients.

Of course, it was an atrocity, to annihilate a peaceful population of several thousand people—but there again, you must also understand our point of view. Half the population were Chinese. And then suddenly shelling begins from the opposite bank of the river. And who was doing the shelling? It was their comrades, their fellow believers. So it was understandable that hostility arose towards them. Th e whole city was certain that there was a pact between those Chinese and ours, to rise up and slaughter the Russians. Th ere was no military to stop them, nor were there any weapons. So when the shelling began, the Russians—of course—ran to the authorities for weapons, and at the same time began begging them to deport the Chinese to the other side. And when they were shoved to the riverside, with no means of transport across—well, it’s entirely understandable that the catastrophe happened, which had to happen inevitably.31

31 A.V. Vereschagin, op. cit., pp. 112-118.


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Th e views of the liberal section of the town’s community were refl ected in the columns of the “Amursky Krai” [Amur Region] newspaper. Back on June 23rd the editorial columns had published a piece titled “Is Europe Truly Th reatened by Yellow-Skinned Barbarians? Is she ready for an attack by a vicious and implacable enemy which intends the destruction of all civilisation?” Th e newspaper answered its own question thus:

Th ese are curious concerns. Chinese people today resemble barbarians as little as modern Europeans resemble their medieval forebears. By the unanimous and complete opinion of all those who are acquainted with the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom [i.e. China—translator’s note], they are a peaceable people, industrious, and most tolerant. Th ey have only one wish—to be left alone in peace, and to be given the chance to live as best they may. In conclusion we should note that the social conditions of our age have so radically altered, that it now seems absurd to give serious consideration to talk of invasions, or the annihilation of civilisation.

Subsequently the newspaper would report the events that followed as a massacre of unarmed civilians—whose only crime was “not to have left earlier, because they trusted us” (from the newspaper’s editorial of July 14th). A few days earlier—in the issue of July 12th—the publication attempted to explain what had happened.

Whether viewed from the Chinese perspective or from our own, the clash which occurred took on the character of a people’s war—a war embittered by the gaping gulf created by racial, historical and economic grievances. It was a war that erupted with a furious passion, with atrocities of a kind not previously witnessed. Every stratum of society—not only simple folk, but intelligent people too—saw in every representative of the yellow race an enemy which constituted a threat if allowed to remain at large. Panicked into fear by the threat of Manchurian invasion, and hatred towards neighbours who had always previously been hard-working and peaceful, resulted in the torching of many Manchurian settlements, the destruction of property they’d acquired over long years, and the taking of many lives”. People expected threat from every Chinese person, the author continues—and thus aimed their blow at all of them. Not even the educated section of society could overcome this, and “failed to rise above the hatred of the yellow race in general—hatred that is so harmful to our society and country.32

Yet after some time, the tone of the evaluations takes a noticeable turn. Th e summary of the materials and documents on the 1900 incident, and comments upon them, which was undertaken by newspaper owner Alexander Kirchner comes to the following conclusion: Yes, certainly, there was appalling

32 Compendium of the Amursky Krai Newspaper, pp. 54-63.


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wickedness committed, including mass slayings and looting. But it was all provoked by the threat of war and military actions which posed a deadly danger to the city and its inhabitants. Moreover “it’s a great mistake to look upon those Chinese who decided to remain in the city as mere civilians.” If their intentions were truly peaceable then they would have enlisted in the ranks of the town’s militia—but, although they knew in advance of the forthcoming bombardment, they failed to give any warning of it, they behaved provocatively, they began preparations for mass slaughter, and made plans for full-scale looting in the event that the town was taken. “We, the civilian population of the town, had to take responsibility for defending ourselves against these so-called ‘peaceful’ Chinese.” Overall

this unexpected war—which began and ended so peculiarly—gives pause for thought as to what skulks deep in the souls of our yellow-faced neighbours. What a serious enemy they might prove, if provided with European-standard weaponry, and given competent commanders and generals.

Finally “it would be a grave mistake to rely upon the peaceful assurances of the Chinese—in future, we must be on our guard.”33

In a similar bulletin which Kirchner compiled in the following year, the events were described in summary and curt fashion: “here the facts must suffi ce that the Chinese swam across the River Amur.”34 One can only speculate as the reasons behind this astonishing reinterpretation...

Nor was Amurskaya Gazeta an exception in this matter. Th e topic of Blagoveshchensk events almost entirely disappears from published mainstream literature of the time on Chinese migration.35 Th ey write about almost everything else—but not about that. In extreme cases there might be obscure reference, passing remarks, or euphemisms—about something which was fully known to the entire community.36

Attempts to penetrate the conspiracy of silence begin with the publication of Sonin’s article, which appears to have been published in 1906, to judge by its content. Th ereafter an anonymous article appeared in the Messenger of Europe for 1910. Th ese publications diff ered greatly in their style and

33 In Memory of the Events…, pp. 1V, 8, 29, 35, 52, 124-126.34 Th e Military Events…, p. 16.35 For further details see: V. Dyatlov, Chinese Migration and a Discussion of the “Yellow

Peril” in Pre-Revolutionary Russia, “Bulletin of Eurasia,” Moscow, 2000, No. 1, pp. 63-89.36 See for example: V.V. Grave, Th e Chinese, Koreans and Japanese on the Amur, “Work

carried out on orders from the Supreme Amur Expedition,” Vol. XI, St. Petersburg 1912, p. 44; F. Duhovetsky, Th e Yellow Question, “Russian Journal,” St. Petersburg 1900, No. 12, p. 743; N.V. Slyunin, Th e Present Situation in Our Far East Territories, St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 149; P. Timofeev, Freeport in Th e Far East & Russian Cosmopolitanism, Moscow 1908, pp. 36; L.K., Studies in the History of Siberian life, “Siberian Questions,” St. Petersburg 1911, No. 1, p. 40.


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approach (a highly emotional eyewitness account, and the dry details of the internal investigation) and circumvented the censorship rules—but neither succeeded in reaching any wide readership.

Th e Rationale for the Silence

Why did this silence happen? It’s possible to construct a variety of hypotheses and assumptions. It may indeed be that these events failed to fi nd an interested readership among the Russian public—even among that section which habitually responds to high-profi le manifestations of national and social injustice or violence. It all took place in the farthest periphery of the Empire during wartime—and wartime events are diff erent, and assessed by a diff erent standard. “Th e savagery of war” could be treated quite diff erently to—let us say—a pogrom against the Jews in peacetime.

For others the most fundamental issue was the identity of the victims of the violence. Th e Chinese were viewed as “extraterrestrials,” or—to use the widespread metaphor of the time, as “ants”37—they were representatives of some distant and alien culture and civilisation. We might be forced to conclude that the violence against them comes from the sphere of interpersonal relationships. A signifi cant role was played by the presentation of a “yellow peril” which threatened the very basis of European civilisation. Viewed in this perspective, the Blagoveshchensk “Utopia” could be viewed as a brutal but necessary measure of self-defence.

A more simplistic explanation is also possible—that the events simply failed to fi nd the voice of a suitably talented and infl uential journalist, and thus—as we might say today—“didn’t play to best eff ect.” Th e same thing has occurred subsequently. For example, the forced deportation of 60,000 ethnic Asians from Uganda in 1972 was reported all around the world—but the far more ambitious and vicious deportation of one million Ghanaians from Nigeria went practically unnoticed.38

We can’t exclude the possibility, however, that the silence was motived by horror of what had occurred. Th e two World Wars, the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire, and the Holocaust were still yet to come. In the forefront were impressions that technological and economic progress have radically changed the human nature for the better. And then suddenly, to quote Sonin, “right on the doorstep of C20th middle-class Europe came an

37 See, for example, a talented monograph of that era: Verezhnikov, A Chinese Crowd, “Contemporary,” St. Petersburg 1911, No. 4, pp. 124-134.

38 V. Dyatlov, Enterprising Minorities: Fraudsters, Strangers, or Just Sent by God? Symbiosis, Confl ict, & Integration in the Arab East and Sub-Saharan Africa, Moscow 1996, p. 178.


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atrocity no less barbarous than the hordes of Tamerlane or Genghis Khan.”39 Perhaps coming to terms with the events was so traumatic that the event dropped out of collective memory. Society tried so hard to forget, that it succeeded.

None of these hypotheses are mutually exclusive, and each is capable of coexisting with others. It’s hardly possible to suggest which might be the more accurate. But for an analysis of the causes and outcomes of the Blagoveshchensk massacre, for insight into the logic in the minds of its perpetrators, and the eyewitnesses and information sources—the sources are both scanty and fragmentary.

Th e Mechanisms of the Pogrom

Th ere can be no doubt that the town’s population found itself suddenly in a pent-up state in which certain essential fundamentals of life appeared lost. Practically all witnesses mention the numbing panic which enveloped the town. Th e mighty Empire, defended by the tiny outcrop the people of Blagoveshchensk thought themselves to be, seemed to be very far away. Th is fear was magnifi ed by the fact the enemy was (or at least, seemed that he was) not only outside (China was just across the River Amur from Blagoveshchensk), but was actually among the townspeople—the enemy was omnipresent, and all-pervasive. Add now to that fear an intense sense of humiliation—the Chinese who had habitually been used, ignored, or despised, suddenly appeared to be a terrifying force. Very possibly underlying fears were unleashed which had been formed earlier.

Th ese feelings of fear and humiliation unfettered many inhibitions and societal taboos. In particular these included the attitude towards the Chinese, of which Sonin (and others) had written: “In the eyes of our simpler folk, a Chinese is not even human—he is a ‘creature’ or a ‘beast’.”40 In fact earlier many observers had noted unprompted acts of violence against the Chinese, a daily dose of humiliation—and this was not even perceived as unacceptable.

One keen-sighted observer wrote:

“Coolie,” “chinky,” “snub-nose”—this is how he is known everywhere with mocking condescension of a high ranker towards a low ranker, an adult towards a teenager. To push him in the forehead, pull his ponytail, trip him over, or give him a good cuffi ng—it was all allowed, with complete impunity,

39 Sonin, op. cit., p. 20.40 Ibid., p. 7.


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and done for laughs. Robbing, or mugging a “chinky,” even in broad daylight, was considered a trifl ing matter, entirely blameless—like taking a lamb to slaughter. Any kind of explanation for it seemed to be entirely meaningless. And if the “good townsfolk” should happen to fi nd the corpse of some “coolie” along the roadside, they just strung him up by the heels and lowered him into the nearest hole—and that would be all. No names, no paperwork, no consequences. Th ere were others to take care of . . . .41

Fear, humiliation, and a habit of regarding the Chinese as “things”—it all produced a safe haven for bullying the weak and defenceless, and aff orded space to the worst and most vicious instincts. Even the educated part of Blagoveshchensk’s population, who regarded themselves as the guardians of European civilisations gates, beyond which stood the barbarians, accepted the pogrom—either by direct approval or by silent non-condemnation.

We shouldn’t omit things which are simply practical and day-to-day. Th e widespread looting and theft from the Chinese gave many the chance to spend several pleasant evenings in the tavern, while others grew suddenly rich. Th e Chinese shops and warehouses contained goods worth vast sums of money—and they were all looted. No-one had to pay their debts—and the sums were rarely small. Th e Chinese competed with local Russians for work on the Amur River, and in the goldfi elds. Th eir deportation caused a huge shortage in the labour market—leaving the way clear for the lowest classes of society in Blagoveshchensk to claim it.

Incidentally, the “fog of war” provided an eff ective guise for the resolution of the situation of the “Zazeisky Manchurians,” which had been a longstanding headache for the Russian authorities. Th e matter related to residents of the district of Zazeisk, which offi cially belonged to Russia, but, under the Treaty of Aigun, remained within the Chinese jurisdiction. According to the Census of 1897, they numbered 7608 people. Th eir stateless status and uncontrollable nature must certainly have angered the local administration, while their developed lands and property attracted the not-so-selfl ess attention of the Russian population. In 1900 the area was liquidated by troops of the local militia, who burned the Chinese villages—some of the population fl ed, while the rest were massacred.42

41 A.N. Matveev, Chinese in the Carian Fields, “Russian Wealth,” St. Petersburg 1911, No. 12, p. 30.

42 For further details see: Datsyshen, Formation of Th e Chinese Community in Th e Russian Empire (Second half of the 19th century), “Diaspora,” Moscow 2001, No. 2-3, pp. 37-38.

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* * *

Th e Blagoveshchensk Massacre can be called a model for a pogrom. On one hand we fi nd an angry crowd, driven by the darkest instincts of mob rule—while on the other, we fi nd the authorities inciting events. Experience in the other towns of the region has shown that without the explicit or tacit encouragement of the authorities, even the most tense situations do not result in riots. And in fact in Blagoveshchensk it only took the Military Governor to speak out fi rmly and clearly against the rioting, and it immediately stopped.

Finally, let us mention life in Blagoveshchensk after the hostilities. Without the Chinese population it proved extremely diffi cult to maintain the normal operation of public services. Food prices rose sharply, and the economy went into crisis. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese soon returned. By 1907 their number had returned to pre-hostility levels, and they returned to their previous economic activities. A correspondent in the newspaper Siberia, writing under the pseudonym “the Frowning Optimist,” wrote: “As the past was gradually falling into oblivion, the Chinese, driven by hunger and unemployment, fl owed across the Amur River with new energy and re-established themselves. What, indeed, could dissuade hungry people from looking for an income? And on the Amur, there is plenty for all.”43

43 Siberia, Irkutsk, 10 January 1907.

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Vol. VIII (2012/3)pp. 91-114

Tatyana N. SorokinaF.M. Dostoevsky State University, Omsk

“Th e Blagoveshchensk Panic” of the Year 1900: the Version of the Authorities

“In fact everything did not happen the way it really did.”Stanisław Jerzy Lec

People have called these events diff erently: the Chinese “siege” or “bombardment” of Blagoveshchensk, simply “wartime events on the

Amur River,” “the Blagoveshchensk Panic,” “the bloody days,” or “a shocking crime.” Th ey tragically culminated in a deportation of the Chinese inhabiting Blagoveshchensk and the neighboring area, carried out using horrifying means and—thanks to an anonymous author writing for Vestnik Evropy—known as the Blagoveshchensk “Utopia.”1 It was an extreme and salutary example of a situation resulting from incompetence or even total paralysis of the authorities in times of crisis. Initially, the events deeply moved the general public to be later completely forgotten and remembered again in a hundred years.

After decades of silence in the Soviet era the events have gradually become a subject of studies conducted by Russian researchers. Some authors consider them as an incident of the war between Russia and China in 1900 or as an episode in the history of Russo-Chinese relations.2 Others analyze

1 V., Blagoveshchenskaya “Utopiya,” “Vestnik Evropy,” 1910, No. 7, pp. 231-241.2 V.G. Datsyshen, Russko-Kitaiskaya voina. Man’chzhuriya 1900 g., Vol. 1: Boevye deistviya

na sukhopytnom fronte, Saint Petersburg 1996, pp. 89-93. V.G. Datsyshen, Istoriya rossiisko-kitaiskikh otnoshenii v kontse XIX–nachale XX vv., Krasnoyarsk 2000; V. G. Datsyshen, Bokserskaya voina. Voennaya kampaniya russkoi armii I fl ota v Kitae v 1900–1901 gg., Krasnoyarsk 2001, pp. 208-217; V.G. Datsyshen, Istorya russko-kitaiskikh otnoshenii (1618–1917 gg.). Uchebnoe posobie, Krasnoyarsk 2004, pp. 146-149; I.M. Popov, Rossiya i kitai: 300 let na grani voiny, Moscow 2004, pp. 281-284; O. A. Timofeev, Rossiisko-kitaiskie otnosheniya v Priamure (seredina XIX–nachalo XX vv.), Blagoveshchensk 2003, http://igpi.ru/center/lib/hist_tradit/east/china/timofeev1.html etc.

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them as a fragment of the history of the Chinese in Russia.3 N.I. Dubinina mentioned the events in question in her book devoted to the Amur Region (Priamur’e) Governor General N.I. Grodekov.4 In A.V. Usova’s dissertation the events in Blagoveshchensk are seen from the angle of the Zeya River Manchurians’ (zazeiskie man’chzhury) fate.5 V.I. Dyatlov in turn is more interested in the impact of the “yellow danger” syndrome on the inhabitants of the Far-Eastern regions of the Empire and the reasons why these events have actually been forgotten.6

Th e latter paper deserves special attention since the issues it covers have been vividly discussed in the Internet. Another unquestionable manifestation of a growing interest in the subject are publications issued for the anniversary of the Amur Province (Amurskaya oblast), especially the collection including both contemporary papers and reprints of older articles and photographs. As the annotation says,

Th e publication throws light on the events that happened in Russian Priamur’e and China during the Boxer (Yihetuan) Rebellion. It was the most diffi cult period in centuries-long, traditionally friendly relations between the two world powers. For a number of historical reasons there are too few credible accounts of this tragic confl ict available, both in Russia and China. Th is book has to a certain extent fi lled the gap.7

More recent publications concerning the history of Blagoveshchensk, the Amur Cossacks and governors have also brought up the subject.

“Wartime is Wartime”—“Th e Panic”—“Th e Bloody Days”

Contemporaries witnessing the events and their descendants viewed them quite diff erently. Th e names alone used to refer to them are quite signifi cant: “the Blagoveshchensk Panic,” “the Chinese siege of Blagoveshchensk,” “the wartime events on the Amur,” “the bloody days,” or “the Blagoveshchensk ‘Utopia’.”

3 A.G. Larin, Kitaitsy v Rossii vchera i segodniya: istoricheskii ocherk, Moscow 2003, pp. 41-42; A.G. Larin, Kitaiskie migranty v Rosii. Istoriya i sovremennost’, Moscow 2009, pp. 43-44; A.I. Petrov, Istoriya kitaitsev v Rossii. 1856–1917 gody, Saint Petersburg, pp. 328-338.

4 N.I. Dubinina Дубинина, Priamurskii general gubernator N. I. Grodekov. Istoriko-biografi cheskii ocherk, Khabarovsk 2001.

5 A.V. Usova, Istoriya kitaitsev, man’chzhurov i daurozazeiskogo kraia vo vtoroi polovine XIX veka, abstract of the Ph.D. thesis, Moscow 2005.

6 V. Dyatlov, Blagoveshchenskaya “Utopiya:” iz istorii materializatsii fobii, “Vestnik Evrazii,” 2002, No. 4, pp. 84-103.

7 Voennye sobytiya v Priamur’e. 1900-1902: Posvashchaetsya 150-letiyu Amurskoi oblasti, Blagoveshchensk na Amure 2008, p. 312, http://www.amurfair.ru/book-nal/page/1/

“The Blagoveshchensk Panic” of the Year 1900

93

Generally, three major points of view can be specifi ed, all of them taken—more or less explicitly—by the contemporaries judging the events. Using the political commentary style of the time, we could metaphorically call them “wartime is wartime,” “the bloody days,” and “the panic.” Th e fi rst two terms are opposing: on the one hand there were people who—although being against war cruelties—justifi ed the events in question with wartime conditions (“wartime is wartime”), on the other—all those who accused the authorities and society for what had been done, thinking that there could be no excuse for such a “terrifying crime” (“he bloody days” or “we cannot be forgiven”). O.A. Timofeev claimed that

. . . the Blagoveshchensk authors A.V. Kirkhner and N.Z. Golubtsov concentrate in their works on the episodes of Russian soldiers’ and offi cers’ wartime glory and courage, ignoring their war crimes or justifying them with the fact that it was the Chinese who “started treacherous bombardment of the defenseless and unarmed city,” whereas representatives of a social and liberal trend in Russuian journalism—both in the capital and from the émigré community—such as L.G. Deich and the authors of the article entitled “Th e Bolshevik ‘Utopia’” devoted special attention to deliberations on peaceful Chinese inhabitants, quite fairly putting part of the blame on the Priamur’e authorities.8

Another group included these who kept trying to understand and explain—if not justify—what had happened (“the Blagoveshchensk panic”). As a Blagoveshchensk female resident recalled,

. . . back then Russian press wrote enough about that hard time, either prizing the Blagoveschensk citizens for acting so vigorously: “once forgotten always forgotten” or accusing them of inhumane and barbaric attitude towards the “peaceful” Chinese. Th ere was no golden mean! [my emphasis—T.S.]9

In her opinion it was a necessity imposed by the situation and—what is more—the only possible solution.

Researchers at that time expressed their diff erent views similarly. According to A.G. Larin,

. . . the city authorities decided to displace the Chinese to the other side of the Amur in order to deprive the enemy of their potential allies on our side of the river, and they did it hastily in a few days from the beginning of military activity. Unfortunately, judging from what has been written, the

8 O.A. Timofeev, op. cit.9 K. Nikitina, Osada Blagoveshchenska kitaitsami v 1900 godu (Iz vospominanii), “Istoricheskii

vestnik,” 1910, October, p. 222.

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operation—perhaps logical during wartime—was conducted with the use of cruel means.10

Th e attitude described here using the term “the bloody days” has found a larger representation in the press. Th e following quotation from Amurskii komsomolets can be considered a typical one:

103 years ago the Blagoveshchensk Cossacks killed about fi ve thousand of the Chinese. Th e latter were forced with bayonets into the ice-cold and churned up water of the Amur—the Black Dragon River. Almost all of them drowned. Th ose who actively resisted were killed on the spot. Th is was the way the Russians marked their rule in this region of Eastern Asia—they pushed the Chinese inhabitants behind the border that Russia had established. Nowadays it is hardly remembered . . . .11

But what is “the ice-cold and churned up water of the Amur” in the height of July heat! Some researchers tend to share such kind of an attitude. O. A. Timofeev assumed that

. . . many local administration members were fl ooded with a tide of chauvinism caused by the start of military activity . . . And the most vulnerable targets of any war are the civilians who not only become accidental victims, but also face genocide initiated by the enemy government. In 1900 the authorities of the Amur Province gave that kind of a negative example.12

Moreover, there are also these who support the “panic” theory. V.G. Datsyshen was inclined to think that

. . . there are no grounds for considering the extermination of the Chinese as planned. Obviously, the main reason for the situation was fear. It was the fi rst time that the Russian inhabitants of the Amur area faced the real threat of a war with China. Th at fear left common people with no place for compassion in their souls. And that was what enabled the ones who followed nothing but their animal instincts to act without control. Unfortunately, many of them had already come to power.13

Th e same author also wrote that “the mass murder of the Chinese at the Amur River was caused by the panic that had seized the Russian inhabitants,

10 A.G. Larin, op. cit., p. 44. 11 Quoted in: N.P. Ryzhova, Transgranichnyi narodnyi rynok va Blagoveshchenske/

Kheikhe, In: “Most cherez Amur”. Vheshnie migratsii i migranty v Sibirii i na Dal’nem Vostoke, Natalis, Moscow, Irkutsk 2004, p. 160.

12 O.A. Timofeev, op. cit.13 V.G. Datsyshen, Russko-Kitaiskaia voina, p. 93.


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as well as the interests and lack of professionalism shown by the local authorities.”14

Other authors in turn only intended to state the facts suggesting their readers to assess the situation by themselves. Nonetheless, even this kind of attitude allows to analyze the choice of factual material for presentation, since reconstructing events strongly depends on the selection of sources.

Two Sources—One Version

Th e factual side of the events is widely known and precisely described, both in offi cial sources and in memories written by their contemporaries. One can access archival documents (especially the ones from the Russian State Historical Archive for the Far East), special collections of documents and materials concerning the war events of 1900 in the Amur River area, periodicals, particularly Blagoveshchensk newspapers, as well as witnesses’ memoirs and other pre-revolutionary publications.

Th e majority of references have been made to two sources. Th e fi rst one is Th e Story of an Eyewitness, i.e. the memoirs of an exiled social democrat L.G. Deich published in two versions under diff erent names (of Sonin and L.G. Deich) and titles (Th e Chinese Bombardment of Blagoveshchensk and Th e Bloody Days).15 Th e second source is an article entitled Th e Blagoveshchensk “Utopia” published in the local newspaper “Vestnik Evropy.” V.I. Dyatlov maintains that the anonymous author of the latter “gives the most thorough reconstruction” of the events in question and that the memoirs written by Sonin, their eyewitness, make the description complete.16

Referring to the above texts A.O. Timofeev wrote that contrarily to Blagoveshchensk authors “linked to the authorities” “numerous works published in St. Petersburg and in exile displayed an attitude diametrically opposed to the ones displayed by N.I. Grodekov, the Governor-General of Priamur’e and K.N. Gribskii, the War Governor of the Amur Oblast.”17 According to A.I. Petrov, “the testimonies of two eyewitnesses of the Amur River events, both of them foreigners, represent unquestionable value. Th ey included Leo Deich (his story, by the way, was described by A. Malozemov as

14 V.G. Datsyshen, Istoriya russko-kitaiskikh otnoshenii, p. 146.15 Sonin, Bombardirovka Blagoveshchenska kitaitsami (rasskaz ochevidtsa), “Zari,” No. 4, B.

m., B. g.; L. Deich, Krovavye dni, Saint Petersburg 1906; L. Deich, 16 let v Sibirii, Moscow 1924, etc.

16 V.I. Dyatlov, op. cit., p. 89.17 O.A. Timofeev, op. cit.

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‘the most important source of information about this event’) … .”18 It is highly likely that Leo Deich, the Blagoveshchensk-based foreign correspondent working for “one of the newspapers,” and the exiled revolutionary Lev Grigor’evich Deich were in fact the same person.

Th e above publications are often referred to as the key sources of information for reconstructing the Blagoveshchensk events. Nonetheless, they have hardly been subject to critical analyses. We will make an attempt to fi ll this gap.

Whenever an expression “according to Deich” is used, it is usually without any refl ection concerning the source of information off ered by the latter. He gave descriptions of the events he had or could have witnessed—at the time he lived in Blagoveshchensk and worked as a journalist for the Amurskii krai newspaper (in fact, according to some evidence he was even its editor). As a correspondent he was present at a special meeting of the City Council called on July 2, shortly before the bombardment (and his recollections about that can serve as an excellent source of information about the “panic” among the city authorities), he witnessed the bombardment or siege of Blagoveshchensk by the Chinese, etc. He did not, however, witness the plundering or killing of the Chinese, and all the evil acts he later so emotionally described. What is more, Deich himself widely used such expressions as “people have started talking that,” “as I have been told,” “they say,” “it is hard to determine,” “as it has been announced,” “according to reliable sources,” etc.

For instance, his evidence for the misconduct of the police who plundered the possessions of the Chinese was as follows:

Th e thing is that after getting the Chinese subjects “across” the river their possessions remained under police protection before guardians were appointed. Certain police offi cers managed to turn them into a highly profi table source of income. It was not hard to imagine a priori, taking into account the unstable times and the fact that there were a few hundred of Chinese stores, shops and other establishments of the kind in Blagoveshchensk and the neighboring area with all kinds of possessions and commodities worth several million of rubles.

And the proof of the participation of the Amur Province War Governor in the plundering: “… rumor had it that Shabanov was sharing profi ts with his generals. One cannot be sure how reliable it was, but apparently the situation was highly likely: it is quite diffi cult to imagine that such malpractice was conducted without the knowledge of the local despot,”19 etc.

18 A.I. Petrov, op. cit., p. 329.19 L.G. Deich, Krovavye dni, pp. 22- 23.


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And naturally, he could not be the eyewitness of the “river crossings” or have access to the investigation documents if only for the fact that he had left Blagoveshchensk before its termination was offi cially announced. Judging from his memoirs, he “started to fi nd it very diffi cult to live in Blagoveshchensk where every street and almost every house reminded him of the masses of killed and robbed.” Th erefore, he decided to leave the city for Vladivostok “right after the bombardment ceased”20 and fi nally fl ee to Munich in 1901.

How did he know about the river crossings? His recollections off er an explanation:

Once, when I was sitting in my room working, Chkhotua rushed in, breathless and pale as death, and cried in a trembling voice: “Have you heard? Th ey were all drowned!” “Who? Where?” I asked. “Th e Chinese! It’s a shame, what a dreadful crime!” David Ivanovich, with his deepest sense of decency, was brimming over with indignation. Peaceful and patient, an infi nitely good man, he was yelling almost in a frenzy that he did no longer wish to know anyone who would try to justify that atrocious crime. 21

To sum up, L.G. Deich witnessed what everyone else did: “I went to the river bank and saw a gruesome sight: there were masses of corpses fl oating on the Amur; they occupied such a considerable part of the river surface that it was impossible to count them.”22 He could only make guesses or assumptions about everything else, judge from a whole lot of rumors circulating in Blagoveshchensk or from the news in the papers, etc. He could—to put it in contemporary terms—conduct a kind of “journalist’s inquiry,” after all, he worked for a local newspaper (“I was asking all and everyone…”23) but it is still diffi cult to assess the reliability of the facts he presented.

And the point is not about the fact that the majority of L.G. Deich’s account was based on rumors that did or did not correspond with the reality. I entirely admit that the latter might have surpassed the most terrifying “eyewitness stories.” Nevertheless, one cannot disregard the author’s tendentiousness and one-sidedness, as well as political orientation of his publications, the main objective of which was to expose the ruling regime represented by “the local despots.”

Apparently, to emphasize the result of the crime committed by the Priamur’e authorities L.G. Deich started with depicting an ideal image of

20 L.G. Deich, 16 let v Sibirii, p. 375.21 Ibid., p. 372.22 Ibid., p. 373.23 L.G. Deich, Krovavye dni, p. 18.

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Chinese migrants and a no less idyllic picture of their relationships with the Russian inhabitants of remote areas:

Th e Chinese and Manchurians, incredibly limited in terms of their needs, had never even been reported to have committed minor off ences, not to mention crimes. Th eir honesty, diligence and straightforwardness were commonly recognized features of their character, and Chinese subjects working as civil or domestic servants were commonly relied on and trusted in numerous institutions, various industrial companies as well as private residences. As they say, they were handy about the house and many Russian families that had young Chinese or Manchurian servants got attached to them and treated them like their own members. Th ey were often taught to speak Russian and proved to be amazingly diligent: they studied Russian books or writing late into the night and thanks to such eagerness managed to make quick progress . . . . Th e relationships between the citizens of both countries were highly peaceful: both Russian and Chinese subjects were freely crossing the border and entering the neighboring country to visit each other, always showing mutual trust, with no precautions taken or passports controlled.24

Th is seems too much even for the most ardent defenders of “Yellow workforce” in the Far East. It is widely known that relationships with refugees from the neighboring eastern countries, including migrants from China, have always been—to put it mildly—complex and constituted the subject of particular concern of both local and central authorities from the moment Priamur’e and Primor’e were incorporated into Russia.

Ultimately, the whole revealing pathos represented by the exiled revolutionary and addressed to the Priamur’e local authorities was aimed against the Tsarist government:

Th e civilized world trembled when it fi rst learned about the Blagoveshchensk atrocities. People found them exaggerated. Russian government agents were spreading rumors that they were nothing but fi ction fabricated by vicious revolutionary anarchists. But the situation in Russia was progressing: what seemed unbelievable to the civilized world, even if happening in remote areas of Eastern Siberia, became reality in a number of cities in European Russia. Having started from the peaceful Chinese in 1900 people like Gribskii later turned against equally defenseless Jewish doctors, workers, Armenians, Poles, students, and the intelligentsia.25

Th us, summing up, to Deich the Blagoveshchensk events served as a reason to act against “people like Gribskii” on the whole-Russian scale. Th e objective to fi gure out what really happened receded into the background.

24 Ibid., pp. 4-5.25 Ibid., p. 32.


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Th e anonymous author for Vestnik Evropy in turn was writing “using the material taken from offi cial court records.”26 Contrarily to the migrant L.G. Deich, he could not reveal his name, did not expand on the way he got access to the “court records” in question or describe them in a more exact manner. Presumably, V.G. Datsyshen later based on this material when referring to the case from the Amur Province War Governor’s Offi ce; RGIADV (РГИАДВ, the Russian State Historical Archive for the Far East; f. 704. op. 6. d. 1134).

Some of the quotations he used completely coincided with the excerpts from “Th e Blagoveshchensk ‘Utopia.’” Both authors quote one of the telegrams sent by the head of military authorities Colonel Volkovinskii: “One must be a madman or out of one’s mind to ask what should be done with the Chinese; when they are ordered to be eliminated, they should be liquidated unquestioningly.”27 Unfortunately, however, both authors failed to specify the exact document they quoted. It is one thing if it was the wire itself, and another if it was someone’s account given during the investigation. Since none of the known researchers referring to the case No. 1134 described its contents or at least gave its full title, it is problematic to assess what sort of documents it included. Was it correspondence between the investigative bodies and the War Governor’s Offi ce? Were they only investigation proceedings including interrogations of the accused and witnesses? Or were they notes and reports based on the latter? Th ese questions remain unanswered.

While referring to the above-mentioned case, V.G. Datsyshen wrote: “Th e quickly commenced inquiry of all these facts resulted in a conclusion that ‘all the Chinese were nearly completely liquidated.’”28 Numerous questions crop up immediately: What kind of document was it—the fi nal investigation report or perhaps someone’s account? Was it signed and addressed to anyone? What was the reason for the investigation to come to such a conclusion? Who conducted the investigation? And so on. Th e case material is still waiting to be analyzed and currently it is impossible to claim with absolute certainty that they are the “offi cial court archive” documents referred to by the anonymous author of Vestnik Evropy. Right now it can only be said that he had access to documents from the Amur Province War Governor’s Offi ce rather than the “court archives.”

Let us assume that all the author’s quotations indeed came from the investigation documents (unfortunately, they lack references), all the more so because a great many facts given in the article were confi rmed by other sources. Nonetheless, this information should not be viewed as “ultimate

26 V., Blagoveschenskaya “Utopiya,” p. 231.27 V.G. Datsyshen, Russko-Kitaiskaia voina, p. 92; V., Blagoveshchenskaya “Utopiya,” p. 238.28 V.G. Datsyshen, Russko-Kitaiskaia voina, p. 91.

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truth” either. It is merely an interpretation of the events, just like the “account of the eyewitness” L.G. Deich. And as V.I. Dyatlov aptly observed, “their versions do not reveal any considerable diff erences.”29 One can safely say that they actually represent the same version of the events, which—however—is not the only one.

Recently, certain documents from the Priamur’e Governor-General’s Offi ce “With essential directives and announcements of putting the Chinese under protection during the disturbances of 1900, 1900–1902”30 have been made available to researchers. Th ey include material that, according to A. I. Petrov, appeared “sometime after” the events. In other words, the sources that constituted the basis for reports sent by the Amur Province authorities to Khabarovsk are not there.

Such material, however, can be found in the case entitled “On the Chinese crossing to the right bank of the Amur. (July 4, 1900–June 17, 1902)” from the Amur Province War Governor’s Offi ce.31 Based on them we will analyze the “deportation of the Chinese” from the viewpoints of its direct executors and eyewitnesses registered in the proceedings of the initial inquiry ordered by the War Governor and from the accounts of those responsible for this deportation. Th ese reports and notifi cations enable us not only to precisely determine the scope of the tragedy, but also to reveal the role of the local authorities in developing the offi cial version of the events.

“Th e Situation of the City was Desperate”

To present the atmosphere in the city just before and after the beginning of the bombardment more adequately we will refer to the memoirs written by K. Nikitina. “Mobilization moved and stimulated the undisturbed peace and quiet of the city like a stone thrown right into motionless mud covered with mildew and slime.”32 It visibly changed the attitude of local inhabitants towards Chinese migrants, ranging from confusion about what to do with hired workers and concern about the crops (“… right now I have three Manchurian servants! Surely I should not throw them away! How am I going to manage when in need?”) to ruthless attacks (“It serves you right, you enemy lice! Take that! And that! We are shedding blood for you!”).

Coming under Chinese fi re started terrible panic:

29 V.I. Dyatlov, op. cit., p. 89.30 RGIADV (f. 702. op. 1. d. 347).31 RGIADV (f. 704. op. 1. d. 897).32 K. Nikitina, op. cit., p. 209.


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Unbelievable scenes took place in the streets. People were fl eeing the city shouting, crying and cursing. One could hear moaning in the air—a mixture of people’s cries and sounds of bullets whizzing over their heads. An unbroken line of overcrowded carriages was moving along the street . . . People talking and shouting, neighing horses, piercing creaks of a well, the rumble of artillery fi re, the clatter of guns—all that sounded like a deafening and cacophonic concert terrible to the unaccustomed ear. Th at was how the fi rst day of the siege began, the day still remembered by some Blagoveshchensk residents as a sheer nightmare that happened in reality. Th e Chinese were expected to launch an attack at any moment. Everyone was running around, bustling about, praying and crying. Every minute out of nowhere came heralds with all sorts of contradicting news. One solemnly stated that troops from Sretensk had come to rescue the city, whereas another, speechless with fear, mumbled that the troops had never come and the Chinese were most probably about to cross the river and occupy the city, and yet another was trying to prove with all his might that the Chinese had already started their attack and were deterred. People listened to all of them eagerly, not knowing which one to believe, turning from joy and hope for rescue to total despair and the other way round. 33

At the City Council crowds kept struggling for hastily distributed guns, insuffi cient for all in need, and were about to break into shops and rob them to arm themselves properly. Th e Governor was outside the city, in Aigun’, with the remaining troops. Th e Mayor suff ered from an illness. Th e rest of the authorities “vanished,” they got confused in the overwhelming panic and chaos. Th e situation of the city was dramatic. Had the Chinese attacked at that time, they would have little trouble seizing the city.34

K. Nikitina devoted only one 23-line-long paragraph to mention the deportation and killings of the Chinese, and plundering their possessions. “Th e Blagoveshchensk authorities were the ones who especially stood out as regards the crossing of the Chinese city residents to the enemy bank of the river” she wrote. “Undoubtedly, when it comes to the Chinese residents’ river crossing the authorities a little exaggerated, perhaps even ‘overdid things.’”

A truly critical situation of the city served as a mitigating fact for taking such measures. At the beginning of the siege there were still three to four thousand Chinese residents in the city. Th ey mostly remained in a specially established so-called Chinese district. It was there that the Big Fist leafl ets were later found, ordering the local Chinese to set fi re to the city to help their countrymen. Th us, the Chinese begun to be gathered. When they were … the authorities faced a dilemma! What were they supposed to do with these people? Keep them under guard? Th ere was no one free to do that!

33 Ibid., pp. 215, 216-217.34 Ibid., p. 216.

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Leave them in the city unattended? Out of the question! After all, these peaceful Chinese had been found in possession of gunpowder, weapons and slipknots! Th ere was only one solution: to get them across the river! Th e Chinese were shepherded to the bank and ordered to swim across the river, since there were no boats available. And they obeyed the command. Th eir countrymen opened fi re on them from Sakhalyan. Th ey drowned . . . by the hundreds . . . .35

Unfortunately, we have no data concerning neither the author of the memoirs, nor the exact time of their writing. Th ey were published 10 years following the Blagoveshchensk siege (and apparently written shortly before this date), but nevertheless, managed to convey the atmosphere of the panic very vividly.

“In Fact, Matters Stood as Follows…”

Already on July 4, the fi rst day of “the expulsion of the Chinese,” Police Offi cer Shabanov of the 2nd police precinct who was in charge of the operation submitted his report to the Blagoveshchensk Chief of Police Batarevich who in turn sent it to the Province War Governor’s Offi ce:

Having taken over ca. 1300 of the Chinese from Offi cer Levin, with the help of two Cossacks, policeman Moskalev and several volunteers I took them to the village of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk. Although having climbed the mountain the Chinese refused to proceed any further, I forced them to obey my commands. Th us, we went through the mountains, remaining unnoticed by the Chinese from the opposite river bank, and descended towards the Amur above the village of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk where the Chinese began to swim across the river, since they had no other means to cross it. Th e distance did not exceed 60 fm, and the majority of the Chinese refused to cross the river despite the fi erce measures being taken. Th erefore, the Cossacks of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk fi red a few shots. I suppose there must have been victims, some of the Chinese drowned, but the majority managed to swim across the river to join their countrymen.36

It is quite obvious that the “V.” author must have been familiar with the above document, after all he quoted its fi nal part:

Th e organizers of the bloody river crossings made no eff ort to hide their actions. Police Offi cer Sh. reported the fi rst crossing to his superiors on the same day, i.e. July 4. In his report he naively “supposes that there must have

35 Ibid., p. 222.36 RGIADV (f. 704. op. 1. d. 897. l. 1.)


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been human victims: some of the Chinese drowned, but the majority (?!) managed to swim across the river to join their countrymen.” 37

In fact, it was quite on the contrary, one can assume that Shabanov was trying to conceal the whole truth about the events in question. Th at must have been the reason for the brevity and lack of precision evident in his report, especially when it comes to the number of victims. But he was by no means that “naïve”: he could not be unaware of the real consequences of the “river crossing.” Nonetheless, he failed to mention them in his report since he was afraid of being held responsible for what had happened.

Th e number of people in the fi rst group of the Chinese—“ca. 1300”—was confi rmed in the report of July 6, 1900 written by the Advisor for the Army Board of the Amur Cossack troops Yesaul Reiman and submitted to the commander of the Amur Province army. Ordered by K.N. Gribskii he conducted the fi rst inquiry “hot on the heels of the involved” and questioned the witnesses. Below we will fully quote this “investigation on the river crossing by the Chinese expelled from the city.”

During the interview the village ataman and other Cossack witnesses of the village of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk testifi ed as follows:

Cossack Kosyrev, the village ataman, having received the order from the Army Board to deport the Chinese amounting to over 1000 and brought by the Offi cer from the 2nd Precinct of the Blagoveshchensk City Police to the Chinese side of the border, lead them under the convoy of temporary reserve Cossacks to the sandbank opposite the stanitsa and proposed that they swam across the river to join their countrymen, since there were no other means of transport available. Th e Chinese initially objected to it and many of them attempted to fl ee. Th en the ataman took stricter measures and the Chinese headed towards the water in groups of 10 or 20. Since the sandbank was considerably vast and the Chinese were ford-crossing for about 40 fm to start swimming only later, the subsequent groups followed the fi rst ones more confi dently and little by little they all began to swim across the river; some having disposed of their clothes back at the river bank, others using them to form structures resembling bubbles38 that helped them get to the other bank. Many, however, were trying to swim across the river completely dressed and almost all of them drowned. All in all no more than 300 people managed to get to the other side of the river.

37 V., Blagoveshchenskaya “Utopiya,” p. 235.38 O.A. Timofeev referring to the “bubbles” made of clothing noticed that “Ataman Pisarev

created a fantastic picture.” And why exactly should it be impossible? Soldiers know for a fact that a blouse fi lled with river grass can serve as a perfect swimming equipment that allows to fl oat on the water easily. Apparently, Chinese clothes made of thick cloth might, for example, have served such a purpose.

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Th e witnesses, Cossacks Vladimir Shul’gin and Constable Kostromin as well as Cossacks Kosyrev, Semenov, Mungalov and others testifi ed that on July 4, appointed by the village ataman, they convoyed the Chinese brought from the city to the bank and had them cross the river. Th ey lead them towards the sandbank opposite the stanitsa and ordered to swim across the Amur. Th e Chinese refused at fi rst and some even attempted to fl ee, but they forced them into the water. Th e deported forded the river for about 50 fm and then started swimming; many of them drowned. No more than 100-200 members of the whole group managed to reach the other side of the river. 39

Th e constable was not responsible for what had happened and had no reason for concealing the truth from the Governor. Another thing is, however, the truthfulness of the testimonies given by the witnesses he interrogated. In a few days from the events, on July 10, the fi rst “interrogation” report “was sent to the District Attorney for the Blagoveshchensk District Court for investigation purposes … .”40

Th e Blagoveshchensk authorities did not inform Khabarovsk about the event immediately, which was later imputed to the War Governor of the province K.N. Gribskii. In his wire of July 20, 1900 the Priamur’e Governor-General N.I. Grodekov demanded an explanation:

It is widely rumored that we have allegedly committed a mass murder of all the peaceful and unarmed Chinese inhabiting the city. Would you kindly telegraph a truthful answer if there were any grounds for the above-mentioned and an explanation of what is happening to the Blagoveshchensk Chinese?41

Since then correspondence continued between the War Governor’s Offi ce and the Blagoveshchensk Chief of Police on the one hand, and Th e Priamur’e Governor-General’s Offi ce on the other.

Judging from K.N. Gribskii’s reply (of July 27, sent to Khabarovsk), N.I. Grodekov’s wire reached him during the battle of Kolushan and he ordered to send it to the Deputy Governor S.N. Taksin. As it turned out, the wire had not been delivered to Blagoveshchensk immediately, therefore the answer came later than expected. According to the Governor, what happened was:

In fact, the things stand as follows: I have been informed that on July 4 when 800 Chinese nationals who wished to leave the city attempted at crossing the Amur near Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk to reach the right river bank, some of them drowned.”

39 RGIADV (f. 704. op. 1. d. 897. l. 2-3.)40 Ibid., l. 11.41 Ibid., l. 4.


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Simultaneously, the Governor informed that

. . . on July 5 I ordered to conduct an inquiry, which was reported on to him on July 9 and handed over to the District Attorney on July 10 to initiate an offi cial investigation that still remained in progress. Independently, on July 9 and 15 I announced that the city, zemstvo, and Cossack police had taken most vigorous and urgent measures to protect peaceful Chinese residents of the province and their possessions. Th ere are currently up to 150 Chinese nationals under police protection in the city, who constitute a special group of diggers that starting from tomorrow will work on building fortifi cations in Sakhalyan and later in Aigun’. Apart from that there are peaceful Chinese nationals living in villages who still are in trade and work in the fi elds. I will inform you about the results of the investigation and I am sending my announcements by mail.42

“... to Have Th em Explain the Situation Instead of Speaking in Riddles”

N.I. Grodekov was not satisfi ed with this reply. His offi ce informed that “the military commander demanded to be wired to have them explain the situation instead of speaking in riddles.”43 A more detailed and sincere reply was required. K.N. Gribskii himself must have been inadequately informed about what had happened, since he was preoccupied with military activities in Manchuria. A detailed account of the events was included in the report of July 29 written by the Blagoveshchensk Chief of Police Batarevich for the Deputy Governor of the Amur Province S.N. Taksin. We will fully quote this text, since it formed the basis for the information sent by the Province authorities fi rst to Khabarovsk (the report wired by the Deputy Governor on July 30, often referred to by researchers) and later to the superior central national authorities.

Following direct orders from Your Excellency I am honored to inform that I can off er the following explanation as regards the Amur crossing by a group of Chinese nationals: I was ordered to gather all the Chinese in the city and deport them to the other side of the Amur. In order to do so, I were to bring them to the river bank and suggest that they asked their countrymen to provide them with boats. Since there were up to one thousand and a half of the Chinese gathered there, i.e. we would require a large convoy to surround them that would come under fi re because the bombardment

42 RGIADV, f. 704. op. 1. d. 897. l. 5.43 Ibid., l. 5-6.

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was still continuing, I decided to bring the Chinese to the Zeya crossing to transport them to the Zeya-area (Zazeiskii) Precinct, having suggested that they asked their countrymen for boats and headed for Sakhalyan. Th e War Governor, however, did not support my decision and the command was to bring the Chinese to Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk, which was carried out under the supervision of Police Offi cer Shabanov. Th e latter was supposed to ask for boats and cooperation from the village ataman. I additionally informed Colonel Volkovskii who commanded the Cossacks, about the situation and—as far as I know—he ordered the village ataman to be of any help during the river crossing by the Chinese.

From the report written by Offi cer Shabanov it is evident that having arrived at Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk he turned for help to the village ataman and was refused, since the latter feared that the enemy could use the boats for their purposes. Th at was when the Chinese were forced to swim across the river. Th e angry Cossacks of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk fi red shots at the swimming Chinese. Th e number of killed and injured remains unknown. Th e village ataman the and offi cer requested and urged them to cease fi re.

Considering the above, I asked for convoys to be sent along with offi cers for the next two crossings. Th ese offi cers reported that the crossings proceeded safely, although there are individual accounts of shots fi red, as they say, by the Chinese from the opposite river bank.

Th ese are all the details I am able to report.44

Th e information sent by Deputy Governor Taksin to Khabarovsk supplemented the report written by the Chief of Police with the account that there were “over two thousand Chinese residents” in Blagoveshchensk before the bombardment and arguments to support the decision about their necessary deportation: “In view of the hostile feeling among city residents running high against the Chinese who were suspected of intending to set fi re to the city, there were multiple requests to get rid of the latter.” Th e Deputy Governor also informed about the “inquiry” conducted at the Governor’s request that “is supposed to end shortly” and about the situation of the Chinese remaining in the city, some of them “directly under police guard” and others “guaranteed to behave well by individual city residents.”45

“To Request the Chief of Police to Answer”

When the news about “Th e Blagoveshchensk ‘Utopia’” reached the capital the Priamur’e Governor-General received a wire from the Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Sakharov:

44 Ibid., l. 7-8.45 RGIADV, f. 702. op. 1. d. 347. l. 11-12.


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Would you kindly reply, if the information given by the Amurskii krai article about masses of unfortunate victims in Blagoveshchensk that were gathered and later killed is reliable. It is necessary to control pieces of information sent to the capital newspapers, not to mention the ones published locally.46

Th e reply included a copy of the report written by Deputy Governor Taksin on July 30, with certain encrypted words, i.e. “swim across,” “objected to,” “forced,” “many of them drowned,” etc. Because of the critic “from above” regarding censorship Taksin’s report was supplemented with a note: “Orders were given on measures to be taken against publishing unreliable information.”47

Th e more widespread the news of the Blagoveshchensk events became in high-ranking institutions, the more concrete questions the superiors asked. Th erefore, Lieutenant General N.I. Grodekov, aware of the inevitability of his reporting to Saint Petersburg, asked K.N. Gribskii in his wire of August 29, 1900 to inform him “additionally, under whose supervision and responsibility the fi rst group of the Chinese was deported from Blagoveshchensk, what the exact orders regarding the way and course of the Amur crossing were, what measures were taken by the administration to prevent the death of the aforesaid Chinese,” and “how the remaining two groups of Chinese nationals reached the right bank of the river.”48 To answer the Governor-General’s questions K.N. Gribskii who lacked the necessary information, came up with a resolution “To request the Chief of Police to answer.”

On September 7 the Blagoveshchensk Chief of Police submitted a new, more detailed report:

. . . carrying out the oral order issued by His Excellency the Governor I gathered the Chinese inhabiting the city during the bombardment to deport them to the other side of the river. Off ering them boats for the river crossing meant leaving all means of transport in their hands and practically disposing of them. With this in view I decided to proceed with the deportation through the Zeya River, and to suggest the Chinese to fi nd the means of transport on their own, since my assignment was to get them out of the city and there was no place they could stay while posing a danger of setting the city on fi re and at the same time being exposed to a danger of attacks by angry city residents. Th e idea of crossing the Zeya was dismissed by His Excellency the Governor. It was decided to send the Chinese to the village of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk where, according to the information that had been gathered, there were boats available. Th us, a group of Chinese

46 Ibid., l. 20.47 Ibid., l. 21.48 RGIADV,. f. 704. op. 1. d. 897. l. 12.

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nationals was sent to Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk under the supervision of Police Offi cer Shabanov, accompanied by two peon Cossacks appointed until July 4, two volunteers: Laveiko and Regishchevskii and 80 recruits. To prevent the Cossacks from shooting at the Chinese I contacted the Army Board Chairman Colonel Volkovskii. Shabanov, having taken over the Chinese from Offi cer Levin, lead them through the mountains to Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk. Having reached Cossack camps and realized that there was nothing further but thicket Shabanov let the group go fi rst and went to the camp where the sergeant assigned 6 Cossacks to his force. Shabanov warned the sergeant that the Chinese could not be shot at and ordered his Cossacks to join the group. He followed them having sent one peon Cossack to the settlement to inform the ataman about the need to get the means of transport ready. In Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk Shabanov turned to the ataman to ask him for a scow moored at the river bank that could hold up to 500 [people] and some boats, but the ataman objected to making them available and explained that none of the Cossacks would transport the Chinese. And when Shabanov told the ataman that the Chinese could cross the river by themselves, without any help from the Cossacks, the latter categorically refused to off er any means of transport. At the same time one and a half versts further from Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk the Cossacks willfully shepherded the Chinese to the river bank and opened fi re on them. Shabanov and the ataman rushed towards the river bank and ordered them, in the presence of the volunteers, i.e. Leveiko and Regishchevskii, to hold their fi re, but they disobeyed the command and continued shooting. Th e gunfi re lasted over half an hour. Th e Chinese who survived, frightened with the shooting, started swimming across the Amur hoping to reach its right bank. It was too late and virtually impossible to stop them.

As regards the second and third groups of the Chinese, however, they were brought to the river convoyed by an offi cer accompanied by recruits and policemen. Th ey were not given any means of transport either, thus only a very small number of them managed to swim across the river. During the deportation of the two latter groups I also asked for Colonel Volkovinskii’s cooperation.49

In this case the Chief of Police was trying to explain why the Chinese could not remain in the city and pointed out that the necessary means of transport were available at the stanitsa (contrarily to the testimonies by Shabanov or the village ataman). He specifi cally emphasized the fact that he repeatedly asked for cooperation from the Amur Cossack Army Board Chairman, Colonel Volkovinskii, warning the latter about the inadmissibility of any shots fi red by Cossacks, thus, he was indirectly trying to justify himself.

49 Ibid., l. 15-16.


109

He did not, however answer all the questions asked by the Governor-General. Th at was why on September 9 the Province Offi ce once again requested for an urgent explanation concerning the instructions given to Offi cer Shabanov as regarded the method and course of the river crossing by the fi rst group of Chinese nationals and the way the subsequent crossings were carried out.50 Th e Chief of Police replied the following in his report of September 11:

1) Shabanov was never given any particular instructions concerning the river crossing of the Chinese. He was only told to turn to the village ataman who had the means of transport at his disposal; 2) Th e second group of the Chinese was convoyed by Captain Rybin, and the third one by Lieutenant Antonov. Th e offi cers were appointed by the War Commander following my motion based on the War Governor’s command; they were also instructed to address the village ataman to get boats, since there were enough of them in Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk and one could not expect that the ataman would ever disobey orders from offi cers; 3) Th e means of transport for a river crossing could not be delivered to Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk since the Amur was under fi re and there was no one available to be hired for transporting them by road; there were no horses either. Part of the inhabitants were in . . . [I could not fi gure out the word here—T.S.]51 and some left the city. Besides, everyone had such a negative attitude towards the Chinese that getting any help was practically out of the question; 4) To avoid any cases of death amongst the Chinese each time, shortly before the deportation and on its day, Colonel Volkovinskii was telephoned or (once) asked in writing to order the village ataman cooperate during river crossings. 52

Nevertheless, Volkovinskii denied all the above in his report of September 21, 1900, submitted to the Governor:

I have not received any instructions concerning river crossings by the Chinese at Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk. On July 5 I was only informed by the Blagoveshchensk Chief of Police about the second crossing. It was already late, about 2 pm, and the crossing was about to fi nish. I found out about other river crossings from the outsiders and I still do not know exactly how many of them there actually were. I was never telephoned to get such information, except for one case, on July 4 at about 10 am. Th e person who rang was one of the offi cers, not the Chief of Police.

50 Ibid., l. 17.51 Most probably “in the city.” According to other sources and common sense we can fi gure

out that some residents must have been on the river bank, others outside the city, i.e. rushing to leave the city during the bombardment.

52 RGIADV, f. 704. op. 1. d. 897. l. 19.

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What was more, Volkovinskii did not confi rm the information about numerous means of transport at the Cossack stanitsa.

Th ere were no boats in Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk, but a few that could hold 20 people, and when boats had once been demanded for a river crossing of 150 hunters, to deliver the necessary number Cossacks needed to be sent for them as far as to the right bank of the Amur and Ignat’evka.53

Th e reports written by Batarevich and Volkovinskii noticeably contradict one another. Apparently, each offi cial aimed at shifting responsibility onto someone else.

We have fully quoted these thorough documents highly consciously. Case No. 897 from the Amur Province War Governor’s Offi ce “On the river crossing of the Chinese to the right Amur bank” has long remained virtually unreferred to by researchers as a source regarding the issue. We would not wish to give “selected” quotations to prove any thesis. Most importantly, the completeness and the right sequence of presented material enable us to follow the very process of forming the offi cial version of the events in question.

“... God Knows How Many of Th em Swam Across the River and How Many Drowned.”

Th e material referred to and quoted above allows to claim that the literature of the subject (both pre-revolutionary and contemporary) includes incorrect notions about the choice of place for the river crossing and that the number of victims is often exaggerated.

While reading certain works one could have an impression that the place for the crossing was chosen almost especially to get as many of the Chinese as possible drowned. For instance, the author of “Th e Blagoveshchensk ‘Utopia’” maintained that “the width of the river exceeded a hundred fathoms and its depth came to over two fathoms. Th ere is also a very strong current there.”54 But judging from the documents the village of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk was selected precisely because it was near the narrowest and considerably most shallow part of the river (“the sandbank opposite the stanitsa,” “the distance of no more than 60 fm,” out of which “forty could be forded,” “they were still fording 50 fm farther”). Th e place was obviously chosen to enable the Chinese to cross the river and not to make them drown. By the way, later,

53 Ibid., l. 25.54 V., Blagoveshchenskaya “Utopiya,” p. 233. Th at is the width of over 200 m and the depth

of over 4 m (1 fm = 2,13 m).


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when the storm of the right bank began, the same place was selected as the most convenient for the crossing of Russian troops.55

As a rule considerable diff erences in assessing the number of victims depend on the sources employed by diff erent authors. Th e most common references include either the imprecise “several thousand” or from 3 to 5-6 thousand. Th e information provided by offi cials for the case “On the river crossing of the Chinese . . . ” allows to take into account a much smaller numbers. Offi cer Shabanov testifi ed that he took over “ca. 1300 people,” the village ataman mentioned “over 1000,” the Chief of Police “no more than one thousand and a half,” and the Governor “800.” Th e wire sent by Deputy Governor Taksin gave the number of over two thousand, but it concerned the Chinese living in Blagoveshchensk shortly before the bombardment.

Th e case does not include any testimonies producing the number of victims of the subsequent river crossings. Th e offi cial review of the Russian Military Agency shows that

. . . on the same day, i.e. July 4, another group of Chinese nationals amounting to no more than 84 was deported, out of which also hardly anyone survived the river crossing. On July 6 and 8 two other groups of the Chinese followed, consisting of 170 and 66 people; out of the fi rst one only 20 people managed to swim across the river and the second proved more successful—the majority of its members reached the opposite bank of the Amur.56

Th ese numbers were also referred to by the author of “Th e Blagoveshchensk ‘Utopia.’” 57 If we add the maximum number of people in the fi rst group (“no more than one thousand and a half”) to the number of members of all the subsequent ones, and assume that no one managed to survive, it would give us ca. two thousand people.

Naturally, we take into consideration only these who drowned or were killed on the way to the river crossing. Such facts can also be found in the sources. For example, on April 13 the War Governor testifi ed to the District Attorney of the Priamur’e War District Court:

On the way the Chinese followed from Blagoveshchensk to the village of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk where they crossed the river some traces of violent actions against them were discovered: their clothes, bones and even corpses.58

55O. A. Timofeev, op. cit.56 Quoted in I.M. Popov, op. cit., p. 283.57 V., Blagoveshchenskaya “Utopiya,” p. 234.58 RGIADV, f. 704. op. 1. d. 897. l. 36.

Tatyana N. Sorokina

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It is necessary to treat any concrete numbers with carefulness, since the sources at our disposal have so far not allowed for determining the exact number of victims of the Blagoveshchensk tragedy. As they say, fear makes people exaggerate. Perhaps that proved true at the time of “the Blagoveshchensk panic” and made people not only employ horrifying methods for deportation, but also produce imprecise accounts of the range of the tragedy given initially by the contemporaries and then by researchers. As the Chairman of the “Amur Steamshipping Society” N. Makeev wrote in a local newspaper, “God knows how many of them swam across the river and how many drowned.”59

“... As Regards the River Crossing by the Chinese I Can Explain the Following”

All the correspondence included in the case “On the river crossing of the Chinese to the right Amur bank” proves that forming an offi cial point of view on the events that took place was directly dependent on the requirements of the superior authorities. One can single out three major milestones in the development of the version employed by the province authorities—the ones “for our own purposes,” for Khabarovsk, and for Saint Petersburg. It is quite evident that it proved impossible to make do with Yesaul Reiman’s “testimony.” Perhaps the province authorities would be happy not to “wash their dirty linen in public,” but the corpses fl oating on the Amur were impossible to hide. Each report contributed to the shape of the offi cial opinion, and each new piece of information repeated the previous one and simultaneously brought in additional details or explanations. Phrases such as “I suppose there were victims” or “the majority managed to swim across the river” changed into “almost everyone drowned,” “many of them drowned” or “the number of killed and injured remains unknown.” “Strict measures” were initially modifi ed to “several shots fi red” to fi nally transform into “volleys of shots” and “a shooting” initiated by “angry Cossacks.” Together with the information on the lack of “means of transport in the stanitsa” appeared accounts of numerous boats at the river bank and “a scow moored at the river bank that could hold up to 500 [people],” etc. At the same time the authorities never forgot writing about “taking measures” and the reports were invariably complemented with arguments for the necessity to expel the Chinese from the city.

Th us, the offi cial point of view consists of three major elements: 1) arguments for the necessity of deportation; 2) descriptions of deportation

59 Amurskii krai, July 30, (August 12), 1900.


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methods with explanations of what had happened; and 3) accounts of measures taken regarding the inquiry of the events and halting and preventing attacks on the peaceful Chinese.

Th e arguments in favor of deportation:

In view of the hostile feeling among city residents running high against the Chinese who were suspected of intending to set fi re to the city, there were multiple requests to get rid of the latter.

Or

. . . my assignment was to get them out of the city and there was no place they could stay posing a danger of setting the city on fi re and exposed to a danger of attacks by angry city residents.

Th e method of deportation (“swimming across the river”) was explained with the inadequate behavior of the village of Verkhne-Blagoveshchensk residents and their ataman, who refused to give the means of transport for the crossing. Descriptions of the very river crossings in turn remained laconic and very far from the detailed “accounts of eyewitnesses.” It seemed apparent that the province authorities were trying to shift responsibility onto others, including the executors of their orders, whereas the latter were making attempts to blame each other and the village residents. Th e higher the authorities inquiring the province decision-makers, the more concrete questions were asked and the more evident the striving for justifi cation and shifting responsibility onto someone else seemed to be.

Th e “inquiry” conducted at Governor’s request can be included in the range of measures taken by the province administration. It was sent to the District Attorney “in order to conduct a formal investigation.” All kinds of binding resolutions, orders and announcements made by the War Governor, the “Head of Internal Defense” and also the Blagoveshchensk Chief of Police regarding “the protection of peaceful Chinese residents of the province and their possessions” were issued. Apparently, any information from the province authorities concerning the measures that were taken can also be viewed as an urge to justify themselves before higher authorities and a proof that they were able to operate actively.

Th us, the offi cial version of the province authorities seems closest to the thesis that “war is war.” Th ere is no chance here of admitting to their feeling of panic or performing actions driven by fear. And it seems quite contrary to opinions expressed by the city residents. K. Nikitina:

Th e Governor was outside the city . . . Th e Mayor suff ered from an illness. Th e rest of the authorities “vanished,” they got confused in the overwhelming panic and chaos.

N. Makeev:

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I am talking about the drowning of peaceful Chinese workers and traders—I put it down to the panic amongst the city authorities.60

To conclude—“a rejoinder in a dispute” about viewing the above-described events as genocide. It is doubtful that there was a clear intention of the authorities to liquidate the Chinese living in the province as a group. Soon after the military activity had stopped the Chinese started coming back slowly. All the more so because the province suff ered from a serious manpower shortage. In September a local paper journalist wrote:

And now each returning Chinese receives a warm welcome from our peasants. Th ey are trying hard to convince and attract them to prevent them from working for others. Especially women spear no eff ort and almost fi ght for every “Van’ka.”61

And a few years later, especially following the “unfortunate war” with Japan, the fl ow of Chinese migrants increased to such an extent that the Priamur’e authorities began to notice the necessity of its limitation. All the above hardly goes hand in hand with the notion of genocide.

As the contemporaries aptly pointed out, there was an outburst of panic or “panic fear” in Blagoveshchensk, which—according to V. Dal’—appeared to be “sudden, irrational, senseless, unreasonable, and overpowering.” Th e panic that also paralyzed the authorities lead to a terrifying tragedy. Th e role of the local authorities in these events was not so much about conducting “criminal activities” as about criminal inactivity at the most critical point. Regardless of all the reports on the measures taken, they were unable to prevent the mass deaths of peaceful Chinese residents.

Tatyana Sorokina

“Th e Blagoveshchensk Panic” of the Year 1900: the Version of the Authorities

A b s t r a c t

Th e article considers an incident which took place in the early July in 1900 in the Amur region and which tragically culminated in the deportation of the Chinese subjects living in Blagoveshchensk and its surroundings, known as “Blagoveshchensk ‘Utopia’.” It is shown how these events appear in the testimony of direct executors and witnesses of the incident recorded in the fi rst inquest that was conducted by the order of the military governor, as well as in the presentation of the persons responsible for the expulsion of the Chinese from the city. All these documents drawn up in the wake of the events let us clarify the scope of the tragedy and signifi cantly expand the understanding of the role of local authorities and of forming of the offi cial version of what happened.

K e y w o r d s : “Blagoveshchensk ‘Utopia’,” Chinese migrants, deportation.

60 Ibid.61 Amurskii krai, September 6 (19), 1900.

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Vol. VIII (2012/3)pp. 115-140

Viktor Innokentievich DyatlovIrkutsk State University

“Th e Blagoveshchensk Utopia”: Historical Memory and Historical Responsibility

A reaction to my article published quite long ago that I found totally unexpected has served as my reason for writing this paper. Th e article

in question was devoted to a half-forgotten tragic event in Russian history of the late Empire period.1 It concerned a mass murder of Chinese Blagoveshchensk residents in 1900, the time when this borderline city was facing a grassroots wave of the anti-foreigner Boxer Rebellion (or Yihetuan Movement) spreading across China. I was interested in two issues connected with this unusual and terrifying incident: the mechanism of the pogrom and the reaction of the society. Th e event itself was discussed, although insuffi ciently, in a number of works written by researchers. Th erefore, there seemed to be no attempts to raise the subject again. My objective was not so much to broaden our knowledge of the event (although such a possibility could not be excluded) as to reconstruct the version known to the society, to which the latter reacted one way or another. What shocked me the most was a considerably indiff erent reaction of the contemporaries—I have constructed several contradicting hypotheses to fi nd an explanation for such a state of aff airs.

Th e article has not passed unnoticed and created a stir in researcher circles. It was referred to and sometimes criticized. Th e article written by T.S. Sorokina proved especially important.2 Based on a thorough analysis of archive materials she was able to specify and correct certain details

1 V.I. Dyatlov, Blagoveshchenskaya “utopiya”: iz istorii materializatsii fobii, in Evraziya. Lyudi i mify, Natalis, Moscow 2003, pp. 123-141.

2 T.N. Sorokina, Eshche raz o “blagoveshchenskoi ‘utopii’” 1900 g. In: Migratsennye protsessy na Dalnem Vostokev (s drevneishikh vremen do nachala XX v.). Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (Blagoveshchensk, 17–18 maya 2004 g.); Blagoveshchensk 2004, pp. 295-303.


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concerning, for instance, the number of victims. Generally, the reaction to my paper as a scientifi c publication seemed entirely unsurprising.

Quite frankly, returning to the theme of an old article does not happen very often in scientifi c circles. One needs to have serious reasons for doing so, otherwise it is justly perceived as pretentious. And I had absolutely no plans to take up the subject. Nonetheless, a few years following the publication of the article I accidentally read a discussion it initiated in an Internet forum. I must admit I was shocked. Th e article was purely academic in terms of style, published in a high-ranking, but still scientifi c journal, and later in a collection of papers—both limited-edition. Its electronic version was initially published on the website of the Vestnik Evrazii journal and then in an online journal entitled Demoskop—Weekly popular in academic circles. And again, the latter are scientifi c sources read by a narrow circle of specialists.

My Internet search showed that the article reached far beyond the academic community, i.e. its subject and the issues it rendered “took off ” or—in other words—attracted a lot of attention. Someone added it to Wikipedia, which provoked over a dozen discussions. As any author would, I was hoping that my article had become so popular because of its literary or scientifi c value, but it seemed rather unlikely. It was its content that triggered the discussions. Th e event itself.

Th e issues of historical responsibility and historical memory appear spontaneously, they are discussed and—most importantly—they aff ect people. Did it actually happen? Who is to blame? Could our ancestors really have done something like that? And if so—why? And how should we react to it as their descendants? Should we react at all? Should such terrifying and shameful events be remembered and recollected? Should skeletons be brought out of the closet? Especially that the matter has aroused great interest in China. Wouldn’t recalling such incidents adversely aff ect the interests of our country and our generation? Could we—the descendants—be held responsible for everything our ancestors once did? Is so—in what way? Can the whole nation be blamed? Can nations be considered evil? Should particular nations take the eternal historical blame for things done to others? Should collective responsibility exist at all? And to the extent of bearing legal consequences? Can we understand or explain the nature of such past events? Or their direct and indirect participants? What does being taught a lesson actually mean? Is repentance an obligation to others or a matter of individual refl ection?

It is astounding how parallel it seems to a several-year-long discussion in Poland on the issue brought up in a book entitled Neighbors: Th e Destruction

“The Blagoveshchensk utopia”

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of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland written by Jan Tomasz Gross,3 i.e. to the experience of the situation that mass and violent murders of Jews in a small Polish town of Jedwabne in the summer of 1941were actually committed by the Poles themselves. By the neighbors of the dead, the people the latter used to know well. And the persecutors acted of their own free will, although with the approval from the German occupation authorities. Nevertheless, one diff erence is worth emphasizing. Contrarily to Poland where the book by J. T. Gross and the situation described in it have been discussed by the whole country and where it is diffi cult to avoid taking a stance on the subject, in the Russian case we have witnessed total spontaneity. Someone accidentally came across an article on the Internet, which concerned an old and forgotten, completely unfamiliar incident. Th e reader was shocked, made the article accessible via Internet, or added a link, and commented on it starting a discussion. Th ere was no socially signifi cant reason for spreading this information—after all, publishing a scientifi c article about long-forgotten events that happened “at the back of beyond” in a low-circulation academic journal cannot serve the purpose. Th ere were no questions formulated in advance or issues to be considered. And this is what makes such discussions particularly valuable, also from a researcher’s point of view.

Another thing is that the subject for discussion, i.e. the set of problems and the perspective presented in the old article, is the author’s version of the events. Some participants of the discussion attempted to search for and succeeded in fi nding other materials they later used to criticize the author’s version. My article became part and parcel of the discussion, and as such a part of research material for this paper. Th erefore (and only therefore), it is published here along with this one, in its original version, without any further editing, unrevised and unsupplemented. Moreover, it is complemented with the article by Tatyana Sorokina on the response of the Russian-Empire local and central authorities to the “Blagoveshchensk incident.” Th e simultaneous publication of these three articles will enable readers to analyze the reaction of the Russian society from diff erent angles.

Available sources of information

People’s reaction to events depends on the amount of information at their disposal. Naturally, there are also other factors, but this one is absolutely

3 One of the Russian translations: Y.T. Gross, Sosedi. Istoriya unichtozheniya evreiskogo mestechka, translated from Polish by V.S. Kulagina-Yartseva, Foreword by A. Michnik, “Tekst,” Druzhba narodov, Moscow 2002.


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crucial. Without information there is no event, and hence, no reaction to it. To provoke wide response information needs to be spread eff ectively. Th e way it is organized, structured and addressed seems equally important. It cannot be neutral. Th is is the basis for presenting an issue and creating an attitude towards it. Words are selected, that could be later employed to discuss and evaluate the problem. Th erefore, it is so essential to examine what exactly the contemporaries of the events in question and our contemporaries knew or know about the “Blagoveshchensk case,” who provided them with the information and which versions of the incident they could deal with.

Th e information obtained by the local contemporaries, directly or indirectly participating in the events, was thorough and complete from the very beginning. It is quite obvious in the case of a small and self-contained community. Another thing is that in the conditions of widespread panic a tremendous role was played by rumors—and that, naturally, aff ected the picture of the events created by available information. Apart from unoffi cial sources of information there were also local newspapers as well as various offi cial statements and announcements made by the authorities. In hot pursuit, only a few months following the events, a booklet on the subject was issued by A. V. Kirkhner, the editor-in-chief and publisher of Amurskaya gazeta.4 Th e most essential thing is, however, that there were corpses fl oating down the river and fl owing through the city for a few days after the incident. Th ey were hardly possible not remain unnoticed. And not reacted to.

From the very start the news about the incident reached other countries. For instance, already in September the Moscow correspondent of the London-based Standard newspaper wrote about the events highly precisely describing their course and character. Generally, they resounded worldwide in English-language press. Copies of New Zealand newspapers that have been made available on the Internet can serve as a perfect example here.5

Th e tone of these articles was critical of Russia. Nonetheless, it is necessary to take a general context into account—for the months previous to the incident in question European press abounded in reports on the atrocities against Europeans conducted by Boxer rebels in China. And a little later—in the ones on penal sanctions imposed by the eight-powers expedition, especially on the cruelty of German forces. Th e Blagoveshchensk events were presented against the general background of violence and atrocities. Perhaps this was the reason why the travel notes made later by an American

4 A.V. Kirkhner, Na pamyat’ o sobytiyakh na Amure v 1900 godu. Osada Blagoveshchenska i vzyatie Aiguna,Blagoveshchensk 1900.

5 Papers Past, Hawke`s Bay Herald. 22 September 1900, p. 3. Chinese crisis. (http://paperspast.natlib.govd.nz\cgi-bin\paperpast?a=d&d=HBH19000922.1.3&e)


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R. Penrose who visited Blagoveshchensk in 1901 expressed sympathy for the city residents.6

Reactions abroad, especially in Europe, had traditionally constituted an important factor as regards forming the public opinion in Russia. Nevertheless, the educated part of the society had its own independent sources of information. Th e anonymous article published in the infl uential Vestnik Evropy included extensive factual material based on preliminary results of the administrative investigation.7 Th e latest news about the events could also be found in the travel notes by A. V. Vereshchagin who came to Blagoveshchensk only a few days following the tragic events.8 Th ere were also a few published accounts of eyewitnesses.9 A signifi cant role in forming the overall view of the incident was played by articles written by its eyewitness, journalist and political exile L. Deich. (published under his own name and under a pseudonym).10 Additionally, an entry in Th e Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary concerning the subject proves that it was quite signifi cant and popular in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Th e Revolution and Civil War that unleashed tremendous mass repression as well as both an unprecedented and familiar extent of cruelty pushed “the Blagoveshchensk story” into the background of public attention. It was generally forgotten, perhaps with the exception of the local residents and their descendants who have preserved vague oral tradition of the events in their memory. Th e fi rst edition of Th e Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1927) included an entry devoted to the Blagoveshchensk incident, the second and third ones, however, had it removed. Th e disappearance of the events in question from historical memory was caused by great social cataclysms of the time, destruction of tradition and liquidating the whole generations of its carriers, and by a purposeful policy of the authorities that considered the subject ideologically and politically harmful and dangerous.

Pre-revolutionary texts, however, remained available in libraries, since they often failed to be kept in special depositories. Archives stored masses of documents and historians were allowed to have access to a considerably large

6 R.A.F. Penrose, Th e Last Stand of the Old Siberia, F. Fell Co. Publishers, Philadelphia 1922.

7 V., Blagoveshchenskaya „Utopiya,” “Vestnik Evropy,” No. 7, July 1910. 8 A.V. Vereshchagin, Po Manchzhurii. 1900–1901 gg. Vospominaniya i rasskazy, “Vestnik

Evropy,” No. 1, 1902. 9 A.K., Iz vospominanii ob osade Blagoveshchenska kitaitsami, “Sibirskie voprosy,”

No. 36, 1910; K. Nikitina, Osada Blagoveshchenska kitaitsami v 1900 godu (Iz vospominanii), “Istoricheskii Vestnik,” No. 10, 1910, pp. 207-224.

10 Sonin, Bombardirovka Blagoveshchenska kitaitsami (ras skaz ochevidtsa), reprint from “Zari,” No. 4, B. m., B. g.


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part of them. What is more, foreign specialists continued writing about the incident.11 Th e Russian policy regarding the Far East, including the events of 1900, was subject to ongoing studies. Because of censorship researchers of the time could not take up the Blagoveshchensk issue, but they were aware of it and took it into consideration. Th e moment their publications stopped being censored, i.e. with the collapse of the Soviet system, they reintroduced the subject into an open academic debate. It was not, however, treated as an independent incident, but analyzed in the context of Russia’s participation in suppressing the Boxer Uprising,12 the history of Russian-Chinese relations and the problem of Chinese migration to Russia.13 And in her book devoted to problems of Russian-Chinese borderline relations A. Ivastina quoted recollections of a Japanese eyewitness of the events.14 Th e works regarding solely the Blagoveshchensk issue, however, are limited to the articles written by Tatyana Sorokina15 and me.

Th e subject has been reintroduced to Blagoveshchensk offi cial historical memory. Any kind of fact concealment is now out of the question. Exhaustive, precise and unbiased information has been made available on the offi cial website of the Amur Province.16 Th ere have also been several articles in local press as well as some radio and television programs. What is more, a collection of scientifi c articles, reprints of pre-revolutionary texts and rare photographs devoted to the role Blagoveshchensk played in the events of 1900 was prepared and beautifully published.17 And the Wikipedia entry concerning the Yihetuan Movement includes a passage on the Blagoveshchensk events.

11 See e.g.: A. Malozemoff , Russian Far East Policy, 1881–1904. With Special Emphasis on the Causes of the Russo-Japanese War, Univ. of California Press, Berkeley 1958, pp. 139-141.

12 V.G. Datsyshen, Russko-kitaiskaya voina. Man’chzhuria 1900 g. Chast’ 1. Boevye deistviya na sukhoputnom fronte; Saint Petersburg 1996, pp. 85-96; Id., Istoriya russko-kitaiskikh otnoshenii v kontse XIX–nachale XX vv., Krasnoyarsk 2000, pp. 295-298.

13 O.A. Timofeev, Rossiisko-kitaiskie otnosheniya v Priamur’e (seredina XIX–nachalno XX vv.), Blagoveshchensk 2003, (http://igpi.ru/center/lib/hist_tradit/east/china/timofeev1.html ); A.G. Larin, Kitaitsy v Rossii vchera i segodnya: istoricheskii ocherk, Moscow 2003, pp. 41-42; A.G. Larin, Kitaiskie migranty v Rossii. Istoriya i sovremennost’, Moscow 2009, pp. 43-44; A.V. Usova, Istoriya kitaitsev, man’chzhurov i daurov zazeiskogo kraya vovtoroi polovine XIX veka. Avtoreferat diss. kand. ist. nauk, Moscow 2005; A.P. Zabiyako, R.A. Kobyzov, L.A. Ponkratova, Russkie i kitaitsy: etnomigratsionnye procesy na Dal’nem Vostoke; Amurskii gos. un-tet, Blagoveshchensk 2009; pp. 43-52.

14 A. Ivasita, 4000 killometrov problem. Rossiisko-kitaiskaia granitsa, AST; Vostok-Zapad, Moscow 2006, pp. 222-224.

15 T.N. Sorokina, op. cit.16 See e.g.: the offi cial website of the Amur Province authorities (www.amurobl.ru ).17 Voennye sobytiya v Priamur’e. 1900–1902; In the Priamur’e. Iz veka v vek series, OAO

“Amurskaya jarmarka,” Blagoveshchensk- na-Amure 2008.


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Literary writings have not fallen behind as well. Th anks to a hint given by a participant of an Internet discussion I have come across an interesting novel representing the genre of historical fantasy telling a story about the Boxer Rebellion, including the Blagoveshchensk case.18

To sum up, both the contemporaries of the events and our contemporaries had and still have fully suffi cient and diverse base of information allowing them to fi nd out about the incident and form their own opinions.

Versions of the Contemporaries: Attempts at Understanding and Explaining the Situation and Th eir Own Actions

Th ere are numerous signs indicating that the educated society of pre-revolutionary Russia was well aware of the Blagoveshchensk tragedy. For instance, L. N. Tolstoy read the issue of Vestnik Evropy including the article on “the Blagoveshchensk utopia.” A.F. Koni giving an unfavorable characterization of Nikolas II of Russia blamed the latter for complete indiff erence “to the action taken by General Gribskii who drowned fi ve thousand Chinese civilians in 1900 …”19 Novosti dnya issued in Moscow announcing that Gribskii had been temporarily appointed War Governor in Łomża recalled that “this is the very brave general who as Governor of the Amur Province during the Boxer Movement of 1900 drowned several thousand innocent Chinese civilians from Blagoveshchensk in the Amur River.”20

From these randomly selected comments it is already quite evident that the knowledge of the events was not neutral. Reviewing the body of pre-revolutionary texts enables us to single out several diff erent ways of explaining and evaluating of the incident. Th e essence of the most extreme attitude was unequivocally described by an American traveler R. Penrose.21 Liquidating the Chinese was a necessary and justifi ed means of self-defense from the barbaric threat employed by a civilized nation. Th e Blagoveshchensk Chinese in conspiracy with their countrymen from the other side of the Amur were planning to slaughter all the inhabitants of this rather small city, so isolated in the vast Russian territory. “Facing such a situation a civilized man should respond with a lethal blow to defend his home and family, and that was exactly what the Russians did.” Having found out about the conspiracy

18 R. Kortes, Tolmach; modernlib.ru.doc.zip19 A.F. Koni, Izbrannoe, Sov. Rossiya, Moscow 1989, pp. 104-105.20 Novosti dnya, October 9 1905.21 R.A.F. Penrose, op. cit., pp. 79-80.


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they attacked the Chinese living in the city, killed them in great numbers and drove the ones who survived into the river where most of them drowned. Hardly anyone else in Russia wrote so bluntly and peremptorily, though, undoubtedly, many thought the same way.

Th e prevailing versions of events were based on the explanations and announcements given by the local and central authorities (a detailed analysis of the offi cial versions can be found in the article by T.S. Sorokina also published in this issue). With some exceptions their essence is the following: Blagoveshchensk, almost defenseless from a military perspective, became a target of an unprovoked attack from China. Th e Chinese inhabiting the city potentially represented an additional threat. It was sometimes alleged that they could be plotting against the Russians. Rumor had it that some leafl ets written in Chinese were found (their content was not included in offi cial investigation materials, although one can by no means exclude the possibility that they existed). Th is was the reason why the Governor ordered to take measures he found necessary and legitimate in the conditions of war, i.e. to deport all the subjects of the enemy making them cross the Amur. Th rough the fault of the low ranking offi cers the command was carried out without suffi cient technical support. Th erefore, “in fact the river crossing of the Chinese took place by swimming,” and almost all of them drowned in the process.22 Th e death of several thousand unarmed civilians was a tragic result of exceeding the necessity of self-defense and carrying out orders too offi ciously, both explainable and justifi able in an extraordinary life-threatening situation.

Th ese theses were explicitly formulated in an apologetic biography of Nicolas II of Russia written and published by S.S. Ol’denburg already in exile (Belgrade, 1939).

At that time the Russian-Chinese frontier zone was thrown into a panic. Th e Russian borderline city of Blagoveshchensk came under prolonged fi re from the Chinese Amur bank. Th e shooters were undoubtedly “regular” Chinese soldiers. Not a long time before the Russian forces had been withdrawn down the Amur. Blagoveshchensk remained almost defenseless and the panic spreading among the residents and the local authorities resulted in acts of violence against the local Chinese: in fear of an uprising that might have been organized by the Chinese behind the front line and having heard of the atrocities happening in China, the Blagoveshchensk authorities gathered all the “yellow people” at the Amur bank and ordered them to swim across the river to the Manchurian side. Only a minority managed to succeed and several hundred drowned in the wide river. Th is

22 Voennye sobytiya proshlogo leta na Amure, coll. by N.Z. Golubtsov, Tipografi ya Amursjkoi gazety A.V. Kirkhnera, Blagoveshchensk 1901, p. 16.


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tragic incident, understandable in the fearful atmosphere of the time (the local intelligentsia—noted with a certain degree of indignation the liberal press published farther from the borderline—approved of this panic-driven repression), showed how diffi cult preserving ‘Russian-Chinese friendship’ proved in practice.”23

Supporters of another version, however, consider these events a crime resulting from incompetence of the authorities and widespread panic among the residents. A standard-setting publication, i.e. Th e Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, off ers the following perspective:

. . . the Russian authorities in Blagoveshchensk ordered all the Chinese to abandon the Russian territory without any legal grounds for it (for according to the international law regulations binding at that time such action could not be taken even in a state of war, and Russia did not wage war with Ch.) or a suffi cient reason since the Blagoveshchensk Chinese were solely civilians. Th e exact date was specifi ed and the Chinese were gathered at the Amur bank. Th ey were not provided with boats and nonetheless, they were forced to leave instantly, threatened with immediate death. Th ey started swimming across the river and the Russians kept them under fi re. Only few of them managed to reach the Chinese bank and the estimated number of victims diff ers considerably depending on the source of information—from three to seven thousand. Acting this way Europeans sowed seeds of hatred in China, which they now have to deal with.”24

Having said these words (not in quotes) the Obozrevatel’ columnist V. Vodovozov summed up:

Th is barbaric, purely medieval use of violence ... in terms of its cruelty and senselessness undoubtedly exceeded everything the Chinese had ever done against Europeans. And, naturally, it could not go without a scar on the soul of the Chinese people.25

Assessments of “the nature and extent of the crime” could vary considerably: from criminal incompetence of the authorities (especially the Governor who lost control over the situation and gave a completely impracticable order) to a purposeful pogrom of civilians, i.e. a war crime.

Th e last viewpoint is indirectly refl ected in the fi rst edition of Th e Great Soviet Encyclopedia:

23 S.S. Ol’denburg, Tsarstvovanie Imperatora Nikolaya II. Samoderzhavnoe pravlenie. 1894–1904, Chapter 1 (http://emalkrest.narod.ru/txt/oldnbrg.htm Access date: May 9, 2012).

24 Entsyklopedicheskii slovar’, F.A. Brokhaus Press, ed. I.E. Andreevskii, Add. Vol. 1A, Gaagskaya konferentsiya — Kochubei, p. 911.

25 V. Vodovozov, Voina s Kitaem i voina s Iliodorom, “Sovremennik,” No. 3, 1911, p. 355.


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In 1900, in the greatest turmoil of the Boxer Uprising, when the Chinese authorities in Manchuria, carrying out an order from Beijing, declared war on Russia, the Russian administration of Blagoveshchensk decided in retaliation to expel all the Chinese residents of the city and forced up to 5 thousand Chinese civilians, including men, women and children, to drown in the Amur.26

From this perspective—even if the extermination (“drowning”) of the Blagoveshchensk Chinese could have been explained (although not justifi ed) with unprovoked fi re opened on the city by the Chinese, the actual threat of destruction of both the city and its residents, as well as monstrous panic—slaughtering and deporting “the Zeya area Manchurians”27 that followed had no justifi cation whatsoever. Th e same refers to acts of plundering the possessions of the deported. It is important to emphasize that all the accusations were addressed only to the state authorities and its representatives.

Th us, educated contemporaries of the events in question not only had considerably vast amount of information on the subject at their disposal, but also a few versions of its understanding and evaluation. What is more, most assessments of the events were clearly negative. Even these who sought to defend the initiators of and participants of the incident regarding them too as victims of insuperable force-majeure circumstances were not ready to justify or distance themselves from the violent death of several thousand civilians. Nevertheless, this mass disapproving attitude did not turn into a direct protest, if only expressed by the part of the community that had already demonstrated a distinctly negative reaction to pogroms and persecution that had taken place in the country for national or religious reasons. And by that time the authorities should have taken such a reaction into consideration.

A Century Later: Returning to the Subject

Th e issue of the Blagoveshchensk tragedy has become a subject of contemporary public discussions initiated by professional historians. It seems natural considering the fact that—at best—the events have been preserved in oral tradition as vague stories.

26 Bol’shaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya, Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, Moscow 1927, V. 6, p. 452. 27 Chinese subjects, inhabitants of the “Zeya area” included in the Russian Empire.

According to the Aigun Treaty (1858) they preserved their status of subjects and until 1900 were in fact extraterritorial. (For further details see: A.P. Zabiyako, R.A. Kobyzov, L.A. Ponkratova, op. cit., pp. 43-52).


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But more or less in 1947 my grandfather Andron Afanas’evich told me at the Amur River bank that at the time of his youth—he used to serve in the army here—all the Chinese from Blagoveshchensk and the neighboring area were gathered and forced into the water. Th ey were trying to swim across the river and somehow reach the other bank. It seemed so far back in the past—in the tsarist time—and our country, i.e. the USRR, had nothing to do with the shady aff airs of the last Emperor.28

Scientifi c works off ered not only information but also evaluation, angles to view things at and words to express opinions. And the information itself could not be purely neutral. Its appearance itself already meant presenting a particular attitude. With their generally evaluating tone the opinions seemed to match the pre-revolutionary situation: they ranged from regretting the use of violent methods to take necessary measures, legitimate during the war, to considering (directly or indirectly) the policy of the local authorities as criminal. It is hardly surprising taking into account that contemporary authors strongly based on the powerful pre-revolutionary historical tradition. Th e professional discourse, however, seems interesting only insofar as it is connected with popular discussions and mostly because of the set of subjects, issues and stories it has formulated that later triggered discussions on the Internet and in the press.

Internet discussions were the main source for writing this passage of the article. Th ey are peculiar and require a special attitude—as well as some author’s comments.29 Th eir participants remain anonymous and their opinions are expressed in their individual blogs and websites, as a rule also anonymous. Forums that reveal information about their participants and overall concept are very rare. Th us, only texts alone can be analyzed. It is clear that the level and content of a given discussion, style of particular entries and character of opinions can diff er from one forum to another (and in fact they do so). Th e content of texts betrays a lot about their authors. Th ey vary depending on their viewpoints (from liberals and democrats to extreme nationalists), the literary value of texts (from completely illiterate to examples of highbrow culture), and the skills to analyze the discussed problem. In practice, however, there hardly are situations when forum participants discuss things only in “their usual crowd.” Discussions are generally open and their administrators only occasionally delete selected replicas to follow a code of ethics and remain politically correct. Forum participants put up with “strangers,” since they often take part in dialogues. Th erefore, links to other addresses are generally non-informative.

28 V. Kochergin, Stalin i Mao slushayut nas, “Duel,” No. 19 (418),May 17, 2005.29 Discussion on the subject: Forum: Nauchnoe znanie v usloviyakh Interneta,

“Antropologicheskii forum,” No. 14, 2011, pp. 7-130.


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Based on the above an extremely controversial and critic-prone decision has been made in this case, i.e. the one to analyze replicas as such, without references to blogs or websites. In other words, there will not be full quotations with the names of authors given. We can assume that the whole phenomenon can be described as one general discussion with a signifi cant role played by the content and style of anonymous entries. Authors’ grammar and spelling will be preserved and any separate references will concern solely individual articles and statements. Th us the result should remind us of a collage, the jigsaw picture created using specially grouped pieces, i.e. replicas selected by the author. Naturally, it is because there is no particular need and possibility here for employing interpretative attitudes of quantitative sociology.

It seems logical to start the analysis of Internet discussions from the reasons for their participants’ interest in the subject. On can very roughly specify four motives: humanism, ideology, professional interests, and curiosity. And it is quite obvious that one author can be driven by more than one motive (and sometimes even by all of them) at the same time.

Generally, in the analyzed cases an emotional shock served as a trigger for discussing the particular subject. It is an initial and common reaction. For instance:

“Guess one shouldn’t think about sad things on Christmas Eve [i.e. Sochel’nik] . . . I saw . . . a link to an article Victor Dyatlov wrote for Vestnik Evrazii . . . A big thank you . . . It’s a total nightmare . . . .” “Some story to sleep on.” “. . . Can’t read it and still keep calm. It’s almost like ‘wrapping someone’s gut around the roadside bushes’ (as they do in Vsevolod Ivanov’s short stories on the Civil War).” “Read this text. One can learn a thing or two. And it reads VERY MUCH like literature . . . Wanna read it, take some downer.” “It is an episode from Russian history that is a must to know about . . . Let’s say it bluntly—it’s an eerie story.” “At some point I was under a great infl uence of this story: the whole thing was absolutely shocking.” “A terrible tragedy, now completely forgotten. After all, how little we actually know about our own and quite recent history!”

And following the above—a range of reactions. Negating the very existence of the events. Striving for understanding the logic and motives of their participants, witnesses and contemporaries. Readiness to take responsibility and thoughts of repentance.

“No way it could happen”—this is the fi rst and almost instinctive reaction.

A little anti-Blagoveshchensk story . . . some “beasts” beat up the innocent Chinese . . . just don’t buy the provocation!” “A hundred million thousand hacked hacked, hacked hacked . . . and just like that, for no reason . . . on the orders of the authorities, and the authorities still avoid to show


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off this bloody slaughter . . .” “up to 10 thousand Chinese (according to some data from some sources) and 80 recruits carrying hatchets, through lack of other weapons, and the crowd that came running, of less-cultured layers of our population . . . and the children distinguished themselves with particular cruelty . . . (I wonder if pregnant women and Cossacks took part in that slaughter together with old men—veterans and war invalids of the Crimean War?). With the river fl owing, so fast how come the corpses were fl oating on the Amur and through Blagoveshchensk for so many days . . . Th ey surely forgot to mention the way they were fl oating back and forth on the bloody river. And compared to that Hitchcock’s nothing but wimpish.

Shitty material, defi nitely written to order. Actions of the arrested betray no logic whatsoever. Fear caused by an adrenaline rush . . . in 90 per cent cases turns into rage. Some people have this threshold too high. But only an idiot would assume that all of them were like that. Th ey were talking the same bullshit about gas chambers: 2000-2500 people guarded by 20 others went to their death without the slightest resistance. One command would be enough, but I think nobody actually gave it. Apparently they all wanted to die.” “how come a hundred men could guard 4-6 thousand? And at the same time hack them with hatchets? . . . besides, it is totally obvious that they could swim along the river bank, get out of the water and fl ee in the mountains.

I don’t give a damn about the bullshit they wrote there. I know my people well. Russians wouldn’t have anything to do with mass pogroms and killings for no weighty reason. And if so, they wouldn’t be any pogroms but self-defense. In our history we have never committed genocide! Senseless extermination of people does not match our mentality. Especially in such pastoral and patriarchal wilderness as Blagoveshchensk. If it really happened, someone must have carefully omitted or concealed a large and the most crucial part of this nasty story. And the Russians had their really highly signifi cant reasons to do what they did! Knowing the Chinese and their tactics to slowly capture territories by their gradual settlement and imposing a new order, and their inability to assimilate one can assume that a great number of them must have come to Blagoveshchensk. And that their behavior resembled the one of today’s Caucasians . . . Th ey have never respected us—neither back then nor now . . . If Russians really were prone to such pointless reactionary cruelty, we would have betrayed this tendency much earlier and regularly.

. . . the Wiki entry’s crap . . . nothing concrete about these events in the sources they give.” “. . . both then and now somebody tried really hard to turn everything against Russia and the Russians. Liberasty [i.e. the combination of liberalism and pederasty]—it’s a lie multiplied by ignorance and Russophobia.” “I wonder why nobody ever signs such provocative remarks? Who needs this hysterics? One time bad revolutionary bandits killed poor intervening Japs and Russian traitors, another—poor Chinese


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civilians were done in with just a few shots fi red and a few hits. All instead of waiting for the fully armed Chinese to come and slaughter Russian civilians. Who exactly needs Russian bandits? After all, it’s all about that, right? Who’s hiring you, hacks? And nobody seems to mention preventive actions.” “An utter nightmare . . .—tolerastic [tolerant + pederastic] propaganda?—Or rather a Russophobic provocation.” “And Dyatlov’s clearly a liberast [liberal + pederast] and a fl unky of the London gorkom [i.e. gorodskoi komitet or power center].To sum up briefl y, it is too terrifying to be true. Th e Russians are by

nature incapable of doing something of the sort because of their eternal unchanging mentality. It goes beyond all reason—after all, a few dozen people cannot technically liquidate so many others without facing any resistance or attempts to run away. And corpses cannot fl oat down the river and pass Blagoveshchensk for a few days, given the rapid current. Th e article was commissioned by an American fund and written for its money, and its content is a bunch of intrigues, a conspiracy and provocation of liberasts and Russophobes. Aggression, mockery, invectives hurled at the author of the article are—apparently—not so much a manifestation of style and peculiar culture of relationships in contemporary Russian Internet as a result of readers’ experiencing a shock and viewing the issue from the angle of collective responsibility, guilt and innocence of the nation.

Th e latter aspect is especially visible in discussions taking place on Internet forums that consider themselves national (Th e Website of the Buryat Nation—Sait buryatskogo naroda; Th e Khakass Nation Forum—Forum khakasskogo naroda; the proUA.com forum; Th e Ostrov Forum; and the Belarusian portal TUT.BY).

Oh yeah, the ‘God-bearing nation.’” “Is it a manifestation of the Russian character or what?” “In fact the Russian soil has always based on such an attitude towards foreigners and that’s not gonna change (for the short time it still has left, that is). Th e Northern Nations treated like dirt or worse, Bashkirs with their noses cut off , the Tungus and other Khanty-Mansi that were considered a kind of ‘underpeople’, the Chechens they wouldn’t spit on if they were on fi re . . . the Jews—not allowed to live in Russian provinces and exterminated at any opportunity.

Th ere was a discussion at Th e Khakass Nation Forum regarding a program broadcast by the Ekho Moskvy on Ghengis Khan and the cruelties accompanying the rise of his empire. Th e participants perceived it as a manifestation of racism and chauvinism, and as blaming all the nomadic nations for backwardness and pathological cruelty. “A typically Western approach: nomads are devils straight from hell, robbing peaceful and civilized farmers.” And to argue the opposite they give examples of atrocities


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committed by “civilized European nations,” including “the Blagoveshchensk utopia.” In response to analogical debates on Ukrainian webpages the following counter arguments are referred to: numerous pogroms of Jews, Khmelnitsky’s time and Taras Bulba. (“It reminds me of Taras Bulba. What was the beginning of the Sitch Rebellion again? Oh, that’s right. All the Jews were drowned in the Dnieper River. And apparently not by compassionate and politically correct Ukrainians, but by Russian krovavaya gebhya [liberal term used for the KGB], right?”).

A nation as such is understood as an eternal and unchanging body with a certain character and an immanent inclination (or a lack of it) to pathological cruelty. (“Bestial cruelty on the Zen level?”) Th us, the conclusion is that some nations’ guilt is eternal and unatonable.

Perceiving the issue in terms of “us versus them” and viewing the Russians and the Chinese as inherently uniform and unchanging bodies leads to the conclusion that the Blagoveshchensk Chinese have only themselves to blame for the incident. Th ey either actually were “the fi fth column” or could well have been one. Th ey posed a danger as part of the whole Chinese mass, regardless their individual attitude and intentions. Perhaps the ones who died were innocent, but they took the responsibility for the actions of all the Chinese during the Boxer Uprising. For the real or potential fatal threat to Russia and the Russians posed by the Chinese at the time, and the situation in fact still has not changed. Th is is why all actions against them have been justifi ed as preventive. Th e blame also lies with the authorities that allowed for the Chinese presence in Russia. If there were not for the Chinese, there would not be any problems.

Many people just can’t aff ord to admit this shameful fact. Th at we exterminated unarmed and defenseless people.—Nobody denies that. It’s just that there’s no need to cry bitter tears in vain. Th e Chinese were just asking for it and they got what they deserved. Th ey shouldn’t have started their shady business. It’s just that some people think that the Russians shouldn’t have reacted to the atrocities committed to them by the Chinese so violently. Th ey should have turned the other cheek. Besides, it’s quite obvious that the Chinese that lived on our side of the river suff ered innocently and couldn’t be blamed directly for anything. Th e hostile actions of their countrymen from the other side of the river simply cost them their lives.

Th ere are no holds barred while fi ghting against the deadly enemy.

I don’t see the Jews, Gypsies, darkies [khatchiki] and Chinese as people, they should all be done away with, and the Americans too. Sorry for such open racism, but I couldn’t write just another stupid post anymore.


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And another, more educated person wrote about the ones responsible for “the Blagoveshchensk utopia” as follows:

Th ey were REAL PEOPLE, unlike this “humanistic” mold nowadays. PEOPLE with clear national identity, spiritual nature, and high morale. PEOPLE who knew all about real life with its cruelty and inevitability to either win or lose. Not like people today, resembling domestic plants . . . afraid of any real diffi culties life could bring and not used to struggle for their own living space when they fi nd themselves in other than room temperature, unwatered and withering.

Th e Katyn massacre is a crime committed by the humane Stalinist regime because ONLY 2000 Polish offi cers were executed, and others were spared for some reasons. OURS liquidated NOT OURS. It’s all right. What isn’t right is that they didn’t kill all the enemies. And then these who survived in Poland were later, in 1944 and 1945, shooting our soldiers from behind, meanly and secretly.”

Moreover, there is ruthless argument concerning the organization of the incident delivered by admittedly marginal—but still—politicians representing radical nationalistic views:30

Th is is the example of a method for deporting foreigners spontaneously. First, there is a national response to them and then a state intervention—when all who survived are deported for the purpose of “saving their lives.”

At the beginning of my paper I mentioned the inadequacy of quantitative interpretation of the set of responses, comments and discussions on the subject collected as a result of my Internet search. Th ey are interesting and signifi cant as such but not as a quantitative indicator of public feeling represented by the whole society or its particular part. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that these attitudes are marginal compared to the whole body of discussions, and that they do not evoke sympathies among the majority of participants. Much more frequently one can read sarcastic or angry replies addressed to the “fascists” (fashiki) or “Nazis” (natsiki). “ANY Nazis are crap. Russian, Lithuanian, Jewish, English, Arab, Georgian, American, Abkhazian, Chinese, or Black ones—just A-N-Y.”

Another aspect, however, has been discussed a lot more widely. Why should we recall it at all? Is taking skeletons out of the closet worth doing? After all, every nation has some of its own.

30 Th e site entitled Chernaya sotnya. Vserossiiskaya Pravoslavnaya patrioti cheskaya organizatsiya Chernaya Sotnya (http://www.sotnia.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11590&-start =30. Access date: May 9, 2012).


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You must admit that this incident is by no means the most important episode in Russian history. Nonetheless, virtually every book regarding Chinese-Russian relations describes the events in considerable detail.

Why reopen old wounds? It is bad for public well-being.

It is perfectly natural that in the history curriculum nobody would burden the shaping character of these young souls with such kind of shit done by their ancestors. Unfortunately, there was a tendency to do that once in Russia. Surely, according to our version of history we have always been right, or at least we’ve meant well. In reality, however, our ancestors sometimes did things that didn’t do them any credit and do not make us proud of them. It’s just that usually such events are not the center of attention and tend to be avoided in discussions. Genocide and pogroms were once conducted by us as well, although not always entirely consciously. Th us, we have had everything in our history, including massacres of foreigners.

But why, in the long run, should we give the Chinese a reason for retaliation? Especially considering the fact that they have always remembered every detail and kept a record of everything. And one day they will settle a score.

I’ve heard, but not seen, that apparently on the night of July 2, into the next day, the Chinese put little boats with candles on the water from their Amur bank. Each symbolizes a soul of someone who died during this confl ict.

I have recently talked to a Russian guy who is a professional Chinese translator. He told me that the Chinese know about the massacre, they remember about it and will settle a score when they have a chance.

Th ey can harbor a grudge in their hearts for a very long time! they are awfully unforgiving! God forbid if we were to fi nd out about all the hatred that representatives of this nation might be consumed with…” “right now nobody remembers the reasons for it, but the wish to recall them is always present in Asians’ hearts . . . there are almost 2 billon of them and dozens of times less of us in the world . . . and may their missiles miss their targets, may they be copied from ours and of poor quality . . . but perhaps it is really high time we thought about their missiles, soldiers and targets instead of stupidly buying ourselves out from time to time . . . let’s hope we won’t need to organize another “utopia,” its outcome’s not gonna be that predictable this time.

And there are actually some doubts as regards the possibility of “settling a score” and “the inherently unforgiving nature of the Chinese.”

Compared to that the Chinese are a model of moderation and peacefulness. Even the above-described pogrom, in fact a massacre—has it often been mentioned in international talks? Does anyone bear any


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grudges? Or is anybody making any claims? Th eir gentleness is simply amazing compared to someone else’s.

Th e other side remembers everything very well. But it has gotten used to it and since it also slaughtered their own people the way no one else had ever done, and committed genocides itself—not due to some excesses of the ones who were merely given orders, but as organized campaigns supervised by the government. But it’s not even that. Th e last thing China would do is to bear grudges against the Russian Federation in 2010 for the fact that a few hundred people on the edge of the Russian Empire decided to get rid of the enemy subjects inhabiting their country the simplest way possible and they weren’t punished for it by the authorities.

In any case, “there is a museum devoted to this tragedy in Kheikhe. And they teach about it in schools.” Th ere are quite a lot of rumors about the museum, but everyone says that Russians are not allowed to visit it. It creates an atmosphere of a mysterious and vague threat. Perhaps an essay written by a French journalist for a popular Russian journal will relieve it to a certain extent.

Coming back to Kheikhe we stop at the ruins of the old town of Aigun’ . . . An ultracontemporary building has been built in place of the old fortress—it is a historical museum. Th e driver says that Russians are not allowed to get in, but a French woman should have no problem with that. Th e entrance is to the right side of the vestibule: we can hear someone shouting and shooting, and the tragic tone of the speaker’s voice coming from behind a heavy curtain made of red velvet. A warden lets me into a dark room with all the light focused on a panoramic group painting at the opposite end—it shows Blagoveshchensk in 1900 in the heat of the Boxer Uprising. Th ere is a model in the foreground: toy-like Cossacks force the Chinese into the water at the Russian Amur bank; houses are burning, there are corpses everywhere, women and children are drowning in the river. One does not need to speak Chinese. It is clear what is happening, no need for the commentator.31

And the important thing is not so much that Chinese children have been learning about it at school from the very start; it is a symbolic event for everyone. Th e crucial thing is that WE have no idea about it. Psychologically Russians are not ready for being accused of this incident. And this is a blazing failure. In my opinion it is always better to know EVERYTHING you might pay dearly for some day. And it’s better to know it in advance.

To know in order to be ready for the approaching danger—it is only one of many arguments. And a considerably marginal one. One should also know and remember for his or her own use.

31 Patrisiya Shishmanova, Bereg byvshikh russkikh, “Vokrug sveta,” No. 3, March 2011, (http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/7374. Access date: May 9, 2012)


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I am 125 years younger than Blagoveshchensk. One could wonder—why should I bury myself so deep in the past? Is it necessary for my generation at all? It sure is! We need to know all about things that not a long time ago were still left unsaid.32

It was a shameful incident and one should be aware of it. A terrible forgotten tragedy. And how little we know about our own and

quite recent history!One really needs to remember the lessons taught by history. And the

fact that, fi rst of all, the Blagoveshchensk massacre resulted from criminal actions and indiff erence of the authorities and secondly, Russians’ striving for cheap workforce harmed their own countrymen. And the latter is still true nowadays.

It is necessary to know and remember in order to understand and explain, and draw conclusions not only regarding our ancestors, but also us, our society and the time we live in. And attempts to understand outnumber these to judge. “Why indeed did it happen that way?”—this is the essential stimulus for thinking and a motif of discussions. And one needs to fi gure it out individually, distancing herself or himself from the content of this article and simultaneously analyzing and criticizing it. One should search the Internet looking for other sources of information, compare the facts, fi nd the basis for his or her own version and interpretation of the events. Criticism of the paper in question can be entirely professional—some comments instantly reveal a confi dent style of a good specialist in the humanities. Th ey accuse the author of the lack of references to archive material, showing the situation out of its context, too benevolent an attitude towards the Russo-Chinese relations in the Far East (the subject of atrocities committed by the Honghuzi crops up immediately), and of giving an exaggerated number of the killed Chinese. More frequently, however, the comments come from conscientious amateur enthusiasts using one basic research tool—their common sense. Th ey also contribute to exceptionally interesting discussions about the reasons why masses of people behaved so passively while facing inevitable death, the possibility to swim across the Amur at that time of the year, and political and ideological involvement shown by the author of the article. Th e most interesting thing to a researcher is their referring to their own experience or recollections of their families and friends. Th ey often ask professionals to comment on the article and evaluate both the paper and the situation. “Th e article is interesting, but let us have some opinions from orientalists.”

32 R. Kostenko, Uchenik Aivazovskogo zapechatlel oboronu Blagoveshchenska, “Amurskaya prawda,” April 13, 2007.


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Given such an attitude and sincere intentions to fi gure out the truth the aspect of eternal collective responsibility of nations seems to disappear or stay in the background.

Every, repeat EVERY nation has a suffi cient number of scumbags, sadists, or simply people capable of cruelty when “in a crowd.” And EVERY SINGLE nation has something like that in their history. But to judge the whole nation based on that is vileness.

Nationalism happens to any nation in general. For centuries people treat foreigners suspiciously, and if such a foreigner happened to stir things up when “visiting,” there was a lot of fuss right away and people were ready to kill all and everyone having dark skin, slanting eyes or dark face.

But what were the motives of the people who took part in the events directly or indirectly and the logic behind their actions? From diff erent points of view they were the following:

Th e then incumbent Governor of Blagoveshchensk can be understood, he simply had no other choice, but to deport the Chinese to the other bank of the Amur, because of what they could do to support the Yihetuan, willingly or forcibly. It’s diffi cult to judge, nobody knows for sure if the Chinese inhabitants of Blagoveshchensk were the fi fth column… . . . We cannot blame anyone either—decide who’s guilty and who’s not, wartime is wartime, you know.

Th ey keep crossing swords proving the Russians’ passion for genocide, but they have no slightest idea why it happened. Put yourselves in the shoes of that offi cer who decided to conduct the operation. To begin with, you have 10 times less soldiers, people are panicking, Chinese bandits are aggressive and have the support from the Chinese “newcomers”. Objective No. 1—to deprive them of that support and avoid a blow in the back. Something needs to be done. Variant No. 1—to gather all the Chinese in one place, but there are too few soldiers and the Chinese would need to be fed and guarded . . . Variant No. 2—to do away with them all. Inhumane. So they needed to be deported. . . . my grandmother comes from the area and she once told me that during the Russian Civil War local inhabitants were more afraid of the Chinese than of the White or the Red. . . . What deserves a reproach is overestimation of that factor and poor organization of the river crossing. An again, the offi cer found himself under extreme time pressure, without soldiers at his disposal, and feeling gigantic responsibility for the colonists and his own people. Th at is why we should not be the ones to judge that man’s actions, as well as the ones taken by people like Budanov, Ul’man and Arakcheev. Th ey were doing their job and defending us.

War is war and it goes by its own rules, and the city authorities were responsible for the residents and their country. Th erefore, the events are viewed as an incident of a wartime, the sad result of taking the necessary


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measures of self-defense. Th ere is no one to blame and to a diff erent extent everyone is a victim.

Such a refusal to refl ect upon guilt—or an objection to it—has not generally been found satisfactory.

Why were our people so cruel? For any particular reason? Nobody knows. But Russians are no better or worse than other nations that create and destroy. Th e best example are the Germans. A strong cultural and humanist layer (sorry for the awkward expression) on the one hand, and fascism, cold-blooded and calculated murders of civilians on the other. And we are actually the same. Ready to give our lives for our family members and friends and take the life of someone else, equally close. And in a bestial way. Th e Russian Civil War can serve as the best example, because the Russians decimated their own countrymen particularly cruelly. Th e Chinese are no diff erent. Th ey write poems and make up new tortures.

And the hopeless thing is that “all people are sinners, and it’s not gonna be any better on this earth.”

Th e text I have found especially important and interesting was quite obviously written by a high-class specialist in humanities. He off ered his unique and absolutely amazing version of the reasons why the participants of the events behaved exactly the way they did. Th is truly needs a broad quotation:

Th e Blagoveshchensk genocide was committed by the lower parts of the nation (by minor executors coming from the nation, with the sympathy of the nation itself), on the outskirts of the Empire, and AGAINST the authorities’ will, even on the city level, against any law. According to that law—as the local authorities asserted and swore—no harm should have been done to the Chinese (apart from their being deported from the country, just in case—but after all, this is perfectly normal during the war); in other locations where the law was obeyed more carefully, the Chinese were left untouched . . . Th e passive response and behavior of the authorities, from the city ones and higher, did not result from normality/abnormality of the law or the system, but from extensive decay of the elite . . . After all, the instruction to drown the Chinese was not given by the superiors. It is the people and the lowest-class executioners who made that decision. Th e authorities, including the city ones, intended to use absolutely normal methods, i.e. the deportation of the enemy subjects posing a potential threat to the country of the enemy. Th e closing of the case that followed is not an eff ect of the corrupted law or system, but the wrongdoing of their representatives. And that makes the disintegration even more terrifying . . . It is surprising when they write about the psychosis of city residents, xenophobia, etc. in relation to the Blagoveshchensk story. After all, there was nothing like that present, similarly as there was no hatred for the Chinese. . . . Th ere is a city, or in


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fact a town, in the wilderness, on the outskirts of the Empire, bordering with a world power Russia has not been at war for 200 years. 10 per cent of the city residents (ca. 5 thousand) are subjects of this world power. And suddenly bang—and a war breaks out with the world power in question and the 5 thousand turn out to be subjects of the enemy. Th ey cannot be controlled and hardly anyone speaks their language, so if 500 of them decided to organize a rebellion and attack the city authorities, it would be hardly possible to trace it and extremely hard to stop or suppress. At the same time the city is approached by military forces of the world power in question that open fi re on it. If the units decided to attack supported by a few hundred potential rebels the result could be tragic to the city. At the time of war enemy subjects are usually interned or deported. In this case the city authorities decided to do the latter, which was a perfectly normal solution (the future showed that it could be avoided but considering the risk, the decision was perfectly justifi able). Nevertheless, it was impossible to intern these residents or send them somewhere far from the war zone. And this was the way it began: since the evacuation of the Chinese was problematic, the ones who conducted the orders simply liquidated them. Just like that. It had nothing in common with a mass psychosis, or any psychosis at all. It was just the simplest and the most eff ective solution of the problem—that is, to the people who had no restraints to do that. For safety purposes it is desirable to deal with or somehow preventively neutralize the subjects of the enemy when the city has been approached by enemy forces, isn’t it? Oh, yes, indeed. And how can it be done the simplest and most eff ective way if one is ready to do it by fair means or foul? Well, by slaughtering them. And that is just what they decided to do, without any psychosis. And the local Cossack authorities never intended to evacuate the Chinese. Th ey immediately decided to do away with them. Just to get rid of the problem. And in other borderline locations the authorities (Cossack and others) did no such thing whatsoever, proving to be stronger and more humane. Why did they kill women and children, too? Th ey would certainly not participate in any uprising. Well, just like that. If they did away with the men, what were they supposed to do with the rest, and why should they even bother to save them? Th ere was neither a psychosis, nor xenophobia or hatred. It was pure common sense combined with experience, the executioners’ desire to spare themselves and the resources, their understandable concern about their country’s safety during wartime, and the absence of structural barriers that could limit the manifestation of all the above-mentioned qualities—highly benefi cial and having nothing in common with irrationalism and xenophobia.

Th is version of the events seems the closest to the picture of a classical pogrom.

It is complemented by an analysis conducted by another author:


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Somebody considered the object of violence highly important. Th e Chinese were perceived as ‘aliens’ . . . Psychology calls such a process ‘dehumanization’ of the enemy. Th is is the explanation for people’s ability to act with such surprising cruelty.

Th e above intellectual analysis is supplemented with the following “cry-of-the-soul” judgment:

Th e incident is totally shocking. Th e fi rst thing that comes to one’s mind is that so little has changed for the last 110 years—people are afraid of the Chinese now, just as they used to be back then. And they still consider them the lower race. Of course, not everyone thinks the same way, but such kind of attitude is clearly noticeable among Russian tourists in China. Th e fact that Russia is a pseudo-Orthodox country now and it was like that at that time has nothing in common with the Christian spirit. What was swept under the carpet back then still seems to be concealed. Th is is extremely scary . . . Any recurrence like that is terrifying. Another thing is that this bestiality was worse that Beslan, Pearl Harbor or the Twin Towers of New York. Th ere were more victims here, and they included defenseless civilians. I can’t even imagine what a monster one needs to be to split an old man’s head with an axe just because he cannot catch up with others. Th is is not a remote explosion, this is cruel bloodshed. And the great harm was not done by single bands of terrorists—it was a mass phenomenon since the whole society supported the massacre, and this is actually the most terrifying. Even the ‘noble offi cers’ representing the ‘sublime intelligentsia’ showed that their rotten uniform is more important than the cries of tortured victims and Christian values. And traditionally, they could plunder the victims’ possessions making hay while the sun shines. Th is is so standard. And isn’t it nasty to bring the bloody money home? One can explain the events with fear, but the plundering that followed showed moral degradation of the whole society. One can assume that the properties were pillaged by greedy ordinary people, but the police who were supposed to protect them also participated. Th us, considering that attitude towards people’s individual and property rights, the law, and moral values in all social classes, it becomes evident that a bloody revolution was just a question of time. And nothing has changed.

Th e evaluation of the authorities’ actions or passivity seems to run through all discussions. Th ere is virtually no approval, but simultaneously there is a clearly expressed desire to justify. A predominant tendency, however, is the one of criticism and judgment. And the range of criticism is extremely wide: from accusations of weakness and incompetence (criminal inactivity) to the ones of committing a genocide and a war crime (criminal activity). Another thing that has been emphasized and judged accordingly is the intention to hush the case up without disgracing the uniform.


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Th e issue of the authorities is generally clear. Th ere are hardly any illusions regarding their actions. And the attitude towards the state has always remained the same—it is blamed and made responsible for everything, even for things it was not guilty of.

But I’m more interested in something else: the quietness of the Russian public opinion. After all, they were not peasants. I think it was a very bad sign indicating a serious illness of the Russian Empire and the Russian society. But we know anyway that there isn’t much time left till the end comes.

But the peasants (i.e. the lower class of the society) and their historical memory are not a simple issue. On the one hand, “my father born in 1926 who grew up in Blagoveshchensk had no idea about the subject and couldn’t say anything about it.” On the other,

Grandpa Parygin told us about it when we were children. And from what he said we could feel that the Cossacks were deeply aff ected by their participation in that operation.

I found out about these events from my grandma who lived in Blagoveshchensk at the beginning of the previous century. (...) She did not witness the massacre herself, because she was born eight years later. But she remembered the Chinese living in the pre-revolutionary city (they returned a few years after the slaughter) and she always regarded them as extremely decent people—who did not cheat children in their shops—and hard-working, too. She couldn’t explain how and why they suddenly decided to expel foreigners from the city. I long considered her stories as exaggerated or even invented, and then I simply forgot all about them.

Finally, an analysis conducted by a professional researcher deserves special attention:

V. I. Dyatlov, the author of an excellent article about the Blagoveshchensk case, is not right thinking that it was later completely forgotten. It was recalled by Transbaikalian Cossacks whose units took part in this genocide. Nikolai Ivanovich Bogomyakov, a Transbaikalian Cossack who was the only one left from the family liquidated in Stalin’s time (he himself was imprisoned for 26 years in the Stalin and Khrushchev era and died in 1983) and wrote under the pseudonym of Serebryakov, was the author of a book entitled Nachalo i konets Zabaikal’skogo voiska (partially published) based mostly on the recollections of Transbaikalian Cossacks he encountered. . . . Both he and many of his sources were convinced that the tragic destruction of Transbaikalian Cossacks was a kind of boomerang of fate, i.e. its merciless punishment for their cruelties, mainly of the early 20th century, especially the ones of 1900 and 1904 against the Chinese, particularly the Blagoveshchensk incident. Th ey did not see it as a sign of justice—just as the


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principles of the universe where cruelties are later experienced by the ones who once caused them. . . . Th e general spirit of the statements was: ‘we had done the most bestial and shameful things and we got what we deserved.’ Th ese bestial and shameful things are evil and disgraceful as such, ethically, not technically—according to Bogomyakov and some of his sources—since they all had to suff er for them.

Instead of Conclusions. Th e Issue of Topicality

All the sources quoted above (and the unquoted as well, I can assure you) are full of emotions. One can even talk about intense passions. Th ere are no (or—just in case—hardly any) indiff erent or intellectually distanced responses and comments. Th e prevailing reactions are ostentatious manifestations of people’s lists of personal values, ideological and sometimes political viewpoints. Even seemingly rigid in terms of form and analytical texts have not managed to avoid passionate judgment.

Attempts to fi nd the reason for this situation inevitably reveal that it is the nature of the events itself. Reading about the latter one fi nds it really diffi cult to remain indiff erent. Nonetheless, over a century has passed since the incident. It is a whole era of numerous mass cruelties, conscious and cold-blooded exterminations of millions of people. And of getting used to such atrocities.

What scares us here is the common nature of the events, the realization that such unnatural and monstrous violence can be used by the “neighbors”33, ordinary people we live close to, associate and form various relationships with. And not some invisible external powers that do not augur well. From the abstract sphere of anonymity and statistics showing human losses counted in millions violence enters the sphere of everyday life. Th e daily and familiar word “neighbor” gains a terrifying metaphorical meaning.

Th erefore, the dominant notion is to understand or perceive this subject, and problem, as extremely topical and contemporary. And it is not only from the perspective of a potential recurrence of the situation—after all the state is in decay, there is a popular anti-migrant feeling and there have been numerous acts of violence against “foreign intruders.”

Th e fi rst question that comes to your mind is ‘Is it possible at all these days?’ And then you start asking yourself: ‘Is it possible anywhere else outside

33 Ya.T. Gross, Sosedi. Istoriya unichtozheniya evreiskogo mestechka, translated from Polish by V. S. Kulagina-Yartseva, Foreword by A. Michnik, Moscow: “Tekst,” Druzhba narodov; 2002.


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Russia?’ My answer is—it is possible everywhere, where the government evades its responsibility; the range of pogroms can only be determined by the extent of passivity displayed by the authorities. Unfortunately, there are always people who want to liquidate others.

It is understandable, and terrifying. “Knock on wood but I am really scared of this barely controlled aggression. Someone will do nothing but scream but someone else might as well take out a knife.” And the conclusion follows: “Th e Blagoveshchensk catastrophe was Russia’s fi rst step into the Time of Troubles.”

But it is mainly about us. How should we now live with the memory of this incident? “I wonder if we are ripe for showing repentance/apologizing for exterminating a few thousand innocent Chinese near Blagoveshchensk in 1900.” Repentance is understood not as a collective externally-infl icted guilt complex but as an inner emotion and taking inner moral responsibility for the ancestors’ actions. For the inheritance that cannot and must not be denied. Repentance is the only reliable guarantee that the past actions will not be repeated. It is an indicator of the society’s maturity. And a transition from the issues of collective resistance or collective responsibility to individual choices.

Maciej Janowski wrote about a reaction of the Polish society to the situation described in the book by J.T. Gross:

. . . to take note of it without trying to deny it and live on conscious of the fact that your own people, like any other, have good and bad, beautiful and nasty pages in their history.34

Similarly to the situation in Poland, it is not the only position and not the prevailing one in the discussion.

Still today, some believe that recognizing the dark pages of national history is a refl ection of social maturity and a moral obligation, while others are convinced that defending the good name of the people is a fundamental obligation of patriotism. Because both positions are founded not on empirical knowledge, but on principles of worldview, it would be a mistake to believe that they could be altered by historical study.35

Indeed, but historical research can attract public attention to the problem in question, provoke a discussion, face people with issues that cannot be dismissed. It can off er people words and images they sometimes need so badly. Naturally, the reaction to the Blagoveshchensk events in

34 M. Janowski, Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: A Discussion of the Events of a Day of Horror, “Pro et Contra,” May–August 2011, p. 155 [quoted from the Russian translation].

35 Ibid., p. 161.


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Russian contemporary society cannot be compared with Poland’s response to the Jedwabne massacre—in terms of the scope of discussion, the possibility to avoid moral, axiological and ideological choices, or the depth of understanding. But the fact that the subject has been restored to historical memory and that it does not leave the ones aware of it indiff erent instills some optimism.

Victor Dyatlov

“Blagoveshensk Utopia”: Historical Memory and Historical Responsibility

A b s t r a c t

Tragic events in 1900 in Blegoveshensk suddenly became the subject of active internet and mass media discussions. Th e problem of historical responsibility and historical memory spontaneously appears, being discussed and what is more important being relived. Did it really happen? Who is to blame? Could our forefathers do this? If yes then why? How should we, their descendants react? Should we? Should we remember and recall the terrible and shameful events? Should we take the skeletons out from the cupboards? It should be mentioned that this topic is of great interest in China. Won’t it be harmful for the interest of our country and for the presently living generation to mention about these events? Are we responsible for everything that our forefathers did? If yes, then in what way? Can be a nation to blame? Are there bad nations? Should some nations be always historically guilty towards other nations? Should there be collective responsibility? Up to juridical consequences? Is it possible to understand and explain what had happened and behavior of those ones who took part directly or indirectly? What does it mean to learn a lesson? Is it a duty or personal refl ection to confess?

K e y w o r d s : historical memory, historical responsibility, Blegoveshensk, Russia, China.

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