Русский мир в Китае

The book “Russian World In China: The Experience Of The Historical And Ethnocultural Coexistence Of The Russian And Chinese People” written by Olga Kurto is the first complex scientific research which dwells upon the modern Russian societies in China. It summarizes author’s academic activities in the field of Chinese Studies throughout rather a long period covering more than seven years. Several parts of the book are based on the publications written in various periods of time. Many scientists from Russia, China, Japan, the USA, the UK, Australia studied and continue to study the emigration of Russian people to other countries. One of the most terrible effects on Russia in the twentieth century had the Great October Socialist Revolution, when thousands of people had to leave their homes and go to another countries trying to save their life. As a result there are lots of Russian people living in France, the USA, Brazil, Argentine, Australia, Poland, Finland, etc. Some people moved to China. Many scholars who are interested in the Chinese-Russian relationships have written a great number of books which describe the life of the Russian emigrants in China. But academic works devoted to this problem and written in the last years, happened to be somewhat one-sided. The biggest part of them reflects the life of Russian emigrants in the first half of the XXth century, underestimating the role of the modern groups of Russians. In this book the author seeks to highlight the other side of the medal. O.I. Kurto spent a lot of time trying to find answers for many questions: 1) what does the phrase “the modern Russian society in China” mean? 2) who are those “Russians”? 3) are they people of Russian nationality or those who speak Russian and live according to the Russian traditions? 4) where is their motherland? 5) in what regions do they live in China? 6) why did they decide to leave their own country? 7) where are they going to live in the future? 8) how many Russian people live in China now? 9) what strategies do they use in order to adapt in China? etc. Russia and China have more than 300-years history of the official contacts. But in the XIVth century there has already been a group of Russian people living in Beijing. These days there are also several Russian communities in China. But are there any differences between these and those Russians? The author uses the phrase “Russian people” to name people who speak Russian language and follow Russian traditions, regardless of whether they are of Russian nationality or not and what country their motherland is. The Chinese citizens often call “the Russian” someone who is actually the Ukrainian, the Belarusian, the Caucasian, the Kazakh, etc. So in China every person from the country which belongs to the Commonwealth of Independent States can become “the Russian”. O. Kurto avoids using the word “diaspora”. She made a conclusion that all so called Russians living in China now are rather dissociated and don’t like to communicate with each other. All of them have different reasons for leaving their motherlands. And usually they prefer to contact with someone who immigrates to China for the same reason. As a result there is no one single diaspora. On the contrary, there are plenty of different Russian communities. What is more, several independent Russian societies can exist even in one particular city. The Chinese scientists use different terms to name the Russian people living in China. For example, the word “eluosizu” means “the Ethnic Russians” / “the Russian minority” (one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People’s Republic of China). These Russians are the descendants of Russians who settled there since the XVIIth century and hold PRC rather than Russian citizenship. Nowadays they live in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Heilongjiang. “Eluosizu” consists of two groups. The first one is “eqiao” (“Russian emigrants”). The most suitable equivalents of this term are “white émigré” (this term is often used in France, the USA and the UK) and “first-wave émigré”. White émigré or first-wave émigré are the people who emigrated from Russia after the Great October Revolution and during the Russian Civil War, and who were in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate. The second one is “suqiao” (“Soviet emigrants”). This word is broadly applied to the soviet citizens who settled in China in the 1930-1950th. The terms “huae houyi” and “hunxue minzu” mean “the descendants of Russians who married Chinese”. The book was published by “Vostochnaya literatura” in 2013. It has 375 pages, 5 chapters, 24 paragraphs and more than one hundred different photos made by the author. It is the first scientific research which makes an attempt to describe all the modern groups of Russians living in PRC these days. O.I. Kurto tried to make something like a map containing the complete information about the Russian people (including the places they settle, the reasons of leaving their own countries, the systems of adaptation in China, their activities, their plans for future, the activities they take part in, etc.) who settled in China in different periods of time and whose descendants and successors form the modern Russian societies now. Chapter 1 contains information about historical documents, books, articles and other sources of information which dwells upon the Russian emigrants in China. It consists of three parts telling the readers about scientific works written in Russia, China and western countries in different periods of time. In chapter 2 the author made an attempt to describe the earliest experience of communication between Russians and Chinese. It has valuable information about the first Russian community living in China in the XIVth century. The author analyzed the process of the Russian migration to the Siberia and the Far East where Russian people had a lot of opportunities to contact with the Chinese. At the end of this chapter there is a part which touches upon the fort of Albazin built on the northernmost part of the Amur River in 1651. This fort was one of the reasons for the Russian-Manchu border conflicts. These days there is a group of the Albazinians who are the descendants of about fifty Russian Cossacks that were captured by the Chinese and settled by the Kangxi Emperor in Beijing in 1685. Chapter 3 and chapter 4 have the same structures. They are based on analyses of a wide range of sources and research works written in many languages. It is worth mentioning here that these two parts (and also chapter 5) comprises the information obtained by O.I. Kurto during her multiple field researches. Her main aim was to gain a close and intimate familiarity with Russian people living in China and their everyday practices during a long period of time. The extended research time periods gave her the unique opportunities to obtain more detailed and accurate information about the individuals and the communities. And, as we know, observable details and more hidden details are more easily observed and interpreted over a longer period of time. That’s why long-term field researches are the invaluable source of information for the social anthropologists. These two chapters are divided into sixteen parts. Each part touches upon one city (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Harbin, Dalian, Guangzhou, Lianyungang, Xianggang, etc.) or region (Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Zheltuga, Taiwan, Hainan, Russian-Chinese border regions, etc). The Russian communities in each city or region have their own specific features which make each of these groups unique. The last part of the Chapter 3 elucidates a little-studied page of Russian history – the creation of the Zheltuga Republic from the illegal settlement of gold miners on the River Zheltuga (the Amur Basin) at the end of the 19th century. In short period of time, the multi-ethnic community of gold miners managed to create a proto-state formation based on the Russian principles of state-building, which had its own legislative, executive, and judicial authorities, coat-of-arms, flag, army, and punitive agencies. The Republic attracted over 10,000 people and became an economic and cultural center of Transbaikalia. Finally, chapter 5 devoted to the factors of the ethnic consolidation is the shortest one. O.I. Kurto made a conclusion that there are only few things that help Russian people with various historical backgrounds to unite in China. These things are the commonness of language, the Orthodox Church and the so-called “Russian clubs. The first part of this chapter tells the readers about the “Russian clubs”. The “Russian club” is the form of the unofficial association which becomes popular among Russian people living in China during the last twenty years. Nowadays the biggest Russian clubs are in Shanghai, Harbin, Beijing, Dalian, etc. The second part presents a picture of the modern problems of the Orthodox Church in China. The Appendixes can also make a contribution to our better understanding of the life of the Russian communities in China. They contain several interviews and small articles based on the materials which the author gained during her field researches.