The Siberian frontier between “White Mission” and “Yellow Peril,” 1890s–1920s

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Notes

The term “frontier” was first projected onto North America by the scholar Frederick Jackson Turner in The Frontier in American History (New York, 1931). Long before Turner, in the mid nineteenth century the Siberian regionalist A. P. Shchapov, a professor at the then sole university in Asiatic Russia, namely that of Kazan', moulded in his lectures the “Russian frontier thesis” for Siberia, comparing it to North America.

Richard Slatta, “Historical Frontier Imagery in the Americas,” in Paula Covington, ed., Papers of the Thirty‐Third Annual Meeting of the Seminar on the Acquisiton of Latin American Library Materials, Latin American Frontiers, Borders, and Hinterlands: Research Needs and Resources (Alburquque, 1990), pp. 5–25.

K. N. Pos'et, “Prekrashchenie ssylki v Sibiri,” Russkaia starina, No. 99, 1899, pp. 168–170.

E. V. Bogdanovicˇh, Exposé de la question relative au chemin de fer de la Sibérie et de L'Asie centrale (Paris, 1875), pp. 1, 3, 9–11.

Ministerstvo Finansov, ed., Sibir' i Velikaia Sibirskaia Zheleznaia doroga (St Petersburg: Departament Torgovli i Manufaktur, 1896), p. 233.

Pos'et, “Prekrashchenie ssylki v Sibiri,” p. 54.

GARF, f. 818, op. 1, d. 138, I.1–3.

Petrus Han, Soziologie der Migration. Erklärungsmodelle—Fakten—Politische Konsequenzen—Perspektiven (Stuttgart, 2000), p. 7.

Arved Schultz, Sibirien. Eine Landeskunde (Breslau, 1923), p. 164.

A. N. Koulomzine, Le Transsibérien (Paris, 1904), pp. 43–44.

RGIA, f. 1642, op. 1, d. 204, ll. 28, 61–62.

Aziatskaia Rossiia, ed., Glavnoe upravlenie zemleustroistva i zemledeliia (St Petersburg, 1914), Vol. 1, p. 70.

RGIA, f. 1642, op. 1, d. 197, l. 31.

RGIA, f. 1642, op. 1, d. 205, l. 25; fl. 394, op. 1, d. 7; d. 13, d. 48.

Eva‐Maria Stolberg, “Prostitution, Disease, Opium Dens and the Yellow Peril along the Transsiberian Railway in Tsarist Era,” paper presented at the Department of Social and Economic History, Keio˘‐University, Tokyo, May 1998, p. 2.

F. V. Solov'ev, Kitaiskoe otkhodnichestvo na Dal'nem Vostoke Rossii v epokhu kapitalizma (1861–1917gg.) (Moscow, 1989), pp. 34–43.

I thank my colleagues Yano Hisashi (Department of Economic and Social History, Keio˘ University, Tokyo) and Michael Underdown (University of New South Wales, Sydney) for this information.

P. Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist (New York, 1968), p. 186. Hui fang existed in the Amur region from the early appearance of Russians in the mid seventeenth century. They were well known for terrorizing the Amur natives. Hui fang demanded high tributes and kidnapped Tungus as slaves for the Chinese market. See Eva‐Maria Stolberg, “Interracial Outposts in Siberia: Nerchinsk, Kiakhta and the Russo‐Chinese Trade in the 17th/18th centuries,” Journal of Early Modern History, Vol. 4, Nos 3/4, pp. 322–336.

Arkhiv N. K. Arsen'eva/Obshchestva Dal'nego Vostoka, Vladivostok (pages not numbered). Concerning the geographical names, see James Forsyth, “Chinese Place‐Names in the Russian Far East,” W. Ritchie, ed., Essays for Professor R.E.H. Mellor (Aberdeen, 1986), pp. 133–139.

Arkhiv N. K. Arsen'eva.

Ibid.

Ibid.

G. T. Murov, Liudi i nravy Dal'nego Vostoka (Tomsk, 1901), p. 88.

Cao Tingjie, “Xiboli dongpian jiyao” [“Record of Eastern Siberia”], Liaohai congshu [Distant Seas Series], Vol. 26, 1971, pp. 1–48

V. P. Shmotin, “Mining Industry in the Priamur Region,” Russkii Dal'nii Vostok, No. 2 1920, p.17.

N. I. Riabov and M. G. Shtein, Ocherki istorii russkogo Dal'nego Vostoka (XVII—XX vv.) (Khabarovsk, Russia, 1958), p. 130.

F. Nansen, Through Siberia: The Land of the Future (London, 1914), pp. 369–370.

RGIA, f. 364, op. 6, d. 217, l.33–35.

For Russian prejudice, see ibid.

Murov, Liudi i nravy Dal'nego Vostoka, p. 35.

Kato˘ Kyu˘zo˘, Shiberia ki [Siberian Record] (Tokyo, 1980), pp. 122–126.

Stolberg, “Prostitution, Disease, Opium Dens,” p. 2.

Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis' naseleniia Rossiiskoi imperii 1897g. (St Petersburg, 1899–1905), Vol. 76, p. 122. Concerning Japanese prostitutes in the Russian Far East see Gaimusho˘ Kiroku (Documents of the Japanese Foreign Ministry), f. 6.1.6.88, Bl. 3.

Gaimusho˘ Kiroku, f. 6.1.6.88, Bl. 3.

A good insight into the genesis of the stereotype of the “Yellow Peril” delivers: Heinz Gollwitzer, Die Gelbe Gefahr: Geschichte eines Schlagwortes (Göttingen, 1962). In the 1890s American cities along the Pacific coast also experienced an Asiaphobia.

Ferdinand Ossendowski, Man and Mystery in Asia (London, 1924), p. ix.

Ossendowski, Man and Mystery in Asia, p. 81.

Ossendowski, Man and Mystery in Asia, p. 150.

Ossendowski, Man and Mystery in Asia, p. 93.

Pavel F. Unterberger, Priamurskii krai, 1906–1910gg. (St Petersburg, 1912), p. 519; Eva‐Maria Stolberg, “The Prelude: From the Russo‐Japanese War of 1904/1905 and the First Russian Revolution to World War I,” in Revolution and Civil War in Siberia/ Russian Far East and the Impact on East Asia, 1917–1922, paper for the British Study Group on Russian Revolution, Leeds, January 1998, p. 1.

V. O. Kliuchevskii, Pis'ma. Dnevniki. Aformizmy i mysli ob istorii (Moscow, 1968), p. 305.

Ebenda.

Jiji Shimpo, 21 June 1895, 14 February 1905.

Gaimusho˘ Kiroku, f. 6.1.6.88, Bl. 3.

Nansen, Through Siberia, pp. 339–340.

G. V. Glinka, Aziatskaia Rossiia, Vol. 2 (St Petersburg, 1914), p. 541.

See footnote 22.

J. F. Fraser, The Real Siberia (London, 1909), pp. 195–196.

Pravo, 8 November 1905. Obviously, the decay of the army in the revolution of 1905 went all over the empire with pogroms against minorities, against Jews in the western provinces and against Chinese migrants in the Russian Far East. On lubki as expression of patriotic culture, albeit limited to World War I, see Hubertus F. Jahn, Patriotic Culture in Russia during World War I (Ithaca, NY and London, 1995), pp. 12–38; J. Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861–1917 (Princeton, 1985), pp.28–29, 314.

This also occurred in Siberia during the Civil War and then in the late 1930s when Japan again threatened Russia's eastern borderlands. I am currently at work on a monograph dealing with this question.

Sudzlovskii alias Russel was a globetrotter. He organized an escape of Russian prisoners from the Transbaikal region in 1903 and spent some time in the United States, including a tour to Hawaii.

Gaimusho˘ Nihon Gaiko˘ Bunsho: Nichiro senso˘ [Japanese Diplomatic Documents: Russo‐Japanese War], Tokyo, 1958–1960, Vol. 5, pp. 252–254.

Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie na Dal'nem Vostoke, ed. Dal'neovostochnaia komissiia po organizatsii iubileia 20‐letiia 1905 g. (Vladivostok, 1925), pp. 38–43.

G. S. Chechulina, ed., V toi kipuchei bor'be: Zamechatel'nye dal'nevostochniki (Khabarovsk, Russia, 1994), p. 16.

Ishii Kikujiro, Gaiko˘ Yoroku [Diplomatic Reports] (To˘kyo˘, 1931), pp. 128–129.

On the “Korean problem” as one factor influencing Japan's intervention in Siberia, see Kan Dokusan, “Nihon teikoku‐shugi no Cho˘sen shihai to Roshia kakumei” [“Japan's Imperialistic Rule over Korea and the Russian Revolution”], Rekishigaku kenkyu˘ [Historical Studies], No. 329, 1969, pp. 37–76.

Kasahara Tokushi, “Nichu˘ Gunji Kyo˘tei to Pekin seifu no ‘Gaigo˘ Jichi torikeshi’—Roshia kakumei ga mo tarashita higashi‐ajia sekai no hendo˘ no isso‐kumen” [“The Sino‐Japanese Military Convention and the ‘Revocation of the Autonomy of Outer Mongolia’ by the Beijing Government. Another Aspect of the Consequences, Resulting from the Russian Revolution”], Rekishigaku kenkyu˘ [Historical Studies], Vol. 515, No. 4, 1983, p. 23.

See Eva‐Maria Stolberg, “Japan's Strategic and Political Involvement in Siberia and the Russian Far East, 1892–1922,” in Robert Cribb and Li Narangoa, eds, Imperial Japan and the Identity of Its Asian Neigbours, forthcoming NIAS‐Series (Copenhagen, 2002), p. 51.

Kikujiro, Gaiko˘ Yoroku, pp. 59–61.

The Inland Sea lies between Shikoku and southeastern Honshu. It is the old core of Japanese culture, the place where Amaterasu O˘mikami, the legendary goddess of the sun, founded the Japanese Imperial dynasty, according to the oldest Japanese chronicles, Kojiki (Report on Old Events) and Nihon Shoki (Japanese Chronicles). Therefore, the slogan of “New Inland Sea” had a special significance for the Japanese people.

Kato˘, Shiberia ki, pp. 120–125.

Hosoya Chihiro, “Nihon to Koruchaku seiken sho˘nin kenkyu˘” [“Japan and the Recognition Problem of the Kolchak Regime”), Hitotsubashi daigaku ho˘gaku kenkyu˘ [Hitotsubashi Academy's Studies on Law], No. 3, 1961, pp. 13–15.

Hara, Shiberia shuppei, p. 7.

Henry K. Norton, The Far Eastern Republic of Siberia (London, 1923 [1981]), p.211. The situation in the Amurskaia oblast was insofar serious as the wages were paid in kind. Dal'nevostochnaia Respublika, 28 May 1921, p. 2.

Dal'nevostochnaia mysl', 14 September 1921, p. 1. The newspaper, published in Vladivostok, reported that 11 ships arrived from Japan, but did not mention the extent of the supplies.

Orin Keith, “Rebirth of Industry and Commerce in Eastern Siberia,” Far Eastern Review (Shanghai), Vol. 18, No. 2, 1922, pp. 127–129.

P. M. Nikiforov, Zapiski prem'era DVR (Moscow, 1974), pp. 204–206, 210–212.

Da'lnevostochnaia Respublika, 19 May 1921, p. 2.

Stolberg, Japan's Strategic and Political Involvement, p. 52.

“Iapontsy v Sibirii,” unpublished manuscript, author not known, Vladivostok, 1919.

Frederick F. Moore, Siberia Today (New York and London, 1919), p. 29.

Moore, Siberia Today, pp.78–79.

Moore, Siberia Today, pp.78–79.

National Archives (Washington, DC): file 21–33.5.

Takishiro Hattori, Japonija v voine 1941–1945 (Moscow, 1973), pp. 25, 45. Hattori had been a leading officer on the staff of the Kwantung Army during the 1930s and 1940s.