Sino-Russian relations through the lens of Russian border history museums: the Nerchinsk treaty and its problematic representations

ABSTRACT

Since the fall of the USSR, Sino-Russian relations have evolved along a paradoxical dichotomy of friendship and mistrust. Experts have widely discussed this phenomenon, but little attention has been paid to historical narratives. Border regions of the Russian Far East are places where memories of a conflicting Imperial past coexist with more recently developed friendly narratives of cooperation and “bon voisinage”. Exhibitions in history museums are interesting objects of study in this context. They selectively display historical contents to visitors and convey a political interpretation of the past. This paper explores the significance of the representations of history in Russian border museums, and that of the Nerchinsk Treaty, within the framework of contemporary Sino-Russian relations. This analysis reveals contradictory elements related to the historical narratives of the history museums of Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Chita and Nerchinsk. On the one hand, it detects a desire to portray a history in a way that expunges elements of contestation and smooths over highly controversial facts. On the other hand, national discourses cannot completely renounce particularistic narratives or obliterate elements of pride considered to be founding elements of Russia’s past. The persistence of tensions triggered by the interpretation of history is then revealed.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• China
• history museums
• Nerchinsk
• Russian far east
• Sino-Russian border relations

Acknowledgments

All my gratitude goes to Dr. Yuexin Rachel Lin of the University of Exeter for the consultation and translation of Chinese websites, and for proofreading the draft version of this paper. Our discussions provided me with some invaluable reflections.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. “I hope that everyone will fall under the charm of the magic of this exhibition: [..] – and that they won’t think of this land as a young one, where the history of people living here started with the Treaty of Beijing, but that they will understand that this is a territory with its own ancient history. Yes, they [the exhibition’s artifacts] are so marvelous, wonderful, yes, they are so non-Slavic, but, still, they are our story. And this is also magical – how Russia knows how to merge in itself things that seemed to be difficult to combine together..” (Shalay).

2. Russian version: «Главный герой этой истории – отважный путешественник человек способный выйти в большое пространство с тем, чтобы исследовать его, а потом, в тиши кабинета, превратить накопленные знания в документ или книгу».

3. Original text: «Нерчинский договор – подписан 27 августа (6 сентября) 1689 г. Между Русским государством и Китаем, который регулировал пограничные отношения и открывал возможности к развитию мирных политических и торговых отношений между двумя странами. Демаркация государственной границы не проводилась.»