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BURNT BY THE SUN
Perspectives on the Global Past
Jon K. Chang
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction 1
2 The RFE as a Frontier Melting Pot, 1863–1917 9
3 Intervention, 1918–1922 33
4 Korean Korenizatsiia and Its Socialist Construction 52
5 Koreans Becoming a Soviet People, 1923–1930 80
6 Security Concerns Trumping Korenizatsiia, 1931–1937 112
7 The Korean Deportation and Life in Central Asia,
1937–Early 1940s 151
8 Voices in the Field 180
9 Conclusion 186
I would like to thank Dr. Peter Gatrell and Dr. Yoram Gorlizki for their
patience, thoughtfulness and guidance during my time at the University of
Manchester. I would also like to thank Drs. J. Otto Pohl, Ross King, John J.
Stephan, Bruce Elleman, Hiroaki Kuromiya, Sergei Kan, Walter Rich-
mond, Amir A. Khisamutdinov, German N. Kim, Geoffrey Swain, Tai
Chang, Edith Chen, Eunice Chen, Jae Hyung Park, Elena Yugai, Eric
Schmaltz, Spiros Tsoutsompis, the University of Hawai‘i’s bibliographer
Patricia Polansky, Mark Sylte, Jamie Bisher, D. Shin, Richmond Trotter,
Jon Basil Utley, Gloria Law, Ling Chang, Teddy M. L. Wong, Stanislav
and Nadezhda Pak and James Zobel of the MacArthur Archives. I am in-
debted to all of the aforementioned for their willingness to share infor
mation, discuss history and or support me in this long endeavor of research
and writing. I want to thank my guides and interpreters (Korean to Russian)
to the Soviet-Korean/Russian-Korean communities, Aleksandr Petrovich
Kim and Larisa Valentinovna Kim in Uzbekistan and Vadim Nikolaevich
Kan in Kyrgyzstan. Others who also helped are: Roman Kim, Kiyon
Park, Hyung Jin Shim, Katia Lim, Artur Dzhumabaev, Svetlana An and
Yura Ho. I am also indebted to Dr. Henry Chang who has guided me in
all of my academic pursuits and has ably translated “A Treatise on Peace in
East Asia” into English and my mother, Kit-Yung who has always supported
me. Ms. Nurilla Sharshekeeva and the English Department of AUCA
(American University of Central Asia) also deserve my gratitude for the two
wonderful years that I spent working in a Kyrgyz-Russian educational insti-
tution and the Russian lessons that they offered which helped me prepare
for this research project (2006–2007). The two years there (attending inter-
departmental meetings in Russian) and the additional years in Central Asia
conducting fieldwork and interviews w ere extremely useful in helping me to
reconstruct Soviet life (byt) while experiencing post-Soviet, Central Asian
life. I owe the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan my thanks and
deep appreciation for making my stays in their countries safe, hospitable
and warm (2006–2010, 2014). In conducting the fieldwork for this study,
there w ere many strong links and parallels between the Soviet-Korean
ix
e xperience (and post-Soviet Korean life in Russia and Central Asia) and the
experiences that I encountered among Asians in Latin America, specifically
in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I drew from my experiences in the barrio chino
on Arribeños street and the various barrios coreanos in Flores, el Once and
another Korean district west of la Boca to help me write this study. All of
them helped me to write about identity, culture(s), and finally, the most
important, a sense of agency allowing one to change and overcome any bar-
riers. Finally, I would like to thank my editors Masako Ikeda (University of
Hawai‘i Press) and Carolyn Ferrick (Westchester Publishing Services) for the
attention, care, and diligence in helping me to correct and prepare this book.
There are many other people that I should also thank. However, for the sake
of brevity, those persons and their acts of kindness will always evoke a smile
and an attitude of gratefulness from me.
x Acknowledgments
BURNT BY THE SUN
ONE
Introduction
Besides this, the Chinese and Koreans are industrious and steady
workers, which is not always the case with the Russians here. Then
there is the fact already alluded to, that the yellow men are clever
craftsmen . . . . That a Chinese businessman is everywhere the
successful rival of a Russian or a European is well known. And
these qualities, as the Russian writer Bolkhovitinov puts it, are
more dangerous than e ither the Chinese army or navy.
—Fridtjof Nansen, explorer, October 19141
I
n 1926, the Soviet Union listed among its population over 190 nation-
alities or socio-historical ethnic groups.2 The USSR contained large
numbers of groups considered to be “Western Europeans” such as Ger-
mans and Greeks and every variety of “Asians,” from Muslims, Christians,
and Jewish Asians in the Caucasus (Ingush, Georgians, and Mountain
Jews/Tats who spoke Persian) to Asians in the Russian Far East (RFE) lo-
cated thousands of miles away on the Soviet Union’s Pacific Coast.3 In the-
ory, the Soviet Union offered all nationalities within its borders, at least in
principle, cultural and territorial autonomy, education in their native lan-
guage, and other rights that constituted self-determination and individual
rights promising equality under Soviet law regardless of religion, national-
ity, place of origin, language, and other markers of identity.4 All of the
aforementioned rights were offered in an indigenization program called ko-
renizatsiia, which began in 1923 and ended for the Koreans with their de-
portation from the RFE in 1937.
Unfortunately, despite having been born in Russia or the Soviet Union,
the diaspora peoples such as Germans, Poles, Greeks, Koreans, Chinese
and Iranians were often seen as having homelands and political allegiances to
countries bearing their ethnonym, that is, ancestral homelands.5 This study
focuses on two primary questions and their arguments. The first is: “Why
were the Koreans of the Russian Far East viewed as a problematic or maligned
nationality during the Tsarist and Soviet periods?”6 The second question
addresses the implementation of socialism upon a multinational population
and consists of two parts. Therefore, “Was the Bolshevik government clouded
1
by its own Tsarist past (based on a colonial ideology of conquering lands,
resources, and natives) during the execution of Soviet socialism?” and, if so,
“How did t hese Tsarist continuities affect the implementation of Soviet
policy towards the Koreans?” After all, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and other “Old
Bolsheviks” had come of age u nder the tsar as subjects of the Russian Empire.
This second question also examines the effects of Soviet nationalities policies
on the Chinese, German, Jewish, and Polish communities of the USSR.
Leading an underground group of revolutionaries is one t hing, but the
execution of a socialist system based on “actual and legal equality” to over
192 distinct nationalities speaking over three hundred different languages is
quite another. As this study w ill demonstrate, the Soviet Koreans partici-
pated vigorously in all of the major sociopolitical (and propaganda) cam-
paigns during korenizatsiia. Yet the charges of their being “alien,” more
suitable as laborers than as citizens, and inveterate agents/minions of the
Japanese empire never ceased—this, despite the fact that a significant number
of RFE Koreans had fought in e very Russian and Soviet war as conscripts
and officers since the First World War. Finally, perhaps the end result of
korenizatsiia and the Soviet nationalities policies was the division of the
USSR itself into more than sixteen different nation-states (after 1991), which
gave the new nation-states greater autonomy and civic freedoms than they
had possessed as constituent parts of the USSR. Closely related to the subject
of Soviet Korean history in the RFE are the discussion and problematiza-
tion of how historians within the field of Soviet/Russian history frame race,
ethnicity, and Soviet nationalities policies.
Afanasii A. Kim’s life and his rise to the top of the Communist Party in the
Russian Far East mirrored the lofty dreams and ascent of other Koreans
during the korenizatsiia (indigenization) period of 1923 until the Korean
deportation. Kim r ose from life as a peasant farmer to become the highest-
ranking Soviet Korean cadre in the USSR. He went on to meet Vladimir
Lenin in 1921 and then was selected to give a rousing emotional speech
at the Seventeenth Congress of the CPSU in January 1934. There, Kim
pledged the loyalties of the Koreans of the Poset district to Soviet power.
Here is an excerpt from that speech: “We know that the task of Korean
kolkhoz peasants and Korean workers is to defend our red borders of the
Soviet Far East until our last drop of blood.”7
However, the life of Afanasii Arsenevich Kim would not follow the
typical trajectory of a g reat Soviet vozhd (leader) b
ecause his community
2 Chapter 1
was a diaspora p eople whose character and fidelity to the state w
ere contin-
ually subjected to trial by fire b ecause of the inherent weaknesses (and im-
purities) in Soviet socialism and its nationalities policies. In the 1930s, these
policies would promote and repress Soviet Koreans for the same inherent
traits; that is, some cadres would be picked for promotion, while others were
repressed for possessing similar qualities and characteristics. The Soviet ar-
chives and Krasnoe znamia bear out the fact that Afanasii Kim headed vari
ous campaigns and institutions such as the Politotdel that repressed Soviet
Koreans in large numbers during the Terror. This goes against the standard
reverential treatment of Kim’s life, work, and outstanding leadership.8
In November 1921, Afanasii Kim served as the translator for a Korean
delegation that met with Vladimir Lenin. Near the end of the meeting,
Lenin asked Kim, “Among Koreans, how many are there that can speak
Russian like you [as a native speaker of Russian]?” Kim answered, “More
than one thousand.” This was followed by a brief conversation about why there
had not been anything written on how the October Revolution had affected
such comrades as Kim and others like him in the East. Lenin’s final request
was to challenge Kim, “The next time that you come [to Moscow], please
bring such a book.” Afanasii promised that such a book would be written.9
As a Soviet cadre, Afanasii Kim’s duty was to serve both the CP and
the Korean community. However, his primary identification was as a social-
ist and an “internationalist.” Under his leadership, those elements in the
Korean community which w ere seen as too aggressive or too vigilant w ere
excised and repressed. In this study, we shall examine several instances of
such occurrence u nder Afanasii Kim’s direction. One example occurred on
November 19, 1928, when Kim was one of two Koreans who participated in
a Dalkraikom resolution that voted to eliminate the mood of protest engen-
dered by young Korean CP activists. These activists aggressively protested
the removal and resettlement of recent immigrant, landless, and non-citizen
Koreans in the Vladivostok okrug (region). In order to remove the “mood of
protest,” there were likely arrests of the young Korean activists.10 During
collectivization in 1929, it was claimed that 15 percent of the Korean farmers
were kulaks and should be repressed. Given the fact that the g reat majority
of Korean peasants w ere both poor and landless, a more plausible percentage
of Korean kulaks would have been from 1 to 3 percent. However, Kim as
the leader of the Korean community did not protest this, as he understood
that 15 percent was likely a quota (plan) derived by cadres who w ere his su-
periors in Dalkraikom or Moscow.11 Finally, in 1933, Kim became head of
the Politotdel, a section of the OGPU (political police) that was stationed in
rural collective farms in the Poset raion. Poset was 95 percent Korean.12 The
Introduction 3
stated task of the Politotdel was to guard the mechanized MTS (Machine
Tractor Stations) in the rural collectives. But during the Terror, the Politot-
del literally cut out a wide swath of the Soviet Korean peasantry.
Soviet korenizatsiia could often be deadly. The repression of some Ko-
reans while o thers with similar profiles and abilities w ere promoted was
prevalent during this period. If Afanasii Kim had not followed his orders,
he would have quickly been replaced. Kim likely felt that he was the best
candidate to lead the RFE Koreans. Therefore he understood that he could
do more good for them by following o rders and surviving rather than ques-
tioning the contradictions within Bolshevism. He directed many institutions
and mechanisms of social and civil infrastructure, security, and repression.
Would Kim survive the machinery that he helped put into place during the
Great Terror? This question w ill be examined and answered in the chapters
that follow. The example of Afanasii Kim’s life is but one facet of the dis-
tinctive case of the Korean Bolsheviks, their assimilation into Soviet culture
and politics, and their later deportation.
ere are aspects of the case of the Koreans and their deportation that are
Th
not apparent or characteristic of the other Stalinist nationalities deporta-
tions. The Koreans were a migratory, diaspora nationality that was East
Asian yet quite unlike many of the Asian citizens of the Soviet Union such
as Kalmyks, Kazakhs, Chechens, and Nogais. Koreans did not have a recent
nomadic or seminomadic past. They, like the Chinese, had long traditions
of diplomacy and statecraft, literat ure, statehood in various forms, interna-
tional relations, and international trade. In many ways, they assimilated and
adapted to Soviet culture much like the Slavic and European nationalities of
the USSR (the Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Poles, Germans, and Bulgarians).
However, Soviet culture had not yet equalized the terms and treatment for
its Asian comrades. Therefore, they remained a Soviet “other,” despite the
promises of legal and “actual equality” under Bolshevism.13
During the Great Terror, Koreans were said to be suspicious, unreli-
able, and potential anti-Soviet espionage elements. Yet, several (regiments)
of Korean NKVD officers assisted in the deportation and repression of the
Korean community in 1937 on behalf of the Soviet state. None of the other
“nationalities deportations” (except the Chinese) employed large contin-
gents of NKVD officers of the same nationality as the p eople being de-
ported. Wouldn’t this be proof of at least some level of loyalty to the Soviet
state on the part of Koreans? Most of the Korean NKVD typically carried
4 Chapter 1
out their duties with a firm resolve. Their lives depended on showing not a
hint of remorse. Khai Ir Ti (Vasilii) was the one exception, and his testi-
mony was captured through interviews with his daughter. Nikolai Nigai, an
NKVD officer (who was Korean) participated in the 1937 deportation of
the Koreans. He and his s ister, Raisa, stayed in Vladivostok until the depor-
tation had been completed, and then they too were deported, albeit to com-
paratively luxurious conditions as Soviet cadres. It had long been stated that
the “national” deportations of the Chinese and the Koreans w ere carried out
by NKVD members of their own nationality (respectively). This has now
been confirmed.14
Also, geopolitics and the threat of war with Japan played a role in the
Korean deportation. However, there w ere never any verified Soviet-Korean
fifth columnists or anti-Soviet subversives, unlike in the cases of the Soviet
Poles, Georgians, Armenians, and o thers. Geopolitics and war, however, do
not explain the measures taken to deport the Koreans as early as December
1922 or the heavily racialized depictions of the Koreans as “alien to the Soviet
socialism” by Geitsman and Arsenev in their separate reports in 1928. These
events occurred well before the threat of war with Japan became tangible
(after the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932). Lastly, one should not for-
get that Korea had been colonized by Japan and was not an independent
country during most of the first half of the twentieth century. Therefore,
most Koreans on Soviet soil felt a heightened sense of loyalty towards the
USSR as well as a double dose of enmity towards the Japanese empire and
other so-called capitalist-imperialist nations. As for the Koreans who were
well assimilated and native or near native speakers of Russian, most considered
both the USSR as their homeland and K orea as an ancestral homeland.15
In the chapters that follow, this study will demonstrate that the Ko-
rean deportation of 1937–1938 was not because of insufficient “remaking” as
Soviet citizens, the threat of fifth columnists/espionage from the Korean
community, or the Soviet ideological hatred of capitalist-imperialist nations
(Koreans as pawns of Japan). The aforementioned geopolitics and subplots
played a smaller, secondary role. Instead, I will establish that the primary
reason for the Korean deportation was due to Tsarist legacies that carried
over into Soviet nationalities policies—specifically, Russian primordialist,
nationalist, and populist views that had not been extinguished by Soviet
socialism. Chapter 2 depicts Korean and Chinese life in the Russian Far
East under tsarism u ntil slightly after the October Revolution. It establishes
that tsarist Russia developed certain views and policies t owards East Asians
(e.g., as a colonizing element), Russia’s resources and the competition be-
tween different national minorities being a contestation for cultural superi-
Introduction 5
ority (e.g., the overrepresentation of Jews in education). The aforementioned
are the “tsarist continuities” that form a part of this monograph’s central
argument. Chapter 3 covers the Intervention period and the five-year joint
rule of the Russian Far East between the entente forces led by the Japanese
and the FER (Far Eastern Republic). During this period, several Soviet
Koreans displayed outstanding leadership and loyalty to Soviet power.
Chapter 4 describes the five foundations of Korean korenizatsiia: representa
tion, economic life, citizenship, land construction, and education. Chapter 5
displays a different side to korenizatsiia: that policies promoting indigeniza-
tion and internationalism could run concurrently with policies that were
repressive and chauvinistic/anti-internationalist. During this period, the
partial deportations of Soviet Koreans began in 1927 and ran until 1931. In
1928 the Arsenev and Geitsman reports surfaced, which argued against So-
viet internationalism and that the Koreans were alien to Soviet socialism.
This is a different view of korenizatsiia.
Chapter 6 demonstrates that as Korean socialist construction was in full
bloom, the local Soviet leadership prepared for the total deportation of the
Koreans and the Chinese. Then, in the summer of 1937, Pravda constructed
a Soviet “yellow peril” from old tsarist tropes. Chapter 7 covers the political,
social, legal, and logistical aspects of the Korean deportation, the case of
Khai Ir Ti, an NKVD translator who worked in hundreds of NKVD cases
and “trials” during the Terror, and the North Sakhalin concessions. Chapter 8
describes how I conducted my fieldwork and interviews in Central Asia
and why “simplicity” works. The complexity of oral history is detailed in
the case of Elizaveta Li, and its multivocality is displayed in several of her
interviews. Chapter 9 establishes that the greatest reverse piedmonts ever
established on Soviet soil occurred during the Intervention. Finally, there
is the case of Gum Nam Kim, a Soviet Korean, and the North Korean
engineers and specialists who were sent to Uzbekistan to be trained by
Mr. G. N. Kim.
This study follows the Library of Congress’ transliteration (of Russian to
English) whenever possible. Some Russian/Soviet and Korean words and
names that are well known and spelled otherwise followed their “commonly
used” transliteration. The primary sources utilized consist of archives, con
temporary literat ures and periodicals, and interviews with Korean deport-
ees. Materials w ere obtained from the Russian archives in Vladivostok,
Khabarovsk, and Moscow (RGIA-DV, GAKhK, RGASPI, and GARF
respectively); American archives (NARA and MacArthur); and Japanese
archives. Contemporary newspaper articles such as those from Krasnoe znamia
and Pravda are cited extensively. Oral interviews with approximately sixty
elderly Koreans and their descendants were conducted. The majority of the
6 Chapter 1
Map 1. The Primore of the Russian Far East. This is the area where the Koreans and
Chinese primarily resided prior to 1937–1938. Map adapted from the Soviet Atlas of 1987,
Atlas Mira (Moscow: Glavnoe upravlenie geodezii i kartografii, 1987), 41.
Introduction 7
deportations, there is no better witness or historical “document” than the
deportees themselves. Burnt by the Sun employs the Annales School’s
longue durée, examining historical legacies and practices from tsarism to the
Soviet period (1863–1940s) as well as contrasting the implementation of
Soviet socialism and korenizatsiia among the Soviet Chinese, Jews, Poles,
and Germans with that of the Koreans. In conclusion, this study seeks to
capture the sense of individual and collective agency, the multiple perspec-
tives from within the community, and the unevenness of life as one of the
“deported peoples.”
8 Chapter 1
TWO
The RFE as a Frontier Melting Pot,
1863–1917
R
egarding the origins of the Koreans in the RFE, most were peasants
from Hamgyong Province who came to Russia due to famines,
hardship, a lack of social mobility, and the desire for arable land.2
The first years were a struggle. Still, the Koreans made an immediate contri-
bution economically to the region and became known as a productive “colo-
nizing element,” a tsarist-era term. Yet, despite a lack of colonists and an
abundance of fallow land, there was a reluctance to accept them and to grant
them land and citizenship. During the First World War, a chilling omen for
the Koreans occurred. Germans, Jews, and Poles of the Russian Empire,
many of whom had “passed” as Russians for one generation or more, w ere
now linked to their titular homelands, had their properties and businesses
seized, and were deported. Many Chinese laborers were also deported from
the empire. The Koreans did not face large-scale repressive measures, but ex-
perienced their own problems during tsarism due to ideas that linked them to
China or Japan and nativist sentiments t owards Russian resources.
9
trade (with domicile in Asia) and diplomatic and cultural influences. These
events played an important but secondary role in Korean emigration to the
RFE. As a result of the two Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860),
China was forcibly opened to foreign trade in sixteen major Chinese cities
with British, American, French, and Russians. Hong Kong was also ceded
to the British (1842), and Beijing received the foreign legations (embassies)
of Russia, America, France, and Britain.3 There were two principal results
of the Opium Wars: China’s hold on Korea as a vassal was greatly weakened
and the floodgates for Chinese emigration to the West w ere opened.4 In
1876, Japan entered K orea and replaced China as K orea’s suzerain in the
Treaty of Kanghwa. K orea was now open to both Japanese and Chinese
trade, but was still closed to Western and European trade and the resulting
influences. In 1882, China reestablished her suzerainty over Korea. China
then convinced Korea to open her ports to trade and sign foreign-trade
agreements. This vastly increased K orea’s contact with the outside world as
well as the flow of information from diaspora Koreans in Russia, Manchuria,
and China. Large numbers of Koreans also began to emigrate to Manchuria
and the Russian Far East (see Table 1). K
orea signed its first foreign-trade agree-
ment with the United States in 1882, followed by Great Britain and
Germany (1883), Italy and Russia (1884), and France (1886). However, few
Koreans, unlike the Chinese, emigrated beyond Asia’s borders until 1903.5
The internal socioeconomic and political problems of Korea, in partic
ular Hamgyong Province, were the main “push” factors for Korean emigra-
tion to the RFE and simultaneously to Manchuria. There were five basic
social groups in K orea: the yangban (the literati, aristocracy. and diplomatic
core), the professional class, the commoners, the untouchables, and the
slaves. As a general rule, peasant life was extremely difficult in Korea, but
more important, peasant-laborers had become a de facto hereditary class
“hardly different from slaves.” Some had very little freedom outside of work.
For example, hired laborers in the Cholla region were locked up in walled
compounds when not working.6 Land was also in short supply. The average
farmer owned between 1.25 and 2.5 acres of land. Thirty p ercent of t hose
from the farming/agricultural class (kiju) did not own land. During the
Choson dynasty, the average land parcels held by farmers grew progressively
smaller.7 V. Vagin, in his expedition and interviews with Koreans in Blago-
slovennoe (1872), noted that these Koreans had come to the RFE because
they were struggling to survive in Korea. K orea had also experienced many
floods and droughts during the 1860s. Many of the farmers came to Russia
without even seeds. The marginalized peasant elements of Korean society
generally had two means of voicing their frustration: revolt or voting with
10 Chapter 2
Table 1. Korean Population in the RFE and Manchuria
Year Koreans (Manchuria) Registered Koreans (Russian Far East)
1869 na 3,321
1881 10,000 10,137 (1882 yr.)
1894 65,000 16,564 (1892 yr.)
1904 78,000 32,410 (1902 yr.)
1912 238,403 59,715*
1917 337,461 81,825*
Sources: Population of Koreans in the RFE data adapted from Grave, Kitaitsy, 129‒130, and Chae-Jin
Lee, China’s Korean Minority (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), table 2.1. * Indicates data from
Wada, “Koreans in the Soviet Far East, 1917–1937,” 30.
their feet by moving to new environs. This study focuses upon t hose who
chose the latter option.
12 Chapter 2
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This terminology and treat-
ment of the Russian Empire’s “other” was seen as characteristic of tsarist
colonialism. Bolshevism claimed to make a clean break from tsarist colonial
attitudes. What the Chinese and Koreans were soon to find out was that
competition in business, education, and other fields for minorities in Russia
was often seen as a competition of ethnic and cultural superiority.19 In other
words, competition, competitive advantage, and market dominance by Chi-
nese and Korean merchants w ere often regarded as a type of invasion that
strengthened China or Korea at the expense of Russia. This invariably was
met with restrictions and intervention by the state or state bureaucrats in the
form of quotas (normy) or outright bans on yellow workers or merchants.
The following note (1865) from the military governor of the Primore
Region, P. V. Kazakevich, focuses on Koreans as an economically worthy
colonizing element within two years of their arrival:
From the above and the first report to Captain E. F. Cherkavskii, one
can see hints of the initial characterizations of Koreans and their relation-
ship to the society at large. First, they were given preference to settle over
Manchus and Chinese. Koreans came in families, unlike the Chinese, the
latter were comprised of overwhelmingly single migrant workers who moved
to and fro in search of better jobs and opportunities. Second, the Russian
authorities in the RFE recognized that the admittance of large numbers of
Korean refugees could have repercussions for its relations with China and
Japan. The same report from Kazakevich (1865) states, “Bearing in mind
that there are no treaties with the Korean government and becoming a Rus
sian subject is independent of any government [except Russia’s], it would be
advantageous, in view of the large barriers that were required for the emi-
grating Koreans without blaming the Korean or Chinese governments, to
14 Chapter 2
Korean emigration to the RFE and their becoming tsarist subjects. How-
ever, upon closer inspection, the Treaty of Seoul actually served to restrict
Korean immigration, much like a quota. It did not recruit Korean immi-
grants based on skills or capital; it simply set cutoff dates and marked three
categories of Koreans, only the first of which w ere eligible to become tsarist
subjects. The preference for Russian or Slavic settlers remained. First-category
Koreans w ere t hose who arrived and settled before June 25, 1884. They w ere
eligible to become immediate Russian subjects, as the authorities did not
want to lose a productive colonizing element. Second-and third-category Kore-
ans w ere guest workers without the right to citizenship. Third-category
Koreans w ere forbidden to settle on state land and were required to purchase
yearly or biannual visas to remain.29 Koreans of the first category were imme-
diately eligible for land grants of 15 desiatinas.30 Governor-General S. M.
Dukhovskoi (1893–1898) continued this policy in the 1890s and showed his
largesse by allowing Koreans of the second and third categories to become citi-
zens after remaining in the RFE for five years. Provisions w ere also made to
allow Koreans to become Russian subjects without receiving land grants, espe-
cially in areas such as the Ussuri where farmland was now becoming scarce.
Several governor-generals continued this progressive policy until the 1906
inauguration of P. F. Unterberger (1906–1910).31
Additionally, Koreans w ere also left out of the amendments to the
Alien Charter of 1822 until 1918. Their inclusion would have given them
equal status (albeit as aliens/inorodtsy) to the other above-mentioned nation-
alities who settled the RFE.32 Koreans would have gained official ack now
ledgment as tsarist subjects, the right to land, fair and reasonable taxes as
determined by the state, and protection from the various depredations, head
taxes, and other forms of corruption from local officials run rampant in the
RFE.33 Yet, the tax issue was not settled until 1916 when laborers from
China and K orea in the Khabarovsk region w ere judged as “half-persons”
and taxed at half the rate of a tsarist subject.34
However, this left Koreans who were not Russian subjects as illegals or
stateless squatters with regard to land, taxes, and their relationship to the
state. Shrewdly, local officials and police were alert to the situation and
merely filled the gap as tax collectors without remittances to the state. Local
officials required Koreans to pay “taxes” for being Buddhists, for Orthodox
church baptisms of Korean children, for the use of timber from local forests
to build Korean cabins, for the legal recognition of Korean marriages, and
many other instances of daily life, based upon the creativity and caprice of each
official.35
At the same time, European immigrants (except Jews) to the RFE w ere
given permanent exemptions from the soul tax, ten-year exemptions from
tion of military duties for any colonists regardless of nationality except the
Jews.39 First, Russians and European immigrants received large 100 desiat-
ina land grants, which unfortunately w ere not matched by their resolve to
work the land: instead, they shunted the labor to Chinese and Korean
hands. Second, of the various European agricultural groups recruited to the
RFE, almost all received tax exemptions for predetermined periods.
By 1900, most of the Asians in the Russian Empire had been colo-
nized. Most Asians from Siberia to the Russian Far East were nomadic or
seminomadic and paid taxes (called iasak, typically tribute taxes, such as on
furs) for the right to be governed by the tsarist state. They w ere decidedly
second-class citizens under tsarism.40 The Koreans and the Chinese w ere a
different case. In addition to being diaspora nationalities, both groups came
to the RFE of their own volition. This sense of agency, their economic
prowess, and the fact that they did not quite fit tsarist models for “aliens” made
both groups problematic and, at times, threatening.
Various Russian nationalist groups emerged in the second half of the nine-
teenth century. These groups, especially the Slavophils, the Pan-Slavs, and
Moscow’s business elites, formed strong links in order to accomplish their
goals of consolidating Russian industries and resources for Russians. This
strain of nationalism was led by Muscovite entrepreneurial groups and con-
centrated on wresting economic sectors from the hands of “foreigners.” 41
Even tsarist nobles and leaders participated in Russian nationalist groups
and movements. Tsar Nicholas II supported the Black Hundreds, while his
finance minister, Sergei Witte, belonged to the Holy Brotherhood, whose
membership was primarily the Russian nobility.42 These strains of national-
ism greatly influenced the various repressive measures taken in the RFE
against yellow labor, the creation of the “yellow peril” trope, and the depor-
tation of e nemy aliens during the First World War.
16 Chapter 2
Another random document with
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sattui asiaa kirkolle ja muuten ennättivät. Oli tainnut Iisakki omat
lapsensakin unohtaa, koska ei heillekään haastelemaan ruvennut.
Eivätkä lapset ottaneet isäänsä luokseen, kun heidänkin elämänsä
oli tukalaa, ja sitäpaitsi isä oli hullun kirjoissa.
Hänellä oli nimi, mikähän lie ollut joku Pekka Ovaskainen, jollainen
saattaa olla kenellä hyvänsä ja hän teki kuusi päivää viikossa työtä
eräässä rullatehtaassa — taisi olla ensimmäisiä sellaisia tehtaita
maassamme —, nosti joka lauantai tilinsä ja lepäsi seitsemäntenä
päivänä. Aivan kuin Isä Jumala, jonka kuva hänkin lienee ollut,
vaikka hän sitä ehkä vain lievästi muistutti, sillä Jumala on luultavasti
paljon suurempiselkäinen kuin tämä Pekka Ovaskainen, jonka hartiat
olivat painuneet kuuruun jo nuoruudessa.
Hän oli nuori silloin, kun minä hänet ensimmäisen kerran näin.
Minä menin äitini kanssa hänen luokseen viemään työtä, sillä hän
kuului olevan ahkera ja tottunut nypläämään pitsejä ja tekemään
kaikenlaista käsityötä. Pitäjän rouvien kesken pidettiin häntä aivan
erikoisessa arvossa, ja pakanalähetyksen hyväksi toimiva
ompeluseura teetti hänellä paitoja pikku pakanoitten mustien
ruumiitten verhoksi. Oikeastaan tämä työ olisi kuulunut rouville
itselleen, mutta kun heidän aikansa useimmiten meni juorujen
kutomiseen kirkonkylässä niukalti tarjona olevasta ainehistosta, ja
kun Hanna — se oli hänen nimensä ei vaivaistalon asukkaana voinut
vaatia mitään määrättyä palkkaa, ja kun hän, kuten sanottu, oli vielä
näppärä sormistaan, kannettiin hänelle suurin osa ompeluksia. Paitsi
pakanalähetyksen töitä, kertyi Hannalle muutakin hienompaa ja
sormivikkelyyttä kysyvää puuhaa. Pitäjän rouvien yömyssyihin ja
paitoihin tarvittiin pitsejä, vieläpä useimmassa tapauksessa mainitut
tarve-esineet kokonaisuudessaankin joutuivat Hannan
valmistettaviksi. Hänen luonaan kävi asiakkaita usein, ja vaivaistalon
eteläpään ikkunan ohitse kyläilylle kulkevat rouvat pysähtyivät
armollisesti puhuttelemaan Hannaa ja kertoilemaan hänelle
kuulumisia siitä maailmasta, johon tytöllä itsellään ei ollut pääsyä.
Hän oli näet sidottu paikoilleen sillä tavoin, että molemmat jalat
olivat täydellisesti halvatut; Kun häntä puhutteli ikkunan lävitse, ei
sitä ollenkaan huomannut. Sisältä katsoivat vain nuoret kasvot,
säännölliset ja ilmehikkäät, vaikka monivuotisesta sisällä-istumisesta
tavattomasti kalvenneet. Silmät välähtivät välistä hehkuvaa
elämänhalua, mutta enimmäkseen niissä asusti surumielinen kiilto.
Ja suorastaan synkkä ilme sävähti niihin, jos joku sattui kysymään,
haluttaisiko Hannaa tulla ulos näin kauniina kesäisenä päivänä.
Vain joskus hän, kuten sanottu, hiukan suutahtaa, jos joku kysyy,
tahtoisiko hän ulos aurinkoon. Hän oli rakastanut aurinkoa niin
rajattomasti ennen pienenä paimenessa juostessaan.
PRINSESSA
Hän oli ennen ollut karjalla, mutta sitten hänet otettiin sisälle. Se
johtui siitä, että useat talon lukuisista vieraista olivat huomanneet
tytön kauneuden ja sanoneet rouva vapaaherrattarelle: Teillähän on
kokonainen aarre navetassa, siirtäkää hänet toki tänne
kaunistukseksi, hänhän on aivan kuin prinsessa.
*****
Hallas. Kuinka minä olen iloinen, Elsa, että tänään tulitte luokseni.
Minä odotin teitä niin levottomana.
Elsa. Tarkoitan, että nyt alatte pyrkiä siihen, mitä varten olette
minut tänne kutsunut.