Japanese people in Russia

Japanese people in Russia

Infobox ethnic group


image_caption=A kimono-clad woman walks down Vladivostok's Svetlanskaya Street, c. 1910
group=Japanese people in Russia
population=835 (exact number unknown)(2002)
regions=Moscow, Vladivostok, and other large cities
languages=Japanese, Russian
rels=Buddhism, Shintoism, Orthodox Christianity
related=Japanese people

Japanese people in Russia form a small part of the worldwide community of "Nikkeijin"; they count various notable political figures among their number.

Early settlement

The first Japanese person to settle in Russia is believed to have been Dembei, a fisherman stranded on the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1701 or 1702. Unable to return to his native Ōsaka due to the Tokugawa Shogunate's "sakoku" policy, he was instead taken to Moscow and ordered by Peter the Great to begin teaching the language as soon as possible; he thus became the father of Japanese language education in Russia.cite journal|last=Lensen|first=George Alexander|title=The Russian Push Toward Japan: Russo-Japanese Relations, 1697-1895|journal=American Slavic and East European Review|volume=Vol. 20|number=No. 2|date=April 1961|pages=pp. 320–321|doi=10.2307/3000924] Japanese settlement in Russia remained sporadic, confined to the Russian Far East, and also of a largely unofficial character, consisting of fishermen who, like Dembei, landed there by accident and were unable to return to Japan.cite paper|author=Kobayashi, Tadashi|title=Japanese Language Education in Russia|url=http://www.erina.or.jp/En/Opinion/E/Russia/2001/eKobayashi2.htm|date=2001|accessdate=2006|publisher=Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia] However, a Japanese trading post is known to have existed on the island of Sakhalin (then claimed by the Qing Dynasty, but controlled by neither Japan, China, nor Russia) as early as 1790.cite journal|url=http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/17/itani/itani-1.html|volume=17|date=2000|title=Building Construction in Southern Sakhalin During the Japanese Colonial Period (1905-1945)|last=Itani|first=Hiroshi|coauthors=Koshino, Takeshi; Kado, Yukihiro|pages=130–160|journal=Acta Slavica Iaponica|accessdate=2007-02-22|format=dead link|date=June 2008 – [http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=author%3A+intitle%3ABuilding+Construction+in+Southern+Sakhalin+During+the+Japanese+Colonial+Period+%281905-1945%29&as_publication=Acta+Slavica+Iaponica&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&btnG=Search Scholar search] ]

The opening of Japan

Following the opening of Japan, Vladivostok would become the focus of settlement for Japanese emigrating to Russia. A branch of the nihongo|Japanese Imperial Commercial Agency|日本貿易事務官|Nihon bōeki Jimukan was opened there in 1876.cite journal|last=Saveliev|first=Igor R.|coauthors=Pestushko, Yuri S.|title=Dangerous Rapprochement: Russia and Japan in the First World War, 1914-1916|journal=Acta Slavica Iaponica|volume=18|date=2001|accessdate=2007-02-22|pages=19–41|url=http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/18/igor-yuri.pdf See section "Japanese Communities within the Russian Far East and Their Economic Activities"] Their numbers grew to 80 people in 1877 and 392 in 1890; women outnumbered men by a factor of 3:2, and many worked as prostitutes.cite book|last=Minichiello|first=Sharon A.|title=Japan's Competing Modernities: Issues in Culture and Democracy 1900-1930|date=1998|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|location=Hawaii, United States|id=ISBN 0824820800 (Pages 47-49)] However, their community remained small compared to the more numerous Chinese and Korean communities; a 1897 Russian government survey showed 42,823 Chinese, 26,100 Koreans, but only 2,291 Japanese in the whole of the Primorye area. A large portion of the migration came from villages in northern Kyūshū.

The politics of Japanese-Russian relations had a large influence on the Japanese community and the sources and patterns of Japanese settlement in Russia. The nihongo|"Association of Corporations"|同盟会 was founded in 1892 in order to unite the various Japanese professional unions; at that point, the Japanese population of the city was estimated at 1,000. It would later be renamed in 1895 as the nihongo|"Association of Fellow Countrymen"|同胞会|"Dōhōkai" and again in 1902 as the nihongo|"Vladivostok Resident Association"|ウラジオ居留民会|Urajio Kyoryūminkai. They were often suspected by the Russian government of being used as intelligence-gathering tools for Japan, and having contributed to Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. Though the Japanese residents' association in Vladivostok was officially disbanded in 1912 under pressure from Russia, Japanese government documents show it continued to operate clandestinely until 1920, when most Japanese in Vladivostok returned to Japan. The initial landing of Japanese forces in Vladivostok after the October Revolution was prompted by the April 4 1918 murder of three Japanese living there, [cite journal|title="A Great Disobedience Against the People": Popular Press Criticism of Japan's Siberian Intervention|journal=The Journal of Japanese Studies|volume=32|issue=1|pages=53–81|date=Winter 2006|accessdate=2007-02-22|last=Dunscomb|first=Paul E.|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_japanese_studies/v032/32.1dunscomb.html|doi=10.1353/jjs.2006.0007] and the Nikolayevsk Incident which occurred in 1920. After the establishment of the Soviet Union, some Japanese communists settled in Russia; for example, Mutsuo Hakamada, the brother of Japanese Communist Party chairman Satomi Hakamada, escaped from Japan in 1938 and went to Russia, where he married a local woman. His daughter Irina later went into politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union.cite book|last=Mitrokhin|first=Vasili|coauthors=Christopher, Andrew|date=2005|title=The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World|publisher=Basic Books|location=Tennessee, United States|id=ISBN 0-476-00311-7]

The aftermath of World War II

akhalin

After the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 with the Treaty of Portsmouth, the southern half of Sakhalin officially became Japanese territory, and was renamed as Karafuto, prompting an influx of Japanese settlers there. Japanese settled in the northern half of Karafuto; after Japan agreed to hand this half back to the Soviet Union, some may have chosen to remain north of the Soviet line of control. However, the majority would remain in Japanese territory until the closing days of World War II, when the whole of Sakhalin came under Soviet control as part of the USSR's Operation August Storm; most Japanese fled the advancing Red Army, or returned to Japan after the Soviet takeover, but others, mainly military personnel, were taken to the mainland of Russia and detained in work camps there.cite news|url=http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/07/03/japanpow.shtml|date=2006-07-03|accessdate=2007-02-23|publisher=Mosnews.com|title=War-displaced Japanese Returns Home After 67 Years in Russia] Furthermore, roughly 40,000 Korean settlers, despite still holding Japanese nationality, were denied permission to transit through Japan in order to repatriate to their homes in the southern half of the Korean peninsula; known as Sakhalin Koreans, they became trapped on the island for almost four decades.cite news|last=Ban|first=Byung-yool|title=Koreans in Russia: Historical Perspective|date=2004-09-22|accessdate=2006-11-20|url=http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200409/kt2004092218583111950.htm|publisher=Korea Times]

Prisoners of war

Following Japan's surrender, 575,000 Japanese prisoners of war captured by the Red Army in Manchuria, Karafuto, and Korea were sent to camps in Siberia and the rest of the Soviet Union. According to figures of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, 473,000 were repatriated to Japan after the normalisation of Japanese-Soviet relations; 55,000 died in Russia, and another 47,000 remained missing; a Russian report released in 2005 listed the names of 27,000 who had been sent to North Korea to perform forced labour there. [cite news|url=http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/04/01/japanesedied.shtml|date=2005-04-01|accessdate=2007-02-23|title=Russia Acknowledges Sending Japanese Prisoners of War to North Korea|publisher=Mosnews.com] Rank was no guarantee of repatriation; one Armenian interviewed by the US Air Force in 1954 claims to have met a Japanese general while living in a camp at Chunoyar, Krasnoyarsk Krai between May 1951 and June 1953. [cite paper|url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/tfrussia/wringer000/52A-5378A.pdf|publisher=United States Air Force|author=Burstein, Gerhard|date=1954-03-15|accessdate=2007-02-23|filetype=PDF|title=Air Intelligence Information Report: Info on US Civilians held in the Forced Labor Camp in CHUNOYAR] Some continued to be repatriated as late as 2006.

Post-normalisation

Following the normalisation of Japanese-Soviet relations, a few Japanese went to Russia for commercial, educational, or diplomatic purposes; however, as Vladivostok was closed to foreign settlement until the 1970s, they instead concentrated in Moscow.Fact|date=February 2007 There is one Japanese-medium school, the Japanese School in Moscow, founded in 1965.ja icon cite web|url=http://www.mosnichi.com/ayumi.htm|publisher=Japanese School in Moscow|title=モスクワ日本人 学校の歩み|accessdate=2006-12-01] The 2002 Russian census showed 835 people claiming Japanese ethnicity (nationality).ru icon cite web|url=http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/TOM_04_03.xls|accessdate=2006-12-01|title=Население по национальности и владению русским языком по субъектам Российской Федерации|format=Microsoft Excel|publisher=Федеральная служба государственной статистики]

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Japanese people — 日本人 Lady Murasaki • Nobunaga …   Wikipedia

  • Japanese people in North Korea — consist mainly of four groups of people: prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, Japanese accompanying repatriating Zainichi Korean spouses, members of the Japanese Communist League / Japanese Red Army, and kidnapping victims. The number who remain …   Wikipedia

  • Chinese people in Russia — Ethnic group group=Chinese people in Russia poptime=998,000 Estimated [http://www.ocac.gov.tw/english/public/public.asp?selno=1163 no=1163 level=B] popplace=Moscow, Russian Far East langs=Chinese, Russian rels=Not known related=Overseas… …   Wikipedia

  • Vietnamese people in Russia — Infobox ethnic group group=Vietnamese people in Russia population=26,205cite web|language=Russian|url=http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/TOM 04 03.xls|accessdate=2006 12 01|title=Население по национальности и владению русским языком по субъектам… …   Wikipedia

  • Japanese language education in Russia — formally dates back to December 1701 or January 1702, when Dembei, a shipwrecked Japanese merchant, was taken to Moscow and ordered to begin teaching the language as soon as possible.cite journal|last=Lensen|first=George Alexander|title=The… …   Wikipedia

  • Japanese diaspora — 日系人 Total population About 2,600,000 [5] Regions with significant populations …   Wikipedia

  • Japanese in Russia — may refer to: *Japanese people in Russia *Japanese language education in Russiaee also*Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union …   Wikipedia

  • Japanese Russian — or Russian Japanese may refer to:* Japanese people in Russia * Russians in Japan * People of mixed Japanese and Russian descent …   Wikipedia

  • Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union — By the end of World War II there were from 510,000 to 600,000Japanese POWs in the Soviet Union and Mongolia interned to work in labor camps. Of them, about 10% died, mostly during winter of 1945 1946. [… …   Wikipedia

  • Japanese Communist Party — 日本共産党 or 共産党 Nihon Kyōsan tō or Kyōsantō President Kazuo Shii …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”