The Russian Far East continues to interest researchers. Currently the region's role has acquired particular importance as a raw material appendage for its closest neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region, especially China. In the era of globalization, this problem is discussed at various seminars and updated with new publications. The collection Russia's North Pacific: Centers and Peripheries was compiled by Benjamin Beuerle, former research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Moscow (DHIM), and Sandra Dahlke, the director of DHIM. Together with Andreas Renner, they initiated “Russia's North Pacific” network project at DHIM. Renner is a historian of eastern Europe and holds the Chair of Russian-Asian Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. This collection was published in the series “Russia's North Pacific Centers and Peripheries.”
The initiators set a goal of promoting interdisciplinary research on the problems of Russia's unraveling relations with the Asia-Pacific region. The chapters reflect a rich variety of materials, approaches and conclusions; they confirm that Russia without the Pacific Ocean is no longer Russia, as we know it. Each article in this volume addresses an important area of research relevant to the networking project of the contributors. Particularly noteworthy is the detailed foreword by geographer Paul Richardson, Associate Professor in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham.
The section, “Environment and Resources,” incudes four articles. Robert Kindler of the East European history at the Institute for East European Studies at Free University (Berlin), discusses “Troubled Waters: Russo-Japanese Resource Conflicts as a Challenge for Imperial Rule in the Northern Pacific, 1900–1945.” He argues that in the past, the Russian Far East was a kind of El Dorado, where various adventurers strove in search of wealth that became the cause of rivalry with Japan. Eisuke Kaminaga at Kokugakuin University (Tokyo) explores the history of Russo-Japanese relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Accordingly, the article “International Fisheries Conflicts in the Bering Sea in the First Half of the Twentieth Century” analyzes the problems of fisheries, which were often accompanied by conflicts.
Benjamin Beuerle in his work “Urban Air Pollution and Environmental Engagement in the Russian Far East: Developments from Late Soviet to Post-Soviet Times (1970s–2010s)” analyzes climate and health care during the Soviet period and the participation of local environmental activists, who played in the 1990s a major role in abandoning the construction of a nuclear power plant in Primorye. At the same time, geographic features that played a big role in the closure of tramlines in Vladivostok are also noted. Additionally, I would add that this was also due to economic reasons—a surge in imports of used cars from Japan. Joonseo Song at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul (South Korea) writes about “Post-Soviet Memory Politics of the Forgotten Victory over Japan in 1945.” Song explores the interesting topic of Sakhalin identity that was based on the victory over Japan in 1945, which the authorities use for patriotic purposes.
The second section, “Migration and Transfer,” contains two articles. David Wolff, Professor of History at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, describes “Vladivostok and Intourist: Refugee Flows to the North Pacific, 1940–1941,” when refugees reached Japan through Vladivostok. Wolff highlights the role of Yukiko Sugihara. He also cites materials in Russian archives. The contribution by Tobias Holzlehner, researcher and lecturer at the Department of Anthropology at Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) describes “Life in Ruins: Forced Migration and Littoral Persistence in Chukotka,” offering a look at the disasters inflicted on the local population by Moscow.
In the “Representations and Norms” section, there are two articles. Yuexin Rachel Lin, a lecturer in international history at the University of Leeds writes about “Poison Money: The Chinese Ruble Zone in War and Revolution.” Natalia Ryzhova, Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at Palacky University, Olomouc (the Czech Republic) is one of the few authors in this collection who lived in the Russian Far East for a long time. She analyzes recent experiments in “The Advanced Special Economic Zones: Over-Politicized Anti-Politics Machine.”
The last section, “Tensions and Conflicts,” has one article. “The Blagoveshchensk Massacre and Beyond: The Landscape of Violence in the Amur Province in the Spring and Summer of 1900” by Sergey Glebov, Professor of history at Smith College and Amherst College, writes about the events associated with the Boxer Rebellion and the attack on Blagoveshchensk (1900). This topic is interesting, but it would have helped to trace the general history of the Chinese diaspora in the region. The Afterword: “Of Squids, Truffle-Hunting, and Complicated Relationships” by Willard Sunderland, Henry R. Winkler Professor of Modern History at the University of Cincinnati, reviews “the complexity of the region . . . the distinctive qualities that eventually coalesce to make it into a region, accrue over time through the layering and re-layering of relationships between outsiders and native peoples, first migrants and later ones, Russians and foreigners, old states and new political forms, and between human societies and their physical environments . . .” (236).
This collection contains a lot of theoretical generalizations and the overwhelming majority of materials reflect connections with political science. The authors rightly note that the geographical potential of the Russian Far East is far from being realized. At one time, Siberian regionalists, who were inspired by the creation of the Far Eastern Republic (1920–22), spoke a lot about this. These Siberian regionalists also participated in the last White government in Vladivostok. It is hardly worth talking about the policy of the federal center towards this vast periphery as a space of experimentation and entrepreneurship, except for the annual economic forums held in Vladivostok. Russia's interaction with its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region can also be characterized by cyclical events. One can agree with the authors that the region is still limited by the tendency of the center to ignore local characteristics, needs, and knowledge. At the same time, the more the center seeks to establish and strengthen its control, the more its ambitions for the region become increasingly unattainable. This is clearly visible in the economic trends of the region, which often conflict with the needs of the center. The colonial principle of governance completely violates the idea of federalism. At the same time, the Far Eastern territories are slowly dying demographically.
This book would be most useful graduate students and researchers.
