Emigre Identity: The Case of Harbin

Hans Blumenfeld, one of the world’s outstanding urbanologists, wrote, “The city is a historical process; its image at any given time is merely a cross-section through a continuous stream.”¹ His concept of a city as a continuous historical process is taken here, with gratitude and fond memories, to examine several cross sections in the history of the Russian community in the Chinese city of Harbin. The selection is not random. Each cross section reveals a landmark in the history of Harbin Russians and its formative influence on them.

First, it is necessary to explain some terms. Russians is used here in the sense of rossiiane, that is, people from Russia, subjects of the former Russian Empire, be they ethnic Russians (russkie) or other nationalities. The term Harbin Russians means rossiiane who had lived in Harbin. Although in Russian they are usually called kharbintsy (Harbin residents), the usage is misleading; Chinese and other residents of Harbin are also kharbintsy. Manchuria is used in reference to Northeast China simply to convey the Russian perceptions of the time. Second, two reservations have to be added. One is that although this article focuses on the Harbin Russian community, the latter forms but a segment in the complex history of the city of Harbin and all its residents. The other reservation is that this attempt to outline the identity of Harbin Russians is a preliminary theoretical construct and, as such, does not embrace all possible variants and exceptions.

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As can be seen from table 1, three generations of Russians lived in the city during seven decades of their presence in Harbin, from 1898 to the mid-1960s. The first generation originally consisted of the builders of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), employees, and private settlers, but in the 1920s, during and after the Russian civil war, its number was expanded with an influx of émigrés of the same ages. Their children, some born in Russia, some in Harbin, formed the second generation, which was fated to grow up in emigration. In the mid-1930s and 1940s the second generation produced the third and last generation of Harbin Russians for whom Harbin was the only home they knew. Table 1 presents a general picture, roughly accommodating the complex overlapping of generations. One can, however, imagine an average family in which grandparents came to Harbin before the revolution to build the CER and settle there or who emigrated to Harbin in the 1920s, whose children grew up in Harbin in the 1920s and 1930s, and whose grandchildren were born in the 1930s and 1940s.

The first generation and many members of the second generation are gone now. Their graves in Harbin soil had been destroyed or, in a small number of cases, moved outside the city in the late 1950s and 1960s, when the Chinese authorities turned Russian cemeteries into public parks. Some members of the second generation, now elderly, and the third generation are scattered throughout the world. There are large pockets of Harbin Russians in Australian and U.S. cities; small ones are found in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, and other countries. Some live in the former Soviet Union, particularly in Moscow, Novosibirsk, and Ekaterinburg. With the exception of a few elderly people, there are no more Harbin Russians in Harbin. Even urban signs of their presence have largely been destroyed, and some remaining structures have been turned into tourist attractions for profit.²

Identity of this extinct community is presented here through six selected cross sections (see table 1). The first is from 1913, when Harbin was the center of the CER administration and a Russian political and economic stronghold in China. That year the Russian Empire, including the Harbin Russian community, grandly celebrated the three hundredth anniversary of the House of Romanov. Festivities marked the apex of the doomed czarist regime and the last year of a relatively peaceful life in Russia.

It was...