Губернаторы Сахалина ред. по А. И. Костанова, А. И. Баялдина, Л. В. Драгуновой (review)

648 Рецензии/Reviews издании учебника его автор упо- мянет об идеях этого великого областника и патриота Сибири и не будет руководствоваться пагубной максимой историка- марксиста М. Н. Покровского, о которой сам Зуев критически отозвался в одной из своих ста- тей: “История – это политика, обращенная в прошлое”? Katya VLADIMIROV Губернаторы Сахалина / Под ред. A. И. Костанова, A. И. Ба- ялдина, Л. В. Драгуновой и др. Южно-Сахалинск: Архивный от- дел Администрации Сахалинской области, Государственный архив Сахалинской области, 2000. 392 с. Gubernatory Sakhalina is the first history of Sakhalin administration and as such provides a valuable contribution to the field of Russian and Soviet history. It is a collective work by dozens of authors,1 and it is based on the materials that have recently and for the first time been made available from the Sakhalin archives. The authors construct a line of historical portraits of imperial, Soviet, and Russian administrators, starting from the military commanders of the penal colony to the first post-Soviet popularly elected mayor. The book is short but the amount of information is abundant: it includes the personal histories of 24 governors of Sakhalin from the end of the 19th century to the year 2000. While some of the authors are historians, teachers, and researchers, others belonged at one time to the state apparatus and consequently knew their subjects personally, which adds an interesting perspective to the entire publication. Unfortunately, the information is often poorly interpreted or presented . According to many authors, Sakhalin governors were heroes who attempted to bring order and justice to the beautiful island and its nice inhabitants. But in the course of more than 110 years, from the end of the 19th century until the new millennium , their efforts produced few tangible results. The economy remained in a bad shape, people were poor, roads were absent, corruption was overwhelming, foreign neighbors were nasty, and local ethnic groups resisted “enlightenment.” Even the 1 Contributors to this collection are N. I. Kolesnikov, S. S. Tlekov, V. L. Podpechnikov, L. S. Tsardovskii, V. G. Borisova, M. I. Shubina, E. I. Savelieva, G. A. Shalkus, L. I Kuznetsova , N. A. Kozlov, V. I. Burykin, E. F. Nazarova, A. I. Baialdin, and V. I. Belonosov. 649 Ab Imperio, 3/2005 fish, it seems, refused to be caught. As a result, the central authorities blamed the governors; they were condemned, ousted, exiled, purged, shot, sent to labor camps, or died from heart attacks. The publication is a memorial, and the authors of the book are sad and proud of their governor-martyrs. So harsh have the Sakhalin realities been that the authors label these human tragedies simply as “cadres reshuffling” (P. 5). The history of Sakhalin administration is not a satire by Gogol, nor does it belong to Chekhov’s intelligent laughter over the provincial administration. It does not have the surrealist touch of Bulgakov, nor the sadness of Platonov’s Chevengur. The irony escapes the authors: for a century and a half good governors ruled over good people, yet the result was “the usual.” Sakhalin was clearly cursed and that damnation was stronger than any governor’s good will. In the year 2000, however, there was still hope; and Baialdin, the author of the last chapter of the book, enthusiastically writes about the first popularly elected governor, Igor Farkhutdinov. The author depicts him as a living legend, a “perfect Russian leader,” who combines the best qualities of his predecessors. Like Stalin, he is a hard worker who never sleeps (P. 375). Like Yeltsin and Putin, he is a good sportsman, which allows him to endure endless official meetings (P. 376). Like Nevskii, he is a defender of the common people and a critic of the regional officials who conspire to undermine his authority (Pp. 366, 368-369). Like Peter the Great, he is a reformer who single-handedly initiates rabbit breeding in the former army barracks by the Sakhalin youth, which increased the rabbit population by hundreds of thousands (P. 366). Children “are grateful” for the abundance of rabbit meat as well as for the governor’s occasional visits with gifts (P. 370). The elderly people are proud as well because the governor has time to patiently listen to the smallest complaints and takes into consideration their “accumulated wisdom” (Pp. 370-371). The entire Sakhalin population rejoices at the governor’s innovations; nightly torch marches and the elevation of a three-storey Orthodox Christian cross commemorated the 300-year anniversary of the discovery of Sakhalin (P. 376). The authors believe in good endings and thereby neglect their own conclusions. All great leaders live hard and die young (P. 382...