Sergeу Viktorovich Smirnov,
Doctor of History, Professor, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
I.I. and A.N. Serebrennikov in the Construction of “New Order” in East Asia
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2022-1-14
The article is devoted to the orientalist activity of I.I. and A.N. Serebrennikov in the context of participation of Russian emigrants in the construction of “new order” in East Asia, realized by Japan in the second half of the 1930s – the first half of the 1940s. In 1937, Japan occupied Northern China, where several thousand Russian emigrants lived in the cities. Because of the occupation, the leadership of the emigrant community was in the hands of Japanese-oriented radicals, who staked on the inclusion of Russian emigrants in the process of construction of a “new order” in East Asia under the auspices of Japan. One of the main objectives of the participation of emigration in the construction of the “new order” was its cultural rapprochement with the East Asian peoples, which led to a serious surge of Oriental activity in the pages of the emigrant press. An important role in promoting the cultural rapprochement of emigration with the peoples of East Asia played Russian professional and non-professional Orientalists, whose interest in the history and culture of East Asian peoples was not directly related to the political situation. Thanks to the great work of such enthusiastic researchers as the Serebrennikov spouses, the emigrants, who previously had had little contact with the Chinese environment, gained some knowledge about the culture and mentality of the inhabitants of China and neighboring countries. However, the idea of cultural rapprochement of emigration with the peoples of East Asia did not receive widespread support among emigrants. The reason for this was the perception of emigration of the idea of cultural rapprochement as a threat to cultural unification on the Japanese basis, as well as the growth of emigrant patriotism during the great Patriotic war. By the mid-1940s, the policy of cultural rapprochement between emigration and the East Asian peoples had finally stalled.
Publishing: 28/02/2022
The article has been received by the editor on 30.11.2021
How to cite: Smirnov S.V. I.I. and A.N. Serebrennikov in the Construction of “New Order” in East Asia // Historical Courier, 2022, No. 1 (21), pp. 145–153. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2022/ISTKURIER-2022-1-14.pdf]
Links: Issue 1 2022
Keywords: I.I. Serebrennikov, A.N. Serebrennikova, Russian emigration, “new order” in East Asia, Oriental studies, Tianjin