Back in January, I posted on Korea’s pre-war Russian ??migr??s. Anyway, I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails from someone who found that post and was kind enough to send me some links and material on George Yankovsky, “Asia’s Greatest Tiger Hunter,” who owned an estate called Novina near the North Korean port of Chongjin. Anyway, for history buffs, there’s some really great stuff. The must read, however, is Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire: Russian Immigrants in China, which deal with those Russian who sought refuge from the Bolsheviks in China and North Korea. It’s an absolutely fascinating read, and contains some pretty interesting stuff about the Yankovsky family. For example:
Agriculture, hunting and hospitality became other sectors where Russian emigres could demonstrate their skills. In northern Korea, at the Kyongsong hot sprigs near port Ch?onjin (Seisin), the Yankovsky family set up a red deer farm and two resorts, “Lukomorye?? (?Curved Seashore”) and ?Novina??. In the late 1930s, affluent and middle-class Russian families from Harbin, Tianjin and Shanghai would spend their holidays on the north-eastern coast of Korea. Yurii Yankovsky, the head of the family, became known as the best hunter on tigers in East Asia and often hosted guests from all over the world. For their contribution to the development of the image of Korea, the Yankovskys gained respect and protection of the Japanese General Governor of Korea.
Here’s the tale of another Russian family that experienced in full the vicissitudes of 20th century Northeast Asian history:
In the late 1950s, life for those Russian emigres who remained in communist China became intolerable. The final exodus of Russian population again divided into two streams: the repatriates, returning straight to the virgin lands of Kazakhstan, and the refugees seeking asylum in any Western country where a viable sponsor could be found. Even after that some Russian families remained in Xinjiang, North-East China and North Korea. But those who did not manage to escape before the early 1960s were left there until the end of the Cold War.
Among the rare survivors from the menace of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1969) can be named the family of Innokentii Davydov. Descendant of the noble Russian clan famous for its role in the Decembrists Uprising of 1825, Davydov arrived in Manchuria in early 1920s with General Semyonov. He firmly refused to assume any other citizenship and remained White Russian. As an activist of the Kyowakai, he taught Russian and closely cooperated with the Japanese until the end of WWII.
Davydov was forced to work for the NKVD as an interpreter during the Soviet occupation of Manchuria, but miraculously escaped imminent arrest by fleeing to the south with his Korean wife. With his Asian wife and mixed blood children he had little chance of finding refuge in Australia or other Western countries. Therefore, his children received education in China and North Korea where they planned to arrange their future life.
The half of the family which remained in the DPRK fully experienced the terror of Kimilsungist reprisals and purges against ?impure elements??. Davydov?s elder daughter, Elena (Pak Myong-sun), spent eleven years in concentration camps and prisons because of her husband, a North Korean poet who was accused of an assassination attempt against General Kim Il-sung. In the ?socialist paradise?? Korean-style, Elena?s children were born and grew up in the underground cell of Hongch?on penal complex, Northern Hamgyong Province. They were rarely allowed to see the sun. However, it was Kim Jong-il, the son of bloody dictator, who launched his image building campaign in 1975 and saved a dozen of unjustly imprisoned luminaries, including Elena and her husband Kim Ch?ol.
Anyway, it’s some good stuff, and I highly encourage to read through it. The reader also sent me a short version of Valerie Yankovsky’s memoirs. Here’s a little background from the e-mail I got:
I am sending you all the (very) crude translation of the short version of Valerie Yankovsky’s memoirs, as published in issue 3/2002 of “Oriental Collection”. This journal is put out by the Russian State Library, and only in Russian. The translation was done by altavista.com’s translation engine (babelfish.altavista.com), little by little (the engine can only translate up to 150 words at a time).
Anyway, here’s the English version (in .doc form) and, for those so linguistically blessed, here’s the Russian version.
3 Comments
The way those people’s fates were intertwined with huge geopolitical events is really fascintating, like a Northeast Asian “Gone With the Wind.” Cool.
Nah, like a Northeast Asian version of Boris Pasternak’s “Doctor Shivago”, IMO. The same-titled “Shivago”-movie is mediocre at best, but the book is a masterpiece!
One of my uncles grew up in what was then called Manchukuo. He mentioned to me once that after the Bolshevik Revolution, White Russians could be killed by Japanese with impunity — because they were stateless.