Dahinien Gendānu, also Daxinnieni Geldanu (c. 1926–1984) was an Uilta activist from Sakhalin

Sakhalin

Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...

.

Life

Gendānu was the adopted son of Dahinien Gorgolo, an Uilta shaman. Like most members of his people at the time, he was unclear on his exact year of birth. In his childhood, his home village of Otasu was ruled as part of the Karafuto Prefecture

Karafuto Prefecture

, commonly called South Sakhalin, was the Japanese administrative division corresponding to Japanese territory on Sakhalin from 1905 to 1945. Through the Treaty of Portsmouth, the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N became a colony of Japan in 1905...

 of the Japanese Empire. He received the Japanese name Kitagawa Gentaro. After the surrender of Japan

Surrender of Japan

The surrender of Japan in 1945 brought hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent...

 ended World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Soviet Union

Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union

By the end of :World War II there were from 560,000 to 760,000 Japanese POWs in the Soviet Union and Mongolia interned to work in labor camps. Of them, about 10% died , mostly during the winter of 1945–1946....

 for seven years. Following his release, he migrated to Japan in 1955. However, his requests for a pension were denied because of the Japanese government's position that Uilta and Nivkh people from Sakhalin were ineligible for armed service and had been illegally recruited. He died in 1984 without pension or compensation from the Japanese government.

Legacy

In Abashiri, Hokkaidō

Abashiri, Hokkaido

is a city located in Okhotsk Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan.Abashiri is known as the site of the Abashiri Prison, a Meiji-era facility used for the incarceration of political prisoners...

, Gendānu established a museum of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin, the Jakka Dukhuni, meaning "keeping place of treasures". His autobiography was published in 1978, in collaboration with Ryō Tanaka, a high school teacher in Abashiri. His niece Lyuba Nakagawa had remained on Sakhalin. In 1995, she visited Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 as an emissary to request Japanese government assistance in constructing a memorial to Uilta war dead, as well as other compensation and support; however, she received no response. Tanaka would go on to become the president of the Uilta Kyokai, the Uilta rights association which Gendānu founded. The Uilta language

Orok language

Orok is the Russian name for the language known by its speakers as Ulta or Ujlta. Similarly, the people are called Oroks or Ulta. It is counted among the Tungusic languages...

data elicited from Gendānu and his father by Fumio Koizumi would form the basis of later linguistic studies by Shirō Ikegami and Toshirō Shimagari.

Works

|author1=田中了 (Tanaka Ryō)|author2=D. ゲンダーヌ [D. Gendānu]|publisher=現代史出版会 [Gendai Shuppankai]|year=1978|oclc=24385988|ref=CITEREFTanakaGendānu1978}}

External links

• Uilta vocabulary elicited from Dahinien Gendanu and Dahinien Gorgolo in February 1968 by Koizumi Fumio (小泉文夫)
• Uilta Kyokai, an association founded by Gendānu in 1975
• ゲンダーヌは、市他所の世話で鉄工所で働いた。