Japanese people in Russia
Encyclopedia
Japanese people in Russia form a small part of the worldwide community of Nikkeijin. They count various notable political figures among their number.
to settle in Russia
is believed to have been Dembei
, a fisherman stranded on the Kamchatka Peninsula
in 1701 or 1702. Unable to return to his native Ōsaka
due to the Tokugawa Shogunate
's sakoku
policy, he was instead taken to Moscow
and ordered by Peter the Great
to begin teaching the language as soon as possible; he thus became the father of Japanese language education in Russia
. Japanese settlement in Russia remained sporadic, confined to the Russian Far East
, and also of a largely unofficial character, consisting of fishermen who, like Dembei, landed there by accident and were unable to return to Japan. However, a Japanese trading post is known to have existed on the island of Sakhalin
(then claimed by the Qing Dynasty
, but controlled by neither Japan, China, nor Russia) as early as 1790.
, Vladivostok
would become the focus of settlement for Japanese emigrating to Russia. A branch of the was opened there in 1876. Their numbers grew to 80 people in 1877 and 392 in 1890; women outnumbered men by a factor of 3:2, and many worked as prostitutes. However, their community remained small compared to the more numerous Chinese and Korean
communities; a 1897 Russian government survey showed 42,823 Chinese, 26,100 Koreans, but only 2,291 Japanese in the whole of the Primorye
area. A large portion of the migration came from villages in northern Kyūshū
.
The politics of Japanese-Russian relations
had a large influence on the Japanese community and the sources and patterns of Japanese settlement in Russia. The was founded in 1892 to unite various Japanese professional unions; at that point, the Japanese population of the city was estimated at 1,000. It would later be renamed in 1895 as the and again in 1902 as the . They were often suspected by the Russian government of being used as intelligence-gathering tools for Japan, and having contributed to Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War
. Though the Japanese residents' association in Vladivostok was officially disbanded in 1912 under pressure from Russia, Japanese government documents show it continued to operate clandestinely until 1920, when most Japanese in Vladivostok returned to Japan. The initial landing of Japanese forces in Vladivostok after the October Revolution
was prompted by the April 4, 1918 murder of three Japanese living there, and the Nikolayevsk Incident
which occurred in 1920. After the establishment of the Soviet Union
, some Japanese communists settled in Russia; for example, Mutsuo Hakamada, the brother of Japanese Communist Party
chairman Satomi Hakamada, escaped from Japan in 1938 and went to Russia, where he married a local woman. His daughter Irina
later went into politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
in 1905 with the Treaty of Portsmouth
, the southern half of Sakhalin
officially became Japanese territory, and was renamed as Karafuto, prompting an influx of Japanese settlers there. Japanese settled in the northern half of Karafuto; after Japan agreed to hand this half back to the Soviet Union, some may have chosen to remain north of the Soviet line of control. However, the majority would remain in Japanese territory until the closing days of World War II
, when the whole of Sakhalin came under Soviet control as part of the USSR's invasion of Manchuria; most Japanese fled the advancing Red Army
, or returned to Japan after the Soviet takeover, but others, mainly military personnel, were taken to the mainland of Russia and detained in work camps there. Furthermore, roughly 40,000 Korean settlers, despite still holding Japanese nationality, were denied permission to transit through Japan to repatriate to their homes in the southern half of the Korean peninsula
. Known as Sakhalin Koreans
, they were trapped on the island for almost four decades.
, 575,000 Japanese prisoners of war captured by the Red Army
in Manchuria
, Karafuto, and Korea
were sent to camps
in Siberia
and the rest of the Soviet Union. According to figures of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare
, 473,000 were repatriated to Japan after the normalisation of Japanese-Soviet relations
; 55,000 died in Russia, and another 47,000 remained missing; a Russian report released in 2005 listed the names of 27,000 who had been sent to North Korea
to perform forced labour there. Rank was no guarantee of repatriation; one Armenian
interviewed by the US Air Force
in 1954 claims to have met a Japanese general while living in a camp at Chunoyar, Krasnoyarsk Krai
between May 1951 and June 1953. Some continued to be repatriated as late as 2006.
, the Japanese School in Moscow, founded in 1965.
The 2002 Russian census
showed 835 people claiming Japanese ethnicity (nationality). 2008 figures from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
state that 1,607 Japanese nationals reside in Russia.
Early settlement
The first Japanese personJapanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
to settle in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
is believed to have been Dembei
Dembei
Dembei was a Japanese castaway who, through Vladimir Atlasov, provided Russia with some of its first knowledge of Japan. He was a fisherman who, along with a number of others, had been caught in a storm; they found their way to Kamchatka, where Dembei was found by Atlasov in 1701 or 1702. Despite...
, a fisherman stranded on the Kamchatka Peninsula
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
in 1701 or 1702. Unable to return to his native Ōsaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
due to the Tokugawa Shogunate
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
's sakoku
Sakoku
was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remained in effect until...
policy, he was instead taken to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and ordered by Peter the Great
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
to begin teaching the language as soon as possible; he thus became the father of Japanese language education in Russia
Japanese language education in Russia
Japanese language education in Russia formally dates back to December 1701 or January 1702, when Dembei, a shipwrecked Japanese merchant, was taken to Moscow and ordered to begin teaching the language as soon as possible...
. Japanese settlement in Russia remained sporadic, confined to the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
, and also of a largely unofficial character, consisting of fishermen who, like Dembei, landed there by accident and were unable to return to Japan. However, a Japanese trading post is known to have existed on the island of 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...
(then claimed by the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, but controlled by neither Japan, China, nor Russia) as early as 1790.
Opening of Japan
Following the opening of JapanLate Tokugawa shogunate
, literally "end of the curtain", are the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate came to an end. It is characterized by major events occurring between 1853 and 1867 during which Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as sakoku and transitioned from a feudal shogunate...
, Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
would become the focus of settlement for Japanese emigrating to Russia. A branch of the was opened there in 1876. Their numbers grew to 80 people in 1877 and 392 in 1890; women outnumbered men by a factor of 3:2, and many worked as prostitutes. However, their community remained small compared to the more numerous Chinese and Korean
Koryo-saram
Koryo-saram is the name which ethnic Koreans in the post-Soviet states use to refer to themselves. Approximately 500,000 ethnic Koreans reside in the former Soviet Union, primarily in the now-independent states of Central Asia. There are also large Korean communities in southern Russia , the...
communities; a 1897 Russian government survey showed 42,823 Chinese, 26,100 Koreans, but only 2,291 Japanese in the whole of the Primorye
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...
area. A large portion of the migration came from villages in northern Kyūshū
Kyushu
is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....
.
The politics of Japanese-Russian relations
Japanese-Russian relations
Relations between Russia and Japan are a continuation of Japanese-Soviet relations. Relations between the two nations are hindered primarily by a dispute over the Kuril Islands, a dispute that is long-running, but rarely gets serious enough to concern other nations...
had a large influence on the Japanese community and the sources and patterns of Japanese settlement in Russia. The was founded in 1892 to unite various Japanese professional unions; at that point, the Japanese population of the city was estimated at 1,000. It would later be renamed in 1895 as the and again in 1902 as the . They were often suspected by the Russian government of being used as intelligence-gathering tools for Japan, and having contributed to Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
. Though the Japanese residents' association in Vladivostok was officially disbanded in 1912 under pressure from Russia, Japanese government documents show it continued to operate clandestinely until 1920, when most Japanese in Vladivostok returned to Japan. The initial landing of Japanese forces in Vladivostok after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
was prompted by the April 4, 1918 murder of three Japanese living there, and the Nikolayevsk Incident
Nikolayevsk Incident
The was a series of events from February through March 1920 during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, cumulating in the massacre of several hundred Japanese expatriates and most of the Russian inhabitants of the town of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East.Nikolayevsk-on-Amur...
which occurred in 1920. After the establishment of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, some Japanese communists settled in Russia; for example, Mutsuo Hakamada, the brother of Japanese Communist Party
Japanese Communist Party
The Japanese Communist Party is a left-wing political party in Japan.The JCP advocates the establishment of a society based on socialism, democracy and peace, and opposition to militarism...
chairman Satomi Hakamada, escaped from Japan in 1938 and went to Russia, where he married a local woman. His daughter Irina
Irina Hakamada
Irina Mutsuovna Khakamada is a Russian politician who ran in the Russian presidential election, 2004. She is a member of The Other Russia coalition.-Biography:...
later went into politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Sakhalin
After the end of the Russo-Japanese WarRusso-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
in 1905 with the Treaty of Portsmouth
Treaty of Portsmouth
The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. It was signed on September 5, 1905 after negotiations at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine in the USA.-Negotiations:...
, the southern half of 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...
officially became Japanese territory, and was renamed as Karafuto, prompting an influx of Japanese settlers there. Japanese settled in the northern half of Karafuto; after Japan agreed to hand this half back to the Soviet Union, some may have chosen to remain north of the Soviet line of control. However, the majority would remain in Japanese territory until the closing days of 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...
, when the whole of Sakhalin came under Soviet control as part of the USSR's invasion of Manchuria; most Japanese fled the advancing Red Army
Evacuation of Karafuto and Kuriles
The evacuation of Karafuto and the Kuriles refers to the events that took place during the Pacific theater of World War II as the Japanese population left these areas, to August 1945 in the northwest of the main islands of Japan....
, or returned to Japan after the Soviet takeover, but others, mainly military personnel, were taken to the mainland of Russia and detained in work camps there. Furthermore, roughly 40,000 Korean settlers, despite still holding Japanese nationality, were denied permission to transit through Japan to repatriate to their homes in the southern half of the Korean peninsula
Korean Peninsula
The Korean Peninsula is a peninsula in East Asia. It extends southwards for about 684 miles from continental Asia into the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by the Sea of Japan to the south, and the Yellow Sea to the west, the Korea Strait connecting the first two bodies of water.Until the end of...
. Known as Sakhalin Koreans
Sakhalin Koreans
Sakhalin Koreans are Russian citizens and residents of Korean descent living on Sakhalin Island, who trace their roots to the immigrants from the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces of Korea during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the latter half of the Japanese colonial era...
, they were trapped on the island for almost four decades.
Prisoners of war
Following Japan's surrenderSurrender 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...
, 575,000 Japanese prisoners of war captured by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, Karafuto, and Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
were sent to camps
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and the rest of the Soviet Union. According to figures of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan)
The ' is a cabinet level ministry of the Japanese government. It is commonly known as Kōrō-shō in Japan. This ministry provides regulations on maximum residue limits for agricultural chemicals in foods, basic food and drug regulations, standards for foods, food additives, etc.It was formed with...
, 473,000 were repatriated to Japan after the normalisation of Japanese-Soviet relations
Japanese-Soviet relations
Relations between the Soviet Union and Japan between the former's establishment in 1922 and its collapse in 1991 tended to be hostile. Japan had sent troops to counter the Bolshevik presence in Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War, and both countries had been in opposite camps during...
; 55,000 died in Russia, and another 47,000 remained missing; a Russian report released in 2005 listed the names of 27,000 who had been sent to North Korea
Japanese people in North Korea
Japanese people in North Korea consist mainly of four groups: prisoners-of-war in the Soviet Union, Japanese accompanying repatriating Zainichi Korean spouses, defectors, and kidnapping victims...
to perform forced labour there. Rank was no guarantee of repatriation; one Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
interviewed by the US Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
in 1954 claims to have met a Japanese general while living in a camp at Chunoyar, Krasnoyarsk Krai
Krasnoyarsk Krai
Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, and Russia's largest krai, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory. The administrative center of the krai is the city of Krasnoyarsk...
between May 1951 and June 1953. Some continued to be repatriated as late as 2006.
Post-normalisation
Following the normalisation of Japanese-Soviet relations, a few Japanese went to Russia for commercial, educational, or diplomatic purposes; however, as Vladivostok was closed to foreign settlement until the 1970s, they instead concentrated in Moscow. There is one Japanese-medium schoolNihonjin gakko
, also called Japanese School, is a full day school outside of Japan for native speakers of Japanese. It is an expatriate school, designed for children whose parents are working on diplomatic, business, or educational mission overseas and have plans to go back to Japan for good.The schools offer...
, the Japanese School in Moscow, founded in 1965.
The 2002 Russian census
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
showed 835 people claiming Japanese ethnicity (nationality). 2008 figures from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan)
The is a cabinet level ministry of Japan responsible for the country's foreign relations.The ministry is due to the second term of the third article of the National Government Organization Act , and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Establishment Act establishes the ministry...
state that 1,607 Japanese nationals reside in Russia.