• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site

Conference Brings Together New Perspectives on the Russian Far East

Cape Lamanon, Sakhalin Island

Cape Lamanon, Sakhalin Island
© Wikimedia Commons

On March 28-31, 2021, the HSE International Laboratory ‘Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective’ held an international conference ‘The Russian Far East: Regional and Transnational Perspectives (19th -21st cent.)’. The event was jointly organized by the Laboratory with the German Historical Institute Moscow, Indiana University Bloomington (USA), and the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East FEB RAS (Vladivostok).


Ekaterina Boltunova, Laboratory Head of the International Laboratory 'Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective' and Professor of the School of Philological Studies

Our conference is a joint project. The Laboratory ‘Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective’ organized the event in collaboration with the German Historical Institute Moscow, Indiana University Bloomington (USA), and the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East FEB RAS (Vladivostok).

Our conference is aimed at studying the history of the Russian Far East from the 19th century to the present. We wanted to consider the social context of the territory’s life and analyse relations with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. We are concerned with questions related to the extent to which we can talk about a special local Far Eastern identity, what its distinctive features are, and also to what extent local self-identification affects residents of different ethnic groups. We would like to consider the history of relations between this region and the centre, as well as the prospects for their development.

The Far East is an extremely interesting region of Russia. For most inhabitants of antiquity, this was a territory on the other side of the country, unreachable to many. It was the land of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, warships and submarines, tigers and whales. But these are only images of a colossal territory with an amazing and very fascinating history. Throughout its history, the Russian Far East has taken on many guises.

At different times, for the Russian Empire, it was the country’s entry point to the Pacific Ocean, a promising centre of international partnership for post-Soviet Russia, a closed militarized border area, and a hotspot for migrants.

At the conference, we had nine panel discussions. In addition to the plenary session, which featured talks by well-known experts such as Viktor Larin (Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Bao Maohong (University of Beijing, China), Sergey Glebov (Smith College and Amherst College, USA) and David Wolff (Hokkaido University, Japan), there were seven panels.

The panels dealt with issues such as the intersection of geopolitics and development projects in the Far East, film and literature, local Far Eastern identities, natural resources and the environment, Russian-Chinese relations, and more.

Sandra Dahlke and Benjamin Beuerle of the German Historical Institute Moscow and Andreas Renner of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich presented their new large project ‘Russia’s North Pacific’.

Conference participants included not only our colleagues from Moscow and foreign universities, but also researchers from universities and research centres of other regions of Russia as well. Active interaction with regional intuitions and involvement of colleagues from the regions in research is one of the priority tasks for our Laboratory.

Talks by Anastasia Ignatenko (Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far-East; Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok), Anna Savchuk, and Tatiana Zhurvanskaia (both of Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivastok) were especially interesting. Anastasia spoke about imperial policy related to the Korean Peninsula in the late 19th - early 20th centuries, and Anna discussed the forced colonization of Sakhalin during this period. Tatyana’s talk examined the labour of the Far Easterners in South Korea.

Russell Scott Valentino, professor of Slavic and East European languages and cultures, Indiana University Bloomington

My paper for this conference explores symbolic and affective aspects of the Russian Far East and how these are conveyed (for instance, through naming, mapping, and storytelling).

Imagined geographies is a concept that is fairly well developed in other areas of the world but to my knowledge has been applied very little to the Russian Far East

My goal is to use such tools to better convey something of the uniqueness and palpability of the place that is the RFE and, where that proves difficult, try to explain why (e.g., where the RFE competes with other conceptual categories such as ‘Siberia’ or ‘Yakutia’).

I am writing a book called At Russian Extremes, which explores—figuratively and literally—contemporary Russia’s land, people, and places through history, travel, and memoir. The extremes of its title include geographic endpoints, such as Sakhalin, Vladivostok, and the Kuril Islands in the east, the Russian ‘exclave’ of Kaliningrad, and the permafrost city of Yakutsk, but also its cultural fringes and historical exceptionalisms, from state socialism to space dogs, avant-garde communal experiment to internal exile, cultural opulence to remotest wilderness.

Indiana University has a strong partner relationship with HSE (both in Moscow and in St. Petersburg), with a number of joint faculty initiatives and research projects, a faculty exchange, and an undergraduate student exchange. I served as Associate Dean for International Affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University from 2016 to 2020, and in that capacity had extensive discussions with HSE colleagues and helped to administer our ongoing programmes. I also oversaw the creation of the undergraduate student exchange with HSE St. Petersburg, which was signed in July of 2020. My last visit to HSE was in December 2019, and I am looking forward to returning when travel opportunities open up again.

Prof. Andreas Renner, Chair for Russian-Asian Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

The main draw of this conference is networking—networking with colleagues who do research on Russia in the Asia-Pacific between the 18th century and the presence. The aim is to create a platform where PhD students, post-docs, professors, and independent researchers from different countries and disciplines can discuss their projects.

We want to build a frame for a diverse spectrum of topics from 18th-century environmental history to Russian-Japanese relations in the present

But hidden behind this networking plan is a bigger strategy which has to do with the profile of the German Historical Institute in Moscow and Russia’s (announced) pivot to Asia. So far, the German Historical Institute, like most historians of Russia in Germany, has focused on Russia in its relations with Western Europe, and with Germany in particular. From this perspective anything lying east of the Ural mountains looks like a backyard and the Pacific like the eastern shore of Eastern Europe.

Thus, the plan is simply to open a new perspective, an additional perspective on Russian history from the Pacific, and to encourage especially younger scholars to do so

The Munich chair of Russian-Asian studies is a co-organiser of the conference. And I personally have been a partner of the GHI since it has started to pivot to Asia, too. We decided a couple of years ago to propose a face lift for the German Historical Institute with the help of a series of conferences, a new book series, an online network, and maybe a more narrowly defined research group. As for my cooperation with HSE University, I am also working on a different project with Professor Vishlenkova on the history of medical geography in the tsarist empire.

The conference programme is available here

See also:

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Ten: 'Number, Please?'

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The final episode of the series recounts how men were unable to cope with telephone operator jobs and were replaced by tall and polite young women. However, as telephone networks expanded, the role of the intermediary became unproductive, eventually rendering the switchboard operator profession obsolete due to automation—not the first nor the last time such a thing has happened. As for Alexander Graham Bell, he used the earnings from inventing the telephone to promote science, educate people about the world around us, and pursue new inventions.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Nine: Big Connections

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The ninth episode of the series explores the development of the first long-distance, interstate, and transatlantic telephone lines, which suddenly made people thousands of kilometres away feel as close as if they were in the same room together.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Eight: The Russian Field of Experiments

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The eighth episode of the series recounts how Russia first adapted the telephone for military and logistical purposes, created a shell company headed by a nominal executive for reselling the rights to Western competitors, and intensively developed communication infrastructure in the country's two capitals, making such progress that Vladimir Lenin insisted on capturing and maintaining control of telephone exchanges at all costs.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Seven: German Efficiency

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The seventh episode in the series recounts the story of German bureaucrats, who proved to be the most astute in Europe by ensuring effective telephony first for themselves and subsequently for all major cities in Germany. However, even there, the government's dominant role over the free market slowed down the adoption of the new technology.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Six: The Telephone's Misadventures in France

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The sixth episode of the series recounts events in France when the private owner of the telephone network was compelled to sell it to the government at a knockdown price, and the impact it had on the development of communications in the country. Spoiler alert: the impact, naturally, was detrimental.

The ICEF-CInSt Conference as a Platform for International Research Networking

On November 24–25, 2023, the 12th ICEF-CInSt International Finance Conference took place in Moscow. Researchers from Russia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the USA, Canada, Italy, and the United Kingdom contributed as speakers and discussants. The organisers and participants of the conference shared their impressions of the event with the HSE News Service.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Five: From the US Free Market to Conservative Britain

In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The fifth episode of the series chronicles the early experiences of the telegraph and telephone in Great Britain, shedding light on the challenges they faced, and explores the adverse impact of excessive government regulation and nationalisation on the evolution of telecommunications.

Peacocks, Pepper, and Petrol: The Early History of Imports from Asia

Petroleum for equine care, wood oil for lighting, sandalwood for Easter celebrations, and lemons and olives for entertaining unexpected guests. Russian monasteries often used these and other eastern goods in the period leading up to and during the reign of Peter the Great. Analysing their account books leads to a revision of the traditional assumptions about the primary consumers of oriental goods in Russia. These consumers, in addition to the royal and aristocratic circles, included monastery estates, as discussed in the paper ‘“Three altyns worth of petroleum…”: Oriental goods in Russia at the second half of the 17th and early 18th century’ by historian Arthur Mustafin of HSE University. Based on his paper, IQ.HSE explores the types of goods that were shipped from the East to Russia in the latter half of the 17th to the early 18th century, including the routes and purposes of these shipments.

‘Studying Is an Invaluable Opportunity to Learn from Experts and Explore Diverse Perspectives’

Mateo Rojas Samper, from Colombia, is a student of thePolitics. Economics. Philosophy master’s programme at the HSE University Faculty of Social Sciences. Matteo spoke to the HSE News Service about the importance of engaging in both theory and practice in his studies at HSE University, as well as his participation in the Model United Nations and the Russia–Latin America International Parliamentary Conference.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Four: David the Start-up Versus the Corporate Goliath

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The fourth episode of the series recounts the story of the fledgling start-up's confrontation with hordes of patent trolls and its subsequent victory in a full-blown corporate war against the largest telecommunications company of the late 19th century.