Olga V. Zmeyeva

PhD in History, Senior Research, RAS Center for Humanitarian Problems of the Barents Region

Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences

(Apatity, Russia)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2024-2-30-43

Abstract. The article shows how one railway management structure organized the uninterrupted transport of large batches of Chinese workers from Manchuria to the Arkhangelsk province of the Russian Empire under wartime circumstances. The growing number of labour migrants in the territories of the Russian-Chinese borderland in the early 20th century took place in a situation dominated by ethnic stereotypes prevalent among the Russian population and the authorities of the Far Eastern frontier. The Chinese citizen image as an ‘outsider’ prevented inter-ethnic cooperation. The activities of ethnic groups remained ‘enclaved’. The instability of Russian migration policy in the Far East and Siberia, the negative attitude of the population towards attracting cheap migrant labor from China, the rapid change in the ethnic and socio-demographic situations in the country with the outbreak of the First World War were the key factors in the transformation of the system of ideas about Chinese migrants. The author refers to the documentary sources preserved in the National Archives of the Republic of Karelia, which provide information about the hiring and organization of transportation of Chinese citizens to the North of the European Russia in the spring and summer of 1916. An analysis of documents carried out within the framework of historical anthropology shows that the process of recruitment, manning, transportation and delivery of large batches of migrants to work sites was strictly planned and organized. The system for regulating workers' traffic problems was situationally adjusted to emerging needs. The article shows for the first time the methods used by the railway administration to organize groups of workers, to ensure interaction between Chinese citizens and their escorts, and to solve the problems of long transportation of large batches of migrant workers. The author was able to identify the practices of establishing language contact with Chinese workers. State structures intended to solve everyday problems of the ethnic group. They used various opportunities to regulate migrant movements. The article shows that the formed system of managed labor migration had an impact on the informal differentiation of Chinese migrants. There were migrants both useful and harmful to the country. Useful ethnic communities were organized groups of labor migrants involved in industrial, construction and other large-scale works.
Keywords: Chinese, labor migrant, Murmansk railway, 1916, ethnic stereotypy, interaction, organization of hiring, transportation of workers.

Full text of the article (PDF)

For citation: Zmeyeva, OV 2024, ‘From Harbin to Arkhangelsk: transportation of the Chinese to the Murmansk Railway Construction (1916)’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 2 (18), pp. 30–43, http://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2024-2-30-43 (in Russ.)

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