Annual Newsletter of the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University

S LAVIC-EURASIANR ESEARCHC ENTER NEWSNo. 23
March 20162015 Summer International Symposium“Russia and Global History”
Historians of Russia andEurasia have become increasingly
sensitive to the role of the state ruli n g a vast space in generating
human categories, regions, andtheir mutual connections. The
increasing sense of connectivity
enhanced by an imperial turnin historical studies, as well as
globalization after the Cold War,has encouraged historians to moveaway from the autarkic vision of
the Russian historical path andA scene from Session 1
to put Russia within the broader
context of Europe, Asia, and the world. Meanwhile, it is still historians of the Chinese,
British, and American Empires that lead in the field of global history. Although they haveattempted to overturn familiar conclusions, such as “the rise of the West and the fall of therest,” Russia and Slavic-Eurasia have been largely missing.
This symposium delved into Russia’s special place in world history in a way thatreveals not only the depth, but also the limits of global transformation from the 1700s to the
1980s. Based on multilingual and multi-archival sources across more than two countries,
the paper-presenters addressed in particular the role of varied borderlands and multi-ethnic/
confessional individuals in connecting Russia to the globalizing world in a variety of ways.
Our meeting had two main features. First, it covered both imperial Russia and the Soviet
Union so as to discern long-standing patterns of interplay between Russia and the world.
By so doing, we could also reappraise the Cold War itself that has so strongly shaped ourunderstanding of world history, not only among students of Slavic-Eurasia, but also beyond.
Secondly, in order to avoid falling into a state of autarky, isolation, and self-satisfaction, we
invited as discussants leading Japanese specialists of the British Empire and the Ottoman
Empire. Indeed, they powerfully pushed us forward to elucidate global moments that would
otherwise have remained obscure in papers.

No.23 March 2016

Our meeting was supported by two JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research: “Comparative Colonial History: Colonial Administration and Center-Periphery Interactions in Modern
Empires” and “Revolutionary Empire: A Biography of Karim Khakimov (1892–1937).” Ourco-organizer was the European University at St. Petersburg: Boris Ivanovich Kolonitskii,
Vice Rector of the University, kindly agreed to give his paper and Samuel J. Hirst helped
us arrange the conference program at crucial moments. We had 86 participants including
31 overseas guests. It was a great honor for us to host leading scholars as paper-presentersfrom North America, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and Japan, who also participated in
the ICCEES World Congress in Makuhari. Our symposium was also sandwiched between
a junior scholars’ session on Muslim mobility and a workshop on Russian Orthodoxy in the
post-war and post-Soviet eras. We do hope to continue in the future the exploration of global/transnational history of Slavic-Eurasia with our international colleagues.

Naganawa Norihiro
Speakers at the Symposium (July 30–31, 2015)

David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye (Brock University, Canada) “The Kashgar Question: St. Petersburg,
Tashkent and Yakub Beg”
Alexander Morrison (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan) “Competitive Emulation and Anglo-Russian Rivalryin the Conquest of Central Asia”
Paul du Quenoy (American University of Beirut, Lebanon/SRC) “‘Showered with Privileges by Our Government’: Russian Self-Presentation to Muslim Communities in Ottoman Syria”
Ekaterina Pravilova (Princeton University, USA) “Not by Bread Alone: Russia and the Global Market ofCultural Goods”
Igor Khristoforov (Higher School of Economics, Russia) “Professors and Bankers: Russian Economic Thought
and the Formation of the Modern Financial System in the Nineteenth Century”
Sakon Yukimura (Niigata University, Japan) “The Great Game of Tea: Russian Tea Trade in the Late Nineteenthand Early Twentieth Centuries”
Willard Sunderland (University of Cincinnati, USA) “Built to Move: Trades and Technologies of Worldlinessin the Eighteenth Century”
Philippa Hetherington (University of Sydney, Australia) “Laboratory of Migration: Multiple Mobilities andthe History of the Black Sea”
Naganawa Norihiro (SRC) “Russia’s Place in the Global Muslim Connections, ca. 1800–1930: Sufism,
Nationalism, and Anti-Imperialism”
Marsha Siefert (Central European University, Hungary) “Telecommunications Rivalries in the RussianBorderlands before 1914”
Boris Kolonitskii (European University at St. Petersburg, Russia) “The February Revolution of 1917 as a
World Revolution”
David McDonald (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) “1917 in a Corner of the Russian Diaspora:
Revolution and the Rebuilding of Dukhobor’e”
Tsurumi Taro (Saitama University, Japan) “Russian Jews after the Imperial Collapse, East and West”
Samuel J. Hirst (European University at St. Petersburg, Russia) “National Economics: Soviet-Turkish Tradein the Interwar Period”
Yaroslav Shulatov (Hiroshima City University, Japan) “Japan’s Place in Soviet Far Eastern Policy during
the 1920s”
Sören Urbansky (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany) “‘The Border Is under Lock and Key’:Material and Ritualistic Reaffirmations of the Manchurian-Soviet Border during Times of Conflict”
Marsha Kirasirova (New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE) “Soviet Aftershocks of Iran’s 1953 Coup: A CIA
Operation against Abdulquasim Lahuti, 1953–1954”
Artemy M. Kalinovsky (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) “‘A Torch Lighting the Way to Progress
and Civilization’: Soviet Central Asia as a Model of Development”
Fujisawa Jun (Waseda University, Japan) “In Pursuit of Natural Resources: The CMEA Policy of ‘Coordination’in the Developing Countries”

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No.23 March 2016

Speakers at the Junior Scholars’ Session: Russia and the USSR as Destinations for Mobile Muslim Intellectuals in the First Half of the Twentieth Century(July 29, 2015)

Unno-Yamazaki Noriko (University of Tokyo, Japan) “Between the Qing Dynasty and the Russian Empire:
Dungans and Uyghurs in Central Asia in the 1910s”
Toriya Masato (Sophia University, Japan) “Indian Muslims and the Soviet Union in the 1910s and 1920s:
The Case of Ẓafar Ḥasan Āibak’s Āp Bītī”
Ono Ryosuke (Keio University, Japan) “Turkestan as seen by an Émigré Turcologist: Zeki Velidi Togan, Yeni
Türkistan, and His Letters (1927–1932)”

Speakers at the International Joint Workshop: Memories of Socialism andToday: Religion, Politics, and Nationalism (August 1, 2015)

Ulrike Huhn (Bremen University, Germany) “Departure in the Underground? Soviet Ethnographers Explore
Apocalyptic Sectarians”
Takahashi Sanami (SRC) “Saints in Soviet Russia: Keeping and Changing the Popular Faith”
Irina Papkova (Georgetown University, USA/SRC) “Collaborator and/or Martyred Church: Russian Orthodoxy(mis)remembers the Soviet Past”
Nikolay Mitrokhin (Bremen University, Germany) “Проблемы изучения современной истории РПЦ
1940-х–2000-х годов”

The SRC 60th Anniversary Symposium andReception
On December 10–11, 2015,
the SRC Winter International
Symposium was held in Sapporo
under the title “Between History
and Memory: Connecting theGenerations at SRC 60.” Themain idea of the conference was toreview the concrete circumstancesof the Center’s founding in 1955,
as well as the Japanese conditionsof that time, while putting thepath and activities of Japan’s
Slavic-Eurasian area studies into
Opening remark
the context of 20th century world
history. Six sessions were sandwiched between a kick-off session that included interdisciplinary approaches to life and text on the concrete basis of research reports from Central
Asian specialists now in residence at the SRC and a final session that brought together both
Japanese and foreign scholars with a long history of cooperation with the SRC to discuss
future concerns and possibilities for “going beyond ICCEES 2015.”
The second session dealt directly with SRC history by examining the role of the Rockefeller Foundation and its officers in reviving Slavic-Eurasian studies in Japan after World War II.
One paper analyzed the creation of area studies itself as an epistemological paradigm adapted
to the exigencies of World War II. A second paper introduced new documentation that revealed
the SRC creation as a joint initiative of both Japanese and American scholars struggling withthe administrative, financial and political constraints of the immediate postwar and occupation.
A final paper put the activities of the Rockefeller Foundation into context by examining
the birth of Japanese Southeast Asian studies as well. A third session included both former3

No.23 March 2016

employees of the SRC as well as
foreign partners in an attempt tolocate the Center’s activities inboth “time and space.” Former
professors and librarians spokeof the Center’s growth within thebounds and opportunities posedby the university and national bureaucracy, while foreign partners
spoke of the the long-term valueof cooperative research and sharededucational goals.
The second day began with
Participants
two sessions devoted to further
contextualizing. The fourth session discussed Sugihara Chiune, a great Russianist in his day,whose applied research not only resulted in one of the great achievements of Japanese foreign
policy, the 1935 sale of the Chinese Eastern Railway by Russia to Manchukuo, but also produced
a humanitarian act that continues to resonate in contemporary international affairs, the 1940–41
saving of more than 2000 Jewish lives during his short term as Japanese Acting Consul in thethen-capital of Lithuania, Kaunas. A second paper examined Japan’s foreign policy in 1955,
as it sought renewed initiative in its relations, not only with Russia, but also with the US andChina. Area studies knowledge would be essential for such plans. The fifth session looked atother uses of anniversaries and memory, both as a way to mobilize multilateral research andas a means to analyze national and regional transformations.
The final session featured younger members of the profession discussing both the roleof the SRC in accomplishing their training and the challenges that lie ahead. Specialists from
Russia, China and Korea also approached the same issues, but from the outside looking in.
A discussion session concluded the symposium. A total of 110 visitors participated in theWinter Symposium.
On the day before the symposium, two pre-symposium sessions were held:
Middle-Eastern Migration/Refugees and European Integration from Eurasian viewpoints (Organizer: Ieda Osamu)
Colonial Revolt and State-Society Relations: Russian Central Asia and British India
Compared (Organizer: Uyama Tomohiko)On the evening of the 10th, a reception was hosted at the Faculty Club Enreiso, where
Hokkaido University President Yamaguchi, Ministry of Education and Science representative
Ishizaki, Tokyo University Emeritus Professor Wada, and Russian Consul-General at Sapporo
Fabrichnikov began the long series of toasts. The President, Board members and departmental
heads joined other Hokudai faculty and staff, past and present, including SRC Research
Associates from throughout the country, to make a total of over 100 guests bringing their goodwishes. The commemorative reception took place in a warm atmosphere from beginning to end.

Mochizuki Tetsuo (Wolff, trans.)
Speakers at the Symposium (December 10–11, 2015)

Daniel Prior (Miami University, USA/SRC) “The Kirghiz Epic Tradition and Its Contexts”
Tokhir Kalandarov (Russian Academy of Sciences/SRC) “Анализируя среднеазиатские антропологические
работы по религии: пережитки доисламских верований или между «народным» и «чистым»исламом?”Stefan Kirmse (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany/SRC) “A View from Russia’s Borderlands: Potentials
and Limits of Studying 19th-Century Legal Texts and Culture”

4No.23 March 2016

David Engerman (Brandeis University: absent), read by T. Hasegawa “Knowing Friends and Enemies: The
World War II Origins of Area Studies in the United States”
David Wolff (SRC) “The SRC and the Rockefeller Foundation, 1948–1952”
Karashima Masato (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan) “Between Anti-Communist Liberal and Democratic
Socialism: The Rockefeller Foundation and Japan’s Asian Studies”
Togawa Tsuguo (Sophia University and Hokkaido University, Japan, emeritus) “The SRC in the Cradle: A Prehistory”
Akizuki Takako (Former SRC librarian) “Building the Slavic Collection at the SRC”
Ito Takayuki (Waseda University and Hokkaido University, Japan, emeritus) “Nationalization, Internationalization, Functionalization: My Twenty Years at SRC”
Hasegawa Tsuyoshi (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA) “SRC in Time and Space”
Viktor Larin (Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East, Far Eastern
Branch, RAS, Russia) “Vladivostok Institute of History and the Slavic Research Center: Three Decadesof Fruitful Cooperation”
Tabata Shinichiro (SRC) “SRC in the 21st Century”
Takao Chizuko (Tokyo Medical and Dental University: absent) and David Wolff (SRC) “Visas for Life:
Chiune Sugihara, 1935–41”
Izumikawa Yasuhiro (Chuo University, Japan) “Japan’s Multiple Quests for Foreign Policy ‘Independence’and Soviet-Japanese Diplomatic Normalization Talks in the 1950s”
John W. Steinberg (Austin Peay State University, USA) “Russia’s Great War and Revolution: Will It ForeverBe an Unknown War That Ends with a Forgotten Peace?”
Shinohara Taku (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan) “Jewish Presence and Non-presence in Memory
Politics in Central Europe”«After ICCEES 2015: The Future of Japanese Slavic-Eurasian Studies (roundtable)» with Numano Mitsuyoshi(University of Tokyo, Japan), Oka Natsuko (Institute of Developing Economies, Japan), Ikeda Yoshiro(University of Tokyo, Japan), Yaroslav Shulatov (Hiroshima City University, Japan), Feng Shaolei(East China Normal University), Ha Yong Chool (University of Washington, USA)

Speakers at the Pre-Symposium: Middle-Eastern Migration/Refugees and European
Integration from Eurasian viewpoints (December 9, 2015) (Organizer: Ieda Osamu)
Kuroki Hidemitsu (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan) “An Inevitable Wave?: Syrian (and Lebanese)
Migrants to Europe in Historical Context”
Nosaka-Sahara Junko (Bilkent University, Turkey) “Rethinking 200 Years of Refugees and Migrants on theBlack Sea Coast”
Basak Kale (Middle East University of Technology, Turkey) “Comparing Migration Management through theLenses of Mass Refugee Movements: EU and Turkey (online presentation through Skype)”
Endo Ken (Hokkaido University, Japan) “European Integration in the Face of the Refugee Crisis”
Imai Kohei (Meiji University, Japan) “The Effectiveness and Limit of Turkey’s Humanitarian Diplomacy: The
Case of Response to Syrian Refugee”
Szerdahelyi István (Hungarian Ambassador to Japan)
Bostjan Beltalanic (Josai University, Japan) “The Refugee Situation from the Slovenian and Wider Balkan Perspective”
Kuboyama Ryo (Senshu University, Japan) “Refugee Policy and Politics in Germany”
Sengoku Manabu (SRC) “European Migrant Crisis and General Election in Poland”
Hans Carl von Werthern (Ambassador of Federal Republic of Germany to Japan)
Umehara Toshiya (The Asahi Shimbun Company) “Year 2015 for EU: An ‘Annus Horribilis’ or Beginning of the End”
Morita Tsuneo (Tateyama R&D, Hungary) “Reality Seen from Hungary”
Nishikida Aiko (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan) “The Choice to Move: Palestinian Refugees’
Migration to European Countries”
Deha Erpek (Minister Counsellor of Turkish Embassy)

Speakers at the Pre-Symposium Seminar: Colonial Revolt and State-Society
Relations: Russian Central Asia and British India Compared (December 9, 2015)(Organizer: Uyama Tomohiko)
Cloé Drieu (French National Centre for Scientific Research) “1916 Uprisings in Central Asia: A Historic
Reappraisal through the Lens of Sociology of Social Movement”
Clare Anderson (University of Leicester, UK) “Social Change in East India Company South Asia and the1857 Revolt”
Followed by a screening of Tong Oldidan/Before the Dawn, Directed by Suleiman Khojaev, 1933, An Uzbek filmon the 1916 uprisings5No.23 March 2016

SRC Article in German Distributed as
English Pre-Print
At Makuhari ICCEES 2015
In August 2015, 1300 scholars from 50 countries
gathered for the International Council of Central and East
European Studies (ICCEES) World Congress at Makuhari
Messe in Chiba Prefecture. The event is only held once every
five years and this was the first time that it came to Asia. The
SRC had been deeply involved in preparations for bringing
this prestigious event to Japan, starting over five years ago
with the campaign to have Japan selected. The SRC alsomanned a booth providing materials on our field, the role of
the SRC as a Joint Research Facility, and a pre-print of anarticle that appeared in the summer issue of Osteuropa, themost important German-language journal for Slavic Studies.1
The article was translated into German, but the “original”
English version was used for the pre-print, as English was
the lingua franca of a deeply multilingual event.
The article concluded with the paragraph: “During the last 25 years, faced with riotous
change on the international scene, the Slavic-Eurasian profession in Japan has responded
boldly, embracing transnational and comparative approaches, in order to address a wide
range of novel concerns. Soviet Communism is no more, but the Leninist state lives on. The
command economy is outmoded, but issues regarding state intervention in the market are
universally pertinent. Central Asian nations are independent, but must still struggle to avoid
dependency on large neighbors. Northeast Asian regionalism, India as a BRIC, the Arctic,
border studies and climate change—Slavic-Eurasian knowledge has something to offer todiscussions on each of these topics and in Japan, it is called on to do so.”
Below are a few highpoints from the article prepared by the SRC multidisciplinary team,
our “authors’ collective (Autorenkollektiv).”
1 The history of prewar Slavic Studies exhibited a sharp divide between those who
introduced the general public to the wonders of Russian culture, especially literature,and the vision of Russia as an enemy or potential enemy that drove “practical studies”
in the army, foreign ministry and Mantetsu (South Manchurian Railway) Research
Department, at that time the largest research institute in the world. After the war, bothkinds of studies were folded into the university curriculum.
2 Unlike American and European Slavic-Eurasian studies, in Japan the end of the Cold
War created an even broader consensus about the need to study these regions of theworld, leading to increased budgets and newly-trained experts on all of the new countries
created by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
3 The complexities of analyzing and classifying the newly-created states led to a renaissanceof comparative studies, both in politics and economics. Notably, the “Society for the
Study of Socialist Economies” became the “Association for Comparative Economic
1 Autorenkollektiv, “Aufbruch, Dynamik, Internationalisierung: Slavisch-Eurasische Area Studies
in Japan” Osteuropa 65, 5–6 (2015), 175–192.

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Studies” in May 1993. A recent large-scale comparison of Russia, China and India as“regional great powers” also follows this trend.
4 Increased emphasis on comparison and the areas “between” states has also led to theemergence of new disciplines such as border studies. Previously pursued as a part ofbilateral relations within international relations, “border studies” have now taken on alife of their own.
5 Historical studies have been inspired by both the “imperial turn” and globalization to dig
deeply into newly-declassified archives from local to national, while asking questionsof the Russian materials that go beyond Russia to shed light on global phenomena, suchas the rise of Islam, the East Asian economic “miracles” and the Cold War.
6 Literary studies and translations remain popular in Japan with Russia still the mostimportant area within Slavic-Eurasia, but literature as a source for cultural studies has
become more popular. On the other hand, Slavic linguistics has broadened to cover a
wider range of distinct language groups and sub-disciplines with consequently increasing
exposure on the international stage.

David Wolff

The Border Studies Summer School on 25–
28 July, 2016
The SRC and the Graduate School of Public Policy (HOPS) at Hokkaido University aredelighted to announce that the summer school on border studies will be hosted in Sapporo
on July 25–28, 2016. This year’s summer school will be hosted as part of the Hokkaido
Summer Institute, which is a program that brings together distinguished scholars and ourfaculty members to provide an educational experience to students from across Japan andaround the world. Please see the following website of the Eurasia Unit for Border Research(UBRJ) to see the summer school program in greater detail:
http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/ubrj/whats-new/archives/201602/05222.html

Chida TetsuroInternational Symposium “Contesting
Territories: Sovereignty, Tourism, andAesthetics” (November 23, 2015)
The 2015 FY is very important for the Eurasia Unit for Border Research (Japan) (UBRJ),
since its leader, Prof. Akihiro Iwashita, assumed the presidency of the Association for
Borderland Studies (ABS) in April 2015 for one year. UBRJ also enjoys fruitful cooperation
with the Center for Asia-Pacific Future Studies (CAFS), established at Kyushu University
in March 2015, which became the second core academic center for border studies in Japan.
The international symposium “Contesting Territories: Sovereignty, Tourism, and Aesthetics”
on 23 November at Kyushu University became the highlight event in 2015 FY co-hosted byUBRJ & CAFS. The symposium consisted of one keynote lecture and two panels. One of themost distinguished political geographers, Prof. John Agnew (UCLA), gave a keynote lecture
titled “Geopolitics in the Age of Globalization.” Prof. Agnew touched upon how transnational
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fluidity and networks have been
the focus of attention in the global
age; however, we have yet toovercome the hierarchy of states inreality. Therefore, he emphasized
the importance of geopolitics andan understanding of the world
through a spatial perspective
even in the age of globalization.
The other two sessions weretitled “Challenges to Sovereignty:
Practicing Contested Territories”
and “Border Aesthetics: Art at/along the Border,” where such
The main participants
prominent scholars in the world
as Akihiro Iwashita, Sangjin Shim (Gyeongi Univ.), Anne-Laure Amihat-Szary (Univ. of
Grenoble), and others made reports.
Other than this event itself, the members of ABS in Japan held a special meeting before
the symposium, and declared the tentative founding of the Japan Chapter of Border Studies,
which will assume the mission of being the academic core of border studies in the Asia-Pacificregion. Dr. Naomi Chi (Hokkaido Univ. Public Policy School) was selected as chairperson.
The secretariat will be located at CAFS.

Chida Tetsuro

The JIBSN Annual Seminar Was Held in
Nemuro City on the Border with Japan’s“Northern Territory” (February 13, 2016)
The Japan International Border Studies Network (JIBSN) held
its annual meeting in Nemuro
City on November 14, 2014. The
JIBSN is an exchange network on
border-related issues consisting ofpractitioners as well as scholars.
Local administrative officials on
the border gathered at the easternedge of Japan from Wakkanai,
Okinoshima, Tsushima, Goto,
Taketomi, Yonaguni, and Ogasawara. The seminar was open to
the public. The annual seminarconsisted of two parts. The firstsession was titled “Living in the
A speech by Mr. Hasegawa, Mayor of Nemuro
Borderlands: Northern Territory,
Takeshima & Senkaku,” where officials from Nemuro, Okinoshima, and Yonaguni, told of
the socio-economic realities of life in the borderlands in Japan, paying special attention to8

No.23 March 2016

unique and specific resources in the borderlands, which can be mobilized for their future
development. The second session is titled “Border Tourism in Japan: Achievements andPerspectives,” where speakers emphasized the necessity of making a concrete “story” overconducting a transboundary tour. The organizers of the Wakkanai-Sakhalin and Tsushima-Busan transboundary tours are prospering owing to the success of their “story” making.
At the same time, one speaker insisted that the tours should be seen from a “business” aswell as a “feasibility” perspective, aspects that make border tourism sustainable. Nemuro
City Office not only hosted the meeting, but also organized the excursion around the city and
up to Shibetsu and Rausu Towns. The next annual JIBSN meeting will be held in October
2016, hosted by Ogasawara Village Office in Tokyo.

Chida Tetsuro

Our Current Staff
Ieda Osamu: Professor, Environment of Eurasia; Area Studies on Eastern Europe, HungarianStudies
Iwashita Akihiro: Professor, Eurasia Border Studies; Russian Foreign Policy and Sino-Russian Relations
Koshino Go: Associate Professor, Russian and Belarusian Literature
Mochizuki Tetsuo: Professor, Russian Literature
Naganawa Norihiro: Associate Professor, Modern History of Central Eurasia; Islam in
RussiaNomachi Motoki: Associate Professor, Slavic Linguistics; General Linguistics
Sengoku Manabu: Professor, Comparative Politics and Political Economy; Welfare Politics
of Central and East European Countries
Tabata Shinichiro: Professor, Russian Economy and Comparative Economic Studies;
Director of the SRC
Uyama Tomohiko: Professor, Modern History and Politics of Central Asia; Comparative
Imperial History; Modern History and Politics of Central Asia; Comparative Imperial
HistoryDavid Wolff: Professor, Russian, Soviet, and Emigre History; Siberia and the Far East; Cold
War; Northeast Asian Region Construction
Yamamura Rihito: Comparative Economics; Russian Industry and Agriculture

Assistant Professors:
Chida Tetsuro: Russian History; Central Asian Area Studies; History of Geography
Takahashi Sanami: Russian Orthodoxy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Culture

Foreign Visiting Fellows 2015 (June) – 2016 (March)
Paul du Quenoy: The Russian Empire and the Arab Middle East
Tokhir Kalandarov: Problems of Cultural Interaction of Central Asian Migrants and RussianSociety
Kim Soo Hwan: The Russian Concept of “Everyday Life” (Byt) in Light of Typology
Stefan Kirmse: Law and Empire in Late Tsarist Russia: A New Legal Order in Crimea and
Kazan
Umut Korkut: Re-positioning Hungary in Eurasia: Narratives, Business Networks, andForeign Policy of Hungarian Conservatism in the 21st Century
9No.23 March 2016

Daniel Prior: The Kirghiz Epic of Manas: An Abridged Translation of a Central Asian Classic
Pavel Shabley: Discourses Regarding Muslim Spiritual Administration in the Kazakh Steppe
and Turkestan (End of the 19th Century to First Quarter of the 20th Century)

Research Fellows:
Amano Naoki: Russian Far East Modern History, Sakhalin Island Studies
Anastasia Fedorova: Japanese Cinema, Soviet Cinema, Transnational Cinematic Exchange
Goto Masanori: Cultural Anthropology; Cultural and Economic Agency in Russia
Kanayama Koji: Soviet Science and Technology History
Kikuta Haruka: Contemporary Social Changes in Central Asian Sedentary Society
Takahashi Minori: International Relations, Area Studies (Denmark, Greenland, and theArctic)Library and Information Service Staff:
Osuga Mika: Research Associate, Publications
Tonai Yuzuru: Associate Professor, SRC Head Librarian

Ongoing Cooperative Research Projects
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Excluding “Grants-inAid for JSPS Fellows” and “Grants-in-Aid for Publication of Scientific Research Results Scientific Literature)”

Scientific Research A
Headed by Uyama Tomohiko: “Comparative Colonial History: Colonial Administration
and Center-Periphery Interactions in Modern Empires” (2013–17)
Headed by Iwashita Akihiro: “Border Tourism: Border Studies for Community
Development” (2014–17)
Headed by Tabata Shinichiro: “Comparison of Development Models for Major Regional
Powers in Eurasia: Russia, China and India” (2015–18)
Headed by Ieda Osamu: “Destruction and Reconstruction of Human and Natural
Environments in Post-catastrophy Areas: Chernobyl, Ajka, and Fukushima” (2015–17)
Scientific Research B
Headed by David Wolff: “Russo-Chinese Relations: Researching Rapprochement”(2015–18)
Headed by Koshino Go: “Memoryscape of War in Socialist Countries: The Soviet
Union, China and Vietnam” (2013–16)
Headed by Nomachi Motoki: “A Comprehensive Study of the Slavic Micro Literary
Languages after the Revolution of Eastern Europe” (2013–16)
Headed by Hara Teruyuki: “Modern History of the Sakhalin Island (Karafuto), as a
Borderland Colony” (2013–16)
Scientific Research C
Headed by Naganawa Norihiro: “Revolutionary Empire: A Biography of Karim
Khakimov (1892–1937)” (2013–16)
Headed by Komoto Yasuko: “An Examination of ‘Lamaism’ Visual Materials in Modern
Japan” (2012–16)
Headed by Goto Masanori: “Anthropological Study of Entrepreneurship in Post-Socialist
Countries” (2014–16)
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Headed by Itani Hiroshi: “Characters and Social Influences of the ‘Hokushin’ (advanceto the north) Theory in the Empire of Japan: In the Cases of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands”(2014–16)
Challenging Exploratory Research
Headed by Ieda Osamu: “New Historical Approaches to Slavic Eurasia between
Emerging Eastern Europe and Imperial Japan” (2015–17)
Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists A
Headed by Takahashi Minori: “Self-government and Climate Change: ‘Autonomy inExternal and Internal Relations’ in Greenland” (2014–17)
Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists B
Headed by Chida Tetsuro: “Environmental History of the Aral Sea Basin after WorldWar II: Human Activities and Ecological Crisis” (2013–16)
Headed by Kanayama Koji: “Relationship between Science and Technology in the
1940s & 1950s Japan: A Philosophical and Social History” (2015–17)
Research Activity Startup
Headed by Takahashi Sanami: “Saints in Modern Times: Canonization and Venerationin the Russian Orthodox Church” (2014–15)
Headed by Kikuta Haruka: “Glocalization of Gender through Immigrant Labors inCentral Asian Muslim Societies” (2015–16)
Other Project
Headed by Tabata Shinichiro: “Russia’s Final Energy Frontier: Sustainability Challengesof the Russian Far North” (2014–2016) (Funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science and the Academy of Finland)

Visitors from Abroad
Elza-Bair Guchinova (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RAS, Russia),
May-October 2015: Visual Memory of Japanese POWs of Socialist Culture of Stalin’s Era
Gerard Clare (University of Glasgow), June-July 2015: The Relationship between Local
Government and Residents in Vladivostok: Residents’ Reaction to the Russian Development
Project of the Far East Region
Olga Puzanova (Oxford University, UK), July-October 2015: The Adaptation of
Orthodox Christianity to the Japanese Cultural Background in the Meiji Era
Irina Papkova (Georgetown University, USA), October-November 2015: The Orthodox
Church in Japan Seen from the Orthodox World: Multinationality and Gender

Guest Lecturers from Abroad«SRC/IREEES Joint Conference: Where Did Ukraine Come From? Where Is Ukraine
Heading For?» Shin Beom-Shik (Seoul National University, Korea) “Russia and the Ukraine
Crisis”; Park Won-Ho (Seoul National University, Korea) “The Ukraine Crisis from the US
Perspective”; Hahn Jeong-Sook (Seoul National University, Korea) “Mikhail Hrushevskii’s
View of Ukrainian History”; Lee Kyong-Wan (Seoul National University, Korea) “Christian
Reflections on Ukrainian Images at Gogol’s Oeuvres and Trends of Criticism,” December
6, 2014.
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No.23 March 2016

Konstantin Lifanov (Lomonosov Moscow State University) “Язык восточнословацких
публикаций в США и механизм его создания,” February 3, 2015.
Bojan Belić (University of Washington, USA) “To Standardize, Or Not To Standardize:That Is the Question,” February 4, 2015.
Andrew Wachtel (American University of Central Asia, Kyrgyz Rep.) “Nation Buildingin Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan between Manas and Kurmandjan-Datka,” February 26, 2015.
Turganbek Allaniiazov (Zhezkazgan University, Kazakhstan) “Антисоветские
повстанческие движения на Мангышлаке (Казахстан) и Каракумах (Туркменистан) вапреле-сентябре 1931 г.,” March 9, 2015.
Aleksandr Bobrov (Russian Academy of Sciences) “The Story of Akir the Wise in theMusin-Pushkin Collection”; Anica Vlašić-Anić (Old Church Slavonic Institute, Croatia) “TheCroatian Glagolitic Story of Akir the Wise (Slovo Premudrosti Akirově): An Intertextual‘literary Kaleidoscope’,” March 16, 2015.
Marjan Markovik’ (University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” of Skopje, Macedonia)“Macedonian Language Tendencies in Balkan Context,” March 24, 2015.
«International Workshop: Economic Growth of Economies in Transition in Comparison:from the Perspectives of Value Added Generation and Productivity» P. Hare (Heriot-Watt
University, UK) “The Political Economy of Growth and Governance”; P. Bhattacharya(Heriot-Watt University, UK) “The Role of Institutions: Lessons from History”; Kim B.-Y.
(Seoul National University) “The Performances of Chinese Firms in North Korean Trade:
Evidence from Firm-Level Data,” March 28, 2015.
Zbigniew Greń (University of Warsaw, Poland) “Identity at the Borders of Closely-Related Ethnic Groups: the Case in the Polish-Czech-Slovak Triangle”; Romuald Huszcza(University of Warsaw, Poland) “Semiotics of Interlinguistic Contacts in Present-day Polish,”March 29, 2015.
Viktor Larin (Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of Far Eastern Nations,
RAS) “Тихоокеанская Россия в контексте интересов и политики России в АТР в начале
21 век,” April 20, 2015.
Gail Fondahl (University of Northern British Columbia, Canada) “Indigenous Land
Rights in the Russian Federation: A Quarter Century Onward,” June, 15, 2015.
Siriporn Wajjwalku (Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand) “Introduction to Schoolof Social Innovation, Mae Fah Luang University”; Wanwalee Inpin (Mae Fah Luang
University) “An Efficiency of Local Administrative Organization in Chiang Rai Province
Toward a Mitigation of Earthquake Disaster”; Yuthpong Chantrawarin (Mae Fah Luang
University) “Footloose Gem Traders and The Grey-shaded Border Space of Mae Sai Border
Town,” July 13, 2015.
Bosya Kornusova (Kalmyk State University, Russia) “Minority Language Survival in
the Globalized World: The Kalmyk,” July 21, 2015.
Laada Bilaniuk (University of Washington, USA) “The Martial Art of Nonstandard
Language: ‘Boyovyj Surzhyk’ in the Construction of Ukrainian Identity”; Sun Bai (Renmin
University of China) “China without Sound: Nation, Gender, and Voice’s Identity in Chinese
Films of 1930s,” August 10, 2015.
Paul Wexler (Tel-Aviv University, Israel) “How Yiddish and Romani Can Contributeto Slavic and German Historical Linguistics?” August 13, 2015.
Artyom Lukin (Far Eastern Federal University, Russia) “The Russian Far East: Integrating with China or the Asia-Pacific?” August 27, 2015.
Ryszard Zajaczkowski (The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland) “TheExperience of Polish Exile: The Case of Joseph Wittlin,” September 7, 2015.
12No.23 March 2016

Kamrul Hossain (University of Lapland, Finland) “Governance of the Arctic: What
Future Do We See?” September, 2015.
Ilia Altman (Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center) “New Documents
and Perspectives on Chiune Sugihara: Results of Russo-Japanese Cooperative Research,”
November 6, 2015.
Raja Mohan (Observer Research Foundation, India) “India and the Asian Balance ofPower,” November 19, 2015.
Pavlo Gritsenko (Institute for the Ukrainian Language, National Academy of Sciencesof Ukraine) “Язык и культура после Чернобыля: проблемы сохранения и исследования,”December 16, 2015.

Памирская «Гармчашма» и Джозанкейв Саппоро
Tokhir Kalandarov (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RAS, Russia/
Foreign Fellow, SRC, 2015)Многие, наверное, видели японскую
фантастическую комедию «Римские термы»,где главный герой древний римлянин —архитектор Люциус (играет японский актер
Хироси Абе) чудесным образом из 128 годанашей эры попадет в современные японские
горячие источники (онсен). Нечто подобное
испытал и я, когда впервые по совету профессора Иноуэ сан побывал в горячем источникев пригороде Саппоро — Джозанкей онсен.
Затем я еще несколько раз посетил этиисточники. Меня, как и архитектора Люциуса удивило, во-первых, умение японцев
использовать дары природы гармонично
обустраивая их в соответствии со своими
человеческими потребностями и комфортомв абсолютном балансе с природой. Источникв Джозанкее (я несколько раз посетил отель
Jozankei View Hotel), имеет несколько залов
внутри здания (офуро), а также на природе
Автор(ротенбуро). Хочешь чувствовать себя ближек природе, пожалуйста, иди на улицу, хочешь почувствовать современные технологиис их удобствами, пожалуйста, заходи во внутренние термозалы. Ванны на природе,особенно были чудесны в зимнее время, когда вокруг шапками лежит искрящийся
белый снег, а ты сидишь и наслаждаешься покоем в воде. Самое время подумать овеличии Матери Природы, о смысле жизни, Вселенной и своем месте в ней. Люциус втом фильме по заданию императора при постройке бани должен был думать об отдыхеи восстановлении римских войск, сегодняшние источники также предназначены дляотдыха и лечения, но уже не солдат, а обычных мирных людей различных профессий.
Побывав и почувствовав целительное влияние источника, понимаешь, насколько они
13

No.23 March 2016важны для восстановления силжителей и гостей Саппоро.
Впервые в жизни я купалсяв горячем источнике на Памире
(Республика Таджикистан), гдея родился и вырос. Мне тогда
было 14 лет. Горячий источник находился в несколько
километрах от города Хорог
— административного центра
Горно-Бадахшанской автономной области Республики
Таджикистан, и назывался он«Гармчашма», что в переводес таджикского языка означает
«горячий источник». До сих порГармчашма на Памире
помню, как это было необычнои в то же время забавно. Ванна была одна, и между женщинами и мужчинами всегда
было некое соревнование, кто раньше поднимется на высоту, где была эта ванна, тотчас будет мужским или женским (в мусульманском обществе мужчины и женщины
совместно не купаются). На мой детский вопрос о том, почему не построить дальше
отдельную ванну, например для женщин, взрослые люди, в том числе и мой папа неответили. Увидев несколько залов для мужчин и женщин в Джозанкей, в том числе ионсен на 16 этаже с потрясающим видом на гору, вспомнил то детское время купанияв источнике Гармчашма на Памире. Сегодня в Гармчашме, конечно, уже есть мужскиеи женские залы, а вот до второго этажа воду еще не подняли. Видимо, необходима
помощь японских инженеров.
На мой взгляд, есть много общего между Гармчашмой и Джозанкеем. Первое
сходство это, конечно ландшафт. Горы объединяют их. Во-вторых, эти источники
привлекают к себе много иностранцев. На Гармчашме иностранная речь, особенно
летом, слышна постоянно. Вот и в Джозанкей приезжают туристы из разных стран
мира. К примеру, в прошедшую субботу я прямо в открытом онсене познакомилсяс туристом из Малайзии. Он оказался мусульманином, узнав, что и я принадлежу кэтой религии, очень обрадовался. Я спросил его про религиозную жизнь в его родной
стране. По его словам для мусульман есть исламский закон — шариа, а для остальных
гражданский кодекс. Шиизм в его стране вне закона. Так же переход из мусульманства вдругую религию карается смертью. Мой собеседник сторонник таких жестких законов,иначе это нарушает дисциплину, сказал он. Он очень удивился, когда я ему сказал, чтов Таджикистане за смену веры людей не убивают.
Еще одно сходство этих мест в том, что они являются местом уединения человека,здесь он может побыть наедине с самим собой и с Природой. Как правило, в отличиеот обычных аквапарков или общественных бань, люди в горячих источниках практически никогда не шумят. Они погружены в свой мир, они слушают тишину. Если дляяпонцев гармония человека с природой — это часть религии, то памирцы до сих порчтят великую зороастрийскую триаду — благие мысли, благие слова и благие дела.
Время, проведенное в горячем источнике — это возможность укрепить в себе этидуховные начала жизни.
Так, на Памире считается, что особые свойства воды в источнике, их воздействиена кожу и прием внутрь балансируют человеческое тело. Пациенты, приезжающие за
14

No.23 March 2016исцелением, часто пьют немного воды перед погружением в ванну. По словам доктора
Ширинбека, который много лет занимается исследованием горячих источников Памира,вода заряжена физической измеряемой энергией, которая является физическим выражением глубинной духовной энергии baraka — благодать. Поскольку тело человека
также заряжено энергией, когда оно соприкасается с энергией горячей воды заряд
тела и нарушенное равновесие меняются и начинают приходить в состояние баланса.
Вода, которая прорывается пузырьками из глубинных подземных источников проходит
через бесчисленные слои энергетически заряженных элементов, которые наделяютее целительной силой. Неся в себе земную энергию, вода становится более мощной
генерирующей силой, чем слабая энергия болезни внутри человека. В этих отношениях
между водой и пациентом мы наблюдаем возможности воды, как балансирующей имодулирующей силы физического тела.
В очередной раз, возвращаясь на автобусе из Джозанкей, я думал о том, как Природа
равномерно распределяет свои блага человечеству. Если одним дает нефть, другим воду,одним пустыни, а другим горы. И все зависитот человечества, с какой благодарностью онопримет этот дар и как оно им пользуется.
Как у природы нет плохой погоды, так инет плохих географических мест. Как мыбережно относимся к ним, и как мы ихпередадим будущему поколению — это ужедругой вопрос. Особая нежная любовь к томуместу, где родился человек, это, скорее всего,эмоциональная привязанность, возникающаяв момент рождения. Видимо, поэтому я такполюбил эту горную часть Японии. Онанапоминала мне мой родной Памир с егоГармчашмой. Вот и на этот раз в автобусея невольно вспомнил песню незабвенного
российского поэта Владимира Высоцкого
«Лучше гор могут быть только горы»...
Джозанкей в СаппороThe SRC’s 60th Anniversary at a Time of Great
Challenges for Russian-Eurasian Studies
Stefan Kirmse (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany/Foreign Fellow, SRC,
2015)
On December 10–11, 2015, the fellows of the Foreign Visitors program had the opportunity to take part in the Slavic-Eurasian Studies Center celebrating its 60th anniversary. A
large number of Slavic and Eurasian specialists, policymakers, and graduate students fromall over Japan, east Asia, the United States, Russia, and Western Europe came together fora two-day symposium, looking back at the center’s development from the mid-1950s andreflecting on the present and future of Slavic-Eurasian studies as a separate field of inquiry.
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No.23 March 2016

As contemporaries and historians shared their memories and stories about the center’s
origins, intriguing facts about the peculiarities and challenges of establishing an area studies
center during the Cold War emerged, not least because it was a research center devoted to
one of the Cold War’s protagonists, the Soviet Union. It was the first of its kind in Japan andremains the largest to this day. The ways in which the foundation of the center, including
its location in Sapporo rather than Tokyo, initially reflected American wishes and interests
account for one such curious fact. The Rockefeller Foundation was perhaps the most vital
actor at this time, examining potential locations and helping to find appropriate scholars
for the center. That the name “Slavic Research Center” (changed to Slavic-Eurasian only
very recently) was preferred to Russian or Soviet Research Center is another curious fact.
Whereas the latter options might have appeared too sympathetic to the communist cause (soit was feared), “Slavic” offered the advantage that “no one really knew what it meant,” as
one of the contemporaries put it. Clearly, the foundation and early development of the center
showed the close entanglement of academia and politics during this highly politicized period.
At the same time, with its array of fascinating contributions by historians, politicalscientists, international relations experts, policymakers, and scholars of literature, thesymposium showcased the continued appeal of area studies as a form of academic research.
To me, as an anthropologist-turned-historian with 15 years of experience in the British andGerman university sectors, this became all the more clear in the course of the two days. Theinterdisciplinary study of Russia and Eurasia has become somewhat out of fashion in the
post-communist world (though, admittedly, in some countries such as Germany it was neverin fashion). Narrow disciplinary approaches now tend to prevail, and funding for anything
related to the Slavic and Eurasian world seems to have reached a new low. And yet, the lively
discussion at the symposium reminded me that there is still a strong case to be made for areastudies, and Russian and Eurasian studies, in particular. What are the current challenges?
One of the field’s problems is that the general interest, and funding along with it, has
moved to other areas. China, South Asia, and the Middle East, as highly dynamic regions,have moved center-stage. Yet, the Ukrainian crisis and Russia’s active new role in the Middle
East (for better or worse) offer first hints that expertise on the former Soviet bloc may not
be as twentieth-century as some people claim. In Germany, first signs of a change of mind
are already visible: several university departments of Russian history, earmarked for closurea few years ago, have been reinvigorated and staffed with young scholars since early 2014.
Politics clearly matter.
A second challenge is that the field’s geographical area and object of study is more
unclear than ever. It is another question deeply enmeshed with politics. In Sapporo, there is apronounced focus on Russia and Muslim Eurasia — partly reflected in the center’s new name.
The exploration of “Eurasia” as a concept also surfaced elsewhere, notably in Britain, where
I spent several years at Oxford and London universities and witnessed the relevant debates.
At Oxford’s St Antony’s College, the turn towards “Eurasia” was less of an embrace of a
new research agenda. The change of the Russian and East European Studies program to theRussian and Eurasian Studies program reflected the determination of the central and eastern
Europeans to be treated as part of Europe. They did not want to be grouped together with
Russia any longer. To students of Russia, in turn, the rather amorphous category of Eurasia
presented itself as a welcome new partner. Still, it was more complicated than that, as the caseof the University of London demonstrates. Here, the study of Central Asia and the Caucasus,
rather than the study of Eastern Europe, was detached from the purview of Slavonic studies.
As the former Soviet South’s cultural affiliation with the Turko-Persian world came to be
stressed after 1991, the idea of studying it as part of the Soviet and post-Soviet worlds wasincreasingly seen as an anachronism. Like in Oxford, then, distancing from Russia was a16

No.23 March 2016

crucial factor in the reorganization of area studies. Unlike in Oxford, though, the result was
not a reinvigorated Eurasia. With the former Soviet bloc cut into a northern and a southernhalf, studied at separate institutes with almost no teaching or research links between them,
the notion of Eurasia was made almost meaningless. London and Oxford, of course, are only
examples. What they represent is the lack of a consensus on what we study in the field of
former Soviet research, and how we study it.
The third challenge is the contested nature of area studies. Here the cases of Oxford andLondon are infinitely more encouraging than what I have experienced in Germany. Areastudies centers proliferated in the Anglo-American world after the Second World War. Theynever acquired the same salience at German universities. Repeatedly, I was asked at the
symposium what the big questions in Russian and Eurasian studies in Germany were. The
answer is simple. There are no such questions because this field of inquiry—very sadly—does
not exist. Germany thinks in terms of disciplines. A large number of Soviet historians engage
in projects that, at most, they share with historians working on Germany or other parts of
the world. Some even claim that regionally-specific history is pointless. The same logic
applies to anthropologists working on the post-Soviet space. They only operate in their own
discipline. To be sure, there is a lot of money for interdisciplinary research in Germany. Alas,this money is never spent on regions. It is allocated for grand, fuzzy themes, such as war,
representation, or limited statehood. What kind of multidisciplinary expertise these projects
produce is unclear to most people; it certainly isn’t policy-relevant regional expertise.
Given these multiple challenges for area studies in general and Russian and Eurasianstudies, in particular, the discussion at the Sapporo symposium seemed refreshing and timely.
Few answers were given, but many important questions were raised. For the last 25 years, thefield has been self-absorbed and defensive. It is time to turn to the big questions again and topush for a broad, international research agenda. What does the Russo-Eurasian world teachus about the transformation and persistence of authoritarian rule in post-socialist society,what does its history tell us about current responses to nationhood and multiculturalism in
the area and the world at large? What is this oft-cited but never fully analyzed category of
the “socialist legacy”? Such questions call for sustained multidisciplinary cooperation. Areastudies are as necessary and valuable now as they were forty or sixty years ago.

Hiyodori Days
Daniel Prior (Miami University, USA/Foreign Fellow, SRC, 2015)
My five-month stay at the Slavic–Eurasian Research Center allowed me to focus oncompleting the first-ever English translation of Saġımbay Orozbaq uulu’s version of The
Memorial Feast for Kökötöy Khan, a Kirghiz (Central Asian Turkic) epic that contains more
poetic lines than the Odyssey.
Despite my absorption in the difficult work, Sapporo and Hokkaido generously gave me
many exciting and charming experiences. The bird life is particularly memorable. A casual
bird watcher has many opportunities to make new acquaintances around the city, particularlyon the well-wooded Hokkaido University campus. Many of the birds look more or less familiar
to a visitor from other north temperate regions, though with interesting Hokkaido accents.
Like many a calling in life, my first summons to pay attention to the birds of Sapporo
came in a manner not of my choosing. One morning soon after arriving, jet-lagged andsleeping too lightly, I was awakened at 4:00 by the incredibly loud sound of a bird singing
its heart out not at all tunefully in the pre-dawn light of the northern summer. This was my17

No.23 March 2016

Brown-eared bulbuls (hiyodori) near the Hokudai foreign scholars’ residence
and the SRC (all photographs by the author)
introduction to the hiyodori or brown-eared bulbul (Hypsipetes amaurotis), a bird I was glad
to be able get to know beyond the first impression. The brown-eared bulbul is about thesize of thrush or small jay, long-tailed with a strong, slender bill and an upright bearing. Itsfeathers are gray with brownish-gray wings, light speckling on the belly, and brown “ear”
patches. Its upper body feathers, especially on the head, resist smoothing and give it a sort of
spiky, just-showered look. The assertive call of the hiyodori sounds like a squeaky toy being
chewed over and over again with unceasing gusto by an excited puppy. They have no lackof interlocutors, for although they do not live in flocks they often descend together wherevera meal can be had. These birds are found
all over Japan and northeast Asia and are
migratory, but the migration routes arerather short, which meant that Sapporo wasnever without hiyodori from somewhere.
I noticed an increase in their numbers
over the course of the autumn; perhaps
more of them were arriving from northern
Hokkaido. From about mid-October until
my departure in late December a group of
about half a dozen hiyodori came daily
between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to theginkgo trees outside my office window on
A Japanese large-billed crow with its irides- the east side of the SRC building, and fed
cent-black body and oversized bill. This indi- noisily on the overripe, cherry-like fruits.
vidual appears to be molting, which may help
to explain why it was resting on the ground and They were jolly, endlessly interestingneighbors with an air of optimism about
not in the trees18No.23 March 2016

them. I found myself opening up
the window despite the cold tosnap pictures and even listen in on
their amazingly unmusical racket.
This is why I have come to lookback on the period of my SRC
fellowship as my hiyodori days.
The hiyodori are one thing,
but by far the most raucous
residents of Sapporo are theabundant hashibuto-garasu or
Japanese large-billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos japonensis).
These huge birds are seemingly
everywhere in and around theuniversity, cawing to each other Two Japanese large-billed crows in a tree outsidewith hoarse, human-like voices. the window of my SRC office
On campus they enjoy hanging
around the beautiful Central Lawn as much as people do. They prefer to scavenge garbage
for their food, and do so quite brazenly and socially. The netting placed over neighborhood
refuse collection points seems to be no obstacle to their turning a normally neat and clean
Sapporo townscape into a litter-strewn picnic ground.
The SRC itself provides apeculiar comment on life in Sapporo with the crows. Upon my firstarrival, having traversed a gauntlet
of low-flying crows that brought tomind scenes from Hitchcock’s The
Birds, I reached the front door of the
SRC building and was greeted by asign: “Watch out for the crows!!”
Just when I thought I was about toenter the safety of the building, thesign seemed to be warning visitorsthat the crows would be evenmore bothersome on the inside.
Fortunately the well-intentioned
sign is merely misplaced. You can
Outside the front door of the SRC
go anywhere inside the building andyou won’t be disturbed.
The suzume or Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus) is a close relative and near
twin of the ubiquitous house sparrow of Europe and North America. These lively, aerobatic
sparrows are probably the second most easily-seen birds in Sapporo after crows. They takegreat advantage of the conveniences of living around human habitation.
The gojūkara or Eurasian nuthatch (Sitta europaea), common across Eurasia, is expert
and tireless in its hunt for bark-dwelling grubs and insects, for which its compact body andneedle bill are perfectly adapted. With its slate-blue back, white and chestnut underparts,and black eye stripe, this vivid ball of energy often caught my eye as it made its rapid yetmethodical way along the trunks of trees, upward and downward with equal ease. Its songis a pleasantly varied, high-pitched trill.
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In behavior the shijūkara or Japanesetit (Parus minor) resembles its relatives
the various Eurasian tits and the North
American black-capped chickadee, thelatter being also a near look-alike andsound-alike. I often saw groups of thesefeisty little birds in the branches of Sapporo’s many spruces, pines and yews.
The yamagara or varied tit (Sittiparus
varius) is a striking bird I glimpsed only
seldom. Small and active, with gray wings,
a chestnut breast and back, and a black headbanded by a broad, horizontal white “mask”
with yellow accents, this little bird madefor a memorable though fleeting scene on ahike in the thick woodland surrounding the
Two tree sparrows struggling over a berry Sapporo Peace Pagoda. One later showed
while clinging to the wall of the main library up by the balcony of my apartment in theforeign scholars’ residence.
Waterfowl such as oshidori, the mandarin duck (Aix galericulata) raised families anddrew lots of human admirers in the lovely lily pond on campus known as Ono Pond. In latesummer and autumn when I was there, the malemandarin ducks were already wearing theireclipse plumage, looking like the dusky females,rather than their magnificent multi-colored mating attire. Mandarin ducks are native throughout
Japan, but on Hokkaido they stay only to breedin the summer.
I did not get to see famous feathered iconsof Hokkaido such as the endangered Japanesecranes (Grus japonensis) in their reserve near
Kushiro, or the Steller’s sea eagle (Haliaeëtus pelagicus; apart from one in Sapporo’s
Maruyama Zoo). Maybe next time. But I did
discover a vibrant avian city alongside the humanone, which rewarded a little curiosity and patient
scouting with a lot of diverting color, sound, andactivity. The partly meditative, partly thrillingquest with eyes, ears and camera nicely counterbalanced my brain’s main tasks. The birds also
gave me an appreciation for the opportunities
A Eurasian nuthatch tweezing a live insect that came with my SRC fellowship along withfrom under the bark of a tree not far from the friends I made and the satisfactions of intense
the SRC on a freezing morningscholarly work.

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Publications (2015)
Shinichiro Tabata, ed., Eurasia’s Regional Powers
Compared: China, India, Russia (Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK:
Routledge, 2015) (in English)

Taking a long view, and a wide perspective, this book by Japan’s
leading scholars on Asia and Eurasia provides a comprehensive andsystematic comparison of the three greatest powers in the region andassesses how far the recent growth trajectories of these countries are
sustainable in the long run. The book demonstrates the huge impact
on the region of these countries. It examines the population, resourceand economic basis for the countries’ rise, considers political, socialand cultural factors, and sets recent developments in a long historicalcontext. Throughout, the different development paths of the three
countries are compared and contrasted, and the new models for the
future of the world order which they represent are analyzed.

Slavic Studies, no. 62, 2015, refereed journal of the SRC(in Japanese with summaries in English or Russian).
Acta Slavica Iaponica vol. XXXVI, 2015, refereed journal of the SRC (in English andRussian).
Koshino Go, ed., “History and Perspective of Russian Science Fiction” [Slavic Eurasia
Papers, no. 7] (Sapporo: SRC, 2015).
Ljudmila Popović and Motoki Nomachi, eds., “The Serbian Language as Viewed by
the East and the West: Synchrony, Diachrony, and Typology” [Slavic Eurasian Studies, no.
28] (Sapporo: SRC, 2015) (in English and Russian).
Osamu Ieda and Susumu Nagayo, eds., “Transboundary Symbiosis over the Danube:
II” [Slavic Eurasian Studies, no. 29] (Sapporo: SRC, 2015) (in English and Russian).
Yamane So and Naganawa Norihiro, eds., “Borderlands and Minorities across EurasianRegional Powers” [Series: Comparative Studies on Regional Powers, no. 5] (Tokyo: Minerva
Shobo, 2015) (in Japanese).
Japan Border Review, no. 5, 2015, refereed journal in Japanese.

The Library
Microfilm of “Československý denník”
In 2014 and 2015, the SRC Library purchased four reels of “Československý denník,”
which cover whole issues. The newspaper began to be published by the Czechoslovak National
Council, after the October Revolution in Russia, in December 1917 in Kiev. It was the organof the Czechoslovak Legion, so its place of issue transferred along with the movement of the
Legion. From March to April 1918, it was issued in Penza and, after that, moved to Omsk,
Chelyabinsk, Omsk again, Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Manchuria, and finally Vladivostok from
April to July 1920.
It is well known that the Czechoslovak Legion was a very important actor in the Russian
Civil War, and the newspaper provides us with invaluable insider information.

Tonai Yuzuru

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Contents
2015 Summer International Symposium “Russia and Global History”................... p. 1
The SRC 60th Anniversary Symposium and Reception........................................... p. 3
SRC Article in German Distributed as English Pre-Print
аt Makuhari ICCEES 2015................................................................................ p. 6
The Border Studies Summer School on 25–28 July, 2016...................................... p. 7
International Symposium “Contesting Territories: Sovereignty, Tourism, andAesthetics” (November 23, 2015)................................................................... p. 7
The JIBSN Annual Seminar Was Held in Nemuro City on the Border with Japan’s“Northern Territory” (February 13, 2016)....................................................... p. 8
Our Current Staff.................................................................................................... p. 9
Ongoing Cooperative Research Projects.............................................................. p. 10
Visitors from Abroad............................................................................................ p. 11
Guest Lecturers from Abroad............................................................................... p. 11
Essay: Памирская «Гармчашма» и Джозанкей в Саппоро
by Tokhir Kalandarov..................................................................................... p. 13
Essay: The SRC’s 60th Anniversary at a Time of Great Challenges for RussianEurasian Studies by Stefan Kirmse ................................................................ p. 15
Essay: Hiyodori Days by Daniel Prior.................................................................... p. 17
Publications (2015)............................................................................................... p. 21
The Library............................................................................................................ p. 21

Slavic-Eurasian Research Center
Hokkaido University
Kita-9, Nishi-7, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0809 Japan
Telephone: (81) 11-706-2388
Facsimile:(81) 11-706-4952
E-mail: src@slav.hokudai.ac.jp
Internet home page:
http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/index-e.html

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