Chinese in Prieniseyskya (Enisey-side) Siberia in the late 1910s - 1920s: the study of the regional version of the migrant community

The research emphasizes the complexity of studying the diversity of Chinese presence in Russia, which makes the task of analyzing the livelihoods of communities of Chinese migrants in its regional options relevant and effective. Proceeding from this, the task is to analyze the specific circumstances of the functioning of the Chinese migrant community in the Yenisei Siberia in the late 1910s-1920s; to correlate the research results with those meanings and imports that are embedded in the concept of the diaspora, to answer the question of how applicable it is in this case. Sources for the work were archival materials, often first introduced into scientific circulation, for example, registration sheets, trade patents, documents on Chinese organized crime, statistical materials, regional press materials, etc. The authors have come to the conclusion that the regional community of Chinese migrants in Yenisei Siberia demonstrates its own specific experience of living in a new Russian environment. At the same time, it is a fragment of an extensive network of Chinese communications in Russia. The following characteristics were singled out and analyzed: fluidity of the group composition, reproduction through external and internal migration, prevalence of general activities such as entrepreneurship and trade. In addition, were noted: isolation of the community, strength of ties with the homeland, cultural distance with the host community, vitality of the Chinese traditional way of life, existence of informal institutionalization in the Chinese environment, and not the professional (by type of activity) or the national (by region of origin in China) but of a criminal nature. Among those living in the late 1910s and 1920s in Krasnoyarsk, almost no one connected their future with Russia, on the contrary, they were eager to return to their homeland, and only the lack of resources and opportunities in the conditions of turbulent upheavals in Russia did not allow this to happen. The authors concluded that the analysis of the specific historical circumstances of the functioning of the Chinese community in Yenisei Siberia does not allow to describe it in diaspora categories and to talk about the community of the diaspora.

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