TOMSK, June 12 – RIA Novosti. Russian Koreans studying in schools and universities in Moscow, Togliatti, Stavropol, Tomsk and Tashkent wrote essays about their lives in Russia. They told us what language they dream in and what, from their point of view, spoils the image of a cultural country.

In April, Tomsk State Pedagogical University (TSPU) announced the start of an all-Russian competition for the best essay in Russian, “Why is my future connected with Russia.” The competition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the voluntary resettlement of Koreans to Russia, and its participants were Koreans studying in the Russian Federation.

The competition was timed to coincide with the interethnic forum of youth of Siberia and the Far East “Together we are strong”, which is taking place these days in Tomsk.

Talented Sisters

“I, a girl with a Korean surname and a Russian soul, am proud to live in multinational Russia!” — Moscow ninth-grader Di-Yong Dong writes in her essay. She, like many other participants in the competition, was born not in Russia - in Uzbekistan, and dreams of visiting Korea.

As the girl told a RIA Novosti correspondent, her dream will come true this summer - the schoolgirl plans to go to visit her brother, who is studying in the capital of South Korea - Seoul.

The girl’s parents, teachers by training, brought their daughter to Russia in 1998. Di-young was only eight years old at the time. She says that there are many teachers in her family on her mother’s side: her grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked as teachers. The schoolgirl herself does not yet know who she will become.

“I am in the ninth grade of secondary school No. 1086 with a Korean component of education in Moscow. Not only Koreans study at the school, but also Russians, Tatars, Armenians and others. The atmosphere at the school is friendly,” she writes in her essay.

“I love listening to Russian folk songs and romances. My grandmother, Frida Vasilievna, knew a lot of Russian romances and really loved performing them.<…>Now, living in Moscow, I often go to the movies, theaters, museums, and concerts. Our grandfather is given discounted tickets and free invitations as someone rehabilitated from illegal political repression. So he invites us one by one to various concerts and performances,” adds the schoolgirl.

Di-Yeon took third place in her age category (14-18 years old). She came to Tomsk for the award ceremony with her cousin Maria Lee, who participated in the competition in a different age category - 19-25 years old.

“150 years together. Is it a lot or a little? Of course, on a historical scale, very little, but for the life of an individual this is a big date. The arithmetic calculation of one generation is equal to 25 years. This means that the sixth generation of ethnic Koreans lives in Russia.<…>In our family, I am a Russian in the fifth generation,” writes Maria Lee.

Her great-grandfather and grandfather lived for a significant time in Uzbekistan, where they were resettled from the Far East in 1937. “My grandfather now lives in Moscow. I consider myself Korean, although my native language is Russian. I was given a Russian name. My patronymic is also Russian,” shares a student at the Russian State University of Tourism and Service.

"A simple Russian Korean"

In their essays, schoolchildren and students talked about their dreams and hopes - they connect their lives with Russia and hope that in the future they will not hear phrases like “Russia is for Russians.”

“I went to school in Moscow, where I first encountered a problem: sometimes people passing by looked at me strangely. Even though I was a child, I already realized that it was because of my dark skin and narrow eyes. Then it was just a child’s school. "I'm offended, I didn't yet know the importance and global nature of this problem. I urge everyone to be tolerant of each other," writes Yulia Kim, a student at the capital's school.

Korean Muscovite Di-Yong Don told a RIA Novosti correspondent that unpleasant events happened in her life because of her nationality. “At school, no, everything is calm there. It was in the subway, my dad was once attacked there because of his nationality. But, thank God, the police showed up, everything turned out okay,” she recalls.

“Having lived in Moscow for several years, I feel some discomfort, especially when I am in crowded places. Sometimes you hear: “We’ve come in large numbers here!” writes Maria Lee.

The girl is sure that the troubles that migrants get into in Russia “spoil the image of a great and cultural Russia.”

“How I, a simple Russian Korean, will feel in society will depend on the intelligentsia, public and government figures. But the future of a huge country depends on the moral well-being of every citizen,” the student believes.

However, young Koreans note, all this does not prevent them from loving Russian cities, for example Moscow.

“This is a city in which, of course, you can find what you are looking for. Both education and work. There is an unusually large selection of universities, institutes, academies, and colleges,” says Anna Tigai, a student at Moscow school No. 1086.

Found homeland

The chairman of the competition jury, a teacher at TSPU with 20 years of experience, Anna Kuryanovich, told RIA Novosti that all participants wrote about the Russian language as a means of unifying the nation.

“The guys, 18 in total, wrote, starting with their small homeland, where they were born, they wrote that they had lived in the Russian Federation for a long time, how they saw their situation from the inside - a Korean child living in Russia. Someone wrote about books, grandparents. Everyone considers Russia their homeland, historical, genetic or acquired,” she said.

“They write that they lived in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, in foreign countries, but want to live in Russia. The general ideological tone is light, these are texts with good faith in the future.<…>You can’t write well about your homeland, about the language “by order”, if you haven’t passed it through not only your brain, but also through your feelings,” emphasized the chairman of the jury.

Polyglots are in fashion

Many competition participants say that knowledge of Russian and other languages ​​at the same time will definitely be useful to them. This is not just fashionable and prestigious, but allows you to establish interethnic ties even at the school-university level.

"I dream of mastering the Chinese and Spanish languages. Knowledge of languages ​​allows a person to know the diversity of cultures and makes him highly educated in society. I feel very comfortable at home, at work, at the institute. I am friends not only with Koreans, but also with Russians, Jews, Armenians, Uzbeks and others. They all treat me well and respectfully. It’s easy for me to communicate with them,” Maria Lee said in her essay.

As one of the contestants, a fifth-grader from Moscow Zhu Suzhin, writes, “in order to convey the colorfulness of the Russian language, one has to work hard to revive all the eloquence of the Russian language in the Korean language.”

Grandfather dreams of going to Crimea

Young Russian Koreans especially noted in their writings the “miracles” of the country - natural monuments and reserves. They said that they use every opportunity to travel around the country - they go to competitions, competitions, and travel with their family.

“My grandfather promised to take me to Zvenigorod to listen to the trills of a nightingale. Once he served in the army in those parts and heard this wonderful singing, which he remembered forever.<…>Grandfather dreams of going to Crimea, which has become part of the Russian Federation this year, as it was 23 years ago. He promises to take me with him to this peninsula,” writes Dong Di-young.

Admiring the Russian open spaces, the contestants recall Russian classics of literature, quote poems about nature, confess their love for birch trees and summer in the countryside. Everything is in the tradition of the “mysterious Russian soul”.

They also remember famous Koreans who lived in Russia, for example, Viktor Tsoi. “He is listened to, sung and re-sung as often as the “encyclopedia of Russian life of the 19th century” “Eugene Onegin” is re-read. The work of Viktor Tsoi can confidently be considered the “encyclopedia of Russian life” of the 80s of the 20th century,” says Anna Tigai.

I see dreams in Russian

"So who am I? Korean or Russian, who is more in me? What should I call myself? On the one hand, I speak and think in Russian, I see dreams in Russian. And on the other hand, I have a Korean surname, oriental eye shape, customs and the traditions in the family are Korean, partly Russian. I think it would be correct to say that I am a Russian Korean,” writes contestant Maria Lee.

She notes that the phrase “Russian Koreans” was firmly established in the Russian Federation after the collapse of the USSR. “My ancestors up to the third generation, who lived in Russia, were simply called “Koreans,” and starting from my great-grandfather, they were called “Soviet Koreans.” And now those who live in the Russian Federation are called “Russian Koreans,” she writes.

Maria Lee became the winner of the competition in her age group - from 19 to 25 years old. Among schoolchildren, the work of Veronica Kim from the Tomsk Humanitarian Lyceum was recognized as the best. A schoolgirl imagined that she was interviewing her favorite writer, Mikhail Bulgakov.

And this is what a tenth-grader of the capital’s school, Zhong Min Jong, wrote about Russia: “At the age of 17, I imagine my own life as a separate chapter in history - everything begins with something and ends with something. I am a child of two cultures, but my beginning gave me Homeland - Russia."

A little over 150 years ago, peasant families from Korea voluntarily left the borders of their state and rushed to the Far East. HLEB is trying to figure out what made them flee their home country

They fled for various reasons. At first, forays beyond the new borders of the Russian Empire, according to the Aigun Treaty of 1858 and the Beijing Treaty of 1860, were due to the search for wild ginseng and the extraction of hunting trophies. Rumors about the riches of the northern lands spread quite quickly among the poor. Unfortunately, the Korean government's policies only aggravated the situation in the country by tightening tax payments. Under pain of death, Korean peasants left their lands in search of salvation. By the way, among the settlers there were also exiled revolutionaries who, at the expense of the Russian treasury, settled in the most remote places of that time.

In January 1864, 65 people arrived in the South Ussuri region. Unbeknownst to the Korean authorities, the first 14 families founded the Korean village of Tizinghe in Russia near the Chinese border. Now all that remains of this village (now the village of Vinogradnoye) is the building of the St. Innocent Church, rebuilt as a border outpost barracks.

Only the bravest and most resilient reached Russian lands. Some people, on the way to the north, went to Manchuria and did not return. It is difficult to determine how many people did not reach the Russian border, but the mortality rate among those resettled was also extremely high.

The Korean and Chinese governments did their best to prevent the wholesale resettlement of Koreans. But later the Russian rulers also joined them, since the spontaneous increase in immigration caused some concerns. On the one hand, the Russians tried to avoid conflict with their foreign neighbors, but they did not want to lose cheap labor.

In total, in 1878, the total number of Koreans was 6,766 people, of which 624 people, through the efforts of Russian managers, lived in the Amur region (now the Jewish Autonomous Region, the village of Blagoslovennoye)

Each family in Blessed had a large vegetable garden at the estate, and the house and outbuildings were located in the center of the entire plot, which ensured the safety of neighbors in the event of a possible fire. The streets were divided into neat, regular blocks. (The location of the houses and streets has been preserved - this can be verified thanks to satellite imagery.) The possibility of an attack by Chinese bandits was not excluded, since the village is located in close proximity to China. Therefore, for the safety of the residents, the village was surrounded by an adobe wall a little more than two meters high, in which dugouts and loopholes with guards were built.

Also, three schools were opened in the village: a parish school for boys, a ministerial school for girls, which was maintained at the expense of the Ministry of Public Education, and a Korean one. The latter was attended by only 8 people, who had to study in their parents' fanzes, but here children could study Korean and Chinese writing, basic information on Eastern geography and arithmetic.

Despite attempts to contain the mass Korean resettlement in the Amur region, after seven years there were 8,500 registered settled Koreans, and 12,500 foreigners. In addition, up to 3 thousand people came to work every year.

Russian settlement of the Far East remained a priority, so in 1886 the decision of the congress on the Korean issue was a petition to ban Korean and Chinese settlements in border areas; those who had previously resettled should be evicted deeper into the territory of the region, and the developed lands should be transferred to the use of migrant peasants. In this way, many villages were formed in the Khabarovsk and Primorye Territories, to which the journey even now requires special physical effort.

The “Regulations on Chinese and Korean subjects in the Amur region” solved the problem of the Russian authorities with the development of the Far Eastern territories. All Koreans who were on the territory of the Russian Empire were conditionally divided into three categories. The first group included those who settled before 1884 - they were allowed to remain in the Ussuri region, but take Russian citizenship. The second includes those who moved after 1884, but wish to accept Russian citizenship. The third category included temporary residents who came to work. They had no right to settle on state lands. It was possible to stay only if you received residence tickets.

The Korean population made a significant contribution to the development of the Far East. In the South Ussuri region, arable farming began to develop, which was the main occupation of Korean peasants. In the 70s, there was even a surplus of bread, which led to lower prices. In addition, the Koreans built bridges, built dirt roads and railways, and laid communication routes. In general, the Korean people took their work responsibly, as Governor-General A. N. Korf himself admitted:

"Since 1887," he wrote , - the Koreans living with us were involved in serving zemstvo duties not only on an equal basis with the Russian population, but even on a much larger scale.<…>They built new roads free of charge, from the Novokievsky tract to the Razdolny settlement and from the Podgornaya station to the village of Iskakova, a total of more than 300 versts. In general, I must speak with great praise about the conscientious performance by the Koreans of all the duties assigned to them».

Thus, Koreans became a politically important part of the Russian population. However, in order for the Korean population to be maximally involved in the affairs of the empire, it was necessary to carry out educational reforms. The simplest way to Russify Koreans was propaganda through the Orthodox Church. This was especially important for those remote villages where there were no schools, since the clergy were the only literate people among the entire population.

As a result, in 1883-1902, the total Russian population in the Primorsky region increased from 8,385 to 66,320 people. The number of the Korean population of the region over the years has increased from 10,137 to 32,380 people. After the establishment of the Japanese colonial regime in Korea, the emigration of Koreans became more widespread. In addition to the sharp deterioration in material conditions, some people fled purely for political reasons. Among these were participants in the anti-Japanese national liberation struggle. But it was actually difficult to take into account the number of Koreans constantly arriving, since many arrived illegally, bypassing customs posts with Russia. The Japanese authorities did not issue passports and prohibited emigration, which made it difficult to resettle in Russia, and it was also not easy to purchase Russian residence cards. So the influx from Korea in 1910 increased by another 10 thousand. The population increased by about 600-700 people every month. In 1917, the rural Korean population in Primorsky Krai alone was 81,825 people, accounting for 30% of the region's population.

And, probably, everything would have been different if not for the war, then the revolution, and then the Japanese occupation of the Far East. Since the beginning of the civil war, Koreans have ardently supported the Red Army, which expressed an active anti-Japanese position.

However, despite helping to support the Bolshevik movement in the Far East, the Soviet government was seriously alarmed by the presence of two huge foreign diasporas - Chinese and Korean.

Meanwhile, the population of Vladivostok and Primorsky Krai was growing. The majority still remained to live in rural areas, especially the Posyetsky district, where immigrants from Korea lived - 90%. And by the mid-30s, the number of Koreans approached the 200 thousand mark. All of them have already gone through the Soviet school, where the Korean population truly became “one of their own”, with sufficient knowledge in the field of Russian culture.

Already in 1923, proposals arose to evict the Korean population from the Far East. At this time, Korea was a colony of Japan. Therefore, the first pretext for such a political “purge” was acts of recruitment by the Japanese authorities of the Korean population in the Far East. “In order to suppress the penetration of Japanese espionage,” mass resettlement measures were taken from all areas without exception to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. After collectivization, millions of people died in Central Asia, and hundreds of thousands migrated beyond the borders of their republics. Famine and epidemics deprived this territory of the availability of labor resources, so deportation here made up for the shortage with Korean able-bodied personnel. It is impossible not to take into account the fact that the policy of the 30s left its mark on the fate of resettlement, since in general it boiled down to the struggle against peoples hostile to socialism. It was the Korean people who were the first to experience the difficulties of deportation to the USSR.

By the way, about the Koreans living on Sakhalin, and why they were not deported like the others. In the 70-80s of the 19th century, the first settlements appeared on Sakhalin, which increased noticeably after the Russian-Japanese War. Japan captured the southern part of the island (Karafuto) and until 1945 actively pursued a resettlement policy for Koreans. At first these were seemingly peaceful actions to recruit young Korean workers into the coal mines of Sakhalin. In 1944, special police units were created that forcibly expelled all men from their homes for removal from Korea. Thus, after the surrender of Japan, the Korean population of Sakhalin was approximately 50,000 people.

After the return of South Sakhalin, a problem arose with Korean settlers. Some of them had Japanese citizenship, some were stateless. To make a decision, the Soviet government was waiting for a solution to the issue of Korean reunification, but the war began. Of course, most of the Koreans were from the south and wanted to return home, but the USSR was not going to supply the enemy with manpower, and the issue was postponed for another 10 years.

In the mid-50s, it was decided to conduct a survey: do they want to stay in the Soviet Union or leave, and if they leave, then to the southern or northern part? In turn, the local authorities on Sakhalin campaigned for continued life in the USSR or, at worst, to move to the DPRK. The only option for returning to Korea was by ships going to the DPRK. To avoid provocations, the Soviet escorts were equipped with weapons, and the steamship with the settlers was followed by a Soviet warship.

The return of Koreans from Central Asia never took place. In 1993, the Supreme Council of Russia declared the deportation of the Korean population from the Far East illegal. But the Soviet Union was gone, and the question of a new resettlement no longer arose.

By the way, on March 30, the participants of the international friendship club of Tomsk State University will take place. The event will bring together Korean students from all Khabarovsk universities, a concert dedicated to South Korea will take place, and the exhibition will end with a delicious tea party.

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On May 11, Professor Kim Wook from Seoul's Tanguk University reported to the public the results of his genetic research, which could revolutionize ideas about where the ancestors of modern Koreans came from.

Professor Kim Wook examined the DNA of 185 Koreans and compared them with the DNA of neighboring peoples. At the same time, he used DNA contained in mitochondria - cellular structures that supply our body with energy. Mitochondria are actively studied in modern genetics in order to find out the origin of various ethnic groups and the routes of their migration around the planet over long periods - hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of years. Other DNA molecules - those contained in cell nuclei, are "mixed" when the sperm and egg merge, as a result of which the child receives hereditary information from both the father and the mother. However, the DNA contained in the mitochondria of the egg is not affected during the process of fertilization, which means that for a long time it is transmitted along the maternal line from generation to generation practically unchanged. It is this (as well as the mutations that occur in them from time to time) that makes it possible to use mitochondrial DNA to trace the origin and routes of movement around the planet of entire peoples. Probably, many have seen the popular articles that have appeared recently about a certain prehistoric African Eve, from whom all people now living on Earth descended. And although these publications are sometimes somewhat yellowish and sensational in nature, they are related to quite serious research precisely in the field of mitochondrial DNA.

The results of many years of work by Professor Kim Wook indicate that on the maternal side, Koreans, firstly, are closest to the Han Chinese (the main ethnic group of China) and the Japanese - but not to the Mongols. Secondly, if you believe the data of Professor Kim, the popular talk in these parts about the “purity of Korean blood” has no basis - the Korean mitochondrial gene pool is very diverse. In other words, the modern Korean nation was formed as a result of the mixing of a number of ethnic groups.

Professor Kim Wook especially noted that the results of genetic research may well contradict the hypotheses of linguists and archaeologists. This really shouldn't be surprising. For example, one of the arguments of archaeologists in favor of the fact that the Koreans are not related to the Han people is as follows: in ancient times, the ancestors of the Koreans used bronze swords, the shape of which differs from the contemporary Chinese swords. The instability of this argument, in the opinion of the editor of SV, is quite obvious. One can imagine many reasons why the ancient inhabitants of the peninsula preferred swords of a different shape. However, Korean scientists often proceed not from the facts themselves, but from a certain line of the party and government, to which the necessary facts are then adjusted. Currently, the mentioned line is, in particular, to certainly prove the uniqueness of Korean culture in comparison with Chinese and Japanese. The hypothesis about the “Altai” origin of Koreans fits very well into this current. Probably, it would be even better to prove the extraterrestrial origin of the Korean nation, but this would be somehow too much, although in North Korea everything seems to be moving in exactly this direction. In such a situation, the works of Professor Kim Wook may well help someone return from the transcendental spheres to the sinful earth. To pistils, stamens and other dull materiel.

We will wait for the reaction of the Korean scientific world to Professor Kim’s research and new lively discussions.

"Seoul Herald"