Denouement Of Borders

Abstract

This chapter examines Soviet and Japanese disputes over the Korean population in the Maritime Province from the 1920s to 1945. It shows that heightened geopolitical tensions in Northeast Asia resulted in a renewed effort on the part of the Soviet Union to institute citizenship, migration and resettlement, and cultural policies among Koreans. Tensions inside the Maritime also escalated in the late 1920s and 1930s due to collectivization efforts and the Great Terror. Soviet policies culminated in the 1937 forced deportation of Koreans to Central Asia. The chapter argues that the deportation was an extreme attempt by the Soviet state to align its authority over territory and people in a sensitive border region. The chapter ends with a discussion of Korean migration, citizenship, and the border region between Russia, North Korea, and China after 1945.