Militant Diaspora : Korean Immigrants and Guerrillas in Early Twentieth Century Russia

Abstract

This paper attempts to shed light on the history of rebellious Koreans in the Russian Far East（RFE） least covered by the Western scholarship. Shortly after Japan established protectorate over Korea in 1905 detachments of righteous armies（uibyong）shifted to the RFE where numerous Korean communities had existed since the 1860s. An inflow of rebellious Koreans into the RFE as well as efforts of Japanese Consulate‑General in Vladivostok to stop their activities split Korean communities into the anti‑Japanese majority and pro‑Japanese minority. Unable to stop the activities of rebellious Koreans in the RFE by itself the Japanese government put pressure on the Russian Foreign Ministry to crack down on Korean guerrillas. Since April 1908 St. Petersburg demanded local authorities of the RFE to expel guerrilla leaders far from the Korean border but not early as in 1911 Yi Pom‑yun and other uibyong leaders were banished to Irkutsk. Moreover after the outbreak of the First World War the Russian government especially interested in preserving status‑ quo with Japan stopped activities of the Korean ethnic organizations prohibited publishing of Korean‑language newspapers and arrested or deported leaders of anti‑Japanese movement to Manchuria.