Religious and Cultural Adaptation of Korean Immigrants in Russia in the Late 19th Century on the Example of Blagoslovennoe Village

Abstract

In the second half of the 19th century Russia expanded its territory to the coast of the Sea of Japan and achieved a border with Korea. In the 1860s, a large number of Korean immigrants began to move into the Russian Empire. In 1871, Russian authorities relocated some Korean immigrants to the Amur River and established a village called “Blagoslovennoe”. The government of the Russian Empire attempted to integrate them by establishing a Korean settlement and translating liturgy into Korean. The case of Blagoslovennoe Village on the Amur River is an example of an attempt to integrate Korean immigrants into Russian society. The Russian authorities used Orthodoxy as a means of “russification” of Korean immigrants in the Far East, and the spread of Orthodoxy among the Korean immigrant community coincided with the desire of most Korean immigrants to integrate into Russian society as soon as possible. To this end, a bilingual Orthodox liturgy was made available. Based on a bilingual liturgy for Korean immigrants to the Far East in Korean and Russian used in the village of Blagoslovennoe, found in the Archives of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, this paper examines the Orthodox element in the “Russification” of Korean immigrants to the Far East, beginning with this unexplored archive. But despite adaptation processes, Koreans retained their identity. For example, Korean immigrants retained familiar geographical names not only in their speech but also in their liturgy. The study of liturgical texts allows the researcher to understand the process of cultural integration into the new society with the preservation of cultural identity. The author expresses her deep gratitude to Dr. V.G. Sharonova, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Russian History of the RAS, for constructive criticism on the content of the article and the edit.