The Beliefs and Lived Reality of White Russians in Manchukuo：Focusing on Takeuchi Masakazu’s Summer Love and Easter

Abstract

With the advent of the October Revolution in 1917, a large number of White Russians who lost their homes and became deracinated emigrated to Harbin. Takeuchi Masakazu, a Japanese writer from Manchuria who started working in Harbin in 1934, noticed this particular group of foreigners living in Manchukuo, and in depicting them wrote Summer Love and Easter in a realistic style. The narratives of both works unfold along the Easter timeline of the Orthodox Eastern Church. Through a textual analysis of these works and an investigation of historical documents, it is clear that the cohesion of their beliefs hindered the implementation of a series of policies instituted by Japan which aimed to assimilate the White Russians in Manchukuo. Moreover, Easter was a cultural symbol of the White Russians in the multi-ethnic Manchukuo. Takeuchi adopts symbolic methods to describe their living conditions as they lived through a variety of historical events. In this way he reveals the White Russian longing for their homeland and clarifies their sense of being foreigners in Manchukuo. Through the hints of the ups and downs of Japanese and White Russian relations in Summer Love and the tragic plight of the White Russian in Easter, Takeuchi expresses the powerlessness and suffering of ordinary civilians during the war, and conveys a sense of introspection on the war.