The Yankovsky Family: Social Adaptation of Russian Emigrants in Korea (1920s — Early 1940s)

Abstract

One of the most important problems in the study of йmigrй communities is the problem of social adaptation of emigrants to the conditions of the new sociocultural environment. This issue is analysed both at the level of emigration as a whole or a regional emigrant colony and at the level of an individual family or individual. This article is devoted to the analysis of the “clan” model of emigrants’ social adaptation proposed by the author with reference to the Far Eastern Yankovsky family, who emigrated to Korea. Based on materials of private sources, mainly memoir literature, the author identifies the factors that ensured the success of the adaptation process of the Yankovsky clan. These factors include the Yankovsky family type and method of socialisation, which implied the younger generation’s focus on family values with their strong national component and family professional sphere; the presence of serious family capital and its rational implementation; belonging to the family culture of the frontier and a fairly favourable social context of colonial Korea. At the same time, two opposite trends were simultaneously operating. Belonging to the frontier culture created favourable conditions for the integration of the family into the new sociocultural environment, and the leading role of the national component in the system of family values, orientation towards its preservation and maintenance, contributed to the diasporisation of the émigré community. The “clan” model of Russian emigrants’ social adaptation can be used to study the process of adaptation of large emigrant families to the new sociocultural environment in other countries of the Far East and, above all, Northern Manchuria (Harbin).