Frontier Territories Research Articles

Frontier – binder without borders. Polish–German cross-border cooperation of universities in the Pomerania Euroregion. Conceptual insights

Cross-border cooperation was broadly defined by European Union in 1980s. The joint action taken by frontier territories are the key aspects of European integration and are the main aims of maintaining sustainable development in many aspects of life on both sides of the border. This article explores Polish–German cross-border cooperation within the Pomerania Euroregion taking into account educational dimension. In particular, this analysis focuses on involvement of Szczecin universities in the implementation of cross-border Small Projects Funds in years 1995–2022. The presented study analyze 64 projects from among 3,071 shared ones. The article raises important insights into a wide area of research that indicates not only the need to describe and identify the phenomenon of initiated cross-border cooperation of educational institutions within Euroregions, but also reveals the need for a deeper, individual and comparative analysis of many Euroregions and their activities in the field of creating educational policy

Дискурс «собственного востока России» в епархиальной прессе Западной Сибири и Степного края в годы Русско-японской войны (1904-1905)

The article presents the experience and practice of constructing the image of Asian Russia as "its own east", the legitimacy of the imperial affiliation of which is ensured by the joint efforts of the authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church. Based on the methodological approaches of the new cultural and intellectual history, the main “platforms” for the representation of discourse in the diocesan periodicals of Western Siberia and the Steppe Territory are identified, the factors and conditions for the formation and transmission of proprietary ideas about the eastern frontier territories in the publications of the diocesan journal press are substantiated. The study found that the foundations of the representation of the imperial periphery as “one's own land” were formulated in the program and anniversary issues of the publication and, up to a certain point, were manifestations of peaceful scenarios for the increment of the eastern outskirts of the empire. With the aggravation of the foreign policy situation and the outbreak of hostilities in the Far East, the methods of transmitting the owner's reception of the Asian periphery were intensified and actively replicated in the publications of the diocesan press. In the period 1904-1905. there was an actualization of the ideas of the clergy about the eastern outskirts as a sphere of their permanent presence and influence, which contributed to the promotion of the idea of forming an all-Russian identity and the awareness of the population of the Steppe Territory and Western Siberia of their cultural unity with the Russian people.

Provincial representatives as agents of political communication (Basque territories, 16th-­17th century)

In the Ancien Régime, villages and provinces established direct lines of communication with the Crown through representatives and emissaries. This work analyses the progressive institutionalisation of the representative agents of frontier territories under the Habsburgs, specifically the Basque provinces of Guipúzcoa and Álava and the Señorío of Vizcaya. Some of the main issues dealt with in this comparative study are the corporative and representative nature of these diplomatic offices, their simultaneous function as a government instrument for the Crown, and the consolidation of a decentralised administrative apparatus under the control of local elites.

Мифология дальневосточного фронтира в книге С. В. Максимова «На Востоке. Поездка на Амур (в 1860-1861 гг.)»

The paper is devoted to the study of the frontier discourse of S. V. Maksimov’s book “In the East. A Trip to the Amur (in 1860-1861)”. The paper describes the main mythologemes of the “frontier mythology” about the Far East outlined by S. V. Maksimov in the book “In the East. A Trip to the Amur (in 1860-1861)”, which became the basis for the subsequent literary tradition in presenting the image of the Eastern frontier territories. The aim of the study is to determine the features of the creative transformation of the mythopoetic complex (images, motifs, archaic-mythological elements) that forms the “Far Eastern myth” in S. V. Maksimov’s book “In the East. A Trip to the Amur (in 1860-1861)”. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying “frontier mythology” motifs in S. V. Maksimov’s book “In the East. A Trip to the Amur (in 1860-1861)”, which seems relevant when studying the proto-textual basis of the Far Eastern local supertext in the prose of the second half of the XIX century. As a result, it has been proved that the frontier discourse of S. V. Maksimov’s book “In the East. A Trip to the Amur (in 1860-1861)” is organised around a demiurgical myth. The mythologeme “heaven/hell” and the opposition “friend – foe” also have a meaning-generating significance in S. V. Maksimov’s representation of the image of the Far East as a frontier territory.

The making of a conservation frontier: Nation‐building, green productivism, and environmentalism in Patagonia

AbstractIn Patagonia, emerging concerns over environmental degradation in frontier territories suggest the constitution of a new type of frontier—the conservation frontier—in which nature is an object of consumption rather than extraction. Conservation frontiers are made through disputed forms of spatialization, in which wilderness can be a refuge, a source of capital accumulation, and a new space for political experimentation. Three overlapping yet conflicting processes constitute the conservation frontier: nation‐building, green productivism, and environmentalism. The material and discursive making of a conservation frontier illustrates how environmental conservation both disrupts and extends settler projects of territorialization.

Slovak Families in the Clutches of the Builders of Socialism: Population and Family Policy in Slovakia in the 1950s and 1960s

ABSTRACT After 1948, Czechoslovak communist elites were intently focused on the issue of population growth. In the post-war period, Czechoslovakia’s population significantly decreased as a result of the expulsion of the German population from the frontier territories of the Czech and Moravia areas. However, the Slovak territory saw much smaller deviations, with higher marriage and birth rates than the overall Czechoslovak average. My aim in this paper is to show the contribution of specific local circumstances in Slovakia and the approach of Czechoslovak communists to the population behaviour trends of the Roma inhabitants in this region.

«Серебряный путь» из Европы в Азию: роль Кяхтинского отделения Русско-Китайского банка в экспорте драгоценных металлов в Цинскую империю

Introduction. The article deals with exports and imports of precious metals between Russia and the Qing Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Special attention is paid to activities of the Russo-Chinese Bank that established its offices across Russia-Mongolia frontiers for the latter to arrange silver trade with China. Goals. The paper aims to reveal actual causes, conditions and mechanisms of silver transit from Europe to China — and identify the role played by the Russo-Chinese Bank therein. Materials and methods. The study examines statutes and regulations, reports of the Russo-Chinese Bank, and previously unpublished records management and statistical documents stored at the State Archive of Buryatia (Collection of Kyakhta Customs Station and that of Kyakhta-based first-guild merchant M. Nemchinov, respectively). The work employs a number of historical research methods, special emphasis be laid on the principle of historicism and the comprehensive analysis method that have proved instrumental in interrelating the mid-to-late nineteenth and early twentieth century geopolitical events across Asia-Pacific — to the intensification of Russia-China precious metals trade. Results. The paper virtually reconstructs the mechanism developed by the Russo-Chinese Bank in Russia-Mongolia frontier territories to export precious metals from Western Europe to the Qing Empire. Conclusions. The late nineteenth-century weakening of the Qing Empire and subsequent changes in the balance of power across Inner Asia significantly modified the region’s geopolitical agenda. The altered vectors of external policies towards Asia Pacific enabled the Russian Empire to successfully expand its economic presence in China at the turn of the 20th century. The Tsarist government did succeed in holding strong positions in China’s market of precious metals via a specially created ‘tool’ — the Russo-Chinese Bank. The efficient combination of Russia’s smart trade strategies and special customs preferences yielded a highly profitable business of precious metals transit from Europe to China. And it was Kyakhta Office of the Russo-Chinese Bank that played a key role in securing uninterrupted supply of precious metals.

Bureaucracy and Civil Servants of the Tobolsk and Tomsk Provincial Administrations of the late 19th – early 20th Centuries in the Spatial Dimension

The effectiveness of the administrative apparatus in the frontier territories of the Russian Empire was among the most pressing issues. The functioning of any department largely depends on the staffing of its personnel. This article examines a broad group of civil servants at the regional level of two neighboring provinces: Tobolsk and Tomsk. By applying GIS technologies and constructing a multidimensional graph, the article provides the main characteristics of the civil servants, as well as migration trends during their service within the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
 The analysis of historiography has revealed a tendency to examine civil servants of the highest rank. However, by including other full-time civil servants of lower positions into the sample, the representation appears somewhat different. Therefore, the obtained data requires new methods of examination, visualization, and verification. The database was compiled based on various published and unpublished materials, as well as collections from central and local archives.
 It was established that the portrait of the civil servant in the specified provinces differs due to the divergent ways of forming the personnel list. The geographical characteristics of the mobility of civil servants in the Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces also differ from each other. These newly found traits significantly affect the characteristics of the official apparatus.

Notes on Contributors

This is the Notes on Contributors for IDS Bulletin 54.1: Frontier Territories: Countering the Green Revolution Legacy in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Glossary

This is the glossary for IDS Bulletin 54.1: Frontier Territories: Countering the Green Revolution Legacy in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Горная промышленность в приграничном регионе России: оценка потенциала развития отрасли в Республике Тыва

In connection with the re-orientation of Russia's economic policy towards the East, an assessment of the potential for industrial development in such mining frontier territories of the country as the Tyva Republic becomes a major priority. For this purpose, the available academic literature as well as the results of scientific research have been analyzed. This study is also based on the data from official statistical sources, information obtained from the industrial companies in the region and the Internet resources. The analysis and synthesis methods used allowed to identify the main reasons for this lag, including the shortcomings of the current regulatory legislation. The gross regional product in the Republic of Tuva is only 243.05 thousand rubles per capita (vs. 645.9 thousand rubles in Russia and 535.3 thousand rubles in the Siberian Federal District). The paper proposes a hypothesis that a selective approach is required in regulating the economy of the country's depressed border territories with account of the characteristics, resources and potential of each of them. Empirical studies of the possibilities for industrial development of the one of the most depressed mining regions of Russia, i.e. the Tyva Republic, have been performed for the first time in the cross-border aspect with account of developing the available rich natural and mineral resources. An assessment of its potential, which is capable of achieving the industrial production volume of 350 billion rubles by 2035, has been made using linear regression methods. Measures have been proposed on creation of the legislative and legal regimes needed to attract investments in the development of the mining industry of Tuva, which can become a driving force of its dynamic social and economic development.

The Historical Studies of the Spaces of the Siberian Frontier

The article is a review of the All-Russian scientific conference “The IVth Grishaev Readings” that was dedicated to the memory of Doctor of History, Professor V.V. Grishaev and was held on November 11‑12, 2021, in Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University. The theme of the conference was “Spaces of the Soviet Frontier”. Conference organizers invited participants to consider the frontier as a new way of assembling the history, another format of history self-understanding, and to assess the prospects of using theories of frontiers in order to study the Soviet history. Using the frontier theory as a new tool to solve the problems under study raises new questions and, thus, opens up previously unexplored areas of study. The first day of “The IVth Grishaev Readings” included two sections. One of them was devoted to the theme “The Frontier in Methodology, Historiography, and Source Studies” and finished with a discussion of the terms “the Soviet frontier” and “the Russian frontier”. The other section “The Specificity of the Economic Development of the Frontier Territories in the Soviet Era” was devoted to the past, present and future of the frontier territories. The second day of “The IVth Grishaev Readings” was traditionally devoted to “The Youth Section” as part of the overall concept of the conference aimed at disseminating new knowledge. The attempt to theoretically comprehend the Internet as a space of the modern frontier became a subject of a lively discussion. The overall outcome of the conference is the publication of a collection of papers “Grishaev Readings”.

The Far Eastern Frontier of the 1990s

The article analyzes the process of changing the content of the frontier over time, under the influence of radical liberal reforms. The development of the borderlands in dynamics is shown, taking into account the foreign policy factor. The vector of changes is revealed within the framework of the economic component and the mission of the Far East in modern national history and in the history of the development of Asia-Pacific Region (APR). A complex of political factors in the transformation of the frontier is revealed. It was concluded that the main feature of this process was various forms of reducing Russia’s military presence in the region, partial demilitarization and the destruction of the military-industrial complex in the 1990s, and the acquisition of new characteristics by the Far Eastern borderlands. The authors come to the conclusion about the dominant role of the political factor in the transformation of the character of the Far Eastern frontier. Conversion and market reforms led to a rapid degradation of the material and social infrastructure of the frontier territories, where in the 1990s the military-industrial complex enterprises were city-forming. The ways of adapting the region to market relations turned the border area into a kind of trading factory; various flows of labor and different forms of organization of enterprises were involved. The first attempts to organize Free Economic Zones and joint ventures, as well as to implement the initial stage of the project of international transport corridors, contributed to the genesis of new features of the Far Eastern frontier.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ РЕСУРСАМИ ПОДЗЕМНЫХ ВОД НА ТРАНСГРАНИЧНЫХ ТЕРРИТОРИЯХ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ КАЛИНИНГРАДСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ)

At the present time, drinking groundwater that is reliably protected from contamination should be considered as a priority source of utility and drinking water supply to the population. These waters undoubtedly belong to strategic types of natural resources, since they are essentially the only source of drinking water supply during emergencies, and the possibility of their use significantly affects the national security of the country. The current geopolitical situation around the Russian Federation dictates the need to consider the issue of managing transboundary resources of groundwater in the context of international legislative conventions and treaties in a new format, allocating groundwater to a separate block of strategic resources, the extraction of which occurs in frontier territories. The paper presents the analysis of the groundwater extraction quantitative evoluation at the largest water intake facilities of the Kaliningrad Region located on a transboundary territory using the balance calculation method. The method of balance approach, based on calculations of the so-called intake of water resources from the territory of neighboring state, allows for adjusting the activities of the intakes themselves and their further design taking into account boundary factors when approving maximum level decreases at observation points.

Formation and evolution of russian frontiers

It is shown in the article that the formation of Russian Frontiers was carried out primarily due to the need to ensure the security of the borders. Periods in their evolution are identified and characterized here. It is established that the first stage (the formation of a military frontier) is associated with the construction of fortified lines and the relocation of Cossacks and peasants to the lands fenced by them. The second stage is the registration of the legal status of frontier territories and the establishment of special paramilitary forms of the government. The third stage is characterized, along with the transplantation of redistributive-type institutions that dominated the institutional matrix of Russia to new lands, by the emergence and spread of market institutions here, that caused the spatial heterogeneity of the Russian institutional matrix. The final stage is defrontization, various tools were used to achieve it: improvement of the material and technological environment of acquired territories, embedding them in the general imperial legal field, spreading Orthodoxy and Russian language, economic stimulation of Russian colonization by the state, socialization of local elites and their involvement in the process of managing new lands. At all stages, the evolution of frontier territories was governed by the Russian state, and the policy was based on the principles of dialogue with the autochthonous population. The presence of frontiers hindered the transition from extensive to intensive methods of space exploration, reoriented the empire to a self-sufficient development option, and determined a special, Russian path of modernization.

NO FUTURE: The Colonial Gaze, Tales of Return in Recent Latin American Film

The past is certain, the future an illusion. Contemporary films such as Ivy Maraey: land without evil (Juan Carlos Valdivia 2013), Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra 2015), The Fever (Maya Da Rin 2020), and Bacurau are border films, from the genre of contact films. They announce how coloniality maintains a grip on frontier territories in the Americas. These films also present particular indigenous visions that challenge western epistemes and confront audiences with particular ways of being in the world, where the modern subject finds its limit. The article introduces a critical perspective on cinema as a colonial tool, producing forms of capture that are part of the modern archive and the notion of linear time. These films also build on cinematic traditions such as tercer cine and afro-futurism, and are strong on concepts such as cosmopolitanism, resistance, and subalternity. They present forms of adaptation, reaction, return, and redemption while maintaining the status of cinema as a capturing device, entertainment, and capital investment (the triad of destruction in modernity/coloniality).

Важный фактор политической стабильности

The article under review was written by famous Siberian scientist professor L. M. Dameshek and devoted to the ethnic factor aspect in the frontier policy of Russian Empire in connection with Siberia. It is stated that the author in Siberian region integration into imperial area distinguishes two stages: initial regionalism providing for managerial models diversity over newly acquired territories and severe centralism assuming unification and standardization of management. The scientist compares similar processes in other frontier territories for defining common tendencies and regional peculiarities of different peoples’ inclusion into business life and social-cultural area of Russia, comparativism ideology having been professed. The attention is paid to the controversial problem of Russian status as a colonial power. The researcher sticks to the point of view that Siberia was not European Russia’s colony in reality because indigenous peoples were integrated into all-Russian system of economic and cultural relations.

“...COMING TO COMMON PEACE TOGETHER WITH OUR ALLIES”: ROMANIA’S FOREIGN POLICY BALANCING DURING WORLD WAR I

The article covers the course of negotiations between the plenipotentiaries of Romania and the leading states of the Entente and the Quadruple Alliance during the First World War. Facing the dilemma of determining its own foreign policy orientation – by joining one of the mentioned military-political blocs, the Romanian government was hesitating for a long time to come to a final decision. At the same time, largely due to this balancing process, official Bucharest managed to preserve its sovereign right to work out and make the most important decisions, while consistently defending Romania's national interests. By taking the side of the Entente and receiving comprehensive military assistance from Russia, Romania at the same time faced enormous military and political problems due to military superiority of the allied Austrian and German forces at the Balkan theater of hostilities. Their occupation of much of Romania forced official Bucharest to seek an alternative, making it sign a separate agreement with the Central Block states. At the same time, its ratification was being delayed in every possible way, which enabled Romania to return to the camp of war winners at the right time. At the same time, official Bucharest made the most of the decline and liquidation of imperial institutions in Russia and Austria-Hungary at the final stage of the First World War, incorporating vast frontier territories into the Kingdom. Taking advantage of the revolutionary events in Russia, the Romanian government succeeded, in particular, in resolving the “Bessarabian problem” in its favor. In addition, Romania included Transylvania, Bukovina and part of Banat. An important foreign policy achievement of Romanian diplomacy was signing of the 1918 Bucharest Peace Treaty, as well as its participation in the Paris Peace Conference.

Contesting issues between Ethiopia and Sudan over the Gwynn Line: Authorisation and irregularities in the demarcation of the boundary

AbstractAs two old countries in Africa sharing a long stretch of boundary, Ethiopia and Sudan have been acting as strategic partners in maintaining a neighbourhood and regional security complex. Irrespective, the boundary problem has continued for more than a century and is still point of cooperation and dispute between the two countries. This paper examines the roots of the boundary tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan, divergent views between them over the demarcation made by Gwynn in 1903 and 1909, issues of authorisation, and limitations of the boundary line especially from the River Setit in the North to Mount Daglish, Quara. On the Ethiopian side, divergent views emanated from the territories left to the Sudanese side by Gwynn deflecting the line from the east to the west, disregarding terms signed between Menelik II and Harrington in May 1902. Successive regimes in Ethiopia have declined to recognise Gwenn's demarcation, arguing that the demarcation was unilaterally carried out by one side leaving resource‐rich areas to the Sudanese side. On contrary, the Sudanese have contradicting positions and argue for validation of the Gwynn line. Evidence for this study was collected from different state offices; in addition, elders who have been cultivating in the frontier territories for many years were exhaustively interviewed.

Theorizing racialization through India’s “Mongolian Fringe”

ABSTRACT The “Mongolian Fringe” extending from India’s Northwest Himalayas to the hill regions of the Northeast frontier, was conceptualized by British authorities as a site of geopolitical and racial anxiety given its proximity to China and Southeast Asia. Suspicion and anxiety continue to inform the relationship between the Indian state and its northern frontier territories. Drawing on a collaborative research project with college students from Ladakh in the Northwest Himalayas, we argue that racialization offers a crucial yet underutilized framework with which to understand contemporary tribal identity in India. Building on critical theorizations of race and indigeneity, we demonstrate how racism functions for those at the intersections of race, tribe, and nation in postcolonial India, and the broader functioning of racialization as a process both global and contextually specific that is inflected by movement: of colonizing forces, of state projects, but also of young people between home and away.