Vol 25, No 2 (2026): FAR EASTERN CROSS-BORDER OF RUSSIA

The author in their article examines the question of departmental affiliation of the Ussuri Railway, which was posed to the government after the Russo-Japanese War under the unique circumstances of the Duma monarchy. It demonstrates that in Vladivostok, as the largest Russian port in Asia, there was a clash the interests between various imperial departments. In addition, the redistribution of “assets” also affected commercial and entrepreneurial circles. Formally the Chinese Eastern Railway, a private enterprise, which took over the Ussuri Railway, was subordinate to the Ministry of Finance. The position of the officials de facto managing the Chinese Eastern Railway was formed based on the assessments received from the field, personal impressions, and the established policies of the Ministry of Finance. The competition between the Railway Administration of the Ministry of Railways, the military represented by governors-general, the viceroy, and military governors of the regions, and the Ministry of Finance, which managed the activities of the Chinese Eastern Railway through its board, also influenced the economic development of the sections of the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. The question of the modernization of all railway lines, including the Ussuri Railway and the associated port infrastructure of Vladivostok remained at the core of this development. The author concludes that the government’s compromise on defense and administration of the Far East was achieved thanks to the railway’s correct operation in financial and administrative terms before World War I. By 1914, largely thanks to the Ussuri Railway and the Amur Mainline under construction, a unified economic space had already been formed and opportunities for the further colonization of the Amur region and the development of regional infrastructure increased.

The author in their article considers the USSR state policy in the field of protecting the border zone with China in the Kazakh-Xinjiang section of the border in the 1920-1930s. The purpose of the study is to show the migration processes and economic practices of the border territories population during the period of transition, from a period of frequent contact to the erection of a barrier on the border. The research is based on the legal acts regulating the border regime and the departmental records of the OGPU on border protection issues. The author shows the nature of the border during this period, firstly, it existed as a line of state demarcation and a military-political boundary, and secondly, it existed as a border contact territory, with established economic and migration practices. The author comes to the conclusion that even in the context of tightening the border regime, the population of the border territories maintained economic interaction, resorting to illegal practices in order to survive and circumvent government restrictions.

The author in their article analyzes the interstate cooperation of Russia, Mongolia, and China within Inner Asia in the area of higher education. Inner Asia is a unique geostrategic space, within the boundaries of which stable ties are formed that determine the nature of trilateral relations between the aforementioned states. The study focuses on the historical conditions that determined the substantive lines of interstate interaction in the 20th - first quarter of the 21st century. Of particular importance in trilateral relations was the educational cooperation between the USSR, the Mongolian People’s Republic and the People’s Republic of China during the middle of the last century. The development of the educational system and the socio-economic assistance of the Soviet Union gave impetus to the modernization processes in Mongolia and China. In the evolution of interstate interaction in the field of higher education between the countries, it is possible to identify separate stages that have their own substantive features and chronology, which depend on bilateral relations at the highest level. In the early 21st century, the content and nature of relations in the field of education between the countries changed. The main factors became the internationalization of education, as well as changes in the foreign policy of China, which began to actively promote its culture and language, including in Inner Asia. The main actors were the State Office for the Promotion of Chinese Abroad (汉办), as well as the universities and the Government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. Inner Mongolia universities implement a number of programs aimed at teaching Chinese to schoolchildren and students from Russia and Mongolia and hosted cultural events. In current interstate interaction, of great significance is the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, initiated by the Chinese government. Thus, Inner Asia is regaining its geostrategic importance in interstate relations.

The author in their work considers the activities of the Main Administration for Producers’ and Consumers’ cooperatives on identifying shortcomings and dealing with them in cooperative organizations in the Bashkir ASSR in 1946-1950. Based on the documents of the Russian State Archive of Economics, they analyze the main areas of work of the Office of the Chief Inspector of the Main Administration for Producers’ and Consumers’ cooperatives in the Bashkir ASSR. Particular attention is paid to the measures for improving trade and production activities in cooperative organizations in the period of the post-war economic recovery. The author assesses the effectiveness of cooperative organizations in meeting the demands of the population and overcoming the deficit of manufactured goods and foodstuffs. The reports on audits and revisions by the Main Administration for Producers’ and Consumers’ cooperatives show that fulfilling the plans for goods turnover by consumer cooperative organizations was uneven both in planned periods and in different districts of the republic. Orders of rural consumer societies, based on the demands of the shareholders, were disregarded by state-owned industry. A significant part of the output of producers’ cooperative organizations did not meet the demand of the population, was of low quality, and had high production costs. The authors come to the conclusion that despite the inability to solve all the problems in the systems of producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives, the Office of the Chief Inspector of the Main Administration for Producers’ and Consumers’ cooperatives in the Bashkir ASSR achieved a certain amount of success. Besides differentiating the industrial programs and a significant growth in goods turnover, the number of unprofitable cooperative organizations decreased and disruptions in trade occurred more rarely.

The author examines the activities of the Communist University of Workers of the East (KUTV) at the initial stage of its establishment and development as a leading party university. The purpose of the article is to analyze the organization of the educational process, the content and features of the general education of the party nomenclature of the national regions of the largest Union republic - the RSFSR. Based on the newly identified documents and materials, the author highlights the problems of student admission, their national composition in the 1920s, and the approaches of the university staff to determining the content and methods of education, taking into account the level of training of representatives of different nationalities. Through their research, they found that the difficulties of the KUTV work were also associated with the need to take significant measures for improving students’ health and organization of everyday life. They also show the contribution of the university to the socialization of people from different ethnocultural regions, and their provision, nutrition, and education. Their conclusion is that the KUTV was a key link of party education in ensuring indigenization and provision of the management system with trained specialists, as well as the formation of ethnic elite is an important subject in to nation-building and Soviet transformations.

The author considers the process of creating a new Korean writing system in the USSR in the 1930s and reveals the features of this activity carried out within the framework of Soviet language construction. They reveal the reasons, courses, and results of the reform of the Korean writing system, as well as the composition of the participants in its implementation. The study is based on the analysis of the documents identified in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History. The author comes to the conclusion that the struggle for the modernization of the Korean language and writing system launched in the USSR resulted in the development of a new Korean alphabet based on Latin. The All-Union and Far Eastern ‘romanization’ institutions and party structures were involved in the activities on Korean Romanization. Several projects of the new Korean alphabet based on the ‘English’ and ‘all-Soviet’ basis were developed and discussed. However, among the ‘romanizers’ there was a clash on the issue of choosing a basis for the new Korean alphabet. In early 1932, there was support for convening a ‘Korean conference’, which was supposed to approve the new alphabet. However, this initiative was canceled by the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). After that, Korean Romanization in the USSR slowed down. As a result, the approval for and implementation of the new Korean writing system failed.

The study is based on on Russian Ambassador to Austria-Hungary N.N. Shebeko’s unpublished memoirs and reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The author sets the task to reveal in Shebeko’s memoirs important and little-known details of the diplomatic conflicts that took place in JuneJuly 1914. These facts are considered in the context of the topical issues of historiography of the July crisis. Special attention is paid to Shebeko’s relationship with Minister of Foreign Affairs S.D. Sazonov. The author considers Shebeko’s proposals to resolve the conflict between Russia and Austria-Hungary due to the ultimatum issued by Vienna to Serbia. According to Shebeko, the Austrians did not want a war with Russia and were afraid of it. The author shows that the Russian ambassador tried to convey to the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria-Hungary the idea that Russia would stand up for Serbia. However, until the beginning of the Russian mobilization, the officials Vienna were confident that Russia would yield without any war. In general, the activities of the Russian ambassador to AustriaHungary during the July crisis can be divided into three stages. At first, he saw no danger of an armed conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia in the ongoing events and made reassuring reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Saint Petersburg. This is important additional evidence that Russia was not preparing for war and did not seek to unleash it. During the second stage, Shebeko focused his efforts on warning the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia about the ultimatum which Austria-Hungary was going to issue to Serbia. He was sure that in this situation Russia would stand up for Serbia and considered it necessary to warn official Vienna about this so that it would moderate its aggressiveness towards Belgrade. During the final stage of the July crisis, N.N. Shebeko continued to seek a compromise between Russia and Austria-Hungary.