Perspectives on the Global Past. Foreword by Mark Bassin. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2018. xvi, 244 pp. (B&W photos.) US$68.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-7262-5.
A riddle captivates your attention until it is solved. “The Southern Kurils’ problem is fascinating because it has no solution,” a Japanese Sovietologist once said at an informal post-conference banquet. Based on a broad variety of sources, including Russian media, interviews with officials and experts and many others, At the Edge of the Nation is probably the first book-length study that persuasively explains the importance of the Southern Kuril Islands “for defining a national identity” (163) in post-Soviet Russia, while comprehensively examining the problem from various angles. The book consists of nine chapters. Opening the study with a brief discussion of the islands’ role in Russia’s search for a new identity (chapter 1) and introducing the historical background of the Southern Kurils (chapter 2), the author masterfully guides the reader through the ongoing debate of post-Soviet times. He distinguishes three major groups of politicians: the liberal institutionalists (chapter 3), the territorial imperativists (chapter 4) and the pragmatic patriots (chapter 5). The first group, which dominated the political horizon in the first half of the 1990s, painstakingly searched for a way to improve the relationship with Japan, while trying to avoid the accusations from the territorial imperativists who insisted on the undisputed integrity of the islands. The last group, the pragmatic patriots, “fuse together certain aspects” of the agenda of the first two groups. The author demonstrates how the pragmatic patriots have persistently tried to find a hikiwake (win-win) (87) solution that would be reciprocally beneficial for Russia and Japan while promoting the idea of signing a peace treaty. Despite the great differences in approaches and frequent criticism of political opponents, almost all actors on the political scene are quite unanimous in their desire to improve and develop relations with their eastern neighbour. Furthermore, despite unsolved questions and a history of military confrontations, Japan has always been the object of interest and even “romance” for the Russian people.
On the example of the Southern Kurils, the author addresses a number of universal notions which define the relationship between the individual and the state, seeing its political dimension as “the contested process of persuading people of their ‘national’ identity and legitimizing a particular claim on ‘national’ space” (12). In his view, the four islands are a critically important element in the realization of this goal and in the “territorialization of memory” (16) in post-Soviet Russia. This discussion can be further developed in the future, by examining the ways in which “space” has been separated from its physical representation and transformed into an element of state policy in various contexts. This is related to another important notion, “the idea of the ‘hyperborder’” (chapter 7), “which denotes a place that has somehow moved ‘over’ and ‘beyond’ traditional understandings of the state border and state sovereignty” (121). The discussion on “counterfunction of the ‘hyperborder’” (18–20) shows the conflict between the efforts to present this distant land as an object of special development policies, and the reality of everyday life (3), which forces people to find various ways to survive in a situation of persistent socioeconomic hardship. While referring to Russia’s eternal dilemma of the centre/periphery relationship (20, chapter 8) and “a sense of disconnection and dissatisfaction towards the center” (143) by the Far Easterners, the author emphasizes the struggle for the consolidation of the “vertical” political power of Moscow. Furthermore, the discussion on differences in the perception of “space,” “place,” and “state” by the “citizens located on this distant, eastern periphery” (143) and the ordinary people and politicians living west of the Urals could be expanded and strengthened in the book.
The monograph’s discussion could be strengthened by a deeper analysis of the different views quoted in the book. The diversity of these views is the study’s strong point. However, this creates the mistaken impression that all of the people whose views are presented have actual expertise in the historical background of the problem and the long course of bilateral negotiations. A journalist, scholar, or policy-maker from western Russia, who speaks on the topic of the Kurils while having only superficial knowledge of the issue, treats the problem in a different way from the few specialists on Northeast Asia or foreign policy in general, something that could be demonstrated more explicitly in the book. Moreover, to what extent do those Far Eastern local elites, who are replaced for reasons such as embezzlement (159), represent the true views of the region’s population? Although some members have proven themselves as competent and consistent, others certainly have not.
Additionally, the role of the disputed islands in the national identity debate should not be hyperbolized. “This new symbolism of the islands for the state’s ability to order national space” (152) is just an element of the “kaleidoscope of different ideas of ‘nation’ and ‘national space,’” among many other small as well as much bigger issues.
In general, this is a well-executed and thought-provoking study. The book is highly recommended to all specialists on Northeast Asia and Russia, and everyone who is interested in the past and present of the region.
Igor Saveliev
Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan