"The Past of Sakhalin Island" by the literary and historical scholar Bu Jian was recently published by the Life, Reading, and Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore. The book is by far the most comprehensive and in-depth monograph on the history of Sakhalin Island, filling in the academic gaps and having important academic value.
Sakhalin Island is a large strip of islands close to the northeast mainland, facing the mouth of the Heilongjiang River on the north side, Hokkaido at the southern end, the Tatar Strait in the west, and the North Pacific Ocean in the east, and its strategic location is extremely important. The island covers an area of 76,400 square kilometers, more than the combined islands of Taiwan and Hainan. In a long and long historical period, Sakhalin Island, as the largest island in China, enjoyed the reputation of "Great Sand Protection".
However, in the thousands of years of Chinese history, Sakhalin Island has appeared from time to time, although it is recorded very early, but it is rarely recorded. Only in the Republic of China period, Shi Ronghui's "Sakhalin Island Chronicle" contains "History Chapter" to quote relevant literature, and add explanatory dialectics. In the book "Past Events of Sakhalin Island", Bu Jian clarified the composition of sakhalin island residents and their relationship with the Central Plains by carefully combing through historical materials, believing that Sakhalin islanders should be cautious, and in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were historical materials that clearly recorded the existence of Sakhalin Island. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Biography of Dongyi Lie says that "there is a female country in the sea", which should be said to refer to Sakhalin Island. Since the Tang Dynasty set up the Heishui Governor's Mansion, the Liao Dynasty set up the Gongying Road, and the Jin Dynasty assigned Sakhalin Island to Huli to change the road, calling it "Lady of the Sea". The Yuan Dynasty set up a conquest of the east to solicit envoys, and the Ming Dynasty established the Nuer Gandu Division, "This island has been incorporated into the Territory of China, and gradually has a relationship of administrative subordination." ”
In Bu Jian's view, from the Han and Tang dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the ethnic groups on Sakhalin Island have always been autonomous, "and the relationship with the imperial court is generally a tribute, and the exchanges are getting closer and closer." However, even the Ming Dynasty, which had established several wei houses on the island, including the Qing Dynasty, which standardized the tribute system, still did not exercise direct rule, and the connection with the imperial court and local government was still loose. ”
"Sakhalin Island Past"
How many years has Sakhalin left China? It is a question raised at the beginning of the book "The Past of Sakhalin Island". Bu Jian proposed that from a legal point of view, it can be traced back to the Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty exactly 160 years ago, "However, a careful examination of the text of the Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty does not appear in the name of Sakhalin Island, and looking at the "Yaohun Treaty" signed by Yishan two years ago, there is no mention of this large offshore island at all." The author wrote with emotion, "From Chekhov's "Sakhalin Travels", many people know About Sakhalin. When Chekhov, who was 30 years old at the time, planned to visit the island, Sakhalin, which had become Tsarist Russia, was about to turn 30 years old. The name also comes from the gushing Heilongjiang River, which the Manchu name is 'Sakhalin Ula'. Sakhalin means black; Ulla is also written Ula, or River. ”
The author's narrative in the book has two clues, one is the sakhalin island recorded in the historical record, and the other is the Sakhalin island written by the Russian writer Chekhov. Chekhov wrote in his Travels of Sakhalin: "We should go to places like Sakhalin Island, just as the Turks worship Mecca." "Compared with Chekhov, the imperial court, officials, and scholars of the Ming and Qing dynasties in China did not have so much enthusiasm for Sakhalin Island," no famous Chinese historical figure has ever landed on Sakhalin Island. ”
For sakhalin island to go to the country, the author spent a lot of energy to collect historical materials, especially Russian and Japanese historical materials, fully analyzed, and strived to restore their continuous infiltration and encroachment on the historical appearance of Sakhalin Island. The author believes that Sakhalin Island's departure to the country mainly lies in the theft and seizure of the two neighboring countries of Russia and Japan, but the responsibility of the Qing court is also huge. "During the Qianjia period of the Qing Dynasty, it was a period of cultural prosperity and academic flourishing in Chinese history; in this so-called great Qing Dynasty, Sakhalin Island was basically ignored and forgotten, and no one was seen to argue about the governance of this big island, no one paid attention to the compatriots there, no one even thought of it or mentioned it, and no one noticed that a group of robbers were looking at Sakhalin Island and had even quietly infiltrated it."
Commenting on the country of Sakhalin Island, Bu Jian wrote: "The heart of writing this book is heavy, based on a kind of deep wounded death, I want to use those old stories to clarify the road to the country where Sakhalin Island is gradually leaving the mother. It is often said that history is a mirror, but we should abandon the kind of self-contemplation or self-hatred and self-pity, and instead examine ourselves deeply and seek ourselves instead, which is probably the way to gain enlightenment and rejuvenation. ”
Sharing meeting site Courtesy of Triptych Bookstore
In December, Sanlian Bookstore held a book sharing meeting entitled "Three Thousand Years Between the Hidden". Ma Dazheng, deputy director of the State Committee for the Compilation of Qing History and former deputy director of the Center for the Compilation and Lecture of history of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Pan Zhenping, member of the State Qing History Border Customs Committee, head of the biography group, and former deputy editor-in-chief of Sanlian Bookstore; and Bu Jian, the author of the book, held a dialogue at the meeting on issues of concern to readers before and after the book was written.
"So desolate, so far away"
In his speech, Bu Jian said that the reason for writing this book came from Chekhov's "Sakhalin Travels", a 1980 translation of the Heilongjiang People's Society. "Chekhov was a great novelist, but this book and his novel are two completely different paths. If you think about it, it is about ten thousand versts from Moscow to Sakhalin Island, and if you have a little more versts than kilometers, that is more than 20,000 miles. At that time there was no train in the whole of Siberia, and he had to walk a very difficult road. Chekhov was just thirty years old at the time, and he was already dazzling in the Russian literary world. He said, 'Erase a year in my life, and this year I will go to Sakhalin.' By then Chekhov was already suffering from lung disease, so weak that he began to cough up blood halfway through. But he insisted on coming to Sakhalin Island, where he stayed for three months, doing very detailed surveys, statistics, making more than ten thousand cards, and interviewing some indigenous people. ”
Bu Jian, a scholar of literature and history and the author of "The Past of Sakhalin Island"
In his speech, Bu Jian pointed out that the title of "Three Thousand Years Between the Hidden" corresponds to the historical record of Sakhalin Island, which can be described as one sentence. "There are more times when you hide, and less times when you show up." When it is hidden, it is true 'hidden', and when it is manifest, it is not very 'obvious'. To analyze, you have to put all the historical materials together and bring some speculations, so that you can get (see the clues). In particular, I would like to say that the only recorded sakhalin island in history is China, Russia, Japan, and their records are very late and late, corresponding to us basically no more than the Qing Dynasty. ”
However, in the accounts of Sakhalin Island in the past Chinese dynasties, this area is generally talked about, mainly about its tribute. "It has two kinds of tribute: one is the 'neem stone crossbow', that is, arrows and arrows, very simple arrows; the second is Hai Dongqing (eagle), which is generally considered to be a falcon." The word 'Haidong' should be paid particular attention to, and I think it is more related to Sakhalin Island. In the Song Dynasty, there were officials who went on an envoy to the Jin Dynasty, and the record of return also wrote (Haidongqing), which flew from Haidong, although it did not say Sakhalin Island, but Sakhalin Island was very narrow and long, nearly a thousand kilometers long, and it was very close to the mainland. Bu Jian said.
What made Bu Jian feel sad was the loss of Sakhalin Island, "We all know that Kangqian was prosperous, the Qianlong Dynasty was a period of academic, cultural, and publishing prosperity, and the Four Libraries was compiled at that time. But no one ever thought that in the northeast, very close to the mainland coast — the nearest place was only seven miles away, and a small sampan was drawn to pass — there was such a big island. How big is it? More than 70,000 square kilometers, larger than Taiwan Island and Hainan Island combined, the island is extremely rich in products, coal, oil, trees, fisheries and so on. But everyone thinks sakhalin island is a trouble, so desolate, so far away, why should it be? ”
"Full of feelings, rigorous research, filling in the gaps"
Frontier studies history is Ma Taizheng's main business, and he first lamented in his speech, "The sensitivity of cultural scholars is much higher than ours. Reading Chekhov's "Sakhalin's Travels" can lead to so many creative springs. After I read this book, I will simply put it in three sentences: first, this is a work that fills the gap in research; second, this is a rigorous academic research work; and third, this is a recent work full of family and country feelings. ”
Ma Dazheng, deputy director of the State Committee for the Compilation of Qing History and former deputy director of the Center for the Compilation and Lecture of history of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
In Ma Dazheng's view, most of the previous history books are vague about how Sakhalin Island was separated from China. "The Past of Sakhalin Island sorts out the clues. In the future, as long as you study Sakhalin Island, this book cannot be underestimated. At the same time, he also believes that although the style of the book is a bit like historical prose, "the text is very lively, but it is indeed a very rigorous academic work." I made preliminary statistics, from the appendix reference bibliography, there are 49 kinds of compilations involving literature archives, one may correspond to one, may also correspond to dozens of books, hundreds of books. Comrade Bu Jian basically exhausted the relevant historical records, which is not easy. ”
Ma Taizheng specifically proposed that the ownership of Sakhalin Island cannot be seen in the modern sense of "jurisdiction" to see the history of that time. "The history of the East has the characteristics of oriental history, the Qing Dynasty is that you come to pay tribute to me, I will reward you, you give me a mink skin, maybe the value of what I reward you is more than ten mink skins, (so) the emperor feels good." The book mentions a very interesting example, when Russia had already ruled Sakhalin Island, but the people on the island still changed their ways to pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty. The indigenous people living in the local area are basically still in a state at the end of primitive society, and the concept of home and country is (impossible to talk about) for them, that is, whoever is good to me, I will listen to whom. ”
At the end of his speech, Ma Dazheng also euphemistically pointed out that when the author mentioned the translator of the Chinese edition of Chekhov's "Sakhalin Travels", he mistakenly wrote "Jiang Changbin" as "Jiang Changfu", and "I have also written books and compiled books." Whether it is an author or an editor, sometimes it is not seen a hundred times, and often irrelevant people can see it at a glance. ”
"Writing history is an eternal topic"
In his speech, Pan Zhenping proposed to explain why Sakhalin Island left and why it was in an unclear relationship, which may be related to the knowledge system and rules of different periods and regions. At the same time, he pointed out that for the well-known scholars and literati mentioned in the book in the past Chinese dynasties, they almost never set foot on Sakhalin Island, "in fact, there are some unavoidable reasons." ”
Pan Zhenping, member of the National Qing History Border Customs Committee, head of the biography group, and former deputy editor-in-chief of Sanlian Bookstore
"For example, at that time, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty did not want the Han people to leave the customs, because it was their 'land of Longxing'. During the years from Qianlong to Jiaqing, the Qing court organized a group of immigrants to go to the northeast, mainly Manchurians, who were unemployed in Beijing and lived on relief, and they might as well be sent to the northeast to reclaim the famine. But the Han Chinese, except for the great famine in Shandong and Hebei, allowed Han peasants to go, and other times were not welcome. In the eyes of the literati exiled to the northeast at that time, Shangyang Fort and Ninguta were already very cold areas for them, and it was almost impossible to go further north. Pan Zhenping said.
As a publisher, in Pan Zhenping's view, no matter how history is written, everything changes cannot be separated from its origin, "basic historical facts cannot be fictionalized." It's conceivable, but it can't be filled with fiction. Now people from all walks of life are writing history, tracing their ancestors and tracing their ancestors, which is very good. I hope that everyone should pay attention to this matter when writing. At the same time, he pointed out that for the author's emotional substitution in the book "Sakhalin Island Past", "from my personal point of view, I like it, and I think this is a living thing." ”
In this regard, Bu Jian expressed his approval in response. "If you look at the Chronicle of History in terms of the extremism of the present, there are a large number of 'unqualified' accounts. Doesn't it have imagination? Too much to imagine. Who's on site? The scenes are all written so vividly. However, the "History of History" is precisely the benchmark for the revision of Chinese historiography, and the wonderful thing about it is that it has imagination and induction. If the academic school draws the ground as a prison, how to face the "History"? So writing history is an eternal topic, and we still have to keep moving forward. ”