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Beyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino-Russian Border
A comprehensive history of the Sino-Russian border, one of the longest and most important land borders in the world
The Sino-Russian border, once the world’s longest land border, has received scant attention in histories about the margins of empires. Beyond the Steppe Frontier rectifies this by exploring the demarcation’s remarkable transformation—from a vaguely marked frontier in the seventeenth century to its twentieth-century incarnation as a tightly patrolled barrier girded by watchtowers, barbed wire, and border guards. Through the perspectives of locals, including railroad employees, herdsmen, and smugglers from both sides, Sören Urbansky explores the daily life of communities and their entanglements with transnational and global flows of people, commodities, and ideas. Urbansky challenges top-down interpretations by stressing the significance of the local population in supporting, and undermining, border making.
Because Russian, Chinese, and native worlds are intricately interwoven, national separations largely remained invisible at the border between the two largest Eurasian empires. This overlapping and mingling came to an end only when the border gained geopolitical significance during the twentieth century. Relying on a wealth of sources culled from little-known archives from across Eurasia, Urbansky demonstrates how states succeeded in suppressing traditional borderland cultures by cutting kin, cultural, economic, and religious connections across the state perimeter, through laws, physical force, deportation, reeducation, forced assimilation, and propaganda.
Beyond the Steppe Frontier sheds critical new light on a pivotal geographical periphery and expands our understanding of how borders are determined.
The Sino-Russian border, once the world’s longest land border, has received scant attention in histories about the margins of empires. Beyond the Steppe Frontier rectifies this by exploring the demarcation’s remarkable transformation—from a vaguely marked frontier in the seventeenth century to its twentieth-century incarnation as a tightly patrolled barrier girded by watchtowers, barbed wire, and border guards. Through the perspectives of locals, including railroad employees, herdsmen, and smugglers from both sides, Sören Urbansky explores the daily life of communities and their entanglements with transnational and global flows of people, commodities, and ideas. Urbansky challenges top-down interpretations by stressing the significance of the local population in supporting, and undermining, border making.
Because Russian, Chinese, and native worlds are intricately interwoven, national separations largely remained invisible at the border between the two largest Eurasian empires. This overlapping and mingling came to an end only when the border gained geopolitical significance during the twentieth century. Relying on a wealth of sources culled from little-known archives from across Eurasia, Urbansky demonstrates how states succeeded in suppressing traditional borderland cultures by cutting kin, cultural, economic, and religious connections across the state perimeter, through laws, physical force, deportation, reeducation, forced assimilation, and propaganda.
Beyond the Steppe Frontier sheds critical new light on a pivotal geographical periphery and expands our understanding of how borders are determined.
360 pages, Hardcover
First published January 7, 2020
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About the author
Sören Urbansky
9 books5 followersSören Urbansky is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. He is the author of Kolonialer Wettstreit: Russland, China, Japan und die Ostchinesische Eisenbahn.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 10, 2021
A fascinating read on Sino-Russian relations over the centuries, framing it in the context of the evolution of the border regions, the people who lived there, and how the concept of international borders developed and adapted to changing circumstances. For centuries, these remote regions were left to their own devices, too far away from the centers of power to allow much interference. Hybrid cultures developed, influenced by Russian and Chinese society, but not beholden to them. As time went on, however, a growing population, easier means of communication, and an increased interest in the natural resources these remote regions provided brought the "centers" of power closer, affecting these hybrid societies and almost eliminating them. The previously flexible and often ignored border hardened, and closed almost entirely with the ascent of Soviet and later PRC power. Even during those times, and still to this day, substantial control by Moscow and Beijing still cannot hinder the relative freedom offered by these remote regions.
A great read for those interested in cross-border relations, Chinese and Russian societies, and international relations. It's a book that, once you see it, become annoyed that such a book had not been written before, and provides a better understanding on an area few think about. I hope to see either this book, or the sources within used within academic papers and books in the future.
A great read for those interested in cross-border relations, Chinese and Russian societies, and international relations. It's a book that, once you see it, become annoyed that such a book had not been written before, and provides a better understanding on an area few think about. I hope to see either this book, or the sources within used within academic papers and books in the future.
April 8, 2025
Really tremendous work of scholarship, combing through Romanov and Qing archives alike to piece together a 300 year portrait of the Amur River border between Heilongjiang and the Russian Far East. More sociological than geopolitical or even grand historic, but does a fantastic job highlighting the cultural exchanges and transborder peoples (Buryats, Mongols, Cossacks, etc.) before the ultimate closure and sealing off of the border.
If you're looking for wedges or confluences between Chinese and Russian cultures, you're out of luck - most of the unnatural divisions are the work of decades of propaganda and high political tensions rather than any natural enmity - but seeing the origins of the regional contours and the impact of the railways is fascinating enough to make the history lively (despite the relative dryness of the subject matter) and this book worthwhile.
If you're looking for wedges or confluences between Chinese and Russian cultures, you're out of luck - most of the unnatural divisions are the work of decades of propaganda and high political tensions rather than any natural enmity - but seeing the origins of the regional contours and the impact of the railways is fascinating enough to make the history lively (despite the relative dryness of the subject matter) and this book worthwhile.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews