Mapping the Russian Diaspora in Shanghai

For 30 years, between 1919 and 1949, Shanghai was home to a large community of ex-Russian subjects who came from the Far East, Siberia, Central Russia and the Western regions of the dissolved empire. Composed mostly of refugees from the Bolshevik revolution, the Shanghai Russian diaspora eventually absorbed thousands of stateless compatriots from North China. Despite their different origins, legal status and religious affiliation, the Russians had in common their language and culture, as well as the shared experience of emigration. This chapter examines photographic and cartographic evidence of their presence in Shanghai and highlights the avenues of interaction with Chinese and international communities. By looking at visual and geographical data, we bring to the foreground the spatial dimensions of historical narrative, in line with spatial history’s argument that the past exists in space, not in time, and that history is nothing but a map of places made by human action.