Russian Dalian
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Russian Dalian, also known as Kvantunskaya Oblast, was a leased territory ruled by the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
that existed between its establishment after the Pavlov Agreement in 1898 and its annexation by the
Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...
after the
Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
in 1905. Located near the southernmost point of the
Liaodong Peninsula The Liaodong or Liaotung Peninsula ( zh, s=辽东半岛, t=遼東半島, p=Liáodōng Bàndǎo) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located ...
, the city of
Dalian Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
came under the territorial control of the Russian Empire from 1898 until that country's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The Russians called the city Dalniy (), which means "distant" or "remote", describing the city's location relative to the Russian heartland. The modern Chinese name, ''Dalian'', comes from a Chinese reading of the Japanese colonial name ''Dairen'', which itself was a loose transliteration of the Russian name ''Dalniy''. Under Russian control, Dalniy grew into a vibrant port city; before its loss in 1905 it was one terminus of the Russian-controlled Chinese Eastern Railway.


Background

The 1890s saw the intensification of rivalries among
Qing China The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty ...
, Japan, and Russia – with the lesser interests of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States – over paramount influence in
Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
. For Russia, the region of the
Liaodong Peninsula The Liaodong or Liaotung Peninsula ( zh, s=辽东半岛, t=遼東半島, p=Liáodōng Bàndǎo) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located ...
was of particular interest as one of the few areas in the region that had the potential to develop ice-free ports. These rivalries came to their first armed conflict during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, which resulted in Japan's resounding victory over the Qing Dynasty, a contest that involved a battle over the port of Lushun (later called Port Arthur) near what would become Dalian or Dalniy. The engagements on the Liaodong Peninsula between Japanese and Chinese troops confirmed to the Japanese the strategic importance of the region, and in particular the strategic positioning of the region around Dalian. Though Japan seized control over the peninsula and was awarded it in the subsequent Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), it was forced to retrocede it to Qing China following the diplomatic pressure of Russia, Germany, and France, the so-called Triple Intervention of 1895. This would contribute to the growing and bitter rivalry between Japan and Russia while also paving the way for the Russian seizure of the region three years later. In 1897 Russia signed with Qing China a secret agreement for the establishment under Russian guidance of the Chinese Eastern Railway. On December 15, 1897, Russia, fearing that without decisive action it might lose its chance to seize the port of Dalian to another imperial power such as Germany, which earlier that year had taken control of
Qingdao Qingdao, Mandarin: , (Qingdao Mandarin: t͡ɕʰiŋ˧˩ tɒ˥) is a prefecture-level city in the eastern Shandong Province of China. Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, Qingdao was long an important fortress. In 1897, the city was ceded to G ...
, had its fleet steam into Dalian harbor. On March 27, 1898, Russia signed the Pavlov Agreement with China, which granted Russia a 25-year lease on Dalian and Lushun and exclusive right to lay a branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway to them - what would become the South Manchurian Railway. At first, the flags of both China and Russia were raised over the city, something that assuaged the anger of some local Chinese. Within a few weeks, however, the Chinese ensign was no longer flying.


Development

Dalniy soon became a center of Russian military power in the Far East. In 1897 there were already 12,500 Russian troops in Lushun and the surrounding area, a number that would grow to 35,000 by 1904. However, the powerful Russian Finance Minister Sergei Witte had larger visions for the region than just a military garrison. Witte was overseeing the development of the Chinese Eastern Railway and soon pushed through plans to extend the railway from
Harbin Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
to the port at Dalny. In such a vision the city would become a powerful open trading port in the Far East while nearby Port Arthur would be an exclusive Russian military city. On 8 November 1899, Nicholas II ordered the start of construction of this port city, and - at Witte's suggestion - christened the city Dal'nii (or Dalniy: Dalian), meaning "far away" in Russian. Between 1899 and 1903 the Chinese Eastern Railway, which had obtained the concession to build the South Manchurian Railway terminating in Dalny, pumped nearly 20 million rubles into the city's development. In 1899 V.V. Sakharov (Владимир Васильевич Сахаров, 1860–1904, died of typhoid fever in besieged Port Arthur), a Russian engineer who had been tasked earlier with the design of
Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...
, was selected to implement plans for the development of Russian Dalniy. He approached the monumental task of transforming what was a scattering of sleepy Chinese fishing villages into a port city to rival
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
or
Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...
by dividing construction into two phases. Overall Sakharov's plans were inspired by the " Garden City" or "City Beautiful" movements that were influencing and transforming the urban centers of Europe and America. It called for the city to be divided into five connected districts - one commercial, two administrative, one residential, and one Chinese, and all supplied with electricity and a modern water system. In the first phase from 1899 to 1902 two main wharves were built capable of berthing twenty-five ships of 1000 tons. The wharves were never completed by the time the Japanese seized control of the city in 1905 in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War. But by 1902 much of the wharf construction had been completed and that year over 900 ships from eight countries docked in the new facilities. Nevertheless, considering the existence of a large Russian port at
Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...
, as well as a better developed Chinese port at nearby
Yingkou Yingkou ( zh, s=, t=, p=Yíngkǒu) is a coastal prefecture-level city of central southern Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, on the northeastern shore of Liaodong Bay. It is the third-smallest city in Liaoning with a total area of , a ...
(Newchwang), Dalniy had its detractors, who dubbed it Lishny ("superfluous"). In any case, from a maritime standpoint, the major attraction of the location for the Russians was as a naval - rather than a commercial - port. The Russian development of the city by necessity involved the uprooting of the location's original Chinese inhabitants. In the summer of 1899, this sparked an angry riot in which Chinese attacked the railway office with stones, dragging away the Chinese clerks and interpreters working for the Russians. Nevertheless, the city's development also brought opportunities, and during the years of Russian tenureship tens of thousands of Chinese migrated into the area. In terms of the railroad, construction linking Dalniy with Harbin was begun apace and by January 1903 the rail link between the two cities was complete. In February 1903, the first express train arrived in Dalniy from Harbin and by that August Dalniy was successfully linked by rail to the Russian homeland. By 1904, enough progress had been made on the development of the city to embolden the Comte Cassini, Russian minister to the United States, to declare that “Harbin and Dalniy are monuments to Russian progressiveness and civilization.”


Legacy

Most remnants of Russia's seven-year tenure in Dalian are located along what is today called Russian Street (Русская улица ''Russkaia ulitsa''), originally Engineer Street (улица Инженерная ''ulitsa Inzhenernaia''), the oldest street in Dalian.


Soviet occupation

During World War II, Dalian was occupied by Japan. After the war, with the unconditional
surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was Hirohito surrender broadcast, announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally Japanese Instrument of Surrender, signed on 2 September 1945, End of World War II in Asia, ending ...
in September 1945, the city passed to the
Soviets The Soviet people () were the citizens and nationals of the Soviet Union. This demonym was presented in the ideology of the country as the "new historical unity of peoples of different nationalities" (). Nationality policy in the Soviet Union ...
, following the
Soviet invasion of Manchuria The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation or simply the Manchurian Operation () and sometimes Operation August Storm, began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet Union, Soviet invasion of the Emp ...
. Described in 1949 as "New China's model metropolis" by the
Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
, the former colonial city was occupied by the Soviet military from 1945 to 1950. Soviet-inspired policies were enacted in the city and contributed to ideas of socialist urbanization.


Modern

In the mid-1990s, the mayor of Dalian,
Bo Xilai Bo Xilai ( zh, s=薄熙来, p=Bó Xīlái; born 3 July 1949) is a Chinese former politician who was convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges. He came to prominence through his tenures as Mayor of Dalian and then the governor of Liaoning. ...
, conceived the idea of renovating the remaining Russian-era structures on the street, adding new ones built in a Russian style, and renaming the street Russian Street. Work on the project began in 1999 and brought in Russian architects and other experts. Eight Russian era buildings were renovated, including the former Russian Dalniy City Hall, six new buildings were built, and six other existing structures were given "Russian façades" to match the street's theme. The newly renovated street was inaugurated on 1 October 2000.Institut arkhitektury i stroitel'stva


Administrators


See also

*
Kwantung Leased Territory The Kwantung Leased Territory () was a Concessions in China, leased territory of the Empire of Japan in the Liaodong Peninsula from 1905 to 1945. Japan first acquired Kwantung from the Qing dynasty, Qing Empire in perpetuity in 1895 in the Tre ...
* Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory


Notes


References


Further reading

* Hess, Christian A. (2006). "From colonial jewel to socialist metropolis: Dalian, 1895-1955." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, San Diego. * Perrins, Robert John (1998). "'Great connections': The creation of a city, Dalian, 1905-1931. China and Japan on the Liaodong Peninsula." Ph.D. dissertation, York University (Canada). * Quested, R.K.I. (1982). ''“Matey” Imperialists? The Tsarist Russians in Manchuria, 1895-1917.'' University of Hong Kong. * Stephan, John J. (1994). ''The Russian Far East, a History.'' Stanford University Press. * {{coord missing, Russia History of Dalian
Dalian Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
Dalian Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
Concessions in China China–Russian Empire relations States and territories disestablished in 1898 1898 establishments in Asia 1905 disestablishments in Asia