The beginning of the 1900s, Russian civilization of the Outer Manchuria seen from the artistic world: Akira Kurosawa’s “Dersu Uzala”, Vladimir Arsenyev’s book, the Russian Far Wild East, American Wild West and Greenland

• Main Author: Christensen Carsten Sander
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Modern Humanitarian Researches 2019-12-01
• Series: Studia Humanitatis
• Subjects: dersu uzala; khabarovsk; russian far east; siberia; nanai people; vladimir arsenyev; indigenous people; greenland; modernity; agasi babayan; siberian romanticism; sikhote-alin mountains
• Online Access: http://st-hum.ru/en/node/862/

The article deals with the history and the problems of civilization of the Russian Far East in the beginning of the 1900s, seen from a perspective of a book “Dersu Uzala” from 1923 and two Russian movies of the same name from 1961 and 1975, respectively. How Russian civilization was perceived in the Far Eastern region on the border between Russia and China at the beginning of the 20th century? In a comparison with the Danish civilization of Greenland and the American Wild West, the article will shed new light on the perception of the reclamation of new land in Russian Far East, in nowadays Primorsky Krai. Furthermore, the article addresses the visualization methods the director’s use to express their views on the Russian Empire politics of civilizing the areas around the Amur and Ussuri rivers. The question if the films show a historically correct insight into the period in which the Russian Empire incorporated Wild Far East is analysed.