Paper short abstract:

This presentation is telling a story about forgotten Ukrainian journalist and editor Ivan Svit and his efforts toward constructing "imagined Ukraine" in occupied Manchuria.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation examines the history of Ukrainian emigration in Manchuria on the example of the life and intellectual works of Ivan Svit, a Ukrainian journalist and historian. After the Russian revolution in 1918, he moved to the Far East and then emigrated to Harbin in 1922, where he lived till 1941.

Ukrainians have been a stateless minority, first under the strong ideology of Russian monarchism and then under the Japanese ideology of the "peaceful co-existence of five different nations" in Manchuria. With the advent of the Japanese occupation, between 1932-1937, Svit published a newspaper called "The Manchurian Herald," representing the interests of minorities, Ukrainians, and other national communities. Then between 1937-1944, he wrote a book on the history of Ukrainian national movements in Asia, made a radio program, and published a unique map of the Ukrainian presence in the Far East and the first Ukrainian-Japanese dictionary.

By publishing a newspaper, maps, dictionary, making radio programs, and writing a book, Svit constructed a public space of imagining Ukraine in Asia and re-established himself as a different social class of intelligentsia. By articulating Ukrainian interests in Asia and not assimilating or diffusing into a dominant host structure, he actively shaped a transnational network by using his adjustive leadership. When Ukraine did not have a political state using his journalistic and communication skills, he created "imaginary Ukraine" miles away from the Ukrainian mainland in Asia.