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Paper short abstract

　This presentation focuses on Japanese merchants who conducted business in Vladivostok from the late Meiji to the Taisho period. By analysing their activities after they repatriated, the presentation aims to shed light on how the economic sphere around the Sea of Japan was restructured before WW2.

Paper long abstract

　The purpose of this presentation is to elucidate how the modern economic sphere around the Sea of Japan was reorganised under the influence of social turmoil in the Russian Far East, by analysing the business activities of Japanese merchants who “repatriated” from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East during the late Taisho period.

　Whilst conventional studies of Imperial Japan have focused on population movements between regions and the colonial expansion of Japanese merchants through the lens of immigration and economic history, research centred on the dynamics of regional communities in the mainland has been relatively neglected. This study therefore attempts to illuminate the formation process of the colonial economic sphere from the perspective of regional communities in the mainland, through the activities of merchants moving within the modern Japan Sea region.

　First, focusing on merchants who maintained bases in Vladivostok until the late Taisho period but were compelled to ‘return’ to the mainland or other territories, as evidenced by documents held at the Diplomatic Archives, this study conducts a diachronic analysis of their business trends before and after ‘return’ using various quantitative and qualitative data. Next, taking the port city of Tsuruga in Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast as a case study destination for these “withdrawn” merchants, it examines how merchants “withdrawn” to this location expanded trade with Korea and Manchuria even during the stagnation period of trade with Russia (the Soviet Union). Furthermore, it considers how the networks formed during the migration process of these “withdrawn” merchants influenced the transformation of the colonial economic sphere surrounding the Sea of Japan.

　This research re-examines the historical image of Imperial Japan by focusing on people's movements and inland regional societies from a geographical perspective.