Beyond the Black Dragon River: Encounters and decline of the Qing and Russian empires, 1860--1917

"Beyond the Black Dragon River: encounters and the decline of the Qing and Russian Empires, 1860-1917," posits the pivotal influence of the Amur River region and its environment on local development, on political developments in China, and on Sino Russian relations. It illuminates the varied social, economic and political contacts that enlivened the borders of Northeastern China and the Russian Far East. My thesis builds on the premise that the Amur 'frontier' region functioned as a meeting place between empires, and was shaped by migration, settlement, and trade networks. My research treats this region as central to our understanding of the complexity of the relations between imperial China and Russia.; Since the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, China has had a formal relationship with Russia. After 1860, the Amur River became their international boundary, and the two empires launched colonization projects to settle the Amur Basin. The history of that relationship has primarily been the domain of diplomatic historians, who focus on Russian imperial expansion, and on Qing reactions to it. Yet, the diplomatic history leaves out the frontier society and its people. My research fills in this gap, by analyzing how social change in the Amur Basin challenged the political center's perceptions about the borders and border security.; This study examines the evolution of local society by analyzing how the physical environment affected the people who lived there, their habits, occupations and economic activities. It focuses on the role of migrants, settlers and traders in the formation of China's borderland society. It focuses on local dimensions rather than on national ones, to illuminate the weakness of the two empires at their remote frontiers.; My study invites an interdisciplinary approach to China's frontier history, drawing from such fields as geography, cultural and economic history. It maintains that the history of the Qing-Russian border is closely related to the environment and the natural world. The unique length of the border, the presence of rivers and lakes as borderlines, a rough topography and climate, were as vital to the formation of the frontier society as diplomatic negotiations and military campaigns. My project adds a modern socio-economic dimension to the previously ideological history of Sino-Russian relations by analyzing the role of railways and growing towns on this frontier region.