Rubezh Digital Archive

Published in Harbin from 1926 to 1945, Rubezh (Рубеж, The Frontier) was founded by publisher Evgenii Kaufman and supported by correspondents in Europe, the Americas, and Australia. As the only comprehensive record of Russian émigré intellectual and cultural life in Harbin, the most important center of Russian exile in East Asia, it quickly became the best-known periodical of “Russian Manchuria.” After the Red Army entered China, the journal was shut down and its staff and many contributors were arrested and deported to the USSR.

In the beginning of the 20^th century the town of Harbin in China was a very special place for the Russian diaspora. Built around the Chinese Eastern Railway, it provided unusual legal and economic freedoms. That position drew waves of Russians (professionals, refugees from the Soviet reach, clergy, etc.). They built schools, churches, theaters and printed media in Harbin, of which Rubezh was the main publication.

The journal’s dense photo-reportage and accessible prose recorded everyday life and major events in Harbin and Manchuria – including floods, the Japanese entry into Harbin in 1932, culture and sport, church processions, and visits by stars from Shaliapin to Vertinsky – offering a meticulous record of early-twentieth-century Sino-Russian relations and diaspora culture.

With its readable style and broad scope, the Rubezh Digital Archive serves researchers in Russian emigration studies, East Asian history, media and film studies, fashion history, and transnational cultural exchange.