Our Notes & References

“[An] obsessively comprehensive and diverse […] snapshot of a renaissance of Russia in exile” (Knyazeva): a very good example, in its original luxurious binding, of this superb publication. Limited to 1100 copies, of which about 700 only were bound – this copy with the rare paper slip and containing more leaves than the Yale library catalogue indicates.

“Few histories are as fundamental to the study of their subject as is this book. It is a photographic index of Russian people, organisations, and businesses in Shanghai, […] the most comprehensive and, in many respects, the sole source of information on the diaspora prior to the Second World War” (Knyazeva).

This seminal encyclopaedia of Russian life in China was the only opus of “the community’s only biographer” (ibid), Vladimir Zhiganov (1896–1978), a photographer, philanthropist, and White Army officer. After narrowly escaping imprisonment by the Bolsheviks, Zhiganov arrived in Shanghai in late 1925; there he remained for 38 years, witnessing the rise and decline of the Russian community, the Japanese occupation, the war, and the arrival of the Communists. In 1964, he was finally permitted to leave China and settled in Australia.

The Russian community in Shanghai emerged in the early 1920s with the arrival of a decimated Tsarist fleet from Vladivostok. Over the following years, more Russians relocated from northern China, and by 1940 the community had reached its peak of about 25,000 people (ibid). Determined to preserve the memory of the Russian diaspora, and working with almost no external support and very limited means, Zhiganov spent five years meticulously gathering information on Russian emigrants, their enterprises, and their accomplishments in their new home. He personally interviewed around 2,000 people.

The numerous biographies and essays in Zhiganov’s impressive publication are accompanied by 1,600 photographs, half of which were taken specially for the publication: “He commissioned portraits of prominent Russians […], bought ready-made city views […], and took photographs of family celebrations, public holidays, charity balls, and weddings. He developed his photographs, printed, and retouched them at home” (ibid).

The album’s most prominent section focused on industry and commerce, having “a lasting impact on the scholarship of the Russian diaspora” (ibid). Zhiganov documented sixty of the leading Russian enterprises, complete with their addresses, histories, and portraits of their proprietors. “The most unique part of the book is, no doubt, the abundant photographic documentation of Russian businesses: to these pages we owe the most detailed views of Shanghai storefronts that ever existed” (ibid). Notably, the book also gave wide representation to Russian women as business owners, artists, writers, actors, doctors, and charity workers.

Other sections of the book chronicled the Russians’ exile from Communist Russia and their arduous journey to Shanghai, including a page on the Far Eastern Cossacks; the Russian Orthodox Church in Shanghai, featuring “photographs of every Shanghai building that had ever served as a Russian prayer hall” (ibid); and a detailed survey of Russian schools, “with portraits of emigrants’ children and babies (nude, posed, dressed up for masked balls)” (ibid). These were followed by sections on Russian writers, musicians, artists, sculptors, theatre actors, sportsmen and sports clubs in Shanghai.

The production of this luxurious volume cost $18,000, financed through a combination of donations and debts taken by the author. Pressed by creditors, Zhiganov was forced to publish before completing the text; as a result, the book appeared without several leaves that were apparently intended to be sent to subscribers later with additional supplements—but these were never printed. Upon the book’s release, Zhiganov “was 7,000 silver dollars in debt. He had to increase the planned price from 3 to 25 dollars, at a time “a dinner of three courses with a shot of vodka cost 40 cents,” and a volume by a classical Russian writer cost four dollars”. The book sold slowly, and most buyers paid in instalments. Of the 1,100 copies Zhiganov had printed, he managed to sell about 700, which barely allowed him to repay his debts. The remaining 400 copies were left unbound (ibid).

Many copies of this limited edition apparently perished. After the end of the Second World War, many Russians returning to the USSR “bought a copy of Zhiganov’s book as a souvenir; the books would be confiscated at the Soviet border”. Less than two decades later, when Zhiganov himself underwent a customs inspection before boarding a ship to Australia, officials confiscated “the remaining unsold copies of Russians in Shanghai” (ibid).

Provenance

San Francisco private emigré collection.

Bibliography

Knyazeva, Katya. “The scribe of Russian Shanghai: Vladimir Zhiganov and his perennial masterpiece” // Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society China. Vol. 77 No. 1, 2017.