The Ainu in Russia are an Indigenous people of Siberia located in Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Krai. The Russian Ainu people (also Aine; ), also called Kurile (), Kamchatka's Kurile ( / ) or Eine (), can be subdivided into six groups.
Although only around 100 people currently identify themselves as Ainu in Russia (according to the census of 2010), it is believed that at least 1,000 people are of significant Ainu ancestry. The low numbers identifying as Ainu are a result of the refusal by the government of the Russian Federation to recognise the Ainu as a "living" ethnic group. Most of the people who identify themselves as Ainu live in Kamchatka Krai, although the largest number of people who are of Ainu ancestry (without acknowledging it) are found in Sakhalin Oblast. Many local people are ethnically Ainu or have significant Ainu ancestry but identify as Russian or Nivkh and speak Russian as mother tongue, often not knowing of their Ainu ancestry.
History The Sakhalin Ainu used the autonym to distinguish themselves from other Ainu.
Ming and Qing periods Due to Ming rule in Manchuria, Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, "the Chinese god", and motifs such as dragons, spirals, and scrolls spread among the Ainu, Nivkh, and Amur natives such as the Udeghe, Ulchi, and Nanai. These groups also adopted material goods and practices such as agriculture, husbandry, heating technologies, iron cookpots, silk, and cotton.
Qing China, which the Manchu people established in 1644, called Sakhalin "Kuyedao" () or "Kuye Fiyaka" (). The Manchus called it Sagaliyan ula angga hada 'Island at the Mouth of the Black River'. The Qing first asserted influence over Sakhalin after the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, which defined the Stanovoy Range as the border between the Qing and the Russian Empire. In the following year the Qing sent forces to the Amur estuary and demanded that the residents, including the Sakhalin Ainu, pay tribute. This was followed by several further visits to the island as part of the Qing effort to map the area. To enforce its influence, the Qing sent soldiers and mandarins across Sakhalin, reaching most parts of the island except the southern tip. The Qing imposed a fur-tribute system on the region's inhabitants.
The Qing dynasty established an office in Ningguta, situated midway along the Mudan River, to handle fur from the lower Amur and Sakhalin. Tribute was supposed to be brought to regional offices, but the lower Amur and Sakhalin were considered too remote, so the Qing sent officials directly to these regions every year to collect tribute and to present awards. By the 1730s, the Qing had appointed senior figures among the indigenous communities as "clan chief" (hala-i-da) or "village chief" (gasan-da or mokun-da). In 1732, 6 hala, 18 gasban, and 148 households were registered as tribute bearers in Sakhalin. Manchu officials gave tribute missions rice, salt, other necessities, and gifts during the duration of their mission. Tribute missions occurred during the summer months. During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–1795), a trade post existed at Deren, upstream of Kiji (Kizi) Lake, according to Rinzo Mamiya. There were 500–600 people at the market during Mamiya's stay there.
Local native Sakhalin chiefs had their daughters taken as wives by Manchu officials as sanctioned by the Qing dynasty when the Qing exercised jurisdiction in Sakhalin and took tribute from them.
Russian expansion to Kamchatka
Ainu trading expeditions with the Kamchatka Peninsula and other northern regions which today are part of Russia began very early on, despite the traditionally sedentary customs of Ainu society. Ainu migrations to Kamchatka and the Amur River area from Hokkaido were increasingly limited after the 16th century however, as Japanese merchants and officials increasingly limited their ability to migrate.
Through continual contact and trade with other indigenous groups on the Kamchatka peninsula, such as the Aleuts, Chukchi, Itelmens, and Yupik, the Ainu of the northern Kuril Islands often spoke other languages alongside Ainu as well as adopting and developing clothing styles and boat building that shared similarities with these other groups and diverged from the material culture of the Ainu inhabiting the southern Kuril Islands and Hokkaido. The Ainu in the southern Kuril Islands engaged in trade relations with Japanese people, often trading hunted seal skins for Japanese dishware and side arms.
The Kamchatka Ainu first came into contact with Russian fur traders by the end of the 17th century. With conducting the first Russian expedition to the Kuril islands in 1713. Contact with the Amur Valley Ainu in the 18th century. Russians began to settle on the northern Kuril Islands during the 18th century. During Martin Spanberg's Great Northern Expedition, he visited many of the Kuril Islands, baptising many Ainu. By mid-18th century more than 1,500 Ainu had accepted Russian citizenship.
During this period the Ainu acted as crucial parties to Russian-Japanese relations, where they participated as guides in expeditions, provided information about Japan and Russia to each other, acted as translators between Russian and Japanese individuals, and provided intermediary trade services. The importance of the Ainu in facilitating contact between Russians and Japanese is recorded in Russian images depicting official meetings at the time, where the Ainu were included alongside Russian and Japanese figures.
From 1778 to 1779 a Russian delegation met with Japanese individuals at trading posts in northern Hokkaido. Japanese and Russian records of the meeting detailed how, despite two Russian individuals being able to speak Japanese, the discussions were conducted in Ainu. Where a Japanese individual would speak in broken Ainu, then an Ainu individual from Hokkaido would correct it, and Ainu guides who had come from the Kuril islands with the Russians would translate it from Ainu to Russian.
From 1785 to 1786, Mogami Tokunai explored Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. He reported that on his visit to Iturup in the Kuril Islands he met multiple Russians who were living there with the Ainu. In 1792, Adam Laxman conducted the first official Russian expedition to Japan meeting with the Matsumae clan in Hokkaido. Due to information that had been continually passed to Russian officials by the Ainu of the Kuril islands, as part of this expedition Laxman was asked to discuss the Menashi–Kunashir rebellion which had occurred three years earlier.
Resettlement in the 19th century
When Russian captain Vasily Golovnin visited the northern Kuril Islands in 1811 he reported on meeting Ainu who could speak and read Russian. Due to this, he employed local Ainu into his expedition to act as guides and translators. Golovnin was subsequently arrested by the Japanese for violating sakoku.
In 1858, Russia established a penal colony on the island of Sakhalin. After visiting the island and its penal colony, Russian jurist, historian, and economist published in 1903, which was critical of the government's actions on the island, reporting on the negative impacts on the native peoples including the Ainu. The prisons had disrupted fishing grounds, Russian settlers prevented native peoples from hunting, and settlers and officials engaged in widespread exploitation of the native peoples.
In 1868, the estimated populations of the Ainu were around 2,000 in Sakhalin, and around 100 across the Kuril Islands.
As a result of the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg, Japanese-administered Sakhalin was given to Russia, while the Kuril Islandsalong with their Ainu inhabitantscame under Japanese administration. While the treaty recognised the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands as permanent residents, it explicitly denied them any rights as citizens between the two imperial powers.
More than a hundred Ainu left the Kuril Islands for Kamchatka as a result, with a total of 83 North Kuril Ainu arriving in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on 18 September 1877.
The Commander Islands were originally designated as a refuge for the Aleut people (from the islands of Atka, Attu, Fox, Andreanof, etc.), who were forced to flee Alaska after Russia sold it to the US. In 1827, 110 people were living on Bering Island (of which 93 spoke either Aleut or Aleut-Russian creole). Since the Northern Kuril Ainu had a similar experience due to the Treaty of St. Petersburg, the Tsar hoped to resettle them near the Aleut. But the Ainu were skeptical of the offer and rejected it, as they wanted to stay in Kamchatka mainland, whose geography was familiar to them. By 1879, the islands were home to a total of 168 Aleut and 332 Creole, plus around 50 to 60 people from other nationalities including Russians, Komi-Zyrians, Roma, and Kyrgyz. All the Creole spoke the Aleut language, as it was the language of their mothers. The Ainu, along with other minorities were quickly assimilated by the Aleut within a few decades. In 1888, 26 individuals, including Aleuts, Alutiiqs, and North Kuril Ainu, moved from cape Zheltov to Bering Island.
An agreement was reached in 1881 between the North Kuril Ainu and Russian authorities which saw the Ainu settle in the village of Yavin, Kamchatka. In March 1881, the group left Petropavlovsk and began the long journey to Yavin by foot. Four months later, they reached their new homes. Another village, , was founded later. Nine more Ainu arrived from Japan in 1884. According to the 1897 Census of Russia, Golygino had a population of 57 (all Ainu) and Yavin a population of 39 (33 Ainu & 6 Russian). Later, under Soviet rule both villages were forced to disband, and the inhabitants forcibly moved to the ethnic Russian-dominated Zaporozhye rural settlement in Ust-Bolsheretsky Raion. Also archived at Ghostarchive As a result of intermarriage, the ethnic groups assimilated to form the Kamchadal community.
The Japanese authorities did not trust the Ainu of the formerly Russian controlled Kuril Islands to be loyal to Japan, and so forcefully displaced most of them from the islands to Hokkaido where they were expected to work as farmers for Yamato Japanese landlords. During the transfer of Sakhalin, Japan also forcefully relocated 841 Sakhalin Ainu to Hokkaido (around 35% of the Ainu population of Sakhalin), with many subsequently dying due to the spread of disease in the overcrowded settlements that they were forced in to. Due to these conditions 203 Ainu managed to emigrate back to Sakhalin by 1905. Those Ainu that had remained in Sakhalin lived in the more remote interior of the island, with many married to Russians.
The Ainu (especially those in the Kurils) supported the Russians over the Japanese in conflicts of the 19th century. However, after their defeat during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russians abandoned their allies and left them to their fate. Hundreds of Ainu were executed and their families were forcibly relocated to Hokkaido by the Japanese.
During the Tsarist period, the Ainu living in Russia were forbidden to identify themselves by that name, since the Japanese officials claimed that all areas inhabited by the Ainu in the past or present belonged to Japan. The Ainu were referred to as "Kurile", "Kamchatka Kurile" or simply as Russian. As a result, many Ainu changed their surnames to Slavic sounding ones.
20th century
In the early 20th century, Bronisław Piłsudski reported that there were a few Amur Valley Ainu individuals, with many being married to either ethnic Russians or ethnic Ulchi. Only 26 individuals of sole Ainu ancestry were recorded during the 1926 Russian Census in Nikolaevski Okrug.
After the Russo-Japanese War the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth saw southern Sakhalin annexed by Japan as the Karafuto Prefecture.