The article presents the ethnic picture that developed on Sakhalin during the Japanese colonization of the southern part of the island in 1905-1945, as presented by the writer Anatoly Kim in his early works. In his first two collections, he told about the life of people, the indigenous inhabitants of the island, who found themselves in completely unusual conditions for them. His books create realistic images of Far Eastern Koreans who experienced the assimilation influence of first Japanese and then Russian culture.

Keywords: Far East, Anatoly Kim, early prose, "eastern" perceptions, national culture, Korean diaspora.

Each of my books is a story about collision and overcoming

Anatoly Kim

The earliest works of any writer often reflect most directly the feelings and thoughts that concern the author at the time of their creation. Perhaps that is why the first sketches are often imperfect in artistic terms, but they are strong in conveying the author's emotions and moods, and often surpass later works in this respect. The above fully applies to the first books of Anatoly Andreevich Kim (b. 1939), a Russian writer of Korean origin. Anatoly Kim is a bright representative of Russian avant-garde literature; he made his debut with the collections "Blue Island" (1976) and "Four Confessions" (1978). Today, this literary name is known to a wide range of Russian and foreign readers. Anatoly Kim's books have been translated into many languages - English, French, Italian, Danish, Korean, Japanese, etc. Among the most popular works among readers are not only the fiction of A. Kim, but also nonfiction literature: "The Village of Centaurs "(1992), " Onlyria "(1993), "My Past" (1995), " The Island of Jonah "(2001), etc.

In his first works Anatoly Kim created a gallery of multinational characters, the action of his stories and novels takes place in the Far East. This part of Russia in the XX century, due to certain historical circumstances, was distinguished by a diverse ethnic composition of the population. The hard labor that officially existed on Sakhalin (1869-1906); the transfer of the southern part of Sakhalin under Japanese jurisdiction following the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905); the forced repatriation of Koreans from the Korean Peninsula to Sakhalin; the constant migration of the population of the Far East - all this contributed to an unusual ethnic conglomerate of peoples in this region.

It was Sakhalin that became a place of concentration of various cultural layers, which is vividly embodied in the very first books of the writer Anato-

Leah Kim. In their artistic form, they not only reflected the specific features of the traditional way of life of the peoples of the East, but also found a place for the writer's reflections on the conditions of peaceful coexistence of a large number of national communities in a limited territory.

Having made the heroes of "Blue Island" and "Four Confessions" people of different ethnic groups, Anatoly Kim, himself an ethnic Korean, still preferred to depict the established Korean way of life and the problem of its interrelationships with the everyday culture of Russians and Japanese. Such cultural interpenetrations were characteristic of the Sakhalin Koreans ' environment. It was this feature that was reflected in the writer's early stories and made it possible to introduce colorful descriptions of the Korean ethnic group into the space of Russian and later foreign literature.

The theme of the cultural identity of Koreans, their everyday traditional life, faced with uncharacteristic Korean cultural realities, worried the writer from childhood. His parents, along with other Koreans, were exiled from the Far East to Kazakhstan in 1937. Having been born and spent his childhood in an atmosphere of exile, Anatoly Kim realized at an early age "that Koreans <...> were not the masters of life where < ... > ..> lived" [Kim, 1998, p. 6]. Later, he noted with heartache that "Koreans in their own country for almost half a century were considered lower-order beings" [Kim, 1998, p. 8]. Anatoly Kim devoted most of the pages of his debut collections to the difficult history of ethnic Koreans in the USSR, to which the writer himself was personally involved, living inside the Korean diaspora, getting into learn the details of traditional life, listening to stories, sometimes tragic, of relatives and neighbors.

Anatoly Kim's early work clearly shows the diverse and ambiguous relationships between Russians, Koreans, and Japanese. Literary stories about the Japanese colonial policy in South Sakhalin, directed against Koreans, and the peaceful nature of relations between Koreans and Russians have a documentary basis. It is noteworthy that among the main characters of the writer's stories and novels of the 1970s, there are practically no people of Japanese nationality. Sometimes Japanese people are mentioned by other characters (the story "Vagabonds of Sakhalin") or occasionally indicated in the author's digressions (half-Japanese Tonya Ohara from the story "Herb Collectors"). In the works of Anatoly Kim, there are no descriptions of military operations or detailed scenes of the peaceful life of the Japanese. The reader learns about the hardships of Japanese colonization, the details of the stay of the Japanese in the Far East from some of the writer's characters. For example, one of the characters in the story "Vagabonds of Sakhalin" in a conversation with a friend shares memories of the humiliation of Koreans by the Japanese: "Ishika wa could not stand Koreans. That is, he despised them so much that he couldn't pass a Korean without spitting in his face or hitting him in the ear" (Kim, 1976, p. 4). 64]. In the story "The Twelfth" it is noted that " the Japanese once burned a lot of forest on the southern half of the island "(Kim, 1976, p. 270).

Kim's literary characters tell us that by subjugating the Koreans, the Japanese imposed their own way of life, traditions, and foundations on them. So, children and adults had to have Japanese names (in addition to Korean names, which were preserved, but only for the home circle). In the story "Meko Briar", the heroine, along with the Korean name, which the author omits, also had a Japanese name-Meko; in the story "Loggers", one of the characters, a Korean, has a Japanese surname Iwomoto and does not know his Korean name; another Korean, Do Hok-ro, from the story "Herb Gatherers" A man who came to Japan to work received a new surname of Japanese origin from his master - Matsumoto. A young Korean woman from the same work had "three names - Russian, Japanese, and Korean" (Kim, 1976, p.270). The Japanese gave her the name Mashiko. She was called Maria, living among the Russians after the liberation of Sakhalin in 1945. The Korean name was never mentioned in the story: it was as if the heroine had forgotten it along with her previous life.

In addition, during the colonization of Sakhalin, such words as "lord", "mistress", "master", "rich man", "poor man"became more active in everyday life of Koreans. This is clearly read in the stories "Revenge", "Vagabonds of Sakhalin". In the words of one of the heroes of the "Vagabonds of Sakhalin", Koreans "are forced to become Japanese by the order of their masters" (Kim, 1976, p.64). These life episodes were partly erased from the memory of Koreans in the post-war period, but the contrast between the enslavers and the enslaved was long pointed out by the one-story" bleak " barracks built for Koreans brought from their homeland to Sakhalin [Kim, 1976, p. 82].

During the period of Japanese rule over the enslaved peoples, they, in particular Koreans, being subjects of the Japanese emperor, involuntarily perceived certain Japanese customs and cultural traditions. An example of this can be found in A. Kim's short story "Revenge", in which the Korean Sungu, after the death of his mother, "did not want to leave her ashes forever in this foreign land and arranged a burial in Japanese (my italics - etc.) by committing the body to the fire" [Kim, 1976, p. 22].

The liberation of Imperial Japan in 1945, as a result of the Soviet victory, brought relative freedom to the Koreans: they were freed from Japanese colonization, but their lives were determined by a new political framework, and they, in particular, were not able to return to their historical homeland. After the end of World War II, the Koreans of the Soviet Far East had to adapt to a different socio-cultural environment. This primarily affected their daily lives. A. Kim's stories reflect a new trend in those years when Koreans began to take Russian names for themselves-Kolya ("Bride of the Sea"), Zhanna ("Tall Grass"), Maria ("Herb Gatherers"). Russian names began to be given to Koreans at baptism-Vasilisa ("Filial Court"), Olga ("Nightingale Echo"), they were recorded under Russian surnames - Kuznetsov (in the story "Herb Collectors").

At the same time, representatives of the Korean diaspora honored national traditions and preserved elements of everyday life. And this is spelled out in detail in the stories and novels of Anatoly Kim. The characters of his stories eat rice, salted radish and seaweed ("Bride of the Sea", "Loggers", "Filial Court", etc.); they use chopsticks as cutlery ("Filial Court"); they sleep on a painted floor on a roller stuffed with sawdust instead of a pillow ("Revenge""Bride of the Sea" , etc.). The writer sympathetically emphasizes national features in the appearance of some of his characters. For example, the elderly Korean Moon ("Filial Court"), living in Russia, in the Far East, "according to the old fashion <...> did not cut his hair and wore it in a bun on top of his head" [Kim, 1976, p.181].

The connection of Sakhalin Koreans with their historical homeland in the story "The Twelfth" is realized through the veneration of traditions, attention to memorable dates: "In mid-August, the entire Korean part of the town celebrated the day of liberation of their distant homeland, a big celebration was held at the stadium-with an open-air buffet, with a huge swing" [Kim, 1976, p. 208].

Despite their suffering, people did not lose faith in the future, continued to love life with all its vicissitudes. After all, in difficult everyday situations, Korean folklore (proverbs, songs, national rituals and customs) came to the aid of the heroes of Anatoly Kim's books. Thus, the story "Nightingale's Echo" includes a fairy tale about "a devil in the Korean version, a small demon" [Kim, 1978, p. 60]. This is a parable about the fear that can be overcome by pulling yourself together. In the story "Revenge", a pre-wedding Korean custom is mentioned: "in a distant homeland, it was customary to bring a fat goose to the bride's house during matchmaking" [Kim, 1976, p. 31].

A special role in the works of Anatoly Kim is given to Korean folk sayings. They help to convey the everyday life of Koreans in the most colorful way, show the features of the national flavor. So, the story "Loggers" testifies

that Korean wisdom is passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. Korean Yoo instructs young Chae-san, who has fallen in love with a Russian woman and is tormented by feelings that overwhelm his heart: "Don't be a fool. Listen to what your elders say (emphasis added).) < ... > The person himself is still half of the being, the other half is his happiness" [Kim, 1976, p. 137]. Two friends from the story "Vagabonds of Sakhalin" were on the road for a long time. One of them, feeling very hungry, began to talk about food. To which the other replied with the saying: "You, Dex, are a stupid person: you see broken glass and climb on it barefoot, you see fire and stick your hand in it. Why talk about food all the time?" [Kim, 1976, p. 63]. In the story "The Bee and the Flower", the wife goes in search of her husband, who was a partisan during the war and crossed the Russian border. The meeting did not please her husband, who by this time had married another woman. "Understand that too much time has passed," says the main character, "and all the past that was before these military roads has become for me like a distant dream..." [Kim, 1976, p.140]. The woman understood everything, and she expressed her attachment to her husband in an Oriental metaphor: "Bee <...> always flies to the flower. It's not her fault" [Kim, 1976, p. 143].

In Anatoly Kim's early stories, the culture and everyday life of Koreans appear in their natural environment. The stories "Revenge" and "Bee and Flower" are partly set in the Korean Peninsula. Anatoly Kim always accurately links the action to geographical realities, thereby enhancing the plausibility of the events described. Thus, the story" Revenge "mentions the Tumangan River [Kim, 1976, p. 17], the town of Mukden [Kim, 1976, p. 19]; in the story" Bee and Flower " - "the passes of Pektusan" [Kim, 1976, p. 143] and again the Tumangan River [Kim, 1976, p. 19]. 150, 152] and others.

A special theme in the works of A. Kim, in which the reader is exposed to the eastern microcosm, is the upbringing of children. School education begins with the book "A Thousand Signs", as well as reading" didactic poems " [Kim, 1976, p.17]. Small children of the writer's heroine are carried on the back, thus prolonging the feeling of unity between mother and child. At the same time, certain responsibilities are assigned to the child from a very early age. The most exotic form of such a duty imposed on a child takes place in the story "Revenge", in which the father of the murdered girl "peasant Tsai", unable to take revenge on the enemy himself, cast a spell on his son - after all, Sung-gu "was begged from fate only for revenge" [Kim, 1976, p.16-18]. Submissive to his father's will, the boy "bowed down and promised to fulfill everything" [Kim, 1976, p. 18].

Throughout her growing up, Sungoo harbors the idea of putting her dying father's order into practice. This was especially noticed by those who knew about the family's grief. Unsociable, introverted, seemingly detached from the busy world, Sungoo lived his own life, which alarmed local old-timers. "Water runs under the ice, fire smolders under the ashes, the old men said pointedly" [Kim, 1976, p. 20]. Their guesses were justified. At a certain point, the "mature Sungu" decided to fulfill the old Tsai's order. His abuser, "fat Yan", who lived in the same village, decided to leave for Sakhalin. Sungoo followed him. Local residents did not fail to accompany his act with folk wisdom: "The arrow will fly after the goose <...> because the hunter wants meat" [Kim, 1976, p. 21]. The author again introduces elements of folklore into the narrative fabric. This technique helps to better understand the character of the main character. Folk wisdom, enclosed in the form of proverbs and sayings, accompanies the actions of many characters in the story "Revenge", is woven into the fabric of their speech, into the train of thoughts.

The Korean language is characterized by expressive imagery. For example, mutual love in the view of Koreans is a "golden deer", which lovers "hold by the horns on both sides" ("Bride of the sea") [Kim, 1976, p. 76]. The desire to use metaphors in speech is characteristic of characters, regardless of age. Eastern wisdom teaches contemplation, observation, and reverence for nature. All this is reflected in the type of thinking, gives rise to a purely eastern trait-the tendency to formulate the laws of life.

Sungoo (the story" Revenge") is looking for answers to questions about the meaning of existence, about choosing a life path. In a conversation with the "old monk", his "children's teacher", he puts human life on a par with the life of an animal, a plant: "Then what is the path of those who die in infancy? < ... > The leaves that fall at the very beginning of summer? Little mice that accidentally drowned in a bucket?" [Kim, 1976, p. 20]. The monk's answer is written in a special philosophical and instructive tone, in the spirit of Buddhism: "These creatures," he says, " had no path. They went out on the road in the morning, but they were overtaken by an unexpected dream. And during this dream, the waters washing over the realm of earthly life carried them back to the very beginning of the cycle of transformations. In a thousand or two thousand years, their journey will begin again" [Kim, 1976, p. 21]. Awareness of the cyclical nature of history, knowledge and feeling of the laws of existence determine the calmness and patience of Anatoly Kim's characters, their humility before fate.

Creating a collective portrait of the Korean diaspora, Anatoly Kim could not ignore the issues of faith. Early stories and novels reflect the adoption of Orthodoxy by Koreans, while it is not hidden that it was purely formal - Koreans received Russian names ("Filial Court", "Nightingale Echo"), and their adherence to the Russian faith stopped there. In the Korean family, the national way of life was still preserved, and Korean names were also used in domestic use.

Thus, Korean culture gradually gained independence in the region of the Soviet Far East, and Koreans became its full-fledged inhabitants. The writer often refers to his characters as representatives of the Asia-Pacific region. A typical trick of Anatoly Kim is to focus on the nationalities of the characters without mentioning their proper names: "Korean cook" ("Watercolor"), "two Koreans", "dark-faced Korean" ("Seasonalists"), "Korean girl" ("Tall Grass"), "Koreans of the city" ("Twelfth"), "the elderly Korean" ("Onion Field").

Anatoly Kim's image of the Korean diaspora in the Far East in the second half of the 20th century includes the perception of Japanese and Russian traditions by Korean culture, the interpenetration of these cultures in clearly defined geographical realities, the description of elements of Japanese and Russian life, and details of folklore in the perception of ethnic Koreans. This has enriched the lives of Far Eastern Koreans and at the same time alienated them from their fellow Koreans on the Korean Peninsula.

"Oriental" perceptions permeate the entire prose of the writer Anatoly Kim. The oriental flavor of his books was noted by both critics and literary critics. Thus, Vitaly Kamyshev described Anatoly Kim's early prose as the discovery "for the Russian reader of a whole ethnocosm - Koreans living in Russia" (Kamyshev, 1989, p. 144). In the images of characters from the Korean diaspora, as well as "people "strange", "out of place", "unlike" - in their appearance and fate <...> different worlds intersected <...> in their veins flows the blood of different nations. These are always people whose fate "did not work out" (but it is developing before our eyes). They are always "hard-living people" (Kamyshev, 1989, p. 144). Such are the elderly Korean Harue ("Bride of the Sea"), the boy Ilemi ("Bee and Flower") and many others. Lev Anninsky [Anninsky, 1989, p.223] also singled out Oriental motifs in Anatoly Kim's short stories and novels, claiming that "Korean and Japanese melodies" can be heard in the writer's books [Anninsky, 1989, p. 221].

Showing the "diverse" population in his debut works (Kim, 1976, p.207) (mainly in Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands), Anatoly Kim emphasized the peaceful neighborhood of cultures and their positive influence on each other. The prose writer managed to achieve this thanks to the masterful "interweaving of layers", introducing "something extra-individual and super-psychological" [Anninsky, 1989, p. 217]. This realization of Eastern traditions in Russian prose was developed by Anatoly Kim in new books related to the philosophical understanding of the world and man: in "Lotus" (1980)," Squirrel "(1984)," Father-Forest " (1989) and other works.

list of literature

Anninsky L. A. Elbows and Wings: Literature of the 80s: hopes, reality, paradoxes. Moscow: Sovetskiy pisatel', 1989.

Kamyshev V. Infinity of fate. Notes on Anatoly Kim's prose / / Far East. 1989. № 6.

Kim A. A. Goluboy ostrov, Moscow: Sovetskiy pisatel', 1976.

Kim A. A. My past / / October. 1998. № 2.

Kim A. A. Four Confessions, Moscow: Sovetskiy pisatel', 1978.

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