Cultural Contacts Between Russia and China in the Far Eastern Territories in the Xix – Early Xx Centuries

The paper analyzes the formation and development of cultural relations between Russia and China in the 19th – early 20th centuries in the Far Eastern territories. The issues of the origin of Russian-Chinese cultural interaction, the contact between Russian and Chinese cultures, as well as the peculiarities of contacts between the two ethnic groups are covered. The work uses a historical-chronological research method, which made it possible to trace the formation and development of contacts in the field of culture between the two countries in the Far Eastern border region in the mid-19th – early 20th centuries (from the signing of the Aigun and Beijing treaties to the October Revolution of 1917), as well as a systematic approach, the use of which led to the consideration of cultural ties as a component of the overall system of Russian-Chinese relations at the interstate and interregional levels. Materials in Chinese in the author's translation were introduced into scientific circulation. When studying cultural contacts between the two countries, the concept of sociocultural interaction developed by N.A. Samoilov was applied, which made it possible to analyze the features of relations between the two countries in the field of culture and highlight the forms of interaction. According to the authors, the development of mutual contacts in the field of culture was determined by foreign policy and socio-economic conditions, significant transformations in the political, economic and cultural spheres that took place in the mid-19th – early 20th centuries in the Russian state and the Qing Empire, as well as the meeting of Chinese migration and Russian colonization flows in the Russian Far Eastern borderland. In general, Russian-Chinese sociocultural interaction during the period under study went through several stages, during which the Russian and Chinese peoples mutually recognized each other and learned to interact. At the same time, in the Far Eastern territories at the turn of the century, a contact zone of relations between two ethnic groups was formed, a special environment of Russian-Chinese interaction was formed, and at the same time, the difference between the two cultures and the impossibility of their mixing and mutual assimilation became increasingly obvious.