Resources

BOOKS ABOUT WHITE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ FAMILIES IN CHINA

Autobiographies, Biographies, Novels & Others…

Mitya’s Harbin
Majesty and Menace: A Story of the City of Harbin, and the Turbulent Early Years of a White Russian Boy’s Family Inside Manchuria, China.
By Lenore Lamont Zissermann

It tells the true story of the lives of my White Russian husband Dimitry (“Mitya”) and his family while they lived in or near the city of Harbin, China, during the 1940s and 1950s. It might be of interest to those with a China connection. The family experienced the Bolshevik Revolution, Japan’s occupation of Manchuria, the Soviets’ defeat of the Japanese there in 1945 and the Soviets’ arrests and detentions of many White Russians which followed, Chinese civil war, the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949, and the eventual exits of most Russians from China in the 1950s and later. In addition to the true story, the book includes photos; a chronology of events relating to Harbin’s history and the activities of the Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians, and other nations in the region; a bibliography of 178 items; and an index.

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The Tarasov Saga: From Russia through China to Australia
A true story of a close-knit family during a tumultuous era
By Gary Nash

Tarasov, a colonel in the ‘White’ Russian army, his wife Aida and their five children suffered the traumas of the Revolution and the Civil War which followed it. The story details Aida’s search for her husband across the vast expanse of Siberia, her separation from her five children during the turmoil, and the unbelievable events which led to the family’s eventual escape into China in 1922.

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Secrets and Spies. The Harbin files
By Mara Moustafine

The book by Mara Moustafine opened my eyes. It has the best genealogical research approach possible. The book is not only about her family’s life in Hailar and Harbin and the overall history of Russians in China but the detailed re-count of how she searched for any records in Russia about her ancestors.

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Russian at Heart: Sonechka’s Story
Biography
By Olga & John Hawkes

Russia’s turbulent Revolution has torn Sonechka Balk’s family apart, and the orphaned Crimean noble flees to China en route to the U.S. — but finds herself stranded in Shanghai between the wars. Daughter Olga, who was born in Shanghai, drew from her mother’s diaries, rich memories and stories to tell Sonechka’s remarkable story and that of the émigré White Russian community, in Shanghai between the wars in this richly detailed biography Illustrated with historic photos, Russian at Heart brings to life a fascinating community at a fascinating time in history.

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White Gardenia
Novel
By Belinda Alexander

This book was inspired by my mother’s family history. She was a Russian born in Harbin, China, and when I was a child she used to tell me stories about this exotic time and city.

Light and Shade: Sketches from an Uncommon Life
Autobiography
By Solomon Bard

Solomon Matthew Bard was born on June 26, 1916, to Russian Jewish parents. He began his life in the freezing depths of Siberia in the Russian city of Chita, just north of what is now Mongolia. In the aftermath of the Soviet revolution, his family moved east with thousands of other Russians to Harbin, in northern China. I was intrigued by his recollections of his childhood in Siberia, travels to Moscow and the Crimea, coming of age in Harbin and Shanghai…but I enjoyed most of all his descriptions of Hong Kong.

Memoirs of Galina – Chinese by Birth, Russian by Tradition, Australian by Adoption
Autobiography
By Galina Kuchina

Memoirs of Galina follows the true story of Galina Kuchina, A Russian Australian from China. Born in China into a traditional Russian family, Galina endured a difficult time under Japanese occupation, living under Soviet rule following liberation by the Soviet Army. Although the young lived against the backdrop of war, they still managed to study, work and fall in love. In 1957 Galina and her family migrated to Australia and integrated into Australian life.

Russia & Revolution: My Father, The Officer, The Man
Biography
By Igor Labzin

The Russian Revolution forever changed the lives of many in Russia, not least those who had been in the service of the Imperial forces. This book traces the life of a young naval officer from his graduation in 1918 in St Petersburg through the ensuing Civil War, to Shanghai in the 1930s, Indonesia in the 1940s and 1950s and finally Australia.

Hello Golden Gate: Goodbye Russia
Biography
By Olga Valcoff

When author O1ga Valcoff’s grandparents left behind everything they cared for while fleeing from the Russian Revolution of 1917, they became part of Asia’s White Russian community, where a diaspora of stateless refugees found comfort as they tried to rebuild their lives. Two generations later, Olga was born in Japan and moved to Shanghai with her parents, always on the run from war, Communism and political oppression.

Natasha Lands Down Under

By Katherine McCaughan

Natasha’s Russian family flees China in 1950 to a new life in Sydney, Australia. Unable to speak English, Natasha longs for her old life in Shanghai. The problems of life under Japanese occupation and the following civil war seem tame compared to facing her new school with its inexplicable customs, different clothes and hairstyles.

The Family
Autobiography
By Nina Fedorova

The book tells the story of a previously aristocratic Russian family living in poverty in China at the commencement of the war between China and Japan. It is an interrogation into the meaning of human life and human suffering from the perspective of individuals cast aside, left without country and passport.

You can read the pdf of the book for free HERE

Child Interwoven: Memories in Poem and Prose of a Russian Girlhood in 1940s Shanghai
Poetry & prose of childhood memories
By Marina Romani

Marina Romani, child of White Russian émigrés, spent the first decade of her life in Shanghai, China—through the years of World War II, China’s short post-war period and the resumption of its civil war, the takeover of the country by the forces of Mao Tse Tung, and the Romani family’s evacuation, along with several thousand other Russians, to a refugee camp in the Philippine Islands.

Incredible Tretchikoff: Life of an Artist and Adventurer
Biography
By Boris Gorelik

Vladimir Tretchikoff was adored by the public and loathed by the critics. From humble beginnings in Siberia, he suffered many misfortunes and narrow escapes from death. In Shanghai he designed newspaper advertisements, in Singapore he climbed the social ladder, only to have his life again torn apart by war. Taken prisoner in Indonesia he was forced to use his skills for the enemy. Finally he made it to Cape Town, where he was reunited with his family.

You can read a free pdf version of this book HERE.

White Shanghai
A Novel of the Roaring Twenties in China
By Elvira Baryakina

After the Bolshevik Revolution, tens of thousands of Russians fled to Shanghai, which became Asia’s most cosmopolitan city. Historical novelist Elvira Baryakina’s portrait of the roaring twenties in “White Shanghai” is a suitably bewildering kaleidoscope: prostitutes, bandits and fortune-telling Buddhist monks, warrior Cossacks and singing Mexicans.

Russian Emigre Life in Shanghai:
Oral History Transcript / and Related Material, 1967 (Classic Reprint)
By Valentin Vassilievich Fedoulenko

There is a free PDF copy of this book HERE.

Anastasia: A timeless love story of passion, survival and mystery
Novel
By Colin Falconer

When Michael Sheridan jumped into the Whangpoa River to save a Russian refugee, his life changes forever. The girl bears an uncanny resemblance to Princess Anastasia, who is rumored to have survived the brutal massacre of the Royal family by Bolshevik revolutionaries two years before.

She is suffering from traumatic amnesia and remembers nothing of her life before Shanghai. So who is she?

Unraveling the mystery of Anastasia’s identity and past takes them both from the streets of Shanghai to the decadence of pre-war Berlin, from the London of flappers and Charlestons, behind the grim curtain of Bolshevik Russia and finally to New York just before the Wall Street crash.

White Ghosts
Historical Novel (available Oct 12, 2018)
By Elvira Baryakina

In 1922, white colonialists in China see themselves as an impregnable supreme race. But when thousands of devastated Russian refugees fleeing the Bolsheviks arrive in Shanghai, the propriety of racism comes under threat.

Stateless in Shanghai‏
Autobiography
By Liliane Willens

Born in Shanghai to Russian Jewish parents who fled the Bolshevik Revolution, Liliane Willens is a “stateless” girl in the world’s most cosmopolitan city. But when the Far East explodes in conflict, the family’s uncertain status puts them at risk of being stranded, or worse. Stateless in Shanghai recounts Willens’ life and trials in a China collapsing under the weight of foreign invaders and civil war.

Strangers Always: A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai
Autobiography
By Rena Krasno

Born Shanghai in 1923, Rena Krasno tells a powerful coming of age story drawn from her own adolescent diaries, with details that give it the freshness and immediacy of an eyewitness account. Rena tells the story of her life in the Shanghai of the 30s and 40s from the perspective of someone with deep family roots in the city’s Russian Jewish community, describing how events were perceived and felt in this rapidly changing environment, as the Japanese occupation and the Holocaust brought a wave of refugees.

Goodbye Shanghai: A Memoir
By Sam Moshinsky

Sam Moshinsky spent his first 17 years in Shanghai, and as with many White Russians who fled to China, the fact of his statelessless meant that, despite the wars, change of regimes, and evolving political landscapes that formed the backdrop of his life, Shanghai, and its Russian Jewish culture and community were his home.