Tokyo Domoi: The Memories Of Japanese Internees In The Soviet Union

• Other Authors: Murayama, Hayate, Watanabe, Takeshi
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Japanese; The Soviet Union; Pow; Sakhalin
• Online Access: https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/object/ir%3A2955; https://doi.org/10.14418/wes01.1.2440; https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/sites/default/files/2023-03/24307-Thumbnail%20Image.png

The Japanese internees in the Soviet Union after WWII were the remaining soldiers and personnel captured by the Soviet Union in Japanese-controlled Manchuria, Korea, South Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands after the Soviet invasion on August 9, 1945. The internees were sent to prison camps all over the Soviet Union (the estimated number of internees is from 594,000 to 640,000) and forced to work for the reconstruction of the nation after the war. the dominant historical discourse for the experience of the Japanese internees is about the three pillars of Siberian suffering: heavy labor, starvation, and extreme cold. From the 1960s, this narrative of suffering was disseminated in postwar Japanese society through novels and popular films about the experience, depicting their hardships and tragedies in the Soviet Union. However, my project aims to challenge this general discourse of victimization prevalent in the Japanese society and suggest that the experience of the Soviet internees poses other narratives characterized by liberation and nostalgia.