Manchukuo Revisited: Transnational Culture and Radical Politics - Manchukuo Perspectives: Transnational Approaches to Literary Production and Fascism in Manchuria: The Soviet-China Encounter in the 1930s

The study of Japan's client state Manchukuo 满洲国 (1932–45) by historians of modern China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and broadly defined Northeast Asia is a fast-growing field. Yet writing a comprehensive history of Manchukuo remains a challenging enterprise, as during its fourteen-year history, this colonial “state” did not maintain fixed borders, its multicultural population was on the move, and its highly militarized government and ideology were in stark contrast with the daily lives of urban and rural communities. Competing nationalist narratives and interpretations of Manchukuo's history in China, Japan, and the Soviet Union during World War II persisted under new political regimes during and after the Cold War. Recently, social and cultural historians have turned their attention to the experiences of the Manchu, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian diasporas, while other historians have focused on elusive notions of modernity, defined by urban growth, economic development, and technological and scientific transformation, while...