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〖纽时中文〗在中俄边境,对一场反华大屠杀的选择性记忆

On Russia-China Border, Selective Memory of Massacre Works for Both Sides
俄罗斯布拉戈维申斯克当地一家博物馆的策展人安吉莉卡·兹维列娃承认在1900年发生了“不好的事情”,但她说她不知道细节。 DAVIDE MONTELEONE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
俄罗斯上布拉戈维申斯克——罪行发生在一条河边,120年前,俄罗斯哥萨克人在这里把成千上万的中国人淹死在阿穆尔河中。附近的山上矗立着一座青铜纪念雕像和一个混凝土的东正教十字架。
VERKHNE-BLAGOVESHCHENSK, Russia — The crime scene is a riverbank from which Russian Cossacks drove thousands of Chinese to their death by drowning in the Amur River 120 years ago. On a nearby hill stand a bronze memorial statue and a concrete Orthodox cross.
这些纪念碑不是用来悼念遇难者的。相反,它们是在颂扬哥萨克人保卫土地的功绩,这些土地曾经是中国的,但自19世纪中叶以来就一直属于俄罗斯远东地区。
These memorials are not there to mourn the victims. Instead, they celebrate the Cossacks for their role in securing lands that were once Chinese but, since the middle of the 19th century, have been firmly part of the Russian Far East.
两国都沉浸在受外国入侵者支配的痛苦记忆之中,然而对它们来说,1900年阿穆尔河上的可怕事件是一个棘手的问题。如今,俄罗斯和中国有着密切的经济和政治联系,由于对西方的共同警惕,以及对两国困扰丛生的过去的高度选择性记忆,两国紧密联系在了一起。
For two countries that revel in bitter memories of suffering at the hands of foreign intruders, the gruesome events on the Amur in 1900 present a ticklish problem. Russia and China now have close economic and political ties, and are bound together by shared wariness of the West and by highly selective memories of their own often fraught pasts.
“我们需要他们,他们也需要我们,”中国问题专家、在布拉戈维申斯克国立师范大学(Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University)任院长的奥尔加·扎勒斯卡亚(Olga Zalesskaia)说。“现在我们正在合作,挑起过去那些痛苦的篇章是没有意义的。”
“We need them and they need us,” said Olga Zalesskaia, a China expert and a dean at the Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University. “Now we are cooperating, and it makes no sense to stir up all the painful pages of the past.”
近来,两国一直试图回避这段历史。
Lately, both countries have been trying to sidestep this past.
一座横跨冰冻的阿穆尔河的临时桥梁将布拉戈维申斯克与中国黑河连接起来。 DAVIDE MONTELEONE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
同样被回避的是如今由在中国武汉暴发的冠状病毒大流行引发的更多争论
Also being sidestepped are more current quarrels stirred by the coronavirus pandemic, which began in Wuhan, China.
与特朗普总统不同,俄罗斯官员刻意避免将其称为“中国病毒”;中国对美国总统实施的旅行禁令做出了愤怒回应,但俄罗斯同时也全面限制来自中国的旅行者,中方却并无怨言。
Russian officials, unlike President Trump, have studiously avoided calling it the “Chinese virus” while China, which responded with fury to a travel ban imposed by the American president, had no complaints about sweeping restrictions on travel from China imposed by Russia at the same time.
然而,透过棱镜看去,历史却显得更加模糊。
But the past is viewed through a prism even more misted.
位于俄罗斯阿穆尔区首府布拉戈维申斯克的一家当地历史文化博物馆没有提及河中丧生的成千上万中国人,只是小心翼翼地提到了“1900年6月至7月在阿穆尔河上发生的军事事件”。
A museum of local history and culture in Blagoveshchensk, the capital of Russia’s Amur Region, makes no mention of the thousands of Chinese killed on the river, referring only gingerly to the “military events on the Amur, June-July 1900.”
博物馆的很大一部分展览空间被用来展示俄罗斯人在卫国战争,也就是第二次世界大战中遭受的苦难。这是5月9日全国庆祝活动的一部分,当天是苏联1945年战胜法西斯的75周年纪念日。
A big part of the museum’s display space is instead being turned over to exhibits recalling the suffering of Russians in the Great Patriotic War, otherwise known as World War II. It is part of a nationwide preparation for celebrations on May 9, marking the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over fascism in 1945.
河对岸的一家中国博物馆展示了一幅巨大的油画,画面上俄罗斯人把中国人赶下河去。但与此同时,中国煞费苦心地不去惹恼俄罗斯人:该博物馆不对外国人开放。
A Chinese museum on the other side of the river displays a huge painting that shows Russians driving Chinese into the river. But China takes pains not to rub Russians’ face in the episode: The museum is closed to foreigners.
康涅狄格大学(University of Connecticut)研究中国现代史的历史学家维克托·扎采平(Victor Zatsepine)研究过这起事件,他说,“肯定发生过大屠杀。”
Victor Zatsepine, a historian of modern Chinese history at the University of Connecticut who has studied the incident, said “the massacre definitely happened.”
但是,他说,“中国国内看到的样子和外国人看到的样子有很大的不同。”他指出,中国共产党有着根据当前政治、外交和经济需要操纵记忆的悠久传统。
But, he said, “there is a big difference in how things appear inside China and how they are presented to foreigners.” He noted the Chinese Communist Party has a long record of massaging memories to suit current political, diplomatic and economic imperatives.
在布拉戈维申斯克国立师范大学的俄罗斯和中国学生。“我们需要他们,他们也需要我们,”该大学的一位中国专家表示。 DAVIDE MONTELEONE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
扎采平在一份大屠杀研究报告中写道,这一事件不是意外,也不是战时混乱的结果——后者是俄罗斯对这场悲剧倾向采取的看法——而是“精心策划的帝国力量展示”,由俄罗斯人在“文化和种族优势”时期的态度所塑造。
In a study of the massacre, Mr. Zatsepine wrote that the episode was not an accident or the result of wartime confusion — Russia’s preferred view of the tragedy — but “a calculated display of imperial power” shaped by Russian attitudes at the time of “cultural and racial superiority.”
如今,拥有明显的优势的是中国,至少在经济上是如此,在黑龙江的中国一侧,灯火通明的高楼鳞次栉比,仿佛在嘲笑俄罗斯一侧破旧的河畔,那里许多建筑都可以追溯到19世纪。
Today China has clear superiority, at least in economics, with brightly lit high-rise towers strung along the Chinese side of the Amur as if to taunt Russia’s dowdy riverside, where many buildings date to the 19th century.
但北京不再像1960年代两国关系恶化、引发边境武装冲突时那样,把历史当作对付莫斯科的武器。
But Beijing no longer uses the past as a weapon against Moscow, as it did when relations between the countries deteriorated in the 1960s, triggering armed clashes along the border.
当人们将俄罗斯与过去的不良行为联系起来时,通常会称之为沙俄,与弗拉基米尔·V·普京(Vladimir V. Putin)统治的国家保持安全距离。
When Russia is mentioned in connection with past bad behavior it is usually referred to as Tsarist Russia, which keeps the country ruled by Vladimir V. Putin at a safe distance.
中国共产党把注意力集中在与美国及其盟友的竞争上,仍然时不时谴责日本和西方国家过去的殖民侵略行为。例如,英国因曾经占据香港而不断受到攻击,如今香港已经回到中国手中。
The Chinese Communist Party, focused on its rivalry with the United States and its allies, still regularly bludgeons Japan and Western nations over their past colonial aggression. Britain, for example, is constantly assailed for seizing Hong Kong, now back in Chinese hands.
但与俄罗斯夺取并依然持有的大片领土相比,香港岛不足挂齿。2015年,中国国家民族事务委员会发布了一份关于俄罗斯在黑龙江沿岸扩张的报告,指责俄罗斯侵占了超过38.6万平方英里的“我国领土”。
But Hong Kong island is a speck of territory compared with the vast tracts of its land taken — and still held — by Russia. A 2015 report on Russia’s expansion along the Amur River by China’s Ethnic Affairs Commission accused Russia of seizing more than 386,000 square miles of “our country’s territory.”
代表阿穆尔地区哥萨克人组织的负责人亚历山大·尤里科。 DAVIDE MONTELEONE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
俄罗斯近年修改宪法,禁止对关于“为捍卫祖国”而采取行动的“历史真相”进行任何歪曲。为了迎接第二次世界大战纪念日,全国各地都挂起了“我们都记得”的宣传条幅。
In Russia, the country recently amended the Constitution to forbid any distortion of “historical truth” about actions taken “in defense of the Fatherland.” And in anticipation of the anniversary of World War II’s end, “We all remember” banners are now being strung up across the country.
然而1900年的事件属于莫斯科宁愿忘记的那一类历史,就像俄罗斯与阿道夫·希特勒(Adolf Hitler)于1939年签署的秘密协议那样。该协议使得波兰和波罗的海三国被莫斯科和柏林瓜分。
But the events of 1900 fall into the category of historical episodes that Moscow would rather forget, like the secret protocol of Russia’s 1939 pact with Adolf Hitler, which carved up Poland and the Baltic between Moscow and Berlin.
在阿穆尔河的两岸,记忆大都被失忆所取代。
And on the banks of the Amur River, memory has mostly given way to amnesia.
布拉戈维申斯克国立师范大学历史助理教授安德烈·德鲁扎卡(Andrey V. Druzyaka)说:“这里没有人记得1900年发生了什么。”
“Nobody here remembers what happened in 1900,” said Andrey V. Druzyaka, an associate professor in history at Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University.
他将溺水屠杀描述为一个“可怕且可耻的错误”,但这个错误不应该被深入探讨,因为那只会打开一个装满爆炸性历史冤情的潘多拉盒子。
He described the massacre by drowning as a “terrible and shameful mistake,” but not one that should be dwelled on because that would only open a Pandora’s box of potentially explosive historical grievances.
在俄国人到达之前,中国对这片辽阔领土的掌握也从来谈不上多稳固。大多数居民是原住民、满族人或其他不属于中国主要种族汉族的人。直到1644年满人主导的清朝建立后,他们才被纳入中华帝国。
China’s hold on this vast territory before the Russians arrived was never strong. Most residents were either Indigenous peoples, Manchus or others who did not belong to China’s dominant ethnic group, the Han. They were not absorbed into the Chinese Empire until after the founding of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in 1644.
清政府于1858年签署了《瑷珲条约》,正式将阿穆尔河北岸的领土割让给了俄罗斯。
When the Qing signed the Treaty of Aigun in 1858, it formally ceded territory on the north bank of the Amur River to Russia.
该条约就像1842年与英国割让香港的条约一样,曾经被北京谴责为“不平等”,继而是非法的。
That treaty, like the 1842 treaty with Britain that ceded control of Hong Kong, used to be denounced by Beijing as “unequal” and therefore illegitimate.
由于一些1895年被吞并的小岛,中国会抓住一切机会对日本发出威吓,然而,对于割让给俄罗斯的巨大领土,它没有发出任何正式的伸张。
Yet China, which never misses an opportunity to browbeat Japan over minuscule islands annexed in 1895, has no official claims on any of the immense territory ceded to Russia.
布拉戈维申斯克中央市场的小贩。 DAVIDE MONTELEONE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
代表阿穆尔地区哥萨克人组织的负责人亚历山大·尤里科(Aleksandr Tyurik)表示,最好不要专注于过去,因为这“对未来没有任何帮助”。
Aleksandr Tyurik, the head of an organization representing Cossacks in the Amur Region, said it was best not to focus on the past because this “gives us nothing for the future.”
他说,将中国居民赶入阿穆尔河的哥萨克人并没有想要杀死他们,只不过是在反外国的义和团在中国肆虐的动荡时期试图确保俄罗斯边界安全。
The Cossacks who drove Chinese residents into the Amur did not aim to kill them, he said, but were simply trying to secure Russia’s border at a time of turmoil, with the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion raging in China.
在1900年事件中有多少中国人被杀已不得而知,历史学家估计这一数字在3000到9000之间。但是有一个共识,成千上万的人在被哥萨克人强迫逼入阿穆尔河并要求他们游回中国后淹死,实际上就是一场反华大屠杀。
How many Chinese were killed in the events of 1900 is not known, with estimates by historians ranging from 3,000 to 9,000. But there is a consensus that thousands drowned after being forced into the Amur by Cossacks and told to swim back to China in what amounted to an anti-Chinese pogrom.
扎特谢平对大屠杀的研究发现,哥萨克人还烧毁了许多满族村庄,而且“许多中国人在被扔进水里之前已被残酷杀害。”
Mr. Zatsepine’s study of the massacre found that the Cossacks also burned numerous Manchu villages, and that “many Chinese were brutally killed before they were thrown in the water.”
在城中一座由中国捐赠的公园边矗立着一座苏联建筑。 DAVIDE MONTELEONE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
布拉戈维申斯克博物馆的策展人安吉莉卡·兹维列娃(Angelika Zvereva)承认在1900年发生了“不好的事情”,但她说她不知道细节。她还说,更重要的是要记住,暴力行径一消退,许多中国人就回到了布拉戈维申斯克生活和工作。
Angelika Zvereva, a curator at the Blagoveshchensk museum, acknowledged that “something bad” happened in 1900 but said she did not know the details. More important to remember, she added, was that once the violence ebbed, many Chinese returned to Blagoveshchensk to live and work.
“战斗结束一个月后,一切恢复了以前的样子。”她说,将这桩屠杀看作是一场短暂而不幸的插曲,在其他方面的关系还是和谐的。
“One month after the fighting, everything returned to the way it was before,” she said, presenting the massacre as a brief and unfortunate detour in an otherwise harmonious relationship.
中国也时不时重写阿穆尔河发生的事件,以及俄罗斯向原中国领土扩张的叙述。
China, too, has periodically rewritten its accounts of what took place on the Amur River and of Russia’s expansion into formerly Chinese lands.
当中国在1950年代接纳苏联为亲密盟友和共产党“老大哥”时,几乎从未提及1900年的事件。当两国在1960年代变得形同陌路时,情况发生了变化;那时,中共委托研究人员采访了大屠杀的幸存者,并谴责俄国的行动。
When China embraced the Soviet Union as a close ally and fellow communist “older brother” in the 1950s, the events of 1900 were almost never mentioned. This changed when the countries became bitterly estranged in the 1960s; then, the Chinese Communist Party commissioned researchers to interview aging survivors of the massacre and produce denunciations of Russian actions.
后来,随着与俄罗斯的关系开始改善,那些常常带有尖刻批评的说法被淡化了。1991年边界协议的签署以及普京与中国领导人习近平之间建立的密切关系,让这些说法被进一步淹灭。
Those often vitriolic accounts were later watered down in the 1980s as relations with Russia began to improve. The signing of a border agreement in 1991 and the close relationship forged since by Mr. Putin and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, have muffled them further.
兹维列娃说:“历史真是说不清的东西。”
“History is such a tricky thing,” said Mr. Zvereva.
黑龙江的中国一侧,黑河的高楼大厦。 DAVIDE MONTELEONE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Andrew Higgins是时报莫斯科分社社长。他所在的团队获得了2017年普利策奖国际报道奖,他在《华尔街日报》担任莫斯科分社社长时还领导一个团队获得了1999年的普利策奖。
翻译:晋其角、邓妍