Russian Tatar refugee Shamshinoor Nugman in colonial Seoul after fleeing the Bolsheviks with the White Russians (November 1941)

This 1941 article introduces Mrs. Shamshinoor Nugman, a Russian Tatar refugee living in colonial Seoul. The immediate occasion for the article is her donation of one hundred comfort bags to the Imperial military, although it also notes that, following her late husband’s wishes, she had earlier donated a large vehicle for transporting wounded patients. The article then briefly recounts her family’s flight from the Bolshevik Revolution, tracing a long refugee journey across Siberia into Manchuria and, eventually, to Japan and Korea.

Mrs. Shamshinoor Nugman in Seoul, November 1941

I have posted several articles about the small Russian Tatar community in colonial Korea, with links for further reading below. In another article, Mrs. Nugman (also referred to as Nugmanov) appears as a prominent benefactor within that community, helping fund a Tatar school where children learned the Tatar language, the Muslim faith, and the official imperial curriculum. Other articles suggest that clothing retail was a common line of work among Tatars in Seoul.

Originally from the Volga-Ural region of Russia, the Tatars fled the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 seeking refuge from religious and political persecution. The community fled across Siberia into Manchuria and then settled in several cities throughout Imperial Japan, including Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Kumamoto, Seoul, and Busan. The Russian Tatar community in all of Imperial Japan numbered about 1000 residents, and there were about one hundred residents living in Seoul.

Imperial Japan appears to have seen political value in hosting Muslim refugees such as the Tatars, as part of its broader effort to cultivate Muslim goodwill under its wartime Islamic policy. In colonial Korea, that made the Tatars a ‘model minority’: they could be held up as loyal and assimilated Imperial subjects even while openly practicing their Muslim faith and speaking their language. That contrast would likely not have been lost on Koreans, who were seeing the public use of the Korean language becoming increasingly restricted and Korean culture becoming increasingly drowned out by militaristic Imperial Japanese culture.

Before the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 8, 1941, the phrase “blue-eyed” (hekigan, 碧眼), a term used to refer to white foreigners, was often used to describe the Russian Tatars. However, this subsequently stopped during the war years from 1942 onward, and they would henceforth be referred to as belonging to the Asian race. A recent Korea Times article notes that this expression still survives in Korean usage today as byeokan, though many now view it as awkward or dated.

After World War II, most of the Russian Tatar refugees in Japan and Korea left for the U.S. and Türkiye.

[Translation]

Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo), November 21, 1941
Grateful for Japan’s Benevolence
Blue-Eyed Woman Donates Comfort Packages to the Army Patriotic Association

Early in the morning on the 20th, a horse cart piled high with comfort packages arrived at the Korean Army Patriotic Association. A blue-eyed woman in Western dress came to visit and, in fluent Japanese, offered them to the Army, saying, “It is only a small gesture, but please send these to the soldiers serving at the front.”

This blue-eyed woman was 36-year-old Shamshinoor Nugman, the widow of Mr. Nugman, a White Russian of Turkic background who had run a clothing store at 2-19 Honmachi, Seoul. This past spring, as he lay on his deathbed, he left these final words: “We are foreigners who lost our homeland, yet we have been able to live in peace and security thanks to Japan. As a small token of our gratitude, please donate 20,000 yen as a relief contribution for the soldiers.” With that testament, he passed away.

“In accordance with my late husband’s wishes, we had the honor of donating one large motor vehicle for transporting wounded patients. We cannot easily find the words in Japanese to express our gratitude, and so we feel terribly sorry that the main way through which we express our feelings of gratitude and patriotism is through our donations of money and goods. What we truly feel from the bottom of our hearts is simply that we must be grateful, again and again, for the blessings of the Imperial nation. Today, though it is only a small gesture, we prepared and sent one hundred comfort packages.”

She spoke with faint tears of emotion in her eyes. Captain Hirai of the Patriotic Association was also deeply moved by her words and gladly accepted the donation.

Behind the deepening gratitude felt by this foreign woman, who had escaped to Japan and was able to live a peaceful and happy life, lay a strange and wandering past, full of memories too painful to recall. The story she told of her past was as follows:

“It was 1917 when the Red Revolution broke out. At that time I was still only thirteen years old, a schoolgirl in Penza Oblast near Moscow. We White Russians were pursued by the revolutionary forces. Together with my parents and siblings, with only the clothes on our backs, we fled Moscow by horse wagon. Shivering in the freezing cold, through falling snow, we changed at times to sleds and kept going east, farther and farther east, passing through Zabaikalsk, until at last we escaped to Hailar in Manchuria. It was still March, and the cold was severe. My husband Nugman had been in Samara, which is now known as Kuybyshev under Soviet rule. While he was in his first year at Kseniya University in Kazan, he too was driven out and fled to Hailar.

“After that we married, moved to Japan, lived in Kobe for six years, and then moved to Seoul, where we have now lived for sixteen years. Now we are in the process of applying for Japanese naturalization. Our homeland is now at the center of the calamity of the German-Soviet War. It seems that the hateful Red regime is gradually beginning to waver. We are filled with emotions beyond words. Compared with that, how can we ever adequately express my gratitude that Japan, even while at war, extends such warm-hearted kindness to foreigners like us?”

[Photograph: Widow Nugman]

[Transcription]

京城日報 1941年11月21日

日本の恵みに感謝
碧眼婦人が軍愛国部へ慰問袋

二十日早朝一台の荷馬車に慰問袋を山と積んで碧眼洋装の婦人が朝鮮軍愛国部を訪れ、『僅かですが戦地で活躍されている兵隊さんに贈って下さい』と巧みな日本語で献納を申し出た。この碧い眼の婦人はこの春死の枕辺に『郷土を失った異国人の我々が安穏な生活が送れるのは日本のお蔭だ。感謝の微意に二万円を恤兵金として献金せよ―』と遺言して逝った異邦人京城本町二の一九洋服商白系土耳古人ヌグマン未亡人シャムシノール・ヌグマンさん（三六）だ。

「亡夫の遺志で患者輸送用大型自動車一台を献納させて戴きました。私達は言葉が不自由で感謝愛国の気持を物とお金に託すのは大変済まないことだと思います。私たちの心底から思うことは、ただただ皇国のお蔭に感謝しなければならぬことです。きょう僅かですが慰問袋百個を作って贈らせて貰いました」と眼にうすく感激の涙すら浮かべて語るのだ。愛国部平井大尉も此言葉にいたく感激喜んで受納した。この異邦人が日本に脱出して来て安穏幸福な生活が送られる感謝の念を強めさせる陰には数奇な流転の過去が余りにもいたいたしかった思い出があるからだ。彼女が語る過去は

「赤色革命の巻起った一九一七年でした。当時私はまだ一三歳でモスコーの近郊ペンザ県の小学校の生徒でした。私達白系は革命軍に追われ、両親、兄弟と手をとり着のみ着のまま馬車に揺られてモスコーを避け凍りつく寒気に慄え雪のふりしきるうちを橇に乗り換えなどして東へ東へ、ザバイカルを経てやっと満州国ハイラルへ脱出しました。まだ寒さのきびしい三月でした。私の夫ヌグマンもまたサマラ（現在ソ連政府のあるクイビシェフ）に在りカザンのクサニヤ大学の一年在学中追われてハイラルに落ちのびたのでした。

その後私達は結婚して日本に移り神戸に六年住み、京城へ移って十六年。目下日本人帰化の手続中です。いま私達の郷土は独ソ戦の禍乱の中心になっています。恨みの赤色政権はだんだん動揺しているようです。私たちは感慨無量のものがあります。それに較べ戦争している日本が私たち異邦人に温かい心やりを下さるのは何と感謝してよいか分りません」

【写真＝ヌグマン未亡人】

Source: Digital Newspaper Archive, National Library of Korea

Here is an excellent academic paper about the history of the Russian Tatar refugee community in Imperial Japan from their origins in the Volga-Ural region through the Russian Revolution in 1917, migration to Imperial Japan, and later emigration to the United States and Turkey after the war: [Link]

Imperial Japan’s support of Islam and Muslim communities has a fascinating historical background. For those interested in delving deeper, here’s a link to an academic paper on the topic: [Link]

Other Keijo Nippo Articles:

• Shamseinoor Berikova, 19-year-old blue-eyed Russian Tatar refugee woman and Seoul resident in 1938, featured in Keijo Nippo as a pro-Imperial Japan patriotic model minority speaking fluent Japanese and supporting Imperial soldiers on their way to China [Link]
• The Sulemans were a Russian Tatar refugee family in Seoul who gained acceptance as assimilated Imperial Japanese people while holding strong to their Muslim faith, and left for Turkey amid warm farewells in 1939 [Link]
• Spotlight on 1943 Seoul: A Glimpse into the Russian Tatar Refugee Community, Marja Ibrahim’s Poetry Tribute to Tatar National Poet Ğabdulla Tuqay on the 30-year anniversary of his death [Link]
• Small community of ~100 Russian Tatars in Seoul featured in 1942-1944 propaganda articles: a young 19-year-old Tatar girl is praised for filling out immigration forms for her neighbors, a Tatar woman is commended for scolding her friends with red fingernails for wearing ‘British-American’ cosmetics [Link]
• In 1942 Busan, Korean pastors and foreign residents (Russian Tatar family, English woman, Chinese consul) praise Imperial Japan as British POWs captured in Malaysia start arriving in the city [Link]

Note: The article mentions that Mr. Nugman studied at “Ksenia University” in Kazan, but I could not find information online about any university by that name in Russia. It is unclear what Russian academic institution the article was referring to.