Gubernatory Sakhalina is the first history of Sakhalin administration and as such provides a valuable contribution to the field of Russian and Soviet history. It is a collective work by dozens of authors,^[1] and it is based on the materials that have recently and for the fist time been made available from the Sakhalin archives. The authors construct a line of historical portraits of imperial, Soviet, and Russian administrators, starting from the military commanders of the penal colony to the first post-Soviet popularly elected mayor. The book is short but the amount of information is abundant: it includes the personal histories of 24 governors of Sakhalin from the end of the 19th century to the year 2000. While some of the authors are historians, teachers, and researchers, others belonged at one time to the state apparatus and consequently knew their subjects personally, which adds an interesting perspective to the entire publication.
Unfortunately, the information is often poorly interpreted or presented. According to many authors, Sakhalin governors were heroes who attempted to bring order and justice to the beautiful island and its nice inhabitants. But in the course of more than 110 years, from the end of the 19th century until the new millennium, their efforts produced few tangible results. The economy remained in a bad shape, people were poor, roads were absent, corruption was overwhelming, foreign neighbors were nasty, and local ethnic groups resisted “enlightenment.” Even the fish, it seems, refused to be caught. As a result, the central authorities blamed the governors; they were condemned, ousted, exiled, purged, shot, sent to labor camps, or died from heart attacks. The publication is a memorial, and the authors of the book are sad and proud of their governor-martyrs. So harsh have the Sakhalin realities been that the authors label these human tragedies simply as “cadres reshuffling” (p. 5).
The history of Sakhalin administration is not a satire by Gogol, nor does it belong to Chekhov’s intelligent laughter over the provincial administration. It does not have the surrealist touch of Bulgakov, nor the sadness of Platonov’s Chevengur. The irony escapes the authors: for a century and a half good governors ruled over good people, yet the result was “the usual.” Sakhalin was clearly cursed and that damnation was stronger than any governor’s good will.
In the year 2000, however, there was still hope; and Baialdin, the author of the last chapter of the book, enthusiastically writes about the first popularly elected governor, Igor Farkhutdinov. The author depicts him as a living legend, a “perfect Russian leader,” who combines the best qualities of his predecessors. Like Stalin, he is a hard worker who never sleeps (p. 375). Like Yeltsin and Putin, he is a good sportsman, which allows him to endure endless official meetings (p. 376). Like Nevskii, he is a defender of the common people and a critic of the regional officials who conspire to undermine his authority (pp. 366, 368-369). Like Peter the Great, he is a reformer who single-handedly initiates rabbit breeding in the former army barracks by the Sakhalin youth, which increased the rabbit population by hundreds of thousands (p. 366).
Children “are grateful” for the abundance of rabbit meat as well as for the governor’s occasional visits with gifts (p. 370). The elderly people are proud as well because the governor has time to patiently listen to the smallest complaints and takes into consideration their “accumulated wisdom” (pp. 370-371). The entire Sakhalin population rejoices at the governor’s innovations; nightly torch marches and the elevation of a three-storey Orthodox Christian cross commemorated the 300-year anniversary of the discovery of Sakhalin (p. 376).
The authors believe in good endings and thereby neglect their own conclusions. All great leaders live hard and die young (p. 382). They therefore were unprepared for what happened next. In 2003, after the book was published, the curse struck again. Governor Fakhutdinov died in a helicopter crash along with his entire staff. As many before him, the governor was good for Sakhalin but it did not help. His fate was predictable. Who will be next in line to accept this deadly responsibility? The history of Sakhalin offers no consolation. The curse is too strong, and it is unlikely that the armies of rabbits or Japanese businessmen can save “the doomed island.”
The reader is offered a philosophical explanation of these mysterious phenomena as well as an excursus into the “tragedy and triumph” of the Sakhalin administration. The path between the two, according to Belonosov, is as narrow as the choice between differently shaped bottles of vodka (p. 382). Quotations from Machiavelli and Caesar concur with his main thesis: there is no happiness in the world (pp. 382, 386).
Belonosov makes sound statements. His illustrations, however, at times defy ordinary logic. He argues, for example, that there is a lack of political activity because people have lost the enthusiasm “of the French Revolution” and have become lazy drunks (p. 382). They are so polluted by dissent and worship of the West (i.e., the US) and the East (Japan) that they prefer a discourse on the prices of socks rather than the tragedies of life (p. 383). On the other hand, individual preferences should not be ignored either, argues Belonosov. After all, some people love cows while others love cats (p. 384). Yet social justice is not blind. There shall be no equality of office supplies between a common student and an official (p. 383).
Residents of Sakhalin deserve a good life but they have to be responsible for their own destiny. Historically, Belonosov argues, their moral level was low. Although they loved their rulers, they also had a propensity for schadenfreude and liked to see them in pain (p. 384). After all, Belonosov wonders, why does a witness to an execution want to be an executioner and not the victim? Only when people became compassionate toward the suffering of the others will their inner slavery end (p. 388). In a familiar Russian tradition, Belonosov is deadly pessimistic but he paradoxically has great hopes for the future.
The book leaves the reader with one unnerving thought. Is it possible that not only post-Soviet reforms have blown over Sakhalin, that not only Soviet power failed to touch it, but that the history of humankind altogether has failed to reach that remote location? Yet, such a history of Sakhalin is better than no history, while the great sources await deeper analysis.