Mara Moustafine

The University of New South Wales, Humanities and Languages, Adjunct

The University of Sydney, History, Adjunct

Harbin Insititute of Technology, School of Foreign Languages, Adjunct

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Mara Moustafine is an award-winning author and researcher, whose career has encompassed diverse roles with an international focus.
She is currently a Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (Migration and Refugee Division), Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales working on an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery project on Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia (1946-1966) in collaboration with Associate Professor Ruth Balint and other academics and guest professor at the Harbin Institute of Technology's School of International Studies.
Her book, Secrets and Spies: The Harbin Files (Random House 2002), tells the story of the story of her quest to uncover the fate of relatives during Stalin’s purges in the Soviet Union and her family’s life over fifty turbulent years in China, where she herself was born. It was translated by Li Yao and first published in Chinese in 2008 as 'Harbin Dang'an'. A second updated edition was published in 2018 by Sanlian Shudian Beijing.
As an Honorary Associate in the History Department at the University of Sydney, Mara worked on an ARC Discovery project on the post-war migration of Russians from China in collaboration with Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick and others.
Previously Mara worked as a diplomat and intelligence analyst for the Australian government, a business executive for a major Australian corporation in Asia and national director of a global human rights organisation.
http://maramoustafine.com

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Secrets and Spies: The Harbin Files

Russians from China: Migrations and Identity

The International Journal of Diversity in Organizations, Communities, and Nations, 2010

In the first half of the 20th century, sizeable Russian communities lived in a number of Chinese ... more In the first half of the 20th century, sizeable Russian communities lived in a number of Chinese cities, including Harbin, Shanghai and Tientsin. The largest and most diverse of these was the community that grew up around Harbin in north China. By the mid 1920s, Harbin was home to one of the largest Russian diaspora communities in the world, with over 120,000 Russians and other nationalities from the former Tsarist Empire. Moreover, many Russians in Shanghai and Tientsin had links to Harbin, as their first place of domicile in China. By the late 1950s, political transformations in China had driven almost all these people elsewhere. But for many of them, their roots in China became a key aspect of their identity in emigration in their new diasporas. This paper explores the background to this unique community and the geo-political forces underpinning the various waves of migration of Russians into and out of Harbin. It analyses the complex issues of identity and citizenship Russians faced while living in Harbin, their fates determined at various points in time by the dominance of three powers – Russia, China and Japan. Drawing on the experience of my own family, whose life in Harbin and Manchuria spanned four generations over fifty years, it touches on the rich ethnic and cultural mix that lay beneath the surface of “Russian” Harbin, with particular reference to the Jewish community that once thrived there. Finally, it examines how the ‘Harbintsy’ perceive their identity in emigration and the recent changes in attitude towards them of the Chinese authorities.

Mara Moustafine

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