AIGUN TREATY AS A MEMORABLE DATE FOR THE JEWISH AUTONOMOUS REGION

Abstract

By the law of the Jewish Autonomous region, May 28 is recognized as one of the official memorable dates in the history of the region. It was on this day in 1858 in the Chinese city of Aigun that the Aigun Treaty, a historical document on the delimitation of Russia and China possessions, was signed. The agreement is a legal justification for the annexation of the lands lying on the left bank of the Amur to the Russian Empire, as well as Primorye. The history of the Jewish Autonomous region is an integral part of the Russian state general history concerning the development of Siberia and the Far East lands by Russians. Its initial stage should be considered 1581, when the pioneer squad headed Ermak Timofeevich marched from the banks of the Kama River to the east, which contributed to the discovery and annexation of new rich lands located beyond the mountains of the Urals to the Russian state. The subsequent advance of Russian explorers from the Ob to the Yenisei, from the Yenisei to the Lena and further to the Pacific Ocean, later resulted in the domination of Russia on the Amur and in the Amur lands annexation. The movement to Siberia and the Far East served as a source of the state treasury deficit replenishment, provided trade ties with the peoples living on these lands, as well as the opportunity to break through the isolation and blockade in the Russian state in the west and southwest. However, the Russian stay on the Amur was short-lived and was interrupted in the middle of the XVII century by military actions by well-armed troops of the Qing Empire. Unable to transfer large military forces to the Amur region, in 1689 Russia was forced to sign the Treaty of Nerchinsk, according to which the Russians left the left-bank Amur region for more than a century and a half. But the efforts and sacrifices of the XVII century pioneers in the Amur region were not in vain. They became a prologue for the subsequent restoration and consolidation by the Russian state of its territorial and political positions.