As noted in the introduction, in 1937 Joseph Stalin deported approximately 180,000 Koreans from the Russian Far East to Central Asia. This book began as an attempt to study this community, more specifically, to compare Korean American literature and its Soviet Korean counterpart—minority Korean writing with Russian soul. It was only near the end of my first stay in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan that I learned about the long history of Americans drawn to Soviet national minorities. A friend informed me that Langston Hughes had frequented the bazaar just behind my apartment during his 1932 visit to Tashkent, and from there, the project began to grow broader in scope—from Soviet Koreans to Soviet “multinationalness” to the Soviet avant-garde. Every step of the way, the challenge has been to balance (to quote Richard Wright again) both the “horror” and the “glory” of twentieth-century communism—to draw hope from what might, at first glance, seem only a tragedy.
The most rewarding aspect of writing this book has been the far-flung friendships it has fostered. Barry O’Connell and Dale Peterson have served as steadfast mentors long since my time at Amherst College. In Central Asia, Aleksandr Kan, Valerii Khan, and German Kim continue to shatter my perceptions of Koreanness—as does my fellow Korean Virginian Y. David Chung, ever since we first met in Almaty. Nina Bagdasarova, Alexander Diener, and Ryan Podolsky enabled me to test several of the book’s ideas during wonderful stints in Kyrgyzstan.
As a graduate student in Stanford’s Modern Thought and Literature program, I benefited tremendously from the advising of Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Gregory Freidin, and David Palumbo-Liu, while Gordon H. Chang, Maria Gough, and Arnold Rampersad provided additional invaluable feedback. I am also indebted to my fellow fellows at the Stanford Humanities Center, particularly Jeremy Braddock, James Clifford, Chris Rovee, Ema Vyroubalova, and prior fellow Steven Yao, for providing so much guidance and perspective. Thanks as well to Joon Nak Choi, Ebony Coletu, Dustin Condren, Irina Erman, Amelia Glaser, Kevin Kim, Peter Kim, Tomas Matza, Beth Piatote, Tom Roberts, Aaron Shaw, Nirvana Tanoukhi, and Brian Thompson for all the meals, conversations, and adventures.
The Department of English at the University of California, Berkeley, has been an ideal setting for revising and completing the book. I would like to thank in particular Stephen Best, Dan Blanton, Cecil Giscombe, Mark Goble, Marcial Gonzalez, Lyn Hejinian, Abdul JanMohamed, Donna Jones, Jeffrey Knapp, Kent Puckett, Scott Saul, Sue Schweik, Katie Snyder, Bryan Wagner, and especially Colleen Lye for generously taking the time to read my work and making it stronger in countless ways. All the while, the department’s Junior Faculty Reading Group has been a continual source of insight and support. Thanks to Todd Carmody, Kathleen Donegan, Nadia Ellis, Eric Falci, Keith Feldman, Catherine Flynn, David Landreth, David Marno, Namwali Serpell, and Emily Thornbury for seeing me through multiple rewrites. I am also grateful to my colleagues from Berkeley’s Slavic department, particularly Olga Matich, Anna Muza, Irina Paperno, and Harsha Ram, for inviting me to bridge the gap between Wheeler and Dwinelle, and for making possible the book’s final framework.
One of the great privileges of being at Berkeley has been the opportunity to work with such brilliant and open-minded students. I am especially indebted to those from a spring 2013 graduate seminar on “Ethnic Avant-Gardes” for convincing me that such a concept might indeed provide a basis for new communities. Additional thanks go to Aristides Dimitriou and Irene Yoon for their assistance in preparing the manuscript.
My deep appreciation goes to Philip Leventhal at Columbia University Press for pushing forward with this project, Whitney Johnson and Roy Thomas for guiding it to completion, and Mike Ashby for his expert copyediting. I am also grateful for the advice and feedback I have received from Kate Baldwin, Choi Chatterjee, Rossen Djagalov, Jonathan Flatley, Christina Kiaer, Christina Klein, Alma Kunanbaeva, Aaron Lecklider, Julia Mickenberg, Bill Mullen, Paula Rabinowitz, James Smethurst, Julia Vaingurt, Karen Tei Yamashita, Izaly Zemtsovsky, and Bo Zheng. The book has further benefited from presentations at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, the Amherst Center for Russian Culture, New York University’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute, the Long March Space in Beijing, Stanford’s American Studies Program, and the Socialism in Contexts Working Group at the University of California, San Diego.
At Berkeley my research has been supported through a Humanities Research Fellowship, a Townsend Humanities Center Fellowship, and travel grants from the Committee on Research. I was also fortunate to spend a postdoctoral year at New York University’s Center for the United States and the Cold War under the kind auspices of Marilyn Young and the late Michael Nash. Many thanks to Wen Jin, Ani Mukherji, Crystal Parikh, Ellen Schrecker, and Rich So for their camaraderie that year.
But of course it all begins with family. In 1946 my paternal grandfather disappeared in Manchuria while trying to assist the Korean community there during the Chinese Civil War. I remain in awe of my uncle, the political scientist Chong Sik Lee, and his ability to use scholarship to help make sense of such voids. He also led the family back from Manchuria to the Korean Peninsula (with the aid of a friendly Soviet soldier) and, several years later, on to the United States (with the aid of friendly Americans). In turn, my parents, Kwang Sik Lee and Young Sook Lee, overcame much immigrant hardship to build a wonderful, loving home for us in Virginia, while my sisters Suzy and Debra have provided so much joy through their own beautiful families. Thank you for always pushing me and always being there for me.
Last but not least, thanks to Makoto Tsunozaki, Zhanara Nauruzbayeva, Daniel Gallegos, Mun Young Cho, Dolly Kikon, Xonzoi Barbora, and Inessa Gelfenboym for making California another home—a center for our own, now scattered ethnic avant-garde.