What would an area of Manchuria and the Far East be called as an independent nation?

Blyatnik

I've been working on a project in which Manchuria and the traditional "Far East" (Amur Oblast, the Southern half of Khabarovsk Krai, and Primorsky) are part of an SSR that forms if the USSR never gave Manchuria to the CCP, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, it became an independent nation. The ethnic makeup is plurality Chinese but with Russian language, and a large minority of Russians and a small minority of other groups (thinking 45-40-15% Han-Russians-Other respectively), but I don't think it would be right calling it "Manchuria" since it isn't really a part of China, and calling it the "Far-Eastern Republic" isn't right either since a large majority of the population doesn't live in the Maritime areas. Yellow Russia/Green Ukraine definitely isn't it either, which are two slightly less common names for the area (especially in alt-history genres), but I don't want to call it Transamur, because of the Kaiserreich connection.

This isn't really a discussion of plausibility of the state, just an alt history naming scheme for this place.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Blyatnik said:
I've been working on a project in which Manchuria and the traditional "Far East" (Amur Oblast, the Southern half of Khabarovsk Krai, and Primorsky) are part of an SSR that forms if the USSR never gave Manchuria to the CCP, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, it became an independent nation. The ethnic makeup is plurality Chinese but with Russian language, and a large minority of Russians and a small minority of other groups (thinking 45-40-15% Han-Russians-Other respectively), but I don't think it would be right calling it "Manchuria" since it isn't really a part of China, and calling it the "Far-Eastern Republic" isn't right either since a large majority of the population doesn't live in the Maritime areas. Yellow Russia/Green Ukraine definitely isn't it either, which are two slightly less common names for the area (especially in alt-history genres), but I don't want to call it Transamur, because of the Kaiserreich connection.

This isn't really a discussion of plausibility of the state, just an alt history naming scheme for this place.
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Manchurian SSR, historically Manchuria was a distinct entity from China and only became Chinese when the Manchus founded the Qing dynasty.

what you are describing is kinda what happened in Soviet Kazahstan otl, where ethnic Slavs were ~45% of the population in 1991, and it's not like they changed the name of the country to sound smore Russian.
 

Blyatnik

RousseauX said:
Manchurian SSR, historically Manchuria was a distinct entity from China and only became Chinese when the Manchus founded the Qing dynasty.

what you are describing is kinda what happened in Soviet Kazahstan otl, where ethnic Slavs were ~45% of the population in 1991, and it's not like they changed the name of the country to sound smore Russian.
Click to expand...
Okay thank you. Manchuria does sound right in theory, because it was primarily based on Geographical regions rather than ethnic makeup.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Blyatnik said:
Okay thank you. Manchuria does sound right in theory, because it was primarily based on Geographical regions rather than ethnic makeup.
Click to expand...
if you do want a "Soviet" name for it though, you could follow the Kaliningrad model

it was named for Mikhail Kalinin who was one of the least consequential Bolshevik leaders and retained its name after the fall of the USSR

So in this case I guess Manchuria SSR gets named after some politburo member and the name stays afterwards since changing it would be seeing as "derussifying" the region.
 
Coqui

Coqui

Trans-Cathay is a possibility. It was sometimes used for Green Ukraine. It could reflect that it's on the other side of the great wall from China (Cathay)
 
Hrvatskiwi

Hrvatskiwi

Blyatnik said:
I've been working on a project in which Manchuria and the traditional "Far East" (Amur Oblast, the Southern half of Khabarovsk Krai, and Primorsky) are part of an SSR that forms if the USSR never gave Manchuria to the CCP, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, it became an independent nation. The ethnic makeup is plurality Chinese but with Russian language, and a large minority of Russians and a small minority of other groups (thinking 45-40-15% Han-Russians-Other respectively), but I don't think it would be right calling it "Manchuria" since it isn't really a part of China, and calling it the "Far-Eastern Republic" isn't right either since a large majority of the population doesn't live in the Maritime areas. Yellow Russia/Green Ukraine definitely isn't it either, which are two slightly less common names for the area (especially in alt-history genres), but I don't want to call it Transamur, because of the Kaiserreich connection.

This isn't really a discussion of plausibility of the state, just an alt history naming scheme for this place.
Click to expand...
If you don't want to use "Manchuria" then the "Amur Republic" seems the most likely, if a little bland. "Transamur" is a possibility.

To contribute something that hasn't already been said, often SSRs were built primarily around one major ethnic group (in this case the Manchus), but with smaller ASSRs based around smaller ethnic groups, so that might help you structure it. I imagine if its independent it will stay federalist, at least at first.
 

LeX

Probably "Amuria" or "Trans-Kitai" is the best bet.

But to get the demographics you're thinking of, you would have to start far earlier than World War II.

If your PoD is the Soviets taking Manchuria at the end of World War II, there are already 30-40 million Chinese living there. The total population of Russians in this time is less than 150 million. How are you going to get a Russian plurality in this new Far Eastern SSR without either moving a quarter of the Russian population or expelling/killing the Chinese?

You would have to have Manchuria stay in the Russian sphere/not become a part of China after 1910. A way to do this would be to have the Russian Empire step in after the Qing Dynasty collapses. They prevent the mass-migration of Han Chinese to the region, but in the chaos of the Bolshevik Revolution, the White Russian movement sets up shop in Manchuria and is protected by the Japanese. The Koryo-saram (Koreans living in the Russian Empire) are never deported to Central Asia, further boosting the non-Chinese population.

There is a higher number of Russians in the region ITTL, but the Japanese still establish a Manchukuo puppet state there. The Soviets view Manchuria as a far greater threat than they did IOTL, and in this timeline's World War II, they fight Japan and conquer Manchuria. To shake off the taint of the "Manchurian" legacy (both White Russian and Japanese), the Soviets rename it "Amuria," full name "Amur Soviet Socialist Republic." Total population in 1950 is about 25 million; with the aggressive addition of extra Russians and Russified Ukrainians plus natural population growth, this grows to about 40-50 million by 1991.

Note: While "Zakitay" (Trans-Cathay") would be a more interesting choice, the OP specified a mix of different nationalities in the area. Also, I get the feeling that all the regions with the prefix "za-" in their names are more of an Imperial Russian convention and it would be more "Soviet" to pay lip service to national determination. This "catch-all" Amuria could even have its own autonomous SSRs for Koreans, Mongols, Manchus, etc. I doubt they would do this for the Chinese, instead treating them as something of a possible fifth column and hence a target group for Russification.
 
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jlckansas

Manchuria with the sub regions called by their names. You could have things like the Harbin Oblast or Trans Amur Oblast as examples.
 
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