In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Poles as Tsarist subjects arrived to Manchuria, the north-eastern-most part of China. They were employed in the construction and running of the Chinese Eastern Railway, a tool of Russian imperialism in East Asia. Over the decades, a Polish community of several thousand individuals formed out in Harbin. The city of Harbin, sometimes called the ‘Paris of the East’ had a genuinely multicultural character where Chinese, Russian, other European and later Japanese influences merged. The political status of the city shifted over the decades, especially with the foundation of the Japan-controlled puppet state of Manzhouguo in 1932. The Second World War and the subsequent communist take-over put an end to Polish life in Manchuria.
A Polish school (Gimnazjum im. Henryka Sienkiewicza) offering both primary and secondary education was founded in Harbin in 1915. It was the only Polish school in Asia. The school developed into the key institution for Polish cultural life in Manchuria. After the re-establishment of a Polish state in 1919 and the creation of a Polish consulate in Harbin, the school received official financial and organisational support. The school survived until 1949.
Based on a variety of published and unpublished sources, this paper outlines the history of the Gimnazjum im. Henryka Sienkiewicza in Harbin and puts it in its transnational context. Firstly, the schools’ governance structure, curriculum, teaching staff and student body will be analysed. Secondly, it will be explored how key actors tried to position the school within East Asia. Some administrators saw the school as a genuinely ‘Polish’ institution that should primarily link the diaspora to the homeland. Others tried  to stress the ‘Catholic’ character of the school and went so far as to suggesting to place the institution under French authority, the French being the protecting power of Catholicism in East Asia. Others again rather urged that the school should prepare youths for life in the transnational enclaves of treaty port East Asia and laboured for the integration of Asian elements in the curriculum. Thirdly, the Polish will be compared to similar institutions of other nationalities in Harbin and other foreign settlements in China. It will be asked to which extent the experience of Polish children in Harbin differed from British, French or German youth in Chinese treaty ports and colonies, such as Tianjin, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

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