"Great Mongolia": the failed Japanese project of a buaaer state in Eastern Asia in 1919

The paper is devoted to an episode of the struggle for national liberation in Mongolia in 1911-1921. The second year of the Civil War 1918-1922 was a time of ordeal for Soviet Russia, surrounded by a ring of fronts. The inde­pendence and integrity of the former Empire or its breakup into few weak and dependent states depended on who would win the conflict. Similarly, the period was the turning point for Russian colony in Manchuria and for the Rus­sian Far East. An unsuccessful attempt of Ataman Semenov of creating «Great Mongolia» to be consisted of Russian Trans-Baikal region and Outer Mongolia, under Japanese protectorate in 1919 was very significant in this light. At­aman Semenov previously had actively participated in the liberation of Outer Mongolia from China in 1911. After the February Revolution, in the summer of 1917 he was sent to Trans-Baikal region to organize the recruitment of Mongol and Buryat volunteers to the German front. However, Semyonov formed the units used for the usurpation of power and the creation of a separatist regime in the region, with an active support of Japan. After the fall of the Pro­visional Government in Petrograd and Admiral Kolchak's coming to power in Siberia, Semenov refused to obey the new authorities and started preparations for struggle. With the same purpose the Japanese military command began to support actively the Mongolian self-rule movement on the territory of Russia and China, to lean on him in opposition with Kolchak. The main episodes of internal struggle in Pan-Mongolian movement, the Japanese project of creation of a puppet state in Northern China and the Russian Far East, and reasons for its failure are considered in the paper.