俄羅斯遠東的天后廟碑：一段未知的北地東亞文化交遇

An Unexpected East Asian Cultural Encounter in the North Land: Tianhou Temple Stele in the Russian Far East

距俄羅斯遠東區符拉迪沃斯托克約60公里的穆拉維因納亞灣，近年發現一方鐫有「廟誌」碑題，雙面刻記共400餘字的漢文石碑。這方可上溯至1894年的碑記尚未獲得學界注意，而筆者有幸研讀碑文，發現當中記錄了此地曾經存在一座供奉媽祖的「天后」廟。
媽祖是華人圈最負盛名的女神，在中國沿海及東南亞僑區都有廣大信仰社群。但我們大概不會預期在俄羅斯遠東如此偏遠的北地，也能發現媽祖廟的蹤跡。據碑文記載，這座位於大崴子灣（今穆拉維因納亞灣）廟宇，由此地聚集的華人所建，藉之感謝天后聖母庇佑財貨日增，「華夷相安」的神恩。
本文將介紹廟碑發掘背景，透過遺存碑文隱含的線索，關照其與立碑時期的史實所存在的可能關聯。經由這篇初步的探討，筆者希望將這個特別的發現帶入學術討論範疇，為媽祖信仰在世界各地的流傳，以及19世紀俄羅斯遠東華人社群發展，尋回被遺忘的一頁。

The two-sided stele inscribed with the title“Miao Zhi”,“Temple Gazetteer”, written in over 400 traditional Chinese characters and dated to 1894, was found in recent years at Murav'inai͡a Bay, about 60 km away from Vladivostok, Russian Far East. The author had the luck to read the stele and found it dedicated to a Tianhou Miao, Temple of“Celestial Empress”, which is an official title conferred by the Qing emperor to Mazu. This stone receives no attention from researchers; the temple itself has unfortunately gone.
Mazu is the most well-known Chinese goddess who has the greatest population of believers, mostly among the Sinosphere. Her worship spread throughout China’s coastal regions and overseas Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia, but one may not expect to see a Mazu temple in a northland as remote as Vladivostok, Russia. The surviving classical Chinese text tells about the construction of a temple in the Tavaĭza Bay (present-day Murav'inai͡a Bay), where the Chinese had accumulated in large proportions. As the text states, the temple was contributed to the divine mercy of the“Celestial Empress and Sacred Mother”in gratitude for the constant growth of wealth and peaceful life in mutual harmony of the“Chinese and barbarians”.
This paper will introduce the background of the stele discovery. From messages revealed in the context and clues of the remains, the author will examine the possible connection of this unique case to historical facts that happened around the time of the temple’s construction. By bringing up preliminary exploration, this article intends to put forward more academic discourses, recovering a forgotten page of Mazu belief circulation around the world and the 19th-century Chinese community in the Russian Far East.