This article investigates exemplarity from the point of view of the subject, the person who leads an exemplary life. Asking how this differs from the case of someone who intends more simply to lead a morally good life, it argues that the former requires sharp prioritizing among the range of possible human virtues. While both kinds of actor should be understood in relational terms, namely relations to the self, direct interlocutors, and wider society, a subject becomes an exemplar by objectifying and conveying to others the chosen specific form of virtue. Taking the case of Ataman Semenov, a White general in the Russian Civil War, the article then examines the pitfalls of having to take a culturally particular exemplary position. Some of these relate to the problems that occur in general when moral exemplarity is demonstrated, the subject being unable to control misreading of the exemplary act, the hesitations of followers, or the leeway with which they attempt to emulate or imitate the act. Other problems concern the historical positioning of the exemplary subject, particularly in a time of war. By making overt certain specific virtues, and by the same token backgrounding or suppressing others, he or she has to “stand out” amid general confusion and uncertainty and therefore is certain to arouse animosity, as much as loyalty.

Following the October Revolution, tens of thousands of White Russians sought refuge in China and became inevitably involved in the escalating Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945). The Japanese deployed measures of coercion, material incentives, and ideological indoctrination to recruit White Russians for Japan’s military and political maneuvers in the China theater of WWII. With the conclusion of the war, the Chinese Nationalist government launched a legal campaign against all collaborators with Japan and labeled them hanjian, “traitors to the Han Chinese,” regardless of the race and nationality of the defendants. Based on archival materials in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Russian, this article examines the context and process of the incrimination of White Russians in China’s postwar trials of traitors. With no consular support and little diplomatic significance, the White Russians became the ideal foreigners for the Chinese government to exercise its newly recovered judicial sovereignty and to claim its legitimacy in administering justice related to war crimes. Dozens of White Russians were convicted of the crime of hanjian and sentenced to prison terms of varied lengths.