West East -
The same trouble is everywhere
The wind is equally cold.
(To a friend who went to the West)
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). Translated by V. Markova.
Those who read the novel by James Clavell "Shogun" or saw its adaptation, undoubtedly noticed that the main idea of this movie is the clash of two cultures - the rough Protestant culture of England at the end of the 16th century and Japanese, Shinto and Buddhist, which absorbed many Chinese traditions and undoubtedly much more ancient and refined. Far from immediately the English sailor Blackthorn helmsman begins to understand that the barbarians are not the Japanese, but that he himself is a barbarian and … in many respects changes his views. But has it happened in history so that not a European gets to Japan, but a Japanese to Europe? Yes, this has happened in the past, and this brave traveler in the era of the Tokugawa shoguns was a Japanese of a completely unremarkable origin!
Japanese coastal ship. From the series "Thirty-Six Views of Fuji"
Painter: Katsushika Hokusai, 1760-1849 Tokyo (Edo). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
And it so happened that in 1783 the Japanese ship "Shinse-maru" got into a strong storm, and then for seven months (just imagine - as many as seven, seven months at sea!) Rushed across the Pacific Ocean, and then it was thrown onto the island Amchitka is a land that belonged to Russia.
The captain of the ship Daikokuya Kodayu and several people - members of his crew were saved. Fortunately, they met Russian industrialists who were waiting for the ship, which came every three years. There were no more options, and the Japanese stayed on the island with the Russians and began to learn Russian. It is beautiful, your language, they said, is very capacious, but it is painfully difficult to learn it, because "in the Russian alphabet, although the letters have a sound, they have no meaning." And it also turned out that the Russian sounds: consonants - in, f, l, f, h, c, w, sch; and vowels - e, s, the Japanese do not have in the language and you need to learn to pronounce them, which was very difficult for adults!
Brigantine "Ekaterina" that brought Daikokuya Kodai back to Japan. Tokyo National Museum.
Three years passed, the long-awaited ship arrived, and … crashed at the very entrance to the gavat. The crew of the Shinsho Maru had already survived the sinking of their ship, and a new disaster was a blow to him. The prospect of spending a few more years here on the island, waiting for another Russian ship, would be too difficult for everyone. But from the wreckage of the ship, they managed to build a new ship with their own hands and almost without tools in two years and got to Kamchatka on it! But they could only resolve the issue with the Japanese in St. Petersburg, so their "senior" had to go there!
In 1789, those Japanese who survived (some of the sailors died of scurvy while still on the island) arrived in Irkutsk, and, having met there with their fellow countrymen, decided to convert to Orthodoxy and not return. Sailor Shozo, for example, at baptism became Fyodor Stepanovich Sitnikov, and Shinzo became Nikolai Petrovich Kolotygin. And they did so not at all out of love for Russia, but out of severe and even very harsh necessity. Indeed, in Japan of that time there was a law according to which ordinary Japanese could not sail away from the coast for a distance of more than three days on the road, so that for a longer period they could not meet Europeans there and - God forbid, learn from them what - anything bad. Violators of the law faced the death penalty upon their return!
In Irkutsk, Kodaya met a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Kirill Gustavovich Laxman, who wrote to the capital a petition for permission for the Japanese sailors to return to their homeland. The answer, however, did not come, and then Laxman made an interesting proposal to Kodai: to go there himself and obtain official permission from the authorities, without which the local authorities did not dare lift a finger. And on January 15, 1791, they left Irkutsk and headed for the capital.
Kodai's journey across the Russian Empire, a man of merchant rank, but educated and well-read, allowed him to study Russia well and write down everything he saw. He admired the vastness of the Russian lands, which, next to Japan, where every piece of flat land was valued, seemed to him completely immense. He turned out to be an attentive observer and noticed that our soils are less fertile, that our agriculture is laborious, and the harvests are scarce, but in the fact that the Russians used little rice, he saw evidence of their poverty.
Kodayu described the Russians he saw as tall, white-skinned, blue-eyed, with large noses and brown hair. He considered them people respectful, inclined to peacefulness, but at the same time brave and decisive, not used to idleness and idleness. It turns out that his description is very different from what Western European travelers wrote about Russia and its people, who visited us both before him and later.
In June 1791, Captain Kodayu arrived in the capital and was solemnly invited to Tsarskoe Selo. The official reception was very dignified and made a strong impression on the Japanese. However, he also struck the Russian courtiers a lot, as he appeared at the court in his national costume and with a samurai sword in his belt. Empress Catherine the Great took his story to heart and promised assistance. And when she gave him her hand, he licked it three times, which expressed to her the deepest, in his opinion, respect. After all, a kiss to the Japanese was then unknown - their mentality and the mentality of Europeans were so deeply different.
Shinsho-maru crew members Daikokuya Kodayu (left) and Isokichi on their return to Japan in 1792. Tokyo National Museum.
Fortunately, Kodayu was used to complex Japanese rituals at home, so he even considered that in Russia the imperials behave very simply. And when the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, seated him in his carriage, and even without boasting, sat next to him, it was a real shock for him, because for a Japanese sitting like this next to the son of the emperor was tantamount to sacrilege.
While in the capital of Russia, Kodayu willingly spoke with stories about his homeland and at universities and schools, and at social receptions and even … in brothels. Apparently he understood that he was laying the foundations for good-neighborliness and understanding between our peoples and tried very hard to maintain the dignity of his country. Therefore, although he was not a samurai, he behaved like a real samurai and came to all social events in an embroidered silk kimono and hakama trousers, as well as with a short wakizashi sword, which caused general amazement.
Adam Laxman - son of Kirill Laxman - head of the embassy on the brigantine "Ekaterina" (work of a Japanese artist). Tokyo National Museum.
But he also had something to be surprised at. For example, the fact that in Russia they are vaccinated against smallpox, for which they use pus from smallpox ulcers of cows, of which there were very few in Japan.
Monument to Peter the Great in St. Petersburg. This is how Kodai saw him. Tokyo National Museum.
He was surprised that people take water directly from the river, and wells are dug only in villages. I noticed that Russians are very fond of boasting about their wealth, but that I saw few beggars in Russia, and then many of them are prisoners. Kodai was extremely surprised that after the bath, the Russians were in their underwear. But when he also put on a yukata (light robe) after the bath, it made a real sensation, and many began to follow his example and got themselves similar robes.
Map of Japan drawn by Kodai.
Russia surprised him with the absence of palanquins. And not even so many palanquins themselves, the Russians for some reason did not want to believe his stories about them: "It cannot be that people force other people to carry themselves, this is sinful!" The Japanese were surprised that in Russia they pray to images of God (icons) and wear his figurine (cross) on their chests. The fact is that by this time Christianity, which had spread in Japan through the efforts of the Jesuits, had long been expelled from it, and professing something other than Buddhism was again strictly forbidden!
A spoon, a fork and a knife were truly amazing things for a Japanese of that time. Tokyo National Museum.
But the most surprising thing is that, having traveled all over Russia, and he was driving for a year, Kodai in his notes about Russia did not mention a single word about the famous Russian drunkenness, which was always present in the descriptions of travelers from the West. That is, judging by what he wrote, he did not exist in nature, and this suggests an idea, where did they drink more then ?! He also visited many hot spots of St. Petersburg and spoke in detail about brothels, which he liked very much, existed quite legally and were in great popularity among Russian people of all wealth and ranks. It is surprising that these establishments were richly cleaned inside, and the courtesy of the girls, who not only did not take money from him, but, on the contrary, gave him gifts themselves, exceeded all his expectations.
A microscope, a watch and medals - all of this Kodai sketched very carefully! Tokyo National Museum.
But what struck him most in our country was … latrines. In Japan, they were placed on four poles, raising them above the ground, they did not dig holes below, and the feces falling down were immediately collected and … having collected enough, they were sold as fertilizers. After all, the peasants did not have cattle, they had nothing to feed them. The Japanese did not know the taste of cow's milk. Only the samurai had horses. And what was it to fertilize your fields? And then there is such "wealth", and in winter it just freezes up, and in summer it is useless! Although he noted that thanks to this, there are no problems with the extraction of saltpeter in Russia (it was then obtained from the ground that was dug by a number of "visits"!), So the gunpowder in Russia was excellent! Another circumstance, so to speak, of an "intimate nature", Kodai also did not understand. Rather, he was very surprised that if you listen to Russian men, then all of them now and then talk about … "dzoppa ebeto". But as soon as they are offered this very thing (and among samurai, and even ordinary Japanese, including sailors and merchants, sexual intercourse between a man and a man was considered completely normal!), They were embarrassed, if not even angry, refused! That is, doing it is bad, but talking is good ?! "Then why talk about it, if not do it?" - Kodai was surprised.
Nor did he understand the Russian system of finance and credit. The very concept of "bank" remained for him nothing more than a beautiful building. But what exactly they were doing there, he could not figure out for himself.
As a result, he received permission to return to Japan. At parting from the empress, he received a snuff-box, a gold medal, and 150 gold ducats and, it is not clear why and why, a microscope as a gift.
Well, the government hastened to use the situation in order to establish diplomatic and trade relations with Japan. And so on May 20, 1792, three Japanese boarded the brigantine "Ekaterina" and together with the first Russian embassy sailed to its shores. The visit was given a semi-official character, so that in case of something "not to incur any damage."
On October 9, 1792, the embassy arrived in Japan, but his movement was restricted, and although the Japanese who arrived, were not executed, they were sent to different places, and then they began to interrogate about everything that happened to them in Russia. The court doctor of the shogun Katsuragawa Hoshu, according to Kodayu, wrote a voluminous work "Hokusa Bonryaku" ("Brief News of Wanderings in the Northern Waters"), which consisted of eleven sections. However, it was immediately classified and kept in the imperial archives without the right of access until 1937, when it was published in a very small edition.
It is interesting that Captain Kodai also compiled the first Russian-Japanese dictionary, which contained a whole section of profanity Russian vocabulary of that time, which, however, seemed to him quite common!
Travel map I code "there and back".
Well, the Russian embassy was in Japan until the end of July 1793, and even managed to get permission for one Russian ship a year, which could arrive at the port of Nagasaki. But the Russian government never took advantage of it, and after Catherine's death, Japan was completely forgotten, since she was too far away! Now one can only guess how the course of history would have changed if Russia and Japan had been able at that time to establish diplomatic and trade relations between themselves. Perhaps the whole subsequent history of mankind would have changed, and the world would have been completely different today? On the other hand, in order for contacts between our states to be preserved and developed, mutual interest was required. But he practically did not exist! Well, what could the Russian Empire offer the Japanese from such a territory as the Far East? Traditional Russian furs, gunpowder, weapons? They did not need furs, because that was their culture, and the Japanese did not need gunpowder and weapons in the Edo era because peace reigned in the country, and warlike foreigners had not yet reached it. And there are no common points of contact, there is no mutual interest, there are no contacts at the political, cultural and all other levels, without which strong ties between the two countries are impossible!
