Shiba Ryotaro: essays on Russia and the author’s national identity

Abstract

Shiba Ryotaro (1923-1996) is the author of numerous historical novels and short stories that attract constant attention of the reading public, not only in Japan, but also abroad. Much attention in his prose is paid to Russia, which becomes a point of special interest, because it deepens common knowledge about it, usually formed by seeing this country from the West, while the Japanese, as Shiba says, “feel Russia through Siberia”. In 1999, a collection of his essays “On Russia. The Original Form of the North” was published in Russia. According to the writer himself, he saw Russia, first and foremost, as a neighboring country. Therefore, it was not Russia itself and its history, but the facts and factors that influenced relations between Japan and Russia that were the subject of his reflections which became the basis of the essays included in the book. This collection of essays is not the author’s first work dealing with Japanese-Russian relations. The writer began to ponder over this topic while working on his two most significant works - “Clouds Above the Hill” ( Saka-no ue-no kumo 坂の上の雲, 1968-1972) and “The Sea of Blooming Rape” ( Nana-no hana-no oki 菜の花の沖, 1982). The events in the former take place in the second half of the Meiji period and the Russo-Japanese War becomes the central stage for the characters’ actions. In the latter, the events are connected with the so-called Golovnin Incident, which brought the two countries to the brink of war after the capture of a Russian explorer and naval captain, Vasily Golovnin, in 1811, by the soldiers of the Japanese shogunate. As follows from the essays in “About Russia. The original face of the North”, Shiba Ryotaro believes that the main factor that influenced the perception of Russia in Japan was Russia’s advance deep into Siberia and the way it was approaching Japan. Expanding the historical canvas of Russia in time and space, he compares the events in Russia that were significant from his point of view to what was happening at the same time in Japan, with a perspective that сan promote the popularization of the hierarchical structure of relations between Japan and Russia.