The article examines the basic features of the films of Kurosawa Kiyoshi, one of the most talented and famous filmmakers of new Japanese cinema. Although he has been working in a variety of genres, he is best known for his contribution to the Japanese horror genre. His films are philosophical treatises on the individual in society. They impressed intellectuals with its postmodern exploration of identity.

Japan's intervention in Siberia is one of the dark pages in the history of bilateral relations as well as of Japan's foreign policy. Japanese, American and Soviet archives give a better understanding how this adventurous enterprise has begun and what forces and interests worked behind.

This paper contains a brief biography of Professor Orest Viktorovitch Pletner (1892-1970), one of the pioneers of Japanese studies in Russia who had lived and worked in Japan and had been awarded the Japanese Order of Culture IV Class for his scientific and educational work. The paper also presents materials from the scholar’s archive - the letters from Petrograd from his father, V.I. Pletner, and his younger brother, Oleg Viktorovich Pletner, also a scholar of Japanology. These letters are important documents of the history of Russian Japanese studies, mentioning such prominent Japanologists of the past as N.A. Nevsky, Ye.D. Polivanov, N.I. Konrad. At the same time, they are a lively response to the events that happened in Russia in 1917-1918.

The article covers the biography of Sato Naotake, a prominent Japanese diplomat and statesman. He is mostly known in Russia as the last ambassador of militarist Japan in the Soviet Union. However, his career was much more comprehensive and noteworthy. Sato Naotake had become witness to the most dramatic period in the history of Japan, being a participant in many world events that had an effect on shaping Japan’s development up to 1945.

The article focuses on the personality of Date Masamune, his military and political activities and at the same time touches upon a question about his deep interest in traditional Japanese culture. Daimyo of the Sendai domain and head of the Date clan, Date Masamune is well known as the talented military strategist and provident politician. However, Masamune has another, not so well-presented side of his personality - he was also a passionate admirer of traditional arts (especially, the art of incense and tea ceremony). The object of analysis is the role of the art of incense in some episodes of Date Masamune's political activities, described in a number of historical sources and art materials. The results of this analysis show how esthetical ideas influence the process of making political decisions in the second half of the 16^th and the first third of the 17^th centuries.

The paper deals with the history of Japanese-Mongolian relations over the period between 1997 and 2017 in the context of Eurasian diplomacy adopted by the Hashimoto cabinet in 1997. The paper investigataes evolution of the twenty-year bilateral political, economic and security cooperation, aligned with Eurasian policy and developed from “soft power” to “smart power”, focusing on the analysis of the Hashimoto Ryutaro, Koizumi Junichiro and Abe Shinzo administrations approaches.

The 9th Annual International Conference of the Association of Japanologists of Russia entitled “Japan in the Epoch of Great Transformations” took place on December 22, 2016 in Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), the MFA of Russian Federation. The conference hosted leading Russian and Japanese experts, diplomats and researchers who discussed the latest events, problems and prospects of Russia-Japan relations as well as the major issues and trends of Japan’s politics and foreign policy, economics and society, history and culture. In addition to that, a number of publications on Japan have been presented, conducted by the Association of Japanologists or by its individual members in 2016.