The article presents a study and first Russian commented translation of four letters with behavioral guidelines for the sons of Mori Motonari, a powerful Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period (1467-1590). These documents reflect the most important values of the provincial lord, who aspires to ensure prosperity and preservation of his clan. The unity of the sons, who led the clans of Mori, Kikkawa and Kobayakawa, is regarded in messages of Motonari to be a strategy of strengthening their power and ensuring the stability and prosperity of the Mori house.

The article analyses the changes that have taken place in Japan’s foreign policy after the end of ‘Cold war’. Special attention is paid to the academic approaches concerning Japan’s security strategy and the discourse on Japan’s international role, as well as their influence on Japan’s foreign policy initiatives.

The article describes the Japanese photography formation process. The author focuses on the peculiarities of the Japanese term “shashin” (“photography”), makes an attempt to reveal the origins of Japanese photography as well as to determine the exact time of appearance of the first camera and the first photograph in Japan. The analysis of the early photography history in Japan is carried out based on the experience of both “Western” and Japanese photographers.

2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the following year, 2018, marks the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration. These two events showed wide public attention. What are the reasons for these two events from the past still stimulating such great interest today? This paper is a comparative study of both events, where special attention is being drawn to the economic basis laying behind these historical transformations. It is argued that one of the most important common feature shared between the Meiji Restoration and the Russian Revolution of 1917 was that both these phenomena had occurred in the context of large-scale financial crises, which resulted in radical restructuring of the socio-economic systems, as the term “revolution” actually implies to. In the Japanese case, this crisis destroyed the economic foundations of the Shogunate, and in the Russian case, the Russian Empire economy. Notably, in both cases, there was a sharp drop in the currency value against the background of hyper-inflation, and additional money issuance only worsened the situation. Thus, the drop in the currency value, inflation and financial problems are the focus of this comparative study. Beyond the similarities, there have been, of course, significant differences, for example the nature and degree of violence which has been integral to both revolutions, the type of individuals involved, etc. However, this paper argues that the economic basis behind both Russian Revolution of 1917 and Meiji Restoration was essentially the same: the pressure of the economic crises were of fundamental and critical importance.

Following the Meiji Restoration, Japan experienced an unprecedented wave of modernization. At the same time, many early modern cultural phenomena survived well into the Meiji era including the tradition of writing didactic biographies of exemplary women aimed at educating young girls. This article examines a collection of such biographies entitled Honchō tōshi retsujoden published by a female scholar Shirakawa Kinsui in 1879. It places her work within a broader historical context and identifies major themes explored therein. The article argues that, while rooted in orthodox Confucian values, the image of a woman Kinsui proffered possessed many qualities shared by men and women alike.

The paper begins with the analysis of the notion of genre in Japanese cultural researches. These observations are followed by descriptions of three quite different rhetoric genres of contemporary Japan. The first reveals a popular genre of the beginning of the XX century which is now being revived, that is, the activity of katsudo: benshi, performers who provided live narration for silent films. The second is related to the “girls sub-culture” and analyzes the socializing mechanism of the so-called “mutual diaries” ( ko:kan nikki ), that have been popular among the pupils of Japanese middle school in the last quarter of the XX century. The third treats Shintoist prayers Norito , which are being composed nowadays in all Shinto shrines according to the client’s demand. These Norito reflect the individuality of a particular priest, includes local beliefs and dialects, quotations from the Japanese classics.

The paper is a brief report on the International Scientific Conference, organised by the Department of Japanology of Saint Petersburg State University. It was held on the Faculty of Asian and African studies of Saint Petersburg State University on March 2 and 3, 2018 and was dedicated to the 150^th anniversary of the Meiji Revolution in Japan.

The 20^th Annual International Conference “History and Culture of Japan” was held in Moscow on February 12-14, at Russian State University for the Humanities and High School of Economics. The conference was organized by the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies of Russian State University for the Humanities and the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies of High School of Economics. 50 scholars conducting research in various fields took part in the conference (History, Philology, Arts, Religion, Philosophy etc.).

On the Japanese Book “30 Unique Figures of Japan and Russia - 2. People Who Have Made Great Contribution to the Establishment of Exchange and Mutual Understanding between the Two Countries”. Ed. Nagatsuka H. Tokyo, Seikatsu jānaru, 2017. 532 p. (Series: Dramatic Russia in Japan). ISBN 978-4-88259-166-5.