The paper considers the theme of tutorship, which is one of the cross-cutting issues in Konjaku Monogatari-shū, a 12th century collection of setsuwa didactic tales. The authors reveal what types of tales are chosen for the collection and in which manner they are recited, from the legends about Buddha Shakyamuni himself to the stories of common laity skilled in some art. Buddha Shakyamuni himself, the teacher of all teachers, also studies, and, at the same time, his teachers act as his students, which shows the continuity and infinity of the chain of interdependent emergence of things. Buddha sets an example for all other teachers in that his whole life is mentoring. He helps everyone with whom he interacts to get rid of illusions, even in those moments when he is not directly interpreting his teachings. In all tales, the relations of a master and his disciple are seen as conditioned by the law of retribution, they are very close and intimate; the two people must be congenial in talents and needs to be in such relations, be it in the area of transmitting the Buddhist Law, or merely training in some art. The theme of continuity of tradition, transmission of Buddha’s teaching is very important for Konjaku. It is discussed from different points of view in all three sections of collection – the Indian, Chinese, and Japanese ones. The timeless chain of masters and disciples is formed, and every participant – a link of this chain – should be ready to receive the Law, to become a disciple and, in time, a master. Following the pattern set by Buddha, in some tales, a master and a disciple can exchange their roles, in other ones, the disciple is not a person, but a whole nation. There are also stories about a supernatural being, for instance, a ghost or a god, becoming a teacher. In some cases, the disciple is a character assigned to display wisdom of his master. The ways in which wisdom is imparted can also vary widely, with some stories specifically emphasizing the unexpected actions of mentors, through which their students experience first-hand what they had previously been unable to understand through the efforts of mind. Personal aspects of master–disciple communication are also examined in Konjaku, and examples of bad relationships are provided as well.
The article analyzes the foreign policy of Abe Shinzō, one of the most notable and unusual political figures of contemporary Japan, who was twice the head of Japanese government for a total of almost nine years. It traces how his political philosophy formed under the influence of ideological views of his relatives, prime ministers N. Kishi and E. Sato, as well as his father, Abe Shintarō. It also considers Abe’s approaches to building Japan’s relations with the countries which are most important for its interests.
Abe was perceived as a devoted ally of the U.S. in Washington. He established relations of confidence with presidents Obama and Trump. For this purpose, he strengthened Japanese-American military-political cooperation, took steps to support American strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. He implemented, even if without substantial results, steps to stabilize relations with China, trying to combine policy of containing Beijing with efforts to develop bilateral ties. Abe paid substantial attention to relations with India, including for the purpose of the idea, which was put forward by him and supported by the U.S., to establish quadrilateral cooperation of “democracies” in the Indo-Pacific region – the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia.
His policy on the Korean direction was not successful. The relations with Pyongyang remained in deadlock, and, with Seoul, the most acute bilateral problems were not finally solved. Abe also paid great attention to policy aiming to conclude a peace treaty with Russia on the basis of a radical improvement of Japanese-Russian ties in all spheres. The reasons for his failure in these directions are discussed in this article.
The article evaluates Abe’s efforts aimed at developing governmental documents and making the Diet adopt laws determining the basic directions of the foreign and military policy of the state. The author characterizes the results of the activity of S. Abe in the sphere of foreign policy and assesses its influence on the formation of the course of the Japanese government after his resignation.
In this article, the author analyzes the post-war development of relations between Japan and Asian countries. This work tracks correlation between sustainable development of economic and political relations, on one hand, and gradual decrease of tension connected with the issues of historical past in the second part of the 20th century, on the other hand.
The article addresses the issue of post-war relations between Japan and other Asian countries (PRC, Korea, Taiwan), as well as Southeast Asian countries (mainly Singapore, Indonesia). Besides, special attention is paid to the issues of historical memory related to the Japanese occupation of Indonesia and its consequences, specifically to the problem of the historical grievances of Dutch people towards Japan and the problem of children born to men from the Japanese military and local women.
In the 1980s, the mothers of these children and the children themselves started visiting Japan. The visits were financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and included official meetings. At approximately the same time, the first trips for former Dutch POWs and those who had been forcibly conscripted to work in Japan were held. In the memorial places these people visited, memorial signs and steles were installed, which symbolized reconciliation on issues of historical memory.
Traumatic experience produced by certain historical events is not the only issue here. Development of international ties after these events is also an important factor. The possibility of reconciliation or even overcoming such problems often depends on how positively and mutually beneficially such relations develop afterwards. Over time, especially as generations change and emotions connected with these traumatic events calm down, we can see preconditions for compromises and reconciliation. On the other hand, as tension between nations increases, the number of mutual claims is also increasing. If relations develop smoothly, especially if this process goes on for several generations, any offence or claim might be left behind and memory of it might even become a source of reconciliation.
The Japanese collection of the MAE RAS contains many objects that are interesting not only for their artistic features or ethnographic value, but also for the amazing history of acquisition, very often connected with remarkable people. This article focuses on three ihai 位牌 mortuary tablets in the MAE collection. Since the Kamakura period, such tablets were used as an integral accessory of Buddhist funeral ritual. Conventionally, the ihai are made of wood and coated with black and/or gold lacquer; consist of a stand with several levels, decorated with carvings and topped with a “lotus pedestal,” and the tablet itself, installed on the pedestal. On its front side, a mortuary name (kaimyō 戒名) is carved. The nengō 年号 date of death (era, number of the year, month, day) and, sometimes, the age of the deceased are indicated, too. There is no “standard” form of memorial tablets because different schools of Japanese Buddhism offer their own special form of ihai, as well as a Buddhist name “formula”. With the development of photography in the Meiji period, ritual photographs of the deceased (iei 遺影) were also placed on the tablets. One of the tablets stored in the MAE was brought by a famous Russian scholar of Far-Eastern studies Professor A.I. Ivanov (1878–1937) from a trip to Japan in 1912 as part of his extensive collection. This tablet with a kaimyō and photograph of a deceased woman has a conventional shape and obviously participated in the funeral rituals. The other two items belong to the Japanese collection of ethnographer Professor L.Ya. Sternberg (1861–1927), who participated in the Third Pan-Pacific Congress in Tokyo in November 1926. These two tablets, despite their traditional form, materials, and ornamental techniques, cause a certain feeling of puzzle because, instead of a kaimyō, they present the “civil” surname of a famous Japanese anthropologist Tsuboi Shogoro 坪井博士, who died in 1913 in Saint Petersburg; and the surname of Professor V.V. Radlov (1837–1918), director of the MAE from 1894 to 1917, written in katakana alphabet. This article discusses the possible reasons and accompanying circumstances of the appearance of these tablets in the MAE collection.
The archaeological direction in the Japanese studies in Russia originated at the end of the 19th century on the basis of the first trips and acquaintance with the antiquities of Japan (M.I. Venyukov, A.V. Grigoriev, I.S. Polyakov, D.M. Pozdneev), and transformed into an original direction in the Soviet period. The fruitful dialogue between Russian and Japanese archaeologists is largely due to both the territorial proximity and common roots of ancient cultures, starting from the Stone Age, as well as mutual interest in the archaeology of the Pacific basin as a whole. Since the early 1960s, one of the leading roles in this collaboration is played by the Novosibirsk Scientific Center (Institute of History, Philology and Philosophy, Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Faculty of Humanities of NSU) and such specialists as A.P. Okladnikov, A.P. Derevyanko, R.S. Vasilevsky, and V.E. Larichev. In the first post-Soviet decade, there was a transition to new formats – long-term joint projects and archaeological expeditions, which are carried out on the basis of bilateral agreements between research organizations in Japan and Russian institutes (universities, museums) from a number of cities in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Cooperation reached its peak in 2007/8–2019, enjoying the support of Russian (RSFH, RFBR, RSF) and Japanese scientific foundations, and was implemented in a variety of formats (projects, exchanges, internships, symposiums, exhibitions, publications, etc.) and in a variety of geographical areas, both in Russia and Japan, as well as third countries – in Central Asia (Mongolia) and South America (Ecuador). One of the striking examples of such interaction is the fruitful cooperation of the Division of Foreign Archaeology (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS, Novosibirsk) and the Laboratory of Archaeology (Tohoku University, Sendai), resulting in a large number of publications in leading scientific journals and several dissertation studies on the Jomon and Kofun periods.
Japan, one of the largest economies in the world, occupies a very peculiar position in the global direct investment market. Being the largest creditor and one of the leaders in the export of direct investments, the country remains – judging by quantitative indicators – relatively unattractive for foreign business. However, in recent years, the situation in the global direct investment market has changed significantly, and Japan’s place in the emerging structure of value chains of international companies may also change.
The study of the activities of foreign companies in the semiconductor industry in Japan allows us to conclude that the problem of attracting FDI to the country in modern conditions acquires new meanings and is considered from the point of view of economic security and sustainability of supply chains, especially in terms of supplies of critically important electronic components. This predetermined the author’s choice of the semiconductor industry as the object of research.
In the context of the spread of the friend-shoring paradigm, when global supply chains show signs of reorientation towards “friendly” countries, Japan has a chance to use its real competitive advantages to attract high-quality and high-tech investments. And the country apparently intends to use this chance, betting on ensuring “predictability” in the eyes of foreign investors, along with such advantages as the availability of qualified labor and a network of high-quality suppliers, strong potential partners for joint projects, developed infrastructure and system for protecting intellectual property rights, loyalty of local authorities and the population, strong support, including financial support, for investment projects from the Japanese government. To this one should add the high and growing demand for electronic components from the national industry, which makes Japan an attractive market. The success of the world’s microelectronics leaders in the Japanese market may have demonstration and animation effects and help international companies in other industries to take a new and unbiased look at Japan.
The article deals with the genesis, semantics, and functions of the dragon image in Japanese culture. The relevance of the study is due to the increased attention of researchers to the basic values of local cultures, issues of symbolism, inextricably linked to the problems of national self-identification. The methodological basis of the study is the structural-semiotic approach, which was used to analyze the value content of the dragon image, the descriptive-analytical method, and the method of cognitive interpretation of the semantics of linguistic means verbalizing the dragon image in the Japanese language. In contrast to the Western tradition, in the culture of the peoples of East Asia, a dragon is a revered and significant symbol of power, strength, and authority. Stories about dragons are found in ancient texts of both Hinduism and Buddhism. It is established that the formation and evolution of the dragon cult in Japan was influenced by the mythical Chinese dragons, Indian Naga snakes, and the belief in dragons as deities of the water element. The author examines the genesis and evolution of the dragon image in different historical epochs, the influence of cultural-historical, natural, and religious factors on its transformation. It is shown that, in medieval Japan, the dragon was considered the protector of Buddhism, personifying strength, wisdom, prosperity, good luck, and images of these mythical creatures became an organic element of Buddhist culture. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the image of the dragon as a sign of the Chinese zodiacal calendar, the representations of dragons in Japanese mythology, fairy tales and legends, in Hitachi-Fudoki, Kojiki, Nihon shoki. In the mythological picture of the world of the Japanese, the dragon is ambivalent and has both positive and negative features. It is revealed that the image of the dragon occupies an important place in Japanese traditional culture, painting, architecture, arts and crafts, calendar holidays, is widely represented in proverbs and sayings, word combinations and idioms. The reference to Japanese phraseology allowed to expand the base of the study and to reveal the totality of ideas about the dragon in the worldview of native speakers of the Japanese language. The author concludes that, nowadays, the image of the dragon in Japan has lost its sacral significance and is mainly used as tribute to tradition.
ACADEMIC EVENTS
On December 28, 2023, at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a round table was held in a mixed format on the topic “Japan’s Relations With East Asian Countries: Problems, Trends, Prospects,” organized by the Institute’s Center for Japanese Studies. It focused on the trends and prospects of relations between the United States, China and Japan, various aspects of cooperation between Japan and ASEAN countries, Japan’s position in the confrontation around Taiwan, the Japanese policy of the President of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol, ensuring Japan’s energy security in the face of increasing internal and external challenges, etc.
