[Four Japanese Manuscripts, containing Official Government Documents and Reports relating to Diplomacy with the Russians in the 19th century]

[RUSSO-JAPANESE RELATIONS]

Edité par Nagasaki; Edo, 1861

A propos de cet article

9 x 6 3/8; 10 x 6 1/8; 9 7/8 x 6 3/4 inches. 20;16;16;14pp. Manuscript on rice paper. Two volumes tied with waste paper, two with thick paper wrappers, stitched. Minor worming in three volumes, occasionally affecting text. Red ink stamp inside front cover of one volume. A compact group of Japanese manuscript documents tracing Russian attempts to open diplomatic and commercial relations with Tokugawa Japan, from Rezanov's unsuccessful Nagasaki mission in 1804 to Putiatin's mid-century negotiations and the post-treaty Russian presence in Japan. The first two manuscripts are official Japanese scribal copies, made in 1810, of documents associated with the Russian embassy led by Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov. Rezanov arrived at Nagasaki in 1804 aboard the Russian vessel commanded by Ivan Krusenstern, carrying earlier credentials connected with Adam Laxman and a personal letter from Emperor Alexander I. Under the Tokugawa system, foreign approaches were channelled through Nagasaki and referred to Edo. Rezanov was kept at Nagasaki for several months while the authorities considered the mission, then ordered to depart without the shogunate receiving the Tsar's letter. These early documents include copies of a proposed settlement or treaty with Russia and "letters of reconciliation" sent under the Tsar's authority. A related section records the Japanese interrogation of four Russian sailors shipwrecked in 1810, apparently conducted while they were lodged at the house of the Kyoto merchant named in the manuscript. Together, the texts show the formal Japanese handling of Russian overtures through copying, translation, questioning, and administrative reporting. The second pair of manuscripts belongs to the renewed Russian pressure of the 1850s and early 1860s. One records the arrival of Yevfimii Vasilyevich Putiatin at Shimoda in 1854, shortly before the Treaty of Shimoda was signed on 7 February 1855. That treaty opened Hakodate, Shimoda, and Nagasaki to Russian vessels, addressed consular jurisdiction, fixed the boundary between Etorofu and Uruppu, and left Sakhalin without a fixed border. The final manuscript, dated 1861, records the arrival of a Russian ship sent to Japan, documenting the continuation of Russo-Japanese contact after the first formal treaty. Taken together, the manuscripts form a concise Japanese administrative record of the transition from restricted diplomacy at Nagasaki to the treaty-port framework of the Bakumatsu period through foreign letters, ship arrivals, proposed agreements, interrogations of sailors, and official reports preserved in working manuscript form, with wrapper inscriptions, stitching, and a red collection stamp retaining the character of an official or semi-official archive.

N° de réf. du vendeur 32738

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: [Four Japanese Manuscripts, containing Official Government Documents and Reports relating to Diplomacy with the Russians in the 19th century]
• Éditeur: Nagasaki; Edo
• Date de parution: 1861
• Reliure: 8vo
• Signé: Signé par l'auteur
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Historical Manuscripts
  • Voyages & Travel