Narrative of a Captivity in Japan: Golovnin (part 1)
Details
The turn of the nineteenth century saw an increasing encroachment of Russian explorations into and around isolationist Japan, culminating with the capture and imprisonment of Russian naval captain Vasilii Golovnin in 1811.
Golovnin had been commissioned to survey the Kuril Islands when he made the fateful decision to land for fresh provisions. What followed was an extraordinary adventure of capture, interrogation, escape, recapture, and release by the Japanese. No doubt Golovnin and his crew provided a crucial source of military information to his captors. But the Japanese line of questioning went beyond the merely strategic, revealing an insatiable curiosity for every aspect of Russian life and society. Likewise, Golovnin's internment put him in a unique position to learn about Japan. He used his two years in captivity to master the language and learn all he could about the Japanese people and customs.
Golovnin's mesmerizing account of his imprisonment became a bestseller in both Russia and Europe, offering a rare window into Japan's interior. The result is a memoir that is a testament to both his and his men's bravery, as well as his respect for the Japanese and their culture. Even today, his account, unblemished by the prejudices of so many of the later Western visitors to feudal Japan, still makes for riveting reading.
The "Golovnin incident" (as it came to be known) did not immediately lead to many changes geopolitically. A lull in contact developed between Russia and Japan, but Golovnin's (relatively friendly) imprisonment is significant in foreshadowing an end to Japanese isolationism and the Dutch monopoly on contact with the Shogunate.
Selected reading:
Week 1: section 1.1, 1.3, 1.5 (to page 211)
Week 2: section 1.5 (from page 211), 1.6, 1.8, 2.1, 2.3
Optional: 1.7, 2.2
Narrative of a Captivity in Japan:
Volume 2: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Japan_and_the_Japanese/dKdFAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
Extracts:
"So that though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on...Volcano Bay on the Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to visit...at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly encounter him there." (Moby-Dick, 44)
"On the 10th of September we entered Volcano Bay..." (Golovnin: vol 2)
"And Kumbo Sama, Emperor of Japan, had a dragon-beaked junk, a floating Juggernaut, wherein he burnt incense to the sea-gods." (Mardi 2.45) [Golovnin 1.5]
This meetup is part of a series on Japan Unbolted.
Narrative of a Captivity in Japan: Golovnin (part 1)