Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the wider context of writings against „Yellow Peril” after the Russo-Japanese war, presenting several different motives getting connected: the changing image of Japan, the Japanese efforts to influence this image, and the different perception of Japan in East Central Europe.

Paper long abstract:

The paper tries to present the wider context of an actual case of a Hungarian orientalist scholar writing against the idea of „Yellow Peril” that emerged in Europe after the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. Examining the context of this case, several different motives got into the focus of the research. The Russo-Japanese war changed the image of Japan differently in various parts of the world, resulting the emergence of the “Yellow peril” idea in the West. East-Central Europe had different concepts of the East and of Japan, affected partly by Western Europe, partly by the historical context of East-Central Europe, and partly by the results of Japan’s development during the second half of the 19th century. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) there was a strong adoration of Japanese military and political modernity in that region, and it defined the perceptions of Japan of that time. In Western Europe and the USA, more critical opinions started to be formed about Japan. In connection with this less favourable Japanese image, the mechanism of the Japanese efforts to influence the formation of this image can also be studied, with the connections that Japan tried to build with prominent foreign persons to persuade them to support a favourable Japanese image. The scholar, Arminius Vámbéry (1832-1913) was a well-known scholar of Asian studies in Europe because of his travels in the Ottoman Empire and in Central Asia in the 1850-60s (on which he published books in English in Great Britain), and he was known as a committed supporter of Asian cultures. He is said to be one of the initiators of a special idea of “Pan-Asianism”, and this may have been the reason why Japanese diplomats asked Vámbéry to write favourably about Japan. His views were popular among the public, as the Japanese development was regarded an example, which proved that modernisation, as a Western type of progress, could be achieved without sacrificing national identity or cultural heritage. Under the Japanese model, the defence of national interests and the preservation of national culture were regarded as contemporary ideas, not as the enemies of modernity.

Paper short abstract:

What is the significance of the collection of Japanese artifacts made by William Bramsen (1850-1881) of Copenhagen during a residence in Japan of nine years and preserved in the National Museum of Denmark? Why did he focus on coins and why is he worth remembering now as a pioneering Japanologist?

Paper long abstract:

During his short life-time, William Bramsen (1850-1881), a Dane who lived in Japan from 1871 to 1880, collected over 1200 Japanese coins and amassed a collection of books and manuscripts relating to the numismatic history of Japan. In addition, he engaged in vigorous debate with Ernest Satow and others in the Asiatic Society of Japan, and in the English-language press of Japan, on the romanization of Japanese and other matters and he published meticulously researched contributions to the study of Japanese coinage, chronology, and weights and measures. Thanks to the recent discovery of his papers, which are preserved along with his books and manuscripts at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, it is now possible to trace the origins and growth of his collection of old Japanese coins and his attempts to extend his knowledge through association with the leading numismatists in Japan at the time. Like Engelbert Kaempfer, Isaac Titsingh, Carl Peter Thunberg and Philipp Franz von Siebold during the Edo period, he saw the long history of the usage of coins in Japan, which goes back to the Nara period, as valuable evidence of economic activity and technological progress, but he took his studies much further than any of them. Amongst his papers are the plans for the book he was planning to write and details of the illustrations he wanted to include.

In 1880 he moved to London, for in 1875 he had joined the fledgling Mitsubishi company and in recognition of his talents Mitsubishi decided to send him and a Japanese colleague to the Middle Temple to obtain qualifications in law. In November 1881 he gave a paper at the Royal Numismatical Society but shortly thereafter he died of peritonitis. Had he lived, his name would surely be as familiar to us as that of Satow. In this paper we will assess the full range of his contributions to the study of Japan in the 1870s and explore the intellectual underpinnings of his researches.

Paper short abstract:

I will examine the tension between the Confucian intellectual background and the Orientalist view on the Islamic concept of God as the commandant, focusing on Mahometto-den by Hayashi Tadasu (1876. A translation of Life of Mahomet by Humphrey Prideaux, 1697).

Paper long abstract:

Hayashi Tadasu was the son of a Dutch-style medical doctor but learned English and was ordered by the Tokugawa shogunate to study in England in recognition of his excellent language skills. After returning to Japan, he fought in the Tokugawa army against the new government forces in the Hakodate War. After the Meiji Revolution, he was hired by the new government to join the Iwakura Mission and later became a high-ranking official in charge of industry, the introduction of technology, and the postal system. At the same time, he translated economic and legal documents. Then, after the establishment of the Meiji Constitution and the Diet, he served mainly as a diplomat. While Hayashi's career as a progressive bureaucrat and diplomat is interesting in its own right, this paper focuses on Hayashi as an intellectual. Although Hayashi wrote few books of his own, he played a major role in introducing Western liberal thought in the early Meiji period, including John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy, Bentham's "Theory of Criminal Law," and Francis Lieber's On Civil Liberty and Self Government. One point that has not received much attention, however, is his interest in Islam in the very early Meiji period and his translation of Life of Mahomet by Humphly Prideaux who was Dean of the Norwich (the head of the Chapter of Norwich Cathedral) and an orientalist scholar. While the original book attacked “the imposture of Mahomet” from a Christian standpoint, Hayashi referred to other books on Islam and pointed out in his afterword that the original book was covered by a one-sided prejudice. Behind this criticism was the influence of Carlyle and others who viewed Mahomet as a hero.

　It is noteworthy that in the process of Hayashi's criticism of the original texts, the idea that the Islamic God is “pure will” emerged. At that time it was very difficult to translate the concept of “pure will”, which transcends good and evil, into Japanese. In this paper, I would like to explore the uniqueness of Hayashi's viewpoint.

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