The history of foreign policy relations between Russia and Japan over the past century has been marked by a number of military conflicts, but the history of cultural contacts indicates a deepening search for mutual understanding between the Russian and Japanese peoples. Today, culture and cultural exchanges are the most advanced area of Russian-Japanese relations, and it is quite obvious that they should be given priority in a situation where the political dialogue is moving forward with limited speed. The beginning of Russo-Japanese relations dates back to the 18th century. Even the first contact led to success in cultural rapprochement: in 1697, the discoverer of Kamchatka, Vladimir Atlasov, discovered among the locals a Japanese sailor named Dembei, who in 1702 appeared before Peter I, who showed a keen interest in the stranger. By Peter's decree, a Japanese Language School was established in the capital, which was later transferred to Irkutsk; it lasted until 1816. Other interesting historical facts are also known. However, until the 1980s cultural contacts between our countries were sporadic. It was from the second half of the 19th century, when Japan, after two and a half centuries of isolation from the outside world, was forcibly brought out of this state by the arrival of the American squadron under the command of Perry to its shores, that the Japanese began to actively develop foreign culture, including Russian. JAPAN OPENS UP RUSSIA THROUGH LITERATURE In 1883, The Captain's Daughter by A. S. Pushkin was published in Japan, translated from English, and in 1886 the translator Tai Mori translated 23 chapters of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace from English into Japanese. However, the year 1888 was taken as the starting point for the spread of Russian culture in Japan, when the inhabitants of this country first got acquainted with the "Three Meetings" and "Rendezvous" from I. S. Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter" translated from Russian by the then-novice writer Shimei ... Read more