<論文>ロシア/ソ連の日本論 : その多様性と共通性をめぐって

Abstract

It would not be an exaggeration to state that the publication of Orientalism in 1979 by Edward Said entirely changed the way cultures were written and thought about. This work opened new horizons by focusing on the power relationships between the Western countries and their colonies. However, Said was also criticized for several shortcomings in his theory, one of which was the limited scale of the "West-East" paradigm that he developed. Also, the literature he concentrated on was a mere fraction of the literature written about various cultures. "Nihonron, " the so-called discourse on Japanese society, as examined in this paper, can be placed right outside the paradigm of traditional orientalism. It was written in the Soviet Union -- the country which Said did not took into consideration, and the one which had a very peculiar ideology -- a communist one -- in the background. Another characteristic feature of the theories on Japanese society in the Soviet Union are the facts that the two countries are not separated geographically and are actually close neighbors whose relationship has a long history. In addition, one should also take into consideration the dubious identity of the Soviet Union and Russia that preceded it -- they were both Eurasian countries, with these two identities becoming stronger or weaker at different periods of time. In this paper I focus on the main characteristics of "Nihonron" in Russia and the Soviet Union, paying special attention to its diversity and commonality, as well as the new integrated approach to interpreting the cultures, which was articulated by Vsevolod Ovchinnikov and born within this discourse. Also, I argue that, despite ideological differences, in the bottom of their hearts Soviet (Russian) people actually liked Japan, for a number of reasons. This is the point quite similar to traditional "orientalist" framework; however, what distinguishes Japanese studies in the Soviet Union, especially after 1960s, is the fact that Japanese society was often considered to be "unexplainable" and "difficult to understand".