The Otsu Incident on April 29th 1891

[Katharina]

Do you happen to know the real reasons for the Japanese policeman to attack the tsarevich?

Maybe you want to choose from the following explanations that I have found so far:

a) George of Greece had played a role in provoking the attack by insulting the honor of a Japanese boy (see Peter Kurth: "this story, unfounded, was favored by Queen Victoria")
b) The policeman was hurt by ambiguous remarks of the reputedly homosexual Georgy of Greece
c) The policeman was a religious fanatic offended by some inadvertent breach of etiquette committed by the foreigners i.e. by the supposedly disrespectful behavior of Nicholas and his companions in a Japanese temple
d) The policeman was outraged because the tsarevich payed too much attention to a samurai's wife.
e) The policeman was afraid of russian espionage.
f) The policeman believed unfounded rumors written up in the newspapers that Saigo Takamori (his enemy in the Southeastern War) would be returning to Russia with Nikolai. If Saigo, who it was thought had died in battle, were to return, Tsuda would have lost his most prized possession, a medal he had received in recognition of his success in the war.

Any more?
What do you think?

[Janet_Ashton]

The latest scholarship on this suggests that the attacker most certainly had a political motive, and acted with the help of the Japanese authorities. Officially, he was declared insane, but the real reasons appear to be resentment at foreign interference. Japan after 1860 modernised very rapidly, developing into a constitutional monarchy with a massive industrial base, while simultaneously retaining the older traditions and codes. This created I suppose a sort of dislocation in society - and quite possibly in individuals too. Esper Ukhtomskii, who wrote the offical chronicle of Nicholas's tour, summed this duality up nicely I think when he wrote,
"The Japanese have a rooted tendency to exalt in their most secret feelings and thoughts their ancient world; despising the foreigner in the heart while submissively learning of him."
Nicholas I think simply fell victim to the xenophobic resentment of the more backward-looking part of society.

I don't buy the idea that he'd behaved disrespectfully in a temple at all. Nicholas was attracted to Buddhism and likened his feelings on being in a temple to being in church. Yet, if you read some versions of this story, you'd believe he'd urinated in a shrine.

As for George of Greece - I don't know what he'd been up to. Certainly he was wild, and in the tea houses enjoyed himself greatly dancing with the geishas and so forth - but given what I have written above, I don't think his behaviour contributed to the attack which must have been planned in advance. Who knows? - At this distance in time I don't think we're likely to find out.

Janet

[Lorenzo_Cavalli]

Do you know the policeman's name? What happened to him?

[Katharina]

His name was Tsuda Sanzo. Tsuda seems to be his surname.

The japanese Emperor demanded for death penalty but Tsuda's lawyer argued that the charge of treason was not applicable to the crime committed. Resisting pressure from the government, the grand jury decided on a sentence of life imprisonment for attempted murder.

[BobAtchison]

Janet makes an interesting point about Nicholas and Buddhism- Nicholas had a collection of antique Buddhas that he continually added to - buying from famous antiquaries of the time.  His collection was quite extensive and I believe it went first to the Russian Museum and then to the Hermitage after the revolution.

I have never read anything about his interest in the religion itself (Janet bhave you seen anything?), and I have only found one reference of his own to the collection.  It was in his working study and was inventoried after the revolution.  Nicholas kept his most personal things in his bathroom and in the Working Study.  As we know he had his collection of Faberge on a table in the bathroom and his personal ikons on the wall next to the window.

Bob

[Janet_Ashton]

Janet makes an interesting point about Nicholas and Buddhism- Nicholas had a collection of antique Buddhas that he continually added to - buying from famous antiquaries of the time.  His collection was quite extensive and I believe it went first to the Russian Museum and then to the Hermitage after the revolution.

I have never read anything about his interest in the religion itself (Janet bhave you seen anything?), and I have only found one reference of his own to the collection.  It was in his working study and was inventoried after the revolution.  Nicholas kept his most personal things in his bathroom and in the Working Study.  As we know he had his collection of Faberge on a table in the bathroom and his personal ikons on the wall next to the window.

Bob

Hi Bob
    From the top of my head, the main reference I can think of to Nicholas and Buddhism as a religion is the one I cited in the thread above - where he mentions feeling as if he's in a church while in a Buddhist temple. There may be others but I'd have to look. Other than that, my instinct that he was attracted to the religion comes from two things: firstly, his personal collection of Buddhas, and secondly his friendship with the orientalist Ukhtomskii - from whom as you know he bought some of these Buddhas. Ukhtomskii as you probably know liked to draw paralells between the Russian "national character" and the worldview of those living under the Buddhist faith, and his own writing contains statements like,
"The people of Siam, living under the Buddhist faith, instinctively feels its connection to the empire of the far-off north", and claims that Buddhist nations,
"Cultivate to an exalted degree reverence for the monarch."
It's my instinct that Nicholas liked that religion because he saw it - as he saw Orthodoxy - as a sort of underpinning for autocracy. I could wrong on this, of course, but I've been influenced in this by reading both Richard Wortman and David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, to the extent that I forget where their thinking ends and my own begins!

Janet

[BobAtchison]

Nicholas also built a new Buddhist shrine in St. Petersburg (I visited it 10 years ago - I think it's on Stone Island).  Also, I know he received regular delegations from a famous llamasery(sp) in the East (from around Lake Baikal I think) - I met a delegation of these monks in their exotic garb in New York st the Rockefeller Foundation in the early nineties. They told me they had a special relationship with Nicholas - as you mention perhaps the visit to the Far East with Ukhtomsky brought him into contact with them

Bob

[masha]

Hi Everyone,

getting back to the motive behind the Otsue attack on the Tsarevitch, although your arguments supporting the "politcal motive" are good, I'm still not convinced that it was a politcally motivated attack. As i've quoted elsewhere on the board, Nicholas' companion, his Greek Georgie, suffered the blame for instigating the whole thing. You can see the quote I've taken from Lady Colin Campbell's book under the George Alexanderovitch section on the discussion board. In any event, why would any blame be placed upon Prince George if it the motives truly lay elsewhere?

[Robert_Hall]

Has anyone been able to read the Japanese versions of this event?

[Penny_Wilson]

I haven't read it myself yet -- but my husband's best friend in grad school was a Japanese student.  They graduated together in oceanography, but Masa has given that up and now has his own translation business.  He is working on a number of Japanese works for me -- books, articles, things from archives -- and the Otsu accounts are one of them.  He's also doing it free of charge, so it's his spare-time work, and it's going to take a while.  But I'm looking forward to it -- there is quite a lot of interest in the Romanovs in Japan.

Penny

[Janet_Ashton]

Hi Everyone,

getting back to the motive behind the Otsue attack on the Tsarevitch, although your arguments supporting the "politcal motive" are good, I'm still not convinced that it was a politcally motivated attack. As i've quoted elsewhere on the board, Nicholas' companion, his Greek Georgie, suffered the blame for instigating the whole thing. You can see the quote I've taken from Lady Colin Campbell's book under the George Alexanderovitch section on the discussion board. In any event, why would any blame be placed upon Prince George if it the motives truly lay elsewhere?

Hi Masha
          Perhaps blame would be placed on Prince George because the family were unaware of the real reasons for the attack? - After all, they had the assurances of the Dowager Empress and others that the whole Japanese nation deeply regretted what had happened - and Nicholas saw demonstrations of this regret himself when people knelt in the streets to him.

The evidence I mentioned that the attack was political comes from someone's recent PhD thesis, based on lots of research into the activities of the local officials before the attack. It's still only his theory, of course. I'd also be interested to hear where Lady Colin Campbell found the story about George? Does she mention her source?

I am also on the trail of some Japanese accounts - and will be fascinated to see what Penny's got too :-) - though I am not sure that the ones I have are anything more than eye-witness accounts which might not tell anything about what went before....

Janet

[masha]

Thanks for your reply, Janet.

Good question about Lady Colin Campbell's sources, as they are not cited anywhere in her book - no bibliography, end notes, nothing. The dust jacket notes that she drew on her intimate knowledge from her connections and personal access to the inner circle at the Court of the House of Windsor. Well, it's a niggling feeling that won't go away as far as my thoughts that something was a-miss with this whole event. I look forward to learning about the Japanese translations, Penny, and any other discoveries on this topic. Again, thanks for your replies everyone. Cheers!
Masha

[chatelaa]

Nicholas also built a new Buddhist shrine in St. Petersburg (I visited it 10 years ago - I think it's on Stone Island).  Also, I know he received regular delegations from a famous llamasery(sp) in the East (from around Lake Baikal I think) - I met a delegation of these monks in their exotic garb in New York st the Rockefeller Foundation in the early nineties. They told me they had a special relationship with Nicholas - as you mention perhaps the visit to the Far East with Ukhtomsky brought him into contact with them

Bob

Just for some more information:  in 1915, the Tsar commissioned the 'Kalachakra Temple' in St. Petersburg (197183 St. Petersburg, Primorsky Prospect, 91)  It's a Tibetan Buddhist Temple.    I read about it because I am a Buddhist and attended the Kalachakra ceremony in NYC in 1991 (HH Dalai Lama); the above information was in the reading material that was given out to us.
one of these days a really bright student will write a Ph.D. dissertation comparing Russian Orthodox Religion with the Tibetan Buddhists (I find the similarities striking).  Maybe that's why N. was interested in Buddhism ?

[sushismom]

Sorry about the delay in reading this, but Penny, is it possible to send me a copy of the Japanese account? My mother is Japanese and, while not a translator, I could probably get a decent account of what it says from her in a short period of time.

[Penny_Wilson]

I don't know that I'm ever going to get an account in Japanese... Our friends, Masaru and Yoko, are gathering the various accounts through their connections -- which will take time -- and will then filter translations to me as their schedules allow.  It will probably take a long time, and is one of several "back burner" projects of mine.

But I'll be sure and let you know what I hear...