The Otsu Incident on April 29th 1891

[Janet_Ashton]

None of the Japanese police reports and related accounts make any mention at all of disrespectful behaviour by Nicholas or companions; neither did such evidence surface during the trial. What the police accounts do do is provide an exceptionally detailed picture of the night life of the young princes, down to the names of the geishas with whom they spent the night.... It's important to add at this point of course that geishas did not inevitably provide sex to the men who went to them for company, but I do think that all of this throws Radzinsky's idea that Nicholas was a virgin until MFK enticed him into her bed into considerable doubt. He was dreaming lustfully about Japanese women even before he arrive in Japan, and chides himself considerably in his diary for doing so just before Lent, so make of this what you will:-)

Janet

[chatelaa]

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

More about your thoughts on Nicholas II and his interest in Buddhism:

I have been reading through all the Discussion Board Topics as well as the online articles and came across a description of Nicholas' personality.  According to the article, he tried never to say anything that would be thought of as 'insulting' to a person's face (he censored his language).

I find this very interesting because one of the basic rules (Precepts) in Buddhism is called 'Right Speech'; that is, one learns to guard one's language and never says anything that the other person would find offensive.

---Adele

[Lisa]

Hello everyone!

This concept is also present in the Russian culture, it's their Eastern side. That consists with nothing to make or say (thus inevitably evil). One finds that in the Gontcharov's novel  Oblomov.That's rather difficult to understand for the Westerners, but it's very close to contemplation, non-violence and the meditative attitude the Eastern ones.

[otma_gal3]

  Oh my goodness, freaky!

[Sergio]

I found this two contemporany articles about the Otsu Incident:

http://homepage3.nifty.com/yhiguchi/article-c41.htm
http://homepage3.nifty.com/yhiguchi/article-c43.htm

According to it the Incident took place on 11th May,1891! What is the correct date?

What do you think about this articles?

[Mike]

According to it the Incident took place on 11th May,1891! What is the correct date?

Both . 29 April 1891 [Russian "old style"] = 11 May 1891 [Western "new style"].

[Sergio]

The website http://pureland.blogspot.com/2003/03/otsu-incident-part-iii-mystery-deepens.html is about the Otsu Incident exhibition at the Otsu History Museum, on March 2003. It has some very interesting details about the Incident and the following events.

It also has a mysterious story about the Japanese doctor Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki, who allegelly
witnessed the event and gave Nicholas emergency treatment, but was left completely out of the exhibition!  
Please read part I (http://pureland.blogspot.com/2003/03/otsu-incident-part-i-my-suddenly.html) and III (http://pureland.blogspot.com/2003/03/otsu-incident-part-iii-mystery-deepens.html). Part II (http://pureland.blogspot.com/2003/03/otsu-incident-part-ii-last-week-you.html) has nothing about the subject.

I searched for the Otsu History Museum and found a book about the Otsu Incident but it is in Japanese and sellout! Here´s the link http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.rekihaku.otsu.shiga.jp%2fframeset%2findex04.html

[Sergio]

On 08.03.2004 at 19:16:30, Janet_Ashton wrote

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.

On 09.04.2004 at 19:15:00, Adele wrote

According to the article, he (Nicholas II) tried never to say anything that would be thought of as 'insulting' to a person's face (he censored his language).

At http://www.sisqtel.net/~williams/stnicholas.pdf you can read

(The Otsu Incident) embittered Nicholas toward the Japanese, which he fondly referred to as “Japanese Monkeys”, not even sparing the Emperor of Japan this title.

If anyone tried to kill me, I would be embittered too and could not censor my language! :-/

What do you think?

[Sergio]

The two rickshaw men, Mukobatake and Kitaga, who rescued Nicholas from Tsuda Sanzo.

You can hardly imagine what was to come after the chance they had got.

One of them was a bachelor with criminal records and he hang around repeating naughty things; he was arrested while gambling, his medal was taken away from him, he raped a girl when he was over seventy years old and of course, arrested. After the revolution in Russia his pension was nowhere to be claimed for.
Getting poor and penniless, he finally had to pick up things they might recycle and was selling things they could use again. So was with one of them at the end.

The other man returned to his hometown; trying to live a sober life he eventually became a politician and had a (happy?) life.

From http://homepage2.nifty.com/Workshop-Alice/translation/monkey.html date 00/10/24.

[Alice]

Interested to know which temple or temples Nicholas visited. Some are Shinto, some are Buddhist. Shintoism is a religion originating in Japan, whilst Buddhism was adopted from China. Shintoism is somewhat outdated now, most Japanese are Buddhist, not Shinto.

Anyway, does anyone know which temple or temples he visited? Otsu is very close to Kyoto where there are many famous temples and shrines.

[Georgiy]

I disagree that most Japanese are Buddhist rather than Shintoist, having lived in Japan for many years, and being a fluent speaker of Japanese. While some people maybe ardent Buddhists, or ardent Shintoists, the majority to whom religion is a thing reserved for special occasions use shinto for some things and buddhism for others. For example funeral rites tend to be buddhist, whereas celebrating the birth of a child, the parents would take the baby to a Shinto shrine. People see the old year out at a buddhist temple, then  in the first few days of the new year go to a Shinto shrine. Shinto tends to be associated with birth and life, Buddhism with death.

[Alice]

Hi Georgiy,

I live here too, and these are my observations. All of my Japanese friends are Buddhist. I have been led to believe that Shintoism is the "old" religion. The point is, you ask most Japanese which religion they are, and they say Buddhist.

BTW whereabouts did you live in Japan? I live in Nagano.

[Georgiy]

Hi Alice, as an adult in Chiba, at school in Kanagawa. But at the moment back in NZ where it's meant to be summer, but is freezing cold with hail and snow!
I hope to be able to get back to Japan again before too long.

It seems to me most people go through the accepted conventional motions of both Buddhism and Shintoism, but aren't necessarily religous. As for me I am Japanese Orthodox.

[olga]

Aha! My grandmother is from Kobe.

[Georgiy]

We all ought to go on a Japan trip to Otsu!