CULTURAL ENCOUNTER: UKRAINIAN-JAPANESE CULTURAL RELATIONS IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY (AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THEATRE TOURS)

Abstract

The article analyses the first cultural contacts between Ukraine and Japan that took place at the beginning of the 20th century, starting with the tour of the Ukrainian theatre troupe led by K. Karmelyuk-Kamensky in the Japanese cities of Kobe, Tokyo, Kamakura and Yokohama. Thanks to the cooperation with Japanese singer Matsui Sumako, these tours became possible, and thus Japanese society became acquainted with Ukrainian culture.It was found that Ukrainian actors in national costumes made a deep impression on the Japanese not only with their acting skills, but also with their performance of Ukrainian folk songs and dances, and the originality of Ukrainian culture.For Japan, this was a completely new experience and new knowledge about European culture, as Japan had remained a closed country for a long time. At the beginning of the 20th century, almost in parallel with the tour of the Ukrainian theatre, Japan experienced a cultural synthesis of Japanese traditions and Western European values, which, on the one hand, uniquely preserved and emphasised Japanese national identity, and on the other hand, organically wove European, and in particular Ukrainian, worldviews into Japanese culture.Given that numerous newspaper articles and other documents contain a wealth of information about the ‘Little Russian theatre troupe,’ we can conclude that audiences (and Japanese society as a whole) were aware that the actors were not from Russia but from Ukraine, and clearly distinguished between the activities of Russian and Ukrainian artists. In addition, most of the repertoire of the troupe led by K. Karmelyuk-Kamensky consisted of Ukrainian folk songs and dances, and theatrical performances and operas were performed in Ukrainian.Of course, the theatre tour of K. Karmelyuk-Kamensky’s Ukrainian troupe is only one small fragment of Ukrainian-Japanese cultural relations, but it was precisely the theatrical tour of Japan discussed in this article that marked the beginning of the Japanese acquaintance with Ukrainian culture and active Ukrainian-Japanese cultural relations.