Description of Russia: a Dutch geography turned into Japanese (1793)
Katsuragawa Hoshū's 1793 Japanese version of the Russia chapter of a Dutch geography book.
Full title Description of Russia (Japanese translation, 1793, of the Russia chapter of Johann Hübner’s Dutch-language geography, prepared for the Kōdayū interrogation)
魯西亜志
Katsuragawa Hoshū
In 1793 Katsuragawa Hoshū translated the chapter on Russia from a Dutch edition of Johann Hübner's geography, itself translated from German, into Japanese. He prepared it to frame his questioning of the castaway Kōdayū, so that he had a European baseline to test the castaway's testimony against. The work carries the European picture of Russia, Siberia and Tartary into Japanese knowledge. The atlas does not hold the text: the corpus knows it only from its catalogue card, which names one undated manuscript with a digital copy at Waseda University Library. The exact Dutch edition still has to be identified.
- How they knew
- Compiled from others
- Who “Tartar” means here
- The card says Tatars appear among the peoples as classified by Hübner, so the work follows the European habit of grouping steppe and Siberian peoples under Tartary. How the text itself uses the word is not recorded here.
- Why read it
- It shows the European idea of Tartary arriving in Japan in 1793 and being combined with eyewitness testimony in the 1794 account (W159).
- Watch out
- It is a translation of a translation, not an observation. The atlas has no page text, so no passages are quoted.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
compilation: Japanese rendering of a European geographical description, used to frame the castaways' testimony
Research notes
- Translation of a Dutch edition of Hübner's Algemeene geographie; identify the exact Dutch edition from the text.
Why it matters
Shows the European 'Tartary' framework entering Japanese knowledge of Russia in 1793 and how it was combined with eyewitness testimony in Hokusa bunryaku.
Places named
Russia; Siberia; Tartary as described in European geography
Peoples named
Russians; Tatars; Siberian peoples as classified by Hübner