江戸時代日本に残された漂流記

Abstract

If you compare records of drifting across the sea from th Edo era with the ones in the journal collection, which was published several times after the Meiji period, there seems to be different points of views in perceiving just what a record of drifting across the sea is. Thus, it is believed that the time the document on the adventure stories was read as a record of drifting across the sea is critical to analyzing them. It is not easy to clearly distinguish between the “written records of drifting across the sea” and “journals of drifting across the sea.” However, part of such records, sometimes, evolved into a journal of drifting across the sea. Bearing this in mind, this paper discusses the unique features of “records of drifting across the sea” from the Edo era based on the drifting across the sea in the Joseon Dynasty by the Japanese in the modern era. Recently, the late modern era in Japan has been recognized as “the era of drifting across the sea”. However, the focus lies on the relationship between Japan and Western countries. That is because since Japan did not have an officcial diplomatic relationship with those countries, there was no way for the Japanese to understand the geopolitical situation and the culture of those countries in the 18th century. Thus, it seems Japan was interested in gathereing information from drifters. Unlike this, modern East Asian countries, Japan, China, and the Joseon Dynasty in Korea in particular had a system of sending the drifters to their home country for free. That is why there are not many records of drifting across the sea left. As such, records of drifting across the sea in the form of Kikigaki were written for the needs of the ruling power and those who were full of intellectual curiosity about the region that Japan did not have a formal relationship with. That means, the Kikigaki journals were not commommly written about regions where a free mutual repatriate system was in place in modern times. In many cases, only in late modern times, the records of drifting across the sea became widely popular as a journal of drifting across the sea.