On One Japanese Collection (the First Harp in Japan and the Soviet Union of 1930s)

Abstract

The main object of this paper is to present a collection of the so-called “shikishi”, a specific Japanese form of autograph. Abe Yoshie - the stenographer and a member of the Japanese embassy, collected these shikishi in Moscow in 1930th. During her stay in Russia Abe once met with the brilliant Russian/Soviet harpist Clara Erdeli and began to take harp lessons. Afterwards she became a first Japanese harpist and after her return to Japan, she had founded a harp playing school in her country. Among those who had written the autographs on the shikishi we can find the most famous representatives of the Soviet literary and art elite of 1930th, as well as the most prominent scholars in the field of the Japanese studies. However, soon after writing that these scholars became the victims of the repressions of the Stalin regime - several of them were accused of espionage and arrested, and one, the brilliant scholar N.A. Nevsky, was executed. Thus the story of the “shikishi” collection turns into the story of the fates of those who had left their autographs on the Japanese “colored papers” and then were arrested on the false pretext of being acquainted with the “Japanese spy” Abe Yoshie.