Section
Connections with Japan
Life in Japan, cultural exchange, and ties built through work.
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To Tokyo with His Family in 1929: The Pianist Leo Sirota
Pianist Leo Sirota first visited Japan on a concert tour in 1928 and lived there from 1929 to 1946. Drawing on Tokyo Music School's staff rosters, contemporary yearbooks, and academic papers, this article traces the discrepancies in how his birthplace is recorded, the students he taught, and even conflicting dates for when he left Japan.
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1,498 People Studying Japanese in Ukraine: The Japan Foundation’s FY2024 Survey
According to the Japan Foundation's FY2024 survey, Ukraine has 14 institutions teaching Japanese, 93 teachers, and 1,498 learners—down from the FY2021 survey. This article looks at the trend since FY2012, a change in how teachers are counted, and the history of Japanese-language teaching at universities in Kyiv, based on the survey reports and university records.
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From Rashomon to A Wild Sheep Chase: Japanese Novels in Ukrainian Translation
In 1971, a collection of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's short stories was translated from Japanese into Ukrainian and published in Kyiv. This article traces, through encyclopedias and library catalogs, the people who have brought Japanese literature into Ukrainian, from Japanese studies in 1920s Kharkiv to the physicist-translator Ivan Dziub and the dictionary-maker Ivan Bondarenko.
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A Japan-Ukraine Timeline ── From the 1965 Sister-City Partnership to Yen Loans
From the 1965 sister-city partnership between the City of Yokohama and the City of Odesa, to the opening of diplomatic relations in 1992, to the yen loans and evacuee intake after 2022. This article puts Japan-Ukraine relations into a timeline made only of events whose date and announcing body can be identified. It also separates whether support figures are ceilings or amounts actually disbursed, and what an evacuee count is actually counting.
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What Did Yokohama-Odesa and Kyoto-Kyiv Actually Agree To As Sister Cities?
There is no legal definition of a "sister city." What agreement documents typically state is friendship and mutual understanding. What kind of documents formed the Yokohama-Odesa and Kyoto-Kyiv partnerships, who has carried them forward, and what has continued? A 2023 memorandum between Yokohama and Odesa was a more concrete document, spelling out both a purpose and a deadline.