From Taiho’s Father to Shishi and Aonishiki: Ukraine in the Sumo Association’s Records

Searching the Japan Sumo Association’s official website for wrestlers whose birthplace is “Ukraine” turns up two names, as of the final day of the September 2026 tournament: maegashira Shishi of Ikazuchi stable, and ozeki Aonishiki of Ajigawa stable. Going back further, the father of Showa-era yokozuna Taiho was a man born in a Ukrainian village.

What follows draws on the Japan Sumo Association’s official-site data for wrestlers and past yokozuna, Taiho’s official website (run by Taiho Kikaku), the Cabinet Office’s list of People’s Honour Award recipients, a researcher’s article in the newsletter of the Hakodate Society for the History of Japan-Russia Exchange, and the National Diet Library’s bibliographic catalogue, as of September 2026. It does not assess bouts or wrestling style.

Setting the Three Men’s Records Side by Side

Here is the Japan Sumo Association’s own official-site data. “Birthplace” is given exactly as the Association records it.

Wrestlers ranked juryo and above are called “sekitori.” By the Association’s record, Shishi reached juryo in the July 2023 tournament, and Aonishiki in November 2024.

What Does the Association’s “Birthplace” Actually Record?

The Association’s “birthplace” is not always where a wrestler was actually born. On Taiho, his own official website states that he “was born in Shikuka-gun, Karafuto, and grew up in Teshikaga, Kawakami-gun, Hokkaido.” The Association gives, as his birthplace, the town where he grew up.

The Association’s listed birthplace for Shishi is “Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.” A sports newspaper’s article on his promotion to juryo (May 31, 2023) states that he is “from Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia Oblast.” Zaporizhzhia, the capital of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and Melitopol, in the same oblast, are different towns.

The Phrase “the First Sekitori From Ukraine”

When Shishi’s promotion to juryo was decided on May 31, 2023, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported it as “the first sekitori from Ukraine,” and Nikkan Sports as “the first sekitori from Ukraine.” Taiho’s father was born in Ukraine, but Taiho himself was born on Karafuto. If “from Ukraine” is read as “born in Ukraine,” the news reports’ phrasing and Taiho’s own record do not conflict. This article has not found any document in which the Association itself announced Shishi as “the first” in these terms.

Taiho’s Father, Markiian Boryshko

Taiho’s official website gives his father as “Markiian Boryshko, a Ukrainian,” and his mother as Naya Kiyo, a Japanese woman, and states that “Naya is the mother’s surname.”

The father’s path was traced by Sakhalin researcher Nikolai Vishnevsky, working from documents and museum holdings in Sakhalin Oblast. Michiko Oyamauchi, who translated his book, summarized its contents in the newsletter of the Hakodate Society for the History of Japan-Russia Exchange (no. 43, 2022). According to that article, the father’s own handwritten curriculum vitae, held at the Sakhalin Regional Museum, reads as follows.

I, Boryshko, Markiian Karpovych, was born on January 3, 1885, in the village of Runivshchyna, Konstantynohrad district, Poltava province. My ethnicity is Ukrainian.

Translation by Michiko Oyamauchi, “M. Boryshko, the Ukrainian-born father of yokozuna Taiho, in Sakhalin after the Japanese military withdrawal of 1925” (translation of the father’s curriculum vitae). Translated for this article from the Japanese.

The same article states that the Boryshko family moved from Ukraine to the Far East in the 1890s and settled in Sakhalin. The father ran a business in Aleksandrovsk (called “Ako” under Japanese administration) in northern Sakhalin, but in 1925, when the Japanese military withdrew from northern Sakhalin, he moved south to Karafuto, then under Japanese rule. Around 1927 he married Naya Kiyo, ran livestock farming and other work in Shikuka, and in May 1940 the couple’s third son was born — the future Taiho.

The Father’s Name, and the Town’s Name

The father’s name is written differently in different sources. Taiho’s official website gives “Markiian Boryshko”; Oyamauchi’s article gives the fuller “Markiian Karpovych Boryshko,” including his patronymic. A note in the article gives the name on his personal file at the museum as “Боришко М.К.“

Place names, too, changed with the times.

Oyamauchi’s article also describes the father’s home village as being in the region of “Kharkiv” (ハリコフ（ハルキウ）). “Poltava province,” as written in the curriculum vitae, is the provincial name of that era. This article has not confirmed what present-day administrative division the village belongs to.

The Parting of 1945

According to Oyamauchi’s article, after the Soviet invasion of August 1945, the father was left alone in Sakhalin, now under Soviet control, unable to rejoin his family. In his later years, the article states, he worked as a caretaker at the Sakhalin Regional Museum.

After the Yokozuna Years

Taiho retired after the May 1971 tournament (Japan Sumo Association). According to Taiho’s official website, after retiring he opened his own stable, Taiho stable, to train wrestlers, and also served as director of the Japan Sumo Association’s Sumo Museum. On January 12, 2011, he received Ukraine’s Order of Merit («За заслуги»), 3rd class, under Presidential Decree No. 26/2011 (Taiho’s official website calls it “the Order of Friendship (Ukraine)”). He died on January 19, 2013, and on February 25 that year received the People’s Honour Award (Cabinet Office’s list of recipients). The Cabinet Office’s list gives the reason for the award as “his brilliant achievement of a record 32 top-division championships in the history of grand sumo.” The National Diet Library’s catalogue lists his autobiography, Giants, Taiho, Tamagoyaki: My Personal History (Nihon Keizai Shimbun-sha, 2001).

Melitopol

Melitopol, the town news reports give as Shishi’s birthplace, is listed, as of September 2026, in the Ukrainian government’s “List of Territories Where Hostilities Are (or Were) Conducted, or That Are Temporarily Occupied by the Russian Federation,” as a town occupied by Russia since February 25, 2022. The situation of occupied-territory residents having Russian citizenship forced on them is covered in our article on forced citizenship in occupied territory.

More on Japan-Ukraine Ties

Other articles on Ukrainian-born people active in Japan include pianist Leo Sirota, who lived in Tokyo from 1929, and Vasyl Yeroshenko, who wrote fairy tales in Japanese.