VVSU will assist a professor from Japan to do historical research

Professor of the History Department of the Faculty of Philology of Kokugakuin University (Tokyo, Japan) Eisuke Kaminaga arrived at VVSU. At the university, he will spend three months working on his scientific research “The History of the Trade Route of Seaweed From Primorye to China From the End of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century.”

Lecturers of the Department of Marketing and Logistics of the Institute of International Business, Economics and Management of VVSU will assist the foreign colleague in searching for information and, if necessary, in translating historical sources.

“I have been studying the history of seaweed trade between Russia and Asian countries for a long time. I am interested in the history of the Russian Far East, especially relations between Russia and Japan. The first civilian resident of Vladivostok, Iakov Semionov, was an entrepreneur and exported seaweed and sea cucumber to China. Funds and historical materials regarding Semionov’s activities remained in Vladivostok. I would like to get acquainted with them. And it’s also very important for me to tell the Japanese that Russians also eat seaweed,” said Professor Eisuke Kaminaga.

As Natalia Iurchenko, associate professor of the department of marketing and logistics, noted, the university will provide the professor with assistance in accessing state archives, the library of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other library funds of Vladivostok.

“We are very pleased to have this opportunity to collaborate with our Japanese colleagues. Teachers from the Department of Marketing and Logistics will help in researching the current state of trade in seaweed with the countries of Southeast Asia from the territory of the Primorsky Territory. We have a lot of work ahead. I think we will definitely hold events with students so that they can also communicate with a scientist of this level,” says Natalia Iurchenko.

Kaminaga-san became interested in studying the Far East while still at school. As the professor himself says, in the 1980s, Japanese schoolchildren from foreign countries knew only America. Their closest neighbors Korea, China and the Far East of the USSR were closed during that time.

“This situation was strange for me. I wanted to explore the countries of Asia and the Far East. I entered the University of Tokyo to study Russian philology and learned the language. My diploma work was dedicated to fishing in Sakhalin. And since then I have been studying trade and the history of the Far East. Unfortunately, in Japan I have not much time to do research because I have to teach students. Now I hope to delve deeper into my work,” shares Eisuke Kaminaga.

For the Japanese researcher, this is the third visit to Vladivostok and the second to VVSU. He first visited the Far Eastern capital in the winter of 2002. Now Kaminaga-san will be able not only to immerse himself in the study of archives, but also to enjoy the Primorye spring.