Dembei ( ja, 伝兵衛 ''Dembei'', russian: Дэмбэй) was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

castaway A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left a ...

who, through

Vladimir Atlasov Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov or Otlasov ( or Отла́сов; between 1661 and 1664 – 1711) was a Siberian Cossack who was the first Russian to organize systematic exploration of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Atlasov Island, an uninhabited volcanic ...

, provided

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

with some of its first knowledge of Japan. He was a

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

accompanying a fleet of "thirty transports laden with goods for Edo," which had been caught in a storm; they found their way to

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and wes ...

and were found by Atlasov in 1701 or 1702. Despite pleading to be brought back to Japan, Dembei and another young Japanese person (who did not survive long) were instead brought to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, where he told

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

what he could about Japan. He taught some of the Japanese language to a few Russians, making him the father of

Japanese language education in Russia Japanese language education in Russia formally dates back to December 1701 or January 1702, when Dembei, a shipwrecked Japanese merchant, was taken to Moscow and ordered to begin teaching the language as soon as possible. A 2006 survey by the Japan ...

. He was baptized as Gabriel and spent the rest of his life in Saint Petersburg. Although it is unlikely that Dembei had any significant knowledge of Japan's politics or military organization or anything else that might prove particularly strategic to the Russians, it roused Russia's interest for exploration of Kamchatka and the

Kurils The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

, and for attempting to open up trade with Japan. Some time between 1714 and 1719, he met traveller John Bell who gave the following account:

Notes

References

*McDougall, Walter (1993). ''Let the Sea Make a Noise: Four Hundred Years of Cataclysm, Conquest, War and Folly in the North Pacific.'' New York: Avon Books. *Sansom, George (1963). ''A History of Japan: 1615-1867.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press. *Lensen, George Alexander (1961). "The Russian Push Toward Japan: Russo-Japanese Relations, 1697-1895". ''American Slavic and East European Review,'' Vol. 20, pp. 320–321. {{doi, 10.2307/3000924. Russian people of Japanese descent Castaways Eastern Orthodox Christians from Japan Japanese emigrants to Russia Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Japan–Russia relations

See also

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