Adam Laxman’s embassy to Japan
Russia’s first attempt to establish relations with Japan: aboard the brigantine Ekaterina, Lieutenant Adam Laxman brought to Hokkaido Japanese sailors who had been shipwrecked off the Aleutian Islands, and obtained from the shogunate permission for one Russian ship to call at Nagasaki.
- Date
- 13 (24) September 1792 – 8 (19) September 1793exact date · duration: ≈ 12 monthsJulian calendar (Old Style); the Gregorian date (New Style) is in brackets
- Place
- Matsumaetoday: Matsumae, Hokkaido, Japan · East Asia
- Route
- Okhotsk → Strait between Iturup and Kunashir → Nemuro → Cape Erimo → Hakodate → Matsumae → Hakodate → Strait between Iturup and Urup → Okhotsk
- Participants
- Russian Empire, Tokugawa shogunate, Adam Laxman, Catherine the Great
- Threads
- Russia at the turn of the 19th century
The embassy was fitted out under Catherine the Great’s decree of 13 (24) September 1791, but formally it acted only on behalf of Ivan Pil, the governor-general of Irkutsk — according to the historian Vasily Divin, so that a possible failure would not damage the empire’s prestige. The idea came from the envoy’s father, the naturalist Erik Laxmann, who had met Captain Daikokuya Kōdayū and his companions in Irkutsk and secured their return home.
Leaving Okhotsk on 13 (24) September 1792, the Ekaterina wintered in Nemuro Bay and in the summer of 1793 moved to Hakodate, from where the embassy traveled overland to the town of Matsumae. There shogunate officials announced that trade could be negotiated only at Nagasaki and handed Laxman a permit for one Russian ship. The brigantine returned to Okhotsk on 8 (19) September 1793; Russia decided to make use of the permit only eleven years later.
Connections
Consequences
- Rezanov’s embassy to Japan26 September (8 October) 1804 – April 1805 · East AsiaRezanov brought to Nagasaki the permit issued to Laxman in 1793
Related events
- Billings–Sarychev expedition25 October (5 November) 1785 – March 1794 · Central and Northern Asiathe 1791 decree on the embassy to Japan allowed one of the Billings expedition’s ships to be used for it
- Macartney Embassy to China14 September 1793 · East Asiain the same months Russia was seeking trade with Japan, and a British embassy was seeking wider trade with China
Same participants
- Second Partition of Poland12 (23) January 1793 · Eastern Europevia Russian Empire
- Kościuszko Uprising24 March – 16 November 1794 · Western and Central Europevia Russian Empire
- Third Partition of Poland13 (24) October 1795 · Eastern Europevia Catherine the Great
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Execution of Louis XVI21 January 1793
- Siege of Toulon29 August – 19 December 1793
- Kościuszko Uprising24 March – 16 November 1794
Eastern Europe
- Second Partition of Poland12 (23) January 1793
Balkans and Anatolia
- Treaty of Jassy29 December 1791 (9 January 1792)
Central and Northern Asia
- Syrym Datuly’s uprising1783–1797
- Billings–Sarychev expedition25 October (5 November) 1785 – March 1794
Latin America
- Haitian Revolutionbetween 21 August and 22 August 1791 – 1 January 1804