Andrey M. Kulikov

Article deals with a reflection of Tianjin treaty of 1858 in the diary of Archimandrite Palladius (Kafarov), head of 13th Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing (1850–1858), one of the best expert on China of his time. Diary covers a period from the winter of 1858 to the end of the summer of 1858 and provides some valuable data on the history of Russian-Chinese relations in the middle of the XIXth century, especially in the dimension of daily work of Russian diplomats of this time. On the pages of the diary we can find some critical remarks on Russian representative count Putiatin behavior and clear misunderstanding of the China situation and Russian interests in the region, showed by him. For this reason, the original diary was published in abridged form and fully published only in 1912.

The article contains an excerpt from a letter by Vissarion Sartov, the nephew of the prominent pre-revolutionary orientalist Palladius (Kafarov) and the first psalmist of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Japan. The excerpt from a letter to an unknown person, dated July 28, 1873, was found in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and is published for the first time. It contains information about the early preaching of Orthodoxy in Japan: rivalry with Catholic missionaries in the former province of Sendai; features of Orthodox worship in Japanese; the organization of the church and the life of the Orthodox community in Hakodate; and Vissarion Sartov’s personal assessment of the prospects for Orthodoxy in Japan. It also mentions Nicholas of Japan, who had moved from Hakodate to Tokyo by the time Sartov wrote the letter.