On the centenary of the Romanian-Japanese diplomacy, I remember the years spent in Japan, 2012–2016 with the end of my diplomatic career achievements and a shadow of amnesia as far as a part of the bilateral relations history before the Second World War is concerned. The inertness of the last three decades kept quiet names and events worthy of a novel, which I try to bring back to light, through this book, after searches of almost four years.

I give to the reader some of the unjustly forgotten pages, confining myself to the remarkable Romanian presences in Japan at that time. From Anatolie Tihai to Gheorghe Băgulescu, with the Xenopol interlude, a plethora of Romanian personalities experienced living in the archipelago, longer or shorter periods, recounting their missions and adventures, or delegating others to share them, as was the case of Prince Carol.

Rich in events, the interval of bilateral history 1872–1943 is still waiting to develop under the layers of palimpsest.

I hope that this volume will reproduce a fragment of the brilliance of this period and, especially, increase the interest of students and researchers for a topic that will become, in the coming years, useful for the Romanian-Japanese strategic dialogue, not only in the area of history and literature.

In the latest bilateral anthologies, the names of some great Romanians from that period have been intently minimized. Each of them could be a novel hero through his biography, through his relating to the Japanese culture and civilization and, especially, through contributing to the popularity of Romania in the archipelago.

During my documentation, I identified interwoven threads of the 14 heroes’ destinies, more or less known, some obvious, others just suspected. Xenopol and Timuș, for example, followed the same route from Iași to Tokyo, at the same time, but with different goals and different comfort, and they did not know each other. Bufnea, along with Găvănescul in various photographs, was charged by Cădere to repatriate the remains of the former ambassador, Xenopol. Prince Carol granted audience to Cădere to get a report on the repatriation of Romanian volunteers; Cornel Cozmuță appears among the Romanian volunteers repatriated through Japan, and his ex-wife, Otilia de Cozmuță, after documenting in Japan, introduced Brâncuși to Rodin.

Why Brâncuși? To the pilgrim heroes through the archipelago a virtual presence is added, Constantin Brâncuși, imposed by the notoriety of his work in the Japanese artistic space like no other Romanian artist’s, even if he, personally, had never visited Japan. His disciple, Isamu Noguchi, managed to increase his notoriety, spreading sculptural reverberations in the artistic space of his country.  

I let myself be carried away in a parallel world. Gradually, as I wrote, I became Tihai, Assan, Ghika, etc. I got into character and, reconstituting the places visited, I tried to turn back the clock. The photographs of the era helped me, as well as the writings of those Romanians fascinated by the exoticism of Japan.

In addition to the 14 personalities evoked in this volume, other Romanians who visited Japan before the Second World War can be named, including the plethora of diplomats, but I avoid detailed references to them, so as not to be suspected of using the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, it is worth mentioning two of the first occasional visitors to Japan at the end of the 19th century, Nicolae Russel and Iuliu Popper. It’s just that Russel was not a real Romanian, but a Russian, born Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky, and Popper lost his Romanian citizenship. Nonetheless, their incidental visits did not leave written records or photographs, but they remind us that their names appear in some studies, as the first Romanians to visit Japan.

I hope I’m not mistaken if I place this book under the sign of the “ronin,” a word that in Japanese means “vagabond,” and in our country it has been translated as “wandering samurai” as well. Directly, Pope Pius XI had called Vladimir Ghika an “apostolic vagabond” because of his frequent trips abroad. All the Romanians in this book are vagabonds, in a positive sense, in one way or another. I would call them “ronins” for their courage and for their association with the Japanese audacity. Just as the ronins were fortuitously separated from their masters, some of these Romanians parted from their country, more or less fortuitously, and in addition to the courage of the ronins, they carry in them the symbol of a lasting harmony: Romania-Nippon, abbreviated RO-⁠NI.  

Radu Șerban