The present paper is an analysis of a novel by the former Japanese topmanager Kuroki Ryo, who was involved in the business activities of a major Japanese trade company in Kyrgyzstan. The Eurasian geopolitical discourse is one of the most urgent fields for political and academic discussion in the post-Cold War decades, and Japan had established specific politics toward the Eurasian region, competing for dominance with Russia, China and other “Great Eurasian Powers”. But how do the Japanese view Eurasia? Are there are any specific ideas? This paper is an attempt to identify the idea of Eurasia formed in Japan by the beginning of the 21st century. The main purpose lies in identifying the concept of Eurasia constructed by the novelist Kuroki Ryo in the novel “A Runway on the Great Silk Road”. The Japanese concept of Eurasia is based on the original set of ideas toward the culture and history of Eurasian peoples developed among Japanese intellectuals in the 20th -21st centuries. We are trying to show that Kuroki was at the forefront of theoretical understanding of Eurasia in Japan, and even anticipated some ideas. To accomplish this goal, we will identify the ties of this novel with the essays of other Japanese writers of the second half of the 20th century, as well as its correlation with the Eurasian academic and political discourse. We divide the concept of Eurasia in three parts: (1) Geopolitics; (2 History of Eurasia integration; (3). Multiethnicity and cultural diversity. This division comes from Kuroki’s texts, and helps provide a complex appreciation of the concept of Eurasia.
Translated title of the contributionМир Евразии с точки зрения Японии: анализ романа Куроки Рё "Взлетная полоса на Великом Шелковом Пути"
Original languageEnglish
Article number3
Pages (from-to)31-50
Number of pages19
JournalANNALS OF “DIMITRIE CANTEMIR” CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE AND METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING
Volume19
Issue number1
StatePublished - 2020

    Scopus subject areas

  • Arts and Humanities(all)

    Research areas

  • Great Silk Road, Kuroki Ryo, modern Japanese literature, Eurasian concept

ID: 62248129