There are striking affinities between Japan and Russia, noticeable even before either country was fully aware of the other.
Both were backward by 19th-century European standards — economically, industrially, scientifically. Both felt it keenly, and responded similarly. Two clashing factions arose in each country — one agitating for the adoption of Western ways, the other insisting on the moral superiority of the native culture.
Two thinkers who would have found much to talk about, had they met, are Sakuma Shozan (1811-64) and Pyotr Chaadaev (1794-1856). Sakuma in 1849 wrote of Western learning that it “grasps what is essential, and ours does not. We drown in talk of lofty abstractions. ... As a country (Japan has) completely lost touch with the truth residing in the penetration into the principle of all phenomenon.”
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