«LOCKED CHEST WITH A LOST KEY»: I.A. GONCHAROV IN JAPAN

In 1853 I.A. Goncharov on board the frigate «Pallas» visited Nagasaki, a western city in Japan, as secretary of the admiral E.V. Putiatin, who was dispatched to Japan in order to establish commercial relations and delimit the border line between two countries on the Island of Sakhalin. Two Japanese plenipotentiaries and their retinue kept diaries on their way from Edo (old name of Tokio) and during negotiations, which lasted in Nagasaki about a month. In this article I examined set of questions. First, what were impressions made by Goncharov upon Japanese plenipotentiaries, and how his role in the course of negotiations was reported in Japanese historical sources. Second, by comparing the travel sketch «Frigate “Pallas”» by Goncharov and «The Loyal Report» by Putiatin with above-mentioned diaries, I tried to trace the process of negotiations from the viewpoint of both countries.