JAPANESE WHO DWELLED IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE DURING THE MEIJI ERA: SHOTARA NODA AND TORAJIRO YAMADA

The occurrence of “the Ertugrul Incident” in 1890 (Meiji 23), a wreckage of the Ottoman Empire's warship Ertugrul off the coast Wakayama of Japan, later resulted in two Japanese people residing in Istanbul, which was the capital of the Ottoman Empire at the time. It is unsure whether another Japanese person had visited the Ottoman Empire before two of them, but those who had earlier visited the Ottoman Empire stayed for an extremely short period. One of the first two to reside in Istanbul was Shotaro Noda, the staff writer of The Jiji Shinpo. The other was the businessman Torajiro Yamada, the president of Sansan Bonbo Corporation, and who had aspirations to embark on trade business between the two nations. Noda continued to stay for nearly two from years from 1891 (Meiji 24), and Yamada ended up staying in the Ottoman Empire for as many as 20 years from 1892 (Meiji 24) to 1914 (Taisho 3), albeit he returned to Japan temporarily.

With the start of the Meiji era, following the lift of the national isolation policy of Japan at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate era, Japan and the Ottoman Empire began attempting to approach each other, regardless of the geographical distance between them. The two countries took these measures not only with purely amicable intentions to establish diplomatic relations, but also as a part of a respective national strategy when imperialism flourished in the world. However, the bilateral diplomatic relation had never been achieved until the Ottoman Empire crumbled. Apart from this national strategic diplomacy, Noda and Yamada played intermediary roles to introduce the Ottoman Empire to Japan and to introduce Japan to the Ottoman Empire, thus pioneering the vast relations that Turkey and Japan hold today.

•  Shotaro Noda and The Jiji Shingo
•  Shotaro Noda in Istanbul
•  Encounter of the two in Istanbul
•  Torajiro Yamada in Istanbul
•  Conclusion
•  Pera Street in the 20th Century

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