?
Таяма Катай о японском литературном мире конца 1880-х — 1890-х годов: глава «Литературный мир того времени» из книги «Тридцать лет в Токио»
In 1917 the famous Japanese writer Tayama Katai published a book of memoirs called Thirty
Years in Tōkyō (Tōkyō no sanjū nen). The book is a valuable historical document in which one
can draw biographical information about Tayama Katai, look “behind the scenes” of the liter-
ary world, and see through the eyes of a contemporary how Tōkyō was changing. Tayama Katai
ended up in Tōkyō at the age of eleven, and walked up and down it, working as an errand-boy
for a bookstore. Later, having already associated himself with the city, he found himself at the
center of literary life, communicated with numerous authors both still famous nowadays — as
Ozaki Kōyō, Shimazaki Tōson, Yanagida Kunio, Kunikida Doppo — and already forgotten.
The publication contains Russian translation of the chapter of the book titled The Literary
World of those Days (Sono jibun no bundan), devoted to the literary process and the literary
society of the late 1880s — 1890s. Tayama Katai characterizes six literary groups that, in
his opinion, determine the literary situation: Kenyūsha, Waseda, Sendagi, Kokumin bungaku,
Negishi, and Jogaku zassi, and reveals the ideological and literary foundations for their pres-
ence. The author considers criticism to be an important application of the literary process;
in this aspect, he pays special attention to the activities of Mori Ōgai. In Meiji period the
problem of developing a new written language was acute. Tayama Katai writes about literary
works by Japanese writers and translations from western languages which appear to form a
unified literary language. Tayama Katai characterizes the second half of the 1890s as a time
when new literary magazines became popular and a time of conflict between “big” and “new”
authors.
