Lectures
Retelling the Turmoil: Everyday Sengoku Life in the Ietada Nikki
Synopsis
The aim of Professor Jędrzej Greń’s presentation is to introduce the diary written between 1577 and 1594 by Matsudaira Ietada, a middle-ranked samurai of the Sengoku period, and a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Several methodological problems arise when we look at Ietada’s journal. Its language is laconic and the information the author provides is much scarcer than we would expect and wish for. Many dates lack any notes, and under many others we see a simple repetition of information about meetings with other warriors, service-related routine or weather. Yet, as the value of Sengoku sources is often measured by their ability to shed light on important figures and events of the era, the diary’s value is rarely contested as it does provide some information and chronology of several military campaigns. However, focusing on this kind of information may hinder the possibility of evaluating the historical source as such, and of obtaining meaningful information from its form, structure and general content, be it notes on weather, accompanying drawings or ‘empty days’, when nothing except the date was noted. In Professor Jędrzej Greń’s presentation he would like to evaluate Ietada Nikki as a historical source taking under consideration those intertextual and atextual layers of information as they – in his opinion – help to depict the true ‘way of life’ of a middle-ranked Sengoku samurai.
Brief Biography
Professor Jędrzej Greń (PhD), graduated in Japanese Studies and in History from the University of Warsaw, where he also received his PhD in Literature. He is currently employed as an assistant professor at the Chair of Japanese Studies, University of Warsaw. Professor Greń’s research interests include medieval and early modern history of Japan, with a special interest in social and political history and the earliest contacts between Japan and Europe. Professor Greń’s publications include books on Japanese castle-towns, English trading factory in Hirado, and on sixteenth-century Sakai and Hakata merchants’ elite and their relations with warriors. Professor Greń is a member of both the Polish Foundation for Japanese Studies and the European Association of Japanese Studies.
Lecture Date
Monday, February 19, 2024

