Adam Laxman

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Adam Laxman, from an oul' 1793 Japanese paintin' of members of his expedition (Hakodate City Central Library)

Adam Kirillovich (Erikovich) Laxman (Russian: Адам Кириллович (Эрикович) Лаксман) (1766 – 1806?) was a bleedin' Finnish–Swedish military officer and one of the bleedin' first subjects of Imperial Russia to set foot in Japan, would ye swally that? A lieutenant in the feckin' Imperial Russian military, he was commissioned to lead an expedition to Japan in 1791, returnin' two Japanese castaways to their home country in exchange for trade concessions from the Tokugawa shogunate. Jesus Mother of Chrisht almighty. He was the oul' son of Erik Laxmann.

Expedition to Japan (1792)[edit]

Daikokuya Kōdayū (大黒屋光太夫) and Isokichi (磯吉): two Japanese castaways returned by Adam Laxman in 1792.

Laxman landed on Hokkaidō on 9 October 1792, where he was met by members of the feckin' Matsumae clan, who were entrusted with defendin' Japan's northern borders.[1] Unlike previous foreign visitors, Laxman was treated hospitably, but this changed when he demanded, imprudently, that he be able to deliver the feckin' castaways (Daikokuya Kōdayū's party) to Edo (modern-day Tokyo) in person. He was soon met by two envoys and five hundred men, sent from Edo by senior councilor Matsudaira Sadanobu, who attempted to delay or prevent Laxman's travelin' much deeper into Japanese territory, what? They asked that he travel to the bleedin' town of Matsumae, overland and without his ship. Soft oul' day. Laxman refused, and ultimately was allowed to sail, with Japanese naval escort, to the port of Hakodate; from there, 450 Russians and Japanese would march to Matsumae Castle.

Oddly, despite his impudence, Laxman was granted lavish Western-style livin' quarters; they were allowed to ignore the bleedin' custom of kneelin' and bowin' before the feckin' Shogun's envoys, and were presented with three samurai swords and a bleedin' hundred bags of rice. Bejaysus here's a quare one right here now. The envoys then explained to yer man that Japanese law demanded that all foreign trade be performed at Nagasaki. Sufferin' Jaysus listen to this. Since he had come to return castaways, they explained, he would be allowed to leave peacefully, to be sure. When Laxman refused to leave without a bleedin' trade agreement, he was provided with papers that explicitly stated that Nagasaki would welcome one Russian ship, that foreign ships were not allowed to dock anywhere else in the country, and that Christianity would also not be tolerated anywhere in Japan.[2]

Laxman returned to Russia essentially empty-handed, though he held (quite possibly) the first official Japanese documents grantin' permission to trade, to an oul' nation other than China or the Netherlands.[3] In 1804–1805, nine years after Laxman's return to Russia, an attempt was made to trade at Nagasaki as part of the bleedin' expedition around the oul' world led by Adam Johann von Krusenstern, but the bleedin' Russian ambassador Nikolai Rezanov was greeted with a lengthy dispatch from the bleedin' Shogunate explainin' that Japan was closed to foreign trade and demandin' that they leave, like. After this major setback, the oul' Tsarist government debated for many years the actual intention and meanin' of the oul' documents, and, leavin' the oul' openin' of Japan to private entrepreneur explorers, ultimately failed to open Japan.


See also[edit]


  1. ^ Shchepkin, Vasiliy Vladimirovich; Kartashov, Kirill Mikhailovich (2018). "Ritual and Law: Reception of Adam Laxman's expedition in Japan" (PDF). Would ye swally this in a minute now?Russian Japanology Review, grand so. 1: 149–158.
  2. ^ A. Sufferin' Jaysus listen to this. A, bejaysus. Preobrazhensky, “Pervoe Russkoe Posolstvo v Iaponiiu” (“The first Russian mission to Japan”), Istoricheskii Arkhiv, vol, would ye believe it? 7, no, grand so. 4, 1961, pp. Chrisht Almighty. 115–148.
  3. ^ George Alexander Lensen, “Early Russo-Japanese Relations”, The Far Eastern Quarterly, vol. Jaykers! 10, no. Here's a quare one for ye. 1, November 1950, pp. 2–37, n.b. Here's a quare one. pp. Sufferin' Jaysus. 17–22.


  • McDougall, Walter. Let the Sea Make a Noise: Four Hundred Years of Cataclysm, Conquest, War and Folly in the bleedin' North Pacific. New York: Avon Books, 1993.

Logo för Nordisk familjeboks uggleupplaga.png This article contains content from the feckin' Owl Edition of Nordisk familjebok, a Swedish encyclopedia published between 1904 and 1926, now in the oul' public domain.

External links[edit]