Legs to the snake: commentaries that became a book

Abstract

This article presents an attempt to analyze the book by the soviet japanologist Roman N.Kim "Legs to the Snake", published in 1927 as commentaries (glosses) to the work of the writer B.A.Pilnyak "The Roots of the Japanese Sun". An unprecedented example of publishing commentaries as an independent work briefly attracted the attention of readers and critics. But then, especially after the death of Pilnyak in 1938, both of these works were forgotten for a long time. At the end of the 20th century, interest in the book "The Roots of the Japanese Sun" partially returned. However, Kim’s glosses were still of interest only to the narrowest circle of japanologists at the beginning of the 20th century. In this article the author suggests paying attention to R.N.Kim’s insightful selection of topics for commentaries. Interest in many of them will awaken only much later, sometimes decades after publication. This refers primarily to the Japanese code of military morality and ethics of Bushido, the specific mastery of espionage of Ninjutsu, the popularity of hieroglyphic languages, the cult of werewolves (kitsune) and ghosts, etc. This work shows how accurately and deeply Roman Kim understood the essence of Japanese culture and could see those nuances that will remain attractive for the longest time.