The man who wounded Tsarevich Nicholas (Nicholas II). Attack of the Japanese samurai on Nicholas II: what was it Nicholas II in Japan

From the series: what you don’t learn new things thanks to work. This most interesting historical fact was completely unknown to me.

Police officer Tsudo Sanzo is the man who slashed Nikolai twice in the head with a saber. (Nicholas, as you understand, survived to be subsequently shot by the Bolsheviks).

Twenty-two-year-old Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich went on a long journey in order to increase the level of knowledge and familiarize himself with the state structure of other countries.

Nicholas in Nagasaki:

On Monday, April 29, 1891, in the morning, the princes of the three countries - Russian Nicholas, Greek George and Japanese Arisugawa Takehito, who accompanied the crown prince throughout his visit to Japan - and their retinue from Kyoto went to the city of Otsu located on the shores of Lake Biwa to enjoy attractions. There they visited Mii-dera Temple and dined at the prefectural office. Just like in Kyoto, in Otsu, Japanese people waving flags and lanterns greeted the princes. Due to the narrow streets of the city, the movement of wheelchairs with passengers took place using not a horse-drawn carriage, but rickshaws, which were assisted by pushers to pull the driver.

High demands were placed on the policemen who guarded the princes. They had to ensure that no one watched the processions from the second floor, since no one was supposed to be above people with such a high status; and when the motorcade appears, make sure that the spectators take off their hats and close their umbrellas. In addition, according to etiquette, the police were forbidden to turn their backs on the august persons, which made it impossible to observe the crowd that was behind the back of the employee.

After visiting the lake, the princes and their retinue set off back to Kyoto. They rode in carriages one after another: Nikolai - in the fifth in a row, Georgy - in the sixth, and Arisugawa - in the seventh; the first four houses officials from Shiga Prefecture (where the city of Otsu is located) and Kyoto. While a procession of 40 rickshaws crossed a crowded street, where the policemen were 18 meters apart from each other], one of them, Tsuda Sanzo, suddenly rushed towards Nikolai and managed to strike him twice with his saber. Nikolai jumped out of the carriage and started to run.

According to witnesses, Georg was the first to try to detain the criminal: with a bamboo cane bought on the same day, he hit the attacker, but failed to knock him down. Nikolai Mukohata Jisaburo's rickshaw rushed after the hesitant Sanzo, and after Tsuda's saber fell out of his hands, George's rickshaw, Kitagaichi Ititaro, grabbed a weapon and hit the attacker on the back with it.

When he came to his senses, the crown prince declared: "It's nothing, if only the Japanese would not think that this incident could somehow change my feelings for them and my gratitude for their hospitality." According to the Tokyo Asahi newspaper, “when the offender fell on his back, the head of the guard of the Russian retinue, running up, fell on him and tied him up. The frightened retinue immediately surrounded the heir, a bed was quickly prepared in the house of the owner of the haberdashery store. However, the heir found himself in bed; he was seated at the entrance to the store and bandaged, while he calmly smoked. According to a medical report signed by von Rambach, Vl. Popov and M. Smirnov, as a result of the attack, the Tsarevich had two wounds from a saber in the right scalp, 9 and 10 cm long, respectively, and a piece of bone was also chipped off. After the end of the dressing, Nikolai got back into the carriage and, accompanied by other princes, a retinue and a soldier of the ninth Japanese guard detachment built to protect him, got to the building of the prefectural administration, where he was also provided with medical assistance. After that, under heavy guard, the Tsarevich was taken to a hotel in Kyoto, where he was stitched up by the doctors of the Russian squadron.

Heroes: rickshaws of princes George and Nicholas.
On the left is Kitagaichi Ichitaro, on the right is Mukohata Jisaburo.

20 minutes after the incident, Prince Arisugawa, in his telegram, announced the terrible nature of the wound, and panic rose in the Japanese government, formed by Matsukata Masayoshi five days earlier: many of its members feared that the assassination attempt could lead to war between the two countries.

The horror of the public reflected in their articles Japanese newspapers. According to the Nichi Nichi Shimbun, "No Japanese, if he were not a madman, an idiot or a fanatic, could have conceived such an act," and the Toyo Shimpo stated that "the villain who inflicted wounds on a famous guest whom all our people sought to honor, will not be punished sufficiently until his body is cut into a hundred pieces.” In the village of Kanayama in Yamagata Prefecture, Tsuda Senzo's native village, a council was urgently convened, as a result of which a resolution was adopted to prohibit naming children by the name Sanzo and the surname Tsuda; the relatives of the assassin became outcasts. Unable to bear the “national disgrace”, 27-year-old Hatakeyama Yuko committed suicide by stabbing herself with a dagger in front of the Kyoto City Hall. There were several proposals to rename the "disgraced" city of Otsu.

As a sign of respect for the wounded Tsarevich, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, some schools, the Tokyo Kabuki Theater, and other major entertainment venues were closed the day after the attack. For the sake of Nikolai's peace of mind, carriages and rickshaws were not allowed to enter the hotel entrance, carriages were delivered to the hotel parking lot by hand; for five days it was forbidden to play music and receive clients in brothels.

At the trial, Tsuda testified that he had committed an assassination attempt, since he considered Nikolai a spy. On May 25, 1891, Tsuda Sanzo was sentenced to life imprisonment at a trial, which he had to serve in Hokkaido, often referred to as "Japanese Siberia". However, on September 30 of the same year, Tsuda died in prison from pneumonia. According to another version, he starved himself to death.

Thanks dear wikipedia..

According to a tradition that goes back to the era of Peter the Great, the future heirs to the Russian throne at least once in their lives had to make a long journey around the world for educational purposes. During such a journey, an assassination attempt was made on the future Russian Tsar Nicholas II in the Japanese city of Otsu on April 29, 1891.

On October 23, 1890, the Tsarevich set off on his journey from Gatchina. The first major city was Vienna, after which in Trieste he boarded the cruiser "Memory of Azov" and went to Piraeus, where he was joined by the heir to the Greek throne, Prince George the First. The expedition visited many countries in the Asian region - Egypt, Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), Singapore, the island of Java, Siam (modern Thailand), China, after which, on April 15, 1891, the Memory of Azov, accompanied by several more ships, reached Japan.

For the Japanese side, this visit of the young crown prince was an important event in connection with the situation with the Kuril Islands. Although there were certain concerns, since there were certain unrest in this regard among the people. Nevertheless, the Russian ships entered the port of Nagasaki and were greeted with honors befitting the person of the future Russian tsar. For two weeks, the Tsarevich, accompanied by Prince George and the Japanese heir Arisugawa Takehito, studied the sights of Japan.

On April 29, the three princes and their entourage went sightseeing in the city of Otsu on the shores of Lake Biwa. Most of the Japanese greeted the princes cordially - the inhabitants of the city lined up along the procession, waving flags and lanterns. Due to the narrowness of the streets of Otsu, horse-drawn carts had to be replaced by rickshaws. The delegation was guarded by police officers, who, according to etiquette, should always be facing the august persons. This moment turned out to be the key - the guards noticed too late how one of the policemen was rushing with a saber at the Tsarevich. The fact that the future emperor escaped death is truly a miracle. Here is how Nikolai himself describes what happened in a letter to his mother:

“We had hardly gone two hundred paces when suddenly a Japanese policeman rushed into the middle of the street and, holding a saber with both hands, hit me on the back of the head! I shouted to him in Russian: what do you want? and jumped over my jen rickshaw. Turning around, I saw that he was still running at me with a raised saber. I rushed down the street with all my might, pressing down on the wound on my head with my hand. I wanted to hide in the crowd, but I could not, because the Japanese, themselves frightened, fled in all directions ... "

The first who tried to detain the criminal was Prince George, who followed the Russian Tsarevich in the same rickshaw-cart. He hit the crazy policeman with a cane, but it was not possible to stop him. Further, first Nikolai's rickshaw, Mukohata Jisaburo, and then Kitagaichi Ititaro, George's rickshaw, rushed to the defense. It was they who detained the criminal, knocking him down, for which they were subsequently given a substantial bonus and a generous life allowance.
The prince was immediately given first aid, bandaged and taken to the house of the owner of the store, located nearby. The first thing Nikolai worried about when he came to his senses:

“If only the Japanese would not think that this incident could somehow change my feelings for them and my gratitude for their hospitality.”

After a detailed medical examination and bandaging, the victim was sent to a hotel in Kyoto, where he received stitches. There were two wounds - both about 10 cm long, part of the skull bone was also damaged.

The next day, Emperor Meiji arrived in Kyoto with a personal apology. A police officer named Tsuda Sanzo, who carried out the attack, was tried in the Supreme Court of Japan. Emperor Meiji issued a special decree "on a special procedure for dealing with cases relating to the sphere of diplomacy." On the one hand, everyone, including the Minister of Justice and most members of the government, insisted on death penalty, but on the other hand, there was no legislative framework. As a result, Tsuda was sentenced to life hard labor. He expressed his willingness to commit suicide by committing seppuku, but he was refused. A year later, he died in hard labor, either from pneumonia, or by starving himself to death.

This fatal incident did not pass without a trace for the future king - from that moment on, Nicolas will be tormented by headaches all his life. It should also be noted that for Russo-Japanese War this incident has nothing to do, since the Japanese were the first to attack Russia. The facts that Emperor Nicholas II carried hatred for the Land of the Rising Sun throughout his life are also quite controversial.

It is curious that since then the curse “Japanese policeman” has appeared in the Russian language.

"Vesti Nedeli" responded to the Internet voting launched by the city authorities about in Moscow. Petr Lazarevich Voikov - a terrorist and regicide, later shot in Warsaw for his deeds by a high school student from white émigrés. We did not call for renaming the station, and the story about the role of Voikov in the murder of Nicholas II and his family was based on the official certificate of the Institute Russian history Russian Academy Sciences. The text was posted on his personal website in 2011 by the future Minister of Culture Medinsky.

In that version, Voikov took a personal part in the execution, dismemberment of bodies, their burning and burial. In the spirit, however, verbal, but actionism, in images, we outlined that plot.

The idea of ​​studying the role of Pyotr Voikov is not necessarily to remove his name from the metro station, street and five Voikovsky proezds in Moscow, but to translate the name of Voikov from the collective unconscious into the collective conscious. And there is movement.

On November 13, Russian scientists in the humanities published open letter and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. In it, they present a new certified version of the participation of Peter Voikov in the regicide. The details differ from the previous position of the Institute of Russian History, but the main conclusion remains the same: "We, experts in the field of national history, criminal law and archives, we consider it our duty to express our absolute conviction that Voikov's guilt is confirmed by numerous direct and indirect evidence. "And then - 24 signatures of scientists, the best minds of the most authoritative scientific centers in Russia. Attached to the letter is a certificate from the senior investigator-criminalist of the Russian Investigative Committee Colonel of Justice Solovyov.The conclusions are the same.Trial in the case, however, has not yet taken place.

There is written evidence that further aggravates the role of Voikov, for example, the Austrian Meyer. But we also treat them with caution, because some participants in the massacre of the king stick out their role, others hide, others slander someone, others defend, someone remembers something, but otherwise he will lie. In any case, it is important for society not to stop and move forward in the realization of the terrible tragedy - the murder of Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their five children. Hence the decisions of whom and how to perpetuate.

Coincidentally, on November 11, the results of the first stage of a new examination of the remains of the royal family, which is being carried out at the insistence of the Russian Orthodox Church. The results were announced by the senior investigator of the Russian Investigative Committee Vladimir Solovyov.

“Together with representatives of the Church, the remains of Nicholas and Alexandra were exhumed in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. It was established that the mitochondrial DNA genotype on the female line exactly matches the rest of the remains, the genotype on the female line of the emperor fully corresponds to the genotype of his blood on the shirt stored in the Hermitage. The second stage of research is a comparison of the genotype of Nicholas II with the genotype of his father, Emperor Alexander III. Then a comparison will be made along the male line of the Y-chromosome. We very much hope that these studies will lead us to the end of this story," Solovyov said.

Comparing the remains of Nicholas II with the genotype of his father Alexander III is precisely the problem. The tomb of the tsar in the Peter and Paul Fortress, apparently, was looted. Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov speaks of this with bitterness, but also with delicacy befitting the occasion.

"Perhaps the royal remains were disturbed. Perhaps there was looting. Perhaps they are in a completely inappropriate form. When work was carried out in 1993 in the grand ducal tombs, also in the Peter and Paul Fortress, they found that they had all been opened and robbed," he said. Bishop Tikhon.

One way or another, work to establish the authenticity of the remains of the imperial family continues. Since the innocently murdered royal persons are canonized by the Church as saints, the question is to determine exactly whether they are relics or not. With all the ensuing consequences. Essential material for research - the blood of Emperor Nicholas II, shed during his journey, while still heir, in Japan.

The art of owning a samurai katana sword is called "iaiodo". A roll of water-soaked mat on a thin bamboo stalk is an imitation of a human limb, bamboo is bone, and the mat is soft tissue.

Sabers, converted from a samurai katana, were worn by Japanese police at the end of the century before last. Under the glass is the very blade with which Nicholas II was almost killed when, being a crown prince, he visited Japan in 1891.

Hieroglyphics are carved here: "In memory of the visit to Satsuma by the Russian Prince Nicholas" (here he was called in the Greek manner). The stone has stood here since 1892. There were no many trees, the coastline was much closer, and from here a magnificent view of the bay, where the Azov cruiser was moored, opened. Nikolai was received here so cordially that later in his diary he wrote about the local prince: "in Japan, this is the only person I can trust."

Satsuma is the current Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyushu. At that time, a lot of people from Satsuma occupied high government posts in Japan, including the Japanese ambassador in St. Petersburg, and the fact that the crown prince looked here on his way from Nagasaki to Kyoto was not an accident.

In the principality of Satsuma, which Nicholas II visited, there were the most samurai. A quarter of the local population belonged to this class. Martial traditions are still honored here. The local karate school is considered the strongest in Japan.

Real samurai houses - the same ones Tsarevich Nikolai saw them more than a century ago. wooden flooring specially made in such a way that hired ninja killers could not hide under it and strike with a sword from below. And in a stone tub they washed bloody swords and spears.

Nicholas spent several hours in the prince's palace. Now here is a museum listed in the register of world heritage. In the garden, the Tsarevich strolled along with the Japanese prince. The photo was taken just on the day of Nikolai's visit. Inside, too, everything remained untouched. A carpet on rice straw mats is the least like a palace in the European sense.

In one of the rooms, Prince Tadayoshi Shimazu received a dear guest from Russia. In order not to tire Nikolai by sitting on the floor, they brought here a dining table, chairs, European cutlery instead of chopsticks, but all the dishes are only Japanese cuisine. The rice paper doors were also open in the yard - against the backdrop of the Sakurajima volcano, during the meal, there was a performance with music and dances on samurai themes.

Arriving in Japan with friendly intentions, Nikolai almost left with the war. The attack on the crown prince in the city of Otsu on the shores of Lake Biwa took place on one of the streets. 168 police officers stood on both sides of the street, pushing back onlookers, and when the carriage with Nikolai drove by, a policeman named Sanzo Tsuda drew his saber from the scabbard and rushed at Nikolai. The blow was delivered from the back, the saber cut through the hat and walked along the right temple.

Nikolai jumped out of the carriage, rushed to run, and when Tsuda swung a second time, the Greek prince George, who was following, hit him on the back with a bamboo cane. The saber fell out of his hands, Nikolai's rickshaw threw himself at the policeman's feet, and the second rickshaw - Georg - knocked him to the ground. The life of the heir to the Russian throne was saved. And after that, the idiom about the "Japanese policeman" entered the Russian language.

What motives he was guided by is unknown. Sentenced to life, Tsuda died in prison the same year. A white silk scarf with traces of the blood of Nicholas II is still kept in the museum next to the saber. One edge of the scarf is uneven; in the 1990s, a thin strip was cut off from it and sent to Russia to identify the remains of the royal family, discovered near Yekaterinburg a quarter of a century ago.

Text: "News of the week"

Incident in Otsu
The king and queen are saddened.
It's hard for a father to read
That the son was beaten by the police.

Tsesarevich Nicholas,
If you have to reign
Never forget,
That the police are fighting.

(p.) V.A. Gilyarovsky

On May 11, 1891, during Nikolai Alexandrovich's visit to Japan, in the city of Otsu, he became a victim of an assassination attempt by a fanatical samurai - a policeman.

On May 11, Crown Prince Nicholas went to the city of Otsu, near Lake Biwu, Japan's largest. Throughout the journey, his carriage was heavily guarded. The police stood every 18 meters. However, it was in Japanese conditions not easy. Etiquette forbade turning your back on the august persons, and the police could not follow the crowd. Therefore, no one could immediately interfere when one of the policemen unexpectedly jumped up to the carriage and hit Nikolai with a saber that was in a sheath. She slid over the brim of the bowler hat and brushed her forehead. The second blow also fell on a tangent. The heir jumped out of the carriage and ran.
Only then the attacker was tied up. The Japanese were terrified. They feared that Russia, in retaliation for the assassination attempt on the future emperor, would immediately declare war on them. There were even calls to rename the city of Otsu, as its name was disgraced. Around the hotel, where the wounded Nikolai was placed, everyone walked on tiptoe. And in the neighboring brothels for five days it was forbidden to play musical instruments and receive clients. However, the wound was not serious, although later Nikolai often suffered from headaches.

Russia did not put forward any demands for compensation. Although it is possible that the incident later affected the king's attitude towards the Japanese. According to Witte, Nicholas during the war of 1905 often called the Japanese "macaques" ... The policeman who attacked the heir was called Tsuda Sanzo.

(Tsuda Sanzo. In court, he testified that he had committed an attempt, since he considered Nikolai a spy)

It turned out that he was not all right with his psyche, which did not stop him from giving the offender of the Russian heir a life sentence. He did not have time to serve it and suspiciously quickly died behind bars. But the two rickshaws who saved Nikolai were lucky: Russia assigned them a lifetime pension of a thousand yen, equal to the annual salary of a member of parliament.

Contrary to what they write now, the expression "Japanese policeman" did not appear at all because of the story with the policeman Sanzo. And after the story of Nikolai Leikin (1841-1906) "The Incident in Kyoto", published in the journal "Shards" in 1905, the hero of the story, a Japanese policeman, is waiting for orders from his superiors, while drowning in the river Small child. According to some features in the Japanese policeman, the features of a Russian policeman are guessed (a saber, which the Japanese policemen never wore; a whistle; a mustache that almost never grows among the Japanese, etc.).
At first, the story was perceived by the censorship as a satire on the Japanese order, which was full of Russian publications of that period (1904-1905 - the Russo-Japanese War), which already used the historical figure of the "Japanese policeman" Tsuda Sanzo, who made an attempt on the life of the future Emperor Nicholas in Japan.
But after the great success of the story with the public, which the Aesopian language did not prevent from understanding who the satire was directed against, the story was banned. Censor Svyatkovsky reported: “This article is one of those that describe the ugly social forms that are the result of increased police surveillance. Due to the sharpness of the exaggeration of the harm from such observation, the article cannot be allowed.
The Committee determined "The article should not be allowed to be published."

As a result, the phrase "Japanese policeman" became very common in the name of the manifestation of martinetism, bureaucratic arbitrariness in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. For example, Leonid Andreev in 1916, in a letter to Antonova, characterizes one of the censors as follows: “What a parody of a person, this non-commissioned Prishibeev of our days, this Japanese policeman”

13 years before the Russo-Japanese War, the heir to the Russian throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich, personally visited the "Land of the Rising Sun", where he experienced firsthand the suddenness of the samurai attack.

“... We left in jen rickshaws and turned left into a narrow street with crowds on both sides. At this time, I received a strong blow on the right side of the head, above the ear. I turned around and saw the nasty mug of a policeman, who for the second time swung a saber at me in both hands. I just shouted: “What, what do you want?” ... And I jumped over the jen-rickshaw onto the pavement. Seeing that the freak is heading towards me, and no one is stopping him, I rushed to run down the street, holding the blood that spurted from the wound with my hand ... ". Judging by the entry in his personal diary, the heir to the throne was in every sense stunned by the sudden trick of the Japanese, which overshadowed the generally pleasant visit of the crown prince to the country of the samurai.

Of course, the future Nicholas II traveled not alone, but in the company of a large delegation, which included both the Greek Prince George and the official "chronicler" of the trip, Prince Ukhtomsky. The trip was limited not only to Japan, but to one degree or another affected the entire East. Leaving Russia in the middle of autumn 1890, the royal tourists reached Japan by the middle of spring 1891, having already visited Egypt, India, Singapore, Thailand and the island of Java.

Crime…

On April 27, according to the new style, the Russian squadron arrived in Nagasaki. Then the highest persons went to Kagoshima and Kobe, from where it was a stone's throw to the ancient capital of Kyoto. Nicholas liked this previously "closed" country, its rules and lifestyle. Here he often looked at the captivating geisha, once asked the Japanese masters to fill his arm with a dragon tattoo, and he deigned to settle in a classic Japanese apartment.

Having examined the wonders of Kyoto, Nikolai and his retinue departed for the town of Otsu on May 11. Here the guests had to take a walk along Lake Biwa, visit an ancient temple and visit the governor's house. During breakfast, the heir spoke of the pleasant hospitality of the Japanese and thanked the governor for the warm welcome. Meanwhile, Prince George bought a bamboo cane.

The way back to Kyoto ran along the same roads and streets as in Otsu. Throughout the journey, on both sides of the streets, there were two rows of policemen (policemen) at 8-10 steps from each other. They saw to it that the people of Otsu rendered honor to distinguished guests. The policemen were the same as they were in the morning, when the Tsarevich and his retinue were just entering the city.

One of them was Tsuda Sanzo. He had not been seen in anything discrediting his honor and dignity. Political convictions from other Japanese also did not particularly stand out. No signs of trouble.

The street was narrow, so the jen rickshaws with distinguished guests walked one after another. Nikolai moved only in the third in a row. Behind him are Prince George and the Japanese prince Arigusawa. The column was closed by the Russian envoy, numerous princes and other retinue. There were fifty jen rickshaws in all along the street.

Everything that happened next took no more than 15-20 seconds. Sanzo jumped out of the cordon, hit the heir with a saber, holding it with both hands. Moreover, Nikolai did not even see the attacker and turned around only when Sanzo raised his saber over his head for the second time. A completely legitimate question arises: how did the policeman, with such a blow, manage not to kill the heir to the throne? It is worth noting that during the trip, Nicholas wore not at all imperial, but quite casual clothes, which included a headdress. At the first blow, the saber slipped through and touched only the brim of the gray bowler hat, which immediately flew off the crown prince's head. Modern forensic experts say that the second blow was stronger than the first. But this time the heir was saved by the fact that he was able to block the blow with his palm, and the saber went through his hand. Probably on the third attempt, Sanzo planned to cut off Nikolai's head. But a rather quick reaction allowed the crown prince to avoid this: he jumped out of the jen rickshaw. “I wanted to hide in the crowd, but I couldn’t, because the Japanese, themselves frightened, fled in all directions ... Turning around on the go again, I noticed Georgie, who was running after the policeman chasing me ...”.

The Greek prince performed a baptism of fire for his bamboo cane. He hit her Sanzo on the back. Meanwhile, Nikolai's rickshaw grabbed the enraged policeman by the legs and threw him to the ground. The second rickshaw disabled Sanzo with his own saber with two blows to the neck and back. The Tsarevich at that time was clearly frightened and overexcited, so in his diary he will attribute the neutralization of the policeman to the same Greek prince. Ultimately, the incident was over in less than a minute, when the policeman was arrested by his comrades.

But the consequences of an unsuccessful attempt could be very serious. First, the extent of Nikolai's injury was unclear. And secondly, if he dies, should the Japanese wait for the arrival of the Russian squadron?

…and punishment

Of course, neither of those things happened that year. The doctor, who was with the retinue, bandaged the head of the Grand Duke in order to stop the bleeding. A little later, the dressing was changed at the governor's house and an emergency train was ordered to Kyoto for a more thorough medical examination. There, the heir had to stitch and even remove a two-centimeter piece of bone. But Nikolai's life was no longer in danger. And he himself felt quite cheerful for the rest of the day, which, however, can be attributed to an increase in the level of adrenaline in the blood.

Loud political consequences were also avoided. The role was played by the instant "correct" reaction of Japan, which struck the heir. “The people on the streets touched me: most knelt down and raised their hands in regret.” And in one of the letters to his mother - Empress Maria Feodorovna - he reported that he had received a thousand telegrams from the Japanese expressing grief. Then, two days after the assassination attempt, Emperor Meiji himself arrived to Nicholas with an expression of condolences. Their conversation lasted twenty minutes and, according to some reports, was of a "sincere nature." However, Petersburg was alarmed by the event, and the stay of the heir in Japan was interrupted. Pretty soon, the Russians left the "Land of the Rising Sun" and headed for Vladivostok.

Meanwhile, Tsuda Sanzō ended up in the dock. To some extent, he was even lucky: the Japanese Foreign Minister offered to kill him immediately without trial and investigation, and then report the death "as a result of illness." The majority of other high-ranking officials, including the Minister of Justice, were in favor of holding a military trial with the use of capital punishment. The only problem was that the Japanese penal code did not provide for the death penalty for attempted murder. Of course, the exceptions in Article 116 were members of the imperial blood. But Japanese imperial blood. The Supreme Court considered the expanded interpretation of the article to be unconstitutional and, despite external pressure from the government, remained with its own. Thus, the Japanese judiciary showed that it was independent of the executive, and Tsuda Sanzo was sentenced to life imprisonment, which Petersburg was quite pleased with. However, Sanzo had only four months to live. After being beaten by rickshaws and being imprisoned, Tsuda collapsed and died on September 27, 1891 from pneumonia.

Truth or lie?

Since then and until today, there have been rumors that it was the assassination attempt on Nicholas II in 1891 that sowed hostility towards the Japanese in the future tsar. That 1891, in a sense, led to the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. This is not the case for a number of reasons.

First, the root of all troubles was the struggle between Russia and Japan for spheres of influence in Asia. Contemporaries already noted then that the small islands were too crowded for the 40,000,000 Japanese who set their eyes on the mainland. The completed redistribution of the world in the West prompted Russia to also look to the East. There was a banal clash of interests. Secondly, it was Japan that, without declaring war, attacked the Russian fleet in Port Arthur on February 9, 1904.

Thirdly, Nicholas did not have any hostility towards the Japanese either before or after the assassination attempt. At least, there is no serious evidence to argue otherwise. Already two days after the attack, the crown prince wrote in his diary that he was not at all angry with the Japanese for the act of some fanatic. But these are not empty words of official speeches, but personal notes, where Nikolai could be quite frank.

On the other hand, there are different theories about the reasons for Sanzo's attack on the Russian heir. Sometimes these theories reach the point of absurdity: Nikolai was allegedly hit on the head for drunkenly urinating at a Japanese shrine. Other sources claim that Nikolai and Georg banged the bells in a Shinto shrine with sticks. Again, there is not a single piece of evidence for these points of view, similar to the mockery of later times. Such theories are easily refuted by the reaction of the Japanese to the incident, who until then secretly approved the attack on foreigners. And this time they sent thousands of telegrams of condolence, refused to name newborns by the name Sanzo, offered to rename Otsu. It even came to the suicide of a young girl who wanted to wash away the shame of the policeman with her own blood.

However, the theories are not without real foundations. At the trial, the policeman said that the crown prince did not respect the monument to the heroes of the suppression of the Satsuma uprising, which was organized by the semi-legendary Saigo Takamori in 1877. Sanzo himself participated in the suppression of this rebellion, and now he felt hurt, having turned from a hero into a simple policeman.

It is now impossible to verify the veracity of his words. But Tsuda, who considered himself a samurai, was fascinated by the idea of ​​expelling foreigners from Japan. Russia, in his opinion, had certain views on the "Land of the Rising Sun", having sent the prince and retinue as spies. On the day of the assassination attempt, he feared that the Tsarevich had brought back the rebellious Takamori, who would deprive Sanzo of his military decorations.

These circumstances are contradicted by the statement of Nikolai's companions, who rejected the version of the assassination attempt from nationalist convictions. It was believed that the Japanese sacredly honor the royal power, no matter whose it was, not to mention the great respect for Russia. However, there is a clear contradiction here. The convictions of the prince's retinue were identical to those of Nicholas himself. The eastern journey gave him a sense of the immensity of Russian power on Far East. In fact, Russia treated Japan with the same condescension as the rest of the Western world. Such short-sightedness played a cruel joke on Russia. 13 years after the trip, Nicholas could not or did not want to recognize in the Japanese either their wounded patriotism or their ability to unexpected and insidious actions. This mistake cost Russia 52 thousand human lives.

However, the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Otsu left another trace. The expression "Japanese policeman" has taken root perfectly in Russian speech as an annoying exclamation to a sudden incident.

One should not be surprised at the extent of tales and legends about Saigo Takamori, because this man left a truly major mark on Japanese history. Born in the family of a poor samurai, he went through a harsh life school. Having gained fame and authority in military service, he entered politics and reached such heights that he was able to influence the young Emperor Meiji. Takamori entered his first government in the late 1860s and remained a vocal opponent of the "opening" of Japan. This position did not meet with the approval of other members of the government, which ultimately led to the expulsion of Saigo Takamori and open civil war with him and his samurai. The result of this confrontation was the Satsuma uprising of 1877. In the end, Saigoµ and his allies were defeated. And such a shame meant only one thing for Takamori - the rite of hara-kiri.

Once in the pantheon of the "three great heroes" of the Meiji Restoration, the personality of Saigo Takamori was overgrown with various tales, such as his miraculous rescue and return to his homeland along with the Russian Tsarevich. Even today, his fame does not fade and spreads to the whole world. In 2003, based on the biography of Saigoµ, the Hollywood film The Last Samurai was filmed, where the influential rebel Katsumoto, based on the influential rebel Takamori, became a friend and mentor of the hero Tom Cruise.