Muzeia Vostoka, 1918–1950 (Materials for the history of the State Museum of the Orient, 1918–1950) (Moscow: Skanrus, 2003), 58.
255
The 2008 Pushkin Catalogue, vol. 2, 540. See Kitaev’s letter to Pavlinov, Aug. 20, 1916.
256
The 2008 Pushkin Catalogue, vol. 2, 532.
257
“Iaponskie kartinki bystrotechnogo mira i ikh evropeiskie sobirateli i obozhateli 19 veka: vzgliad iz nashikh dnei na vstrechu dvukh mirov.” For published excerpts from the essay, see Steiner, “Zrelishcha kvartala Yoshiwara” (The spectacle of the Yoshiwara), in Sobranie (Collection) (Fall 2008): 66–77; and Steiner,“Kartinki bystrotekuchego mira” (Images of the fleeting world), in Novy Mir (The New World) (Feb. 2010): 127–43.
258
I want to stress that I do not claim with 100 percent certitude that there was a full first edition of the Manga. Peter Kornicki described the Pushkin (i.e., Kitaev) Manga: “In the PSMFA Collection, besides vol. II (Album 321) (a reprint of 1878) printed from the original blocks with an introduction of a poet and novelist Rokujūen Shūjin, there are also 15 volumes of a later edition, without an introduction or colophons, collated in two volumes together bound as one.” See Kornicki et al., Katalog staropečatnych japonskich knig, p. 76 (translation into English is mine – ES). Beata Voronova showed me this edition in 2006 (bound as an orihon, or accordion book), and I recognized that it was a late edition (at that time I was not familiar with the Kornicki catalogue). There is a chance that Kitaev was wrong in thinking that his Manga was the first edition. But the manner in which the present museum authorities responsible for “doctoring” his letter addressed the situation provokes uneasy questions about their professional integrity. It is also worth noting that in 2006, a theft of more than two hundred works of art was discovered at the Hermitage; the curator of that collection was convicted for the crime. President Putin established a government commission for revision of museum collections in August 2006. Two years later, it was reported that after checking about 80 percent of approximately two thousand museums on the list (and the investigation in the biggest museums was not yet completed), about fifty thousand objects had been found missing. Some things disappeared during relocations or had been transferred to other museums without due documentation. A member of the government commission, Ilia Riasnoi, reported that “the quality of museum registry and description of museum valuables do not bear scrutiny.” According to him, “less than two million out of eighty million of objects in the Russian museum reserves have photographs next to their descriptions, and these descriptions often consist of one word.” See “Russian museums found missing 50 thousand cultural treasures” < http://lenta.ru/news/2008/07/17/museums/> (accessed July 17, 2008.) At the end of Oct. 2008 (the latest data available) this number jumped to 86,000 museum objects missing for “unknown reasons.” See < http://lenta.ru/news/2008/10/27/busygin/> (accessed Oct. 27, 2008). There are two more examples of deliberate concealment. In Kitaev’s first letter to Pavlinov of Aug. 15, 1916, the Pushkin editors excluded the page with itemized numbers of the collection, but mentioned in square brackets that there was a table with names and quantities; see the 2008 Pushkin Catalogue, vol. 2, p. 541. In the publication of a letter from Kitaev to Gorshanov of Dec. 7 (20), 1916, the data of the collection content and numbers – five and a half pages – are excluded without any explanation (see the 2008 Pushkin Catalogue, vol. 2, p. 547).
259
Recently the digital image of this print appeared on the site of the British Museum as a surimono of an unknown artist. (Trimmed to 39 × 54 cm, # 1902, 0212, 0.434).
260
Roger S. Keyes, The Art of Surimono: Privately Published Japanese Woodblock Prints and Books in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 1985), 518, no. 148. The print in the Art Institute of Chicago (Gift of Helen C. Gunsaulus, 1954.695) measures 20.7 × 18.5 cm.
261
Bakumatsu no fūshiga Bōshin sensō o chūshin ni (On caricatures of the Bōshin War of the Bakumatsu era) (Machida: Machida City Museum, 1995).
262
Такая модульная система типологична старой европейской, принятой в книгопечатании, когда в зависимости от того, сколько раз складывали бумажный лист, получали размер книги: ин-фолио, ин-кварто, ин-октаво, ин-дуодесимо, ин-секстодесимо и т. д.