Yokai. Supernatural Beings in Japanese Culture

Introduction, full publication, translation and comments of the book "Night Revelries of an Assembly of Demons" by Toriyama Sekien by Evgeny Semyonovich Steiner – a Japanologist, candidate of philological sciences, doctor of arts. He worked at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, taught and conducted research at universities in Moscow, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Yokohama, New York, Manchester, and London. He is the author of over 15 books published in Russia, the USA, the UK, and Germany: "In the Abyss of the Mortal World: Japanese Art and Its Collector Sergey Kitaev" (NLO, 2022), "Pictures of the Heart: Ideas and Images of Old Japan" ("St. Petersburg Oriental Studies", 2021), "Pictures of the World: The Visual in Cultural History" ("St. Petersburg Oriental Studies", 2024) and others. The book "Hokusai's Manga: A Book of Old Japanese Life in Pictures" ("St. Petersburg Oriental Studies", 2016, 4 vols.) received the "Book of the Year" and "Enlightener" awards in 2017 (in a special nomination). Toriyama Sekien (1712–1788) was a Japanese artist of the Edo period. The main work of his life was an attempt to catalog all otherworldly beings of Japanese demonology (yokai) involved in Hyakki Yagyō – an annual night secret procession of evil spirits, in several series of printed engravings. Sekien’s bestiary was the first experience of conveying these plots in book format and in the technique of woodblock printing. His illustrations were printed in four volumes in thousands of copies with reprints and became widely distributed. The Japanese believed and still believe that the world around them is not just a visible reality, but an interpenetrating aggregate of worlds – human and exalted divine or lowly demonic. The otherworldly, in essence, did not exist – it was here, nearby. Gods, spirits, souls of the dead, mountain goblins or forest dwellers with water spirits, not to mention old umbrellas or pots, could interfere in human life. Evgeny Semyonovich Steiner – a Japanologist, philologist and art historian – presents in this illustrated publication, an introduction, a full publication, translations of texts with...