Pacific Overtures' "Real" Russian Admiral

Admiral Putyatin and the strange diplomacy of disaster | Plus, our latest crossword and more from our conversation with Allison Sheppard

In Sunday’s essay, we met Admiral Putyatin — who is, to all intents and purposes, the “real” Russian Admiral of Pacific Overtures. We learned he arrived at Shimoda, extracted a clause, and left a count. That is accurate as far as it goes. What that omits, though, is everything that happened in between — a sequence of events so improbable that, had Weidman and Sondheim included it in Pacific Overtures, it might well have been cut for straining credulity.

Admiral Putyatin in Nagasaki, 1853

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Putyatin arrived in Shimoda harbor in October 1854, aboard his flagship, the frigate Diana. He had already been negotiating with the Japanese for over a year, having first appeared at Nagasaki in August 1853 — earlier than Perry’s famous second visit, though less noticed by history. The shogunate had stalled him, as it stalled everyone; the Crimean War had complicated his position (Britain and France were now his enemies at sea, and British warships patrolled the Pacific); and the Convention of Kanagawa, signed by Perry in March 1854, had changed the terms of every subsequent negotiation by establishing that the door, once forced, could not easily be closed again.

Putyatin arrived at Shimoda knowing that Perry had already been there, knowing that Britain had followed, knowing that the window for Russia to extract comparable terms was narrowing. The talks resumed. Progress was slow.

Then, on the morning of 23 December 1854, the earth moved.