The Kenmu Regime in European and American historiography

The Kenmu Regime is the military and aristocratic Japanese government in 1333–1336, headed by the supporters of sovereign Go-Daigo (後醍醐天皇, 1288–1339). The reign of Go-Daigo, full of contradictions, had a great impact on premodern Japanese culture and Japanese historical memory, and became one of the main narratives of medieval Japanese history. Academic discussions on the historical role of the Kenmu Regime began in the Edo period (1603–1868) and continue to this day. However, there are no specific Russian-language studies entirely devoted to the events of the 14th century and the Kenmu Regime in particular. In Russia, the works by European and American authors are usually used to describe this period. At the same time, many aspects of the discussion remain neglected. For example, Russian scholars have essentially ignored the last stages of the study of Go-Daigo’s reign. The purpose of this paper is to determine what we know and what we do not know about the Kenmu Regime, how we know it, and what we can do to deepen our knowledge. The author of the current article used as sources various academic and near-academic texts (notes, monographs, collective monographs and manuals, reviews and responses to reviews, background materials) in Portuguese, English, French, German, and Russian. The texts are considered in chronological order, i.e., each section reflects a certain stage in the study of the rule of GoDaigo. This work also examines the methodological and other influence of Japanese historians on nonJapanese scholars who study the Kenmu Regime and analyzes the prospects for further study of Go-Daigo’s reign from the point of view of different scholarly approaches and academic traditions.