Samurai: The First Complete Encyclopedia

15 hrs. 10 min.

Popular Science

Language Russian

Author Vyacheslav Shpakovsky

Narrator Pozhiloy Ksenomorf

Description

“Only a person ready for death values every moment of life, because it may be the last” — this code of the Japanese SAMURAI was followed for a thousand years. Famed warriors with two blades tucked into their belts, in segmented armor and horned helmets, with enormous bows as tall as a person and “singing” arrows. Unrivaled kensai (sword masters) who despised firearms. Refined aesthetes who knew the art of war not only in martial arts but also in the tea ceremony, the art of love, calligraphy, and poetry—writing farewell poems before the ritual suicide of seppuku. People of honor, faithful to Bushido until the last breath. Merciless killers who had the right to behead any commoner not only for “disrespect,” but also to “test the sharpness of the sword.” That’s how samurai appear in legends, films, and books.

What in this image is true, and what is invention and exaggeration? How did the unwritten moral code “Kyūbano michi” (“The Way of the Bow and Horse”) turn into the code of commandments “Bushido” (“The Warrior’s Way”)? Can we equate the Japanese warrior class with European chivalry? For what are samurai called “the best fighters in history”? How did they fight, live, win, and die?

This book is the first domestic encyclopedia of the samurai. In this illustrated edition you will find exhaustive information about their martial arts and traditions, weapons and training, customs and way of life, etiquette and the code of honor.

Содержание:

Foreword
Chapter 1. The beginning of beginnings
Chapter 2. The first warriors of the Yamato country, or what do haniva tell us?
Chapter 3. Taika reforms and the appearance of the first samurai
Chapter 4. About warriors in tanko and keiko
Chapter 5. O-yoroi armor—classic Japanese samurai armor
Chapter 6. How did a samurai put on o-yoroi armor?
Chapter 7. Kabuto helmet and men-gu masks
Chapter 8. Armor for less well-off warriors…
Chapter 9. New wars and important lessons
Chapter 10. And again, the wind of change
Chapter 11. Battle of Nagashino
Chapter 12. Tosei-gusoku armor and… the famous Japanese lacquer
Chapter 13. New helmets for tosei-gusoku
Chapter 14. Ko-gusoku and the horse tack of yamatogura
Chapter 15. Samurai armory
Chapter 16. The sword—“the soul of the samurai”
Chapter 17. Samurai and Kaji
Chapter 18. Simply tsuba
Chapter 19. Etiquette of the Japanese sword
Chapter 20. Samurai and seppuku
Chapter 21. Samurai banners
Chapter 22. Ashigaru and samurai
Chapter 23. Samurai and sohei
Chapter 24. Military arts of the samurai
Chapter 25. Samurai—unifiers of the country
Chapter 26. Sekigahara: betrayal that decided the fate of the country
Chapter 27. The last floor of the Osaka castle…
Chapter 28. Anjin-Miura—the English samurai
Chapter 29. The journey of Daikokuy Kodayu
Chapter 30. Miyamoto Musashi—the master of the sword
Chapter 31. 47 samurai
Chapter 32. Samurai and shinobi
Chapter 33. The samurai’s estate
Chapter 34. Samurai castles
Chapter 35. Samurai and poetry
Chapter 36. Samurai and tea
Chapter 37. Sake—the drink of gods and Japanese
Chapter 38. Samurai, sex, and women
Chapter 39. Samurai and Bushido
Chapter 40 “Seven Samurai”—cinema classic forever!
Conclusion