Serge Elisseeff

Serge Elisseeff was a Orientaliste French, of Russian origin (1889-1975).

Elisseeff was born in 1889 with Saint-Petersbourg (Russia) in a family from commercial rich person.

It receives an education in several languages and studies the Chinese and the Japanese at the university of Berlin

It becomes very young a specialist in the Japan and becomes the first graduate Westerner of the Université of Tōkyō.

In 1917, it settles with Paris and it teaches the Japanese Littérature with the Sorbonne as from 1930.

In 1934, it obtains a station with Harvard as professor of Eastern Langues and becomes the first director of “Harvard-Yenching Institute”.

He plays a big role of 1941 to 1945 (see low).

In 1957, Eliseeff returns to Paris, and gives again courses in the Sorbonne.

He dies in Paris in 1975.

His/her son Vadime Elisseeff (1918 - 2002) continued his action and was preserving as a chief of the Musée Guimet with Paris

Its role during the Second world war

Elisseeff played a big role during the Second world war

To keep a supremacy without division on all Asia, the Japan decides to bombard Pearl Harbor the December 7th 1941 by surprise. At once the United States enters in conflict and decides to intern all the Japanese present on the American ground. But they discover that the American army does not lay out of translators of sufficient number.

Serge Elisseeff is charged to set up a training center accelerated at the Japanese language.

June 1st, 1945, of the proposals were made to the president Harry Truman, successor of Roosevelt. Among these proposals, that to use the nuclear bomb against Japan, as soon as possible, without warning, on a populated target and of military importance.

Five cities were then indicated: Kyōto (various industries), Hiroshima (large military port and industrial town), Yokohama (very large port), Kokura (the principal arsenal), Niigata (port, steel-works and refineries).

Kyōto, although presenting an ideal site, because of its close hills which would have amplified the impact, was rejected thanks to the vigorous intervention of Serge Elisseeff, who had acquired since 1941 a notoriety until the White House.

It proposes the cultural richness of the city and stresses that this destruction would be a serious obstacle with a later reconciliation with Japan.

The list becomes Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, Yokohama and Nagasaki (port and military base). Kyōto will be saved and Nagasaki sacrificed.

Random links: