Abstract:
Through the philological analysis of a considerable number of documentary sources at the hand of representatives of the bakufu, the Satsuma domain, and the Ryukyu kingdom, I have tried to present a study of early modern diplomacy through the lens of the Ryukyuan missions and their world. The main argument that ties the entire work together is the endeavor to demonstrate that the kingdom of Ryukyu played a significant and hitherto unacknowledged role in Japanese politics of the bakumatsu era. In this study I examined multiple perspectives, i.e. those of the bakufu, the Satsuma domain, and the Ryukyuan government on macro-micro levels of analysis, namely the opening of Japan and Ryukyu to the West and the relations between the shogunate and Satsuma, as well as of those between Kagoshima and Shuri against the background of the epochal changes taking place in Japan after the appearance of the Western powers.
