PREFACE

　　It is with great pleasure that the Yamagata City Culture Foundation presents the English translation of Saijōki: Gendaigo-yaku (Saijōki: Modern Japanese Translation, Mogami Yoshiaki Historical Museum, Yamagata City Culture Foundation, 2009). The modern Japanese translation of Saijōki is the work of Shigeo Katagiri, a historian specializing in the history of the Yamagata area and one of the foremost researchers of Mogami Yoshiaki. The original Saijōki document, written in 1634 by an unnamed former retainer of the Mogami clan, used an archaic form of Japanese that is difficult for the general reader of today to interpret, and it is thanks to the efforts of Mr. Katagiri that this work is now enjoyed by a wide range of Japanese readers.
　　Although Mogami Yoshiaki is not nearly as well-known as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, or other famous contemporaries, he was in reality an important daimyo of his time. Saijōki details the events in Yoshiaki’s life from the perspective of one of his own retainers, and though the events described are not always grounded in objective historical fact, this work offers the reader an eye-witness view of an important figure in the history of Yamagata. There are few works in English that contain such a detailed account of a historical personage who may be relatively unknown outside of Japan, and the completion of the English version of Saijōki on the eve of the fourth centennial of Yoshiaki’s death, which is coming up in 2014, makes the timing of this publication particularly auspicious. We hope that many readers will take advantage of this English translation to acquaint themselves with a lord known to the people of Yamagata as a wise and distinguished ruler of a bygone age.

March, 2012
Noboru Ōba
Yamagata City Culture Foundation, Chairman of the Board of Directors

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