The Rest Is History - 561. The Golden Age of Japan: Secrets of the Imperial Court (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

In the vibrant but vicious golden age of Imperial Japan, how did women use writing as a way to secure their status, and express their deepest desires? Who was Sei Shōnagon, the witty courtier whose account of life around the Japanese Empress during the iconic Heian period, provides a scintillating insight into this colourful world? And, behind the sophisticated melee of the Imperial court, with its elegance and decorum, what risks and hazards haunted every aspiring courtier…? Join Tom and Dominic for the climax to their tantalising journey into the beating heart of Imperial Japan, and the remarkable woman whose moving, keenly perceptive, but also slyly venomous, insights into this complicated arena, bring it flamboyantly to life. The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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In spring, the dawn, when the slowly-paling mountain rim is tinged with red and wisps of faintly crimson-purple cloud float in the sky. In summer, the night. Moonlit nights, of course, but also at the dark of the moon. It's beautiful when fireflies are dancing everywhere in a mazy flight. And it's delightful, too, to see just one or two fly through the darkness, glowing softly. Rain falling on a summer night is also lovely. In autumn, the evening, the blazing sun has sunk very close to the mountain rim, and now

even the crows in threes and fours or twos and threes hurrying to their roost are a moving sight. Still more enchanting is the sight of a string of wild geese in the distant sky, very tiny. And oh, how inexpressible when the sun has sunk to hear in the growing darkness the wind and the song of autumn insects. In winter, the early morning, if snow is falling of course, it's unutterably delightful. But it's perfect too if there's a pure white frost or even just when it's very cold and they hasten to build up the fires and the braziers and carry in fresh

charcoal. But it's unpleasant as the day draws on and the air grows warmer how the brazier fire dies down to white ash. So that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most famous passages in all Japanese literature. I would argue one of the most extraordinary passages of prose you will ever read. It is the beginning of a really, really remarkable and original masterpiece called The Pillow Book, which was written in the early years of the 11th century in what is now Kyoto. And Tom, we talked last time about the great Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji.

This was written round about the same time in what was then called Heian-kyo. And as with The Tale of Genji, its author was a woman. Yes. The woman was called say Shonagon and Murasaki Shikibu, the author of The Tale of Genji, knew Seishonagon and didn't like her. So she wrote in her diary, Seishonagon was dreadfully conceited. She thought herself so clever and littered her writings with Chinese characters. But if you examine them closely, they left a great deal to be desired. So like a kind of negative review of our podcast.

Left by the hosts of an inferior Goalhanger podcast. No doubt. Although of course, I mean, you know, Murasaki and Saishonogun are both transcendent geniuses. Right. So it's actually the analogy doesn't work at all. It breaks down there. Yeah. So I think what you get there is a clear tone of envy. I mean, you know, we've got certain tones of envy. We are, I

guess it's not surprising actually, because the two women are in lots of ways quite alike. So say Shonagon say is a family name, but Shonagon like Shikibu, so Murasaki's kind of second name is the name of a post in the Imperial Civil Service. So likeagon like Shikibu, so Murasaki's kind of second name, is the name of a post in the Imperial civil service. So like Murasaki, Shikibu, say Shonagon is the daughter of a functionary, of a civil servant. And Murasaki knew about say Shonagon because they had both served as kind of ladies in waiting to an empress in the Imperial court. And also like Murasaki, Sae Shonigan knew Chinese. We talked about this in the previous episode that for a woman to know Chinese seen as very un-ladylike, very unbecoming. And Murasaki tried to keep her knowledge of Chinese

secret. You know, she was embarrassed by it. Her fellow ladies in waiting teased her about it. But Seishonagun did not veil it. She absolutely paraded her knowledge of Chinese. She's absolutely unafraid to make a show of her brilliance. And she does it with such style and charisma that it clearly makes her a massive star at court. So unlike Murasaki, she boasts of how ready she is to kind of stand up and be the centre of attention. So she writes in the Pillow Book, I am not renowned for my modesty or prudence. So again, the comparison between Shea Shonigan, who's not renowned for her modesty and the presenters of the rest is history, that rather breaks down there, doesn't it, Tom?

We're very shy and retiring like Murasaki. Exactly. Now we talked last time when we were explaining about The Tale of Genji and this world of kind of 9th, 10th, 11th century Japan. We sort of talked about what a remarkable book it is to read. And I have to say in many ways I think the Pillow Book is even more remarkable. So I've been reading it over the last few days. And what shines through on every page is the wit, the brilliance, the sophistication, the charm and the individual personality of

the author in a way that I don't think I've ever encountered with any other work of medieval literature. I mean, this really is, say, Shonigan's book and you feel like you know her when you're reading it in a way you don't with any other author at the time. I mean, I can't think of any work of ancient or medieval literature where charm and wit, as you say, is manifest on every page. I mean, it's not what you associate really with kind of ancient literature. And as you say, her personality is so vivid that you feel like you completely know her. And I agree that like the tale of Genji, it feels dislocating. You have to keep pinching yourself and reminding

yourself this is someone who's writing, you know, keep saying this in England, this is the Anglo-Saxon period. I mean, it is amazing. So how did she come to write it? Because that in itself is a remarkable story. Yes, and may well be made up. So this is part of the fun of reading the Pillow Book is that Say Shonaghan is very, she's very playful. You can never entirely trust what she's saying, I think. So the name Pillow Book, it comes from the story of how she comes to write it. So the story she gives is that a minister comes to the Empress who is Say Shonaghan's mistress, presents the Empress with a great sheaf of paper, and the Empress who is, say, Shonaghan's mistress, presents the Empress with a great sheaf of paper and the Empress makes a gift of it to, say, Shonaghan and she uses this paper to

start recording observations, thoughts, experiences, whatever, and she seems to have kept the sheaf of papers either under or next to her pillow. And she then leaves the court and continues to write it. And then one day, oh me, oh my, she is disturbed by a governor who comes to pay his respects to her. And so she pulls out the pillow for the governor to sit on and there are the sheaf of papers and say Shonagon is so mortified. I scrambled to try and retrieve them, but he carried them off with him and kept them for a very long time before returning them. That seems to have been the moment when this book first become known and she says, I'm mortified, mortified that it's got out. It's terrible that people have read this masterpiece that I've written.

And clearly she's making play with the expectation that she, as a woman, was supposed to be mortified. And this is kind of typical of the, I guess, the kind of the subtlety and the ambivalence that characterises her humour throughout the book. So let's, for people who've not read it, which I'm guessing is most people listen to the show, let's explain exactly what it is. Because as you said, it's bonkers to think that while she is writing this, Etherered the Unready is paying Dane Gale to Olaf Trigversen. That is mad.

And to give people a sense, it's a kind of a compilation of diary entries, journal entries, random thoughts about nature and the seasons, anecdotes about the Imperial Court, stories of love and romance, all jumbled together so you never know what's going to be next in each entry. I mean, The Tale of Genji, you can recognise it as a novel, but the Pillow Book is unlike really anything that's been written since. And I guess if you had to compare it to anything, perhaps to a blog, perhaps even to a kind of, you know, the best kind of podcast you could possibly imagine, where it's constantly kind of going off on various tangents, but every tangent is completely fascinating. So the genius of it

for Seishonogun is that essentially it's a framework in which she can write about anything that interests her. So you get lyrical descriptions of the kind with which you open, and often these are descriptions of things that make her happy. And the sense of happiness that she conveys is something that I think people could still identify with today. So, how delightful it is in winter on a fiercely cold night when you're lying there listening, snuggled far down under the bedclothes, and the sound of a temple bell comes to you with such a deep and distant reverberation that it seems to be emerging from somewhere buried. So you're simultaneously there in 11th century Japan, the sense of a bell ringing. But also, I mean, that is a universal experience, isn't it? I mean, the joy of being warm in bed in a cold night. I mean, it's incredible.

Exactly. The other thing, she loves a list. And actually, when I was in Japan, I realized that this is a continuing thing in Japan. So you go to a castle and say, this is the fourth best castle in Japan or that kind of thing. They love it. And it clearly begins with say Shonagun. So she will list top mountains, top ponds, top horses, all that kind of thing. Her list of top birds, she's not keen on the heron. She says the heron looks horrible. Horrible. Yeah. Very keen on the Mandarin duck, which she says is very touching in the way the pair will change places on cold nights to brush the frost from each other's wings.

And I think the Japanese generally are very keen on the Mandarin duck because it seems to have been an emblem of marital fidelity. So Genji in Murasaki's novel, he's walking out under the moonlight with Murasaki, his great love, and he hears a Mandarin duck. He has this great Proustian rush of memory thinking of all the times that he's spent with Murasaki and it brings back fond memories of times now gone by. But the best things are the lists that are simultaneously bonkers, but also the kind of things that people write on social media or on blogs.

Kind of listicles. Yeah, listicles. So you've got some of your favourites written down. So a couple of mine are, she's got a list of things people despise, one of which is, people who have a reputation for being exceptionally good natured. Yeah, it's kind of almost like Oscar Wilde, isn't it? Yeah. Or rare things.

A son-in-law who is praised by his wife's father. Likewise, a wife who is loved by her mother-in-law. And then the next entry under rare things she's written is a pair of silver tweezers that can actually pull out hairs properly. An embarrassing thing. And this will be so familiar, I think, to anyone who has ever been at the school gates. Someone insists on telling you about some horrid little child carried away with her own infatuation with the creature imitating its voice as she gushes about the cute and winning things it says.

And Sage Enegan generally doesn't seem to be very fond of children. So she also accuses three year olds of being smug and cocky, which is obvious. I mean, she's not wrong. And so you've got all these incredible lists. Repulsive things. You saw that? Repulsive things. The inside of a cat's ear. I mean, that's true. But also, I love this one. The way a man must feel when his wife, who he's not really very fond of, is ill for a long time. Yeah, it's wonderful. And also there are kind of brilliant anecdotes about court life. So

there's an amazing story, for instance, about how there's a great snowfall and the gardeners sweep up all the snow and they make a huge snow mountain. And the Empress and all her ladies in waiting, including Sae Shonaghan have a kind of sweepstake on how long this snow mountain will last before it melts. And Sae Shonaghan says, oh, it'll last for weeks, weeks and weeks. And everyone says, no, that's, that's mad. You'll never do that. And she has a bet with the Empress and Sae Shonenigen described, you know, every day she goes to inspect the state of the snow mountain and gradually over the course of the weeks, it gets dirtier and dirtier and dirtier until it's completely black, but it's still very solid there. And she has a gardener who comes to report to, you know, on the state of the mountain and

everything and the evening before it's still there. She's clearly going to win the bet. And in the morning, the gardener says, it's gone, it's been vanished. And it turns out that the Empress has had people come in and sweep it away and cheat. And say Schoenigen goes and complains to the emperor about this. And he smiles and remarks, well, I suppose she just didn't want to see you win. And to think that this is an 11th century court. I mean, that kind of anecdote, you know, we said this in the last episode. What wouldn't you give for a story like that from the court of Edward the Confessor or something?

But in a way you couldn't have had a story like that because a literary document like that to come from the court of Edward the Confessor or any kind of early medieval European court would just seem unthinkable, wouldn't it? It would seem impossible. But as we said last time, it comes from a very specific set of circumstances. And I guess the misleading thing when we read this is we think of Shea Shonagon as our contemporary, because we can recognize so much of what she's saying about the relations between parents and children and about annoying

things that people do and tweezers that don't work properly and all of these kinds of things. But she is still very alien. I mean, she's from a world that could not seem more alien. Yeah. And she is clearly a product of the court culture that she adorns. And I think it's evident that she is giving court culture the best spin that she possibly can. And I think that's probably because she does love it, because she is such court culture the best spin that she possibly can. And I think that's

probably because she does love it, because she is such a brilliant figure at court. I mean, that's, you know, she, that's wonderful. And so there's this word, apparently again, marshalling my fluent Japanese, kashi, which can be translated as delightful, amusing, charming, fun, I suppose, exquisite, whatever. And this is essentially the word she uses to describe so many things that happen at court. But when you look at Murasaki's diary, which is a kind of parallel to the pillow book, she's much more introverted, much more morose, I think. And she gives a darker portrait of life at court. So, Sochonigan adores gossip. I mean, she praises it. What

could possibly be more fun than talking about other people and criticizing them, she writes. Yeah, she's not wrong. Whereas Murasaki beats herself up about being a gossip. And unlike her rival, she confesses to loneliness, to isolation. There's no doubt. Which of those women would fit in well as a guest on the rest of history? Well, yeah, you're probably right. But I think when you combine, say, the writings of these two extraordinary authors, what you get is a sense that this court is, if you want to say, civilised to the nth degree. I mean, it's kind of the epitome of civilization. And when

the Japanese, as they have done ever since the 11th century, celebrate the Heian court as the kind of the great classical age of elegance, of sophistication, of style, I mean, they're not wrong. And Dominic, we, after this episode, we're going to be embarking on a six-part series on the life of Peter the Great. And there is a lot of kind of malarkey with drunk bears and bellows being shoved up bottoms and things. Correct. Peter the Great's court is not elegant.

This court absolutely is. That really would be a culture clash if these women are pitched up at the court of Peter the Great. I suspect Sage Onaghan would have done quite well, but Murasaki probably would have hated it. So Tom, a very good example of that degree of sophistication and kind of elegance is poetry. And poetry matters enormously to Shae Shonigan, doesn't it? As it does to Genji in The Tale of Genji.

Yeah, so Genji is a brilliant poet. And it has a significance that we might in the 21st century in Britain, or indeed in any Western country, really struggle to understand because mastery of poetry is enormously important as a badge of status and as a badge of elegance of, I mean, you know, to be a desirable, attractive person, an impressive person, you should be able to quote poems and come up with poems on the spot. But also of your ability. I mean, it's kind of, you know, people today have to have a mastery of IT or whatever. In the Heian court, you have to have a mastery of poetry. Right.

And to quote Ivan Morris, the composition change and quotation of poems was central to the daily life of the Heian aristocracy and it is doubtful whether any other society in the world has ever attached such important to the poetic versatility of its members. And so this is a crucial part of say, Shonigan's fame at the court is she's not just a brilliant poet, but she's also very, very knowledgeable about poetry. And so if someone sends in a quote, she can rework it, she can refashion it in a kind of exquisitely witty way. And so if someone sends in a quote, she can rework it, she can refashion it in a kind of exquisitely witty way. And it's no wonder that Forosaki hates her because she's just brilliant at it. It imposes incredible strain because if you mess it up, you know, if you misquote something, if your poem is felt not quite to hit the mark, then that's

terribly damaging to your reputation and even say Schoenegger admits this. So somebody sends a poem, you become very anxious when you have to make a quick response to someone's poem and you can't come up with anything. If it's a lover, there's no particular need to hurry to send a reply, but there are times when circumstances make it necessary. And if it's some exchange with a lady, nothing special, and you feel you can just dash something off, that's precisely when you're inclined to make an unfortunate blunder. So it gives a really vivid sense of, you know, the tension of not losing status and rank by sending out a kind of dud few lines. Well, there's an amazing scene very early in the book where the empress says to, she folds up a

piece of paper and she says to all her kind of ladies and waiting in her courtiers, now I want each of you to write here the first ancient poem that springs to mind. And Shaye Shonigan is in a complete and utter panic and she says to a male official, what on earth can I write? And he pushes her the paper back and says, quick, write something down yourself for Her Majesty. It's not a man's place to give advice here. And she does write something down. And she says, I felt a sudden sweat break out all over me. But then she praises herself because she's very full of herself since she, she says, I do think though that the poem of mine isn't the sort of thing that a young person could have come up with.

She's very proud of herself. You get this sort of sense of this really, this would taint her for you. People would laugh at her for years. You know, when you're at the top, every slip will be fatal because there are lots of people who want to replace her as the, you well not the queen, I mean, but the queen bee perhaps among the ladies in waiting. And a further cause of anxiety is it's not enough just to compose it, but you have to write it as implied in the passage that you quoted.

And writing calligraphy is also a crucial part of establishing yourself as civilized. So Genji, for instance, in Murasaki's novel takes for granted that calligraphy is the surest window into a person's soul that you can possibly find and that beautiful writing equates to a kind of moral beauty. And there's a whole chapter in the tale of Genji where he and his mates just sit around and talk about calligraphy. For them it is one of the most important things in the world. And they agree everything is going to the dogs except for calligraphy, which has hugely improved. And say Shonigan likewise, I mean it's often features in the

list of things that she loves. So things that make you feel cheerful, something written in very delicate strokes with just the tip of an almost impossibly thick brush on a lovely clean white sheet of Michinoku paper. I mean, we're a long way from the Anglo-Saxon court there, I think. And the other thing that makes this, if people are not interested in poetry, I think, well, who cares about a load of poems? To be good at poetry and to be able to write this beautiful kind of calligraphy, this is really important, not just for your social standing, but basically if you want to have

any sexual or romantic success, you have to be good at this. I mean, you know, it makes thinking up a good chat up line look, you know, trivial by comparison. I mean, it's kind of like opening proceedings on social media when you never actually met the person. It's a little bit like that because the poem is seen as your window onto the world. An erotic adventure at the court is a crucial part of kind of the broader social dynamics and it's celebrated by say Shonaghan, who again, seems to have been tremendously good at it. I mean, she certainly gives that impression. But Murasaki as well, even though in her personal relations

she seems to have been viewed actually as a bit of a prude. And it reflects the way in which women are given a degree of kind of license that I think in the Muslim or Christian world would have prompted a lot of anxiety on the part of male moralists. There are absolutely rules, I mean, very strict rules. But the whole point is that you master the rules and then all kinds of opportunities open up and that's precisely the thrill and the fun of it. So for women especially, the reason that you want to be very good at poetry is that you are not supposed to show yourself to men who are courting you. You stay behind a screen. And so how then are you meant to establish relations with a man if the man can't actually see you, if you have to stay cloistered away behind a screen. And this is where the poetry comes

in. You kind of exchange verses. And if this goes well, and if the man thinks, yeah, that's witty, that's well expressed or whatever, then other markers of taste can be unleashed. And this is what Genji is so good at. He is in Murasaki's novel, the absolute master of these kind of arts of courtship. So the poetry comes first, then you might have incense mixing. So remember Genji is perfumed. Say Shonagun is very good on how wonderful, beautiful scents are and how awful hideous swans are is clearly very, very important in the court. Calligraphy, of course, there's a passage in the tale of Genji where the war

minister literally sobs over Genji's calligraphy and you can't kind of imagine, I don't know, Pete Hegseth weeping over JD Vance's handwriting. That's such a great image. It's not going to happen. And then of course, there's the exquisiteness of dress and so on. So the woman would wear perhaps very, very long sleeves and she would very decorously allow perhaps just a glimpse from behind the

screen. So it's that kind of thing, you know, a glimpse of ankle. And in due course, a woman who decides that she is happy to allow a man to pay court to her, this would initiate a series of secret nighttime visits. And when I say secret, it's not really secret because there is effectively no privacy in these. Right, because people would see you coming and going, wouldn't they? Yeah. So the screens operate as walls within rooms, but I mean, they're not permanent walls, so ultimately there isn't really any privacy. And it means that in poetry, in prose, in both the Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book, the coming of dawn is a repeated theme because it's absolutely touched with

a sense of the erotic and say Schoenaguen is predictably brilliant on it. So she writes, summer provides the most delightful setting for a secret assignation. The nights are so very short that dawn breaks before you've slept. Everything has been left open all night and there's a lovely cool feel to the expansive view. The lovers still have a little more they must say to each other. As they sit there murmuring endearments, they're startled into a sudden panicky sensation of exposure by the loud core of a passing crow. A delightful moment. So there's a lovely section at the beginning of the pillow book when she's describing a woman and her lover. The lover has just left and another bloke is passing because he's leaving an

assignation of his own and he sees through the sort of gap in the screen. That she's still lying there on the bed and she kind of knows he can see her. And it's a sort of passage again, you know, your mind explodes trying to think about, you know, somebody at the court of Ethelred the Unready writing this with such delicacy and such a sort of sense of tenderness and melancholy and erotic feeling and whatnot that's just unimaginable in medieval literature otherwise. It obviously reflects different social, cultural, sexual expectations. And Christian Europe is a monogamous culture.

That's not the case in Japan. So these courtships might lead to marriage or it might lead to a kind of polygamous relationship, a kind of secondary degree of marriage of the kind that Genji is so fond of, or it might just be a fling. I mean, it's perfectly fine to just kind of have an affair. And obviously, women are absolutely not passive actors in this. You know. They have to project their erotic appeal as well, which is very difficult when you start behind a screen. So there are certain things that are obviously very important to you that we touched on one of them already, and that is smell. So it's an abiding theme in The Tale of Genji. Women

are worried about their perspiration, that they might be giving off body odor. Where Saishanigan typically riffs on this. I mean, she's kind of original. So she says, you know, it's charming, a lightly padded kimono that gives off a faint whiff of perspiration. She, she thinks that's actually quite erotic for a man. And also she gives advice on insure, because obviously it's a problem if a man is coming and the woman is behind a screen. How is he to know that the woman is there? I mean, she might've gone to bed or something.

Yeah. So Sage Onaghan advice shifts slightly to let the rustle of clothes alert him. So all these kind of rules that I suppose, you know, are freighted with the erotic. So they're all covered up, aren't they? They're wearing, in fact, in the, in the pillar book in the Penguin Classics edition, there are pictures because clothes are so important. There are diagrams of how they're wearing these enormous, enormous robes and gowns and mantles and jackets and all kinds. And I mean, that's in large part, as we will see in due course, because it's very cold in winter, but it means that clothing becomes away again, like poetry in

which they can project their personality. And so it's not surprising that say Shonigan and Murasaki are obsessed by clothes because the fabric, the cut, the style, the coloring, the pairing of colors, these are ways in which you can project your personality, I suppose. Yeah. Well, Chris Harding in his history of Japan that we were talking about last time These are ways in which you can project your personality, I suppose. Yeah, well, Chris Harding in his history of Japan that we were talking about last time, makes the point that our concept of fashion does not map onto Japan in this period, because for them, this is everything. You know, the way you construct your outfit, the choice of colors, the way they match, it's much more than an optional extra, than a kind of add-on, that a hobby. It's the key to your personality and the way you're perceived in

the world. And I think also the Japanese understanding of what makes a woman physically attractive is very different. So obviously if the courtship goes well, the key moment comes where a woman has to reveal herself. The man hasn't seen her until this point. And there are very distinctive standards of beauty. So teeth have to be black. And this is a kind of recurrent theme throughout the tale of Genji, women blackening their teeth, right? Eyebrows are plucked and then painted back on. And you have to have a degree of plumpness, I think. If you're thin, this is viewed as very, very erotically off putting. And there's a sense, I think,

almost in which the naked body is seen as unattractive. So Murasaki writes, the naked body is unforgettably repulsive. It really does not have the slightest charm. So this is not a society in which nakedness is seen as something appealing in any way. And the real obsession is with hair. And the longer obsession is with hair and the longer it is, the smoother, the glossier, the better. And again and again in The Tale of Genji, I mean, Genji only has to see a glimpse of hair and he's off. He's unleashed. And in fact, what he will do the moment he gets a glimpse of hair, that's when he will start writing his poems. He'll start pestering the woman with his poetry. And it's hard to think of another

culture in which the literary and the erotic are so interfused. And I think that's a crucial part of explaining why the writings of women in this period are so potent in their effect and so admired by men as well as by women. There's another woman, isn't there? There's another poet called Izumi Shikibu. And she was a contemporary of these two characters, Murasaki and Seishonogun, and she was a great femme fatale, and she kind of slept around the court and everybody thought, you know, she was a folk hero in the right word. She's celebrated as the greatest poet of her period. Yeah. And the sense that she is a femme fatale is a crucial part of that.

So over the course of her life, she burns her way through two husbands, numerous lovers, two of these lovers are royal brothers who succeed each other in turn and both in turn then die. So there's a slight quality of the vamp to Izumi Shikabu. And it's a measure of, you know, her kind of glamour that within only a few generations, people are writing novels about her. And it's a measure too, of the high premium that is set on literary genius, that her scandalous reputation never threatens her reputation as a great writer. In fact,

just the opposite. So, you know, we talked about how the Japanese love a list. There is a list that is drawn up in the Middle Ages of the 36 immortal poets. And I think Izumi Shikibu is number three on that list. I mean, she's very high ranking. And the other thing, right, you said that she's a great poet, she's on the list. She's on this list and she's a great poet, despite the fact that she is a woman and that is another contrast surely with the world of Christendom or the world of the Romans for example. Or the Greeks. Or the Greeks, right, where there'd be no thought that a woman could ever compete with a man in this domain.

So this for Japan is the Classical Age, it's the equivalent of Periclean Athens or Augustan Rome and in Periclean Athens the writers are all men, in Augustine Rome the writers are all men. But in Heian Japan, so early 11th century, almost every noteworthy author of this golden age of Japanese literature is a woman. And so it's, I think, unprecedented. I can't think of another period that is rated as one of the great ages of literature where all the writers pretty much are female. It's really amazing. And so it's not surprising, I guess, therefore, that Murasaki Shikibu or say Shonagun should have kind of been in love with a culture that gave them such a voice and absolutely taken for granted that this is the only place to be. That if you're not at

court, what are you? That everything beyond the court is kind of darkness and barbarism. There is nothing beyond Heian-kyo that is worth seeing, that is worth knowing, that is worth visiting. So in the tale of Genji, Genji gets exiled and it's not terrible. I mean it's kind of the equivalent of being packed off to Bournemouth or something. But the way he goes on about it, I mean you'd think it was the worst thing ever, like he was Odysseus or Sinbad or something, but I mean it's really not that bad. And Sayonara in her list of Japan's top mountains doesn't name Mount Fuji, the most famous of Japanese mountains, because it's too far. Who'd be interested to see it? And in the same way, there's an

incredible tone of snobbery that runs through. It's in the tale of Genji, where basically no one who isn't from an aristocratic background gets a look in. But Say Shonigan makes an absolute art form of it. And so inevitably she has a list of vulgarities and top of her list of vulgarities is snow on the houses of common people. Because the sight of snow is exquisitely beautiful, it's charming, it's delightful. You see it on the house of common person, awful. And I think that she is kind of mocking herself there, but obviously she's also simultaneously it's coming from deep well springs of snobbery. And so effectively not to be part of Heian Kyo is, you know, you might as well be dead.

But I guess Tom, a precondition for this world is that it's peaceful. They can afford to be putting all their energy into calligraphy and being snobbish about snow on the houses of the common people and talking about how repulsive three-year-old children are precisely because Japan is at peace. Yes. But I guess, I mean, one of the themes that runs through the Pillow Book is the sense of time and aging and the passing of the seasons and everything must have an end. And I guess the writers of the Heian court, as much as anybody, are aware that time is slipping away as it were, and that this world of peace and tranquility and elegance and

sophistication may be for the ash heap of history? Well, I think there is absolutely a sense that the very exquisite quality of life at the court can never be taken for granted and that it is always shadowed. And in the second half, perhaps we could look at some of those shadows. Very good. We'll see you after the break.

Hi there. I'm Al Murray, co-host of WW2 pod. We have ways of making you talk the world's premier second world war history podcast from Goalhanger. And I'm James Holland. And together we tell the greatest stories from the war. Our latest series focuses on the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe and the often untold closing stages of World War II. And we've got so much to talk about in this series from the

daring allied crossings of the river Rhine to the last hours in the bombed out streets of Berlin. It is amazing how little this has been talked about before in popular media. Exactly Al, and this is more than just units moving across maps, but real human stories on an individual level, as well as great powers jostling in a new nuclear world. If this sounds good to you, we've got a short taste for you. Search We Have Ways wherever you get your podcasts. Genji pretended not to look at her and gazed into the garden, but he gave her many a sidelong glance. What was she like? How glad he would be, foolish hope, if their present intimacy

had brought out anything at all attractive. First, her seated height was unusual. She was obviously very long in the back. I knew it, he thought in despair. Next came the real disaster. Her nose. He noted it instantly. Long and lofty that nose was, slightly drooping towards the end, and with at the tip a blush of red. Oh, a real horror. In colour she was whiter than snow, in fact slightly bluish, and her forehead was strikingly broad although below it her face seemed to go on and on for an extraordinarily long way.

She was thin to the point of being pitifully bony and even through her gown he could see the excruciating angularity of her shoulders. Why had he insisted on finding out what all of her looked like? At the same time though she made a sight so outlandish that he could not keep his eyes off her. Her face showed how cold she was and he felt sorry for her. So that is a very well known episode from The Tale of Genji, Murasaki's novel. Genji has been courting this woman for a very long time, a very arduous process. She lives in genteel poverty in a decayed and overgrown palace called the Hitachi Princess, she is. And finally, he's caught a glimpse and he's very disappointed with her nose, isn't he Tom? Very ungallant, I think, from Genji there.

Yeah, so the nose of the Hitachi Princess is celebrated in Japanese culture, you know, kind of drawings of it for centuries and centuries. And I guess that this portrait of the Hitachi Princess is a counterpoint to say Shonigun's portrayal of aristocratic life in Heian Kyo as delightful, charming, exquisite, because she lives a completely miserable life. Her parents are dead, she has no living relatives, so she is lonely, isolated, I mean scared. She's a very nervous woman. She's so old fashioned that she wears a comb in her hair and Murasaki just thinks this is hilarious. And it's as you get, you know, she's not only, she doesn't know white, she looks blue. Everybody is freezing. Her servants

are all sat around her kind of shivering and chattering. And the princess herself is reduced to wearing furs from Siberia, which as everyone knows is the kind of thing that only a very old lady would do. Right. And so she's a fright, but Genji is sorry for her and anxious for her. And so he rescues her and installs her in his palace. And so in that sense, everything works out for the best. But is it perhaps the case that this glimpse that we have of this woman who is cold and lonely and

scared is a reminder that there's another side to the life at court and it's not all calligraphy. And indeed, a life in Japan more generally is obviously not all calligraphy and kind of, you know, elegant witticisms. There is a frigidity to it as well, maybe. Yeah, and I think a darkness, a literal darkness as well, because if you're spending most of your time stuck behind a screen, the way that the architecture functions, you know, there's a good deal of shadow and then you stick up a screen. You're spending a lot of your time in a kind of twilight. And we know this from the tale of Genji because there's an episode where Genji goes in to seduce

one woman and ends up accidentally seducing the Empress and getting her pregnant, which is a key moment in the novel and actually results in his exile. So it's dark, but also of course it's cold. And having just come back from a holiday in Japan and stayed in a traditional Japanese house while it was snowing. I mean, it really is cold and the kind of the style of architecture means that when an icy wind is whistling, you really feel it. And so that is why women in the Heian court are wearing the large numbers of layers that they are. But I think even with those layers, they're probably freezing a lot of the time.

And so the reality of life probably for most women at the Heian court is that it's very cold, it's very dark, and it's pretty boring because you're not having men coming and calling on you most of the time. But I don't think that that means, say, that Sae Shonigan in the Pillow Book is lying when she portrays the Heian court as exquisite and delightful and charming. And in the translation that we've been quoting from, the Penguin Classic translated by Meredith McKinney, she places the Pillow Book in the context of a political crisis at court that was directly threatening Seishonigen's position there and the empress that she was serving. And so, Meredith McKinney describes the Pillow Book as a work that not

only resolutely refuses to acknowledge these sorrows, but that largely refuses to acknowledge sorrow itself and gives us in its place a world of exquisite delight and it'll sound a weird parallel but I always thought of P.G. Woodhouse writing Bertie Worcester in the 30s that this world of kind of genial humour has no place really for depressions or wars or whatever and I think it's similar with the Pillow Book. It is a deliberate determination not to admit the darkness. So in other words, a work of great sophistication and sunniness depends on a context that is much darker and more conflicted. So tell us about this crisis at court, because actually the two characters we've been talking

about, Murasaki on one side and Seishonagun on the other, they are on opposite sides of this slightly Game of Thrones-ish factional battle, aren't they? Yeah, and it's hinted in the very first sentence of the Tale of Genji, which you read out in the previous episode, and people may remember it, it starts, In a certain reign, whose can it have been? And this introduces a theme that runs throughout the novel, which is that the figure of the emperor himself is kind of anonymous and passive, and they're always kind of being retired and replaced by another one. They have no real personality. And this reflects the fact that when the emperor Kanmu, people who listened to the last episode may remember that he had

been in a capital called Nara and had felt that he as emperor was coming under the shadow of the great lords of Japan and he had gone off and founded Heian Kyo in an attempt to restore imperial authority. What this suggests is that that effort hadn't worked, that over the course of the 10th century, following the foundation of Heian Kyo, the Emperor had continued to be leeched of his power and although he remains the center of the government and the state, it's not in kind of any active sense. So he has taken on the Chinese title Tennu, which we might translate it as Emperor, and Tennu, we said this in the previous episode, means the pole star. And as Joshua Friedman in his book on Japanese mythology puts it, the pole star does not

do anything. It simply sits and by virtue of what it is, everything else rotates around it. The Tenno is theoretically the same. He exists at the center of the government and all things orbit around him, but he himself does not need to do anything other than simply be." And there's another word that is applied to the emperor, which could be translated as emperor, which is micardo, as in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera. And this is a bit like pharaoh. So pharaoh means literally the great house. It's identifying the figure of the ruler with the architecture of where he lives. And Mikado literally means gates of the inner palace. And these are the gates that keep the people

out but keep the emperor in. So again, it's this idea that he's being kind of closeted away. He's like a prisoner at the heart of the system. Yeah, almost. And when you go to Tokyo to this day, the palace, it has this amazing moat, it has these great walls you can't see inside to this day, the palace, it has this amazing mode. It has these great walls you can't see inside. I mean, the emperor feels kind of very invisible center, which I guess is what he is even back in the 11th century. So if the emperor's not really, you know, he's not an, he's not the autocrat, he's

not running the state. Who is running the state? Because we're not yet in the age of the Shogun, you know, the great warlords. The samurai and the feudal rivalries. So who's in charge? At the time we've been talking about, it's basically a single family, the Fujiwara, and they are very ancient, very distinguished. They're even back in the time of Nara with all the faction fighting there. They had been kind of leading players, but by the middle of the 10th century, they've

effectively established themselves as the rulers of the court and therefore by extension, the whole of Japan. And they do this not by kind of throwing their weight around, you know, they don't have samurai at their beck and call, they're not great military leaders. They do it because they are brilliant at politics and at faction fighting and specifically at what Japanese historians call marriage politics. And the essence of marriage politics is to get the emperor married to your daughter so that you will be related by marriage to the figure who sits on the throne. So to quote Ivan Morris, by the 10th century, the Fujiwara's had imposed on the emperor a type of life cycle that was almost

bound to keep him under the family's thumb. He came to the throne as a callow youth and was promptly married to a Fujiwara girl. Their son would be appointed crown prince and when his father was obliged to abdicate, usually at the age of about 30, this crown prince would succeed him and the cycle would start again. So there's no way for the emperor to break free of the kind of marriage chains that the Fujiwara's are fettering them with. And the effective ruler of Japan when say Shonagun comes to court is a man who by now is not unofficial, it's formal. He is ruling as the regent for the emperor. And he's done this by marrying his daughter, who is a woman called Teishi, to the emperor Ichijo, who was only 11 years old. So very, very easy to be manipulated.

And Ichijo is always under Mitsutaka's thumb, partly because he's a boy, partly because there are three retired emperors on the scene. They've all been kind of retired off. So that dilutes his authority, obviously. And I think partly because he's raised and educated never to oppose the Fujiwara. He just sits in his palace and plays his former role and that's it. And so Tashi, his wife, she is the empress for whom she served and the one who got Tashi to write all his poems and had the bet with her about the snow and all that sort of thing. And Tashi thinks Tashi is great. She thinks she's funny, she's smart, she's stylish. And in exchange, the presence of Seishonagon at Tashi's side as part of her retinue adds greatly to Tashi's

prestige because Seishonagon is that famous, that celebrated. But obviously the position of both women is kind of precarious. I mean, both of them are completely aware of this because it depends on Mishitaka remaining on the scene and keeping hold of power. And I think despite the pretty consistent tone of sunniness and lightness that you get in the Pillow Book, occasionally there's the odd hint from Saechonagin that she is aware of this. It's a little bit like the black shorts in Bertie Worcester. There's

a little hint of the darkness off stage. So there's a scene where Sae Shonigan describes Michi Taka. She thinks he's great, looking wonderfully slender and elegant, pausing to adjust his ceremonial sword. And then she describes how Michi Taka's brother, the commissioner Michi Naga, did not just bow before his brother but sank to his knees. And she goes and relates to Teishi what she's seen and says, oh, it's marvelous, such a beautiful scene. And then she writes, when I kept mentioning to her majesty how commissioner Michinaga, so the younger brother, had bowed before the region, she smilingly teased me by referring to him as that perennial favorite of yours. If she could

have lived to witness the greatness he later attained, she would have realized how right I was to find him so impressive. So she's writing at a time where Taishi has died and where Michinaga has replaced Michitaka as regent. And that happened in, so Michutaka died in 995. And what happens then is that the next brother in line succeeds Mitsutaka, dies within a few days and so Mitsunaga then becomes regent. And for Taishi and Seishonogun, this is very bad news because obviously Mitsunaga is going to want to marry one of his own daughters to the Emperor Ichijo.

Oh, right. Okay. So the fact that it's his niece, it's his niece, right? That's not good enough. It's got to be his daughter. He's not going to bump Tashi off. He's not going to set her aside. But what he is going to do is essentially ensure that there is a second empress. So there will be two empresses of equal rank. But this obviously destabilizes Teishi's position massively. And it happens in the year 1000. So, Michinaga has a 10-year-old daughter called Shoshi, and she gets married to the emperor. And there are now two empresses, and there are two courts. And Michinaga obviously knows Seishonogun well. They've been kind of bantering knows Seishonagun well, you know, they've been kind

of bantering and Seishonagun has been going on about how brilliant he is when he kneels before his brother and all that kind of stuff. And he basically wants his daughter Shoshi to have a literary superstar as a lady in waiting as well. And this is where Murasaki Shikibu comes in, because she is not just celebrated for her learning and her literary genius, but she's actually a Fujiwara herself, albeit from quite a kind of minor branch of the family. So she's perfect. So Murasaki comes in and this, you can see why this would add an extra dimension to the rivalry between the two women.

And it's Murasaki, it turns out, basically, who has has backed the winning side because a few months after Shoshi has been promoted to the rank of joint empress alongside Tashi, so marrying Ichijo, Tashi dies in childbirth. And so all eyes now are on Shoshi. Will she be able to give her husband a son and thereby ensure her father's hold on power? She's only 10 when she marries, it's eight years before she finally gets pregnant. And then again, there's massive tension because will she survive childbirth? And if she does, will she deliver a boy? And it's amid this mood of tension that Murasaki begins her diary. I mean, it's incredibly dramatic moment. And

so she describes her majesty listens to her ladies in waiting engaged in idle gossip. She must be in some distress. Again, amazing. It's an account of, you know, an event that is so important in monarchies throughout history and across the world. Will the wife of a ruler give that ruler a son? And here you have one of the greatest writers of all time describing it in journalistic fashion. Yeah, as though it's in real time. And big spoiler alert, Shoshi does survive childbirth and she does have a son, which is brilliant for Michinaga because his power base is now secure. Yeah. And so he stays securely in power until he dies in 1028 and no one thinks to challenge him. And by the time he dies, he has been brother-in-law to two emperors, uncle to one,

uncle and father-in-law to Ichijo, so that's another one, and grandfather to two more emperors. So I mean, he is absolutely at the center of power in the Imperial Palace. For say Shonigan and Murasaki Shikibu, for the former, the death of Tashi spells the end of her time at court. And so you can see, I think therefore that the pillow book, much of which she must have written in retirement, Actually, it is written with a real consciousness of bereavement almost. And if it's a eulogy to joy, which it undoubtedly is, it's one of the most joyous books you could possibly read. I think it is also testimony to the fleeting nature, the insubstantiality of joy. Murasaki, she seems to have come out as a winner. So she ends up so close

to Michinaga that there are all kinds of far-fetched stories told in the decades and centuries that follow that she'd actually had a relationship with him. I think there's no doubt that Genji as a character and his rise to greatness is kind of modeled a bit on Michinaga. And Ichijo, he loves stories and so he loves the tale of Genji and it may well be that it's this that encourages Murasaki to write it at the length that she does. And of course, Michinaga is delighted about this because it intensifies Ichijo's devotion to Shoshi, to Mitsunaga's daughter. So you can see the way in which literature isn't at a remove from power politics, but is absolutely kind of woven into it.

Yeah. You know, does this make Murasaki happy? I don't think she's a particularly happy person and much more readily than say Shonagun isigan is in her diary, but even more so and more powerfully in the tale of Genji. The fleeting nature of joy and the pain that you can feel in recalling moments of joy is kind of one of her great themes. There's a famous scene isn't there later in the book when Genji meets, he's old at this

point, he meets a woman that he'd been in love with for many years and he writes her a poem, very sort of, who else but we two knows all that has brought us here and so may address the pines of Sumiyoshi witness to the God's own time. So what does that draw on Tom? Well, they're lines that are drawing, I guess, on the kind of the primal beliefs of Japan, the Shinto beliefs. So you have pines that are so ancient that like so much of the natural world, whether it's rivers or mountains or whatever, that they must be held divine. You have the God's own time, which equates to eternity, and therefore you have a sense that love itself can cheat time.

But the thing is that even as Genji is composing these lines, he doesn't actually in his heart believe it. And the reason for that is that all the manifestations of Chinese culture that we've been describing, the writing, the poetry, the fashions, the song, the dance, the stars of government, these are not the only legacy of that kind of, you know, those centuries of Sinomania because, and we haven't yet touched really on the sacral, there is another aspect of Chinese culture which takes off in Japan to a momentous degree and that is Buddhism. Will you say the sacral Tom, but they wouldn't have the, that word would be slightly meaningless to them. It would be just the very idea of religion would be meaningless because there's no distinction

between the secular and the religious in Japan. God almighty, I'm sounding like Tom Holland. You are sounding like me. Yes, you are absolutely right. But let's call it Buddhism for want of a better word. And it arrives in Japan, probably in the sixth century, it flourishes at Nara in the eighth century. Nara's boasts the most wonderful Buddhist temples, astonishing statues. I mean, you're just about to go to Japan, aren't you? I think this will blow people's minds. I'm actually going to stay in a Buddhist monastery in Japan. Are you going to Nara? I'm going to Nara. It's not in Mara. It's on Mount Coya, which is the sacred Buddhist mountain. Now I know this is not part of the persona.

And so I hate to tell people this, but our podcast personas are not our entire personality. It's quite quite white Lotus as well. Yeah. Well, yeah, I hope there won't be white Lotus style. So Nara is a kind of great Buddhist city and that's one of the reasons actually why why the capital gets moved is because the the monks there are wielding such power that the emperor is feeling in their shadow as well. And by the ninth century going into the 10th and 11th century, native and Buddhist traditions are kind of merging to create a definitively Japanese form of Buddhism. And this is manifest

everywhere in Heian Kyo. So that temple bell, which say Shonagun hears ringing in the dead of night when she's tucked up under her bedclothes, that's a Buddhist bell. And Murasaki, when she's describing how the emperor Soshi is preparing to give birth to her child, she hears, she describes hearing voices in ceaseless recitation of sutras, which are the voices of Buddhist monks. And there is a town called Uji, which is about 10 miles south of Peiyankyo, where the final chapters of the Tale of Genji is set. And Michinaga buys a villa there, which is then converted by his son into a great Buddhist temple. This temple appears on one of the Japanese coins and it contains what is one of the few surviving masterpieces

of Heian art, which is this colossal wooden sculpture of the Buddha. So Buddhism is an absolutely fundamental part of Heian Kyo, this world described by the great writers of the period. But if you think of it, you mentioned Shinto before. These are not competing religions in the sense that we would think of Christianity and Islam or Christianity and paganism, right? They are, even today, lots of Japanese people struggle when they're asked, do you believe in Shintoism or are you a Buddhist?

Because they don't understand the concept that you would be picking and choosing different belief systems entirely. Yeah, I mean, it's really striking having written so much about Christianity and its emergence in antiquity and pagan antiquity. Buddhism in Japan is such contrast. So whereas Christianity banishes the ancient gods of the Mediterranean, that doesn't happen in Japan. I mean, there are definitely tensions. There are elements of the kind of the native traditions that really oppose the introduction of Buddhism, but they are not driven out. So in the time of Murasaki and say Shonigan, the emperor, as the emperor today does, is still claiming descent from the sun goddess. His virgin daughter will be serving as the sun

goddess's priestess in what is the greatest shrine in Japan. And you still have this sense that the divine is imminent in the natural world that was evident in that poem that Genji writes. But Buddhism, although it is able to coexist with these beliefs, it does teach that the gods worshipped in these various shrines or whatever are themselves part of the illusory world, along with the beauties of the natural world, love the world itself, in fact. And this is what everybody that we've been talking about in this episode and the previous episode believes. So Shane O'Gon does. And it said, we don't know with what reliability, but it's

often repeated that at the end of her life, she follows the example of what lots of other people at court, including emperors do, which is to renounce the world. And she throws away her beautiful clothes and she shaves off her beautiful hair and she becomes a nun. And this is something that Murasaki we know was very tempted by, because she feels dread that as a woman she is fated not to attain enlightenment, that she's bound to be reborn, that she'll have to be reborn as a man before she can have any prospect of enlightenment. And she writes about, I think, very painfully and movingly, someone with as much to atone for as myself may not qualify for salvation. There are so many things that serve to remind one of the transgressions of a former existence. Everything conspires to make me unhappy. And I think it's that capacity to worry that everything that is beautiful and

a cause of happiness is itself an illusion that gives the tale of Genji its distinctive character. That it expresses such love for the beauties and joys of the moment, but also such a sense of sorrow that these beauties and joys will ultimately vanish. And in fact, you have to reject them if you are going to attain the eternal beauty and joy of enlightenment. And so, Murasaki, she says, I want to give it all up. I want to become a nun, but she also dreads it. And she writes, supposing I were to commit myself and turn my back on the world. I am certain there would be moments of irresolution before Amida came for me riding on his clouds. So who is, uh, who is Amida?

Is he a, he's a version of the Buddha. Is that right? So he is a Buddha. He is the Buddha to whom the Heyang Korti has seen particularly to have prayed. So in, in Uji, this great temple, the great statue carved out of wood and gilded there is Amida. And the appeal of Amida, I think there are two aspects to it. The first is that he seems to promise enlightenment to everyone. So this is why he's particularly popular with women. He seems to offer the promise to women that they don't have to be reborn necessarily. But also he

seems to promise that love can survive death because what he is supposed to have done is that when he attained enlightenment, the Amida Buddha creates a paradise in the uttermost West and that people who pray to him for salvation can attain this paradise, this Western pure land, and they will be reborn there and they will live in this paradise that precious metals are living, jewels grow from the ground and people themselves when they are born there emerge from lotuses into eternal light. They're free from any sort of sin and though in due course they will die, then they will attain enlightenment. So it's a kind of, it's a final stage, a beautiful final stage before finally attaining the enlightenment that is the desire of every Buddhist. And this is the paradise that Murasaki believes could be hers, right?

Yes, and Genji, and they hope that they will meet and be able to renew their love there. So on her deathbed, Murasaki mourns that she would go alone into the unknown and the thought filled her with great sorrow. But she has consolation from the thought that in due cause Genji will be able to join her, and Genji tells her that one day we will share one lotus throne in the life to come. That is the hope that he cleaves to, even while he's shadowed by anxiety that of course he may not attain it. And so this sense of the yearning for things that have gone, a sense that things that go must go, a sense that everything is insubstantial, an awareness that time is a kind of treacherous dimension, all these things that kind of echo great modern European writers, Proust and

so on. I mean, they derive from the context of Murasaki, from the very specific cultural context in which he is born, lives and dies as you would expect. Right. Well, I mean, I can't recommend The Pillow Book too highly. I loved reading it. I think it's an extraordinary work of literature. And I think what's so joyous about it is not just that you can read it in and of itself as a, as a, as a, just a brilliantly entertaining book, but you could hardly find a better window into the world, this sort of incredibly alien and to us very strange world of, of early medieval Japan. So, I mean, you loved this, didn't you, Tom?

You would never, it's like Trafalgar. It's like something you just, you were sucked into this black hole. Yeah, I did. One of the additional reasons why I've so enjoyed doing the series is, as we said earlier, I cannot think of a greater contrast to the six-part epic that you are going to be leading directly after this, which is on Peter the Great. Yes. If you enjoy battles, the Great Northern War, the rise of Russia and the decline of the Swedish Empire, dwarfs being baked in pies, people having bellows inserted into

them, Peter the Great going on holiday to the Dutch Republic and to England in disguise. If you like the sound of all that, you can hear all six parts on Monday by signing up to the Rest is History club at therestishistory.com. And if you do that, Tom, you will be welcomed into an Imperial court of almost unparalleled beauty and sophistication. That's right, isn't it? Oh, so beautiful. So sophisticated.

Right. Well on that characteristically humble note, I will say arigato, Tom and sayonara. Say. Yeah. Well, on that characteristically humble note, I will say, arigato, Tom, and sayonara. Sayonara. Here's the clip we mentioned earlier. Hope you enjoy. But there's these absolutely incredible personal stories right in the heart of it. And I think this is what's so amazing about the second world war. Yes, it's a titanic event and it's the tectonic plates of history colliding and all those

sort of things. But in it, there's the most amazing things that happen to individuals. Yes. And I think it's important that we don't lose sight of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And I think it's important that we don't lose sight of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Elena Kargans story is absolutely incredible. So she's a 25 year old interpreter attached to third shock army. She's drafted as a music.

She wants to go to the front. She's drafted as a munitions worker, then trained as a nurse. And this reminds me of the women of SOEs. Someone spots that she can speak German. That's a really good point. And she's been interrogating prisoners, looking at captured documents, you know, it's finally work incredibly fulfilling. You're witnessing history, aren't you? You know, you're-

Well, you know what's going on. I mean, that's the other thing. No one knows what's going on. She crosses into Germany at a checkpoint with a large roughly constructed archway and sign that says this was the German border. There's fires and summer smalls, summer larger. No effort to put them out because there's no water. You can't. Basically, she says it was very difficult to find your way through the city. Map reading because the run out of Russian signs and the German ones are mostly disappeared along with the walls.

They push on. Streets become increasingly deserted as they close, they get to the government district. Case of bullets zipping and hissing by, more walls and buildings crashing around, they reach pots down the platz and then they kind of set themselves up in a basement of a house owned by a tailor and his family and begin the process of interrogating squealers in inverted commas. So these are captured prisoners. She says, you know, we were interested in just one thing. Where was Hitler?