Trends of the study of Japanese heraldry within western historiography

Europeans first got to know about Japanese heraldry in the late XVI century due to diplomatic contacts between Portugal, Spanish, Italian missionaries and Japanese feudal lords. However the first papers and materials summarizing information about Japanese heraldry were published in Europe in the late 19th century. Development of Western heraldic historiography can be divided into the two stages: from the end of XIX cent. until 80 years of XX cent. and from the 80 years of XX cent. until present days. At the first stage the trend of comparative study prevailed in the field of Japanese research of heraldry. Western historians applied terms, definitions and conceptions accepted in European heraldry to the Japanese coat-of-arms. This method was not successful as Japanese heraldry was found to include many aspects which were not presented as part of the European culture. At the second stage the comparative method of research has been widely used within heraldic science for a long time, but towards the end of the 20th century some European specialists argued that it had been unproductive to compare the systems, which initially never had the same origins or sources. Other researchers admitted, that it is possible to compare separate heraldic systems such as European and Japanese, similarly to how linguistics allow for comparison of languages from different language families. Currently, the European heraldic science shares two different approaches. On the one hand those who insists that it is absolutely necessary to study Japanese heraldry as original tradition use Japanese terms. On the other hand their opponents, insist on comparative style and deem usage of European terms internationally to be correct. The problem of efficiency within the methodological framework of the European historiography of the history of Japanese heraldry still attracts active discussions to date. Within context of the fact that other countries such as China and Korea currently show no traces of the existence of heraldry, the issue of admissibility of the comparative analysis of the two heraldic systems is highly relevant - and not only for Europe but for the world as a whole.