Origins of Furyu

© Oleg Torbin, 2023

ISBN 978-5-0059-6113-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Code FURYU

The cultural code “FURYU” spells by two characters – “wind” and “flow” and can be literally translated as “folk trends brought by a wind”. The code has been set in the very first poetry edition “Manyoshu” of late 8^th century where it is called MIYABI: “castle beauty”, or, in the modern Japanese language – “elegance”, “finesse”. Tracing evolution of FURYU through 12 centuries from 8^th up to 21^st century, it can be stated that it is not only the code, but also a nerve, which especially strains during the periods of isolation, social unease, changing of formations. On the first place FURYU applies to cultural sphere – theater (dances, songs), literature, art, architecture, clothes style etc. As a rule FURYU used to be generated by the people and sometimes those at the power tried to ban it by laws and regulations but generally both Emperor and the Shoguns had been overall neutral towards FURYU. In different times and epochs the term could be written and pronounced in miscellaneous variations – BASARA (8 – 14 centuries), UTSUKE and/or KABUKI (15 – 16 centuries), FURYU closer to the modern times. However, historians always use the word FURYU to accompany those different terms when they speak about the phenomenon.