NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE AND PROSPECTS FOR COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE AND THE USSR

Abstract . The article is devoted to the study of revisionist English-language historiography of the Japanese Empire, within the framework of which its one-dimensional interpretation as a militaristic colonial regime implementing a nationalistic expansionist policy is revised. At the same time, little-known facts of the history of the Japanese Empire revealed allow us to discover a certain similarity between the strategies of Japanese and Soviet policies on the geopolitical stage of the first quarter of the twentieth century. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that it draws attention to the prospects of a comparative study of the Japanese Empire inspired by the ideas of pan-Asianism and the socialist USSR as initiators of the creation of alternative projects of modernity opposing Western imperialism. The objective of the study is to study the features that fundamentally distinguish the Japanese Empire and the USSR from modern Western empires. Both countries positioned themselves as active agents of the anti-imperialist struggle, advocated racial equality, supported anti-colonial movements in Asia; sought to implement social development projects based on the equality of peoples and their peaceful coexistence. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the regularity of a comparative study of the foreign and domestic policies of the Japanese Empire and the USSR, based on the materials of modern English-language historiography. The article is based on the methodology of cultural studies, which, being an umbrella discipline, appeals to the concepts of a civilizational approach, new imperial history, global and transnational histories, and the history of memory. The results of the article focus on the prospects for a comparative study of the trajectories of the development of the Japanese Empire and the USSR, alternative to the Western world order, which previously seemed parallel and did not imply any points of intersection. Keywords: Japanese Empire, alternative projects of modernity, history of memory, history of empires, comparative studies of the Japanese Empire and the USSR, pan-Asianism, revisionist English-language historiography of the Japanese