Shogi in the Edo-Period (1600–1867): Glimpses of Real Life from the Ohashi Diaries

Shogi, the Japanese cousin of Western chess, was recognized as a government sponsored art during the Edo Period. One of the houses entrusted with the pursuit of Shogi was the House of Ohashi. Successive headmasters of the house kept dairies of their activities from about 1660 thereby giving unprecedented insights into their daily life and the development and organization of shogi at the time. The talk will put the Ohashi dairies into the context of other sources, summarize their content and present selected events.