上智大學で2009年に出題された9題中、4題めの問題文です。設問は、内容理解を確認する10問に各4つの選擇肢から正答を選ぶ形式で、すべて英語です。
全體を5つのパートに分けて、月曜日と金曜日に解説をして參ります。各パートは、本文の後に記します。
The jagged rocks off Oshima Island break the surface of the ocean like so many knives strewn across the shallow water. Even on a calm day, they are a menacing reminder of the maze of reefs that surround this island in the Pacific just off the coast of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, in central Honshu.
It was into these treacherous waters that the Ottoman frigate Ertugrul was blown one stormy night 118 years ago. Thrown against the reefs, the ship split apart and sank, taking with it more than 500 men and leaving just 69 survivors, says Kiyoshi Oishi, director of the Turkish Museum on Oshima.
Ironically, the tragic shipwreck helped cement a friendly relationship between Turkey and Japan that has continued to this day.
“Ertugrul is the Titanic of Turkey,” says Tufan Turanli, 56, the director of a project to excavate, or dig up, some of the most important relics of the wreck still remaining on the seabed.
“It has so much importance [because] it was on a voyage just for the sake of friendship.”
In 1887, Japan’s Prince and Princess Komatsu visited Istanbul and presented the Ottoman sultan with the Order of the Chrysanthemum, Japan’s highest award. Three years later, the Ottoman government dispatched the Ertugrul on a reciprocal mission to bestow the Ottoman Medal of High Honor on Emperor Meiji. The ship arrived in Yokohama in June 1890, and its commander, Admiral Osman Pasha, presented the medal and other gifts to the Imperial family. For the rest of the summer, the ship and its crew remained in Japan.
Then, on Sep. 15, 1890, the ship set sail for Turkey from Yokohama. On board the 79-meter frigate were more than 600 sailors and officers. Some records indicate that they were warned it was the typhoon season, but they decided to head home anyway.
In the event, that day started out clear, but soon the weather turned and the Ertugrul found itself caught in a typhoon. Over the next day, it was battered by fierce winds, waves and rain.
By nightfall on Sept. 16, the Ertugrul had suffered so much damage that the sailors were unable to control it, and it drifted at the mercy of the storm toward the rocky coast of Wakayama Prefecture. At around midnight, the ship smashed to pieces against the reef off Oshima Island and sank.
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Although the current excavation has brought renewed attention to the Ertugrul, it has never been forgotten on Oshima Island, where a memorial stands next to a cemetery for the drowned sailors. A ceremony every five years commemorates the accident.
“Everyone on the island knows the story,” says Oishi, director of the Turkish Museum. On the night of the accident, some of the sailors were by luck washed up onto the shore of the island, according to Oishi. It was there that local fisherman found them and cared for them.
“In those days, this island was a very inaccessible place,” he notes. Oshima was connected to the mainland by bridge for the first time just nine years ago.
The people here pooled their food and cared for the injured until they could be taken to Kobe. All 69 of the rescued sailors eventually recovered.
However, the rescue isn’t a point of pride among the islanders, Oishi says. “Fishing is dangerous work. Today you may save someone, but tomorrow it might be you who’s being saved.”
Nevertheless, the wreck, the rescue and the ensuing return of the survivors to Turkey on Japanese ships laid the ground for more than a century of friendly diplomatic and economic relations.
“Ertugrul played an important role in establishing a special emotional relationship between the people of Japan and Turkey,” says Bogac Ulker an adviser to the Turkish embassy in Japan. Official diplomatic relations between the two countries began in 1924, following World War I and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. [648語]
“History under the waves: Japan’s tragic “Titanic of Turkey” by Winifred Bird (The Japan Times Sunday, April 13, 2008)
【解説のパート分け】
パート１： The jagged rocksから
パート２： Ironically, the tragicから
パート３： Then, on Sep. 15, 1890から
パート４： Although the current excavationから
パート５： However, the rescueから
