Stambuk | The Croatian ambassador to Japan is formally honoured by the Japanese government and recieves membership of its oldest order.

29 Mar DRAGO RECIEVES MEMBERSHIP of an ORDER

Posted at 20:05h in Announcements, Articles, News by stambukhr

TRANSLATED FROM AN ARTICLE FIRST RELEASED IN CROATIAN in 2019

Japan honours the former Croatian ambassador Drago Štambuk ^[1]See his profile on our site HERE

Japan has accorded him official recognition for contributing to the strengthening of bilateral relations and the exchange of culture and literature between the two countries.

The former Croatian ambassador to Japan and South Korea, who is now Croatia’s ambassador to Iran, has received from the Japanese government the Order of the Rising Sun with gold and silver stars. Misako Kaji presented it to him yesterday in Zagreb. Štambuk was ambassador to Japan from 2005 to 2010.

– In that period Japan discovered Croatia and the number of Japanese tourists visiting it increased from around several thousand a year to two hundred thousand. In the minds of the Japanese, Croatia has been transformed from a war-torn country to one that is beautiful – Štambuk said yesterday. In addition to being a diplomat, he is also a doctor and a writer. He read several of his poems at the ceremony yesterday and added that one of the greatest gifts in his life was when Empress Michiko read out his Croatian language poem Kukurijek (‘Christmas rose’, in English) at the ceremony of his departure from Japan. During his tenure there, Štambuk established the House of Japanese-Croatian Friendship in Tokamachi, and was one of the founders of the Vladimir Devide Award for Best English Haiku Poetry. The Order of the Rising Sun was the first decoration established by the modern Japanese state, in 1875, at the time of the famous Emperor Meiji.