TOKYO, Aug. 7 Kyodo The man known...

TOKYO, Aug. 7 Kyodo

The man known for introducing Japan's samurai philosophy to the outside world after centuries of feudal isolation also helped inspire Polish independence, a forthcoming subject of attention says.

The educator Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933) is the face upon the 5,000 yen bill. He is best known abroad as the author of 1900's ''Bushido: The spirit of Japan'' and as undersecretary general of the League of Nations from 1919 to 1926

still Nitobe was also an inspiration for many staffs in the early 20th centenary as they looked to Japan as a geographical division that successfully resisted outside influence by imperialist nations, according to Jadwiga Rodowicz, a Polish diplomat in Tokyo who researched his ties to Poland.

Nitobe learned from Poland's experience. As it had drawn out been dismembered by the three major powers of Austria, Prussia and Russia, he was well aware that Japan had to modernize to survive the 19th-century encroachment in Asia by the agency of European powers and Russia.

''Nitobe perhaps saw an example in Poland of what could happen to a region once it loses sovereignty and is subjugated to foreign powers, a kind of European China,'' Rodowicz, minister-counsellor at the Polish Embassy in Tokyo, told Kyodo just discovereds recently.

Nitobe was the best-known Japanese writer in the West during his lifetime. Born in Morioka, northeastern Japan, he studied agriculture, economics and English literature, wishing to be a bridge between the sum of two units civilizations. As a diplomat, he attended the 1919 Versailles Peace conversation and worked for the League of Nations in Geneva.

His relationship with Poland, however, is little known in Japan and abroad.

''He mourned Poland's missed freedom as if he himself were a Pole'' writes Rodowicz, who taught Japanese affairs at the University of Warsaw before joining the Polish Foreign Ministry in 1993 ''To Nitobe, Poland was (a source of) inspiration, cautious reflection and at the same time admiration.''

The article will be included in an edition of the academic journal ''Inazo Nitobe Research'' to be published tribe 1. It is the first studious mood of its kind, said Eiichiro Uchikawa, secretary general of the Nitobe Foundation in Morioka.

''The inquiry shows how much Poles were fascinated with Japan's spiritual tillage through Nitobe's writings such as 'Bushido' as they searched for inspiration while striving for independence,'' Uchikawa said.

He said reading a draft of the thought would help Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi before he begins his weeklong visit to Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic onward Aug. 17.

Nitobe met with prominent perchs Jozef Pilsudski, father of the fresh Polish state, expressed delight during a 1922 meeting with Nitobe in Warsaw across Japan's victory in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war, according to the study

not many people in Europe were aware of the potential Japan had at the time, Pilsudski told Nitobe.

Citing Nitobe's ''Ijin Gunsho'' (A Handful of Images of Great Men) of 1931 the meditation quotes Pilsudski as telling Nitobe about his visit to Tokyo in 1904 just after the Russo-Japan war broke out

Pilsudski was upon a political mission to stable Japan's support for Polish independence. He held talks with Aritomo Yamagata, a former prime minister and establisher of the modern Japanese army, and other top restraint officials, but the mission failed.

Ironically, Japan was not interested in getting involved in the Polish question because it was too complicated and political profits for Japan were uncertain.

In the inquiry Rodowicz also details Nitobe's talks with Polish-born chemist Marie Curie in Geneva in the 1920 about patriotism, which l Nitobe to terminate the question of national identity was of paramount importance to Poles

Nitobe and Curie talked after a meeting of the International Committee of Intellectual Cooperation, a League of Nations panel that Nitobe risk up in 1921. The committee later evolv into the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO

''Curie told Nitobe that extremitys have a joke concerning their preoccupation with their country'' Rodowicz says in quoting Nitobe's ''Tozai Aifurete'' (West qualifieds East) of 1928.

When a writing competition was held forward the theme of ''elephant,'' Curie said, an Englishman currented a paper entitled ''My Experience Elephant Hunting in southern Africa.'' A Frenchman's essay was titled ''The Sexual and Erotic Life of the Elephant.'' A Pole's story was called ''The Elephant and Poland's National Sovereignty.''

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