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- Convenor:
-
Joshua Fogel
(York University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Ian Rapley
(Cardiff University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- History
- Location:
- Lokaal 1.12
- Sessions:
- Saturday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Esperanto was originally devised as an apolitical, auxiliary, international language, but when it came to Japan it found a ready reception in many different political quarters: anarchist, socialist, imperialist. This panels explores several less well known arenas in which it was heralded by Japanese
Long Abstract:
Esperanto was devised by Dr. Ludwik Zamenhof as an international language aimed at overcoming the worldwide linguistic discord which, he believed, was ultimately a source of warfare. If people understood one another, literally, they would then have no cause, in his view, to resort to violence. In Japanese, this strand of Esperanto as an auxiliary language to accompany Japanese, but not to replace it, found fertile ground. Soon, however, various political groups took it up to support their various internationalist goals: anarchists to transcend national divides; socialists to build bridges to world revolution; liberals to find a place for Japanese in the world (which was not rushing to learn their native language), such as at the League of Nations; and later imperialists as a means of communication with lands they expected Japan to colonize. Our panel will examine a handful of their strands and the links they established within and without Japan, especially with neighboring China. Kamimura Kazumi will look at such figures as Ishiga Osamu who refused military service in the Imperial Army out of a sense of internationalism nurtured by his Esperantist spirit; Yauheniya Hudziyeva will address the role of Esperanto in Japan's colonial adventures in Manchuria and their sponsored regime of Manchukuo; and Joshua Fogel focuses on the role of Japanese such as the anarchist Ōsugi Sakae in teaching the Esperanto language and spreading the Esperantist spirit among Chinese students in Japan and then later in Mainland Asia.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 19 August, 2023, -Joshua Fogel (York University)
Paper short abstract:
Esperanto arrived in Japan and China in the first decade of the 20th century and followed very different pathways. This paper assesses the contacts made between Chinese and Japanese who heralded its arrival and the groups they represented politically in their home countries.
Paper long abstract:
Esperanto reached Chinese and Japanese communities at home and abroad in the earliest years of the twentieth century. While it reached a wide political panoply of groups in Japan, it was almost entirely adopted by Chinese leftists. Many Chinese had studied in Japan were nurtured there by Japanese leftists (anarchists and socialists) who taught them the rudiments of Esperanto—for example, Liu Shipei and Ōsugi Sakae in Tokyo. While few Chinese at that time learned the language beyond those elementary forms, Sino-Japanese collaboration continued on this front, and several Japanese anarchists would later travel to China and re-establish links with Chinese of a similar political proclivity—for example, Ōsugi again and Liu Sifu in Guangzhou. This paper will examine those Sino-Japanese linkages and their legacies in the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Kazumi Kamimura (Josai University)
Paper short abstract:
ISHIGA Osamu, known as an Esperantist who refused military service from a defeatist standpoint, joined “War Resisters International” through Esperanto. In this presentation, I will trace the trajectory of his intellectual struggle against fascism and communism.
Paper long abstract:
Since the end of the Meiji period, Esperanto in Japan was propagated by intellectuals from various positions, but it is no exaggeration to say that it was socialists who most closely followed the spirit of Zamenhof, the founder of Esperanto and experiencer of pogroms. In particular, the proletarian Esperanto movement that flourished in the 1930s advocated the prevention of Japan's colonial policies and imperialist wars and the fight against ethnic discrimination. However, not all Esperantists who spoke out against the war in Japan at that time were of a leftist persuasion.
ISHIGA Osamu, known as an Esperantist who refused military service from a defeatist standpoint, joined “War Resisters International” through Esperanto. While sympathizing with communism, he opposed the war and tried to maintain a pacifist stance.
In this presentation, I will trace the trajectory of ISHIGA's intellectual struggle against Communism to reveal the problems of the proletarian Esperanto movement in Japan, and I will also examine the effectiveness and limits of Esperanto in the face of the suppression of thought and speech in Japan as well as actual warfare. My presentation will examine the possibilities of the spirit of Esperanto in the new century of war and division.
Yauheniya Hudziyeva (Waseda University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will examine Esperantist activities in Manchurian territories under Japanese control, analyze the discourse that aimed to place Esperanto at the service of the imperial mission, and discuss implications of a “universal language” in a colonial situation.
Paper long abstract:
In Japan and worldwide, Esperanto has served as a powerful tool in imagining the overcoming of division among nations. Esperanto was introduced in Japan at the same time as the emergence of the Japanese empire, a period of vigorous construction and negotiation of national identity and national language (kokugo). This created tension for the mission of the “universal” language, and some kokugo advocates at the turn of the century met Esperanto with resistance. However, many spoke in favor of the world language as an auxiliary to realizing the international mission of empire: be it as a vessel for international pacifism (diplomat Nitobe Inazō) or explicit means to counter Anglo-American cultural hegemony (historian Kuroita Katsumi). As popularity of Esperanto grew in the first decades of the twentieth century, it occupied a similarly ambiguous position in the discourse on Japanese colonialism and its cultural policies. Due to the language’s strong ties to leftist internationalism, Taiwanese and Korean Esperantists were subject to strong police surveillance, and proletarian Esperantists both in the naichi and gaichi faced harsh persecution. At the same time, shortly after the foundation of the state of Manchukuo, a series of official appeals were made by Esperantists to the South Manchurian Railway Company to make Esperanto the language for multinational continental territories. There the Esperantist movement took a course unique from other colonies, developing under patronage of the territory’s administration, conscious of the presence of Russian settlers, and nested within the logic of the specific cultural project assigned to Manchuria within the Japanese empire. Esperanto’s universalist spirit was harmonized with then popular slogan of hakkō ichiu (eight corners of the world under the same roof), used to justifying expansion of imperial rule. This paper will examine Esperantist activities in Manchurian territories under Japanese control, analyze the discourse that aimed to place Esperanto at the service of the imperial mission, and discuss implications of a “universal language” in a colonial situation.