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- Convenors:
-
Dick Stegewerns
(University of Oslo)
Koichiro Matsuda (Rikkyo University)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- History
- Location:
- Lokaal 1.11
- Sessions:
- Friday 18 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Meiji period print media
Long Abstract:
Meiji period print media
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 18 August, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
The late Meiji period saw the rise of Tōzai Bunmeiron, a comparative discourse on Eastern and Western civilization, propagating the harmony or eventual amalgamation of the two civilizations. Japan was regarded as the/a leading actor in this lofty process. After a resurge during World War One this discourse evaporated, but this paper argues that it was part and parcel of Japan’s Modern Mindset that continues up until this very day.
Paper long abstract:
The early Meiji period is often characterized by the government slogan of bunmei kaika. The bunmei in this slogan is intended as singular and universal, although everyone agreed that the content was overly West European. However, at the end of the 19th century a slightly more diverse way of thinking arose in the West. Partly riding on the wave of Orientalism and its final stage of Japonisme, new interest in ‘the East/the Orient’ accumulated, as a heterogeneous entity that was not mainly backward but rather mysterious, profound and spiritual. This new Western current was immediately introduced to Japan, and made for the first usages of Tōzai Bunmei (ron). At first the dichotomy came down to a very rough generalization of the West as materialist and individualist, and the East as spiritualist and statist/collectivist.
After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 this discourse developed exponentially. Increased self-confidence, pride, ambitions and dreams resulted into an indigenous Japan-centered elaboration of the imported discourse on Eastern and Western civilization, with a more detailed content that catered to specific Japanese problems and ambitions, and provided Japan with a related role and national mission. The two most well-known exponents of this discourse are Ōkuma Shigenobu’s Tōzai Bunmei no Chōwa (1907) and Ukita Kazutami’s Tōzai Bunmei Yūgōron (1909).
In the power vacuum in East Asia during World War One this Japanese discourse experienced its zenith, to die out immediately after the war’s end. Nevertheless, it is not hard to find statements by wartime, postwar and present-day politicians or opinion leaders that are identical to the Tōzai Bunmeiron discourse. Accordingly, this paper positions this discourse within the more long-term intellectual framework of Japan’s Modern Mindset, in which similarly a distinction is made between an Eastern and Western civilization, and Japan is put in between, looking up to the ‘best of the West’ and looking down upon ‘the Asian rest’. On the basis of its supposedly unique position as ‘the most successful disciple of the West in the East’ Japan has continually bestowed upon itself a superior particularist mission, as the only country that can function as the bridge between East and West.
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents some of the lesser-known media published around the time prior and after the death Saigō Takamori (1828-1877), and looks at the mechanics of how he became remembered as an exalted heroic figure that represented the most laudable of ‘Japanese’ values.
Paper long abstract:
In the year 1877, Saigō Takamori (1828-1877) was, without doubt, one of the most prominent men in Japanese media. As the (nominal?) leader of the rebels who fought against the Meiji government in the Seinan War, his name was mentioned in newspapers and other print media with exceeding frequency. The Tōkyō nichi nichi shinbun and the Yūbin hōchi shinbun established special columns with news delivered by the first war correspondents, and other newspapers also reported daily on the latest developments of the war. The newspaper articles were followed by hundreds of different nishiki-e that illustrated the most dramatic – and therefore monetizable – reports. These nishiki-e would often illustrate Saigō and/or his generals engaged in heroic fights, while still referring to them as chōteki, “enemies of the court.”
Barely any image seems to exist of Saigō prior to the Seinan War, but his image after had become clearly defined: an imposing man with a large beard, generally dressed in full court uniform. Though he officially died a traitor to his country, he was received as a hero by most people. He was adopted as such by the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement in 1880 in an eleven-volume biography titled Tsūzoku Saigō Takamori den, which stated in its foreword that “Saigō Takamori was an insurgent, and [also] a hero.” In 1894, after his official pardon, the government also contributed to this image in a more government-friendly manner when they had his five-volume biography titled Saigō Takamori den published.
The newspaper reports on the Seinan War and these later biographies are only part of the larger Saigō narrative, however. Already before 1880, biographies of Saigō Takamori were being published, and stories circulated that he had not actually died in Kagoshima in 1877. This paper presents some of the lesser-known media published around the time prior and after Saigō’s death, and looks at the mechanics of how he became remembered as an exalted heroic figure that represented the most laudable of ‘Japanese’ values.
Paper short abstract:
The Meiji period saw Japan increasingly conflict with China over the Korean Peninsula leading to the Sino-Japanese War. Building on existing scholarship this paper traces the treatment of both Chinese and Korean themes in youth-oriented publications such as Shōnen Zasshi, and Shō Kokumin.
Paper long abstract:
Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, relations with Japan’s most proximate neighbours, China and Korea, deteriorated increasingly over time. Initially Japan presented itself to the Qing and Korean courts as an Empire in its own right, which was rejected as it flew in the face of the orthodox view of the political hierarchy of East Asia. Relations with China became increasingly fractious as Japan engaged in military adventurism with the Taiwan Expedition of 1874, formalised annexation of the Ryukyu’s in 1879 and then conflicted with China over securing influence on the Korean Peninsula. Despite a relative calm that emerged in the wake of Japan’s involvement in the unsuccessful Kapsin coup d’état in 1884, when the Japanese became embroiled following the Donghak Rebellion in June of 1894 it led to full out conflict in the Sino-Japanese War.
As Donald Keene outlined in the preamble of his influential essay “The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and its Cultural Effects in Japan”, the Japanese continued right up to the outbreak of the war to maintain profound respect for Chinese classical culture - what changed was the perception of the Chinese as custodians of that tradition. As he covers at considerable length, there was a stark transition in the manner that the Chinese were depicted, whether it be in jingoistic newspaper reports, popular dramatic performances or nishikie depictions during the course of the war.
Although Keene was very thorough in his coverage of how the aforementioned media characterised the Chinese during the war, there remains space to engage with a genre of magazine publication that as yet has had limited academic attention. In both the lead up to the war and during the conflict itself, magazines aimed at youth were a significant vehicle for codifying the new conception of the East Asian order shaping the perceptions for future generations. With a particular focus on Shōnen Zasshi, Eisai Shinshi, Shōnen Sekai and Shō Kokumin, this paper traces the treatment of both Chinese and Korean themes over that period, with a particular emphasis on how Korea comes to be re-styled as the object of Japan’s ‘civilizing’ mission.