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Paper short abstract:

The Khvostov Incident led to strict censorship on illustrations depicting violence, so the publishers started depicting the scenes of struggle through the lens of Kabuki actors. This presentation analyses how Santo Kyōzan used this method in 1810.

Paper long abstract:

The Khvostov Incident, in which Russian ships attacked Japanese bases in Sakhalin and Iturup in 1806 and 1807 had a shocking impact on early modern Japanese society, and the Tokugawa government, fearing internal unrest, forbade details of the incident to be published in any form.

After this major incident, a special censorship department was created for entertainment reading materials in Edo. Before then, it was possible to depict Russians, for example, in Nansenshō Somahito's ‘Vendetta of the Felicitous Ship Touring the Islands’ (敵討嶋廻幸助舟 Katakiuchi shimameguri Kōsukebune), but it was no longer possible to do so. In addition, the Tokugawa Shogunate considered the violent content and brutal illustrations that were popular at the time to be problematic, and publishers, authors, and illustrators were forced to refrain from doing so from 1808 onward.

As a result, the publishers turned from depicting bloody scenes realistically, and instead used portraits of Kabuki actors, depicting them in old-style mie poses to accentuate that the illustrations are depicting the Kabuki stage and not reality. This presentation will examine the actual situation in the middle of the Bunka era, a period of confusion due to censorship and self-restraint, by focusing on a handwritten draft of the Santō Kyōzan's gōkan book ‘The Color Picture alanquin Returning Home’ (戻駕籠故郷錦絵 Modorikago kokyō no nishiki-e).

The book, which makes extensive use of portraits of actors, uses as its narrative framework the Kabuki play ‘The Golden Gate and the Paulownia Crest’ (楼門五三桐 Sanmon Gosan no Kiri), featuring warlord Hideyoshi Toyotomi, which was performed at two theaters in Edo in March 1810. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a difficult subject to handle, as evidenced by the fact that a picture book about him that had been popular in 1804 was out of print while the Tokugawa shogunate was shaken by foreign threats. This presentation will based on the analysis of this book consider what matters were required for censorship and self-restraint on the Kabuki stage and in the printed media.