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.