The discourse of national greatness in Japan, 1890–1919

Abstract

Between about 1890 and 1919, the dominant discourse in Japanese nationalism emphasised Japan's status as a great modern nation, in contrast to earlier concerns about weakness and vulnerability in the face of Western imperialism, and despite continuing insecurities of various kinds. This paper revisits the ‘discourse of national greatness’, focusing on its construction, limitations and consequences. Emphasis on Japanese greatness was evident in the press, in self-presentation at industrial expositions, and in substantial written works by Japanese intellectuals. Several factors explain the rapid spread of such a discourse, including the decline of class and regional identification, the considerable expansion of the press, and the stimulus of war. The consequences of the rise of the notion of Japanese greatness for the later development of Japanese nationalism were profound. They included the further subordination of regionalism, entrenchment of the gendered nature of Japanese nationalism, the further denigration of other Asian peoples and of Japan's own past, reinforcement of the yet fragile cult of the emperor, encouragement to conflate ‘nation’ and ‘state’, and a strong tendency to associate nationalism with military conquest.

Notes

¹I would like to thank Anne-Marie Medcalf, Stewart Lone and Beatrice Trefalt for their comments on drafts of this article.

²Miwa, Chihōshugi no kenkyū, 27–29.

³Pierson, Tokutomi Sohō, 113.

⁴Nakae, A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government, e.g. 94–95, 98–99, 102.

⁵Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 14.

⁶Quoted in Pierson, Tokutomi Sohō, 199.

⁷Lone, Army, Empire and Politics in Meiji Japan, 105; Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 29.

⁸Quoted in Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 29.

⁹Makihara, Kyakubun to kokumin no aida, 155.

¹⁰Weiner, ‘The invention of identity: race and nation in pre-war Japan’, 109.

¹¹Makihara, Kyakubun to kokumin no aida, 144.

¹²‘Idai naru kokumin’, Kokumin no tomo, 23 May 1891, quoted in Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 147.

¹³Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 157.

¹⁴Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 162, 168.

¹⁵Quoted in Pierson, Tokutomi Sohō, 235.

¹⁶See, for example, Kaneko, ‘The organization of a constitutional state’, 93.

¹⁷Ito, ‘The growth of Japan’, 68.

¹⁸See, for example, Kaneko, ‘The organization of a constitutional state’.

¹⁹See, for example, Kaneko, ‘The organization of a constitutional state’, 104.

²⁰Yoshimi, Hakurankai no seijigaku: manazashi no kindai, 127, 130. See also Bullard, ‘Celebrating Kyoto, 1895: preservation, display and identity in the 1,100th anniversary, the Heian Shrine and the Industrial Exposition’.

²¹Yoshimi, Hakurankai no seijigaku, 132–135.

²²Yoshimi, Hakurankai no seijigaku, 212–214. See also Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, 102.

²³‘The formal opening of the Osaka exhibition’, 359; ‘The emperor and empress at the exhibition’, 373.

²⁴Quoted in Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 161.

²⁵Okada, ‘ “Landscape” and the nation-state’, 95.

²⁶‘Idai naru kokumin’, Kokumin no tomo, 23 May 1891, quoted in Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 147.

²⁷‘Sekai ni okeru Nihon kokumin no ichi’, Kokumin no tomo, 13 September 1894, quoted in Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 173.

²⁸Tokutomi Sohō, July 1895, quoted in Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 181.

²⁹Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality, 99–100.

³⁰See Ōhama, Shomin no mita Nisshin, Nichiro sensō, 227–238.

³¹Miyachi, Nichiro sengo seijishi no kenkyū, 1–9. On conflict between the generations after 1905, see Oka, ‘Generational conflict after the Russo-Japanese War’, 197–225.

³²Quoted in Miyachi, Nichiro sengo seijishi no kenkyū, 5.

³³Quoted in Miyachi, Nichiro sengo seijishi no kenkyū, 19.

³⁴Ōhama, Shomin no mita Nisshin, Nichiro sensō, 238–243.

³⁵Pyle, ‘The technology of Japanese nationalism’, 61.

³⁶See Miyachi, Nichiro sengo seijishi no kenkyū, 1–9.

³⁷See, for example, Wigen, The Making of a Japanese Periphery, Chapter 6, 7; Lewis, Becoming Apart.

³⁸Makihara, Kyakubun to kokumin no aida, 160–162.

³⁹Huffman, ‘Commercialization and the changing world of the mid-Meiji press’, 579.

⁴⁰Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths, 159.

⁴¹Huffman, ‘Commercialization and the changing world of the mid-Meiji press’, 577.

⁴²Matsuda, ‘ “Kinji seiron kō” kō (1)’, 114.

⁴³Huffman, ‘Commercialization and the changing world of the mid-Meiji press’, 571–572.

⁴⁴Matsuda, ‘ “Kinji seiron kō” kō (1)’, 111–112.

⁴⁵Huffman, ‘Commercialization and the changing world of the mid-Meiji press’, 565.

⁴⁶Richter, ‘Entrepreneurship and culture’, 597–598.

⁴⁷Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 55.

⁴⁸Makihara, Kyakubun to kokumin no aida, 173–174. On the establishment of the practice of shouting ‘banzai’, see 162–167.

⁴⁹Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 59.

⁵⁰Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 59.

⁵¹Makihara, Kyakubun to kokumin no aida, 156.

⁵²For example, Iizuka, ‘Nisshin, Nichiro sensō to nōson shakai’, 143–144, 147; Stewart Lone, ‘Region and nation in wartime Japan, 1904–05’.

⁵³Lewis, Becoming Apart, 241–242.

⁵⁴Quoted in Pyle, ‘The technology of Japanese nationalism’, 61.

⁵⁵Miyachi, Nichiro sengo seijishi no kenkyū, 73.

⁵⁶Quoted in Ishida, Ichigo no jiten: jichi, 36.

⁵⁷Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 82.

⁵⁸Karlin, ‘The gender of nationalism: competing masculinities in Meiji Japan’, 70–71.

⁵⁹ Ōsaka asahi shinbun, June 1893, quoted ibid., 71.

⁶⁰Okakura, The Ideals of the East, with Special Reference to the Art of Japan, 195.

⁶¹Ito, ‘The growth of Japan’, 67–68.

⁶²Quoted in Pierson, Tokutomi Sohō, 229.

⁶³Makihara, Kyakubun to kokumin no aida, 140, 144; Jansen, ‘Japan and the world’, 286.

⁶⁴Tan'o and Kawada, Imeeji no naka no sensō, 13–14; Keene, ‘The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and its cultural effects in Japan’, 121–175.

⁶⁵Jansen, ‘What was Meiji?’, 9–10. On the relationship between the Sino-Japanese War and the role of the emperor, see Lone, Japan's First Modern War, 78–85.

⁶⁶Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 7–9.

⁶⁷‘The crowds at the naval review’, 362. See also Schencking, ‘The politics of pragmatism and pageantry’, 21–37.

⁶⁸See, for example, ‘The formal opening of the Osaka exhibition’, 359. For a description of the imperial procession on the last day of the 1877 exposition, see Whitney, Clara's Diary, 151–153.

⁶⁹See Matsumoto, ‘Society and the state in the thought of Kuga Katsunan’, 143–158; Doak, ‘Liberal nationalism in Imperial Japan’, 25–27.

⁷⁰Matsumoto, ‘Society and the state in the thought of Kuga Katsunan’.

⁷¹Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan, 183.

⁷²See, for example, Ippeisotsu [Kōtoku Shūsui], ‘Sensōronsha ni tsugu’, 298–300.

⁷³Natsume Sōseki implied this in a 1911 lecture: ‘Civilisation of modern-day Japan’, in Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro, 282.

⁷⁴On ‘victim consciousness’ after 1945, see Orr, The Victim as Hero.

⁷⁵See Brown, Nationalism in Japan, 168–169.