Session Abstract

The modern Japanese state was proclaimed in 1868 with the “restoration” of the ancient imperial system and the defeat of the warrior rule under the Tokugawa family that had lasted for more than 250 years. The new government sought to adopt Shinto as its state religion to consolidate the loyalties of the subjects under the divine emperor, as stipulated in its Prussian-modeled constitution. State authorities even ordered the “separation of kami and buddhas” to purify Shinto, “Japan’s religion” from “degenerate” Buddhism, thereby strengthening the theocratic nature of the state. In the area of scholarship, Tokyo Imperial University hired Ludwig Reiss (1861-1928) from Berlin University in 1887 to adopt German historical science. The government endeavored through this appointment to train historians who would conduct “scientific and objective” research to demonstrate the historicity of the imperial myths that laid the basis for the modern imperial system. Historians educated in this context came to perceive their roles not only as dispassionate collectors of sources and documents to establish new “historical facts,” but also as interpreters of those “facts” to support state Shinto and the moral education of the subjects.

With historical “facts,” ethical/moral correctness, and religious truth in mind, professors of National History at Tokyo Imperial University contributed to the “clarification” of the “sacredness” of the imperial house, the imperial nation, National History, and National Polity. Kuroita Katsumi (1874-1946) conducted “scientific” research to demonstrate the historicity of the imperial myths. His colleague, Tsuji Zennosuke (1877-1955), played a similar role but focused on the history of Buddhism in the context of National History to secure the inviolability of the National Polity. Hiraizumi Kiyoshi (1895-1984), once a student of both Kuroita and Tsuji, enhanced the religiosity of National History by attempting to de-secularize the study of history, promoting “spirit” at State Shinto shrines, commemorations and “historic” sites, and inviting individuals to live inside History.

By the 1910s, “scientific” historical studies challenging the imperial myths multiplied, and political ideologies qualifying imperial sovereignty gained momentum. Especially from this decade on, the scholarship and activities of the three leading historians—Kuroita, Tsuji, and Hiraizumi—became increasingly pertinent for supporters of emperor-centered statism. The panel illuminates how the field of history intersected with the sacred in attempts to align society’s nationalistic sentiments with imperial statism in prewar and wartime Japan.