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Heft 2 3-09.Indd Transforming Popular Conscious- ness through the Sacralisation of the Western School: The Meiji Schoolhouse and Tennō Worship Shin’ichi Suzuki / Kazuhiko Yamaki RESÜMEE Im Zentrum der ideenpolitischen Bemühungen, die die japanischen Eliten der Meiji-Ära (1868– 1912) unternahmen, um das Land in modernem Gewand, doch auf traditionellen Grundlagen zur Nation zu formen, standen der Tennō-Kult und die allgemeine staatliche Pflichtschule. Zwi- schen der Verabschiedung der Verfassung des Kaiserlichen Japan im Jahr 1889 und dem Erlass des Kaiserlichen Erziehungs-Edikts im Jahr 1890 bestand insofern ein enger politisch-ideeller Zusammenhang. Der Artikel verfolgt die konflikthaften Auseinandersetzungen, die im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts zwischen den Verteidigern altjapanischer Bildungstradition und den Anhängern westlicher Aufklärung, zwischen konfuzianischen Intellektuellen und west- lich orientierten Demokraten, ausgetragen wurden. Er entwickelt vor diesem Hintergrund die weder selbstverständliche noch einlinige Genese der normativen Grundlagen des modernen Japan. Die Autoren beschreiben die wechselnden Inszenierungen, die in diesem Zusammen- hang dem Tennō zuteil wurden: von seiner anfänglichen Rolle als öffentlich sichtbarem Symbol der Einheit der Nation (auf landesweiten Rundreisen oder Militärparaden) über den völligen Rückzug hinter die Palastmauern (in Konsequenz seiner Sakralisierung durch den erstarkenden Staats-Shintō) hin zu seiner indirekten Rückkehr in den öffentlichen Raum (in Form eines hoch- stilisierten und kultisch verehrten Konterfeis). Und sie schildern – unter Einbezug auch autobio- graphischer Reminiszenzen – sowohl die aus buddhistischer Tradition übernommene sakrale Überhöhung der modernen Schule wie die zeremoniellen Präsentationsformen des kultisch verehrten Tennō-Bildes und die von ihm ausgehenden sozialintegrativen und loyalitätsstiften- den Wirkungen. Comparativ | Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung 19 (2009) Heft 2 / 3, S. 44–77. Transforming Popular Consciousness through the Sacralisation of the Western School | 45 1. Tracing the Visibility and Invisibility of the Meiji Emperor1 In the aftermath of Meiji ishin (1868) – the “revolution / restoration that combined social forces in such a way as to instill the contradictory impulse of both revolution and restora- tion”2 – the political leaders of the day felt an urgent need for the people to acknowledge the new system of Japanese governance. Before 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate was able to display the rulers to the masses by way of the system of sankin kōtai (literally “duty of alternate attendance”) which prevailed in the period from 1638 to 1867 and entailed frequent travel by the feudal lords (the daimyō) to and from Edo, the seat of the sho- gunate, and thus their appearance in public. People watched or heard about the feudal lords’ processions, and though they seldom observed the shogun directly it was easy for them to imagine a network of political and administrative authority, with the shogun at the top and represented by the local feudal lords witnessed at the processions. However, it should be noted that each time the people encountered a feudal lord in public, they were required to sit down on the soil and prostrate themselves. They were not permitted to look at the feudal lord but heard the sounds and voices and sensed the atmosphere of these processions. While political authority was not always strongly visible, the population was aware of the revolutionary strife over the legitimacy of power as well as the series of civil wars and confrontations with foreign powers before and after the revolution. When news of the restoration of imperial rule (taisei hōkan) reached the people, it was quickly understood that the new system would replace the Tokugawa family who had ruled Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Most people – in all social strata – were familiar with the shogun as a symbolic figure and with the concept of the shogunate. But the new ruler, the emperor (the tennō), was not well-known since during the shogunate period almost all the emperors had been kept in seclusion in the imperial palace at Kyoto (the gosho) which was off limits for commoners. The people therefore began to idiosyncratically imagine the emperor in the light of their own political experience. Printing developed during the Edo period and printed materials were widely circulated among the population, both urban dwellers (chōnin) and the peasantry. Of these printed materials, coloured woodblock prints – which originated in the eighteenth century – were the people’s preferred source of news and anecdotes. In the wake of the Meiji Revolution, the earliest depictions of the Meiji emperor (Meiji Tennō) appeared in woodblock prints in the very first years of the Meiji era, i.e. between 1868 and 1870, showing his first trip to Edo which had been renamed Tokyo – “eastern capital” – in late 1868. These prints carried a political message, telling the people of the transfer of the capital from Kyoto to 1 Japanese names in this article follow the Japanese practice of writing the surname first followed by the first name. 2 Such is the well-balanced characterisation provided by Harry D. Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity. History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan, Princeton 2000, p. 301. 46 | Suzuki Shin’ichi / Yamaki Kazuhiko Tokyo and that the emperor now resided in the East, in the former shogun’s castle at Edo which had now been renamed the “imperial palace”. Curiously enough, the woodblock print of the emperor published in 1868 was entitled Jimmu Tennō, in reference to the legendary first emperor of Japan who, according to Japanese myth, had founded the country in 660 B.C. Sasaki Suguru has analyzed fifty- one different woodblock prints depicting the emperor and found that all but one provide general views and scenes but show the emperor only indirectly.3 Forty-seven of these fifty-one woodblock prints show him in military uniform. In reality, the emperor was invisible to all but a few political leaders and soldiers who had led the revolution. Such a political situation was seriously risky for the Meiji regime since it needed to build a modern Japan which was sufficiently strong and independent to withstand the challenge of the western powers. Its task was to firmly establish a central system of government. Accordingly, in the first period of its seizure of power it reintroduced rather conventional administrative arrangements within the cabinet office, thus restoring the old system. But already in 1869 the Meiji government established the core of a centralised armed force; ordered all local governmental authorities (which still enjoyed a fairly strong degree of autonomy) to create a representative agency in the capital; set up a court of justice; and introduced new codes for public service and personnel management. In the fol- lowing year, the Meiji government created government ministries, thus replacing the old-fashioned arrangements which it had initially reintroduced. In 1871 a gold-standard currency system was introduced as the basis for a modern economy and the Minis- try of Education (monbushō) was created. In 1872 the government issued its “School Ordinance”, introducing a modern national education system consisting of three tiers – primary schools, secondary and vocational schools and various types of higher educa- tion institutions – which was patterned upon French, Dutch and American models. All Japanese children were encouraged to attend school. The lack of financial resources and the government pressure which local education authorities faced often led to unrest over compulsory schooling in the regions. And people not seldom resisted compulsory school attendance because it deprived them of their children’s labour capacity, so that the Meiji government experienced frequent disturbances. In response, in 1879 the School Ordi- nance was replaced by a revised Law of Education. Prior to completing its modernisation of central and local government, the Meiji govern- ment firmly intended to consolidate its power, politically as well as symbolically. One means to achieve this goal was to increase the emperor’s visibility to commoners and foreigners alike, thus bolstering domestic rule and achieving international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Meiji polity. The key individual who promoted the establish- ment of the emperor as a national symbol was Ōkubo Toshimichi (1830–1878), a cen- tral figure in the new Meiji government. Ōkubo endeavoured to bring the emperor out of his palace into the public sphere. In 1868, he proposed that the emperor should move 3 Sasaki Suguru, Tennō-zō no keisei katei [The Process of Constructing the Emperor’s Portrait], in: Asukai Masami- chi (ed.), Kokumin bunka no keisei [The Creation of a National Culture], Tokyo 1984, p. 188. Transforming Popular Consciousness through the Sacralisation of the Western School | 47 from Kyoto to Osaka and then to Tokyo. These proposals were put into practice. Ōkubo was quick to realise the importance of making the new ruler visible to the masses. He recognised the shortcomings inherent in the old closed-off palace system and understood the significance for the regime of making use of aesthetic and performative techniques of representation.4 Ōkubo and his colleagues had studied European political history and science. Moreover, they travelled abroad with the famous Iwakura Mission from 1871 to 1873 and had ample opportunity thus to learn
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