MEETING EAST ASIA number 93/94 • volume 24, 2019 EDITED BY HELENA MOTOH POLIGRAFI A journal of the Society for Comparative Religion (Koper, Slovenija) ISSN 1318-8828, ISSN (online ed.) 2232-5174 Editor-in-Chief: Helena Motoh (ZRS Koper) Editorial Board: Lenart Škof (ZRS Koper), Igor Škamperle (Univ. of Ljubljana), Mojca Terčelj (Univ. of Primorska), Miha Pintarič (Univ. of Ljubljana), Rok Svetlič (ZRS Koper), Anja Zalta (Univ. of Ljubljana), Nadja Furlan Štante (ZRS Koper) Editorial Office: Science and Research Centre Koper, Institute for Philosophical Studies, Garibaldijeva 1, SI-6000 Koper, Slovenia Phone: +386 5 6637 700, Fax: + 386 5 6637 710, E-mail: [email protected] http://ojs.zrs-kp.si/index.php/poligrafi/index number 93/94, volume 24 (2019) MEETING EAST ASIA Edited by Helena Motoh International Editorial Board: D. Kleinberg-Levin (Northwestern University), R. A. Mall (Universität München), M. Ježić (Filozofski fakultet, Zagreb), M. Volf (Yale University), K. Wiredu (University of South Florida), D. Thomas (University of Birmingham), M. Kerševan (Filozofska fakulteta, Ljubljana), F. Leoncini (Università degli Studi di Venezia), T. Garfitt (Oxford University), M. Zink (Collège de France), A. Louth (Durham University), P. Imbert (University of Ottawa), Ö. Turan (Middle-East Technical University, Ankara), B. Mezzadri (Université d’Avignon), A. M. Bárabas (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Oaxaca), M. Uršič (Univ. of Ljubljana), K. von Stosch (Universität Paderborn), G. Andrejč (ZRS Koper), J. Robbins (Lebanon Valley College, Annville), N. Vahanian (Lebanon Valley College, Annville) Book-Reviews Editor: Tomaž Grušovnik E-mail: [email protected] Design: Peter Skalar Layout: Alenka Obid Technical editor: Alenka Obid Proofreading: Rick Harsch (en), Nina Novak Kerbler (sl) Picture on the cover: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mirror,_lobed_with_a_dragon_and_ clouds,_Tang_dynasty,_7th-th_century_AD_-_Freer_Gallery_of_Art_-_DSC05636.JPG Print: Grafika 3000 d.o.o. Circulation: 250 copies Publishing house – Orders – Copyright ©: Science and Research Centre Koper, Annales ZRS, Garibaldijeva 1, 6000 Koper, Slovenia For the publisher: Rado Pišot Phone: +386 5 663 77 00, Fax: +386 5 663 77 10, E-mail: [email protected] The journal Poligrafi is indexed in: Scopus, The Philosopher’s Index, Cobiss Double issue: € 20,00 Poligrafi is published with the support of the Slovenian Research Agency number 93/94 • volume 24, 2019 MEETING EAST ASIA Helena Motoh: Meeting East Asia: Foreword 1 Chikako Shigemori Bučar: Alma M. Karlin’s Visits to Temples and Shrines in Japan 3 Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik: Death in Beijing: Alma M. Karlin’s Description of Chinese Funerary Rituals and Mourning Practices 49 Byoung Yoong Kang: A Death in the Photo: Understanding the Korean Empire through Alma Karlin’s Black and White Photograph of the Funeral Procession in front of Daeanmun Gate 77 Klara Hrvatin: Alma Karlin’s Musical Miniatures: Japanese Musical Instruments from the Collection of Alma M. Karlin and their Relation to Religious Music 109 Helena Motoh: Confucius, a Yugoslav Nationalist – Representations of Confucianism in Pre-WWII Slovenia 137 Abstracts / Povzetki 157 About the authors / O avtoricah in avtorjih 165 MEETING EAST ASIA: FOREWORD The area of what is politically Slovenia today, has a long and com- plex history of meeting cultures and traditions from East Asia. At least since the time when the Jesuits established a mission in Beijing and a Carniolan Jesuit, Augustine Hallerstein, served as an official in the Qing imperial court we recognize continuous contact with East Asian cultures, religions and traditions. The religious practices Jesuits had to “accommodate” to be able to spread the Gospel among the Chinese and the classical books they translated into European languages brought the first systematic knowledge of Asian traditions of thought to Eu- rope. As for the Carniola of that time, however, Hallerstein’s letters home did not include much of those topics, focusing mostly on the issues of astronomy and the practical realities of the Jesuits’ lives in Beijing. The nineteenth century was marked by Sino-European con- flict, the two opium wars and the Sino-French war and a series of other politically turbulent events, while all through that time, the image of China in the eyes of European intellectuals was not of something to be admired, but rather of a decaying corrupt empire, unable to modernize itself. On the other hand, Japan after the Meiji restoration became a source of European fascination. Its prints, porcelain, lacquerware and aesthetics in general were admired by experts, artists and fashionable crowds alike. The interest in China was revived after the First World War, which roughly coincided with the end of the Qing imperial rule and the May Fourth movement for national sovereignty and the re- vival of Chinese culture. Due to many historical circumstances, Slove- nia received more information about East Asian cultures, religions and traditions of thought only after the First World War. Several adventur- ous and fascinating life histories helped: the fact that Ivan Skušek Jr., a China-imprisoned Austro-Hungarian naval officer had a passion for collecting antiques, the decision of a young woman from Celje, Alma Karlin, to travel the world on her own, and a spreading into Slovenia of the all-European trend in studying and opening to the inspiration of the religions of Asia – Vedic, Confucianism or Buddhism. The col- 1 POLIGRAFI lections Skušek and Karlin brought back home and the availability of other East Asian objects and antiques on the market matched well with the growing interest in East Asian traditions of thought to result in one of the most remarkable periods of intercultural and interreligious intel- lectual climates in Slovenian history. The current issue of Poligrafi focuses on this historical period and explores different aspects of the contact with East Asian religions at that time. The text by Chikako Shigemori Bučar focuses on the visits Alma Karlin made to the temples and shrines in Japan and the traces that remain of those visits in her work and her collection. Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik focuses on how Alma Karlin met with Chinese funerary rituals and mourning practices and how she interpreted them. In the third paper Byoung Yoong Kang provides a detailed reconstruction of the events behind an image in Alma Karlin’s collection that depicts a Korean funeral. In the fourth paper, Klara Hrvatin analyses Japanese musical instruments from the collection of Alma Karlin and their rela- tion to religious music. The last paper, by Helena Motoh, talks about the many ways in which Confucian tradition was understood and in- terpreted in pre-WWII Slovenia. Although Slovenia was by many standards at the periphery of great historical entities and changed its political affiliations several times in the past century, the analyses presented in this volume paint an in- teresting picture of a perhaps surprisingly open intellectual climate in the interwar period. Even beyond the intellectual circles of the time, religions of East Asia were met with, reflected and reinterpreted, while the heritage of this fruitful exchange – in the shape of debates, books, articles or collections – continues to the present day. Helena Motoh 2 ALMA M. KARLIN’S VISITS TO TEMPLES AND SHRINES IN JAPAN Chikako Shigemori Bučar Introduction Alma M. Karlin (1889-1950), born in Celje, went on a journey around the world between 1919 and 1928, and stayed in Japan for a lit- tle more than a year, from June 1922 to July 1923. There is a large col- lection of postcards from her journey archived in the Regional Museum of Celje. Among them are quite a number of postcards from Japan (528 pieces), and among these, about 100 of temples and shrines, including tombs of emperors and other historical persons - i.e., postcards related to religions and folk traditions of Japan. Karlin almost always wrote on the reverse of these postcards some lines of explanation about each picture in German. On the other hand, the Japanese part of her trav- elogue is very short, only about 40 pages of 700. (Einsame Weltreise / Im Banne der Südsee, both published in Germany in 1930). In order to understand Alma Karlin’s observation and interpretation of matters related to religions in Japan and beliefs of Japanese people, we depend on her memos on the postcards and her rather subjective impressions in her travelogue. This paper presents facts on the religious sights which Karlin is thought to have visited, and an analysis of Karlin’s understand- ing and interpretation of the Japanese religious life based on her memos on the postcards and the Japanese part of her travelogue. In the following section, Alma Karlin and her journey around the world are briefly presented, with a specific focus on the year of her stay in Japan, 1922-1923. https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2019.192 Poligrafi, no. 93/94, vol. 24, 2019, pp. 3-48 3 POLIGRAFI In the 3rd section of the paper, characteristics of religions in Japan and the religious life of the Japanese people at the beginning of the 20th century are summarised, particularly of the Taishō period (the reign of Emperor Taishō, 1912-1926). The 4th and the central section of this paper presents the Japanese postcards related to religions, particularly those of temples, shrines and tombs, found in Karlin’s collection in the Regional Museum in Celje. Map 1: Tokyo (a: Asakusa Kanzeon, b: Kanda Myōjin, c: Yushima Tenjin, d: Kameido Tenjin, e: Yoshiwara Jinja, f: Takanawa Sengakuji, g: Meiji Jingū, E: German Embassy, L: Leybolds GmbH, Tokyo Office, M: Meiji University, S: Karlin’s flat c/o Sugimoto). 4 ALMA M. KARLIN’S VISITS TO TEMPLES AND SHRINES IN JAPAN Map 2: Japanese Archipelago and places Alma Karlin supposedly visited. Wherever possible, Karlin’s memos on the reverse of these postcards and her mention of these religious sights in her travelogue are con- nected and analysed.