‘Nationalism’ and the Entanglement of History: Focusing on Takamure Itsue
This study is an essay intended to consider a few issues relating to women’s history by examining Takamure Itsue (1894-1964). Therefore, it aims to reflect on the fundamental ...
‘Nationalism’ and the Entanglement of History: Focusing on Takamure Itsue
This study is an essay intended to consider a few issues relating to women’s history by examining Takamure Itsue (1894-1964). Therefore, it aims to reflect on the fundamental topics of history, such as the implications for history of Takamure’s actions as a feminist and female historian, rather than historically studying Takamure as an individual.
Takamure Itsue was born in Kumamoto Prefecture on January 18, 1894. Her father was a primary school principal and he taught Chinese classics to his daughter in a countryside blessed by nature. Takamure’s preference for classics and history originates from her father’s Chinese education and her mother’s influence from childhood, which later formed the foundation for her historical research. This study focuses in particular on the 1930s and 1940s, during which period she devoted herself to studying women’s history by immersing herself in it from 1931 onwards. This period coincides with the time when Japan became increasingly involved in the Sino-Japanese War, which makes her indispensable when studying the situations and ideologies of the time.
Starting out as an anarchist, Takamure published a number of fanatical texts around 1931 that praised the war, justifying the ‘Pacific War’ as a ‘holy war’ under the logic of ‘
marriage harmony(婚姻和協).’ Before then, she had been a defender of the urban lower classes and farm villagers who had fallen into financial difficulties due to the influences of urbanization and industrialization. She advocated for ‘
anti-home’ and ‘anti-citizen’ as a critic of modernization more intense than any other. What this study aims to focus on is to examine why she, who had been so cool-headed and had such a critical mind regarding modernity (as shown by ‘anti-home’ and ‘anti-citizen’), could not keep her distance from the modern state and people that had recently come into power. Furthermore, what are the historical and social implications for the course of ‘history’ when an anti-modernist and anarchist converts to being
a
supporter? These are the two questions this study aims to answer.
Takamurefound an alternative form of ‘anti-modernism’ (represented by ‘anti-home’ and ‘anti-citizen’) in the ancient kingdom of Japan, stating that the integration of the ancient Japanese kingdom was achieved, not by armed conquest, but by marriage harmony or genealogical ties, which was possible thanks to the existence of the maternal clan since ancient times. Moreover, she declared, “there is no question but that foreign civilizations are inferior to the Japanese civilization that is built on the conscious foundation of the harmony of clans.” As such, her
‘inspiration’ for ‘anti-modernism’ was in the ‘Japanese state’ and ‘people’.
Furthermore, Takamurea’s assessment that she “thought the true meaning of history is ‘history that gives courage for women to live’ and not history that conveys what happened as it is” shows what she considered the meaning of history to be at a time that was seen as a critical period for Japan.
However, there are criticisms of the fact that Takamure’s studies involved ‘creating theories.’ This, perhaps, shows an example of how history is “not something that conveys what happened as it is” but “something that poses ‘current’ problems about ‘the past,’” as merely one of the possible narrations of the past, limited by the ideology of the historian as well as by the methodologies based on that ideology.
Re-enactment of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery during the Sino-Japanese War by Ding Ling (丁玲) and the Meaning of Victims’ Testimonies and 1956 War criems trials
This study looks into the sexual slavery of Chinese women by the Japanese military during the Sino-Japanese War through oral materials, including 張雙兵’s 『“慰安婦” 調査實錄』 (南京 : 江蘇人民出版社, 2014). In addition, it discusses how a Chinese feminist of the time, Ding Ling (丁玲, 1904-1986), problematized the sexual enslavement issue with her works, including 「New Belief (新的信念)」, 「Reunion (重逢)」, and 「When I was in Sunset Town (我在霞村的時候)」. She wrote about the stories of those who had seen or heard of the Japanese military’s sexual slavery at a base of the Communist Party, Yan'an (延安) in Shanxi Sheng (陝西省), travelling to each region in North China.
Focusing on the duplicity of victims in the oral materials, I reflect on the life of Zhen Zhen (貞貞), the hero of 「When I was in Sunset Town (我在霞村的時候)」, to whom Ding Ling gave life Yan'an (延安) in 1941, and the criticism that Ding Ling and her works later received.
She problematized the sexual enslavement by Japanese soldiers at a base of the Communist Party, Yan'an, during the war in various ways. A certain way of problematizing was recommended, while creating issues from the viewpoint of Zhen Zhen was plainly oppressed.
Moreover, the People's Republic of China, dominated by the Chinese Communist Party, developed a national perception of history through memory and forgetting. History that should have been forgotten to commemorate the victory of the Communist Party, including the victory of the anti-Japan war and civil wars was magnified a half century after the end of the war. Selection and power acted on the issue of Japanese military sexual slavery has taken on a new aspect by the victims’ testimonies and those who record the evidence.