![The first twenty(ish) years 1868 – 1890
“Maple Leaves at New Palace,” artist unknown, December 1888
[2000.548] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
*or was it a revolution?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/earlymeijippt-140303191226-phpapp02/85/Japan-The-Meiji-Restoration-overview-1-320.jpg)
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Japan: The Meiji Restoration overview
- 1. The first twenty(ish) years 1868 – 1890 “Maple Leaves at New Palace,” artist unknown, December 1888 [2000.548] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston *or was it a revolution?
- 2. The British Empire in 1900
- 3. By this oath we set up as our aim the establishment of the national weal on a broad basis and the framing of a constitution and laws. 1. Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters decided by public discussion. 2. All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out the administration of affairs of state. 3. The common people, no less than the civil and military officials, shall each be allowed to pursue his own calling so that there may be no discontent. 4. Evil customs of the past shall be broken off and everything based upon the just laws of Nature. 5. Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule. Source: From Sources of Japanese Tradition, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Ryusaku Tsunoda, and Donald Keene, 1st ed., vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 137.
- 4. Samurai of the Aizu clan during the Boshin war. www.yamaji.ca
- 5. Historical controversies of the Meiji Restoration: Objectives of the Meiji leaders The degree of success or failure The nature and degree of changes initiated by the Meiji government "Shimbashi Station” by Hiroshige III, 1874, [Y0185] Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Smithsonian Institution
- 6. The Meiji leaders were a united group of enlightened, far sighted statesmen who accomplished their goals with speed and at little cost or conflict. The shishi fought to awaken the sleepy bakufu to the threat from Perry and the foreigners. Two images of Okuba Toshimichi, as a young samurai and Meiji Statesman (wikimedia commons)
- 7. Marius Jansen (1989): This idea promulgated by Japanese education system after 1872. The ‘romance and colour’ of the Restoration figures ensure their place in history. Daisuke Furuya (2008): A Confucian Legacy, appropriated by the Meiji government to legitimise changes.
- 8. It was socio-economic factors that overthrew the shogun and motivated the Meiji Reforms. The Meiji leaders were the old samurai elite and landlords. The Meiji Restoration basically a bourgeois movement that ended feudalism.
- 9. Tokutomi Soho quoted in Marius Jansen (1989): Modernisation can be explained in terms of material advances, and it is trends in history, not the Meiji leaders, that had created the new Japan. Note: Tokutomi not a Marxist, but a liberal populist whose politics moved to the right after 1895
- 10. The ‘New Left’, post Vietnam War era, criticized the modernisation theory of the Marxists and focused in on the costs of industrialisation. Bamboo Basket Factory (1904) www.oldphotosjapan.com
- 11. E. Herbert Norman (1965): the transition that took place in military was a means to defend Japan from western powers and to emulate them in hopes of catching up with the west militarily. Andrew Gordon (2003): revived the old arguments about the influence of western powers but also adds that in his opinion the effect that the outside world had on Japan was greater than any of the effects on the inside that led to change.
- 12. Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan (Kaikoku Gojunen Shi), 2d Ed., (London: Smith, Elder, 1910), passim. Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text. • Read and sequence the extract from Okuma. • To which school of thought does Okuma belong?
- 13. prints labelled A to K (no ‘J’) Examine each of the woodblock prints. Select one image for the front cover for: Woodblock a) An orthodox history book on the Meiji Period b) A Marxist history book on the Meiji Period c) A Revisionist history book on the Meiji Period Be prepared to justify your choice.
- 14. A collective oligarchy 24 decision makers Neo-Confucian Many from Western Japan Many had military experience Many had contact with the west Four Opinion Shapers: Okubo Toshimichi Kido Takayoshi (aka Kido Koin) Saigo Takamori Iwakura Tomomi Activity: Research an individual and feedback to class
- 15. If the restoration is viewed in the period 1867 to 1868, then it was ‘little more than a coup’ that shifted rule from one section of the ruling class to another. But when considered as a larger process between 1868 and 1900, then it can be seen to have brought revolutionary changes to Japanese society.
- 16. “Album of Ten Prints Illustrating Sericulture: Unwinding Strands from Cocoons by Means of a Silk Reeling Machine” by Toyohara Chikanobu, 1880 [2000.096.09] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- 17. Cameron on the Meiji Constitution • P42 to 55 (pdf) or 130 to 143 (book page numbers) Noble essay from Concord Review
Editor's Notes
- Reinventing the EmperorWhat do you notice about the picture?Although the imperial court in Japan dated back to around the fifth century, the hereditary emperor actually exercised little if any political power after the rise of a warrior class in the 12th century. When the feudal government was overthrown in 1868, power was ostensibly "restored" to the emperor, who became a potent nationalist symbol in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, he was said to exemplify a "sacred and inviolable" tradition dating back to earliest times. On the other hand, the emperor and his family were presented as symbols of the nation's progressive "Westernization" and modernization. In the late 1880s, woodblock artists churned out many prints celebrating the imperial family, always imagining them in Western attire. The emperor and empress depicted in Western dress, with court ladies in traditional kimono in attendance.
- Westernization by John DowerWhat does it mean to speak of people, cultures, or nations responding to “the challenge of the Western world”? What does “Westernization” involve in concrete practice?Beginning in the mid-19th century, no non-white, non-Christian, non-Western nation met this challenge more dynamically and dramatically than Japan. Long before its recent accomplishments in automobiles and electronics and pop-culture phenomena like manga and anime, and long before its disastrous plunge into militarism and war in the 1930s and 1940s, Japan was widely recognized as the great nation-building “success story” of the non-Western world. In the 19th and early-20th centuries, Japan alone among the major countries of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East succeeded in escaping colonial or neo-colonial domination by the United States and expansionist nations of Europe. (except Ethiopia till 1936, Thailand) Japan alone adopted an agenda of industrialization and “Westernization” that enabled it to emerge as a global power in its own right. Indeed, when the victorious nations of World War One met at Versailles in 1919 to dictate peace terms and form the League of Nations, Japan participated as one of the “Big Five” powers, alongside the United States, England, France, and Italy.This was an extraordinary accomplishment, particularly when one considers how backward the country had appeared to be only a few generations earlier. For seven centuries, from the late-12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by a warrior elite. For over two centuries, beginning in the 1630s, the feudal government based in Edo (present-day Tokyo) had enforced a strict “closed country” (sakoku) policy that prohibited Japanese from leaving and foreigners from entering.While Europe and the United States experienced scientific and industrial as well as political revolutions, and adopted expansionist policies, Japan turned inward—embracing seclusion and, at least at official levels, venerating tradition. Cities grew, commerce flourished, and literacy became widespread during this long period of isolation. Peace and relative prosperity spawned the vibrant popular culture we can still visualize vividly today through traditional woodblock prints (which first appeared in the 17th century). Still, in the mid-1800s Japan was a small, introverted, resource-poor, and fundamentally agrarian society. Even within the context of Asia alone, it seemed dwarfed in China’s shadow in every way—historically, culturally, physically, and on any imaginable scale of human and natural resources.This was the country Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States encountered when his warships made two visits in 1853 and 1854 to force the feudal government to abandon the “closed country” policy.This was a daunting challenge to Japan’s leaders, who were aware of Western imperialism and “gunboat diplomacy” elsewhere—including in China next door. In the notorious “Opium War” of 1839 to 1842, defeated China was forced to accept and legalize the opium trade of the Western powers. In the sordid “Arrow War” of 1856 to 1858, shortly after Perry’s mission to Japan, the British and French had bombarded Canton and Tientsin and forced China to make additional humiliating concessions. No one was sure, at the time, whether Japan would sink or swim.
- No one anticipated that Japan would or could throw off seven centuries of feudal rule quickly and announce—as the new government did within a matter of months—that “evil customs of the past shall be broken off” and “knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.” Click to view the “Charter Oath” of 1868.Certainly no one dreamed that in 1894 and 1895, a mere 40 years after Perry’s arrival, Japan would be capable of mobilizing a modern army and navy and bringing China to its knees—and, 10 years after that, doing much the same to mighty Tsarist Russia.
- The impact of contact with foreign powers (USA, Britain, The Netherlands and Russia)The Role and assassination of Ii NaosukeAttempts by the Shogunate to modernize, especially the work of Tokugawa Iemochi (Shogun 1858 – 1866), which included the end of sankinkotaiin 1862The emergence of ultra-patriotism, centered around the emperor and the idea of: SonnoJoi (Revere the Emperor; expel the Barbarians)The growing discontent of the Western Daimyo, especially the Satsuma and Choshu ClansBoshin Wars:Satsuma, Choshu, Hizen and Tosa clans form an alliance against the Shogun.1866 (August) Tokugawa Iemochi died, and replaced by Tokugawa Yoshinobu (aka: Keiki)1867 (February) Emperor Komei died and was replaced by his 15 year old son, Emperor MeijiNovember 1867 Tosa lord requested the Shogun relinquish his power to the emperor
- All debates clouded by WWII and post war Japan, especially economic success, but political and social stagnation
- This view emerges in the 1870s, and in many ways despite emergence of other schools of thought, still prevails today
- This view emerges in the 1870s, and in many ways despite emergence of other schools of thought, still prevails todayFuruya: confucian tradition of J history – emperor as patriarch – modernisation a success – Sino-J and R-J wars as evidenceHechmer: emphasis on military changes
- Emerged in the 1920s
- Emerged in the 1920s
- Context of Vietnam warNotes from Hechmer article
- Borrowed this from:
- Students to research:Rich country strong armyEliminate unequal treatiesDismantle bakuhan systemStrong centralisedgovtWestern style miltary and industry