The Meiji Restoration*

The first twenty(ish) years 1868 – 1890

*or was it a revolution?“Maple Leaves at New Palace,” artist unknown, December 1888[2000.548] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The British Empire in 1900

Meiji Charter Oath (1868)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.

Review: What were the circumstances that led to the Meiji Restoration?

Samurai of the Aizu clan during the Boshin war. www.yamaji.ca

Elise Tipton ‘Modern Japan’The Historiography of the Meiji

Restoration

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

GallerySmithsonian Institution

The Historiography of the Meiji Restoration: The Orthodox View

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)

The Historiography of the Meiji Restoration: The Orthodox View

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.

The Historiography of the Meiji Restoration: The Marxist View

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.

The Historiography of the Meiji Restoration: The Marxist View

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

The Historiography of the Meiji Restoration: The Revisionist View

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

The Historiography of the Meiji Restoration: The Revisionist View

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.

Activity: Sequencing exercise

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?

Activity: Illustration Exercise

Woodblock prints labelled A to K (no ‘J’)

Examine each of the woodblock prints. Select one image for the front cover for:a) An orthodox history book on the Meiji

Periodb) A Marxist history book on the Meiji Periodc) A Revisionist history book on the Meiji

Period

Be prepared to justify your choice.

Who were the Meiji leaders?

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

Jansen: The Cambridge History of Modern Japan

Summary: Early Years of the Meiji Restoration

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.

Activity: What were the goals of the Meiji Restoration?

“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

Homework Cameron on the Meiji Constitution

• P42 to 55 (pdf) or 130 to 143 (book page numbers)

Noble essay from Concord Review