Identity Formation

National History

The Mito school and the National Learning school influenced the thinking of the samurai from three outlying domains who seized power in the emperor's name in 1867. "National history" (kokushi) was born during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Japan was engaged in transforming itself into a modern nation-state. History writing was central to the creation of the emperor-centered ideology (tennōsei) that legitimated the modernization reforms and mobilized popular support for the creation of a Japanese empire. This ideology was discredited by Japan's defeat during the second world war, but several key themes that were developed in the first half of the twentieth century lingered in Japanese ideas about their own identity.

The creation of tennōsei ideology took place over several decades. Although the Meiji government put the imperial institution and the Meiji emperor himself at the center of its efforts to create a unified nation from 1868 onward, tennōsei is the term used to describe the political values that were put in place in the 1890s. The Meiji Constitution, which vested sovereignty in the emperor and not in the people, institutionalized the image of the emperor as a transcendental figure who was above politics yet commanded the loyalty of all Japanese. Japanese children were taught that Japan was created by the gods and that the emperor was the descendant of the Sun Goddess. His existence, and the continuity of the imperial line, affirmed heaven's favor and Japan's uniqueness in the world. The Imperial Rescript on Education, issued in 1890, presented the concept of Japan as a family state (kazoku kokka), with the emperor as the father of the nation. As his children, Japanese citizens were obliged to do whatever was needed to "guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne."

By the early twentieth century, the emperor-centered ideology was featured in the standardized textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education that were used in classrooms throughout Japan. The government created an integrated system of State Shinto which reinforced tennōsei. The government refurbished Ise, the shrine dedicated to Amaterasu, and created new national shrines such as the one marking the spot where the first emperor, Jimmu, was said to have held his ascension ceremony. The date in 660 B.C. when Emperor Jimmu mounted the throne was declared a national holiday, Kigensetsu.

The emperor-centered ideology that sustained the Japanese until 1945 did not go unchallenged. Meiji leaders appointed foreign scholars to teach at the newly established Tokyo Imperial University (the forerunner of today's Tokyo University); Japanese went abroad to study and established new disciplines in Japan upon their return.

Through Ludwig Riess, who taught history at Tokyo Imperial University from 1887 to 1902, Leopold von Ranke's ideas on the scientific method of historical research were transmitted to a generation of Japanese scholars. Archaeology was also introduced into Japan, and artifacts that were later discovered also directly challenged the accepted version of Japan's origins (see "Ethnic Diversity and the Origins of the Japanese" and "Buddhism and Shinto"). Historians who attempted to use new methodology to question state orthodoxy were quickly suppressed.