Iwakura Tomomi
Iwakura Tomomi was a prominent top-level official in the Meiji government. Though most known for leading the Iwakura Mission which traveled the world observing foreign governments, industry, and society in 1871-1873 in order to inform Japan's modernization, Iwakura was also significantly influential in a variety of other decisions and developments of the Meiji period as well.
He was named Minister of the Right (Udaijin) in 1871, and left for the United States the same year. He was accompanied on the Mission by many of the most prominent officials and bureaucrats of the time, and met with heads of state in the United States and numerous European countries, as well as touring factories, schools, and a variety of other modern institutions.[1]
In 1879, Iwakura played a prominent role in the reception of Ulysses S. Grant, who visited Japan for about three months in that year.[2]
Iwakura was also active and vocal in the late 1870s and early 1880s in debates and proposals as to national and Imperial memory, and in particular in efforts to maintain Kyoto as a center of traditional culture and symbolic Imperial importance. In discussions as to moving the Imperial capital to Tokyo, Iwakura advocated retaining Kyoto as an imperial capital alongside Tokyo (as well as, potentially, other sites), and establishing imperial mausolea in both cities. He was also active in efforts to fund the preservation of the city, which began to fall into decline once the Emperor left the city in 1868.[3] Proposals for recovering the history of the Tokugawa shogunate included a proposal in 1878 for the compilation of records of shogunate ritual; the resulting Tokugawa reiten roku was then presented by Iwakura to the Emperor in 1881.[4]
References
- ↑ Conrad Schirokauer, David Lurie, and Suzanne Gay, A Brief History of Japanese Civilization, Wadsworth Cengage (2013), 171.
- ↑ Richard Chang, "General Grant's 1879 Visit to Japan." Monumenta Nipponica 24:4 (1969). pp373-392.
- ↑ Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, University of California Press (1996), 56-57.
- ↑ Fukai Masaumi, "Tokugawa reiten roku," Kokushi daijiten 国史大辞典, Yoshikawa kobunkan.; Tokugawa Reiten Roku 徳川禮典録, vol 1., Tokyo: Owari Tokugawa Reimeikai (1942), 1-2.