contributor
26,975
edits
Changes
From SamuraiWiki
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
*Korean court commissioned reproductions of the entire Buddhist corpus - some 80,000 woodblocks - in efforts to earn Buddhist grace and mercy, against the Mongol invasions.[https://www.flickr.com/photos/toranosuke/22759703716/in/photostream/]
*Korean court commissioned reproductions of the entire Buddhist corpus - some 80,000 woodblocks - in efforts to earn Buddhist grace and mercy, against the Mongol invasions.[https://www.flickr.com/photos/toranosuke/22759703716/in/photostream/]
*CASTLES
-after 1615, castles shifted from being chiefly military fortifications to being more primarily symbols of power and authority, and centers of administration and elite residence; though they were those things before, in a time of peace, these functions became even more primary.
-in 1868, there were some 180 castles in Japan with any significant number of surviving Edo period buildings.
-after the Meiji Restoration, amidst the construction of "modern" cities and prefectures, (former) castle grounds represent some of the chief areas of open space in the centers of many cities. About 43 are given over to military purposes, and come to be used as garrisons, armories, and strategic headquarters. Even amidst the fall of the Samurai order, and the efforts to establish a "modern" nation-state, the direct rhetorical link between these castles as centers of samurai warrior power, and now as military centers, is maintained and promoted. Further, many cities and prefectures almost immediately began using castles as symbols of the city or the prefecture in their promotional efforts, as they continue to do today. The nation of Japan as a whole also regularly uses castles as a promotional symbol: at the 1964 New York World's Fair, the Japan pavilion was in the form of an Edo period castle, and had the theme of "from Feudalism to the Space Age," including demonstrations of iaido, missiles, and shinkansen.
-The military was terrible to the castles, however, demolishing many buildings, coarsely using many others just as they felt like, without care to preserving the historical architecture or interiors.
-About 150 castles are demolished in the Meiji period, to make room for government offices, universities, or the like, or they are simply sold off to private buyers. Some 30 ''tenshu'' are left intact.
-Some individual buildings, or individual elements of buildings, are spared destruction at the urging of Japanese or Western individuals interested in art, heritage, culture. The ''shachi'' of Nagoya castle are shown at the Vienna Expo in 1873 as examples of Japanese art/design/craftsmanship.
-due to their use as military bases, many castles become direct military targets for Allied air raids during World War II, and only about twelve ''tenshu'' survive the war.
-many of these sites are then taken over by the Occupation forces, and used as garrisons, headquarters, armories, just as the Imperial Japanese military used them previously. Military parades and the like display US/Allied military power, much as similar events in the 1890s-1940s did. (When the Occupation forces mistreat castle sites, it's a terrible offense against Japanese heritage, but when the Japanese do it themselves...?)
-more castles are (re)built in the early postwar period (c. 1945-1960) than were ever built in any 15-year period previously. Today, depending on what we count as a "castle," there are as many as 250 castles in the country. A great many of these were designed by Fujioka Michio 藤岡通夫 and Kido Hisashi 城戸久. Though there is known to have been considerable regional variation in castle architecture in the Edo period, the involvement of these two individuals in reconstruction efforts all across the country contributed to a certain degree of homogenization in the rebuilt castle designs we see extant today.
--These include rebuilding many that had already been lost long before 1868 (to what period should restoration be restored?), and a very few (e.g. Atami) are even built where there never was a historical castle at all.
-efforts were made to "purify" castle sites of their military associations. This meant considerable efforts to tie the samurai past to "culture," cultural refinement, education, etc., and to the peace of the Edo period. And also in a more general sense, using them as symbols of the city, and as examples of the greatness of Japanese art & architecture without explicitly talking about samurai or war.
-universities were built on the former sites of Shuri castle, Sendai castle, Kanazawa castle, while at Odawara, Hiroshima, and Fushimi they built zoos and theme parks.
-Castle reconstruction, or renovation, continues today, and continues to be critiqued as it was in the 1940s-60s, from various corners: it's very expensive, and in the 1940s-50s especially many people were concerned about a celebration of feudalism and militarism (incl. under PM Kishi Nobusuke 1957-60).
-beginning in the 1990s, we begin to see a replacement of concrete castles with wooden ones, with a turn towards a greater desire for "authenticity."
-mascotification of the samurai
-building in concrete made sense in the postwar, largely in order to adhere to safety standards for earthquake-proofing and fire-proofing. The experience of the war, and of the 1950 arson at Kinkaku-ji, contributed to these building standards being put and kept in place, and strictly adhered to.
-this law is changed in the 1980s, allowing for large wooden buildings to be built again.
-today, castles are often run by public-private foundations or associations, with strong ties to local government, but also to organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. All of which are often headed by members of many of the same elite circles (often Tôdai graduates).
--All of this from: Ran Zwigenberg, "Citadels of Modernity: Japan's Castles in War & Peace," talk given at Temple University, Tokyo campus, 12 July 2017.
*[[Haru Matsukata Reischauer]], wife of [[Edwin O. Reischauer]] and granddaughter of Prime Minister [[Matsukata Masayoshi]]. [http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/10.01/HMReischauerDie.html]
*[[Haru Matsukata Reischauer]], wife of [[Edwin O. Reischauer]] and granddaughter of Prime Minister [[Matsukata Masayoshi]]. [http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/10.01/HMReischauerDie.html]
