Main Body
Hiraga’s Tōdai: Flourishing under the Wartime Order
In which the author explains his decision to make August 15, 1945 the end point of his series and explores the other—patriotic—side of Hiraga’s Tōdai: how it flourished during the war. He contrasts the tragic fate of liberal arts students with the far happier future of students in science and engineering and describes Tōdai’s role in the military-industrial complex—budget, courses, military presence on campus. He quotes from the patriotic speeches Hiraga himself gave to the students. The author concludes with consideration of Listen to the Voices from the Sea, the classic collection of writings of student-soldiers, and thoughts on the falsification of history.
My Own End Point: August 15
For some time I’ve planned to make August 15, 1945 the end point of this series. But I’m writing non-sequentially, so in terms of content, I’ve already made it to August 15 a number of times. This is a people-centered history, and when I was writing about Ōuchi or Hiraizumi or the other currents, I extended my remarks into the postwar era. From long ago, from my youth, I’d harbored the greatest doubts about how the war began and how it ended. On August 15, 1945, I was five years old, and I’ve virtually no memory of what it meant, but I do remember clearly a strange scene: many adults gathered in the Japanese quarter in Beijing, sitting in rows of chairs, listening intently, in stony silence, to a voice on the radio.
Of course, there are perfunctory explanations from many quarters about the causes of the war, and I’ve read a good many of them. None of them quite convinced me. But when, in writing this series, I came to think I pretty much understood, the resolution formed in my mind to stop with August 15. If I’ve gone back and forth in time while writing about Tōdai during the war, it wasn’t because the endpoint wasn’t clear; rather, I’ve been like an airplane circling lazily over a prospective landing site, checking out the topography.
Tokyo Imperial University and the Postwar Tōdai
Why do I place such importance on August 15? Because on that day Japan changed fundamentally. Japan took the official stance that it accepted the Potsdam Declaration on condition that the kokutai be maintained (this was the Japanese side’s understanding; the U.S. side’s understanding is another issue), but that is a formalistic argument. Japan’s kokutai changed fundamentally.
In Japan before August 15, only the emperor possessed absolutely free will. For the rest, all Japanese were subjects absolutely obedient to the emperor. Japan was a country that had only emperor and subjects. According to Uesugi Shinkichi,[1] the emperor’s absolute control was Japan’s kokutai:
- “Japanese subjects have the primary duty of obedience to the emperor. Obedience to the emperor is Japan’s kokutai.”
- “All things come from the emperor; sovereignty resides solely in him.”
- “The emperor’s will is supreme; all wills within the country obey it…