'Emperor of Japan': A Scholar Pieces Together a Life of the Enigmat

from NYTimes.com:

'Emperor of Japan': A Scholar Pieces Together a Life of the Enigmatic
Meiji

August 18, 2002
By DENNIS WASHBURN

To understand contemporary Japan one first has to grasp the
sweeping social changes of the last half of the 19th
century. What appeared at the time to set them off was the
arrival of Commodore Perry's American naval squadron in
1853. After many attempts by several Western powers to open
up Japan to trade, Perry finally succeeded in ending
centuries of Japan's self-imposed isolation. His success
triggered a crisis of legitimacy. For more than six
centuries the chief military leaders of Japan, the shoguns,
had ruled the nation. Since 1603 the hereditary shoguns
were members of the powerful Tokugawa family, who, while
they claimed authority in the name of the emperors in
Kyoto, in fact ran the government as they wanted, from
their capital in Edo (Tokyo). The regime had become
ossified through the years, and its inability to resist the
Western incursion exposed its weakness. Eventually a civil
war broke out, the feudal shogun system collapsed, and
imperial rule was restored in 1868.

In 1852, a year before Perry's arrival, a new crown prince,
Mutsuhito, was born. No one could have foreseen the
significance this child would assume as a symbol of Japan's
modernization. As Donald Keene, with muted amusement,
reveals in ''Emperor of Japan,'' Mutsuhito's upbringing was
sheltered from the turmoil overtaking his country; it was
traditional, steeped in the ancient protocol and customs of
the court. Yet by the time he ascended the throne at 15 he
was the focus of national aspirations. Traditionally an
emperor might have several names during his reign and a
different one after death. This emperor was called Meiji
(Enlightened Rule) from the beginning, and he, and the
entire historical era he embodied, have been called Meiji
ever since.

In practical terms the Meiji Restoration of 1868 did not
bring about direct rule by the emperor. The new government
was an oligarchy made up of the senior members of the
loyalist faction that had overthrown the shogunate. Even
though the loyalists gained support for their cause by
promising to expel all foreigners, pragmatism quickly
displaced impractical idealism. A total makeover of the
government began promptly, on the model of a modern
constitutional monarchy. As his first major act, the Meiji
emperor promulgated the Charter Oath -- five promises to
the people of Japan to bring fundamental change to the
political system. Although the promises were general and
vague, the Charter Oath became the foundational document
that effectively set the government's course for the rest
of the Meiji period (1868-1912).

In those 44 years the Meiji state instituted radical
economic, military and legal reforms. With the tacit
support of the emperor, the oligarchy ruthlessly swept
aside old bureaucratic institutions and the feudal class
structure. It set up new banking and educational systems,
brought the legal code into line with Western standards and
established a constitution in 1889 that created a
parliamentary form of government. Perhaps most important,
the Meiji oligarchy initiated a march to great-power status
through policies that encouraged rapid industrialization at
home and colonialist expansion abroad -- expansion that led
Japan into war with China in 1894 and with Russia a decade
later.

The decision to resist the power and hegemony of the West
by consciously emulating Western cultural forms lies at the
heart of all of these changes. Some members of the original
oligarchy, among them Takamori Saigo, once commander of the
imperial army, disagreed vehemently with this policy, and
in the early years of the Meiji period the government
experienced some resistance, most notably in what is known
as the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

Once the young Meiji state had weathered its early crisis
of legitimacy, however, it did not limit Japan's embrace of
modernity to the importation of Western institutions and
material culture. The oligarchy extended its mandate by
beginning to build an empire in Asia. This mission demanded
acquiescence in the racial ideologies that sustained
colonial power, and only the construction of a myth of
Japanese cultural uniqueness made this situation palatable.
The result was a strange cultural synthesis, a hybrid of
Western modernity and a newly created imperial ideology
that promoted the concept of an essential Japanese culture
rendered timeless by the unbroken succession of the royal
line. The fundamental legacy of the Meiji period is thus
the very idea of a modern Japanese state possessing a
nationally shared cultural tradition.

Given the eventful nature of his reign, the lack of
English-language scholarship on this emperor's life is
surprising. There are many fine books on aspects of the
history and culture of the Meiji period; and in recent
years distinguished studies by John Dower and Herbert Bix
have explored the workings of the modern imperial system
through an examination of the life of Meiji's grandson,
Hirohito. The Meiji emperor, however, remains an aloof and
enigmatic presence whose personal life is largely
inaccessible even to most modern-day Japanese.

Donald Keene attempts to address this gap in the record --
''to find Emperor Meiji,'' as he puts it. Few scholars are
as well qualified to undertake this tremendous project. He
began his scholarly career in Japanese studies a few years
after World War II, and he continues to be one of the
foremost critics and translators of Japanese culture.
Although he is best known for his extensive writings on
literature, he is a cultural historian with an encyclopedic
knowledge of Japan. His special gifts are on display in
''Emperor of Japan,'' which approaches Meiji's life by
interweaving two separate but related narratives. Drawing
on a wide range of sources, including the huge compilation,
''Records of the Meiji Emperor'' (Meiji tenno ki), Keene
constructs a year-by-year biography of Meiji's life. A
second narrative outlining the significant events of the
Meiji period frames the daily details of the emperor's
personal affairs. The result is a biography that serves as
political history.

The appeal of this work lies in the skill with which these
two narratives are tied together. Although Keene's
interpretation of the period does not depart radically from
standard histories, he constantly puts Meiji's life in a
rich context, and his account is informed by a literary
sensibility that lets us see major events in a new light.
Keene maintains a critical balance between his role as a
historian and his intimate engagement with his subject. His
book is a history that revels in detail but remains
accessible, leading us through the complex intricacies of
court life, political intrigue and international affairs.

It brings us as close to the inner life of the Meiji
emperor as we are ever likely to get. Does it succeed in
helping us to find Meiji? Yes and no. And the reservation
here should remind us of how difficult it is even now for
us to fit Hirohito into the history of World War II. There
are personal reasons for what seems to be a mystery about
the emperors, but cultural reasons as well. Keene's book
gives a fuller picture of the man Meiji, but a sense of
distance stubbornly remains. Perhaps this is due to the
lack of direct commentary on his life by the emperor
himself. There is a huge archive in Japan about him, but
scant documentation that reveals how he regarded even the
most crucial events of his time. Keene provides helpful
speculations about Meiji's feelings and opinions at
important moments; but, being a meticulous scholar, he also
draws attention to the maddening gaps in the record.

In the end, he concludes that perhaps Meiji's greatest
achievement was the longevity of his reign. But to put the
stress on that brings the reader back to the problem that
motivated this study in the first place. Meiji is
remembered more as a representative figure of an era than
as an individual because his personal identity largely
derives from the symbolic nature of emperorship in Japan.
For the better part of the millennium preceding Meiji's
reign the primary functions of the emperor were ritual, or
priestly. By the the middle of the 19th century the
political ground of imperial legitimacy had become
routinely symbolic -- a situation in which power flowed
from the charisma of an institution rather than an
individual. Meiji remains just beyond the biographer's
grasp because his life was lived at that vanishing point
where the public image of the emperor and the private life
of the man become indistinguishable.



Dennis Washburn is a professor of Japanese studies at
Dartmouth College. His most recent book is a translation of
Riichi Yokomitsu's novel ''Shanghai.''