Fujimura Misao

Fujimura Misao in school uniform

Fujimura's death poem Gantō no kan

Fujimura's tombstone

Fujimura Misao ( Japanese 藤 村 操 ; * 1886 in Hokkaidō ; † May 22, 1903 at the Kegon Falls , Nikkō ) was a Japanese student who became known for his suicide and his farewell poem.

Life

Fujimura Misao was born in Hokkaidō in 1886. His family included business people, politicians and scholars. The historian Naka Michiyo ( 那 珂 通 世 ), the founder of East Asian Studies in Japan, was his uncle. When his father Fujimura Yutaka ( 藤 村 胖 ) died in 1899, Misao moved to Tokyo. There he attended the First High School , the preparatory school for the equally prestigious and first university in Japan - the Imperial University of Tokyo .

On May 22, 1903, he fell from the Kegon Falls near Nikko to his death. Before that, he carved a death poem into a tree, which was later removed by the authorities. Although his exact motive remained unknown, Fujimura can be assigned to the "tormented youth" ( 煩悶 青年 , hammon his ). This youth culture developed in the second half of the Meiji period and stood in contrast to the "successful youth" ( 成功 青年 , seikō his ). The background to this were the concepts of self-help and risshin shusse ( 立身 出世 ) introduced in the early Meiji period . Self-Help , a term from Samuel Smiles ' book of the same name, stands for the independently acting individual whose well-being leads to the well-being of the state; risshin shusse, on the other hand, stands for personal advancement in society through a good education, also based on a predetermined life path. In the second half of the Meiji period, however, social advancement was by no means as guaranteed as it was in the beginning, and after the hard training, the entry salaries and positions were also no longer as high. The pursuit of individualism based on the concepts of self-help and risshin shusse alienated these young people from traditional collectivist society. These contradictions and isolation “tormented” part of the youth who wanted other ways of self-realization and who thought about the meaning of life.

Because of his mysterious death poem and high social background, his death provoked strong reactions. He became a role model for parts of his generation, and Iwanami Shigeo , his friend and later founder of Iwanami Shoten , reported how many were overwhelmed by their emotions. These aftermaths are evident in the fact that by August 1907, more than 185 people attempted to mimick his suicide in the Kegon Falls. In this regard, his poem is also compared with Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther , which also led to a wave of suicides and gave the Werther Effect its name. But there were also negative voices; not because of the act of suicide itself (which is much less frowned upon in Japanese society than in Western Christian culture), but because his suicide was viewed as a selfish act.

His death also received high attention from the intellectual elite. The intellectual Kuroiwa Ruikō ( 黒 岩 涙 香 ) wrote as editor of the newspaper Yorozu Chōhō ( 萬 朝 報 ):

「我国 に 哲学 者 な し 、 こ の 少年 に 於 て 始 め て 哲学 者 を 見 る。 い な 、 、 哲学 者 な き に あ ら ら ず 、 哲学 の た め に 抵死 す る 者 な き な り.

"Waga kuni ni tetsugakusha nashi, kono shōnen ni oite hajimete tetsugakusha o miru. Ina, tetsugakusha naki ni aruzu, tetsugaku no tame ni teishi suru sha naki nari. "

“There are no philosophers in our country; As for this boy, it was the first time I saw a philosopher. No, we are not philosopher, but none of them would give their life for philosophy. "

- Kuroiwa Ruikō : Shōnen tetsugakusha o chōsu ( 少年 哲学 者 を 弔 す , German "Condolence for the boy philosopher")

He also processed Fujimura's death and the reactions to it in his review of Tenjinron ( 天人 論 ) from 1904.

He found literary processing a. a. with the novelist Izumi Kyōka , who took Fujimura as a model for the figure of Muraoka Fujita ( 村 岡 不二 太 ) in his work Fūryūsen ( 風流 線 ). But Natsume Sōseki , who as Fujimura's former English teacher felt partially responsible for his death, addressed this incident in his work Kusamakura .

Fujimura's grave is located in Aoyama Cemetery in Minato , Tokyo .

Death poem

Japanese	reading
巌頭之感 悠々たる哉天壌, 遼々たる哉古今, 五尺の小躯を以て此大をはからんとす. ホレーショの哲学竟に何等のオーソリテーを価するものぞ. 万有の真相は唯一言にして悉す, 曰く「不可解」. 我この恨を懐て煩悶終に死を決するに至る. 既に巌頭に立つに及んで 胸中何等の不安あるなし. 始めて知る 大なる悲観は大なる楽観に 一致 す る を	Gantō no kan Yūyū taru kana tenjō, Ryōryō taru kana kokon, Go-shaku no shōku o motte kono dai o hakarantosu. Horēsho no tetsugaku tsui ni nanra no ōtoritē o atai suru mono zo. Ban'yū no shinsō wa tada hito koto ni shite tsukusu, Iwaku “fukakai”. Ware kono urami o idaite hammon tsui ni shi o kessuru ni itaru. Sude ni gantō tatsu ni oyonde kyōchū nanra no fuan arunashi. Hajimete shiru dai naru hikan wa dai naru rakkan ni itchi suru o
English translation	German translation
How immense the universe is! How eternal history is! I wanted to measure the immensity with this puny five-foot body. What authority has Horatio's philosophy? * The true nature of the whole creation. Is in one word - "unfathomable." With this regret, I am determined to die. Standing on a rock on the top of a waterfall. I have no anxiety. I recognize for the first time. Great pessimism is nothing but great optimism.	How vast the universe is! How eternal the story is! I wanted to measure that size with that puny five-foot body. What authority does Horatio's philosophy have? * The true nature of all creation. Lies in one word - "unfathomable". With that regret, I am destined to die. Standing on a rock above a waterfall. I am not afraid. I realize for the first time. Great pessimism is nothing but great optimism.

* There are two interpretations for this line with "Horatio's philosophy":

1. It is usually set in connection with Shakespeare's Hamlet address to his friend Horatio in Act 1, Scene 5: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. Than are dreamed of in your philosophy. " (Eng. "There is more things in heaven and on earth than your school wisdom dreams of, Horatio.")
2. The philologist for occidental classical music Itsumi Kiichirō identifies in his book Ratin-go no Hanashi ( ラ テ ン 語 の は な し . Taishūkan Shoten, 2000, ISBN 978-4-469-21262-4 ) Horatio with the Roman poet Horace . Fujimura then criticizes Horace's epicurean attitude of carpe diem .

Hammonki

In May 1907, the book Hammonki ( 煩悶 記 ), which Fujimura is said to have written four years after his death , was published by Yanagi Shobō . In this, the alleged Fujimura describes that he did not commit suicide, but rather hid, then sailed around the world on a pirate ship and finally went to France. The book was banned by the authorities immediately after its publication, on the one hand to prevent further acts of imitation, but on the other hand also because of its socialist-anarchist content. Only three surviving copies of the book are known. The literary critic Tanizawa Eiichi ( 谷 沢 永 一 ) has one, and for a long time it was assumed that it was the only surviving copy. The literary scholar Noma Sōshin ( 野 間 光 辰 ) has another . The discovery of a third copy, which was offered at the Kanda Furumoto Book Festival 2005 for 1.47 million yen, attracted a great deal of attention.

See also

• Matsumoto Kiyoko , whose suicide found hundreds of imitators in a volcano

literature

• 土 門 公 記 (Domon Kōki): 藤 村 操 の 手紙 - 華 厳 の 滝 に 眠 る 16 歳 の メ ッ セ ー ジ . Shimotsuke Shimbunsha, 2002, ISBN 4-88286-175-5

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} 【歴 史 ・ 一日 一 話】 05/22/2008 第 ４ 話 一 高 生 ・ 藤 村 操 が 華 厳 の 滝 に 投身 自殺. . In: melma! May 22, 2008, Retrieved June 5, 2010 (Japanese).  
2. ↑ ^{a b} Shunsuke Tsurumi ( 鶴 見 俊 輔 ): 藤 村 操 . In: Asahi Nihon Rekishi Jimbutsu Jiten . Asahi Shimbun- sha, Tokyo 1994 ( digitized from kotobank.jp ).
3. ^ Burton R. Clark: The School and the University. An International Perspective . University of California Press, Berkeley 1985, ISBN 0-520-05423-7 , pp. 136 ( digitized from Google Books ).
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} 藤 村 操 . (No longer available online.) In: 日本 ペ ン ク ラ ブ ： 電子 文藝 館 . Nihon PEN Club , February 9, 2005, archived from the original on December 26, 2014 ; Retrieved February 21, 2010 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
5. ^ ^{A b c} William N. Ridgeway: Gender, the Body, and Desire in the Novels of Natsume Sôseki (1867-1916), Focusing on Meian . 2002, hdl: 10125/3034, p. 176–177 (dissertation at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa ).
6. ↑ Shingo Shimada: The Invention of Japan. Cultural interaction and national identity construction . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38224-1 , p. 93-100 .
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Lawrence Fouraker: "Voluntary Death" in Japanese History and Culture. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: 2nd Global Conference on Dying and Death. 2003, pp. 4–5 , archived from the original on January 19, 2015 ; accessed on June 6, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Revised reprint: Lawrence Fouraker, “Voluntary Death” in Japanese History and Culture . In: Asa Kasher (Ed.): Dying and Death. Inter-Disciplinary Perspectives . Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam 2007, ISBN 978-90-420-2245-4 , pp.   
    159-160 .
8. ^ ^{A b} Charles Shirō Inouye: The Similitude of Blossoms. A Critical Biography of Izumi Kyōka (1873-1939), Japanese Novelist and Playwright . Harvard University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-674-80816-9 , pp. 185 ( digitized from Google Books ).
9. ↑ Time of Composition I. (No longer available online.) Tōhoku University Library, archived from the original on October 20, 2008 ; accessed on April 6, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
10. ↑

    「昔 し 巖頭 の 吟 を 遺 し て 、 五 十丈 の ​​飛瀑 を 直下 し て 急湍 に 赴 い た 靑 年 年 が あ る。 余 の の 視 る 所 に て は 、 彼 の 靑 年 は 美 爲 一字 の の の の の のめ に 、 捨 つ べ か ら ざ る 命 を 捨 て た る も の と 思 ふ。 死 其 物 は 洵 に に 壯烈 で あ る 、 只 其 死 を 促 が す す の 動機 に い 其。 去 難 解 解 い つ。 難 解 解 解 つ。 去 の 解 解 い。。 難 の 解 い 其。 去 の 解 解。 難 解 解だ に 體 し 得 ざ る も の が 、 如何 に し て 藤 村子 の 所作 を 嗤 ひ 得 べ き き。 彼等 は 壯烈 の 最後 を 遂 ぐ る の 情趣 を 味 ひ 得 得 る が 故 事情 事情 、 た た 事情 、 たも 、 到底 壯烈 の 最後 を 遂 げ 得 べ か ら ざ る 制 限 あ る 點 に 於 て 、 藤 藤 村子 よ り は 人格 と し し て 劣等 で あ る か ら 、 嗤 す 権 余 が 主張 主張 い も も が 主張 主張 い も も は 主張 と も も

    - Natsume Soseki : Kusamakura
11. ↑ Natsume Sōseki: 草 枕 ( Kusamakura ) . In: 漱 石 全集 ( Sōseki Zenshū ) . tape 2 . Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo 1966, p. 525 .
12. ^ Mamoru Iga: The Thorn in the Chrysanthemum. Suicide and Economic Success in Modern Japan . University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1986, ISBN 0-520-05648-5 , pp. 157 ( Google Books ).
13. ↑ Ken'ichi Hodaka: 「100 円」 で 「100 万 円」 が 儲 け ら れ る 方法? = 掘 り 出 し 物 伝 説 （上） . (No longer available online.) In: Livedoor News. October 12, 2008, formerly in the original ; Retrieved June 1, 2010 (Japanese, adapted from the original at PJ News ).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
14. ↑ Ken'ichi Hodaka: 「100 円」 で 「100 万 円」 が 儲 け ら れ る 方法? = 掘出 し 物 伝 説 （下） . (No longer available online.) In: Livedoor News. October 13, 2008, formerly in the original ; Retrieved June 1, 2010 (Japanese, adapted from the original at PJ News ).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
15. ↑ 藤 村 操 を か た り 著述? 「煩悶 記」 に 147 万 円 の 売 値 . In: asahi.com. Asahi Shimbun- sha, October 15, 2005, accessed June 1, 2010 (Japanese).  

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Fujimura is the family name, Misao the first name.