Itagaki Taisuke

Itagaki Taisuke

Itagaki Taisuke ( Japanese 板垣 退 助 , born May 21, 1837 in Kōchi , Tosa Province (today: Kōchi Prefecture ); † July 16, 1919 ) was a Japanese politician of the Meiji period and head of the movement for civil rights and freedom ( Japanese. 自由民 権 運動 , Jiyū Minken Undō ), from which Japan's first political party emerged.

Name and title

In his youth Itagaki was also called Inosuke ( 猪 之 助 ), Taisuke was originally just a nickname. His real name ( imina ) was initially Masami ( 正 躬 ), later Masakata ( 正 形 ). He also used the pseudonym ( gō ) Mukei ( 無形 ). He carried the title of hakushaku ( count ).

Life

Childhood and youth

Place of Birth ( Kōchi , Kōchi Prefecture )

Itagaki Taisuke was born as the eldest son of Inui Masashige , a middle-rank samurai ( uma-mawari ), in Kōchi. With Gotō Shōjirō , who also came from Tosa, he was friends since childhood.

After studying in Kōchi and Edo , where he studied the western art of war, he pleaded for military reform and in 1861 was appointed head of the military for the Tosa fiefdom . He was advisor to the daimyo of Tosa, Yamauchi Toyoshige , and held a number of other offices.

Bakumatsu

While leading samurai from Tosa tended to reconcile the imperial family and the shogunate ( kōbu gattai ), Itagaki advocated the violent overthrow of the shogunate. In 1867 he came together with Saigō Takamori from the Satsuma fiefdom and assured his support for a coup against the Tokugawa shogunate .

During the Boshin War , Itagaki led the troops of the Tosa Province and rose to their leading political figure. After the victory in the civil war and the subsequent Meiji restoration , he was given a post in the new Meiji government.

Government post

Together with Kido Takayoshi , Saigō Takamori and Ōkuma Shigenobu , Itagaki was one of the first to be called to the Dajō-kan . There he participated in key reforms, such as B. in the abolition of fiefs and the establishment of the prefectures .

After he vehemently advocated a punitive expedition against Korea ( Seikanron ) in 1873 , but had lost the debate to the advocates of a more cautious foreign policy around Iwakura Tomomi , he left with Saigō Takamori, Etō Shimpei and others in opposition to the dominance of Satsuma and Chōshū im State Council took over the government and initially withdrew into private life.

Movement for civil rights and freedom

Attack on Itagaki Taisuke in Gifu

Bronze statue of Itagaki Taisukes in the park of Gifu

Shortly after leaving the government, Itagaki founded the Aikoku Kōtō , the "Public Party of Patriots" in 1874 . Together with Gotō Shōjirō he wrote a memorandum in the same year for the establishment of a parliament elected by the people , which was rejected by the government, and called the Risshi-sha in his home Kōchi with other supporters of the movement for freedom and civil rights . In 1875 Itagaki took part in the Osaka conference, which had been convened by the Meiji oligarchs to convince Itagaki and Kido to return to the government. After Itagaki had been a member of the 1875 newly created Genrōin for a short time , he resigned with Shimazu Hisamitsu from the government, as the proposed separation of the executive from the council was not accepted. From then on, Itagaki devoted himself to the movement for freedom and civil rights, which had set itself the goal of democratic reforms.

When the Meiji-Tennō decreed the establishment of a parliament in the imperial decree in 1881 that the imperial parliament was to be convened within 10 years, Itagaki took this as an opportunity to found the Freedom Party , of which he subsequently became chairman.

Itagaki made speeches across the country to promote his party and its goals. In April 1882 Aihara Naobumi , a right-wing gangster, assassinated the speaker at one of these events in Gifu . Itagaki, who survived injured, is said to have exclaimed: “I may die too, freedom will never die!” In another anecdote that is said to have occurred on this incident, it is said that the doctor who treated Itagaki after the attack , Gotō was Shimpei . Itagaki, who recognized Gotō's talent, is said to have regretted that he had not become a politician. Gotō then went into politics later.

In November of the same year Itagaki went with his friend Gotō Shōjirō on a trip to the west, from which he returned in June of the following year. In September 1884, when parts of the movement for civil rights and freedom radicalized and it came, among other things, to the Kabasan incident , the Freedom Party was initially dissolved.

Although Itagaki, as an advocate of the movement for civil rights and freedom, considered the hereditary nobility to be reactionary, he finally took on the title of count after having previously refused it twice. However, he made the condition that this title should not be passed on to his descendants.

Leadership of the Freedom Party

After the constitution was enacted and parliament was convened, the former Freedom Party was reconstituted under the name Constitutional Freedom Party ( Rikken Jiyūtō ) in 1890. However, this soon changed its name again to Freedom Party ( Jiyūtō ), of which Itagaki was chairman.

In 1896, Itagaki served as interior minister in the second Ito cabinet and then in the second Matsukata cabinet . The following year he resigned from the post of party chairman.

In 1898 Itagaki entered the first Ōkuma cabinet as interior minister after the Freedom Party and the Ōkuma Progress Party had merged to form the ruling constitutional party ( Kenseitō ). However, due to internal disputes, the cabinet had to resign after only four months.

Late years

Itagaki, who had finally withdrawn from the world of politics in 1900, published the magazine Yūai from 1904 and in 1907, in a letter to the entire hereditary family, demanded the ban on the inheritance of titles of nobility.

Itagaki Taisuke died of natural causes on July 16, 1919.

legacy

Former 50-sen note with Itagaki's portrait

Itagaki Taisuke was the first party leader of modern Japan and, particularly because of his involvement in the movement for civil rights and freedom, an important force of liberalism in Japan during the Meiji period . The political legacy includes, in particular, Japanese parliamentarism and the first parties that emerged in Japan and in East Asia. Itagaki founded and led the Aikoku Kōtō愛国 公 党 Public Party of Patriots in 1874 , the Aikokusha愛国 社 Patriotic Society in 1875 , the Jiyūtō自由 党 Liberal Party in 1881 and the Daidō Kurabu 大同 倶 楽 部 Club of Great Harmony in 1889. Since then, over 250 parties have emerged in Japan, including over 1,100 in neighboring East Asian countries.

His image adorned the former 50 Sen notes and 100 yen banknotes of the Japanese Central Bank .

Honors

• May 1887 hakushaku
• September 1896 Great Order of the Rising Sun first order on ribbon ( Kun'ittō Kyokujitsu Daijushō )
• July 1919 Order of the first order palownia flower on ribbon ( Kun'ittō Kyokujitsu Tōka Daijushō )

family

• Great grandfather: Inui Masaaki
• Grandfather: Inui Nobutake
• Father: Inui Masashige
• Mother: the younger sister of Yamanouchi Katsunaga (name unknown)
• First wife: The younger sister of Hayashi Masunojo Masamori (name unknown)
• Second wife: The second daughter of Nakayama Yaheiji Hidemasa (name unknown)
• Third wife: Rin, (daughter of Kotani Zengorō) (* September 10, 1840, † June 28, 1885, marriage 1859)
• Fourth wife: Kinuko, adopted daughter of Fukuoka Takachika . Actually the seventh daughter of Araki Isoji, (* June 8, 1859 - April 13, 1938, wedding 1889)

• First son: Itagaki Hokotarō (* July 4, 1868 - † February 4, 1942, mother's name: Kotani)
• Second son (eldest illegitimate son): Inui Seishi (born April 17, 1868; † June 18, 1941, mother's name Yaku, daughter of doctor Hagiwara Fukusai)
• Third son (second illegitimate son): Araki Magozaburō (born October 6, 1885; mother's name: Fukuoka)
• Fourth son: Itagaki Masami (born April 4, 1889; mother's name: Fukuoka)
• Fifth son: Inui Muichi (born November 14, 1897, † December 6, 1918, mother's name: Fukuoka)
• Eldest daughter: Hyō (born August 4, 1860, married to Kataoka Kumanosuke)
• Second daughter: Gun (born April 20, 1864, married to Miyaji Shigeharu)
• Third daughter: En (born June 21, 1872)
• Fourth daughter: Chiyoko (born April 12, 1893)
• Fifth daughter: Ryōko (born January 1, 1895)

literature

• Banno, Junji: Japan's Modern History, 1857-1937: A New Political Narrative . Routledge, London - New York, 2014, ISBN 9781138775176

• Jansen, Marius B .: The Cambridge History of Japan. Volume 5, The Nineteenth Century . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge - New York - New Rochelle - Melbourne - Sydney, 1989, ISBN 9781139055093

• Röhl, Wilhelm: History of Law in Japan since 1868 . Brill, Leiden NL, 2005, ISBN 90 04 13164 7

• Sims, Richard: Japanese Political History since the Meiji Renovation 1868-2000 . Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2001, ISBN 9781850654476

• Steenstrup, Carl: History of Law in Japan until 1868 . Handbook of Oriental Studies, Fifth Section: Japan, Sixth Volume: State, State Thought, Second Section: Law, Brill, Leiden NL, 1996, ISBN 90 04 10453 4

• Vlastos, Stephen: Opposition Movement in Early Meiji 1868-1885 . In: Jansen, The Cambridge History of Japan, p. 367 ff.

• Weyrauch, Thomas: The party landscape of East Asia . Longtai, Heuchelheim 2018, ISBN 978-3-938946-27-5

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mayo, Marlene J .: The Korean Crisis of 1873 and Early Meiji Foreign Policy, in: The Journal of Asian Studies , Vol. 31, No. 4 (1972), pp. 793ff.
2. ^ Fraser, Andrew: The Osaka Conference of 1875, in: Journal of Asian Studies , Vol. 26, No. 4 (Aug., 1967), pp. 606f.
3. ^ "Written report of the detective" ( Tantei Jōshinsho ) Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Koyano Ton: Nihon no Yūmei Ichizoku , Gentōshashinsho, 2007
5. ^ Röhl, History of Law in Japan since 1868, p. 29 ff .; Weyrauch, The Party Landscape of East Asia, pp. 25 ff., 36 - 38; Thomas Weyrauch: Itagaki Taisuke - 100 years later . In: Association of German-Japanese Societies from May 16, 2019, https://www.vdjg.de/itagaki-taisuke-100-jahre-danach/ ; Sims, Japanese Political History since the Meiji Renovation, p. 45, Vlastos, Opposition Movement in Early Meiji, p. 402 ff.

Web links

Commons : Itagaki Taisuke  - collection of images, videos and audio files

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