Yanagita Kunio

Yanagita Kunio ( Japanese 柳田國男 ; real name: Matsuoka Kunio , born July 31, 1875 in Fujisaki (福崎町), Hyōgo Prefecture ; † August 8, 1962 　Tokyo ) was a Japanese folklorist and author.

Life

Matsuoka was born the sixth of eight children of the doctor and teacher Matsuoka Misao. He came to Tokyo in 1890 and studied from 1897 to 1900 at the Law Department for Political Science of the University of Tokyo agricultural science with Matsuzaki Kuranosuke. He then became an employee in the Ministry of Agriculture. At the age of 27, he married a daughter of the Supreme Court judge Yanagita Naohira and took the name Yanagita Kunio. In 1914 he became General Secretary of the Upper House of the Japanese Reichstag. After five years, he left the job and joined the Asahi Shinbun newspaper . In 1921 he received a mandate for the League of Nations and traveled to Geneva on behalf of the Foreign Ministry. After his return, he was an advisory editor for Asahi Shinbun until 1930, and he also gave folklore lectures at the Faculty of Literature at Keiō University . After that he devoted himself to folklore, influenced by European ethnology, until his death. After lyrical works in his youth, Yanagita published numerous folklore writings. His work has been published in summary form in (定本柳田國男集, Teihon Yanagita Kunio shū).

Yanagita is considered to be the "father of Japanese folklore". In 1951 he was awarded the Order of Culture . In 1952 he was honored as a person with special cultural merits .

Remarks

↑ Since the imperial cultural order is not allowed to be associated with money allocations, in 1951 the distinction "person with special cultural merits" was introduced on a normal household basis; it is associated with an honorary salary. As a rule, this minor distinction is awarded first, then - not in every case - the cultural medal. Yanagita, who was awarded the Order of Culture in 1951, received the distinction of "person with special cultural merits" and the honorary salary retrospectively in 1952.

swell

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology online - Yanagita, Kunio
Encyclopedia of Shinto - Yanagita Kunio
Burkhard Kling: Tales from Tono: Kunio Yanagita (exhibition catalog). Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft , Worms 2014. ISBN 978-3-88462-357-2
Peter Lutum: The thinking of Minakata Kumagusu and Yanagita Kunio . LIT Verlag Münster, 2005. ISBN 9783825880682 , p. 66 ff.
S. Noma (Ed.): Yanagita Kunio . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1738.
Katai Tayama, Kenneth G. Henshall: Literary life in Tōkyō, 1885-1915: Tayama Katai's memoirs “Thirty Years in Tōkyō” . Brill Archive, 1987. ISBN 9789004081192 , pp. 64-65.

Web links

Commons : Kunio Yanagita - collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Yanagita, Kunio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	柳田國男 (Japanese); Matsuoka, Kunio (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Japanese ethnologist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH	July 31, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH	Fujisaki (福崎町), Hyōgo prefecture
DATE OF DEATH	August 8, 1962
Place of death	Tokyo

[1] Since the imperial cultural order is not allowed to be associated with money allocations, in 1951 the distinction "person with special cultural merits" was introduced on a normal household basis; it is associated with an honorary salary. As a rule, this minor distinction is awarded first, then - not in every case - the cultural medal. Yanagita, who was awarded the Order of Culture in 1951, received the distinction of "person with special cultural merits" and the honorary salary retrospectively in 1952.