Miyazawa Kenji

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Miyazawa Kenji

Miyazawa Kenji ( Japanese 宮 沢 賢治 ; born August 27, 1896 in Hanamaki , Iwate ; † September 21, 1933 ibid) was a Japanese poet, author of children's books and member of the Kokuchūkai . Miyazawa was kept informed by Mahayana - Buddhism , in particular from the Lotus Sutra and the nationalist interpretations of Nichiren Buddhism (Kokuchūkai) inspiration, which he viewed as a guide to his personal life.

life and work

Miyazawa Kenji was on 27 August 1896 in the city of Hanamaki in Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan, the son of a wealthy pawnbroker born. In the year of his birth, the region was hit by floods, a major earthquake and a tsunami, in which many people died.

Miyazawa was a very good student. At the age of 13 he wrote his first tanka , which he began to publish in local newspapers in 1916. In 1918 he graduated from the Morioka College of Agriculture and Forestry ( 盛 岡 高等 農林 学校 , Morioka kōtō nōrin gakkō ) with honors and then worked there in research. During that year he temporarily looked after his sick sister Toshi in Tokyo . From then on he began to write fairy tales as well. After his return in 1919 he helped in the family business.

In 1920 he completed his research at the geological faculty. He became a member of the national Buddhist Kokuchūkai and began to believe in the Lotus Sutra. In 1921 he went to Tokyo, where he worked in a publishing house and dealt with music. In December he took a position as a teacher of agricultural science at the Hanamaki Agricultural School ( 花 巻 農 学校 , Hanamaki nōgakkō ).

Miyazawa began writing a collection of free-form poems, Haru to Shura ( 春 と 修羅 , Spring and Asura ) in 1922 . His younger sister Toshi died on November 27, 1922. The collection of poems Haru to Shura and a collection of children's stories and fairy tales , Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten ( 注 文 の 多 い 料理 店 , The restaurant with the many orders ) he published in 1924 at his own expense.

In 1926 Miyazawa returned to his homeland. He lived in the Shimoneko district of Hanamaki and founded the Rasuchijin Society, in which he taught young people effective agriculture with the aim of increasing the standard of living of the farmers. Concerts were also held there.

Miyazawa also wrote poems and published them. Since 1928 they have appeared regularly in several, including some larger magazines. In 1931 he worked as an engineer in a quarry. He went to Tokyo to organize the distribution of coal there, but had to return for health reasons. On November 3, 1931, he wrote the poem Ame ni mo makezu .

Miyazawa Kenji died of acute pneumonia on September 21, 1933 at the age of 37. Many of his works were only discovered and published posthumously after his death.

useful information

Miyazawa was temporarily interested in Esperanto . A fictional world called Ihatov or Ihatovo often appears in his work . He created this based on the prefecture of Iwate, which he loved and remained close to nature, in which he lived and which is also called Ihate . Miyazawa's name for his fictional world comes close to an Esperanto version of this name.

In March 1996, the asteroid (5008) Miyazawakenji was named after him.

Film adaptations

Miyazawa's penchant for Esperanto was picked up in the 1985 anime adaptation Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru of his work of the same name, written in 1927, also known as Night on the Galactic Railroad . In it all signs are written in Esperanto, as well as the written language of the "cats", as which almost all figures are represented. This goes back to the participating manga artist Hiroshi Masumura , who adapted many of Miyazawa's works as comics and uses cat figures, which in turn can be traced back to Miyazawa's fairy tale Neko no jimusho .

In 1996, his life in the anime was the occasion of the 100th birthday of Miyazawa Kenji no Haru: Ihatov Genso ( "Ihatov Fantasy: Kenji's Spring" ), also known as Spring and Chaos ( Spring and Chaos ), a film known. As in Night on the Galactic Railroad , Hiroshi Masumura was involved, so the main characters are also drawn as cats.

Works (selection)

  • Ame ni mo makezu (雨 ニ モ マ ケ ズ), 1931.
  • Taneyamagahara no Yoru (種 山 ヶ 原 の 夜)
  • Kaze no Matasaburō (風 の 又 三郎)
  • Cello hiki no Gōshu (セ ロ 弾 き の ゴ ー シ ュ)
  • The fruits of the gingko . Klett-Cotta 1980. ISBN 978-3-7885-0223-2
  • The Milky Way Railroad , translated by Joseph Sigrist and DM Stroud. Stone Bridge Press (1996). ISBN 1-880656-26-4

and Night of the Milky Way Railroad . New York: 1991. ISBN 0-87332-820-5

  • The Restaurant of Many Orders . RIC Publications (2006). ISBN 1-74126-019-1
  • Kenji Miyazawa: Selections (Poets for the Millenium) , ed. By Hiroaki Sato. University of California Press (2007). ISBN 0-520-24779-5
  • Winds from Afar . Kodansha (1992). ISBN 0-87011-171-X
  • The dragon and the poet - illustrated version , translated by Massimo Cimarelli, illustrated by Francesca Eleuteri, Volume Edizioni (2013), ebook. ISBN 978-88-97747-18-5
  • Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa , translated by John Bester Kodansha International (1994). ISBN 4-7700-1780-4

literature

  • Massimo Cimarelli: Miyazawa Kenji - a short biography , Volume Edizioni (2013), ebook.
  • Sarah Strong: The Poetry of Miyazawa Kenji. Thesis (Ph.D.), The University of Chicago, 1984.
  • Hoyt Long: On Uneven Ground: Miyazawa Kenji and the Making of Place in Modern Japan . Stanford University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8047-7686-8 .
  • Daniel Boscaljon: Hope and the Longing for Utopia: Futures and Illusions in Theology and Narrative . Chapter 6 - Fruit, Fossils, Footprints by Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Pickwick Publications, Eugene Oregon 2014, ISBN 978-1-63087-487-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ On Uneven Ground: Miyazawa Kenji and the Making of Place in Modern Japan, Stanford University Press
  2. ^ Sino-Japanese Transculturation, From the Late Nineteenth Century to the End of the Pacific War by Richard King, Cody Poulton, Katsuhiko End, Lexington Books, Page 48, ISBN 978-0-7391-7150-9
  3. ↑ Gerald Iguchi, Nichirenism as Modernism: Imperialism, Fascism, and Buddhism in Modern Japan (Ph.D. Dissertation), University of California, San Diego, 2006, pp. 122-173

Web links

Commons : Miyazawa Kenji  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Miyazawa is the family name, Kenji the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Miyazawa Kenji
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 宮 沢 賢治 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese poet
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanamaki
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1933
Place of death Hanamaki