Nagai Ryūtaro

Nagai Ryūtaro

Nagai Ryūtarō ( Japanese 永 井 柳太郎 , born April 16, 1881 in Ishikawa Prefecture , died December 4, 1944 ) was a Japanese university professor and politician during the Taishō and Shōwa periods .

Life

Nagai Ryūtarō graduated from Waseda University in 1905 . From 1906 to 1909 he continued his education at Manchester College, Oxford University . on his return from England he taught social and colonial policy at Waseda and edited the magazine “Neues Japan” (新 日本, Shin Nippon), a leading liberal magazine in those days. In 1917 Nagai left Waseda University and embarked on a political career. In 1920 he won a seat in the House of Commons, which he kept until his death. He soon became one of the most famous advocates of democracy during the Taishō and Shōwa periods.

With his progressive standpoint and eloquence, Nagai became known as the "Champion of the Masses". And since about 1932 he was the leading figure of the Rikken Minseitō (立憲 民政党) called party. But from the late 1930s onwards, disappointed by the established parties and also by the Japanese attitude towards the Anglo-American bloc, he increasingly oriented himself politically to the right.

In the 1930s he was a member of the cabinet several times, from 1932 to 1934 Colonial Minister in the Saitō cabinet , from 1937 to 1939 Minister of Communications in the Konoe I cabinet and then from 1939 to 1940 also in the Abe Nobuyuki cabinet . Nagai took an active part in the statism movement and in the Taisei Yokusankai , an association to strengthen imperialism. During the Pacific War he worked in the Ministry for the Greater East Asian Prosperity Sphere , then died during the war in 1944.

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Nagai Ryūtarō . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1030.

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