Takaba Osamu

Takaba Osamu (hanging scroll 19th century)

Tomb of Takaba Osamu in the Sofuku Temple cemetery in Fukuoka

Takaba Osamu ( Japanese 高 場 乱 ; born November 11, 1831 in the old port city of Hakata, Chikuzen Province ; † March 31, 1891 in Fukuoka Prefecture Fukuoka ) was a Japanese doctor and educator who worked on the nationalist activists of Kyūshūs in the years of upheaval had a strong influence in the late Edo and early Meiji periods .

Childhood and youth

Takaba Osamu was born the last daughter of Takaba Masayama in a family that for generations ophthalmologists for the local feudal Fukuoka ( Fukuoka- han presented). With her birth, the father gave up all hope of a male descendant and decided to raise the child under the name Yōmei ( 養 命 ) , which was actually reserved for boys . 1814 / awarded the ten-year Yomei in Gempuku called traditional coming of age ceremony, a men's hairstyle, the obligatory swords and the name Gen'yō (元陽). This was unusual and required approval by the authorities, but there were precedents in Chikuzen Province. The name Gen'yō was later replaced by Osamu ( 乱 ). Shōtō ( 小刀 , short sword) was used as an everyday name, and Senshi ( 仙芝 , hermit meadow) as the author's name . She married at the age of 16, but that marriage lasted only a short time.

The talented Osamu first attended the private school in Fukuoka run by Kamei Yōshū ( 亀 井 暘 洲 , 1808–1876). This was a well-known, comparatively free institution which, in addition to Confucian studies, took into account the Dutch studies ( Rangaku ) and, which was unusual at the time, also accepted girls. Osamu soon stood out for its outstanding performance. At the age of 20 she took over her father's practice.

The Ginsengfeld Academy

By the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 and forced him opening of Japan shockwaves triggered captured also the fief Fukuoka (Fukuoka- han ), which together with the neighboring fief Saga ( Saga han order) for the safety in the maritime area Nagasaki was in charge. Takaba, now 25, opened a school to train young men who were determined to face the threat. The property used to build the "School of Blossoming Aspirations" ( Kōshi-juku , 興 志 塾 ) once served the fiefdom as a ginseng field, so that people soon spoke of the "Ginseng Field Academy" ( Ninjinbatake-juku , 人参 畑 塾 ) . Probably because of her own socialization history, Takaba was happy to take in students who had difficulty adjusting and who had been rejected by other schools. Although she was rather of a graceful stature, she was known in the regional population as the “Amazon from the ginseng field” ( Ninjinbatake no joketsu , 人参 畑 の 女傑 ) or as the “old woman from the ginseng field”.

Takaba took a position against the neo-Confucian teachings of Zhu Xi , who as Shushigaku enjoyed the promotion of the Tokugawa regime, and, following the teachings of Wang Yangming , propagated the unity of knowledge and action as well as the innate knowledge of good and evil. The explosive power of such moral autonomy of the individual was soon to show. Among the 300 or so graduates of her ginseng field school, not a few developed into political activists who played an influential role in Kyushu , and in some cases even at the national level: Kurushima Tsuneki ( 来 島 恒 喜 , 1860–1889), Hakoda Rokusuke ( 箱 田 六 輔 , 1850-1888), Hiraoka Kotaro ( 平岡浩太郎 , 1851-1906), Miyagawa Ikkan ( 宮川一貫 , 1884-1944), Miyagawa Taiichirō ( 宮川太一郎 , 1847-1909), Narahara Itaru ( 奈良原至 , 1857-1917), Toyama Mitsuru ( 頭 山 満 , 1855–1944), Shintō Kiheita ( 進藤 喜 平 太 , 1851–1925), Takebe Koshirō ( 武 部 小 四郎 , 1846–1877) and others. One was not squeamish when choosing the means to achieve the set goals. Many a pupil of Takaba did not shrink from violence and terror.

Radical pupils

The gradual abolition of the privileges of the samurai class ( shizoku ) caused considerable unrest and dissatisfaction with their position and future role in many parts of the country. In Fukuoka it was also the case that the fiefdom fell behind in the disputes about the overthrow of the Tokugawa and the reinstatement of the Tennō in the course of the Meiji Restoration as well as in the construction of the new state due to clumsy decisions. Many of the local samurai therefore took part in the Maebara Issei rebellion in Hagi in 1876 ​​and the larger rebellion led by Saigo Takamori in Satsuma in 1877, the Southwest War. There was also a riot in Fukuoka in 1877 ( Fukuoka no hen , 福岡 の 変 ). Of the more than 500 rebels, around a fifth died in fighting, imprisonment or execution. Takaba was also temporarily arrested, but was never directly involved in the activities of her students.

Probably the most lasting influence among the graduates of the Ginseng Academy was achieved by Tōyama Mitsuru, who founded a "Society for the Improvement of Aspirations" ( Kyōshisha , 矯 志 社 ) in 1871 and, eight years later, together with Hiraoka Kōtarō a "School of Turning to the Sun" Kōyōgijuku , 向陽 義 塾 ) founded. As a collecting tank for dissatisfied former samurai, this aimed at a restoration of the abolished feudal order, then wrote after the collapse of the Satsuma rebellion in an astonishing swing to the "movement for freedom and civil rights" ( Jiyū minken undō ) the enforcement of civil rights on their flags . But as early as 1881, when it was renamed "Black Ocean Society" ( Gen'yōsha , 玄 洋 社 ), there was another change of course. Radical nationalism was now being pursued, linked to an expansion of the Japanese empire on the basis of a pan-Asian ideology . This diverse and often violent society lasted until January 1946, when it was banned by the American occupation authorities .

In 1889 the Gen'yōsha opposed the plan presented by Foreign Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu to revise the " unequal treaties " concluded with Western powers towards the end of the Edo period . Another of Takaba's disciples, Kurushima Tsuneki, who played a leading role in society, carried out a bomb attack in the fall of that year in which Ōkuma survived but lost a leg. Kurushima then committed suicide. Takaba was not taken with this act. In a letter on this subject, she goes back to the famous phrase of the Chinese philosopher Mengzi about the “(foolish) courage of an uneducated man”. Too many of her students had lost their lives in the past few decades.

Sickness and death

The following year, Takaba fell ill, refused any treatment, and died in 1891 at the age of 59. About 500 people attended her funeral. Her grave is located in the cemetery of the Sōfuku Temple in an area reserved for members of the Genyō'sha in the immediate vicinity of the graves of Tōyama and Kurushima. The former military expert Katsu Kaishū ( 勝 海舟 ) , who had risen to become a statesman, wrote the inscription on her tombstone and a curriculum vitae in Chinese .

literature

• Torajirō Nishikawa: Ninjinbadake juku Takaba-sensei-den . Daidōgakkan Shuppanbu, Fukuoka 1939, ( 西川 無 崖 著, 古 山 正朔 編輯 『人參 畑 塾 高 場 場 先生 伝』 大道 学 館 出版 部 )
• Toyomi Ishitaki: Gen'yōsha hakkutsu (excavation of the Gen'yōsha ). Extended edition. Nishinihon Shimbunsha, Fukuoka 1997, ( 石 瀧 豊 美 『玄 洋 社 発 掘』 西 日本 新聞 社 ) OCLC 219878341 (contains a biography and, in the material section, excerpts from Takaba's letters)
• Toyomi Ishitaki: Gen'yōsha - Fūin sareta jitsuzō ( Gen'yōsha - the actual image kept under lock and key ). Kaichōsha, Fukuoka 2010, ( 石 瀧 豊 美 『玄 洋 社 ・ 封印 さ れ た 実 像』 海鳥 社, 2010 年 ) ISBN 978-4-87415-787-9 (comprehensive overview with detailed sources)
• Michiko Nagahata: Rin - Kindai Nippon no jokai Takaba Osamu (Dignified and Bold - Takaba Osamu, Pioneer of Modern Japan). Fujiwara-Shoten, 1997 ( 永 畑 道 子 『凛 - 近代 日本 の 女 魁 ・ 高 場 乱』 藤原 書店 ) ISBN 978-4-89434-063-3 (narrative life picture)
• Richard Sims: Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation, 1868-2000. Palgrave, New York 2001.

Remarks

1. ↑ In the Japanese calendar the 8th day of the 10th month of the motto tempo
2. ↑ 1889 united with the castle town of Fukuoka to the city of Fukuoka
3. ↑ The Chinese character chosen by the father (Sino-Japanese ran ) actually means something like rebellion, while osamu means reassurance, pacification.
4. ↑ List of members in Ishitaki (2010), pp. 17–66.
5. ↑ Maebara was once one of the heroes in the fall of the Tokugawa.
6. ↑ The large number of deaths and prisoners in these surveys had a significant impact on the local economy.
7. ↑ hippu no yū 匹夫 の 勇 (孟子, 梁 恵 王 下篇)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The most detailed biography to date was written by Ishitaki Toyo in 1977 for a regional publication and included in the book Gen'yōsha hakkutsu in 1997 (there, pp. 190-257).
2. ↑ Ishitaki (1997), p. 192 ff.
3. ↑ Ishitaki (1997), pp. 206 ff.
4. ↑ Ishitaki (1997), p. 208.
5. ↑ Nishikawa (1939), floor plan of the school, school regulations, etc. in Ishitaki (1997), p. 237 ff.
6. ↑ Ishitaki (1997), pp. 220 ff.
7. ↑ Ishitaki (2010), pp. 85 ff.
8. ↑ also Sims (2001), p. 44 ff.
9. ↑ Ishitaki (2010), p. 222 ff.
10. ↑ Ishitaki (1997), Appendix
11. ↑ epitaph

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