Japanese Historians and National Legends: The Problematic Aspects of the Age of the Gods and the Emperor 1600-1945 According to Historian Tsuda Sokichi

Abstract

The importance of studying the issue of Japanese Historians and National Legends: The Problematic Aspects of the Age of the Gods and the Emperor 1868-1945 According to historian Tsuda Sokichi, it comes from the importance of that period to the Japanese historians when writing about the roots of the Japanese imperial family, which rules Japan, and its sanctity. The Japanese historians had to resort to the interpretations and historical facts written in their oldest two historical registers, which are the Kojiki, written in 712 ADE, and the Nihon Shoki, written in 720 ADE, about the origin of the imperial family and their lineage and legitimacy. The tales and stories written in those two registers were considered as granted and sacred, which cannot be doubted, as that would be adversative to the orientation of the consecutive governments in Japan.The problematic aspect, which we shall try to clarify in this paper, is the equilibrium that the scholars must maintain in the stipulations of conditioning with the governments and, at the same time, their duties towards society. Why did Meiji’s leaders, and Tokugawa’s leaders before them, choose the principle of reviving the empire? And why was their strategy successful? The hypothesis that we will discuss in this paper is whether Tsuda Sokichi relented and considered what came in are Kojiki and Nihon Shoki as granted and historical facts. Was he convinced by what the Japanese historians wrote in the Tokugawa period about the Age of Gods and the imperial lineage? What was he affected by? And why did Tsuda distance himself from the old formal Japanese historical facts?