Hasuda Zenmei
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (January 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Hasuda Zenmei | |
---|---|
蓮田 善明 | |
Personal details | |
Born | July 28, 1904 Ueki, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan |
Died | August 19, 1945 Johor Bahru, Johor, British Malaya | (aged 41)
Cause of death | Suicide |
Occupation | Author |
Military service | |
Allegiance | Imperial Japanese Army |
Rank | First lieutenant (中尉, chūi) |
Battles/wars | Second Sino-Japanese War Pacific War |
Part of a series on |
Conservatism in Japan |
---|
Hasuda Zenmei (蓮田 善明, 1904–1945) was a Japanese nationalist, Shinto fundamentalist, and scholar of kokugaku as well as classical Japanese literature. He was also a historian, author, and military officer.
Biography
Hasuda was born in 1904 into the family of Hasuda Jizen (蓮田 慈善, 1851–1938), abbot of the Ōtani Jōdo Konrenji (金蓮寺) temple in the town of Ueki. His father possessed a sword that once belonged to Katō Kiyomasa.[1]
In 1918, he contracted pleurisy and took a leave of absence from school until the following year. Around this time he wrote one of his early poems, People Are Made to Die (人は死ぬものである, Hito wa shinumono dearu). Pleurisy haunted him for the remainder of his life, and several years before his death he was found to have lesions in his hilar nodes.
He was known for his simultaneous pursuit of literary and martial arts.[2]
After entering college in 1923, he became influenced by Prof.
The true meaning of "expel the barbarians" was ultimately guarding and passing on Japan's exceptional national history. However, even now this motive is not well understood. People today keep such things at arm's length, hurling insults [at those who advocated it], calling [them] backward and narrow-minded. But that is the fundamental idea which was handed down by generation after generation of scholars of national studies, who believed in it with the purest sincerity and defended it to the very end even as it became madness in the eyes of the world.
— Hasuda Zenmei - Heart of the Shinpūren (神風連のこころ, Shinpūren no kokoro) (1942)[4]
Through Shimizu Fumio , Hasuda became acquainted with the young Hiraoka Kimitake, later known as Yukio Mishima. On October 25, 1943, Hasuda was called to active service in the Imperial Japanese Army. Before his departure for Southeast Asia, he reportedly said to Mishima, "I entrust the future of Japan to you" (日本のあとのことをおまえに託した, Nihon no ato no koto o omae ni takushita). Kuriyama Riichi recalled Hasuda raging as he prepared to leave, saying "Those American bastards..." (あのアメリカの奴め等が…, A no Amerika no yatsumera ga…).[4]
In 1945, Hasuda's platoon advanced to
At the time of
After the war, the
References
- ^ a b 小高根 Odakane, 二郎 Jirō (1970). 蓮田善明とその死 (in Japanese). 筑摩書房 Chikuma Shobō. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
- ISBN 4585040412. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
- ^ a b 藤島 Fujishima, 泰輔 Taisuke; 宮崎 Miyazaki, 正弘 Masahiro (January 1975). 特集・三島由紀夫の不在 Tokushū - Mishima Yukio no fuzai. 株式会社浪曼 Kabushikigaisha Rōman.
- ^ ISBN 4891726830.
- ^ ISBN 4886951805.