The article examines the history of the formation and institutionalization of private legal education in Japan during the Meiji era. The chronological framework of the study is determined by the fact that, before the Meiji Revolution, there was no system of professional legal education in Japan, and there was no separate stratum of lawyers in the social structure of Japanese society.
The first private law schools were established in Japan in the 1880s. According to a widely accepted opinion, their appearance was a form of resistance of the Japanese liberal public to the ideology and principles on which legal education was based in state educational institutions (the Law School of the Ministry of Justice and the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo). At the same time, a small amount of fragmented legal information was available to Japanese students in the 1870s in private language schools, where foreign languages were taught. However, this form of education did not confer any formal privileges, as graduates were not awarded legal qualifications. Much attention was paid to the study of Western law through the activities of private study groups set up by legal associations of “advocates” (代言者 daigensha). These study groups can be seen as the predecessors of organized private law schools.
The article provides a detailed overview of the private law schools that opened during the Meiji period and defines their place in the educational system developed in those years. Many of the private law schools opened during the Meiji period underwent a series of organizational changes and acquired the official status of private universities in the first half of the 20th century. The article draws attention to the “struggle for influence” between the public sector of legal education and private institutions, as well as to the “factional rivalry” between law schools that taught different systems of Western law (French, English, German). The article also examines the content of law students’ curricula at some private schools, identifying the role of “honorary hired foreigners” in organizing the education process of future Japanese lawyers. In conclusion, the authors express their own opinions on the reasons that determined the demand for legal education among the Japanese during the Meiji period.
Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) is considered a "great enlightener." This means that, after the opening of Japan in the mid-19th century, he did a lot to introduce Western culture and civilization to the Japanese. Many studies have been devoted to analyzing Fukuzawa's achievements in the field of enlightenment. At the same time, Fukuzawa's personality has not attracted much attention, which seems a great omission to us. The Meiji Revolution was not only an era of great reforms, but also a time of formation of a new type of Japanese, who broke with the past and aspired to other horizons. In this regard, Fukuzawa's personality is of great interest, because it was he who set an example of what a "new" Japanese should be.
Fukuzawa's personality is poorly reflected in memoir literature. People who knew Fukuzawa in childhood and youth did not leave memoirs. The memoir genre was not widespread in Japan at that time. As for the second half of Fukuzawa's life, when he had already entered the public arena, his close circle consisted of his students and people who were much younger than him. The genre of memoirs gradually took root in Japan, and Fukuzawa's students left us some information useful for understanding his personality. But the students' recollections of their teacher are mostly laudatory, which does not contribute to an adequate understanding of Fukuzawa's character. However, he "took care" of himself – in his declining years, in 1898, he published his autobiography under the title Fukuo Jiden, or Autobiography of the Elder Fukuzawa. It gives a vivid idea not only of the spiritual atmosphere of Tokugawa and Meiji Japan but also depicts the human type who was the overthrower of old foundations and the creator of new ones. It was Fukuzawa's autobiography that served as the main source for writing this work.
Zwischen Sozialwissenschaft und Kritik: Zusammenhang des Wissens im Nachkriegsjapan
社会科学と批評の間−戦後日本における知の連関)
Written by Uno Shigeki, Translation by Kobayashi Kanau
Menschliches Wissen entsteht und entwickelt sich im Geist jedes Einzelnen. Auf gesellschaftlicher Ebene betrachtet ist menschliches Wissen jedoch etwas, das auf Institutionalisierung angelegt ist und erhält seine Dauer erst durch die Verbindung mit bestimmten sozialen Gruppen. Selbstverständlich gibt es je nach Epoche und Gesellschaft Unterschiede, auf welcher Form das Wissen institutionalisiert wird. Auch im Nachkriegsjapan lassen sich mehrere „Wissensformen“ (chi no katachi) erkennen. Dennoch dürfte es nur wenige geben, die bestreiten würden, dass die Sozialwissenschaft und die (literarische) Kritik (hihyō) dabei eine äußerst wichtige Rolle gespielt haben.
Die Fragen, was genau unter Sozialwissenschaft und Kritik zu verstehen ist und von welchen Persönlichkeiten diese Aufgaben wahrgenommen wurden, sollen im Laufe der Arbeit noch näher erörtert werden. An dieser Stelle möchte ich zunächst nur auf Folgendes hinweisen. Es ist nicht nur in Japan, sondern in vielen modernen Gesellschaften der Fall, dass die Sozialwissenschaften als eine „Wissensform“ in der Gesellschaft, insbesondere in Verbindung mit den Institutionen der Universitäten, eine bedeutende Stellung eingenommen haben. Dahingegen könnte das Phänomen, dass die Kritik unabhängig von den Sozialwissenschaften einen ebenso großen Einfluss hatte, eher als ein spezifisch japanisches angesehen werden. Darüber hinaus war es zweifellos eines der charakteristischen Merkmale der japanischen Wissenskultur in der Nachkriegszeit, dass zwischen den Sozialwissenschaften und der Kritik zumindest für einige Zeit eine enge Verbindung bestand, die sich mit einer einzigartigen Dynamik entwickelte. Der vorliegende Beitrag ist ein Versuch (Essay), die gegenwärtige Situation und die Herausforderungen für diese beiden Disziplinen aufzuzeigen, indem die Bedeutung dieser Beziehung erneut untersucht wird.
The period from the end of the Russo-Japanese War to the 1917 October Revolution was a time of political, economic, and cultural rapprochement between Russia and Japan. Moreover, this rapprochement was observed after the events of 1917 for several more years, since, during the Russian Civil War, Japan supported the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Far East.The two countries entered the First World War as de facto allies; this alliance culminated in the Treaty of 1916. Its reflection in symbolic actions was also an element of this cooperation. In the years before the First World War, and, actually, during the war, hundreds of Japanese servicemen were given Russian awards. The article analyzes the composition of military personnel, what awards and for what merits were presented to the members of the Imperial House who did military service, diplomats, generals, as well as fleet admirals and naval officers, engineers, and divers.After October 1917, Japan supported members of the White Movement and Admiral A. V. Kolchak for several more years. In addition, even more active support was provided to Ataman G. M. Semenov. For example, Japanese garrisons were stationed in Transbaikalia starting from the autumn of 1918, when he came to power there. Paradoxically, many Japanese officers and enlisted men were presented with Russian awards during the years of the Civil War, which fact is also confirmed in archival documents.
It is generally agreed that first language (L1) morphological awareness, the ability to reflect upon, analyze and manipulate morphemes and morphological structure of words, can transfer and facilitate second language (L2) reading subskill acquisition. However, the facilitative role of L1 morphological awareness is unclear in the literature investigating third language (L3) reading. This study explored if and how L1 morphological awareness and L2 reading subcomponent skills contribute jointly to L3 lexical inferencing in syllabic L1 Japanese-alphabetic L2 English-morphosyllabic L3 Chinese university learners. Sixty-seven students were recruited from novice-level, first-year Chinese classes from a Japanese university. Only 56 students completed 7 computerized or paper-and-pencil tasks, including L1 Japanese morphological awareness, L2 English morphological awareness, L2 English vocabulary knowledge, L2 English lexical inferencing, L3 Chinese morphological awareness, L3 Chinese vocabulary knowledge, and L3 Chinese lexical inferencing. They also completed a self-reported proficiency questionnaire survey. Correlational and regression analyses were conducted. The results suggested that there was only a significant association between L1 Japanese morphological awareness and L3 Chinese lexical inferencing, and there were no significant correlations between L2 English reading subcomponent skills and L3 Chinese lexical inferencing. Discussion is provided regarding the crosslinguistic influence of L1 morphological awareness in L3 reading development and the implications for L3 reading instruction.
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Social Sciences
Harisal - Harisal, Elvira Septevany, dan dan Liu
et al.
Women are widely used in writing kanji, both Japanese and Mandarin kanji. The aim of this research is to describe the meaning of Woman in the kanji, both kanji in Japanese and Mandarin. The method used is a descriptive-qualitative research method, which is a method used by researchers to find knowledge or theory regarding research at a certain time, with the population and sample being kanji which uses female kanji originating from Japanese and Mandarin to get the meaning and describe it. The research results show that there are several similarities and differences in literal meaning in Japanese and Mandarin. However, the difference in meaning is not so significant because the interpretations are almost the same and the ultimate goal is to both represent women, so it can be seen that the meaning of women in kanji in both Japanese and Mandarin is both to represent women, both in terms of activities carried out and woman's own identity.
The article deals with the Japanese medical presence in the Russian Far East in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. It has been found that, during the Meiji period (1868–1912), as a part of the modernization in Japan, there was an active development and introduction of Western dental technologies into everyday life. Following global trends, the Japanese government set a course on the standard-setting regulation of the training and professional activities of specialists in the field of dentistry. The authors believe that dentistry in Japan has passed the way from traditional healing practices to medical science and medical specialty in a short period of time due to the borrowing of Western technologies. The article reveals the causes and features of labor migration of Japanese dentists to Russia. Russian authorities did not interfere in labor migration. However, the law did not provide for private dental practice by foreigners without passing an exam at a university medical faculty. Nevertheless, many Japanese specialists were able to legalize their activities. Using the example of the identified historical characters and their activities, a picture of the organization and provision of dental care to the population by Japanese migrants is being described. The authors argue that Japanese dentists were acting within the framework of Russian legislation and were limited in their professional work. They also applied Western technologies of treatment and prosthetics. Flexible pricing policy, a wide range of materials and technologies, relevant skills and personal qualities made it possible for Japanese dentists to earn the trust of patients and provided them with high material well-being. The researchers were unable to find examples of scientific, practical, or educational interaction between Russian and Japanese specialists in the field of dentistry during the studied period. The Japanese living in the Russian Far East did not aspire to legalize their activities completely by passing exams at Russian universities. The authors suppose that it was due to insufficient knowledge of the Russian language, high financial and time costs, geographic remoteness of the region from educational and scientific centers, and lack of plans for a permanent stay in Russia.
The article is devoted to the history of exhibitions of Japanese children’s drawings in the Soviet Union in 1920s – 1980s, as well as to the critical interpretation and perception by the Soviet audience of the artistic works of Japanese children. The importance of such events can be seen not only in the artistic value of the exposition material, but also in the influence of the expositions on the image of Japan in mass consciousness.
The material is devoted to key exhibition projects related to the presentation of Japanese children’s art, in particular, the “Exhibition of Children’s Books and Children’s Art of Japan” in 1928, as well as a series of international exhibitions “I See the World,” held in the USSR since the late 1960s. The greatest attention is paid to the peculiarities of Soviet art criticism towards Japanese children’s drawing in the pre-war and post-war period, as well as the influence of Soviet ideology on the interpretation of children’s art from Japan.
The author comes to the conclusion that the approach to the exhibitions was characterized by ideological indoctrination, as well as certain stereotypes about Japan, which created a request for exoticization of the creative products of the Japanese children. During the initial period of the Russian-Japanese cultural ties, despite the controversial nature of the Soviet art criticism of Japanese children’s drawings, the exhibition had substantial importance for the cultural ties of the two countries. In the post-war period, not only mono- national exhibitions, but also large projects involving multiple countries drew attention to various creative works of Japanese children. Since the early 1990s, the past importance of such exhibitions as an important element of cultural exchange receded, which is also true for the present times, despite the episodic exhibition projects of this sort in various regions of Russia. The “propaganda” component of children’s drawings faded. It is, however, regrettable that such exhibitions stopped attracting public attention due to the lack of interest of the media to these initiatives, as well as of systematic study of the works of Japanese children from the point of view of art studies and psychology.
The article is based on documents, many of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, from the following archives: the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg.
Given the complexity and difficulty of discourse-level grammar acquisition, narrative construction can be a challenging task for many language learners as well as for language teachers to provide guidance in classroom. This paper provides a structure for narrative production practices that are based on assigned dialogues in classroom setting by following the Japanese narrative structure of kishōtenketsu 起承転結 (introduction, development, twist, and conclusion), and William Labov’s (1972) six components of a natural narrative model—Abstract Orientation, Complicating Action, Resolution, Evaluation, and Coda. Sample narrations in Japanese are provided to discuss a selected set of discourse-level features commonly used in each phase of narrative production. As pedagogical implications, this paper provides a step-by-step instruction on how to conduct narrative rehearsals in classroom by using a dialogue from the NihonGO NOW! series (Noda, et al. 2020). It also discusses ways to provide support and opportunities for language learners’ narrative skill development.
The article addresses qualitative changes in Russian-Japanese relations that occurred after the resignation of Shinzō Abe from the position of Prime Minister in 2020 due to the transformation of the international environment and domestic political developments in both countries. Among the international factors contributing to the deterioration of bilateral relations, the author particularly mentions confrontation between the Kremlin and the U.S after the change of administration in Washington in 2021, as well as a new aggravation of the situation around Ukraine in 2022. Continuing formation of a new system of geopolitical coordinates in Asia, in which only China can be considered by Russia an actual ally, while Japan, along with many of Russia’s Asian partners linked to the U.S., found themselves in the opposing camp, also played a role.
The author focuses on the change in the Russian position on the issue of the peace treaty with Japan. The course was taken to demonstrate to Japan the futility of its stance on the issue of border demarcation with Russia. There has also been a transformation of the place and role of Japan in the internal ideological and propaganda discourse of Russia, where the focus on the «crimes of Japanese militarism» in East Asian countries is becoming increasingly evident. At the same time, the author considers Moscow’s critical attitude towards Japan not the result of a conscious ideological campaign directed specifically against Japan, but rather a reflection of the general atmosphere in the socio-political life of Russia.
The author believes that the acquisition of a new «unfriendly» state in the face of Japan on the Far Eastern borders will become a military and political risk factor for Russia and will inevitably damage its security. Meanwhile, Russia should rethink its position given that, geostrategically, it is important for it to have strong partnership relations with Japan.
The article is a review of the collective monograph New Sources on the History and Culture of the Ainu. In the chapters of the monograph, Russian scholars, based on the analysis of material and written sources in Russian and foreign languages, consider various aspects of the history of the Ainu, their culture, and ethnic traditions. The measures taken by the Japanese government to establish sea communication between Edo and the lands of the Ainu are analyzed. The review notes the significant contribution made by each of the authors to the study of the Ainu culture and traditions.
Japan reached an epistemological crossroad during the fourteenth century. The Wars of the Northern and Southern Courts (1336-1392) were fought between two power enters with vastly different visions for the future: The Southern Court aimed to restore the sacerdotal monarchy of the past and its epistemic framework, what this article calls the ōbō-buppō episteme; the Ashikaga-led Northern Court, conversely, represented a shift toward the secular and the sublimation of royal authority heralding the advent of a new episteme, or the jitsuri episteme. The war chronicle Taiheiki is in large part responsible for our understanding of the conflict far beyond its official end in 1392. This paper argues that Taiheiki is unique among war chronicles in concluding without the restoration of royal authority or the ōbō-buppō episteme, and this failure made it a signifier of epistemic change as well as a source of inspiration for samurai of subsequent generations who wished to affect such change themselves.
Language and Literature, Japanese language and literature
This article reports the results of the online survey on Japanese-language educators’ beliefs and experiences concerning their profession that we conducted in the fall of 2018. A total of 355 teachers in North America responded to the survey. The responses were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative data suggest that the survey respondents almost unanimously agreed on the importance of global and translingual/transcultural competence as a crucial goal for JFL education. However, the items concerning the legitimacy of language varieties (e.g., standard vs. regional dialects), the importance of accuracy (e.g., grammar, pronunciation), and the views on Japanese culture (e.g., emphasis on uniqueness) received rather conflicting responses from the participants. Moreover, qualitative comments brought up the issues of native-speakerism, nihonjinron, and heteronormativity ideologies as prevailing in JFL education. In short, the results illuminate both converging and diverging perspectives of the survey participants and contradictions or dilemmas between aspirational ideals and mundane practices.
Described as a “galloping” phenomenon now considered “pandemic” in proportion, the use of English as the lingua franca medium of instruction (EMI) at higher education institutions (HEIs) across the globe is today considered the most significant trend in educational internationalisation. Japan is no exception and a growing number of the nation’s universities are increasingly offering classes–and even entire courses–in English. Seen by some as a panacea for jump-starting the nation’s stagnant internationalisation profile and improving overall English language skills, this paper firstly explores the theoretical background and rationale behind the trend to utilize EMI based on a review of the literature. Secondly, questionnaire data and feedback from Japanese students taking such classes at two, second-tier universities are analyzed to help shed light on attitudes and ascertain the issues as well as highlight some limitations and problems involved with EMI classes. Finally, it concludes with practical recommendations for greater language support activities and warns of the implications of naively equating EMI alone to an automatic improvement in English language ability in the Japanese context.