2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Formation of the Views of History in the Process of Compiling "Iwakurako Jikki"
| Project/Area Number |
13610401
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Japanese history
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| Research Institution | Kogakkan University |
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Principal Investigator |
UENO Hideharu Kogakkan University, Faculty of Literature, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (70072428)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2003
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| Keywords | Iwakurako Jikki / Kagawa Keizo related documents / Duke Sanjo Sanetomi's chronological list / formation of the views of history |
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| Research Abstract |
"Iwakurako Jikki (The Authentic Record of Lord Iwakura)" is a biography of Iwakura Tomomi, a politician who made a great contribution in modern Japanese history. It took 20 years for Kagawa Keizo, a bureaucrat of the Ministry of the Imperial Household who received the fullest confidence of Iwakura, to complete its compilation, though it was done with the collaboration of six non-historian acquaintances of Iwakura. The purpose of this research is to clarify the process of its compilation through the letters to Kagawa Keizo and how the compilers formed their views of history.
The compilation project started in November 1883, when the compilers started collecting the materials, and in June 1884 they started tackling a chronological list of Iwakura's achievements, which was almost completed in 1887 or in 1888. They also started drawing a narrated picture story of Iwakura. Both of them, however, were not fully completed and some revision was made afterward. Although they started writing a biography of Iwakura around 1893, the task did not proceed smoothly and it was discontinued in the late 1890s. It was resumed around 1902 and after several meetings for proofreading it was finally completed in the late 1903 and published in 1906. They also remade the narrated picture story and it was finished in around 1910, when the whole project of the compilation was completed. This is the outline of the compilation process.
This project, done by non-historians, was notable for the following points : first, wide-ranging historical materials were collected; second, not only the chronological list but also the biography was written. Although the compilation project of the achievements of Sanjo Sanetomi was done almost at the same time, it was limited only to the chronological list. Also, their making of the narrated picture story was influenced by the fact that it was thought to be an effective way of historical compilation at that time.
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