일본 근대 군신상(軍神像)의 변천

Abstract

It is absolutely impossible to know the historical object without archives. You need to read a record covered by the parties and witnesses who actually saw it. Therefore, a record does not provide the historical “truth”, for it is always based on some subjective witnesses. So, what does it mean to read archive? No doubt that it is nothing but true for those who recorded it. For those who read and believe his “story”, it allows them to form a unity, just like family ties is strengthened by their shared memories or reading the Bible strengthens the unity of Christian. Gunshin, Japanese Gods of War, appeared in the modern Japan, became a historical memory and unite the people of Japan. When the war began, a number of stories of the heroic deaths were appeared extensively across the front pages of newspapers and magazines at the time. Some of them became sensationally famous and were later called gunshin. In other words, Japanese people themselves created such kinds of gods. Gunshin can be roughly categorized into three types. The first gunshinappearedsoonaftertheRusso- JapaneseWarbeganin1904 (Meiji 37). One of them was Hirose Takeo, who was a naval commander and died while he tried to find his missing subordinate at the Battle of Port Arthur in March. Another is Lieutenant Colonel Tachibana, who died at the Battle of Liaoyang in August and whose death was received as a similar case to Hirose’s. The stories of these two were appeared on the government-designated textbooks and became familiar to the contemporary people. Then, Maresuke Nogi come to be understood as a gunshin for hisritual suicide after the　Meiji Emperor’s funeral. Nogi was a general in the army, prominent for his performance at the Siege of Port Arthur; in which a number of victims were died. Correspondingly, Admiral Heihachiro Togo, known as Nogi’s naval rival, died in 1934 (Showa 9), was also considered to be a gunshin. The shrines were built respectively for their memorial. The third type appeared in the middle of the Manchurian Incident in 1932 (Showa 7); Three Bomber Heroes. These young soldiers in group completed the operation successfully at the costs of their lives. Their case is different from the former types, in the way that these soldiers were not senior officers, while the first two types died thinking deep for their inferior at the moment of their deaths. Although the rank and file had no chance to make their own decisions under the military rule of absolute obedience to their superiors, national imagination created such a new type of gunshin. The third type was passed down to Kyugunshin(nine war of gods), the nine submariners who died at the Attack on the Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the Kamikazeattackersappearedafter1944 (Showa 19). The gunshins defines peculiar value to Japanese people in the sense not that it raised　morale, but that it moved many people to tears for the heroic deaths.