요코미쓰 리이치(橫光利一)의 《상하이(上海)》와 제국주의적 국민주의

Abstract

Yokomits Riichi stayed in Shanghai for a month from April 1928, and wrote the novel “Shanghai” from November 1928 to November 1931 and published it in the magazine “Gaizo(改造)”. Yokomitsu’s stay in Shanghai was a transition period from Daisho(大正) to Showa(昭和), and the era of war that led to the Manchurian Incident and the Pacific War began after the brief period of Daisho Democracy, and the Japanese cultural community changed rapidly from internationalism to nationalism. In this paper, among the motifs in the novel, four expressions that can be interpreted as international relations are summarized. (1)The relationship between Miyako and men shows a lineage between countries within the international community. (2)Olga, a Russian woman who is expelled from her country and not protected in other countries, shows the duality of the nation’s state. (3)Sanki and Osugi, who give up their identity as citizens, want to become the “Remains” of the Nation State. (4)Sanki, who fell into the a garbage carrier, is asking about the value of Japanese nationality or the exchange value of the human body in the international city of Shanghai. The novel “Shanghai” did not express a “historical outlook” even though it imposed sanctions on the May 30th Movement in 1925. A kind of “all of a piece” format, in which both Sanki and Osugi, who appeared at the beginning of the novel, is an indication that the two are the owners of the novel, and when reading the novel in that direction, a new reading called “Nation State and its Remains” could emerge. Their perception of society and humans is also changing as Osugi, who is turning into a prostitute, and Sanki, who is unemployed and falling into a swamp of poverty, loses economic and social privileges linked to their nationality. In that respect, this work can be said to be a novel that considers the meaning of imperial nationalism against the backdrop of the international space of Shanghai. The process of Sanki and Osugi’s fall can be expressed as a “Colonial guilty” which is a kind of self-reflection as an imperialist nation, which could not be fully understood in the existing Left-wing literature that used to target imperialism as evil.