日本の天皇制国家形成に関する一考察 - 近․現代の天皇制を中心に -

Abstract

It would be an undeniable fact that the 21st century is the era when the existence of nations is revisited. This is clearly seen in recently hotly debated issues over national states and ethnicity. Recent years have seen the change of the Korean president, with the hope that the Korea‐Japan relation will be improved, but new issues including the problem of conscripted workers aggravates the relation. In Japan, one sees protest demonstrations against Korea by right wing organizations almost every day. On the other hand, several Japanese citizen groups rally to speak against such protest demonstrations; the members of these groups include an elder person who holds a card with the Hangul word for ‘friendly,’ a middle‐aged man who holds the national flags of the two countries, and a participant wearing “hanbok” who conveys the message ‘Be friendly to Korea.’ In this paper, I take into consideration the Korea-Japan relation which faces an imminent big change and focus on the emperor system of modern and contemporary Japan. By exploring several aspects of the system, I clarify the issues which the two countries are encountering and analyze their self consciousness.