Recently, Yujin, the son of the Japanese Emperor Akishinomiya, took the entrance examination for high school and switched to the higher school attached to the University of Tsukuba instead of studying for the higher departments of the College, which caused some social discussion. At present, there is no third generation between Emperor Naruhito and Akishinomiya, and there is no one who has come after that, except for Princess Aiko, naruhito's daughter, who is now studying at Gakuin University. This means that the school that has been a school for the children of the Imperial Household since Meiji will in fact have no choice but to bid farewell to the Japanese Imperial Family.
The school's main school is based on the Kyoto Gakuin Academy, which was opened in 1847. It has a history of 145 years since it opened in Kanda, Tokyo in 1877 as a Chinese school. The tradition of the academy focuses on the integration of sinology and harmony, and has a good relationship with classical Chinese.
In 1849, emperor Xiao Ming gave the imperial plaque "Study Institute" to this day, and the words "Analects of Learning" are published: "Learning and learning from time to time, not to say!" In 1889, the Academy of Learning established the alumni association "Furen Association" for students' extracurricular activities, and said in the Analects of Yan Yuan: "Gentlemen meet friends with literature, and assist ren with friends." Founded in 1890, Furenkai Magazine has published 245 issues and is the longest surviving alumni association magazine in Japan. After the war, the Gakushuin institute wholly owned the establishment of the "Gakushuin Co., Ltd." named by the 18th generation of the dean of the Gakuin Academy, Abe Nori, said in the "Book of Poetry : Peach Dream, its leaf Zhen Zhen, the son of Yu Yu, suitable for his family", with the intention of hoping that the new club will thrive and flourish like a leaf."
Samurai Koji Shitoku and Naoya Shiga take a group photo before graduating from the Gakuen Shogunate. May 1906
Founded in Meiji 22 (1889), the Gakushuin Furen Association was a pure student body, initially consisting of six activity departments, including the Compilation Department, the Speech Department, the Sports Department, the English Department, the French Department, and the German Department. On June 17, 1890, the Compilation Department founded the FuRenhui Magazine, which has been a source of talent for more than 100 years. As early as the end of the Meiji period, the higher department of the Academy of Learning at that time brought together a group of young people of literature and art, all of whom were active members of the Furen Society, but they appeared to be somewhat different in the orthodox educational atmosphere of the Chinese children's schools. However, it was this group of young classmates who were actively engaged in literature and art, and later founded and published the magazine "Shirakaba", which stood out in the history of modern Japanese literature and achieved the famous "Shirakrake School".
The core figures of the "Shirakaba Sect", Shigeru Koji and Naoya Shiga, are students of the same level as the Higher Section of the Gakuin Academy, as well as Takero Arishima, Ioma Arishima, Satomi, Yanagisō, Gun torahhiko, and Nagayo Yoshiro, all of whom are from the Gakuen Academy. In the naturalistic trend of Meiji literature, the young people of "Shirakaba" raised the banner of idealism and humanism, promoted free individuality, paid attention to social ethics, and juxtaposed with the aestheticist "Mita literature" and the rationalist "new trend of thought", becoming the stronghold of anti-naturalism, and developing from campus literature to the largest force in the main text.
Samurai Koji Shitoku was born in 1885 to the Koshin family of Koji, Kushi-cho-ku, Tokyo. When he was 2 years old, his father, Lord Koji Shigeru, died, and his brother, Koji, was the tenth head of the Samurai Koji family and a famous diplomat, serving as a ceremonial officer for the inauguration of Emperor Taisho in 1915, and later as Japan's ambassador to Turkey and ambassador to Germany. A proper upper-class student, Shitoshi Takeji entered the Department of Philosophy and Sociology at Tokyo Imperial University in 1906 after going through the study of elementary, intermediate, and advanced subjects, but dropped out of school because he could not stand the atmosphere of today's authoritarianism and focused on the practice of literature. In the same year, Sedu Takeshi Koji and his classmates Naoya Shiga, Takero Arishima, Toshigen Kinoshita, and others formed a fourteen-day meeting and began their creative activities. In 1908, he published his own collection of works, Wilderness, and in 1910, together with naoya Shiga and Takero Arishima, he founded the magazine Shirakaba. An important school of thought and literature in Modern Japanese History was born.
Naoya Shiga was born in Miyagi Prefecture in 1883 by his grandfather, who was involved in the development of Ashio Copper Mountain, and his father was a successful industrialist with a wealthy family, and was the son of a wealthy family. Naoya Shiga also enrolled in the Elementary School of The Gakuin School from elementary school, and after graduating from the Junior And Advanced Department, he directly entered the English Department of Tokyo Imperial University because of his admiration for Natsume Soseki, but fell out of the School of Tokyo Imperial University because of his sympathy for the mine laborers and personal marriage problems, and eventually dropped out of Todai. During his time at the gakuen, Shiga was keen on boating, cycling, and other sports, and neglected his studies and stayed for the year twice, but he was able to become a classmate with the two-year-old samurai Koji, and from the friendship of the same window, he developed a famous friendship in modern Japanese history.
On the eve of graduation of the Gakushuin Advanced Division, hiking samurai path (right) and Shiga (left)
During his studies at the Faculty of Advanced Studies, Naoya Shiga and Samurai Koji Shitoku were both members of the Speech Department of the Alumni Association Furen Association, and their works were published in the Fu jenkai magazine. The two often walked and talked, and once walked from Motoencho in Tsuneyamachi to Honkaku Katakata-cho in the rain, Shiga heard the love story of Samurai Koji for the first time, and Shiga responded to the same troubles of youth. In April of Meiji 39 (1906), on the eve of graduation from the higher education department, the two young men spent six days hiking together from the foothills of Mt. Fuji to Kofu, Shinshu, Maebashi, Akagi-san and other places, exchanging ideas and forming a deep friendship during the journey, and laying the foundation for the future to work together to open up a new path of literature. However, neither Shiga nor Takeshi Koji were keen scholars, and eventually Shiga graduated from the Gakuen Shogunate with the sixth-to-last and takeshi-4th-to-last grades, and entered Tokyo Imperial University together (at that time, the gakuen graduated from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and entered the University of Tokyo without exams).
Cover of the inaugural issue of Birch magazine
In October 1907, Samurai Koji Andoya shikaya discussed the publication of a magazine for the first time at the East House Inn in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. They gathered like-minded students in the academy and, from 1908 onwards, each took out 2 yen a month to prepare for the planned launch of the new magazine. In April 1910, a group of young people from the academy, including samurai Koji Shitoku and Shiga Naoya, founded the magazine Shirakaba. In fact, the gathering of fellow students to create literary and art magazines and lead the trend is unique since then. The new Shirakaba magazine brings together "Lookout" sponsored by Samurai Koji Shitoku, Naoya Shiga, Masamune Machi, Toshigen Kinoshita and others in the same school year, "Mai" sponsored by Rimi Tsutomu, Kochi Tsuyoshi Tsuenike, Jun Tanaka and others in the next school year, and "Taoyuan" sponsored by Yanagisaki and Torahhiko Gun in the next school year, plus the participation of students from takero Arishima, Ikuma Arima, Kikuo Kojima, Kojima Kikuo and other students, which can be called the collection of gakuin magazines of the Gakuen Academy.
Most of them were group photos of colleagues from the "Birch Sect" from the Academy
In the social atmosphere of the increasingly strong nationalist tendencies after the victory of the Russo-Japanese War at that time, these literary and artistic young people were really heretics in the elite group of the Academy. They admired literature and art, hated soldiers, opposed the samurai image and Meiji spirit embodied by Nogi Nogi, who was the head of the study academy at that time, and resented the hard-line education policy of "solid and strong". For this reason, Birch was considered a magazine produced by "IdleRs" and was banned in the study institute.
At the beginning of its inception, "Birch" was considered to be a group of literary play tickets for the children of the nobles who held a silver key in their mouths and did not know the sufferings of the world, but as the magazine continued to publish influential literary works, vigorously advocated idealism and humanitarian ideas, actively introduced Western modernist art schools, and promoted theater performance activities, the "Birch School" developed into a vigorous literary and artistic movement and became a representative trend of Taisho democracy. Among them, the famous idealist and humanitarian thinker, writer and social activist of modern Japan, Shitoku Koji, was born, and also became the "god of Japanese novels" Shiga Naoya. On September 1, 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck Japan, and Shirakaba magazine was forced to cease publication (Meiji 43 to August 12, Taisho), with a total of 160 consecutive volumes, making it the longest-running literary magazine in modern Japan.
During the period of my grandson who lived in Chiba, I took a group photo at the Samurai Koji Family Courtyard. May 1917. There are three people in the middle of the back row, starting from left: Samurai Koji Shitoku, Yanagi Mune-yuki, and Naoya Shiga
From the beginning of the gakuin to the era of "Shirakaba", Naoya Shiga had the habit of making friendly friends and was known as "addicted friends". From the age of 17, he became acquainted with Shiga's samurai Shitoku Koji and was his most laissez-faire friend and lifelong ally. Shitoku married Takeo House at the age of 27, and Shiga married Seito's maternal cousin, Yasuko Koji, at the age of 31. Under the persuasion of his friend Yanagi Munjo (a modern Japanese thinker, aesthetician, and father of the folk art movement), two young couples moved to Chiba Prefecture one after another to my grandson. From the Taisho period to the early Showa period, young artists such as Kishida Yoshima, Ken Inuyasha, Ryuzaburo Umehara, Nori Abe, nagato and Zenro often visited and gathered here, and my grandson became a holy place of the "Shirakaba School".
In 1918, the 33-year-old samurai Koji Shitoku imitated Tolstoy's "farming" life, moved from my grandson to Kijo Village in Miyazaki Prefecture, founded a model new village of mutual labor and common life, and published the magazine "New Village", which was keen to promote utopian ideas and human love, and carried out free creative activities such as drama and art in the new village. After the end of "Birch", the samurai continued to practice the New Village Movement, and for seven years they sweated and worked with their friends in the New Village and lived together. When the operating funds were insufficient and unsustainable, Shiga Naoya sent remittances several times to relieve the practice of the new village, showing the value of friendship. Later, due to the construction of the dam, Miyazaki's new village was relocated, and a small part remained as "Hyuga New Village", and most of them were moved to The East Village in Maolushan Town, Saitama Prefecture. Following the spirit of "cooperation and independence" advocated by Shitoto, the two "new villages" have developed to this day and become living fossils of Japan's utopian socialist movement.
Samurai Koji (front right), Shiga (back left) and their colleagues take photos
At the age of 17, the samurai Koji and Shiga met for the first time, and then experienced the peak highlight period of waving the fangs, pointing out the country and the mountains, and practicing ideals, and also encountered the wrong path of war and the dark clouds of life, until the end of their lives, the two were still able to sit and talk and laugh, calmly look back on their lives, and achieve a rare friendship in their lives. This is a friendship that began with the middle school of the academy and began in the youth of the teenager who did not know the taste of sorrow. Two people with very different personalities, but they can trust each other, respect each other, and are not afraid to speak directly, and have gone through a lifetime of collision and mutual competition, and each other has become an indispensable existence.
Naoya Shiga's novel Reconciliation, which describes the lives of the two families in my grandson's residence, comments on the samurai Koji: "He has a magical ability to find the good in each other. In addition, he can fully understand the wonderful feeling of direct collision between heart and heart." After Samurai Koji left my grandson to practice his shinmura ideals, he continued to associate with Shiga. Shiga's only novel, Dark Night Walk, spanned 17 years and is known as the "Pyramid of Modern Japanese Literature". In the preface to the book, Shiga states that "this book is dedicated to the samurai Koji Shitoku brother"
Naoya Shiga's masterpiece "Walking in the Night": Dedicated to the samurai Koji Shitoku brother
Shiga later recalled in Samurai Koji and Me (1950): I will be with the samurai in another three years and half a century. The personalities of warriors and mine are very different, and in many ways they are rather opposites. When I am entrusted by others, I often write "and different", which is also a favorite word of the warrior. Between the two of us, this phrase has always existed ideally and makes me proud. I have my life, but it is unimaginable if I had not met a warrior in this life.
On the eve of his 80th birthday, Naoya Shiga personally cut wood to make two canes, wrapped in slippery leather on the front end, one for his own use and one for the samurai Koji. The samurai koji thanked his old friend for his care and wrote his mood in the article "The Staff of Friendship": "At that time, my legs and feet were relatively weak, and Shiga knew that I had the habit of walking and walking, so he gave me this cane. I walked around the courtyard with my cane and felt like I was walking with Shiga. ”
In his later years, Takeshi Koji looked back on their friendship and said, "We have been friends for 51 or 2 years, and Shiga has unconsciously become a 72-year-old man. When we were young, we met and talked about the dream of becoming a literary hero. I don't know how much this dream has come true, but I think we're out of luck. Both of us had plans to write bigger works, but in fact we never imagined that we would survive as literati. The world now knows better than I do what shiga is and what he wrote, but there are very few people like me who fully accept Shiga. Samurai Koji Shitoku famously said, "You are you, I am me, but we are good friends." ”
According to analysis, Shiga has a habit of cleanliness, while the samurai are more tolerant; Shiga is like a torrent in the mountains, and the samurai are a mighty river. Such a contrasting personality sometimes makes it inevitable that conflict will occur. Shiga recalls that "I have quarreled several times in the 59 years since I became acquainted with the samurai"; in the unfinished draft of Shiga's autobiographical novel "The Dark Night Walk", there have been several confrontations and even crises of disconnection. But the friendship between the two is not an optional relationship, but intertwined with deep trust. From adolescence to twilight years, samurai and Shiga interact with each other as independent individuals, cultivating true humanity and friendship. This kind of friendship may be the background of the creation of the famous work "Friendship" by the samurai Koji Shitoku.
Samurai Koji's masterpiece "Friendship", "Love and Death"
First published in 1920, Shitoku Takeji's Friendship is called "Eternal Youth Fiction"; Love and Death, published in 1939, is hailed as an "immortal love novel". It is said that the prototype of Nojima in the novel "Friendship" is the samurai Koji, and the prototype of the Omiya is Shiga, of course, the two did not fall in love with the same woman in life. The Japanese film "Love and Death" (released in 1971, Chinese translated as "Life and Death Love") is adapted from the above two masterpieces and filmed, which can be called one of the best romance films in the international film industry in the 70s of the last century, and also made the late samurai Koji Shitoku return to the vision of mass culture.
In the novel "Love and Death", Natsuko girl dies of influenza; the movie "Life and Death Love" is adapted to die of an accidental explosion accident, which deepens the impact of the tragedy. Looking back now, perhaps it is the novel of the samurai koji that is more realistic, more convincing, and more meaningful. The novelist Muraoka was attracted to the lively and cute girl Natsuko and was scheduled to marry after returning from Paris. With Natsuko to be seen in two weeks, Muraoka receives bad news on the boat back home, and Natsuko dies of an influenza. The epidemic that killed Xia Zi was the "Spanish flu" that infected 500 million people and killed tens of millions of people between 1918 and 1920. Push forward a hundred years, there was a global cholera pandemic around 1820; another hundred years, the Plague epidemic of Marseille around 1720; and a hundred years back, around 2020, there was a global covid-19 pandemic. It can be seen that the global plague, which is separated by a hundred years, is still rampant. In the novel, the warrior Path describes the helplessness and sorrow of love against the background of a global disaster, and his insight is indeed the stroke of God.
Portrait of Naoya Shiga and the samurai Koji Shitoku. Zhou Jianshi painting
In 1949, Naoya Shiga was awarded the Order of Culture, and two years later, the samurai Koji Shitoku was also awarded the Order of Culture. In his later years, the samurai settled in Senkawa, Chofu City, and Shiga also built a new home in Tokiwamatsu, Shibuya-ku. Two famous writers who entered the literary world at the end of the Meiji period, rose to prominence during the Taisho period, and became representative cultural figures in Japan after the Showa period and even after the war, finally had the possibility of a leisurely life in their later years. In 1967, Takeshi and Shiga participated in the TV dialogue program "Family and Friends Dating", reviewing the friendship path since their classmates were young, making people envious and mixed feelings.
The warrior Koji (left) and Shiga (right), who have known each other all their lives, take a photo in their later years
Shiga died at the age of 88, and the samurai Koji ended at the age of 90. A year before Shiga's death, the samurai Koji Shitoku gave him a letter and wrote down the culmination of their friendship: "Brother Naoya: I met you in this world and worked with you to this day. You and I are independent individuals, writing what we want to write along the way. No matter how many years have passed, you are still you, I am still me. We were good friends, both to be honest, two really happy and interesting good friends. 11/15/45 Shik-do. ”
Looking back more than a hundred years ago, the youth of the Academy and the departmental activities of the Furen Association witnessed the beginning of the friendship between the two teenagers, and also led to the friendship between the two literary heroes. Later, Shirakaba magazine was discontinued due to the Great Kanto Earthquake, but the Fuhitokai Magazine of the Gakuen Academy has been published ever since, and it is a precious place where Shiga, Samurai Koji, and other Shirakaba writers first submitted and published their articles. Under the guidance of the predecessors of Taisho Literature, the Shogakuin Andekan and Fu Jenkai magazines during the Showa period ushered in their descendants.
In April 1937, a student named Hiraoka Gongwei was promoted from the elementary section of the Gakuin Academy to the secondary section, joined the FuRenhui Literary and Art Department, and in July published "Spring Grass Copy: Memories of the Elementary School Era" in the 159th issue of the Furenhui Magazine, which was the first time his prose works were printed and published in lead. In 1938, Gongwei published his first short story, "Sorrel," as well as "The Tale of Zazen," in the 161st issue of Furenhui Magazine. During the 7 years of studying in the academy and higher education, Gongwei published many poems, essays, novels, and opera works in the Furenhui Magazine, such as "Painted Glass", "Jade Carved Spring", "Mandala Story", etc., and his thinking and writing were tempered.
From 1940 to 1942, Hiraoka served as editor-in-chief of fu jenkai magazine and wrote the novella "The Forest of Flowers". In July 1941, after Gongwei finished the novel, he sent it to Fumizu Fumizu, a Chinese language teacher at the Gakuen Academy, for criticism and correction. Fumizu Fumizuo, who was then subordinate to the Romantic literary magazine Literary Culture, brought the manuscript to an editorial meeting held at Izu Shuzenji Temple in Shizuoka for his colleagues to read, and the result was so well received that he was amazed by the "genius" and unanimously decided to publish it. Because his father, Azusa Hiraoka, opposed his son's pursuit of literature, Gongwei was still young, and everyone proposed to publish it under a pen name.
At Shuzenji Temple, Fumizu flashed the word "Mishima" in his mind, and at the same time saw the snow of Mt. Fuji, and the name "ゆきお" came to mind. After returning to Tokyo, Shimizu-sensei consulted with Gongwei that the Chinese characters could be used as "Yukio", but later felt that "Xiong" was too heavy, so he changed it to "Yukio". As a result, the showa literary genius Yukio Mishima was born in the middle department of the Gakuin Academy. From September to December 1941, Yukio Mishima serialized Yukio Mishima's novel "Forest of Flowers" in three installments. In the first issue of the afterword, Yoshiaki Renda wrote: "This young author is also the inheritor of Japan's long history. Although he is much younger than us, he has already written very mature works. This comment is a great encouragement to Yukio Mishima to embark on the path of literature.
In January 1942, "A Brief History of Dynastic Psychological Literature" submitted by Hiraoka Gongwei was selected for the bounty paper in the library of the Academy of Learning. On March 24 of the same year, Hiraoka graduated from the middle school as the second in the school year and was promoted to a higher subject. On September 9, 1944, Hiraoka Graduated from the Faculty of Studies with the rank of Chief of the Higher Section and became the general generation of graduates. Emperor Showa came to the graduation ceremony, and Gongwei received a silver watch from the Imperial Household Department issued by the Miyauchi Province, etc., and had honor.
Left: Komi Hiraoka (16 years old), a teenager from the Gakuin era; Right: Yukio Mishima, a young man who became famous
During his 13 years at the Gakuin Academy, he had a profound influence on the psychological and character formation of Yukio Mishima. Yukio Mishima's writing experience shows that when he was a student, he could find a stage for himself to play, and met a teacher like Bole, which almost laid the direction and success of life. Later, at the suggestion of his father, Yukio Mishima was recommended to enter the Faculty of Law of Tokyo Imperial University, and showed interest in legal theory, especially the lecture notes on criminal procedure law. In the subsequent creation of novels, Mishima Literature presented a rare rigorous logic for the history of Japanese literature, which is also derived from it.
In the more than 130-year history of fu jen society magazine of the academy, the words and works published in the cradle of thought and creation are still shining. Today, the Fu Jen Hui Magazine, which exists in the form of an annual magazine, is edited and published by students of the Ministry of Literature and Art and continues to be distributed. Every year, "Furenhui Magazine" selects the "Furenhui Magazine Award" (Novel Award), and opens the "Composition Collection" (including recommended essays for elementary, intermediate, advanced, women's middle and higher courses in each academic year), etc., retaining a fresh campus literary and artistic trend and life atmosphere in an increasingly complex and mixed society. In 2020, the 110th anniversary of the founding of Birch, the tradition of the Birch Sect has also become the subject of study and review for active duty students.
Fu Jen Society Magazine published to date
In the 245th issue of Furenkai Magazine, which was newly published in 2022, two essays for second-year secondary students were published: "Looking at the Most Important Things of the Student Era from the Samurai Koji Shitoku" and "Finding the Ideals of Takero Arishima from His Works" was published. The previous article wrote: The memory and experience of the student era will become the key element and spiritual soil of life; the following article points out: No matter how different the birth and identity, the equality of life is not only an ideal, but also a belief. The struggle practice and gain and loss experience of the predecessors of the Birch Sect are still full of life echoes after a hundred years, inspiring generations of future generations to learn, and also inspiring the formation of the personality of the new generation. (Yang Wenkai)