Harvard East Asian Monographs, 364. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center; Harvard University Press [distributor], 2014. viii, 159 pp. (Illustration, map.) US$39.95, cloth. ISBN 978-0-674-49201-1.
The cover photograph on the jacket of Lost and Found: Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan is of Tsuruga Castle, headquarters of Aizu domain and daimyō Matsudaira Katamori, soon after the “pro-imperial” forces of Satsuma and Choshu defeated the rebellious domain that stubbornly refused to surrender even after the Tokugawa regime capitulated. Tsuruga Castle was torn down soon afterwards. Ninety years later, a concrete replica of the main structure of the castle was built on the site and serves as a museum to Aizu’s proud warrior tradition. Hiraku Shimoda’s monograph demonstrates that it did not take as long to rebuild, revise, and incorporate a replica of Aizu’s historical identity in Japan’s national consciousness.
The connection between Aizu domain and the Tokugawa regime began in the early seventeenth century when Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third shogun, appointed his half-brother Hoshina Masayuki as daimyō of Aizu in 1643. Hoshina proved to be a very capable leader of the domain and was later appointed guardian to the youthful shogun Ietsuna upon Iemitsu’s death. When serious difficulties, both internal and foreign, weakened the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1850s and early 1860s, there was little doubt that Matsudaira Katamori and his Aizu warriors would support their ally in the battles against the “pro-imperial” forces led by Choshu, soon to be joined by Satsuma. But when Satsuma, Choshu, and their allies defeated the Tokugawa regime and then defeated Aizu in the Boshin War, Matsudaira Katamori and Aizu lost their identity as loyal servants of shogun and became rebels and traitors to the new imperial Meiji government.
Using government documents, memoirs and local histories, Shimoda narrates and analyzes a gradual progression of Aizu leaders convincing officials of the Meiji government to understand and have respect for Aizu, starting with the handling and burial of Aizu’s warriors who died on the field of battle. Aizu warriors and families who were sent to begin an agricultural community in Tonami, which proved to be a disaster and led to many deaths due to starvation and malnutrition, were allowed to return to Aizu. Moreover, Aizu’s people convinced themselves they had fought the Boshin War not against the Emperor and not necessarily for the Tokugawa regime, but for the defense of their lord and their land. They exemplified the loyal and dutiful qualities of Aizuppo, or “sons of Aizu,” combined with the psychic unity of martial valour and historical traditions of “the Aizu spirit.” The tragic and melodramatic story of sixteen, then nineteen teenage boys of the Byakkotai (White Tiger) Brigade committing suicide by seppuku on Mount Iimori during the Boshin War became emblematic of this refashioned “Aizu spirit.” In this way, Aizu revised and recovered its distinct regional identity, while the Meiji government simultaneously sought to incorporate the provinces and domains into one united country of Imperial Japan. Aizu’s recovery and revision of its regional identity and incorporation into the imperial polity was completed even before Matsudaira Katamori’s granddaughter, Setsuko, married Prince Chichibu, Emperor Meiji’s grandson and younger brother of Emperor Showa, in 1928.
Lost and Found: Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan is a well-written and well-researched study of how Aizu, a major “loser” of the overthrow of the Tokugawa regime, recovered its identity and became incorporated into the national polity during the Meiji era. Nevertheless, I believe there are a couple of topics that should have been included in this study. Although the discovery of letters from Emperor Komei (Emperor Meiji’s father) thanking Matsudaira Katamori played a role in Aizu’s incorporation into the national polity, the author could have included more description and analysis of the years Matsudaira and some of his Aizu warriors served as the Tokugawa regime’s handpicked police force in the imperial capital of Kyoto. While Shimoda discusses the issue of proper burial for Aizu’s warriors in Aizu, there is no mention of the Aizu warriors who died at the Battle of Toba-Fushimi and are buried on the grounds of Kurodani Temple in Kyoto. Did the burials of these Aizu (and Kuwana) warriors become an issue that was negotiated by the new Meiji leaders, as did the burials of the warriors who died fighting a few months later in Aizu? Saigo Takamori’s pardon and rehabilitation into the imperial polity after his battles against the new Meiji government in 1876–77 is noted in Lost and Found, but it seems to this reviewer there is more potential comparison and connection to Aizu’s rehabilitation than is indicated in this study. Finally, neither the title nor subtitle of the book indicates that this informative and, again, well-researched study is specifically about Aizu.
Despite the concerns about omissions in the previous paragraph, Hiraku Shimoda’s Lost and Found: Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan is an important study of a major region of Japan that suffered the indignity of being known as “rebellious” with the defeat of the Tokugawa regime, but gradually recovered and revised its identity to fit with the new polity of imperial Japan. Scholars of Meiji-era Japan will find Lost and Found especially useful, while scholars of regional and national identity formation will find this to be a valuable case study.
John E. Van Sant
The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA