The Hakubi Project

As a concept, the idea of martyrdom implies the existence of a victim, killed by an absolute evil opposed to Christianity. This structure—tyrants and executioners juxtaposed against martyred heroes—is constitutive of the Church's definition of martyrdom. My research examines the role of this concept not only within the context of Church history, but also its reception and evolution from a Japanese perspective.

 As is often the case with Western conceptualizations, missionaries had difficulty effectively translating the word "martyrdom" into Japanese. However,  the act of "martyrdom" was widely put into practice because due to the severe interdiction of Christianity. Japanese authorities, conscious of the danger of this concept, did not dare to translate it into Japanese, and considered Christian martyrs to be executed criminals.

 In the meantime, the figures of martyrs in Japan were placed at the center of the missionary propaganda disseminated in Europe, within narratives that were increasingly edifying and further removed from the realities on the ground. This phenomenon was even accentuated with the beatification (i.e. officialization of the sanctity) of the twenty-six martyrs of Nagasaki in 1627, only thirty years after their deaths. The symbolic and doctrinal construction of their images was embodied not only in the concrete cult of the Japanese martyrs, but also in their representations, both literary and theatrical. This led to the canonization (i.e. re-officialization of the sanctity at the global scale) the martyrs in Japan just before Japan was forced to open up to the outside world.

 The situation changed drastically after the Meiji Restoration, when Japan was criticized for its anti-Christian policies, introduced the notion of martyrdom into its own language, and diffused it. This shift would even lead the regime to attempt to use Japan's Christian past in its propaganda, with, for example, a film on the martyrs produced in 1931. After World War II, the memory of the martyrs and the legends that originated from the martyrs who perpetuated themselves in Japan after the persecution would be integrated into the history of Japan and the identity of Nagasaki itself.

Opening talk
"Introduction of the Kagami (Mirror) Project produced by the Hakubi PRWG "

• Speaker： Assistant Professor Sayaka TOJIMA (12th, The Kyoto Univeristy Museum)
• Presentation Language：Japanese

Summary

I would like to introduce the Kagami (means a mirror in Japanese)  Project, scheduled for Saturday, June 11, 2022, and would like to invite all Hakubi colleagues to participate in the project.