The Birth of the Symbolic Emperor

In the previous installment, we saw the difficult position in which the emperor was placed in the age of war, the sacred decision to end it, and the debate that continues even now. Defeat brought a fundamental rethinking of the very nature of the emperor, who had been set at the center of the modern state.

What this installment traces is an entirely new image of the emperor, born out of that rethinking. From sovereign to symbol of the nation. How did an existence held under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan to combine the rights of sovereignty change its form under the Constitution of Japan? And how was an image of an imperial house standing together with the people sought out? This is the quiet course of transformation we wish to follow.

The so-called Humanity Declaration

The first turning point of the transformation came soon after the war had ended.

On January 1, 1946, Emperor Showa issued the ‘Imperial Rescript on the Construction of a New Japan.’ This is what would later be called the Humanity Declaration. Within this rescript, the purport was stated that the bond between the emperor and the people did not rest on myth or legend, and it is said to have set forth content rejecting the view of the emperor as an akitsumikami, a living deity.

The name ‘Humanity Declaration’ is a popular label that spread later. The rescript itself was a document speaking of resolve toward building a new nation, and the denial of deification was one part of it. Even so, this declaration is received as one great dividing line, moving away from the structure in which the emperor had been held sacred before the war, toward an existence walking together with the people.

The Constitution of Japan and the word ‘symbol’

And a still greater transformation was brought about by the new constitution.

The Constitution of Japan, promulgated on November 3, 1946, and put into effect on May 3, 1947. Its Article 1 defined the emperor as ‘the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People.’ Further, that position was held to derive from the will of the people of Japan, with whom resides sovereign power. Sovereignty was clearly stated to reside in the people, and the emperor became an existence having no powers related to government, performing only the acts in matters of state that the constitution provides for.

This was a dramatic change from the Constitution of the Empire of Japan. Once, the emperor had been held to be the sovereign who, as head of state, combined the rights of sovereignty. Under the new constitution that was repositioned as a symbol holding no real power over government. Not as power, but as the symbol of the unity of the people, drawing close to the nation’s course: into this word ‘symbol’ the whole of the postwar image of the emperor would be poured.

What deserves attention is the point that this position as symbol was held to derive from the will of the people. The emperor’s position was held to be supported not as authority handed down from the past, but by the will of the people living in the present. It can be seen as a moment when, within the long history of the imperial house, its very point of standing was greatly displaced.

Standing before the people: the postwar tours

The new image of the emperor was not born within documents alone. It was shaped through a concrete practice: the emperor himself standing before the people.

The symbol of this was the postwar tours across the country. In February 1946, about half a year after the war’s end, Emperor Showa began a journey around the various regions. In the unadorned attire of a suit and soft hat, he visited factories and disaster-stricken areas, encouraged those at work on reconstruction, and comforted those who had lost family in the war. The tours continued over long years, from 1946 to 1954, and are said to have reached every region except Okinawa, which was then under American administration.

The emperor, once a distant existence, now went of his own accord to where the people were and exchanged words with them. Within the desolate postwar landscape, many people are said to have been strongly impressed by that sight. The plain exchanges in each place would, in later years, be passed down in various forms. These tours were an attempt to show a new image of the imperial house before the people in the chaotic postwar period, and from here the image of an emperor standing together with the people began to take concrete form.

Before the war, the emperor was, for many of the people, an existence within photographs and portraits, and the chance to look directly upon his figure was said to have been limited. After the war, he came to travel through the regions himself by train and car, showing himself standing at the sites of reconstruction. The very way this distance narrowed is often pointed out as symbolizing the image of the emperor in a new age. The abstract word ‘symbol’ took root within people’s lived sense through this accumulation of concrete conduct.

The form of the symbol, handed down

In this way, passing through the great rupture of defeat, the emperor changed his form from sovereign to symbol.

Let us pause here and consider. What did this transformation mean for the history of the imperial house? Looking back over a long span, as we have seen in this series, the emperor was an existence that endured, changing his position to suit the age of each time. In antiquity, from a great king who ruled the land to the summit of the ritsuryo state; in the world of the nobility, as authority; in the world of the warrior houses, still as the source of legitimacy; and in modern times, as the center of the state. The symbolic emperor system, too, can be seen as one new form that the postwar age gave to the emperor.

It should also be noted that, concerning the symbolic emperor system, there are various views on its significance and on whether it is right. On the form of the institution and on the shape of the imperial house to come, the matter includes points on which evaluations and opinions are divided. This piece sides with none of those positions; it wishes only to confirm the historical course of how the image of the symbol, born after the war, was given form.

What is certain is that this duty of the symbol, born after the war, would be deepened further in the eras that followed. The practice of drawing close to disaster areas, comforting the war dead, and gathering thoughts toward peace was handed down to the next generation. What it means to be a symbol: to that question, the imperial house would come to answer, along with the times, through its own course.

How was that duty of the symbol deepened in the era of Heisei? In the next installment, let us follow, within the scope of public facts and with respect, the course of the Heisei imperial house, which sought to walk together with the people.