Le Moment nipponiste (1888-1897)

In the 1880s, an occasion arose "that only comes once every thousand years": the government promised the population a Constitution, and announced elections. In 1888, a group of intellectuals created the journal, Nihonjin (“the Japanese”).

They hoped to intervene in the political and social sphere since, for them, modernising the State was not enough: a true Nation had to be built. The Japanese people needed to see themselves as an integrated whole, as well as bearers of a singular identity that would contribute to world progress.

The Japanese people's participation in their government and affirmation of a national spirit are two facets of a single idea that the journal’s founders would strive to clarify and impose through their articles and commitments, which sometimes met with unexpected success.

Biographies Contributeurs

Morvan Perroncel

Morvan Perroncel est maître de conférences à l’Université Chûkyô. Spécialiste de l’histoire des idées politiques du Japon moderne, il est l’auteur d’une étude consacrée au nationalisme de l’ère Meiji, Le Moment nipponiste (2016).