A Journey through Colonial Sakhalin ：Iwaya Sazanami’s Experience in Sakhalin

MASUI, Makoto

doi:2023.16.1.13

The Journal of Japanese Language Literature Studies > Volume 16(1); 2023 > Article

Article

Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies 2023;16(1): 13-36.
doi: https://doi.org/10.22628/bcjjl.2023.16.1.13

A Journey through Colonial Sakhalin ：Iwaya Sazanami’s Experience in Sakhalin

Makoto MASUI

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellow

植民地樺太をめぐる旅 ―― 巌谷小波の樺太体験

増井真琴

Correspondence Makoto MASUI ,Email: masuimacoto@meiji.ac.jp

Published online: 30 June 2023.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

Iwaya Sazanami(1870-1933) was a prominent figure in modern Japanese children’s literature. He traveled to the colonial Sakhalin one time in his life, the main purpose of this journey being to give oral presentations of fairy tales to children in Sakhalin. He energetically traveled the colony, including Toyohara (currently Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), Ōdomari (Korsakov), Shirutoru (Makarov), Noda (Chekhov) and Maoka (Kholmsk). However, regarding Sazanami’s visit to Sakhalin, as far as I know, there is no previous research. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify what kind of experience Sazanami had in Sakhalin under Japanese rule, and the essence of the literature(Haiku), political ideology(His view of Sakhalin and the Ainu people) he formed there. In conclusion, Sazanami was a hardcore imperialist, colonialist and nationalist who was delighted to have won the territorial struggle with Russia, the enemy country, and made Sakhalin his own. And he strongly hoped that Sakhalin and the Ainu would be included and integrated as part of the Japanese nation and people, and that Sakhalin would achieve further civilizational development in the future.

Keywords: Iwaya Sazanami, Sakhalin, Colony, Ainu People, Karafuto Nichinichi Shinbun

キ―ワ―ド: 巌谷小波, 樺太·サハリン, 植民地, アイヌ民族, 樺太日日新聞