Takahashi Tomio’s Phoenix: Recuperating Hiraizumi, 1950–71

Since 1945, Hiraizumi has by turns been envisioned as exemplar of the independent history and culture of Tohoku (northeastern Japan), of the possibilities of local culture for national recuperation, and as an exceptional instance of the shared heritage of humankind. This article explores the role of Hiraizumi in the early postwar work of historian Takahashi Tomio, whose vision of an independent Hiraizumi polity governed by and for Tohoku shaped the field of Hiraizumi studies in the early postwar decades.