The Ideology of Kokugo: Nationalizing Language in Modern Japan

Chapter 11 Korea and Poland

160 CHAPTER 11 Korea and Poland 11-1. Korea and Poland: Double Exposure Hoshina was unique among those who were sent to Europe by the Ministry of Education at that time, as he recalled later: The ministry’s bylaws did not grant study abroad for those in the fields of kokugogaku , Chinese literature, and Japanese history, so I was not supposed to be qualified for this. However, in recognition of my earnest effort in kokugo research, they granted me a scholarship as a researcher of linguistics and language pedagogy . (Hoshina 1949b, 58) On his return two years later (1913; Taishō 2), he was disappointed to find that Kokugo Chōsa Iinkai had been disbanded. Nonetheless, Hoshina began energetically to marshal the committee’s documents and to report on the language problems and language education of Europe. For example, within only two years, 1913–1914, he published in the journal Kokugakuin zasshi a series of eight articles on language issues overseas, in Germany, Britain, Switzerland, the United States, Albania, and South Africa, and even included the Esperanto movement.1 These works showed Hoshina’s eager commitment to resolution of kokugo issues. Realizing that in language education Japan was far behind Europe, Hoshina was moving his focus from kokugogaku to kokugo education, and in 1917 he started the monthly journal Kokugo kyōiku (Kokugo Education). He was editor in chief and wrote its foreword every month. Hoshina was given another mission during his research abroad: the [Japanese ] government-general of Korea asked him to investigate political problems regarding languages and language policy in Europe. As he recalled, “the government -general’s office keenly felt the importance of kokugo policy in ruling Korea at that time” (1949b, 80), the time right after the annexation of Korea (1910; Meiji 43). This concrete proposition for colonial rule of Korea motivated Hoshina to further commitment to research on language policy. Korea and Poland 161 Hoshina eagerly collected resources and diligently investigated language problems in Europe, especially in Posen Province under Prussian-German occupation (today’s Poznan, Poland), where he witnessed the reality of the language policy and recognized its serious consequences. Posen (German pronunciation of Polish “Poznan”) had a largely Polish population . Partitioned three times, in 1772, 1793, and 1795, among Russia, Austria , and Prussia, Poland had disappeared from the map. Prussia-Poland was then revived as the Duchy of Warsaw by Napoleon, but after the Napoleonic Wars, the Treaty of Vienna (1809) had Prussia controlling western Warsaw as the Grand Duchy of Posen. Later, Posen became a territory of the North German Confederation in 1867, then of the German Empire in 1871 (Itō S. 1987, 13–15), and thus was put completely under German control until the Treaty of Versailles (1919) after World War I, which made it a province of the Polish Republic. While under the Prussian-German regime, Posen Province underwent sweeping “Germanization” in every aspect of its politics, economy, and culture. Prussia suppressed any sign of Polish ethnicity and severely repressed the Polish language, the last shred of Posen’s ethnicity, almost to annihilation. Posen Province became the front line of Sprachkampf, Prussia’s language war against Poland. The historian Itō Sadayoshi, who focused his studies on Germany, illustrated in Ikyō to kokyō (Exile and Home) how the Germanization of the Poles was crucial to the existence of the Prussian nation and commented that “the relation between the Poles and German society in imperialism hangs over us, like a double exposure, mirroring the relation between Korea and Japan” (1987, 10). As colonies, both Poland and Korea faced similar problems such as land reform, forced assimilation, imposed name changes, and racial discrimination. The relationship between Germany and Poland resembled that between Japan and Korea (and some of their problems continue to this day). Hoshina, too, saw this “double exposure” more than half a century before we did. However, his perspective was completely different from ours: he sought in Prussian German policy on Poland the direction Japan should take with Korea. The double exposure of Poland and Korea prompted Hoshina to become the first scholar of language policy in Japan. 11-2. Kokugo Education and Assimilation Policy In 1914 (Taishō 3), less than a year after his return from Europe, Hoshina published Kokugo kyōiku oyobi kyōju no shinchō (The New Wave in Education and Teaching of Kokugo), a voluminous book of 854 pages, with the objec- 162 Hoshina Kōichi...