Constructing, using, and memorializing Japan's earthquake calamity

Abstract

At an 11 November 1923 memorial service, the Mayor of Tokyo declared that the tragedy that had befallen the capital on 1 September was “the most unprecedented calamity our nation has ever experienced.” Nagata Hidejiro’s interpretation was not unique. Throughout the autumn of 1923, various elites and members of the chattering class constructed the Great Kanto Earthquake as an epic event of immeasurable loss. This paper explores how people and organizations packaged news of this disaster, what mediums they used to disseminate it, and for what larger political ends people constructed this catastrophe. Hopeful of mobilizing the nation for the task of recovery, analogies to previous wars were employed to contextualize Japan’s 1923 experience. Elites, moreover, adopted similar techniques to those applied in war to introduce the calamity to Japanese. These included the publication of harrowing survivor accounts and heroic tales of valour, the production of emotive picture postcards and vividly coloured prints, and the dispatch of road shows that brought items from the epitcentre of tragedy to the far reaches of Japan. One striking difference existed. The 1923 earthquake was a domestic tragedy that had resulted in unprecedented civilian deaths. This paper will therefore also examine the important role the dead, the services for their soles and surviving relatives, and the creation of the earthquake memorial played in the construction of Japan’s earthquake calamity. My findings will emphasize the perceived malleability of catastrophe, its limits, and the opportunistic ways people and organizations attempted to use it for larger objectives.