earticle

영어

In this paper, I researched on censorship system in imperial Japan as a case study of Sato Haruo’s “Richigimono.” This work has never been included into Teihon Sato Haruo Zenshu, the latest edition of his complete works, but published in Keijo Nippo in three times in January 1938. In previous studies, Mizusawa Fujio found that its first appearance was in Domei Tsushin published by Domei Tshushinsha on December 20, 1937. However Mizusawa pointed out that “Richigimono” practically appeared in Kochi Shinbun published on January 7, 1938 in the same time of appearance in Keijo Nippo, because the Ministry of Home Affairs prohibited the sale of Domei Tshushin in January 1938. This paper examined the difference between publication in the interior of Japan and in the overseas territories, and the relationship of literature and censorship in the overseas territories. As a result of this study, it is found that this is a special case that the complete version of “Richigimono” was published in Keijo Nippo, because this work was banned in the interior Japan and the censorship in the overseas territory was generally more rigorous than in Japan. This conclusion is supported by the fact that there were regional differences in the number of prohibited papers rather than the differences between Japan and colonies, when the same author was appeared in plural local news papers including news papers published in overseas territories. Therefore, the number of seizure of “Richigimono” indicates loss of balance of censorship system between the interior Japan and the overseas territories. In conclusion, we can see vacillation in censorship system of imperial Japan under the Japanese-Chinese War through the case study of Sato Haruo’s “Richigimono.”