Talk:Hirohito

Semi-protected edit request on 1 March 2020

It seems that at some point, the portrait was replaced with some sort of AI-colorized version. I would replace it with the unaltered black-and-white version, but the article is semi-proteced. I would appreciate it if someone could fix it.--100.34.159.56 (talk) 01:10, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. There are other b&w versions on Commons, such as File:Hirohito in dress uniform (cropped).jpg and File:Hirohito wartime(cropped).jpg​ that are used in other enwiki articles and several different other-language articles; however, thus far the consensus appears to be to use the colorized version in this article. Feel free to attempt to garner consensus for a different image, and then that different image may be used. Thank you very much for your input! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 01:35, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Move to posthumous name?

Shall we move this to his posthumous name? Another Wiki User the 2nd (talk) 23:49, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

No, per WP:COMMONNAME. Mgasparin (talk) 18:37, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree, the article name should be changed. Not only is Emperor Shōwa far more commonly referred to just as "The Emperor" or "Emperor of Japan", within the context World War II, but "Shōwa" is his proper posthumous name, and is the format used for every other Japanese emperor's Wikipedia article title. No one, including Wikipedia, refers to Emperor Meiji as "Mutsuhito", or Emperor Taishō as "Yoshihito". BUZZLIGHTYEAR99 (talk) 08:10, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 24 December 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Closing early per WP:SNOW. (closed by non-admin page mover) Calidum 17:59, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

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Hirohito → Emperor Shōwa – Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) is far more commonly referred to just as "The Emperor" or "Emperor of Japan", within the context World War II by English-speakers, but "Shōwa" is his proper posthumous name by all measures, and is the format used for every other Japanese emperor's Wikipedia article title. No one, including Wikipedia, refers to Emperor Meiji as "Mutsuhito", or Emperor Taishō as "Yoshihito". This is also the name by which virtually all English-speakers refer to his the era of his reign by, and is the name the Japanese use to refer to him. BUZZLIGHTYEAR99 (talk) 08:25, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Outside Japan or the Japanese language press, he was rarely called as "Emperor Showa", same as when they called then Japanese emperor Akihito as Emperor Heisei, or even the current emperor Naruhito as Emperor Reiwa. People outside Japan didn't calling the emperor according to an era. 125.167.59.84 (talk) 09:33, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. No evidence that it is the common name. DrKay (talk) 10:31, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Outside Japan, this emperor is primarily known by his personal name "Hirohito". In all the sources I know on World War II he is mainly referred as "Hirohito", not as "Shōwa".--Ulises Laertíada (talk) 13:12, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Per the reasons stated above, Emperor Shōwa is not the common name and most (if not all) sources outside Japan call him Hirohito. Here are a few which call him Hirohito [1] (AP) and [2] (Washington Post). Bingobro (Chat) 16:53, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose the arguments to move simply aren’t convincing. While it may be the case that people don’t use the personal name of Emperor Taishō many people do use Hirohito meaning that since facts are different in those two situations they can’t be directly compared. The same also applies to Meiji.--65.92.163.44 (talk) 18:48, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support I proposed this in 2018 and still support it. You can check the talk archives if you want to know why. This is likely to SNOW fail based on current policy - which is completely agnostic on conventions regarding posthumous names. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 21:36, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose On what basis do you support it? Do you have a reliable source that tells you it's changed? Britmax (talk) 21:57, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. It is well known that Japanese emperors change names when they die, but this is a custom in Japan only. In the rest of the world, he's still primarily known as Hirohito. JIP | Talk 12:53, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Clearly not the COMMONNAME except, probably, in Japan. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 16:07, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
• Weak support it is unclear if neither used a posthumous title for Japanese emperors. --49.150.112.127 (talk) 22:54, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, for the reasons stated above, Hirohito is clearly the COMMONNAME in English language usage for this person. -- fdewaele, 27 December 2021, 16:49 CET.
• Oppose. The current title is clearly the most common name in English. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:50, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Still his very clear common name in English-language sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

David Bergamini

I find the bibliography lacking. David Bergamini's book, "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy", published in 1972, I consider an important contribution to the discussion. Bergamini's thesis is that Hirohito enforced the Meiji Constitution's dictate that The Emperor be all powerful. Should The Emperor commit errors the blame for those errors fell on his advisors. Bergamini asserts that since Japan would have been ungovernable if Hirohito were hung, McArthur assigned the blame to his subordinates. On reviewing the suggested edits, I note that I am not the only holder of this opinion. Harold Blytt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hblytt (talk • contribs) 15:43, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Bergamini sounds like he is asserting a wildly erroneous thesis. It is fairly elementary knowledge that much of the Emperor Shōwa's power was nominal, and that in reality his powers were far more limited. Even beyond the purview of what his specific legal powers were, he had been raised in such a manner as to seldom, if ever directly interfere in national politics, having been brought up under the motto of "reign, not rule". Furthermore, I fail to see how the Emperor could "commit errors" while it is not even within the scope of his power to do such basic things such as introducing policy. If Shōwa were the sort of autocratic absolute monarch some people give the impression he was, you'd think he'd at least have the legal power to some as simple as that. In truth his role was far more of an advisory one if anything, giving feedback on and rubber-stamping decisions reached by the national cabinet. These views are supported by John Toland's The Rising Sun. BUZZLIGHTYEAR99 (talk) 20:45, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of the specific author (Bergamini), whom I will refer to later, I totally disagree with BUZZLIGHTYEAR99. Since the days of John Toland's book (1970), many years have passed and much documentation has come to light that was still unpublished at the time. If BUZZLIGHTYEAR99's claims were truly "fairly elementary knowledge", then there would be no controversy among historians about Emperor Hirohito's role in the war and the extent of his involvement. But the truth is that there is. At 'Atomic Heritage Foundation' website we can read "But a growing number of scholars, including Herbert P. Bix in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, have said that Hirohito wielded more power than he is given credit for."

But this is not limited to Herbert P. Bix. Many other historians have similar thoughts on this matter. For example, Kentaro Awaya states that Hirohito not only gave advice in all important decisions of the government and the army, but he closely supervised his orders to be sure they have been respected. Sir Max Hastings claims: "For several decades after World War II, a legend was sedulously promoted, chiefly by the Japanese, of Hirohito's long-standing pacifism. This view is now discredited. The emperor shared many of the army's ambitions for his country (...)" Kenneth J. Ruoff, Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University, says in his book The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995 that "If 'war responsibility' means participating in the policymaking process that led to the commencement and prosecution of an aggressive war (for many Japanese, the key issue was the responsibility for defeat, not complicity in an aggressive war), then there is growing evidence that Emperor Hirohito played a considerable role in this area". Peter Wetzler, in his book Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War: The Collapse of an Empire writes that "During the Tokyo War Crimes Trials the testimony offered by Tôjô Hideki, and gladly accepted by US officials, succeeded in exonerating the Shôwa Emperor of war guilt. The debate, however, about Hirohito's participation in political and military affairs during the Second World War -whether or not (at first) and to what extent (later)- still continues. It will animate authors for years to come. Now most historians acknowledge that the Emperor was deeply involved, like all nation-state leaders at that time." Daikichi Irokawa, in his book The Age of Hirohito: In Search of Modern Japan shows that Hirohito had strong opinions in such areas as diplomacy, war strategy, and personnel and on several occasions exerted influence. In August 1939, the emperor expressly designated two candidates, Umezu Yoshijiro (1882-1949) and Hata Shunroku (1879-1962), for the office of war minister in the Cabinet of Abe Nobuyuki (1875-1953), and Hata was selected. Irokawa wrote: “The emperor… was actively involved in the crucial affairs of state; he certainly was not the passive constitutional monarch that the official scholars (and Hirohito himself, in postwar years) have so convincingly portrayed.” In relation to the Pulitzer-winning biography of Hirohito written by Herbert P. Bix (Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan), Professor Forrest E. Morgan argues that "Bix rightly dispels the emperor’s popular image as a helpless, symbolic leader, who was a virtual puppet of Imperial Japan’s military oligarchs and unaware of how his government was prosecuting the war. Drawing from previously unexamined documents, he ably demonstrates that the emperor was fully aware of Japan’s political behavior and intimately involved in military planning even at the operational level. Based on Bix’s evidence, it is clear that the emperor was an active participant in Japan’s decision making process."

And so I could go on to infinity. What I want to emphasize is that, since Hirohito's death, a lot of documentation has appeared that seriously questions the old thesis of the "powerless figurehead" and there is a huge and still unsettled controversy among historians about the extent of his power and responsibility for the war. Certainly, the apologist version of Toland's book is far from being "fairly elementary knowledge". Quite the contrary, it is seriously questioned today.

As for David Bergamini, I adhere to the words of Professor Herbert P. Bix: "Bergamini tried to make sense of the Japanese monarchy and Emperor Hirohito, but he embedded his whole analysis in a vast conspiratorial theory. (...) But Bergamini got the main point right: Hirohito was no passive onlooker at the events unfolding around him. Unfortunately, Bergamini set back scholarship on the emperor, and after him graduate students were reluctant to tackle the subject."

Bix's words are part of an interview by Education About Asia - Association for Asian Studies. It can be read here. I think it is very informative and interesting.Ulises Laertíada (talk) 14:07, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

David Bergamini and Japan's Imperial Conspiracy both have Wikipedia articles. Bergamini, as it turns, isn't a historian, and is best known for writing some Time-Life volumes. And for his book, some choice sections of critiques:

• "[Japan's Imperial Conspiracy] is a polemic which, to our knowledge, contradicts all previous scholarly work.... Specialists on Japan have unanimously demolished Bergamini's thesis and his pretensions to careful scholarship. - Professor Charles Sheldon of Cambridge University in "Japanese Aggression and the Emperor, 1931-1941, from Contemporary Diaries," Modern Asian Studies 10#1 (1976) pp 1-40; quote on p. 1; online

• "A check of Mr. Bergamini's references reveals the flimsy, gossamer-thin basis of his argument...The material that is presented does not supply a foundation on which to build a theory of imperial conspiracy." - Richard Storry, Professor of Japanese Studies at St. Antony's College, Oxford, in "Imperial Conspiracy in Japan?" Pacific Affairs 45#2 (1972), pp. 272-276, quotes on pp 272, 276. online

• "Most upsetting is the selective, misleading use of sources to buttress a tortured thesis wherein accidents are inconceivable, honest mistakes improbable. The object is to incriminate the emperor personally in every crime and aggression. - Professor Alvin Coox of San Diego State University in the American Historical Review 77#4 (1972) p. 1169-1170 online

You're going to have to do a LOT better to convince me that Bergamini is worth any attention. --Calton | Talk 05:14, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I apologize if I am answering what is not directed to me, but it is not entirely clear to me if Calton's comment is directed to Hblytt, to me or to both, so I answer as far as it may concern me.

As I said at the beginning of my previous comment, I speak independently of the matter specifically referred to Bergamini, which I address only at the end of it. My comment is a reply to BUZZLIGHTYEAR99's, in which none of the arguments I use is based on Bergamini's book.

Without repeating again everything I stated in my previous comment, I do reiterate that I reaffirm everything I have said, based on the following authors:

• Kentaro Awaya.
• Sir Max Hastings.
• Kenneth J. Ruoff.
• Peter Wetzler.
• Daikichi Irokawa.
• Forrest E. Morgan (on Herbert P. Bix's book).
• Herbert P. Bix.

There are many more authors that I can cite following the same thesis, but I limit myself to those that I cited in my previous comment to clarify my position, if necessary. None of the criticisms referred to Bergamini and his book can be extended to any of these authors.

As for Bergamini, I reiterate my opinion. I adhere to what was said by Professor Bix. In essence: although Bergamini got the main point right (Hirohito was no passive onlooker at the events unfolding around him), he embedded his whole analysis in a vast conspiratorial theory. This point is the one that discredits him and what justifies all the criticisms cited.

Bix said on Bergamini: "Remember, Bergamini's book was published in 1971," he replied. "At the time very little had been written that contravened the MacArthur myth. His book took some courage, but embedded in it was a full-blown conspiracy theory that no sane person could accept. It had a strong moralistic tone, equating, say, Nanking with Hiroshima, and it made Hirohito out to be a dictator. Relying to a large extent on anecdotal evidence, it was easy to attack and put a lot of people off the idea of Hirohito's culpability in the war."

Bix's words can be read here.

In short, I do not argue that Bergamini's book deserves attention as a source, unlike the authors on whose works I have based my position, but I do maintain that the allegation of the apologist thesis about Hirohito as if it were an incontrovertible truth is not a valid argument for it.

I have already explained what I think are the failures of Bergamini for which his book is not the adequate source for the support of the critical theses about Hirohito and his role in the Second World War, but as I say this, I must also say that, according to the sources I have cited and many others, the responsibility of the emperor in the war is a highly controversial matter, the old apologist position is today seriously questioned and cannot constitute, per se, the basis of the argument to rule out Bergamini as source. The valid reasons are other, as I have just explained, and as I think I did also in my previous comment.

I apologize again if Calton's comment was not addressed to me, but I thought it necessary to clarify my position about Bergamini in particular, since I was not sure if I had made it clear enough and, therefore, if the aforementioned comment was also directed to me.Ulises Laertíada (talk) 10:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 February 2022

Per Wikipedia:Short description, arrange to "124th emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989". 2001:4452:490:6900:E1BA:1BC2:CDA0:41D0 (talk) 04:37, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

 Not done ~ short description is already there with that information. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 09:08, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 June 2022

Japan waged the wars across Asia in the 1930s and 40s in the name of Hirohito,[3] whom they revered as a god.

"They" doesn't match "Japan". Please change "they" to "it", or please change the last clause to "who was revered as a god": your choice. Also, "the wars" sounds weird; please change it to "war". 49.198.51.54 (talk) 05:35, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

 Done 💜  melecie  talk - 10:18, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 June 2022 (2)

In this sentence

He and his family maintained a strong public presence, often holding public walkabouts and making public appearances on special events and ceremonies.

Please change "on" to "at". People appear "at" events, not "on" them. 49.198.51.54 (talk) 22:57, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

 Done. Aidan9382 _(talk) 06:43, 25 June 2022 (UTC)