Organizer: Tom Conlan, Bowdoin College
Chair: Paul Varley, University of Hawaii
Discussant: Takahashi Kimiaki, University of Nagoya
The Mongol attempts to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281 have been portrayed as decisively influencing the political and intellectual history of East Asia. While the ramifications of the battles have attracted considerable attention, narratives surrounding the invasions have remained relatively unquestioned. Were Japanese defenders as outclassed as common stereotypes have portrayed? Likewise, did the invasions lead to a marked shift in attitudes regarding "Japanese identity" and "foreign" or have these generalizations been overly determined as well? Finally, what do the two invasions reveal about "religious" policies in Japan, Korea and the Yuan dynasty? Focusing on Japan and relying on the critiques of Yuan and Korean/East Asian maritime history specialists, this panel attempts to undermine the unquestioned assumptions of the Mongol Invasions and explore how myths of the invasion were created and propounded by competing social, political, and institutional entities both within and without Japan.
In Little Need of Divine Intervention: The Military Parity of Thirteenth-Century Japan and East Asia
Tom Conlan, Bowdoin College
Twice Kubilai Khan organized a polyglot armada to conquer Japan, and twice, or so the chronicles say, mighty storms arose, smashing his ships to the rocks and scattering the remaining crafts far over the seas. From this flotsam of heroic futility was formulated the idea that these ship-wrecking storms stemmed from divine favor—or a singular lack thereof. The dramatic denouement of these invasions continued to exert a powerful pull on historical imagination. Although belief in otherworldly determination has withered through the ensuing centuries, the trope of "divine winds" or kamikaze became a leitmotif of Japanese political mythology that persisted through the aerial suicide bombings of the Second World War. Relegated to the realm of legend, the Mongol invasions have generated little debate: all commentators concur that the chance passing of a typhoon spared Japan from defeat by the militarily superior Mongols. Nevertheless, once the accretions of memory and myth are chipped away, many of the assumptions regarding the invasions crumble. Analysis of surviving sources reveals that the warriors of Japan were capable of defeating the Mongols without any explicit divine or meteorological intervention. Contemporary Japanese warriors were well aware of the effectiveness of their tactics, but they nevertheless attributed the ultimate cause of their success to otherworldly intervention. References to the gods’ succor in battle reveal more about the differences of the medieval and modern mindset than luck on the part of the Japanese defenders.
With a Little Help from My Gods: The Myth of the Kamikaze and the Ideology of Japan’s Sacrality
Fabio Rambelli, Sapporo University
An important consequence of the Mongol Invasions was the proliferation of statements about the sacred nature of Japan (shinkoku) and the protection bestowed upon the country by buddhas and deities. Generally, scholars believe that the Invasion generated a sense of cultural identity and nationalism. This paper explores the discourse of Japan’s sacrality by focusing on the religious and intellectual situation of the Kamakura period in order to question received ideas about the relation between the Mongol Invasions and Japanese nationalism.
Protection of the country has always been one of the main functions of Japanese Buddhism, in which the invisible world of deities directly affected the social order. In addition, during the Kamakura period various religious institutions were competing with each other to sacralize their land holdings and establish extra-territorial entities independent from state control. The Mongol Invasions were used to disseminate the social and political ideology of religious institutions, but such an ideology was also used for different purposes by different social groups.
I will argue that the shinkoku discourse did not have a direct nationalistic and xenophobic intent, but that nationalism and a certain degree of xenophobia were side effects of this mix of religious ideas and political ideologies. I will also argue that the ideology of Japan’s sacrality generated several manifestations of xenophobia not during the Mongol Invasions but rather during the sixteenth century (the end of the Muromachi period) with the arrival of the Europeans and Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea.
In the final section of my paper, I will address some of the ideological effects of the discourse about the sacrality of Japan and its historical transformations.
The Impact of the Mongol Invasions on Imaginations of War and Identity
Haruko Wakabayashi, University of Tokyo
Medieval visual and literary sources reveal that the Mongol Invasions had a significant impact on the way in which battles, particularly those fought against alien enemies, were imagined. The paper will first examine how the "historical" Mongol Invasions are portrayed in Kamakura and Muromachi era sources. Second, through an analysis of visual and literary sources pertaining to legendary foreign invasions and conquests, it will reveal how these mythical descriptions were in fact based upon accounts of the Mongol Invasions. The legend of Empress Jingu’s "conquest" of Korea during the fifth century, for example, became popular after the Mongol Invasions because this victory too was attributed to divine intervention. Both mythical and historic accounts show striking parallels. What is especially notable is that foreign enemies increasingly become demonized, while the divine nature of the Japanese people is strongly emphasized. This phenomena is significantly different from the way in which domestic battles are portrayed, suggesting that a particular "Japanese identity" and an attitude toward "Foreign" are reflected in these battles. Third, traces of such impact of the Mongol Invasions are also found in the descriptions of "otherworldly" battles, namely those fought by demons (oni and asura) in Hell. This suggests that there existed a "mental bridge" between Foreign and Other in the medieval minds. Finally, the paper will address the question: how much of a shift in Japanese attitudes regarding Self, Foreign and Other do we see as a result of the Mongol Invasions?