The Great Turmoil of Kenjutsu: Cultural Persecution and Sport Revival 1870-1895

The Great Turmoil of Kenjutsu: Cultural Persecution and Sport Revival 1870-1895

            Kenjutsu (“sword technique”, or swordsmanship), in its many forms, has played a crucial role in cultural and military developments throughout the history of Japan. Practiced as early as the legendary period of Japanese history[1], swordsmanship reached its peak of complexity and refinement during the peaceful Tokugawa period of Japan[2], when the samurai class and their supervising daimyo established a military government unifying the many domains across the islands. Though swordsmanship was crucial to both the image and practice of the samurai who comprised the Tokugawa bakufu, the practice of swordsmanship itself helped lead to the downfall of the shogunate — radical fencing schools preaching the ideals of sonno joi (“revere the emperor, expel the barbarians”) played a critical role in shaping the ideals of many of the key players of the Restoration[3]. Following the reinstatement of the Emperor as sovereign power during the Meiji Restoration, swordsmanship was quickly cast aside as a remnant of the past - in the face of increasing military modernization and with a desire to eliminate vestiges of the feudal bakufu system, the Meiji government restricted the public carrying of swords and practice of swordsmanship, and eventually abolished the samurai class[4]. Left to struggle in the dust in the wake of these reforms were the both the former samurai class, now destitute and out of work, and the practice of swordsmanship itself[5]. In this project, I will examine the great turmoil of kenjutsu during the period immediately surrounding the Meiji Restoration, the cultural resurgence of kenjutsu in the form of geki-ken, the emergence of renewed military acknowledgment and public appreciation for kenjutsu during the period around the Satsuma Rebellion, and the revival and transformation of kenjutsu into the formal practice of kendō in 1890-1895, the sport that has carried the long tradition of ancient Japanese swordsmanship into the present.