Cultural Identity in Interwar Japan. The Kyoto Paradigm.

While retracing the history of the rise of Japanese militarism, this contribution will focus primarily on the identity discourse, intended as reaction to the process of Westernization, and on the social and cultural dimensions of Japanese national experience (i.e. respectively, «the revolt against the West» and the Chūōkōron debates), which were closely related to the country’s entering the war. Specifically, the aim of this article is to highlight the complexities of the cultural discourse standing behind the rise of Japanese militarism: it is centred on interwar year’s socio-cultural dimension, which expressed Japanese internal malaise, emerged simultaneously with the forces that enabled the rise of militarism in the country. The search for a new cultural identity, able to effectively manage the comparison with the West, became the main purpose of intellectuals and radical activists who evoked a distinctive experience for Japan.