오키나와현호국신사의 창건과 재건 과정

The Establishment and Reconstruction Process of Okinawaken Gokoku Shrine

This study examines the construction history of Okinawaken Gokoku Shrine which had gone through demolition and reconstruction in the course of and after the Asia Pacific War since its birth in June 1, 1940 to define the intentions and goals of the region’s leaderships to have allowed the Gokoku Shrine in Okinawa from the beginning to later days. Before the Second World War, Okinawa had little to do with the Japanese war with foreign countries. Only a small number of Okinawa residents had perished in the war and the number had remained lower than that of other regions’ people even after the Manchurian Incident, one of the momentums that had triggered Japan to expand the wars against foreign powers. Such circumstance, however, wasn’t a concern for the leaderships of Okinawa to push forward the construction of the Gokoku Shrine for which the dwellers were obliged to give financial support. Instead, the leaderships were obsessed with the desire to overcome the internal and external recognition of Okinawa as an inferior existence, which could be traced back to so-called Ryukyu Annexation followed by obliteration of Okinawan culture and introduction of assimilation policy and Japanizing education. Such mindset drove the local leading class to accept the mainland’s policy with passion. The establishment of Okinawaken Gokoku Shrine may also be studied in the similar context. The shrine was set upon the goal of the Okinawan leading class to transform its region into the one closely related to the mainland, to be a perfect part of Japan. After 1945, Okinawaken Gokoku Shrine failed to resist Battle of Okinawa and the occupation of GHQ, bereft of all but an office area and some part of Torii. The shrine remained neglected due to the prolonged occupation of the US army in the region until January 1958 when the rebuilding project was ignited by the visitors from Yaskuni Shrine. In April, 1959, a temporary shrine was completed by the Okinawan leaderships with the support from Yaskuni Shrine. Unlike the first spring ritual ceremony in which only the fallen soldiers from Okinawan background was enshrined, the following autumn ritual marked the change of the characteristic of the shrine by moving the body of Mita Mashiro, a mainland-born soldier who died in Battle of Okinawa, from Yaskuni Shrine to the place of the dead souls of Okinawa. Such change offered Okinawa with involvement of Yaskuni Shrine and accompanying nationwide supports to renew the temporary shrine to a longstanding perfect structure. The reestablishment of Okinawaken Gokoku Shrine was the consequence of the mutual interests of the two concerned parties to seek integration of mainland and Okinawa against the prolonged occupation of the US army in the island. Such correlative is the key to understanding the shrine’s distinction from other gokoku shrines in general, in terms of the collective enshrinement of all the dead soldiers regardless of background or the war they had participated in.The shrine was reborn as another Yaskuni Shrine, not its subordinate shrine like other common gokoku shrines. The construction of Okinawaken Gokoku Shrine before World War II was made upon the spontaneous movement of the leading class of Okinawa, of which people were subject to Japanese assimilation policy, in pursuit of their identity as Japanese. However, after the war, the demand of rebuilding the devastated shrine was met by Yaskuni Shrine which gave ardent support and guide to Okinawa in the hope of completing the commemoration of the dead soldiers in mainland which left imperfect due to the occupation of the US in Okinawa. In other words, Okinawaken Gokoku Shrine was reconstructed upon the request made by the mainland and accepted by the leading class in Okinawa, to play a role as a political mean of the dream of the mainland “to restore the power of Japan” and of Okinawa “to return to the mainland”.