Establishment of the Contemporary Nordic Image in Japan: A Comparison between Uchimura Kanzō’s A Story of Denmark and Henry Leach’s Reclaiming the Heath

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of Uchimura Kanzō's A Story of Denmark in establishing the contemporary Nordic image in Japan. In 1911, Uchimura Kanzō presented A Story of Denmark: Faith and Trees Help the Land, which was later published many times and continues to remain an influential work even today. In this presentation, Uchimura discussed afforestation of the Jutland after the Second Schleswig War. He explained that Denmark chose to engage in afforestation to become one of the richest countries in the world rather than participating in the third war. Drawing on Christian elements, his presentation emphasized the contributions of Enrico Dalgas and his son in transforming Jutland. Japanese Christians acquainted with Uchimura were so impressed with this story that they considered Denmark an ideal agricultural country (Koyama, 2000). From the 1920s–1930s, Japanese folk high schools were established as institutions for adult peasants’ education, based on the concept of Folkehøjskole (Danish folk high school) introduced by the Danish pastor N. F. S. Grundtvig. Some of those who established the schools were Uchimura’s acquaintances and followers. Afterwards, these schools became training centers for Japanese colonists of Manchuria. Today, this story is considered as an example of Uchimura's pacifistic ideas and proof that Northern Europe is ideal and happy. However, in my paper, I hypothesize that this story is compatible with the ideas of Japanese colonialism in the first half of the 20th century, and that the ideal image of Northern Europe in fact strengthened colonialism. To substantiate this hypothesis, I compare Uchimura’s A Story of Denmark ' with Henry Leach’s Reclaiming the Heath: How Denmark Converted a Desert into a Farming Country , a text that N. Suzuki (2012) claimed was the original material that influenced A Story of Denmark. I discuss how Uchimura's work changed the theme of “reclaiming the heath” to “afforestation of the land” to high light its link to Japanese colonialism, focusing its relationship to the idealization of Northern Europe.