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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · 6d

Slowly chipping away - amid writing - at Iijima Naoki’s recent book on emperor-military relations, from the Meiji creation of the modern army and navy through the two world wars. It will be in my state-of-the-field review.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · 9d

Crown Prince Hirohito at the Eiffel Tower, 1921.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Sep 8

I look forward to the book!

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Sep 8

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing these finds - I miss the kind of academic community we once had on Twitter, and your posts keep that spirit alive. I have been following with real appreciation.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Aug 18

Wrote a short piece on why Japan’s surrender came so late.
engelsbergideas.com/notebook/how...

How wars end

When the terms for ending a conflict are left undefined, a state can drift towards defeat, with the choice of peace arriving only when the power to shape it has gone.

engelsbergideas.com

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Aug 4

Across 11 notebooks (Dec 1941–Mar 1946), Tsuboshima recorded the information reaching the throne and the Emperor’s questions in wartime - another invaluable source piling up for my next project.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Aug 4

Exciting to see the first volume (to end-1943) of the wartime diaries of Tsuboshima Fumio (1893–1959), aide-de-camp to Emperor Hirohito during the Pacific War, coming out soon.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Jul 7

Spoke on Saturday at ASCJ at Sophia University on Emperor Hirohito and the Cold War. A real pleasure to be part of such a thoughtful discussion - and many thanks to @rbjapan.bsky.social for organising it.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Jun 14

This corner, this calm.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Jun 13

www.iwanami.co.jp/news/n114334...

「百武三郎日記」（全3巻）内容案内 - 岩波書店

現代史の空白を埋める第一級史料、ついに公刊［編集］古川隆久・茶谷誠一［協力］NHK日中戦争勃発から太平洋戦争開戦を経て、日本の敗勢が決定的となる…

www.iwanami.co.jp

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Jun 3

『百武三郎日記侍従長が見た昭和天皇と戦争 1 昭和11年11月～13年12月』 ("The Diary of Hyakutake Saburō: The Shōwa Emperor and the War as Seen by the Grand Chamberlain, Vol. 1 [Nov 1936-Dec 1938]"), edited by Furukawa Takahisa & Chadani Seiichi with NHK, is out in July from Iwanami.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · May 31

(34 pages, dated 15 June–19 August 1945) are written from the back, detailing deliberations of the Supreme War Council and other high-level meetings.

Hirohito’s remark on 8 August 1945, two days after the Hiroshima bombing:

「三百年も経てば再起可能なるが如き条件も致し方なし」

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · May 31

Tōgō Shigenori’s wartime notebook (91 pages) has been deciphered by Katō Yōko-sensei and a former specialist at the National Archives of Japan. Entries from the outbreak of the war begin at the front; end-of-war records 373news.com/news/local/d...

昭和天皇「日本再起まで300年」――広島原爆後、厳しい講和条件覚悟　東郷茂徳の手帳全文判読で初確認　東大・加藤教授ら分析

日米開戦時と終戦時の外務大臣だった東郷茂徳（鹿児島県日置市出身）が、昭和天皇や当時の首相らとのやり取りを記録した手帳の全文を、東京大学の加藤陽子教授（６４）＝…

373news.com

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

To sit here now - where he lived - matcha in hand, light falling just so - and reflect not to solve Konoe, but to sit with the contradictions: charisma and drift, ambition and regret. The house does not explain him. But it lets him linger.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

Here is the dining room, where I was allowed to sit - on the very chairs where guests once gathered and were entertained. You can picture Konoe - distant but focused, speaking softly while power reorganised itself around him. He governed by tone as much as by vision.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

Not a monument, but a space where ideals, contradictions, and history quietly reside. Less grandeur - more shadow and memory.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

Designed by Itō Chūta, a leading architect, the villa fuses Japanese and Western forms - Taishō refinement with Shōwa shadows. Originally built in 1927 for Irisawa Tatsukichi, court physician to Emperor Taishō, it became a political crucible before turning into memory.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

After his death, Yoshida Shigeru briefly stayed here. One dreamed aloud, the other managed what remained. Tekigai-sō held both.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

He no longer recognised what he had helped create. Bureaucracy, ideology, mobilisation - forces once meant to stabilise Japan - now felt like they were closing in. His political imagination had outrun its grasp. The man of reform had become a man of retreat.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

But those two visions were uneasy companions - and by war’s end, even Konoe seemed unsure where one ended and the other had led him.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

Domestically, he saw state socialism as a way to stabilise society. Bureaucratic control, national mobilisation - it was the architecture of reform. Abroad, he envisioned Japan leading Asia.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

It was here they laid the foundations for Japan’s alignment with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Weeks later, the Tripartite Pact was signed. The empire choosing its path - inside these walls.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

He used this villa for political activity, forming his second and third cabinets here. In this drawing room, one of many important meetings he hosted was the Ogikubo Conference, held in July 1940. Konoe, Tōjō, Matsuoka.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

Konoe saw himself as an intellectual-politician. Surrounded by scholars, he did not simply take their advice - he reshaped their ideas until they echoed his own. His brain trust served not as compass, but as filter. Intellect was his mode, but also his armour.

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Reyhan Silingar @reyhansilingar.bsky.social · Apr 16

It was a gesture - to preserve honour. A final act to shield the imperial institution - and his lineage - from the humiliation of trial, and perhaps to withdraw from a world slipping out of his hands.

Since then, the room is said to have remained unchanged - exactly as it was.

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