was a Japanese

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

, writer, and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. He is also known by the pen name . He is also known for his translation with Shūsui Kōtoku.

Biography

Sakai was born as the third son to a

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

class family in what is now

Miyako, Fukuoka is a town located in Miyako District, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. Miyako was founded on March 20, 2006 from the amalgamation of three towns in the Miyako District; Katsuyama (勝山), Saigawa (犀川) and Toyotsu (豊津). On April 30, 201 ...

. He attended what is now the

Kaisei Academy The Kaisei Academy (開成学園) is a preparatory private secondary school for boys located in the Arakawa ward of Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 1871. The Kaisei Academy has since educated notable figures across many different fields and i ...

where he studied the English language. However, he was expelled from the prestigious No.1 Higher Middle School for failure to pay his tuition, and worked as a tutor and a journalist in

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since anc ...

and

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

while studying literature on his own, and writing works of fiction. He was invited to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

Suematsu Kenchō Viscount was a Japanese politician, intellectual and author, who lived in the Meiji and Taishō periods. Apart from his activity in the Japanese government, he also wrote several important works on Japan in English. He was portrayed in a nega ...

to stay at the residence of the former

Mōri clan The Mōri clan (毛利氏 ''Mōri-shi'') was a Japanese samurai clan descended from Ōe no Hiromoto. Ōe no Hiromoto was descended from the Fujiwara clan. The family's most illustrious member, Mōri Motonari, greatly expanded the clan's pow ...

to help edit a history of the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

. Afterwards, he went to work for the ''Yorozu Morning News'', where he began to support social justice causes and

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

. In 1903, Sakai established the socialist organization '' Heiminsha,'' together with Shūsui Kōtoku and

Uchimura Kanzō was a Japanese author, Christian evangelist, and the founder of the Nonchurch Movement (Mukyōkai) of Christianity in the Meiji and Taishō period Japan. He is often considered to be the most well-known Japanese pre-World War II pacifist. Ea ...

. With the start of the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

, ''Yorozu Morning News'' adopted a pro-government stance, and Sakai quit to form the weekly ''

Heimin Shimbun (also spelled ''Heimin Shimbun'') was a socialist and anti-war daily newspaper established in Japan in November 1903, as the newspaper of the Heimin-sha group. It was founded by Kōtoku Shūsui and Sakai Toshihiko, as a pacifist response to ...

'' together with Shūsui Kōtoku, which was critical of the war , p. 337. and decried the high taxes which the war was causing. It also published a Japanese translation of the Communist Manifesto in its November 13, 1904, issue. Sakai was sentenced to two months in jail.''Modern Japan: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism The Commoners Newspaper (Heimin Shimbun) (1903–05)'' p. 35 Sakai was also a strong supporter of the

Esperanto movement The Esperanto movement, less commonly referred to as Esperantism ( eo, Esperantismo), is a movement to disseminate the use of the planned international language Esperanto.See the definition in theDeklaracio pri la Esenco de la Esperantismo (" ...

, helping create the Japana Esperanto-Instituto in 1906. In 1906, Sakai became one of the founding members of the

Japan Socialist Party The was a socialist and progressive political party in Japan that existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was founded as the Social Democratic Party of Japan by members of several proletarian parties that existed before World War II, including ...

. He was arrested in the 1908 Red Flag Incident and was sentenced to two years in prison. Following the end of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he participated in

Rousoukai Rousoukai (老壮会, The Society for Old Combatants) was a Japanese think tank which attracted participants from both the left-wing and right-wing of Japanese politics. It was founded on 9 October 1918 and continued until 1921. Members Left-wing * ...

group. In 1922, he became one of the founding members of the

Japan Communist Party The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party advocates the establishment of a democr ...

and was elected to a seat in the Tokyo City Assembly in 1929. Sakai translated many works related to socialism, as well as utopian literature into Japanese. In June 1932, he was admitted to a hospital after an incident of domestic violence under suspicion of insanity, and died of a cerebral hemorrhage on January 23, 1933. His grave is at the temple of

Sōji-ji is one of two of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. The other is Eihei-ji temple in Fukui Prefecture. ''Fodor's'' calls it "one of the largest and busiest Buddhist institutions in Japan". The temple was founded in 740 as a Shingon Buddhist temp ...

Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama is one of the 18 ku ( wards) of the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the ward had an estimated population of 270,433 and a density of 8,140 persons per km². The total area is 33.23 km². Geography Tsurumi-ku is ...

References

External links

e-texts of Sakai's works
at

Aozora Bunko Aozora Bunko (, literally the "Blue Sky Library", also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousands of works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-o ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sakai, Toshihiko 1871 births 1933 deaths People from Fukuoka Prefecture Japanese Esperantists Japanese socialists Japanese communists Japanese journalists Meiji socialists

Biography

See also

References

External links