, born , was the wife of Prince

Morihiro Higashikuni , formerly was an Imperial Japanese Army officer who was a member of a cadet line of the Japanese imperial family and husband of Emperor Hirohito's eldest daughter. Early life The eldest son and heir of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, Prince Mo ...

and eldest daughter of

Emperor Shōwa Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

and

Empress Kōjun , born , was a member of the Imperial House of Japan, the wife of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) and the mother of Shigeko Higashikuni, Princess Sachiko Hisa-nomiya, Kazuko Takatsukasa, Atsuko Ikeda, the Emperor Emeritus Akihito, Prince Masahito ...

. She was the eldest sister to Japan's Emperor Emeritus

Akihito is a member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th emperor of Japan from 7 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. He presided over the Heisei era, ''Heisei'' being an expression of achieving peace worldwide. Bo ...

Biography

Princess Shigeko was born at

Akasaka Palace , or the , is one of the two state guest houses of the Government of Japan. The other state guesthouse is the Kyoto State Guest House. The palace was originally built as the in 1909. Today the palace is designated by the Government of Japan a ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

while her father was still Prince Regent for her grandfather the Taishō Emperor. Her childhood appellation was ("Princess Teru"). As was the practice of the time, she was not raised by her biological parents after the age of three, but by a succession of court ladies at a separate palace built for her and her younger sisters in the

Marunouchi Marunouchi () is a commercial district of Tokyo located in Chiyoda between Tokyo Station and the Imperial Palace. The name, meaning "inside the circle", derives from its location within the palace's outer moat. It is also Tokyo's financial di ...

district of Tokyo from 1930. Emperor Shōwa opposed the move, but could not defy court tradition. She entered the girls elementary department of the

Gakushūin The or Peers School (Gakushūin School Corporation), initially known as Gakushūjo, is a Japanese educational institution in Tokyo, originally established to educate the children of Japan's nobility. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2002)"Gakushū-i ...

Peer's School in 1932 and completed the secondary department in 1942, learning cooking and literature. On 9 May 1939, Princess Shigeko rode on the

Chōshi Electric Railway Line The is a 6.4 km long railway line operated by the privately owned Chōshi Electric Railway between Chōshi and Tokawa stations in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is the Chōshi Electric Railway's only line and is facing declining ridership. ...

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to the ...

from to Tōdaimae and back as part of a Gakushūin school outing. In 1941, she was formally engaged to the eldest son and heir of

Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni General was a Japanese imperial prince, a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 30th Prime Minister of Japan from 17 August 1945 to 9 October 1945, a period of 54 days. An uncle-in-law of Emperor Hirohito twice over, Prince H ...

, Prince Morihiro Higashikuni. The bride and groom were double first cousins once removed, through both the main imperial line, in descent from

Emperor Meiji , also called or , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Reigning from 13 February 1867 to his death, he was the first monarch of the Empire of Japan and presided over the Meiji era. He was the figur ...

(the bride's maternal grandfather and the groom's father were siblings; meaning that the groom was a first cousin of the bride's father), and through collateral imperial lines, or

ōke The , also known as the ''Old Imperial Family'' (旧皇族), were branches of the Japanese Imperial Family created from branches of the Fushimi-no-miya house, the last surviving Shinnōke cadet branch. All but one of these ''ōke'' (王家) were ...

, that were cadet branches of the

Fushimi-no-miya The is the oldest of the four shinnōke, branches of the Imperial Family of Japan which were eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should die out. The Fushimi-no-miya was founded by Prince Yoshihito, th ...

cadet branch of the imperial house. The couple were officially wed on 10 October 1943. As the wedding occurred in the middle of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, ceremonies and expenses were kept to a minimum, and she wore a '' junihitoe''

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...

belonging to her mother, Empress Kōjun, rather than having special clothing created for the occasion. In 1947, the Higashikunis were reduced to commoner status with the abolition of titles of nobility by the American occupation forces. With rampant post-war

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...

, high taxation, and various failed business ventures by her husband, the Higashikuni family was reduced to poverty. In January 1958, she accepted an offer by the Japanese national

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or multichannel video programming distributo ...

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

, to appear before a live audience and explain the New Year's poetry card reading contest and other royal ceremonies. She fell ill in 1960, complaining of stomach pains, and was diagnosed with

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

. Hospitalized at the

Imperial Household Agency The (IHA) is an agency of the government of Japan in charge of state matters concerning the Imperial Family, and also the keeping of the Privy Seal and State Seal of Japan. From around the 8th century AD, up until the Second World War, it ...

Hospital in Tokyo, she died on 23 July 1961. Her grave is at the Toshimagaoka imperial cemetery in Bunkyo, Tokyo.

Portrayals in the Media

Princess Shigeko was a featured protagonist in the 2022 alternative history novel ''Hydrogen Wars: Atomic Sunrise'' by R.M. Christianson and its upcoming sequel ''Hydrogen Wars: Atomic Winter''.

Family

Shigeko and Morihiro had five children, the last three of whom were born after they were reduced in status to commoners: # (10 March 1945 – 20 March 2019); married Miss Shimada Yoshiko in 1973, and had one son, Higashikuni Masahiko (b. 1973) # ; married Mr. Omura Kazutoshi. # : adopted by the Mibu family as "Mibu Motohiro" # ; married to Ms. Sato Kazuko, with two sons, Teruhiko and Mutsuhiko # Married.

Honours

National honours

* Grand Cordon of the

Order of the Precious Crown The is a Japanese order, established on January 4, 1888 by Emperor Meiji of Japan. Since the Order of the Rising Sun at that time was an Order for men, it was established as an Order for women. Originally the order had five classes, but on Ap ...

Ancestry

Gallery

Image:Crown Prince Hirohito & Princess Nagako & Princess Shigeko 3.jpg, Crown Prince Hirohito and Crown Princess Nagako with their first child, Princess Shigeko in 1926. Image:Emperor Showa's daughters.jpg, Emperor Shōwa's daughters Image:Showa-family1941 12 7.jpg, Emperor Shōwa's family (7 December 1941) Image:Teru-no-miya Shigeko 1941-nihongami.jpg, Princess Shigeko in 1941 Image:Teru-no-miya Shigeko 1941.jpg, Princess Shigeko in 1941

References

* *

External links

''Time'' Magazine, September 26, 1927
{{DEFAULTSORT:Higashikuni, Shigeko Japanese princesses Higashikuni-no-miya 1925 births 1961 deaths Deaths from stomach cancer Deaths from cancer in Japan People from Tokyo Grand Cordons (Imperial Family) of the Order of the Precious Crown Daughters of emperors