Prince , was a Japanese nobleman who served the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

as a court official and member of House of Peers.

Biography

Nijō Motohiro was born in Kyoto as the eighth son of

Kujō Hisatada , son of Nijō Harutaka, was a ''kuge'' or Japanese court noble of the Edo period (1603–1868). He was adopted by his brother Kujō Suketsugu, Suketsugu as his son. He held a regent position kampaku from 1856 to 1862, and retired in 1863, becomi ...

. He was adopted by Nijō Narinobu, another of the

five regent houses The Five Regent Houses (五摂家; ''go-sekke'') is a collective term for the five families of the Fujiwara clan that monopolized the regent position of '' Sekkan'' in Japan from 1252 until 1868. The five houses are Konoe, Takatsukasa, Kujō, I ...

, to carry on the

Nijō family is a Japanese aristocratic kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Nijō," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 42 retrieved 2013-7-7. The Nijō was a branch of the Fuji ...

name. His wife was a daughter of Maeda Nariyasu, twelfth head of

Kaga Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1583 to 1871.Nijō Atsumoto. On 7 July 1869 as part of the reformation of the court nobility under the new

, Nijō Motohiro became a

prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

(''koshaku'') under the new ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

'' peerage system. The change was regarded as a demotion by Nijō and many members of the old aristocracy, however, Nijō continued to serve

Emperor Meiji , posthumously honored as , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the List of emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession, reigning from 1867 until his death in 1912. His reign is associated with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which ...

as a court councilor. From September 1890 until January 1920, Nijō served as a member of the House of Peers. Together with Konoe Atsumarō, Nijō was a leader of the ''Sanyōkai'' faction within the upper house, which was critical of

Itō Hirobumi Kazoku, Prince , born , was a Japanese statesman who served as the first prime minister of Japan from 1885 to 1888, and later from 1892 to 1896, in 1898, and from 1900 to 1901. He was a leading member of the ''genrō'', a group of senior state ...

’s pro-'' Jiyutō'' politics, plans for increased military expenditures after the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 189417 April 1895), or the First China–Japan War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. In Chinese it is commonly known as th ...

, and plans for tax reform.Banno, ''Establishment of the Japanese Constitutional System'' pg.108 He later served as high priest of

Kasuga-taisha is a Shinto shrine in Nara, Nara Prefecture, Japan. It is the shrine of the Fujiwara family, established in 768 CE and rebuilt several times over the centuries. The interior is famous for its many bronze lanterns, as well as the many stone la ...

, the

Fujiwara clan The was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

’s ancestral

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

. Nijō was very interested in the development of

Hokkaidō is the second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by railway via the Seikan Tunnel. The ...

, and headed the ''Hokkaidō Kyōkai-kai''. Another of his interests was

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

, and he was vice-chairman of the Japan Photography Association headed by Tokugawa Atsuyoshi. He was also the honorary president of the Dai Nippon Kyudo Kai.

References

* Banno, Junji. Establishment of the Japanese Constitutional System. Routledge (1992) * *

Notes

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nijo, Motohiro 1859 births 1928 deaths Fujiwara clan Motohiro People of the Meiji era Kazoku Members of the House of Peers (Japan)