马克思主义史学与二战前及战时日本的亚洲观——以“亚细亚的”一词的流行与语义变迁为中心

Marxist Historiography and Japan’s View of Asia Before and During the Second World War:Centering on the Circulation and Semantic Transformation of the Term“Asiatic”

日本对亚细亚的认识可追溯至利玛窦《坤舆万国全图》在江户时期的流布。但在日语语境中,将"亚细亚的"(アジア的)作为形容词来描述一种社会形态,则与马克思主义史学在日本的早期传播密切相关。马克思在《政治经济学批判》序言中使用"亚细亚的"(asiatisch)一词来形容原始共同体的生产方式。在1930年左右的日本言论界,这一词汇在亚洲社会性质论争中逐渐拥有"前近代的""落后停滞的"等词义。日本发动全面侵华战争后,这一词汇又在"东亚协同体"与"大东亚共荣圈"的话语体系内发生词义转向,与"乡土共同体"等概念合流。"亚细亚的"一词在二战前及战时日本的流行与词义演变描绘出日本的亚洲观在这一时期的嬗变轨迹。

Japan’s perception of Asia can be traced back to the wide circulation of Matteo Ricci’s world map Kunyu Wanguo Quantuin the Edo period.However,in the Japanese context,using the adjective"Asiatic"to define a social formation is closely related to the early spread of Marxist historiography in Japan.In the preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,Karl Marx used the term"asiatisch"to define the mode of production in the primitive communities.In the Japanese intellectual discourses of the 1930 s,this term had gradually gained multilayered connotations,including"premodern","backward"and so forth.After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War,the rising discourses over"East Asia Community"and the"Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere"had again transformed the semantics of the term"Asiatic",bringing it together with other concepts such as"rural community".This article seeks to explore Japan’s changing perception toward Asia by examining the semantic transformation of the term"Asiatic"in prewar and wartime Japan.