Empress Shoken ( 昭憲皇 后 Shё : ken-ko: go: May 9, 1849 - April 9, 1914) is the Japanese empress consort (not reigning), the wife of Emperor Meiji and the adoptive mother of Emperor Taisho . The real name is Ichijo Masako ( Jap. 一条 勝 子 ) . She was the third daughter of Ichijo Tadaki, the left minister and head of the Ichijo branch of the Fujiwara clan , and his wife, the daughter of Prince Fushimi Kunie . She was engaged to Emperor Meiji on September 2, 1867, and there was a significant objection to her candidacy - she was three years older than her fiancé. The issue was resolved by changing the year of her birth in papers from 1849 to 1850 [1] . By the time of the engagement, she knew Japanese poetry, Chinese, mastered the art of tea ceremony and ikebana [2] .
| Empress Shoken | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Predecessor | Eisho | ||||||
| Successor | Teimei | ||||||
| Birth | May 9, 1849 Kyoto | ||||||
| Death | April 9, 1914 ( 64) Numazu | ||||||
| Kind | |||||||
| Birth name | Ichijo Masako | ||||||
| Father | Ichijo Tadaka | ||||||
| Mother | Prince Fushimi Kuniye's daughter | ||||||
| Spouse | Emperor Meiji | ||||||
| Children | did not have, but the heir Emperor Taisho | ||||||
| Religion | |||||||
| Awards |
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After the betrothal, she took the name Haruko ( Jap. 美 子 ) . It soon became clear that the Empress could not bear children. Emperor Meiji had 15 children (of whom only five survived) from five maids of honor [3] , and Haruko adopted Yoshihito, the eldest son born of a concubine. Thus, Yoshihito joined the imperial family and, after the death of Emperor Meiji, became the new emperor. Since 1886, Haruko began to participate in public events much more often, periodically replacing her spouse. On July 30 of the same year, during the final exams at the school where the daughters of aristocrats studied, the empress first appeared in public in a European dress, which signaled that now women in Japan should also wear European clothes [4] . After the death of her husband, Haruko herself received the title of Empress Dowager ( 皇太后 Ko: taigo:) and survived Emperor Meiji only for two years, passing away in 1914 and receiving the posthumous name Shoken.
Notes
- ↑ Keene, Donald. (2005). Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, pp. 106-108.
- ↑ Meshcheryakov A.N. Emperor Meiji and his Japan. - 2nd ed. - M .: Natalis, 2009 .-- S. 158. - 736 p. - ISBN 978-5-8062-0306-0 .
- ↑ Meshcheryakov A.N. Emperor Meiji and his Japan. - 2nd ed. - M .: Natalis, 2009 .-- S. 249. - 736 p. - ISBN 978-5-8062-0306-0 .
- ↑ Meshcheryakov A.N. Emperor Meiji and his Japan. - 2nd ed. - M .: Natalis, 2009 .-- S. 434, 436. - 736 p. - ISBN 978-5-8062-0306-0 .
Links
- Levshova N. Empress Haruko. Wife of the Reformer . Japanese Studies in Russia (October 1, 2015). Date of treatment July 11, 2016. Archived July 11, 2016.