Bread and soldiers ( 麦 と 兵 隊 Mugi then heitai ) is a song from the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) . It tells about a soldier of the Japanese army, who, along with his unit, marches across the plains of China to the city of Xuzhou , which is planned to be captured. The name mentions the word “mugi”, which means any cereal: wheat, barley, rye, oats, etc. In the context of the song, vast fields of cereal crops that are characteristic of China and unusual for the Japanese.
The song is based on the eponymous military novel by writer Asihei Hino , who accompanied Japanese troops at the front [1] . Hino's story was published chapter by chapter in the Kaizo magazine ( 改造 ) and described the author’s personal impressions of the exhausting marches and battles for Xuzhou, covering the period from May 4 to May 22, 1938 [2] . Realizing the popularity of the story, the army information corps ordered the songwriter Masato Fujite to write a song about the war in China based on it. Fujita obeyed and wrote the lyrics for the song from five verses. The army authorities remained very dissatisfied with the first line, which in the initial version read as “oh, I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive, mother ...” ( あ あ 生 き て い た 生 き て い た 生 き て ま し た お 母 さ ん aa, ikite ita ita, ikite imashita, okaa-san). Such thoughts, according to the authorities, were unworthy of the Japanese soldier, who was to think exclusively about death for the emperor, so the first line was changed. The music for "Mugi is Haiti" was written by composer Nosho Omura . Singer Taro Shoji recorded the song on Polydor Records , and in December 1938 the records went on sale [3] [4] .
The song, according to some army officials, turned out to be insufficiently belligerent and propaganda, even despite the correction of words. It expressed neither hope of victory, nor the desire to seize the city, nor even approving words addressed to the soldiers making an exhausting night passage through the mud and in the rain. Attempts were made to separate such “unmanly” songs from official song propaganda, which only had the right to be called the word “ gunka ”, by naming their “songs of a warring country” ( я 国歌 謡 gunkoku kayo :), “wartime songs” (戦. 時 歌 謡 sanji kayo :) or “songs of the nation” ( я 民歌 謡 kokumin kayo :). However, these bureaucratic differences have not survived in the Japanese people's memory: according to the Japanese tradition, both songs approved and unapproved by the government belong to the “gunk” genre [5] .
Text
| Original text | Normalization | Line-by-line translation |
|---|---|---|
「徐州 徐州 と 人馬 は 進 む 徐州 居 よ い か 住 み よ い か」 | "Joshu: Joshu: that is jinba wa susumu, | "People and horses go to Xuzhou, to Xuzhou, |
Notes
- ↑ The redrafted phrase comes from the folk song “Sado okesa” ( 佐渡 お け さ ). Okesa is a type of folk songs, usually a dialogue between lovers of a man and a woman, Sado Okesa is the most famous of them. The first line of it looks like this: “Even trees and grasses lean towards Sado Island, Sado Island. Is living in Sado good? ”(佐渡 へ 、 佐渡 へ 佐渡 へ と 草木 も な び く よ。 佐渡 は 居 良 い か 、 住 み 良 い か). Sado (island) is located off the west coast of Japan and is administratively located in Niigata Prefecture. In the Middle Ages was considered a very remote place.
- ↑ 現在 は 、 社会 批評 社 か ら 『土 と 兵 隊』 と 併 せ て 出版 さ れ て い る （ ISBN 4-907127-02-2 ）
- ↑ Karen Laura Thornber . Empire of texts in motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese transculturations. Harvard University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-674-03625-3 , p. 189
- ↑ ＮＨＫ ス ペ シ ャ ル 従 軍 作家 た ち の 戦 争 - NHK 名作 選 （動画 ・ 静止 画） NHK ア ー カ イ ブ ス
- ↑ NHK 従 軍 作家 た ち の 戦 争 」（08.28.2013 放送） に 詳細 が 取 り 上 げ ら れ て い る
- ↑ Junko Oba To Fight the Losing War, to Remember the Lost War: The Changing Role of Gunka, Japanese War Songs in Richard King Global Goes Local: Popular Culture in Asia, 2002, UBC Press, ISBN 978-0-7748-0875- 0 , p. 236
Links
- Mugi then haitai on the site "Japanese military music"