Hiraizumi Kiyoshi
Life and work. Hiraizumi was born on 15 February 1895 to a father who was a priest at the Heisenji Hakusan shrine in Katsuyama. He was sent to Tokyo to attend high school, and continued his education there, graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1918. He began working as a lecturer at his "alma mater" only a few years later, in 1923, and three years later held the post of associate professor in the Faculty of Letters; in 1935 he was promoted to full professor. He also helped to found the History Education Seminar, which oversaw the content  of history textbooks; he also contributed to educational materials for both the police and the military. Hiraizumi promulgated an approach to history known as "kōkoku goji shikan", a highly nationalist view centred on the importance of Imperial Japan. This view gained official endorsement from the Ministry of Education. Despite being technically subordinate to the departmental head, Kuroita Katsume, Hiraizumi was considered by the faculty's students to be in charge of the history department. With the backing of the Ministry, Hiraizumi created a new course known as "Nihon shisoshi koza" or History of Japanese Thought, which was highly politicised, emphasising  Hiraizumi's belief in the divine origin of the Japanese Imperial line. He also chaired a political student organisation named the "Shukokai", which promulgated nationalist views enshrining the importance of the Emperor, and was appointed by Kanokogi Kazunobu as a member of the "Dai Ajia Kyokai" (Greater Asian Association), a group of politicians, diplomats and others which was dedicated to spreading Japanese nationalist thinking throughout Asia. This society included Kōki Hirota, Konoe Fumimaro and Araki Sadao among its members, as well as many other notable personages. Hiraizumi had travelled in Europe during the early 1930s. He took inspiration from the  German nationalism of Gottlieb Fichte, but was heavily critical of the French Revolution, considering the concept of civilian revolution to be an entirely foreign concept to the Japanese. Hiraizumi resigned from the University after the Allied Occupation, and returned to his home prefecture of Fukui, though he continued to give lectures. He continued to espouse nationalist views and argued in favour of a mythology-based version of history (even his later books claim the Emperor Jimmu was a real historical figure and treat the "Nihon Shoki" and "Kojiki" as historical sources). However, without Hiraizumi's presence the ultra-nationalist trends  of the University's history department began to be reversed, and his views began to fall out of fashion, replaced by Marxist historiography. Eventually, Hiraizumi took up his father's role as a priest at the Heisenji Hakusan Shrine, where the spirit of Izanami is enshrined; on his retirement in 1981 the role passed to his son, Akira Hiraizumi. Hiraizumi died on 18 February 1984.