Atarashikimura : The Intellectual and Literary Contexts of a Taishō Utopian Village

Abstract

Atarashikimura, a utopian village founded by the Shirakaba-ha writer Mushakōji Saneatsu in 1918, continues to operate on its original principles-communal living, reduced labor hours, and the pursuit of art and culture.Relocated from Miyazaki prefecture to Saitama prefecture in 1939, today it has about twenty residential members.In this article, I examine the conceptual principles of this village in the context of utopian movements in late Meiji and Taishō, such as Tokutomi Roka's cultivated aesthetic agrarian manner of life, Arishima Takeo's farm emancipation, and Miyazawa Kenji's Rasuchijin Association.I argue that the conception of Atarashikimura reflects the influence of three major intellectual and literary developments in late Meiji and Taishō.These include, first, the ideology of elite intellectual cultivation embodied in Taishō elite intellectual cultivation (kyōyō shugi) and its impact on Shirakaba-ha writers; second, Natsume Sōseki's continuous exploration of the intersection of the private self and society and his role as a mentor to the generation of scholars and writers born in mid-Meiji; and third, the emergence of a completely selforiented, intensely inward-gazing literary expression retroactively labeled the I-novel.This essay traces the development of Taishō utopian ideas in these intellectual and literary contexts.

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