[M-ZZ50] Studies of Geoscience : historical, philosophical and STS studies

[MZZ50-06] Mochizuki Katsumi and his 'geographical turn' at the end of the Asian-Pacific War

*Toshiyuki Shimazu¹ (1.Department of Geography, Faculty of Education, Wakayama University)

Keywords:terrestrial unity, regional geography, geopolitics, Vidal de la Blache, Sauer

The diaries of researchers may reveal their daily practices and emotional attitudes which were hidden behind their published works and were nevertheless indispensable in the formation of their ideas and theories. This paper explores the backgrounds and consequences of a 'geographical turn' noted down in the diary of eminent geologist Mochizuki Katsumi (1905-1963), who kept his diary from his elementary school days to his last days. Mochizuki majored in geology at Tokyo Imperial University, albeit with a broader interest in geosciences including geography. After graduating, he taught geology, mineralogy and geography at Fourth Higher School in Kanazawa during 1928 to 1941. Then he moved to Shizuoka Higher School where he taught virtually the same subjects, albeit with an imperialist tone especially as to geography in the times of the Asian-Pacific War. In 1942, Mochizuki co-authored a Japanese translation of Richthofen's China: Erster Band. Just one year after that, he also completed his major work Daitoa Chitai Kozoron [Geotectonics of Greater East Asia]. While these publications generally seem to consort with Japan's political interest in East Asia, he was nevertheless critical of Komaki Saneshige's influential book Nippon Chiseigaku Sengen [Manifesto of Japanese Geopolitics] published in 1940. On 20th June 1945, Shizuoka City suffered from air-raid bombing and the natural history laboratory of Shizuoka Higher School was burnt out. Mochizuki wrote in his diary of that day: "Lots of books, especially foreign ones, have been lost. I have no choice but to abandon my wish to write a textbook of geology." He then consulted Preston E. James's An Outline of Geography (1935), which remained unburnt, to prepare his geography lecture notes. On 10th July 1945, he wrote that James's book was "a good one" and "I seem to accelerate the speed of my turn from geology to geography." He subsequently began to write a manuscript titled Gaisetsu Chirigaku [Outline of Geography]. However, as a consequence of Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration on 14th August 1945, Mochizuki wrote on 23rd August 1945 that "I began to rewrite Gaisetsu Chirigaku in a new notebook. The manuscript before 15th [August] is not available anymore. The world has changed." This 'postwar' manuscript shows his ambivalent attitudes toward geography. He asserted that "there is no doubt that this war, imbued with the Japanese spirit, was a moment in which geography achieved a great progress … I think now we try to elaborate a new daitoa chirigaku [Greater East Asian geography]." On the other hand, Mochizuki supported a 'modest' definition of geography as the science of place and regionality. He stressed especially the importance of the Vidalian concept of 'terrestrial unity,' which postulates that physical and human elements are mutually interlinked to produce a distinctive regional character. He also agreed with the Sauerian concept of cultural landscape, by which landscapes are deemed to be the visible expression of regionality resulting from the human-environment interaction. This latter kind of discourse appeared later in Mochizuki's book Chigaku Chishitsugaku Chirigaku [Geosciences, Geology and Geography] published in 1947.