samurai
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samurai
Bibliography
See H. P. Varley, The Samurai (1970).
Samurai
(from Japanese samarau, “to serve”), an aristocratic class in feudal Japan. In the broad sense, the term includes all secular feudal lords, from great princes (daimyos) to petty nobles; in the narrow and more frequent sense, it refers to a military-feudal category of petty nobility.
The emergence of the samurai as a separate estate is usually viewed as a process that began during the rule of the feudal house of Minamoto (1192–1333) in Japan. The samurai estate became clearly defined during the rule of the shoguns of the feudal house of Tokugawa (1603–1867). The most privileged stratum of samurai were the hatamoto (literally, “under the banner”), who were the direct vassals of the shogun. Most of the hatamoto were on the level of a service rank on the shogun’s personal estates. Most of the samurai were the vassals of princes; they usually owned no land and received a salary in rice from the prince.
The samurai code of conduct (seeBUSHIDO) was permeated with contempt for the toiling masses. The laws of the Tokugawa permitted a samurai to kill, on the spot, “any commoner who conducts himself in an unbefitting manner in regard to members of the military class.” During the Tokugawa dynasty, when internal feudal wars had ceased, military detachments of samurai were used mainly to crush peasant rebellions. At the same time, however, the daimyos no longer needed such large samurai detachments as had existed during the feudal wars, and the number of samurai in their military detachments decreased. Some of the samurai became ronin (déclassé samurai, whose vassalage to the princes had ended), who frequently assumed the status of townsmen, taking up a handicraft, trade, or some other occupation.
Beginning in the mid-18th century, the process of internal disintegration of the samurai estate intensified. Even without passing to the status of ronin, many samurai took up trade, handicraft production, and other occupations. The rank-and-file samurai, particularly in the principalities of Satsuma, Cho-shu, Tosa, and Hizen, who had close ties to bourgeois elements, played an important role in the incomplete bourgeois révolution of 1867–68 (seeMEIJI RESTORATION). After the uprising, the samurai estate, like other feudal estates, was abolished, although the samurai did not lose their privileged status.
After the agrarian laws of 1872–73 were enacted, a significant proportion of the samurai, who had already become de facto owners of land (goshi) under Tokugawa rule, became the de jure owners of this land as they came to be included in the category of the new landlords. Cadres of civil servants and most of the officers of the army and navy were drawn from the ranks of former samurai. The bushido code, the glorification of samurai valor and traditions, and the cult of war were incorporated into the ideological arsenal of the Japanese reactionaries, which was used to propagate racism and militarism. The term “samurai” is often used to designate Japanese militarists.
A. D. SYRKIN
samurai
www.samurai-archives.com
samurai
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