हिरात्सुका राइचो

कृतियाँ

• 1911“आरंभ में स्त्री सूर्य थी” (सेइतो का घोषणापत्र)

  पत्रिका सेइतो का उद्घाटन कथन: स्त्री कभी सूर्य थी; अब वह चंद्रमा है जो दूसरे के प्रकाश से चमकता है – वह अपनी छिपी प्रतिभा को पुनः पाए।

मत

Her opening manifesto for Seitō – “In the beginning, woman was the sun” – declares that woman was once an authentic self shining by her own light and is now a sickly moon who shines by another’s. The genius hidden in every woman must be released by concentration and self-discovery; Hiratsuka drew the vocabulary of inner awakening from Zen practice and from Western individualism. Seitō became the forum of Japan’s “new women”, denounced by the press. In the “motherhood protection debate” of 1918–19 she argued, against Yosano Akiko, that the state should support mothers, a position influenced by Ellen Key. Her thought combines spiritual self-cultivation with concrete political demands.

जीवन और संदर्भ

Hiratsuka Raichō (1886–1971), born Hiratsuka Haru in Tokyo, studied at Japan Women’s University, practised Zen and was involved in a scandal in 1908 when a failed double suicide with a writer was reported in the press. In 1911 she founded Seitō (“Bluestocking”), the first literary journal written and edited by women in Japan. In 1920 she co-founded the New Women’s Association, which campaigned for women’s political rights.

अन्य प्रमुख कृतियाँ

• “In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun” (manifesto of Seitō, 1911)
• Autobiography: In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun (1971)