Le Moment nipponiste (1888-1897)

In the 1880s, an occasion arose "that only comes once every thousand years": the government promised the population a Constitution, and announced elections. In 1888, a group of intellectuals created the journal, Nihonjin (“the Japanese”). They hoped to intervene in the political and social sphere since, for them, modernising the State was not enough: a true Nation had to be built. The Japanese people needed to see themselves as an integrated whole, as well as bearers of a singular identity that would contribute to world progress. The Japanese people's participation in their government and affirmation of a national spirit are two facets of a single idea that the journal’s founders would strive to clarify and impose through their articles and commitments, which sometimes met with unexpected success.