ABSTRACT
Not long ago the Japanese public was startled by the dramatic protest of Prince Mikasa, 45-year-old youngest brother of Emperor Hirohito. The prince, a popular professor of orientology at a women’s university in Tokyo, strode out of a general meeting of a historical society in disgust when a motion he had made was ruled out of order. His motion expressed opposition, originally circulated in a magazine (Nippon Bunkazai), to the revival of a holiday called Kigensetsu (National Foundation Day).1
