ABSTRACT
In the wake of the by-now celebrated volume edited by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), the contributors to which discussed the extent to which traditions could in fact be considered modern inventions, there have been a number of studies on the issue of invented traditions in the context of modern Japan (Fujitani 1996; Vlastos 1998; Shirane and Suzuki 1999). The ideas originally advanced in the Hobsbawm and Ranger book have since been modulated and developed, to the point where tradition today is regarded as more an act of redefinition in the light of changing circumstances than an outright fabrication. Following on from this more nuanced reading of the significance and meaning of tradition, this chapter discusses the (re)making of identity and the (re)writing of history in Tokyo over the last one hundred years. For this purpose, I will draw upon seven major anniversaries held in Tokyo by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) and earlier by the Tokyo City Government between 1889 and 1989. As the following table shows, Tokyo has not celebrated its anniversaries regularly, on the basis of a single historical origin of the city. Rather, the making of identity has been the primary political goal, which then has appropriated historical events of different temporal orders.
