Empress Kōjun
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Empress Kōjun (香淳皇后 kōjun kōgō?) (March 6, 1903 - June 16, 2000) was empress consort of Japan. Born Princess Kuni Nagako (久邇宮良子女王 kuni no miya nagako joō?),[citation needed] she was the consort of Emperor Shōwa and the mother of the present Emperor (Akihito). Her posthumous name, Kōjun, means "fragrant purity". Empress Kōjun was empress consort (kōgō) from 25 December 1926 to 7 January 1989, making her the longest lived empress consort in Japanese history.
Early lifePrincess Nagako was born on 6 March 1903 in Tokyo, the eldest daughter of Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi (1873 - 1929), by his wife, Chikako (1879 - 1956), the 7th daughter of Prince Shimazu Tadayoshi, former lord of Satsuma, 29th and last daimyo of the line.[citation needed] Prince Kuniyoshi Kuni, a son of Prince Kuni Asahiko, was the head of one eleven cadet branches of the Imperial Family during the Meiji and Taishō periods.[citation needed] Princess Nagako attended the Girls' Department of Peers' School in Tokyo (now Gakushuin) with her first cousin, Princess Masako Nashimoto, who became Crown Princess Bangja of Korea.[citation needed] Marriage and ChildrenThe January 1919 engagement of Princess Nagako to her distant cousin (then-Crown Prince Hirohito, the future Shōwa Emperor), was unusual in two respects. First, she was a princess of the Imperial line (albeit a minor one), whereas for centuries the chief consorts of Japanese emperors and crown princes had come from one of the five senior branches of the Fujiwara clan (Konoe, Ichijō, Nijō, Takatsukasa, and Kujō), the most illustrious families of the court nobility or kuge.[citation needed] Second, although Princess Nagako's father was an offshoot of the Imperial family, her mother descended from daimyo, the feudal or military aristocracy.[citation needed] Princess Nagako married Crown Prince Hirohito on 26 January 1924 and became Crown Princess of Japan.[citation needed] She became Empress upon Hirohito's accession to the throne on 25 December 1925. The Imperial couple had seven children, five daughters and two sons:
The daughters who lived to adulthood, left the Imperial family as a result of the American reforms of the Japanese Imperial Household in October 1947 (in the case of Princess Teru) or under the terms of the 1947 Imperial Household Law at the moment of their subsequent marriages (in the cases of Princesses Yori, Taka, and Suga). In both cases, since they married men who were or who would become commoners, they lost their titles of Princess as well as their Imperial status. Life as empressImage:Ford and Emperor1975.jpg
Emperor Showa and his wife during their first visit to the United States. Empress Nagako, Mrs. Ford, Emperor Showa and President Gerald Ford walk down the Cross Hall towards the East Room prior to a state dinner held in honor of the Japanese head of state. (1975)
Although she performed her ceremonial duties as Empress in a traditional way,[citation needed] the Empress was the first Japanese Imperial Consort to travel abroad.[citation needed] She accompanied Emperor Shōwa on his European tour in 1971 and later on his State Visit to the United States in 1975. She became known as the "smiling Empress".[citation needed] After the Emperor's death on 7 January 1989, she assumed the title of Empress Dowager.[citation needed] At that time, she was in failing health herself and did not attend her husband's funeral.[citation needed] Her last public appearance was in 1988.[citation needed] She was in seclusion for the rest of her life.[citation needed] At the time of her death at the age of 97 in 2000, she had been an empress for 74 years. Emperor Akihito granted his mother the posthumous title of Empress Kōjun.[citation needed] Her final resting place is in a mausoleum near that of her husband, Hirohito.[citation needed] Titles and StylesImage:Japan Kou(tai)gou Flag.svg
Standard of the Empress Dowager
See alsoExternal links
et:Nagako es:Emperatriz Kōjun fr:Kōjun it:Imperatrice Kōjun nl:Nagako Kuni ja:香淳皇后 pl:Nagako pt:Imperatriz Kōjun sv:Nagako th:สมเด็จพระจักรพรรดินีโคจุน | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
