Sanshiro Ishikawa was born on the 23rd of May 1876 in Japanese department of Saitama. He studied philosophy and law in Tokyo, after the university, in 1903, he joined the “Man of the people Society” (“Heimin Sha”) founded by the anarchist Shusui Kotoku. At that time he wrote many articles against the Russian-Japanese war. During this period Sanshiro was closer to Christian Socialism than to Anarchism. In 1905 he became editor-in-chief of the magazine “New Era” (“Shin Kigen”) that he founded. The following year he became Director of “Women in the world” (“Sekai Fujin”) and the newspaper “The man of the people Paper” (“Heimin Shinbun”). He was arrested in 1907 and restrained in jail for one year due to his anti-system writing. He was arrested again in May 1910 and confined in Chiba prison for other 3 months, until end of July.

Life in Europe – After the big repression by the Japanese State against socialists and anarchists in 1911, he left Japan and he came to Europe in 1913. In the old continent he stopped specially in Belgium and France. He met then English writer and socialist Edward Carpenter and Paul Reclus, French surgeon that came from the “Commune de Paris” experience. They helped him to refine his political libertarian education. He stayed in Brussels with Reclus for a long period and for few months he was also Carpenter’s guest in Brighton. When “I World War” started in 1915, he was in Brussels, he founded a libertarian and anti-war newspaper. Then he moved to Paris continuing to work for the same newspaper. He became Reclus best friend and he eventually moved with him to Dordogne (Domme) and then 6 months between 1919 and 1920 to Morocco, where Reclus had a holiday house. Right after the Moroccan trip he moved back to Japan, where as soon as he re-establish himself in the country he collaborate with Miura Seiichi (of the newspaper “Kokusen”) to found an anarchist group. He became closer to anarcho-syndicalism, in fact, with this approach to this doctrine, he divided the Japanese anarchists. In 1927 he participated to the foundation of “Mutualistic Education Society” and to the anarchist magazine “Dinamikku”. In those years he translated and published all Kropoktin works and he’s really prolific in his writing of books analysis and articles for at least two decades, working and fighting for the anarchist cause. In 1946 he collaborate to found the “Japanese Anarchist League”. History’s passionate, specially the ancient Asia history, he learned and analysed everything he could to became an anarchy theoretician. He wrote several books on anarchism: from the aesthetic point of view and about his principles and his movements in Europe and America history. Further more he became a researcher of the Japanese mythology. Before to die in 1956 in homeland Saitama, he wrote a biography on Paul’s father, Jacques Elisée Reclus and various monographs on Edward Carpenters, Han Ryner and others.

Jacques Élisée Reclus, French anarchist(Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, 15th of March 1830 – Torhout, 4th of July 1905)

Written by MarcoPres

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