»Imperialismus« in der japanischen Sprache am Übergang vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert

Anneli Wallentowitz analzyes the formation and further development of the term „imperialism“ (teikoku-shugi) in the Japanese language at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Drawing on the framework of European conceptual history, the study aims at understanding the formation of a non-European term while taking into account the historical context of translation-words in the Japanese language. Although the word „imperialism“ itself was included in Japanese-foreign language dictionaries as early as during the 1870s, a wider meaning including aspects such as „expansion“, „colonial rule“ and „world politics“ was only ascribed to it around the turn of the century. This development, which can be observed through contemporary Japanese-language sources, was the result of a growing public interest in the meaning of the term „imperialism“ at the time. The dissertation also introduces works by Japanese authors whose opinions on the nature of „imperialism“ contributed greatly to the development of these new definitions of the Japanese term teikoku-shugi.