Gunka


Gunka is the Japanese term for military music. While in standard use in Japan it applies both to Japanese songs and foreign songs such as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", as an English language category it refers to songs produced by the Empire of Japan in between roughly 1885 and 1943.

History

Japanese gunka were consciously constructed to engender loyalty and warm feelings towards the nation. Up until the surrender of the wartime Japanese government in 1945, gunka were taught in schools both in Japan proper and in the larger Empire. During the Occupation gunka performance was banned. However, the ban was lifted with the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1952, and these gunka experienced a mild "boom" in the late 1960s, and by the early 1970s they had regained popularity in Japanese-controlled Micronesia and parts of Southeast Asia. A famous example of a Japanese gunka was the song "Sen'yū" written during the Russo-Japanese War.