Ruiko Kuroiwa

Japanese: 黒岩涙香 - くろいわ・るいこう

Year of death: October 6, 1920
Year of birth: Bunkyu 2.9.29 (1862.11.20)
A newspaper journalist and detective novelist during the Meiji and Taisho periods. His real name was Shuroku. He used the pen name Namiko mainly for his detective novels, and in the newspapers he was referred to as Mintetsu and Kuroiwa Dai. He was born as the second son of Kuroiwa Ichiro and Nobuko, local samurai from Tosa (Kochi Prefecture). He studied Chinese classics as a child and later moved to Tokyo. He attended several schools, including Keio Gijuku, but did not graduate. He participated in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement at the time, and in 1882 (Meiji 15), he was charged with insulting a government official for an essay he wrote about the issue of the Hokkaido Colonization Office's sale of government property, for which he was found guilty. In 1886, he became editor-in-chief of a small newspaper, the Eiri Jiyu Shimbun, which published essays and detective novels, gradually increasing his pen name. In 1890, he moved to the Miyako Shimbun, where he serialized a number of novels and gained a reputation. In 1902, he clashed with the president of the Miyako Shimbun and left the company, and in the same year founded the Yorozu Choho. The paper gained popularity among the urban middle and lower classes through Kuroiwa's serialized novels such as "Iron Mask" and "Ah, Heartless" and sensational scandal articles such as "The Concubine Investigation" that exposed the corruption of the upper class, and it quickly became the largest in Tokyo in terms of circulation (95,000 copies in 1899). Around 1890, the paper recruited progressive thinkers such as Uchimura Kanzo, Kotoku Shusui, and Sakai Toshihiko, and changed its policy to attract young students as its readership. In 1891, it organized an organization called the Ideal Group and attempted to start a social reform movement. However, there was a conflict over the Russo-Japanese War, and Kuroiwa decided to advocate going to war, so Uchimura and others who were against war left the company. At the end of the Meiji period, Yorozuchoho gradually fell behind in the business competition with other papers, but in the early Taisho period, during the movement to protect constitutional government and the Siemens scandal, it took the most radical stance, organizing the people's movement and leading newspaper campaigns. However, as Kuroiwa approached the second Okuma Cabinet, the reputation of the Yorozuchoho newspaper began to decline, and Kuroiwa's motivation to run the newspaper weakened. Kuroiwa had a unique talent for keenly capturing the consciousness of his readers, both as a newspaper reporter and as a detective novelist. <Works> Meiji Literature Collection 47 <References> Kuroiwa Ruiko, edited by the Ruiko Association

(Teruo Ariyama)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：大正9.10.6(1920)
生年：文久2.9.29(1862.11.20)
明治大正期の新聞記者,探偵小説作家。本名は周六。涙香という号は主に探偵小説で用い,新聞では民鉄,黒岩大などと称した。土佐(高知県)の郷士,黒岩市郎と信子の次男に生まれる。幼少時,漢学を学び,のちに上京。慶応義塾などいくつかの学校に入学したが,正規に卒業はしていない。折からの自由民権運動に参加し,明治15(1882)年には北海道開拓使官有物払い下げ問題に関する論文が官吏侮辱罪に問われ有罪の判決を受けた。19年,小新聞『絵入自由新聞』の主筆となり,論文や探偵小説を掲載,次第に筆名を高める。22年『都新聞』に移り,多数の小説を連載し評判を得る。25年,『都新聞』社長と対立して退社し,同年『万朝報』を創刊した。同紙は,「鉄仮面」「噫無情」などの黒岩の連載小説と上流階級の腐敗を暴露した「畜妾調」などのセンセーショナルなスキャンダル記事によって都市中下層民の人気を博し,一躍東京第一の発行部数(明治32年の発行部数9万5000部)を得るまでになった。 33年ころから,内村鑑三,幸徳秋水,堺利彦らの進歩的思想家を入社させ,青年学生層を読者として開拓する方針に転じ,34年には,理想団と称する団体を組織し,社会改良運動を起こそうとした。しかし,日露戦争をめぐって対立し,黒岩が開戦論に踏み切ったことから,非戦論の内村らは退社した。明治末期,『万朝報』は次第に他紙との営業競争に後れをとるようになったが,大正初期の憲政擁護運動やシーメンス事件では最も急進的立場に立ち,民衆運動を組織化するとともに新聞キャンペーンをリードした。しかし,黒岩が第2次大隈内閣に接近したころから『万朝報』の声望は低下し,黒岩も新聞経営への意欲を衰弱させていった。黒岩は新聞記者としても探偵小説作家としても読者の意識を鋭敏にとらえる独特の才覚をもっていた。<著作>『明治文学全集47』<参考文献>涙香会編『黒岩涙香』

(有山輝雄)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

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