Shigeko Higashikuni was a Japanese imperial princess, the eldest daughter of Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun. Known in childhood as Princess Teru, she married Prince Morihiro Higashikuni in 1943 and became a commoner after the abolition of the imperial branch houses in 1947. She later wrote about postwar domestic life before dying in 1961.
Background
Shigeko was born on December 6, 1925, at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, while her father was still Crown Prince and regent for Emperor Taishō. She was the first child of Hirohito, later Emperor Shōwa, and Nagako, later Empress Kōjun, and belonged to the main line of the Japanese imperial family.
Her childhood appellation was Teru-no-miya, or Princess Teru. In accordance with imperial household practice at the time, she and her younger sisters lived apart from their parents after childhood at Kuretake-ryō, a residence associated with the upbringing of unmarried imperial princesses. She entered the girls' elementary department of the Gakushūin Peeress' School in 1932 and remained within the institution's secondary course until 1942.
Education
Shigeko attended the Gakushūin Peeress' School from 1932 through 1942, completing the secondary department. Her studies included literature and domestic subjects such as cooking. Gakushūin, established in the nineteenth century for the education of the nobility, served during this period as the principal school for girls of the Japanese aristocratic and imperial families.
Her education took place during the transition from the imperial society of the prewar period to the wartime mobilization of the 1930s and early 1940s. The school outing she joined on the Chōshi Electric Railway in Chiba Prefecture on May 9, 1939, was a documented example of her participation in ordinary school activities within the highly formal setting of imperial life.
Career
Shigeko became formally engaged in 1941 to Prince Morihiro Higashikuni, the eldest son of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni and Toshiko, Princess Yasu. They married on October 10, 1943, during the Second World War. Because wartime conditions restricted ceremony and expenditure, she wore a junihitoe kimono belonging to her mother, Empress Kōjun.
The Higashikuni family lost its imperial status in October 1947 when the Allied occupation's postwar reforms abolished the collateral princely houses. As Shigeko Higashikuni, she lived as a civilian and raised five children during the difficult economic conditions of postwar Japan. Her 1949 essay “Yarikuri no ki,” published in the lifestyle magazine Kurashi no Techō, described household economy, child-rearing, sewing, and other aspects of family life after the loss of imperial status.
In January 1958, she appeared before a live NHK audience to explain the New Year's poetry card-reading contest and related imperial ceremonies. NHK, formally Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, was Japan's national public broadcasting organization and had become a major medium for presenting cultural and ceremonial subjects to a mass audience. She became ill with stomach cancer in 1960 and died at the Imperial Household Agency Hospital in Tokyo on July 23, 1961.
Achievements
She wrote “Yarikuri no ki,” a widely read 1949 essay describing the practical organization of family life, household economy, and child-rearing after the Higashikuni family's loss of imperial status.
(An essay by Shigeko Higashikuni published in the fifth is...)
1949
Interests
Household management, sewing, cooking, gardening, and raising chickens.
Connections
Shigeko was the eldest daughter of Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun and the elder sister of Emperor Emeritus Akihito. Through her marriage to Prince Morihiro Higashikuni, she became connected to the Higashikuni branch of the imperial family.
She and Morihiro had five children: Nobuhiko, Fumiko, Hidehiko, Naohiko, and Yūko. The last three children were born after the Higashikuni family had lost its imperial status in 1947. Hidehiko was later adopted by the Mibu family and became known as Mibu Motohiro.
Father:
Emperor Shōwa
Emperor of Japan and Shigeko's father.
Mother:
Empress Kōjun
Empress of Japan and Shigeko's mother.
husband:
Morihiro Higashikuni
Prince of the Higashikuni family; they married on October 10, 1943.
Son:
Nobuhiko Higashikuni
Born on March 10, 1945.
Daughter:
Fumiko Higashikuni
Born on December 23, 1946.
Son:
Hidehiko Higashikuni
Born on June 30, 1949; later adopted by the Mibu family as Mibu Motohiro.
Shigeko Higashikuni
Reference biographies documenting her birth, education at the Gakushūin Peeress' School, marriage to Morihiro Higashikuni, postwar life, authorship of Yarikuri no ki, and death in 1961.
2004
Shigeko Higashikuni authority record
National Diet Library authority record identifying Higashikuni Shigeko as a Japanese person born in 1925 and deceased in 1961.
Princess Shigeko archival biography
Archival reference describing her birth, education at the Peeresses' School, marriage to Prince Morihiro Higashikuni, and children.
Kurashi no Techō, issue 5
Digital archive record for the October 1949 issue containing Shigeko Higashikuni's essay Yarikuri no ki.
