How does Japan protect traditional culture?

Legislative history of Japanese cultural heritage protection

Japan's protection of cultural heritage began in the early Meiji period of19th century. Japan's traditional cultural heritage was almost intact until the edo shogunate era. After the Meiji Restoration, the development of capitalism seriously impacted Japanese traditional culture, but Japan did not forget to protect traditional culture while developing its economy. 187 1 year (the fourth year of Meiji) In May, the Palace Office of the Japanese government promulgated the Antiquities Preservation Law to protect arts and crafts, which was the first time that the Japanese government promulgated the Cultural Heritage Protection Law by decree. Later, the Law on the Protection of Gushe Temple (1897), the Law on the Protection of Scenic Sites and Natural Monuments (19 19), the Law on the Preservation of National Treasures (1929) and the Law on the Preservation of Important Art Films (/kloc- In World War II, Japan changed from an aggressor to a defeated country, which caused great damage to Japanese cultural property. After 1945, in the early stage of Japan's national reconstruction from the ruins and national rejuvenation, the government widely adopted the strong demands of social enlightened people and academic circles and implemented the strategic policy of reviving Japanese national culture.

1949 65438+1On October 26th, a fire broke out in Jintang, Horyuji, Nara, which destroyed the oldest Japanese murals painted on wooden buildings. This incident aroused people's awareness of the protection of cultural heritage, and gave birth to the promulgation and implementation of the 1950 Japanese Cultural Property Protection Law. 1954 has been significantly revised, and the designation system of important intangible cultural wealth has been established, and laws and regulations such as the designation standard of important intangible cultural property and the identification standard of important intangible cultural property holders have been added. At present, this protection law has become a very perfect national cultural protection code. The Law on the Protection of Cultural Property clearly stipulates that the state protects material and intangible cultural heritage, and the state establishes a cultural property protection committee to protect traditional culture and art. These measures show Japan's respect and care for its traditional culture.

It is worth mentioning that the Law on Revitalization of Traditional Handicraft and the Law on Investigation of Handicraft promulgated and implemented in Japan in 1974 are laws formulated by the Japanese government to further revitalize traditional handicrafts, and are also laws of great significance for the inheritance and development of arts and crafts and related traditions after the Law on Cultural Protection. According to this law, the Implementation Committee of Traditional Craft Technology Investigation, which is composed of Japan Industrial Technology Liaison Association, Institute of Product Science of Industrial Technology Institute and Traditional Handicraft Promotion Association, conducted a national handicraft industry survey twice in 1975 and published a survey report in 1976, which played an important role in guiding and promoting the development of arts and crafts in various places.

Important legal contents of Japanese cultural property protection law

In Japan's Cultural Property Protection Law, the cultural property designated by the state is clearly divided into five categories: tangible, intangible, folk-custom, historic sites and traditional architectural groups, specifically referring to the following aspects:

Tangible cultural wealth refers to tangible cultural carriers such as buildings, paintings, sculptures, handicrafts, calligraphy works, classics, ancient documents, archaeological materials and historical materials with high value in Japanese history.

Intangible cultural wealth refers to traditional drama, music, technology and other intangible cultural carriers with high historical and artistic value. Due to the intangible nature of intangible cultural wealth, it is difficult to specify the works. Therefore, when people designate intangible cultural wealth, they often designate those inheritors of intangible cultural wealth-performing artists or arts and crafts artists. It stipulates the designated standards of technology, such as pottery, dyeing, lacquerware, metalworking and other technologies that meet one of the following four requirements: first, they have special artistic value; Second, technology that plays an important role in art; Third, it has a particularly important position in the history of technology; Fourth, it has high artistic value, occupies an important position in art, occupies an important position in the history of arts and crafts, and has remarkable local characteristics. There are two criteria for identifying technology holders: one is the high-tech holder designated by important intangible cultural wealth; Second, the important intangible cultural wealth designated by the correct holders and masters of technology and related technologies.

Folk cultural property can be divided into tangible and intangible. Among them, intangible folk cultural wealth refers to customs and traditional folk art related to food, clothing, housing, production, beliefs and festivals. Various items used in intangible folk cultural wealth are designated as tangible folk cultural wealth, such as clothing, household appliances, production tools, furniture, houses and so on, which can reflect the Japanese national lifestyle.

Monuments refer to ancient tombs, city ruins, castle ruins and ancient dwellings with high historical and academic value, courtyards, bridges, canyons, beaches, mountains and rivers with high artistic or ornamental value, and animals, plants and geological minerals with high academic value also belong to the category of monuments. In other words, monuments include both cultural heritage and natural heritage.

Traditional architectural groups refer to those traditional architectural groups that are integrated with the surrounding environment and can be used as historical landscapes with high value.

Intangible cultural property and intangible folk cultural property defined in this law are both called "oral and intangible heritage of mankind" in the current UNESCO standard documents, which are roughly the same as the concepts of national and folk cultural heritage in China.

Important measures to protect Japanese cultural heritage

"Implementing protection, focusing on measures". This is the basic experience of international advanced experience in protecting intangible heritage. The implementation of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property is the designation of cultural property, especially intangible cultural property. Such as technology, one is to specify the technology itself, and the other is to have specific craftsmen with technology. Japan's experience in this respect is outstanding. They have adopted scientific appraisal procedures to identify the items of "important intangible cultural property" and the naming of "national treasures on earth".

In the process of protecting cultural property, we emphasize the importance of protecting the holders of traditional culture and pay attention to "people". In Japan, the identification objects of cultural property protection law mainly include individual identification, comprehensive identification and protection group identification. Personal identification refers to the identification of the personal qualifications of skill inheritors; Comprehensive identification refers to the identification of folk activities with multiple cultural issues; Protected groups refer to those groups that have more than one holder of cultural property.

Among them, the most distinctive is the identification of "national treasure on earth". "National treasure on earth" refers to the holder of important intangible cultural property recognized by individuals. They are all old artists who have "stunts", "unique skills" and "stunts" in technology or performing arts. Their superb skills have won the official recognition of the Japanese government, and they have been listed as the objects of inheritance and protection, becoming celebrities and famous hands in various related fields. Once recognized, the state will allocate considerable special funds to record his art, preserve his works, fund him to inherit his skills, cultivate his descendants and improve his living and artistic conditions. According to the statistics of Japanese cultural department, there are 57 "national treasures" in art and energy, 57 in technology and * * 1 14. It is understood that the annual budget of the Japanese cultural sector exceeds 100 billion yen, of which 10% is used to protect important domestic tangible cultural property and important intangible cultural property ("national treasure on earth"), equivalent to RMB1500 million yuan. The annual economic subsidy for each "national treasure of the world" is 2 million yen, or about 290,000 yuan. Japan's craft society has edited dozens of volumes of "national treasures of the world", such as folk pottery, painted porcelain, special-shaped painting and dyeing, lacquer carving, gold casting, wax casting, gold carving, Japanese knives and sword grinding. The Japanese government not only gives necessary subsidies to "national treasures of the world" in economy, but also gives them preferential treatment in taxation and other systems, and encourages them to innovate in technology. Because the works of "national treasures of the world" have the value of reservation and appreciation, buying their works is just like buying antiques, and the collection value is very high. It is this system of respect and protection that makes traditional Japanese handicrafts such as handmade paper, handmade umbrella, lacquerware, sculpture, ceramics, brocade, kimono, clean glass, etc. spread to this day and remain at a high level.

In addition, the law clearly stipulates that the holder of cultural property should also be the heir of cultural property. If the holder of cultural property keeps his skills secret, no matter how high his skills are, he will not be designated as a "national treasure on earth" or an "important intangible cultural property holder" by the government. The introduction of this series of operational measures has played a good role in promoting the protection of intangible cultural property. For decades, the implementation of cultural incentive mechanism has made many Japanese arts and crafts, performing arts and other categories from endangered to reborn to new prosperity under strong protection measures.

In the process of protecting cultural property, the state not only gives necessary material and spiritual rewards, but also attaches great importance to the participation of local governments at all levels, non-governmental organizations and even individuals, and clearly stipulates the rights and obligations of all parties. For example, Japan has established professional associations covering the whole country to protect important intangible cultural property from counties and cities to rural areas. These associations have gathered thousands of descendants of folk culture and art to engage in inheritance activities. For the inheritance of this folk intangible cultural property, in addition to the necessary financial support from the state, social organizations and local governments have also given some sponsorship. This emphasizes the importance of social groups in the process of protecting cultural property, improves the national protection awareness of Japanese nationals and cultivates talents in cultural property protection.

Japan also emphasizes the flexible use of cultural heritage, which is not only a simple "protection", but also to give full play to the role of cultural property, that is, while properly keeping it, we should also make efforts to use it. For example, the Japanese cherish traditional handicrafts very much and hold craft exhibitions at home and abroad. In the process of public display, they give full play to the cognitive and educational functions of these cultural attributes, so that people can understand their own history and culture through the flexible use of cultural attributes.

Influence and contribution of Japanese cultural heritage protection to the world

Japan's cultural heritage protection has a far-reaching influence and great contribution to the world's cultural heritage protection, especially the promulgation of the Cultural Property Protection Law. Although it is only a Japanese law and regulation on the protection of cultural heritage, it has played an important role in the formulation of cultural heritage protection laws and regulations in the whole international community and the renewal of people's concepts. In Japan, people call traditional cultural heritage "cultural wealth", that is, the so-called "cultural wealth"; Artists who create cultural wealth are even more awe-inspiring, collectively known as "national treasures on earth". The introduction of these names has greatly improved the attention of the whole society to traditional cultural heritage, and those folk artists who have been ignored by society have also gained a fairly high social status in this respect. This invisible incentive mechanism has greatly promoted the inheritance of culture. This has had a great impact on other countries and even UNESCO.

Firstly, the concept of intangible cultural heritage is put forward. 1950 The Law on the Protection of Cultural Property was put forward, which marked that Japan put forward the concept of cultural heritage protection, which was very advanced at that time. In dividing cultural heritage, the United Nations adopted Japan's practice of dividing cultural wealth into tangible and intangible. Before 1950 Japan's Cultural Property Protection Law was promulgated, no country in the world paid special attention to its intangible cultural heritage. The appearance of Japan's Cultural Property Division Law has greatly expanded the field of cultural heritage protection and set an example for protecting and promoting another part of human heritage-intangible cultural heritage.

Secondly, under the influence of this concept of cultural heritage, 1955, Japan began to designate "important intangible cultural wealth" and folk artists for classical performing arts such as arts and crafts, drama and music, and created a protection system for "national treasures on earth". These measures have achieved remarkable results in the rescue and protection of intangible cultural heritage, which has been vigorously promoted by UNESCO and brought into the overall framework of "rescue and protection of human oral and intangible heritage". So far, this system has been established in Korea (1964), Thailand (1985), Philippines (1994) and France (1994) outside Japan. Since 1996, UNESCO has also held many international training courses on the protection system of human national treasures in Seoul, Venice, Tokyo and Manila, which has played a positive role in promoting the protection of intangible cultural heritage.