Patriotic Girl

(between 1939 and 1941)

IHL Cat. #2670

Description

A color lithograph patriotic fan sample print, likely created between 1939 and 1941 during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)*, depicting a singer and her accompanist during a radio broadcast. The banner on the stand to the right tells us the song is "Patriotic Girl" (愛国娘, Aikoku musume). "Patriotic Girl," a gunka (military song), was composed in 1939, with lyrics by poet and lyricist Satō Sōnosuke 佐藤惣之助 (1890-1942) and music composed by Tetsuo Suzuki 鈴木正次 (1903-1977), under the penname Wada Jūrō 和田十郎. The second and fourth stanzas of the song are seen to the left of the singer. A transcription of the stanzas with a lose translation follows.

See IHL. Cat. #2679 for another fan print sample bearing the song "Patriotic Girl."

Record Label

昼と晩とのニュースを聞いて
胸にしみこむ戦地の便り
地図をひらいて印をつけて
家（うち）の兄さん手柄はまだか

お嫁どころか休みの日には
かえる白衣の勇士を迎え
もゆる感謝の涙をためて
駅へ行きます　愛国娘

Listening to the news at noon and night,

It pierces her heart, the word from the battlefield,

Opening a map, she marks it,

"My big brother, have you achieved any great deeds yet?"

Instead of becoming a bride, on my days off,

I welcome the returning brave soldier in a white uniform.

With overflowing tears of gratitude,

I go to the station, a patriotic girl.

The print carries the sample catalog number そ印参百六拾貳號 (so in sanbyaku roku jū ni gō [362]). These numbered fan prints (uchiwa-e 団扇絵) were gathered into a sample book (uchiwa mihonchō 団扇見本帳, or uchiwa gachō 団扇画帖.) to show wholesale customers the range of available designs.

* The Second Sino-Japanese War is referred to in China as the "War of Resistance Against Japan."

Print Details