Although many of Yukio Mishima’s works have been translated into Turkish, his thoughts on politics and culture are still not sufficiently known in our country. Mishima was an important figure that kept coming up in my research on conservative revolutionism. The book on Mishima’s thoughts published by Idrovolante Edizioni, ‘Yukio Mishima: Infinito Samurai’ published by Idrovolante Edizioni.

Could you briefly tell us about Yukio Mishima?

Yukio Mishima, the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka, was born in Tokyo in January 1925. Today, he remains one of the most fascinating literary figures in 20th-century Japanese culture. Of noble samurai descent, his works provide a remarkable portrayal of the often conflicted coexistence among modernity, spiritual life, and Japan’s industrial civilization of his time. In 1949, his bestseller Confessions of a Mask thrust him into the international spotlight, and he began traveling in the West, where he discovered classical Greece and fell in love with the philosophy of beauty and perfection. The key elements of his narrative—Beauty and Death, Beauty and Violence, Beauty and Eros—are always underpinned by his constant aesthetic quest, visible in both his meticulous choice of language and the themes he addressed.

Yukio Mishima was also a gifted playwright and an expert on Noh theater, having been introduced to this art form by his maternal grandmother, who raised him during his early childhood, effectively taking him away from his mother’s care. He grew up in the austere, old-fashioned atmosphere of her home, which profoundly influenced him. If we look at Mishima’s life history alongside the nature of his works, we can see an introspective phase in novels such as Forbidden Colors and Spring Snow, followed by a shift in 1967 toward The Way of the Samurai, his personal interpretation of the Hagakure by Tsunetomo Yamamoto, a 17th-century samurai. During the final years of his life, his intention to protect the Emperor took form in the founding of a privately financed paramilitary group called the Tatenokai (Shield Society). On November 25, 1970, after he and his followers took over the Tokyo headquarters of the Self-Defense Forces led by General Mashita, he delivered a final speech on the safeguarding of Japan’s traditions and original spirit. He was met with ridicule by those who had gathered and realized that his message had failed. He therefore asked his closest disciple to serve as his second during the seppuku ritual and carried out the act, thus forever engraving his figure into world history.

What were Mishima’s main criticisms of the process of modernizing Japanese society? How did he approach nationalism?

You can already trace Japan’s drive to reshape society and culture in a more “advanced” way back to the Meiji era (1868–1912), when the shogunate was replaced by the restoration of imperial power in the political sphere. During that period, army officers, state physicians, and engineers were sent to Europe to learn about new technologies through direct observation and imitation. They returned to Japan with unprecedented knowledge that would change the country’s structure in the years to come—at what cost, though?

This balanced openness to new cultural discoveries from the West inevitably had negative repercussions on the Japanese lifestyle, which was gradually transformed in almost every respect. The sphere that suffered most from excessive Westernization was undoubtedly that of traditions, whether religious or historical-cultural. However, Mishima’s critique should be understood in relation to his own historical context. The Shōwa era (1926–1989), corresponding to Emperor Hirohito’s reign, is the longest in modern-contemporary Japan and includes the watershed of Japan’s defeat in World War II and the subsequent official declaration of the Emperor’s human nature (the ningen-sengen). Until that time, the Emperor had always been regarded as a divine descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu.

Against this backdrop, in which the foundational values of Japanese civilization were collapsing, Mishima—who, one must remember, led an outwardly cosmopolitan life (wearing custom-made Italian shirts, smoking Cuban cigars, and decorating his home in a baroque style)—nevertheless reaffirmed his total loyalty to the Emperor, whom he regarded as the true embodiment of Japan. In The Defense of Culture, Mishima briefly recounts what happened in February 1936, when a group of young officers took to the streets demanding a state reform to curb the power of financial oligarchies, hoping for the active participation of Emperor Hirohito. Instead, the Emperor not only distanced himself but also handed down a harsh condemnation that led to the summary execution of the insurgent soldiers who had not committed seppuku, treating them as common murderers. Although Mishima refers to the events of February 26 as a moral revolution, his faith in the Tennō (the Emperor) remains the only form of permanent revolution inherent in the imperial system itself.

From the perspective of “conservative revolutionism,” which aspects of Mishima’s deep attachment to traditional culture and his desire for radical political transformation can be combined?
Still referring to the events of February 26, but from a different angle, we might say that Mishima’s profound attachment to traditional culture finds expression in a restoration of ancient political values, always focusing on the Emperor’s centrality and reflecting also on the ideal of Hakkō ichiu—“the whole world under one roof”—which upholds the universality of Japanese values, envisioning Japan as their global ambassador. A noteworthy aspect here is literature: the use of the Japanese language is an essential element in shaping both culture and politics, because language is a form in itself.

Could you tell us about Mishima’s famous debate with the leftist student leaders at the University of Tokyo on May 13, 1969? What symbolic meanings did this debate carry in Japan’s intellectual climate, and how did it influence the political-philosophical views of subsequent generations?
“I am Japanese. I was born and will die Japanese. I do not want to be anything else!” This statement was made during the meeting with the leftist university students of Zenkyōto on May 13, 1969, when Yukio Mishima was invited to the University of Tokyo to debate with Akuta Masahito, at the time one of the leading creative figures of the movement and today a renowned teacher of contemporary Japanese theater. In the heat of this confrontation—so lively and piercing that it resembled a fencing match—Mishima reaffirmed two key points of his thinking, surprisingly shared with Zenkyōto: anti-intellectualism and the acceptance of violence, provided it is supported by a solid ideological framework.

Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, Japan was essentially anesthetized to past pain and was directing its energies toward economic reconstruction, which, however, lacked spiritual depth. Within Japan, Mishima was despised by the pacifist left and viewed with suspicion by the conservative right—an excessively eclectic presence that could not be neatly placed within any political category.

What was the relationship between Mishima’s ideology and his conception of art and aesthetics, particularly regarding the body, beauty, discipline, and death? How were later writers and thinkers influenced by him?
Similar to how Gabriele d’Annunzio achieved it in Italy, Mishima fused his life and works into a powerful evocation of the past, at a time when the vast majority of the cultural elite was wholly focused on moving headlong into the future. Life and literature became inseparable elements. It’s likely no coincidence that Mishima was also the Japanese translator of d’Annunzio.

Mishima’s ideology is tied to his constant aesthetic quest, a fil rouge strongly connected, especially in his novels, to the carnal dimension of the body, to vivid physical descriptions, and to a persistent call to rigid discipline. Remember that the young Yukio Mishima was initially rejected for military service because he was deemed too frail. Later, after traveling to Greece and observing the perfect proportions of the classical statues, he returned to Japan determined to strengthen his body, taking up martial arts and bodybuilding. The famous image of him with his hands bound above his head, pierced by arrows like Saint Sebastian, is so well-known that most people have seen it at least once.

So why should we still talk about Yukio Mishima today? Even a century after his birth and across vast distances—cultural and otherwise—he continues to exert a fascination (for some, a frightening one) born of his striking relevance.

How was Mishima perceived in Europe? What parallels can be drawn between Mishima’s nationalism and the interpretations of cultural crisis among right-wing intellectuals in Europe?
Aside from his bestsellers, it’s difficult to claim that Yukio Mishima’s work is as widely disseminated and received in Europe as that of other Japanese authors, such as Murakami or Kawabata. One possible reason might be the distinctly political-philosophical nature of some of his works; The Defense of Culture, for instance, has been translated as an unpublished work by Idrovolante Edizioni. To engage with the political side of Mishima, you need some prior interest in Japan’s history and culture. Certainly, figures like David Bowie or photographer Eikō Hosoe helped spread his image in the West, but is it really accurate to consider Yukio Mishima a pop icon, as some Western libraries might suggest?

In intellectual right-wing circles, Mishima is a cornerstone thanks to the universal character of his political-philosophical essays. Sun and Steel or Way of the Samurai (also published as Meditations for the Young Samurai), with concise, didactic, and highly accessible structures, are almost guidebooks for anyone who, like Mishima in his own time and country, works daily on their political militancy as the last bastion defending the traditions of their nation—whether in Lisbon or Budapest.

Was Mishima’s seppuku on November 25, 1970, the culmination of his ideological and aesthetic pursuit, or should it be read as an expression of profound disillusionment with Japan’s modernization and his own ideals?
By choosing seppuku—an ancient samurai ritual form of suicide—as his means of death, Yukio Mishima made a deliberate and intensely dramatic statement of his disillusionment with a Japanese society he believed had become utterly apathetic. Yet at the same time, one might also interpret it as an ultimate gesture of aesthetic preservation. Indeed, he was a “warrior of life,” intoxicated by the allure of a glorious ancient death—a foolproof antidote against the slow decay of the modern age.