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Nihontō Bunka Shinkō Kyōkai
A new japanese sword organization
by Franz Baldauff
[anoted by Pierre Nadeau]
| Franz is
one of the rare Westerners to have studied the Japanese Sword in an
academic context, particularly the sword as an art object throughout
japanese history. He is also the author behind the Web site Nihon Tōken, from which this article has been translated into English and reproduced here with persmission. |
| NBSK |
| July 17th 2009 | 1 of 3 | [ 1 - 2 - 3 » ] |
For several months now the creation of a new japanese sword organization, along with the difficulties experienced by the NBTHK [1],
has been mentioned on message boards and in sushi bars. A great number
of swordsmiths and other craftsmen of the sword trades broke away from
the NBTHK and created a new group aimed mostly at the promotion of
their arts. The principal reasons of the craftsmen's dissatisfaction
remain unclear [it
appears that the two main reasons are rooted in the lack of displayed
interest from the NBTHK towards the crafts of the sword, along with the
withdrawal by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of its support to the
NBTHK, which is interpreted as an alert for the parties involved],
but only a third of them participated in the yearly sword forging
competition this year [...]. What seemed like an unconsequential trend
turned out to be a strong wave of contestation against the NBTHK.
Update
| It
has been confirmed at a special meeting on May 4th that, from next
year, the NBSK shall hold what will seemingly become the famed japanese
sword crafts yearly competition. The Agency for Cultural Affairs has
announced it will present both the Emperor Award and the Prime Minister
Award (which have been retrieved from the NBTHK competition to be
offered at the NBSK's) along with the organization's President Award in
the Special Prizes category. All four competitions — Sword Forging,
Horimono, Sword Polishing and Sword Fittings—will be held. It has not
been precized yet how the Mukansa status will be managed in regards to
this. |
Announced as early as November 2008, the new organization was founded in December of that year and named Nihontō Bunka Shinkō Kyōkai 日本刀文化振興協会 (Association for the Promotion of the Culture of the Japanese Sword), which acronym in Japanese is Tōbunkyō 刀文協. It is thought that the organization will be refered to as the NBSK in the West [2] [...].
[1] Nippon Bijutsu Tôken Hozon Kyôkai 日本美術刀剣保存協会, association for the preservation of japanese art swords, founded 1948.
[2]
It is interesting to note that the acronym "NBTHK" is knowned only in the
West, while in Japan it is refered to as the Nittōhō 日刀保.
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