The First “Mrs. Japanese” of Slovenia between the Two World Wars

Abstract

The paper’s main aim is to bring forward Marija Skušek (born Tsuneko Kondō Kawase 近藤常子(1893–1963) and her presentations and transmission of Japanese culture to the Slovene (at that time Yugoslav) public as the first Japanese citizen who was naturalised in Slovenia. It focuses mainly on the period from 1920, when she first entered the country, until the Second World War, drawing special attention to one of her main activities––giving lectures in the years 1930–1931, and on a smaller scale 1935–1936, mostly presented to the public under the title “A Japanese about a Japanese Woman”. Such lectures testify to the Japanese-Slovenian cultural exchanges, and the cultural milieu in Slovenia in which she acted. The author takes into consideration newspaper and journals sources discussing her activities and in particular the data available from the “Archive on Marija Skušek–Tsuneko Kondō Kawase”, recently re-discovered at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum of Slovenia, where her original lecture’s manuscripts, correspondence, newspaper clips and photos are collected.

Keywords

• Marija Skušek (Tsuneko Kondō Kawase)
• Skušek Collection
• Japanese culture
• women’s movements
• Franja Tavčar