Empress Kōjun

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Empress Kōjun (Princess Kuni Nagako)
Empress of Japan

Titles	HIM Empress Kōjun (2000- posthumous name) HIM The Empress Dowager of Japan (1989-2000) HIM The Empress of Japan (1926-1989) HIH The Crown Princess of Japan (1924-1926) HIH Princess Nagako of Kuni (1903-1926)
Born	March 6, 1903
	Tokyo, Japan
Died	June 16, 2000
	Tokyo, Japan
Consort	December 25, 1926 - January 7, 1989
Consort to	Emperor Shōwa
Issue	Shigeko, Sachiko, Kazuko, Atsuko, Akihito, Masahito, Takako
Father	Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi
Mother	Chikako Shimazu

Empress Kōjun (香淳皇后, kōjun kōgō^?) (March 6, 1903 - June 16, 2000) was empress consort of Japan. Born Princess Kuni Nagako (久邇宮良子女王, kuni no miya nagako joō^?), she was the consort of Emperor Shōwa and the mother of the present Emperor (Akihito). Her posthumous name, Kōjun, means "pure perfume".

Empress Kōjun was empress consort (kōgō) from 25 December 1926 to 7 January 1989, making her the longest lived empress consort in Japanese history.

1 Early life
2 Marriage and Children
3 Life as empress
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Princess Nagako was born on 6 March 1903 in Tokyo, the eldest daughter of Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi (1873 - 1929), by his wife, Chikako (1879 - 1956), the 7th daughter of Prince Shimazu Tadayoshi, former lord of Satsuma, 29th and last daimyo of the line. Prince Kuniyoshi Kuni, a son of Prince Kuni Asahiko, was the head of one eleven cadet branches of the imperial family during the Meiji and Taishō periods. Princess Nagako attended the Girls' Department of Peers' School in Tokyo (now Gakushuin) with her first cousin, Princess Masako Nashimoto known later as Princess Bangja of Korea.

[edit] Marriage and Children

The January 1919 engagement of Princess Nagako to her distant cousin then-Crown Prince Hirohito, the future Shōwa Emperor, was unusual in two respects. First, she was a princess of the imperial blood (albeit a minor one), whereas for centuries the chief consorts of Japanese emperors and crown princes had come one of the five senior branches of the Fujiwara clan (Konoe, Ichijō, Nijō, Takatsukasa, and Kujō), the most illustrious families of the court nobility or kuge. Second, although Princess Nagako's father was an offshoot of the imperial family, her mother descended from daimyo, the feudal or military aristocracy. Princess Nagako married then Crown Prince Hirohito on 26 January 1924 and became Crown Princess of Japan. She became empress upon Hirohito's accession to the throne on 25 December 1925. The imperial couple had seven children, five daughters and two sons:

Princess Teru (Shigeko) (照宮成子 teru no miya shigeko), b. 9 December 1925, d. 23 July 1961, later Princess Higashikuni and later still, Mrs. Higashikuni;
Princess Hisa (Sachiko) (久宮祐子 hisa no miya sachiko), b. 10 September 1927, d. 8 March 1928;
Princess Taka (Kazuko) (孝宮和子 taka no miya kazuko), b. 30 September 1929, d. 28 May 1989, later Mrs. Takatsukasa Toshimichi;
Princess Yori (Atsuko) (順宮厚子 yori no miya atsuko), b. 7 March 1931, later Mrs. Ikeda Takamasa;
Crown Prince Tsugu (Akihito) (継宮明仁 tsugu no miya akihito) became the present Emperor of Japan, Akihito, b. 23 December 1933;
Prince Yoshi (Masahito) (義宮正仁 yoshi no miya masahito), b. 28 November 1935, titled Prince Hitachi (常陸宮 hitachi no miya) since 1 October 1964; and
Princess Suga (Takako) (清宮貴子 suga no miya takako), b. 3 March 1939, later Mrs. Shimazu Hisanaga.

The daughters who lived to adulthood, left the imperial family as a result of the American reforms of the Japanese imperial household in October 1947 (in the case of Princess Teru) or under the terms of the 1947 Imperial Household Law at the moment of their subsequent marriages (in the cases of Princesses Yori, Taka, and Suga).

[edit] Life as empress

Although she performed her ceremonial duties as empress in a traditional way, the Empress was the first Japanese imperial consort to travel abroad. She accompanied Emperor Shōwa on his European tour in 1971 and later on his state visit to the United States in 1975. She became known as the "smiling Empress".

After the Emperor's death on 7 January 1989, she assumed the title of Empress Dowager. At that time she was in failing health herself and did not attend her husband's funeral. Her last public appearance was in 1988. She was in seclusion for the rest of her life.

At the time of her death at the age of 97 in 2000 she had been an empress for 74 years. Emperor Akihito granted his mother the posthumous title of Empress Kōjun. Her final resting place is in a mausoleum near that of her late husband, Hirohito.