The Background behind the Establishment of the Two Prefectural Songs of "Akita Kenminka"(Song of the People of Akita Prefecture) and "Kenmin no Uta" (Song of the People of the Prefecture)(Part1): The Rise of Education in the Local Area vs the Song of the People of Akita Prefecture

This paper takes up the two songs of the Prefecture-"Song of the People of Akita Prefecture" and "Song of the People of the Prefecture"一and aims, in its first part, to deal with the history leading up to the establishment of the 80-year-old "Song of the People of Akita Prefecture" in the back drop of the first half of the Showa Era(1926-1989), in an effort to clarify the relationship between the establishment of the prefectural songs and the development of education in the local area. The following is a summary of the results of this research.1. Between the time that words for the prefectural songs were elicited from the public for entry into competition and the time that decisions on the selection and establishment of the songs were made, there was only a short span of time, which was a rare case as a project by a municipality.2. Tokyo Music School, which was entrusted with the composition of the music for the songs, spent only 9 days from the receipt of the request to the selection and revision of words, to the composition of music and to the dispatch of its products.3. The words selected for the songs shared common features in that they all incorporated the nature, the industry and the history, along with the various achievements by forerunners in the area-which has traces of influence from "songs of geography and history."4. The governor of the prefecture at the time of the establishment of the prefectural songs was Hiroki Hiekata, whose previous job was the head of the Department of Internal Affairs at Kanagawa Prefectural Government and from this fact it is very likely that he arranged the establishment of the prefectural songs for Akita modeling after his pilot project of establishing a prefectural song for Kanagawa Prefecture.5. The local education in Akita Prefecture in the early years of the Showa Era owes a great deal to Michitoshi Odauchi, a native of Akita City, to say nothing of the prefecture\u27s pioneer efforts of various kinds and thus, the "Song of the People of Akita Prefecture" was born out of the prefecture\u27s policies toward education and enlightenment of its people as well as the successful development of education in the local community