Comprehensive Study about Japanese Commemorative Stamps after 1970s

纪念邮票是为邮票发行者政府认为对其政策重要的事件而发行的。因此，我们可以通过对纪念邮票的分析来追溯政府的政治意图及其背景的轮廓。但是，尽管对邮票的制造过程和邮政系统进行了大量的研究，但日本还没有对邮票与其社会政治背景的关系进行基础性的研究。这可能是邮票作为社会政治文献的重要性在学术界几乎被忽视的主要原因之一。因此，首席调查员开始编写1946年至1989年发行的日本纪念邮票百科全书，即昭和时代的后卫时期，并于2001年出版了第一卷，2004年出版了第二卷，2005年出版了第三卷，2006年出版了第四卷，2007年出版了第五卷。而最新的第六卷作为这一项目的成果之一出版了。首席调查员透露，这些百科全书将成为学生们的基本参考，他们对纪念邮票感兴趣，从学术角度考察它们作为社会政治文献及其背景。

Commemorative stamps are issued by for events which a government, the issuer of stamps, regards as important for their policy. Thus, it is possible for us to trace the outline of political intention of the government and its background through the analysis of commemorative stamps.But there had been no basic study about the relation between stamps and their socio-politacal background in Japan though there are plenty of studies about manufacturing process of stamps and postal system. It may be one of the main reasons why the importance of the stamps as socio-political documents is almost ignored in the academic field.Thus, the head investigator started to compile the encyclopedia of Japanese commemorative stamps issued from 1946 to 1989, that is, the postwai period of Showa era, and published vol.1 in 2001, vol.2 in 2004, vol.3 in 2005, vol.4 in 2006, and vol.5 in 2007. And the newest one, vol.6 was published as one of the results of this project.The head investigator beheved that these volumes of encyclopedia will be the basic reference for the students, who are interested in the commemorative stamps and investigate them as socio-political documents and their background from the academic viewpoints.