Defining the Self. What are the origins of identity? Hegel argued identity arose from a self-other distinction, that as the object one becomes self-aware through recognition of the other, or subject. Accordingly, as identities emerge it becomes necessary to maintain distinction, even to emphasize it, to bolster the self by negating a common unity. Over time these distinct identities develop histories, narratives unique to themselves that reinforce this self-other dialectic. Migration, crosscurrents of culture and ideas, invasions; all these events serve to interweave the various strands of individual histories, threatening a totality that incorporates individual identity into an all consuming whole. The self becomes the other.
Identity, by definition unique, necessitates origins, an irreducible essence that contains within it the entirety of a distinct group’s historical experience. As such, Michael Foucault wrote, “It is no longer origin that gives rise to historicity; it is historicity that, in its very fabric, makes possible the necessity of an origin” (Rabinow 1984: 76). Expanding on the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Foucault argued against the search for a “pure” origins as would define individual identity. Rather he maintained a distinction between a genealogy of human consciousness and morality on the one hand, and history on the other. Genealogy, he writes, “opposes itself to the search for origins” (ibid 77). Human consciousness and morality arise not from a single source but through interaction, a mixing that defies uniqueness.
It is history, according to Foucault, that concerns itself with origins, a thread legitimating modern identity by tracing back to an essential beginning that “discloses the original” (ibid 78). Yet throughout East Asia origins have in fact served as the starting point of both history and genealogy, the birth of society and its guiding principles. Genealogical records became subsumed into the writing of history, a master narrative that served as the foundation of individual and national identity. In a region as diverse as it is related, origins in East Asia became inherently conflicted, as individual identities sought to create an autonomous space still linked to the larger whole. Origins maintained uniqueness while affirming universality, preserving identity in a world of shifting realities.
The importance of origins in Korean history has long been established, and yet among scholars there is a tendency to focus on Japanese colonialism and Korean nationalism as the dual forces that shaped modern Korean identity. In Korea Between Empires, Andre Schmid examines the emergence of Korea’s Patriotic Enlightenment Movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. His study demonstrates Korea’s attempts to negotiate the simultaneous collapse of China and rise of Meiji Japan while maintaining national sovereignty. Highlighting the role of print media, Schmid details the battle over Korean identity that occurred between Korean nationalists on the one hand, and Japan’s colonial scholars on the other. The knowledge on Korea that was produced during these decades, argues Schmid, established the contours of Korean identity up to the present day (Schmid 2002: 16).
In a similar vein Michael Robinson’s study Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea details the movement of Korea’s “cultural,” or moderate, nationalists in creating the historical memories that gave rise to a progressive, modern Korean consciousness. Linking nationalism to the growth of modern Korean identity, he writes, “In Korea, nationalism is an ideological movement driven by the search for identity and programs to attain independence” (Robinson 1987: 9). Under Japanese rule the nationalist movement, states Robinson, sought to prepare Koreans for future independence by instilling the necessary values to forge Korea into a modern nation-state. Both Robinson and Schmid acknowledge nationalism’s neo-traditional aspects, including new interpretations of national origins. Missing is a corollary between origins themselves and Korea’s historical identity. The importance is not in how origins became central to national identity, but that they remained so.
The focus among scholars on the nationalist period creates an artificial bifurcation of Korean history that ignores the reality of historical continuity. Rather than examining the impact of Korea’s past on modern scholarship, the angle is reversed. Thus one gathers from the literature on Korea that it was in fact nationalism that both rejected and recreated Korea’s past, yet history progresses forward. Korean nationalists were the products of the very culture which they sought to modernize. As such, while much changed during this period, there was also much that remained. Essential to this historical continuity, I maintain, was the link between origins and identity. While Koreans themselves have over the centuries redefined their origins to better suit the political and cultural climate, they have nevertheless continued to maintain a sense of distinct origins, even into the modern era.
Hyung Il Pai takes up the theme of Korean origins in her recent study titled Constructing Korean Origins. In it Pai offers a thorough analyses of anthropological trends in Korea from the colonial period. Echoing Schmid and Robinson, she contends that the search for Korean origins has been driven primarily by efforts to erase the peninsula’s colonial past. Thus, she points out that Korean origins have been rendered into an anti-imperialist framework without the empirical data necessary to back it up. Urging a departure from nationalist interpretations of Korea’s ancient past, Pai suggests an alternate framework for understanding Korean origins. Yet her empirical emphasis ignores the deeper symbolism inherent in such an undertaking. Origins imply identity, a relationship that in Korea predates both Japanese and Western influence.
Given its small size and geographic vulnerability, with an established tradition of cultural exchange bolstering political independence, origins have remained the lynchpin of a purely Korean identity since the start of history. This remains the case even up to the present day. Despite that vast differences separating North from South, Korean origins are a common ground upon which all Koreans stand. It is a unity defined by blood, culture, and language, whose source remains entrenched in a historical tradition beginning with the mythical foundations of the nation itself. Thus the myth of purity, that defies the reality of a nation at the crossroads of East Asia, forms the core of Korean identity.
Korean and Japanese Identity in the Sinic Sphere. Throughout East Asia, where the influence of Chinese civilization impacted all levels of society, origins became key to establishing distinct national identities. Neighboring countries borrowed heavily from Chinese political and cultural practices to legitimate their status within the East Asia region, as well as to cement domestic political authority. The historical development of Korea emerged out of this relationship, a dynamic process of interaction between indigenous cultural norms and those imported from China. Japan as well was shaped by its relationship with China, though its distance afforded a larger degree of autonomy. In both countries the pervasiveness of Chinese influence ultimately led to questions of identity, as each attempted to preserve a level of distinction from the Middle Kingdom. In so doing the role of origins became central, symbolizing the birth of an indigenous tradition firmly rooted within native soil.
Historian Arthur Wright notes that in Japan history served as “the record of family origins and past achievements which served to justify the aristocratic political order” (Wright 1962: 978). The pinnacle of this order in Japan has traditionally been the imperial court, whose divine ancestry was linked to the origins of the country itself. Out of this symbiosis emerged a historical identity which took as its source the mythical origins of Japan’s native rulers. In Korea, too, where social stratification was based upon hereditary status, history was often a lineage of dynastic rulers going back to the clan based origins of the dynasty’s founder. While both countries were heavily influenced by currents of Confucian and Buddhist thought coming out of China, Korea’s geographical proximity to China intensified this relationship, blurring the lines between what was seen as indigenous, and what foreign. As early as the Bronze Age the peninsula’s rulers adopted Chinese symbols to legitimate their authority, a move which over time would establish China as a source of both political and cultural identity. Whereas Japan’s unbroken line of imperial descent maintained the country’s link to an indigenous mythical past, dynastic change in Korea heightened the necessity for renewed legitimacy that increasingly took China as its source.
This becomes increasingly the case under the Neo-Confucian Choson Dynasty (1392-1910), whose founder, General Yi Songgye (r. 1392-1398), based his new government upon the model of Ming China. As Korean society underwent immense transformation under the country’s Neo-Confucian elite, Korean identity became further enmeshed within the Chinese sphere. And yet while acknowledging China as the source of civilization, Koreans maintained a self-awareness as a separate people that nevertheless shared in a universal culture.
This tension between identification with China and distinction from it is echoed in the writings of Korea’s Sirhak scholars, widely seen as the predecessors to Korea’s nationalist historians. Beginning in the late seventeenth century Sirhak scholars increasingly challenged Korea’s traditional subservience to China, asserting that Korea in fact represented the ideal Confucian society. Yet while their works attempted to raise the status of Korea, their theories were based upon ancient ties to the continent, linking Korea’s cultural origins with the mythical sage rulers of Chinese antiquity.
The writings of Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), in contrast, thoroughly rejected Chinese influence in Japan. A member of the kokugaku school, he argued for a return to indigenous ways whose origins lie in Japan’s mythical past. Unlike his Sirhak contemporaries, Norinaga rejected the principles of Neo-Confucianism as the basis of universal culture. Instead he developed theories that placed Japan at the center of a divine tradition that, while giving rise to the various countries of the world, had only been preserved through the imperial line of the Japanese monarchy. Just as the writings of Korea’s Sirhak school provided a framework for later nationalist scholars, Norinaga’s theories were instrumental in shaping Meiji Japan’s ideological foundations. Both, however, saw origins as fundamental to national identity.
The intellectual trends of the Sirhak and the writings of Norinaga emerged during a time when Korea and Japan maintained policies of isolation. As a result, their theories remained for the most part within their respective countries, a seed germinating in native soil that would eventually take root to form the core of a modern national identity. This isolation would come crashing down in the nineteenth century under the threat of Western colonialism. As the old order crumbled, Korea and Japan both sought to adjust to an international setting defined by the nation-state. In the process, the question of origins would again be raised as a source of legitimacy for the emerging nation, a legitimacy now based upon national sovereignty and ethnic distinction. Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910 and its avowed policy of cultural assimilation precipitated a clash between these two historical traditions, a conflict that pitted the origins of Korean nationalism against those of Japanese imperialism.
II. Sirhak and the Origins of Sino-Korean Identity
Sharing the Center. By the second half of the Choson Dynasty Korean society began to experience immense changes in its social and economic structures. Increases in population resulting from peaceful international and domestic conditions as well as agricultural innovations led to a growing political class (Lee 1996: 8). Yet while the number of families with political connections grew official posts remained limited, resulting in increased factional rivalry. Those literati excluded from the government found themselves living in rural villages, often next to peasants wealthier than themselves. With the introduction of potatoes and other cash crops from the West via Japan, an emerging market economy began to take shape. While more and more yangban elite found themselves living in poverty, a growing number of merchants and peasants began to purchase elite status, further eroding the traditional social hierarchy (Lee 1984: 250). And while increased population size led to the manumission of slaves given the growing labor force, it also meant a decrease in the availability of land. Overcrowding, hunger, and disease became widespread phenomena, compounded by a growing landless population.
As conditions deteriorated the majority of Korea’s scholar officials were taken up in factional disputes, often revolving around abstract philosophical matters divorced from more immediate social ills afflicting the country. Disaffected by their indifference a group of scholars emerged outside official circles that began to critically examine the underlying reasons for the country’s problems. Known as the ‘school of practical learning,’ Sirhak scholars represented a break from past intellectual traditions. Unwilling to follow precedent, these men challenged previously accepted conceptions of Korean cultural and political identity. Seeking solutions to domestic problems their focus shifted away from China and towards their own native society. While historian Shin Yong-ha insists this shift was associated with a growing disenchantment with the Sinocentric world-view, events in China also had much to do with Korea’s nativist impulse (Shin 1990: 16). In 1644 China came under Manchurian rule with the establishment of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). Peter Lee notes that the rise of the Manchus in China as the peninsula remained in Korean hands gave Koreans “a new self-confidence” in their own culture, prompting a reappraisal of Korea’s historical identity (Lee 1996: 4). For many of Korea’s Neo-Confucian literati Manchu China’s legitimacy as the successor to the sage rulers of antiquity thus came into question.
Korean historians traditionally recognized China as the sole representative of Heaven, supporting the ideology of China as the “Middle Kingdom” (Schmid 29). In opposition to this Sinocentric view of Korean history, Sirhak scholars began to inquire into Korea’s own indigenous past, challenging Korea’s inferior status to China. As such contemporary Korean historians see in this shift the beginnings of a nationalist consciousness within Korea. Shin states that the historical outlook of the Sirhak school “can be considered as the progenitor of modern nationalist historiography in Korea” (Shin 16). And yet the majority of Sirhak scholars were ardent followers of Neo-Confucianism. While there were several prominent scholars of the Sirhak school who converted to Christianity, most notably Chong Yag-yong (1762-1836), the majority remained firmly wedded to the principles of Neo-Confucian ideology. Where their views broke from convention was in elevating Korea’s status as a Confucian polity equal to that of China (Deuchler 1977: 2).
This view of Korea as an equal with China is in many ways tied to the universal underpinnings of Neo-Confucianism as it evolved in both China and Korea. Martina Deuchler points out that Neo-Confucian teachings first entered Korea during the period of Mongol rule in the twelfth century, when the peninsula was “part of a vast multinational system” (ibid 16). Prior to this Confucianism had been seen by Korea’s rulers primarily as a political tool for the maintenance of a centralized state (ibid 14). Under Mongol rule the number of Korean students traveling to and from China increased, carrying with them a revitalized Confucianism that incorporated elements of Buddhist and Taoist metaphysics.
Inspired by the writings of Zhu Xi and the Cheng brothers of the Song Dynasty (960 1279 C.E.), Korea’s Neo-Confucian evangelists began to envision a transformation of society along these new principles, eventually displacing Buddhist doctrines as the spiritual and political ideology of Korea. In his Religious History of Korea, James Grayson states, “It was the rise of Mongol power… along with the development of a metaphysical Confucianism which altered dramatically the relationship between Confucianism and the state” (Grayson 2002: 117). As Mongol rule declined, these literati assumed Korea’s natural link to the universal principles of Neo-Confucian thought, an equal claim to the heritage of China’s sage rulers. It was an assertion of shared origins and national identity.
Sirhak scholars traced the roots of Korean civilization to the arrival from central China of the Shang Dynasty aristocrat Kija (Ch. Qizi), the earliest mention of whom is found in Chinese sources. The Han dynasty text Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) by Sima Qian (145-90 B.C.E.), notes that Kija had gained renown for his rebuke of the Shang king for violating moral principles, enhancing his persona as a sage teacher. When the Shang were conquered by the Zhou, Kija was enfeoffed as the ruler of the territory of Old Choson. Other sources, including the thirteenth century Korean text History of the Three Kingdoms, credit him with the introduction of agriculture and sericulture, as well as the propagation of the Eight Prohibitions. “As a result,” notes the author, “the people did not steal though doors and gates were locked” (Lee 1996: 11). Through Kija Korean civilization became inducted into the Confucian world.
According to historical chronology, Kija assumed control over the territory of Old Choson, believed to have been located around the area of modern-day Pyongyang. Korean historians date the founding of Old Choson to 2333 B.C.E., a date corresponding to the twenty-ninth year of the legendary Chinese Emperor Yao’s rule (ibid 236). This periodization of Korea’s founding state is significant for it antiquates Korean origins to the time of China’s sage rulers, aligning the development of Korean history more closely with that of China. Though Sirhak scholars acknowledged the mythical figure T’angun as the founder of Old Choson, they attributed the development of civilization to the arrival of Kija in the twelfth century B.C.E. (ibid 237). Han Ch’iyun (1765-1814) credited Kija with the introduction of “ritual and righteousness” to Korea, while Yi Ik (1682-1764) claimed that through Kija the “political and philosophical teachings of the ancient sages were transmitted into our land” (Shin 21). Though T’angun had established the Korean state, it was Kija who brought civilization.
Yi went on to note that this transmission of Chinese civilization to Korea demonstrated that the peninsula had evolved under the same Confucian principles as those of China. The emergence of T’angun in Korea, he maintained, coincided with that of Emperor Yao, while the rule of Kija was established at the same time as that of the Zhou (Lee 222). As such, insists Yi, there is no need for Koreans to continue to revere and study China at the expense of their own country’s past. Korean origins, rooted in the teachings of the sages, warranted Korea’s place as equal with China.
Chinese historical records state that by the fourth century B.C.E. the territory of Kija Choson had come into conflict with the powerful state of Yan, located near the Shandong peninsula in modern China. With the establishment of the Qin Dynasty in the second century B.C.E. a military commandery was set up in the territory of Kija Choson, making it an effective outpost of the Qin Empire. The collapse of the Qin in 206 B.C.E led to a series of political upheavals as this area became contested between rival leaders. Out of this tumultuous period emerged the figure of Wiman (Ch. Wei man), described in the Shiji as a refugee from the state of Yan. Wiman, along with a band of a thousand followers, effectively took control over the region, forcing the descendents of Kija to flee south to the southern Korean state of Chin (Lee 1984: 16).
Sirhak scholars compared the defeat of Kija Choson by Wiman to the Manchu conquest of China (Lee 1996: 222). In his essay On the Legitimacy of the Three Han, Yi Ik designates Kija as the source of both civilization and dynastic legitimacy. Describing Wiman as “nothing but a barbarian,” he traces legitimacy through the line of Kija’s descendents in the south, denying Wiman this distinction (ibid 224). For Yi Ik the comparison with the Qing was clear; the Manchu conquest of the Ming Dynasty represented China’s loss of dynastic legitimacy, while Korea had successfully maintained legitimacy through Kija’s descendents. By tracing Korean’s lineage to China via Kija, Sirhak scholars were slighting the non-Han Qing rulers of the time as barbarians. Choson possessed a non-barbarian lineage and was thus superior to the Manchu Qing (Pai 113). For these historians, dynastic legitimacy represented the maintenance of an unbroken connection to the past, to the origins of civilization. Manchu rule broke China’s link to this source, while Korean legitimacy had been preserved through Kija’s descendents. This being the case, Korea could rightly lay claim to the mantle of civilization.
The connection between origins and legitimacy, between lineage and identity, is one that is deeply rooted within Korean society, and is directly related to the clan-based societies of ancient Korea. Beginning with the tribal confederacies of the Neolithic mythical tales of divine origins were woven around clan leaders to legitimate their authority. One particularly well known myth even today is that of Pak Hyokkose, the legendary founder of Saro. Historical records state that Saro later merged with its neighboring clans to become the state of Silla, the first state to rule over a unified peninsula in the seventh century C.E. Legend holds that Pak was born from an egg after hearing the prayers of the people for a ruler to establish order among the southern clans (Seo 200: 14). Scholars note the name Pak derives from the word palk, or brightness, suggesting his descent from the sun (Eckert 1990: 7).
As clan confederacies slowly transformed into centralized states, aristocracies emerged whose social and political privileges were derived from clan associations. Under the Silla Dynasty (668-935 C.E.) this resulted in the kolp’um (bone-rank) system, whereby an individual’s political preferment “was inextricably bound to the status he held in [that] system” (Lee 1984: 50). Under the growing influence of Confucian philosophy Silla established a National Confucian College in 682, followed by the start of a state civil exam in 788, both of which were meant to uphold Confucian learning above lineage status. Nevertheless, ancient customs prevailed as the great majority of those qualified to sit for exams came from elite lineages, thereby restricting political participation to a select few (ibid 84).
This trend of monopolizing political power within a limited circle of lineage groups continued into the Choson period and was reinforced by Korea’s traditionally rigid social hierarchy. Deuchler notes that the “hallmark of Korean society in late Choson was a kinship system that rested on highly structured patrilineal descent groups” (Deuchler 6). These groups were characterized by a shared ancestor with a common surname and ancestral seat. Lineage records, known as chok’po, were kept in order to prove an individual’s ancestral background, crucial in attaining government office or in forming marriage alliances. Some of these chok’po records stretched back to the “frontiers of the historical record,” with several prominent clans claiming ancestral ties to China (Wagner 1972: 145). The Ch’ongju Han clan is noteworthy in this respect for its claim of descent from Kija, a claim presumably made to heighten the clan’s social and political status.
Thus within Korean society ancestral origins were central to an individual’s identity. Likewise for the state, the legitimacy of Korean culture was predicated upon its lineal descent from the sage rulers of China. For the Neo-Confucian elite Korean identity was intimately linked to the universal principles of Chinese culture, a connection which substantiated Korea’s elevated position within the East Asia region. For Sirhak scholars Kija represented Korea’s link to this civilization, and through him they assumed for Korea the role of the ideal Confucian state. This ideological position warranted Sirhak scholar’s shift away from China towards a study of indigenous practices. Yet while they asserted Korea’s own cultural legitimacy, their theoretical framework remained firmly within the boundaries of Neo-Confucian thought. Although with the fall of the Ming Dynasty Sirhak scholars maintained Korea’s distinction as the idealized Confucian state, it was a distinction that continued to uphold China’s preminence.
Serving the Great: Despite assertions from Sirhak scholars, political as well as ideological realities ensured China’s predominance in the region. Hae-jong Chun notes that by the early years of the Qing dynasty Korea became the model tributary state. “During the Qing era official Sino-Korean relations… provided an example of the relations expected or desired between China and other peripheral states” (Fairbank 1968: 90). The two centuries following the invasions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1592 and the Manchu invasions of the mid-seventeenth century were ones of relative peace and stability on the peninsula. This peace was in large part derived from Korea’s adherence to ceremonial relations with its two neighbors, China and Japan (McCune 1930: 10).
Relations with China were defined as sadae (Ch. Shida), or “serving the great.” Taken from the fourth century B.C.E. text Zuozhuan, this term became the basis of the Choson Dynasty’s foreign policy relations with her larger and more powerful neighbor. Lee Ki-baek notes that the adoption of sadae had much to do with the “unremarkable family background” of the Choson Dynasty’s founder, Yi Song-gye (Lee 1984: 189). Lacking ancestral distinction Yi based his legitimacy upon ideological ties to the Neo-Confucian Ming Dynasty, a move which helped to preserve the Yi family as the ruling house in Korea yet reinforced the peninsula’s inferior status with China. While the fall of the Ming raised questions among Sirhak scholars as to the legitimacy of Korea’s subordinate status, throughout the Qing period the Korean court strictly adhered to its role as a tributary state. It did so precisely because the system at once maintained regional stability and legitimated the authority and status of Korea’s ruling elite in the eyes of the populace (Fairbank 111).
This dialectic between Korea’s self-consciousness as a distinct entity apart from China combined with its ideological and political ties to the continent defined Korean identity for most of its history. To reiterate, origins were a key element in this relationship, for perceptions of Korean origins in the pre-modern era at once distanced and linked Korean identity to China. Korea was geographically, ethnically, and linguistically separated from the mainland, and yet through the transmission of Chinese culture Koreans shared in the common roots of Confucian civilization. While politically Korea remained subordinate to China up to the nineteenth century, culturally Koreans claimed an equal position in the center of the Chinese world.
The decline of China and the subsequent growth of Western oriented ideology in East Asia forced Korea to rearticulate its position in a rapidly changing international environment. The destruction of the Confucian system undermined the foundations of Korea’s traditional identity, challenging the principles upon which Korea defined itself. New definitions of social and political organization, legitimated by the overwhelming might of the colonial powers, cast traditional culture in a backward light. In response, Koreans sought to align their identity along these new standards, reformulating Korean origins to fit into this new paradigm.
III. Imperial Origins and Japan’s Colonial Scholars
Meiji and the Loss of Korean Independence. In contrast to Sino-Korean relations, Korea’s policy towards Japan was defined as kyorin, or neighborly relations. While sadae denoted hierarchy and kyorin equality, in reality Japanese envoys to Korea were often looked upon as coming from a supplicant (McCune 136). Following the Hideyoshi invasions relations between the two countries were normalized in 1609 with the signing of the Kiyu Sinjong (New Model Treaty), which served as the basis for relations until 1876. Over the course of nearly three centuries then Korea enjoyed an unprecedented stability that, as Peter Lee notes, led to the “last flowering of traditional Korea” before the modern world forced its way in (Lee 1996: 4).
The dual term sadae kyorin thus set the political framework for Korea’s position within East Asia, with Korea squarely in the middle. It was a framework that stressed harmonious relations between neighbors, relying upon adherence to ceremonial etiquette and the recognition of status hierarchy. Japanese demands for Korea’s recognition of the Meiji emperor in 1868 represented a violation of these ritually sanctioned relations. Like the West, Meiji Japan assumed international law to be universal, ignoring the traditional system of Confucian relations that had dictated East Asian politics for centuries (Conroy 1956: 1). For Korea ceremony, not international law, was seen as universal (McCune 240). Application of the title emperor to Japan’s ruler violated such ritual standards, which recognized only one emperor, that of China. Acquiescing to Japanese demands would have subordinated Korea to Japan as well as China, upsetting the entire balance of power in East Asia and challenging the context within which Korean identity had formed.
The impact of the Meiji Restoration on all levels of Korean society was indeed profound. Despite Korea’s official rejection, Japan soon became the model for reformers and intellectuals eager to remake Korea into a modern nation. As was the case with the Tang Dynasty in the seventh and eighth centuries, Meiji Japan became a wellspring of civilization for students and intellectuals throughout Asia. Japanese universities became hubs for progressives hoping to guide their own countries towards modernity. In Korea this gave birth to what became known as the Patriotic Enlightenment Movement, a loosely knit group of activist writers and intellectuals working to lift Korea out of its cultural isolation (Schmid 4). It is through their efforts that Korean society was first introduced to such modern concepts as social evolution and national independence. In their writings is seen a new definition of Korean identity based upon the slogan of “munmyong kaehwa,” or civilization and enlightenment.
In opposition to the reform efforts of this movement were Korea’s conservative officials, who maintained traditional ties to China. For its part, China also actively sought to prevent Korea from falling under Japan’s sway, discouraging any policies that promoted reform (ibid 26) . Factionalism within the court between rival clans also impeded progress made in the direction of modernization. Thus at this critical juncture, when the very survival of the peninsula as an independent entity was threatened, Korean identity became torn in two as conservatives held to China while progressives looked to Japan. With the signing of the protectorate treaty in 1905, and full annexation in 1910, the model of Meiji Japan was forcefully superimposed upon Korean society, establishing itself on the intellectual foundations laid by Japan’s colonial scholars. Through their writing Korean history was incorporated into Japan’s imperial narrative, itself the product of Japanese origins.
Japan’s National Soul. The most striking aspect of Japanese imperialism was the imperial cult, a social construct erected by the Meiji oligarchs that fused Japanese political and cultural identity into the image of the emperor, in Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi’s words the “cornerstone of the country” (Hirobumi 1909: 127). In building the Meiji state, the emperor was the unifying force in a country fragmented by social hierarchies and political divisions. Reflecting an era in which ancient tradition sanctioned rapid modernization, the image of the emperor was at once the modern military general, as well as chief priest of the new national religion, State Shinto (Pyle 1996: 72). Any and all changes made within the country were done so in the name of the emperor, whose religious and political authority derived from an ancestral lineage that traced back to the divine origins of the nation itself.
The ideological foundations of what would become known as the emperor system were first expressed in the writings of Motoori Norinaga. A disciple of the kokugaku (national studies) school, Norinaga’s theories were drawn from his extensive research into Japan’s native traditions as recorded in the country’s oldest historical sources, the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters) and the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan). Like Korea’s Sirhak scholars, Norinaga and other kokugaku advocates rejected the reverence of China by Japan’s Neo-Confucian intellectuals. Unlike the school of Sirhak, however, Norinaga’s theories were not based upon ancient connections to Chinese civilization, but were rather supported by theories drawn from Japan’s own indigenous past. Out of these formulations came an alternate vision of universal civilization, one in which Japan, not China, was at the center.
Both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki were compiled in the early part of the eighth century C.E. and offer accounts of the divine origins of Japan and its imperial rulers. In order to connect the time of compilation with events recounted in the texts, Norinaga insisted that both the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki were in fact faithful recordings of an oral tradition that predated Chinese sources. This tradition holds that the creation of Japan resulted from the union of the deities Izanami and Izanagi. According to Norinaga this union, or “binding,” was a manifestation of the universal Way, somewhat like the Chinese principle of yin and yang. Out of Izanagi was born Amaterasu, the sun goddess, who Norinaga claimed was the sun itself, thus equating Japan with the light of the world. According to the myth, Amaterasu sent Ninigi to rule as emperor in Japan, commanding that his dynasty endure forever, laying the foundation of Japan’s imperial line. Norinaga maintains that within these legends are contained the “fundamental principles of the universe and of man,” and that only in Japan was its transmission preserved (Norinaga 1988: 48).
In his essay Tamakushige (The Jeweled Comb-Box), written in 1786, Norinaga blames Japan’s Neo-Confucians for the gradual decline in respect for and understanding of Japan’s own native traditions, for him the “source and foundation of all countries” (ibid 48). Offering counsel to the Daimyo of Kii on how to deal with growing social unrest, Norinaga refutes the advice of the Daimyo’s Confucian advisors as impractical for the governance of Japan, instead urging for a return to Japan’s own divine traditions (Brownlee 1988: 35). Because the birthplace of the gods was Japan, argued Norinaga, and due to the country’s “special circumstances,” i.e. its relative isolation, it was only in Japan where the True Way had been preserved through the imperial line. All other countries should thus rightfully pay reverence to Japan (Norinaga 48). Attributing the stability of the Tokugawa period to the shogun’s respect for the imperial throne, Norinaga urges the Daimyo of Kii to return to the ways of Japan. Arguing that the peace and prosperity of the country depend upon the emperor, Norinaga established a direct connection between the Japanese people and their monarch.
Norinaga’s Tamakushige is considered the “first tract to base government on the Ancient Way of Japan,” and was highly influential in the Meiji leaders formulation of Japan’s imperial ideology (Brownlee 35). Reminiscing on the formation of the Meiji Constitution, Hirobumi, like Norinaga, associates Japan’s tradition of isolation with the development of a distinct heritage, the essence of which was the crown itself (Hirobumi 123). As a national symbol the emperor was a living embodiment of the very origins of Japanese culture and history, the source of the national soul, or kokutai. The emperor set Japan apart, and above, her Asian neighbors, a distinction founded upon ancient myth and validated by military conquest. Much as Korean nationalists would attempt to do in the twentieth century in refuting Japanese colonial assertions, Norinaga and other kokugaku thinkers returned to a pure Japanese past that predated China’s influence. In doing so they constructed a Japanese identity intimately linked to the country’s divine origins.
Reclaiming Asia. Though the ideas of Norinaga were fundamental to the construction of a distinctly Japanese identity during the Meiji period, modernization and the absorption of Western thought threatened to undo the fabric of traditional society. The nation, once described by Hirobumi as a “vast village society,” was being torn at the seams as political and economic disparities heightened individualist tendencies among the masses (Pyle 166). Stefan Tanaka writes that within this situation emerged a debate amongst Japan’s leaders over questions of universal civilization versus cultural integrity (Tanaka 1993: 69). To what degree could or should Japan allow itself to adopt supposed universal standards of Western civilization while maintaining, and indeed honoring, Japan’s own distinct past? “This question,” observes Tanaka, “shaped historical debate within Meiji Japan,” a debate that evolved within the context of nation building and later imperial expansion (ibid 69). Just as Norinaga had delved into Japanese myth to reject China’s influence, modern scholars would again look to the past, to origins, to defend against the onslaught of Western culture. Out of their ideas emerged a Japanese identity linked to the continent on both a cultural and biological level. Asia became the repository of Japan’s past, from which it had long since advanced and was now seeking to reclaim.
The text of the Nihon Shoki is distinguished from that of the Kojiki by its treatment of historical events as they unfolded in ancient Japan. The opening chapters of the Nihon Shoki deal with the succession of emperors, beginning with the mythical figure of Jimmu (660-585 B.C.E.), held to be the grandson of Ninigi and thus a direct descendent of Amaterasu. Chapter nine of the Nihon Shoki is of particular interest with respect to Japanese relations with Korea. The key figure is that of the Regent Empress Jingu (169-269 C.E.), wife to Emperor Chuai and mother to the future Emperor Ojin (ca. 5th c. C.E.), considered by some to be the first historical emperor of Japan. According to accounts in the Nihon Shoki Jingu received a vision from the gods in which her husband would conquer lands across the sea. Rejecting his wife’s premonition the gods decreed that Chuai’s son Ojin would instead be the one to rule this territory. Chuai having died, Jingu then sets out to conquer the Korean peninsula, returning home three years later with her newborn son.
Versions of this tale have been taught in Japanese classrooms since the start of the Meiji Restoration, serving as the basis for Japan’s historical accounts of Korea in the modern era (Hong 1994: 16). Such views of Korea would emerge in Japanese scholarship on the peninsula beginning in the late nineteenth century. Following the Western model of territorial expansion, Japan’s first overtures abroad in the modern era were in fact not military, but rather scholarly (Tamanoi 2000: 248). As did the Western colonial powers in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Japan’s penetration of Korea was precipitated by decades of intellectual debate over the nature of Japanese relations to the continent. Thus Japanese expansion began not with territorial conquest but rather with the assumption over control of Asia’s cultural and historical representation.
Redefining Korea. By the 1890s Japanese anthropologists and historians began to conduct some of the earliest explorations into Korea’s ancient past. Their research combined modern techniques of anthropology and historiography imported from the West with expertise in the texts and traditions that formed the bulk of Korea’s historical record. The production of knowledge on Korea by Japan’s scholars was perhaps the most insidious aspect of Japan’s colonial activities. As the bearers of modernity, Japanese scholarship carried enormous weight in Korea, with the potential to thoroughly redefine Korean identity. Andre Schmid notes “the power of colonialism was not simply the ability to coerce submission but, perhaps more deeply and longer lasting, to shape the very knowledge about their own nation” (Schmid 105). Japanese scholarship rewrote Korea’s past as a narrative of cultural dependency and foreign rule, providing the intellectual foundations for Japan’s colonial endeavors,
The discovery in China’s Jilin province of a stone monument dating to the fifth century state of Koguryo, the northernmost of Korea’s ancient Three Kingdoms, was particularly important for its implications. While Korean nationalists would later use it to glorify Korea’s militarist past, Japanese scholars claimed the inscriptions on the monument verified accounts in the Nihon Shoki of Japan’s ancient subjugation of Korea. Known as the Kwanggaet’o stele, the inscription on the monument records the Koguryo king’s military exploits at the hands of China and Koguryo’s southern neighbors, Silla and Paekche. Discovered in 1882, a rubbing of the inscription was taken by a Japanese officer while on tour in Manchuria back to Tokyo. The contents of the rubbing, then housed at Tokyo’s Ueno Park Museum, detailed the efforts of King Kwanggaet’o in vanquishing Wa invaders from Japan, who had occupied the southern peninsula. According to the inscription both Silla and Paekche had been forced into submission, freed only after the defeat of the Wa by the Koguryo King in the year 400 C.E (Lee 1997: 25). Japan’s colonial historians argued that the rubbings taken from the stele, which predated the Nihon Shoki by four centuries, corroborated the texts’ accounts of the Japanese colony of Mimana, located on the southern tip of the peninsula.
While the southern half of the peninsula was under the control of Japan, Japanese scholars argued the northern half was dominated by China. Excavations in 1915 around the site of Tosong-ni, near modern day Pyongyang, revealed the remains of the ancient Han Dynasty commandery of Nangnang (Ch. Lolang). Among the more than 2000 burial sites identified archaeologists uncovered numerous examples of Han dynasty jewelry and other artifacts (Pai 2000: 30). According to Chinese historical texts Wiman Choson was defeated by the Han emperor Wudi in 108 B.C.E., who then established the Nangnang commandery.
Carter Eckert notes that Chinese policy in Korea did not involve substantial cultural or political repression. As a result, he points out that this gave rise to an emergent elite class of Sinified Koreans ruling over a population relatively unadulterated by Chinese influence (Eckert 14). For Japanese scholars, the establishment of Nangnang marked the birth of traditional Korean culture. Basing their analyses on archaeological and textual evidence, Japanese scholars argued that the origins of the Korean state developed under colonial conditions. Through the Han commandery, they claimed the peninsula was introduced to Chinese thought and technology, leading to the formation of Korea’s earliest states. From its inception the span of Korean history was portrayed as the product of foreign influence, its national origins framed in a colonial context.
Eric Hobsbawm identified three criteria required of a modern nation in the nineteenth and twentieth century as historic association with a current state, the existence of an established cultural elite, and a proven capacity for conquest (Hobsbawm 1990: 37). The archaeological evidence uncovered by Japanese scholars negated these categories in relation to Korea, conceiving the peninsula in colonial terms. Japanese rule over the colony of Mimana incorporated Korea into the larger narrative of the Japanese empire, validating the authenticity of legends contained within the Nihon Shoki, legends that formed the basis of Japan’s national identity. Meanwhile, Chinese rule in the north effectively denied the existence of an indigenous source of Korean origins. What had been the basis of elite identity for centuries, namely the peninsula’s close association with China, was now a means to reject Korea’s claims to national sovereignty (Pai 27). Without an indigenous culture of its own and a proven history of foreign domination, Japanese scholars provided historical legitimacy for Korea’s annexation.
Apart from history, Japanese scholars were also focused on questions of race and ethnicity. By the late nineteenth century ethnicity came to be seen as a defining feature of nationality worldwide. Due to the pervasiveness of Social Darwinism, which envisioned a world of racial competition, nations were conceived in biological terms as expressions of distinct ethnic groups (Doak 2001: 15). Prasenjit Duara points out that the academic field of ethnology emerged in Japan at this time and was heavily influenced by Russian and German theories that defined ethnicity as groups tied together by a common blood, language, and custom (Duara 2005: 9). While the imperial line remained the locus of a domestic Japanese identity, ethnicity became a global standard of national legitimacy. Early Japanese ethnologists thus formulated theories that attempted to reconcile these two definitions, blending racial and mythological origins to define Japanese identity.
Some of the earliest theories to be put forth on Japanese racial origins were those of Kume Kumitake, who argued that the Japanese people were indeed indigenous to the islands. He theorized that Japan had once been a vast thalassocracy that encompassed both Korea and southern China, and that this relationship led to the populating of these areas by the island’s ancient inhabitants (Tanaka 72). Kume drew upon records contained in the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki to support his theories, ideas that reinforced imperial myth and legitimated the Japanese perception of Asia as historically inferior. His arguments also provided justification on racial and historical grounds for Japan’s annexation of Korea (ibid 75).
Arguing against theories of indigenous racial origins, Inoue Tetsujiro maintained that Japan’s racial stock was a mixture of various Asiatic peoples, including Malay and more northern branches (ibid 77). Unlike Kume, who believed it was the purity of the Japanese race that made it superior, Inoue argued that it was in fact this mixed character of the Japanese that predisposed them to superiority over other Asian ethnicities. Both men, however, conceptualized Japanese origins in relation to the continent, making Asia an indelible part of Japan’s historical narrative. Tanaka shows that among these early Japanese ethnologists there was a driving concern to counter Western conceptions of Asia as the source of its own progressive history. “The West,” he writes, “became the dominant other by which Japan sought to distinguish itself” (ibid 78).
Out of these efforts there emerged a focus by Japanese ethnologists upon the Ural Altaic hypothesis, the “paradigm of Japanese ethnological discourse in the early twentieth century” (Duara 20). First formulated by Russian anthropologist S.M. Shirokogoroff in the late nineteenth century, this theory posited the inhabitants of Manchuria as Asia’s oldest race. Duara writes that the Ural Altaic hypothesis offered a vision of a unified Asia in contrast to the Indo European people of the West (ibid 20). In Japan this hypothesis evolved into a racial classificatory scheme known as the Nikkan Racial Theory, which maintained shared racial origins between Koreans and Japanese, termed nissen dosoron.
A key tenet of the Nikkan framework was the mixing of Nangnang Chinese immigrants with local inhabitants, giving rise to modern Koreans (Pai 39). This argument stripped Korea of any potential claim to nationhood based on ethnic distinction. With a shared bloodline between ancient Koreans and Japanese, and the mixing of Chinese with Korean in the first and second centuries, modern Koreans were portrayed as lacking a unique racial heritage. Furthermore, the link between Koreans and the ancient inhabitants of Manchuria reinforced Japanese perceptions of Korea as backward. Japan’s relative modernity allowed scholars to claim common racial origins while distancing themselves from the continent via a progressive history that associated Korea with the original, less advanced peoples of Asia (Pai 36). Meanwhile Korea’s biological connection with Japan made annexation not only plausible, but a necessary step in the consolidation of the Japanese empire.
Anthropologist Shiratori Kurakichi, a renowned supporter of the Nikkan racial theory, conducted extensive research around the site of the Nangnang commandery as part of his efforts to uncover Japan’s racial past. Tanaka notes that like Kume and Inoue, Shiratori studied Korea as a means of understanding Japan (Tanaka 85). As a locus of Japanese origins, Korea represented an essential link between Japan and the continent, a genetic trail that charted Japan’s later imperialist expansion. Working out of the Research Division of the South Manchuria Railway (SMR), the government’s key instrument for administration of the region, Shiratori’s work redefined Korea’s racial and historical lineage (Pai 25).
In 1894, as part of his research on Korean origins, Shiratori published an article in which he challenged the authenticity of T’angun, Korea’s legendary first founder. He argued that the legend of T’angun arose after the introduction of Buddhism to Korea in the fifth century C.E., and was used by the northern state of Koguryo to rally popular support in its campaign for unification of the peninsula (Tanaka 85). While Korea’s nationalist historians identified T’angun with the nation’s origins, Shiratori’s periodization placed the emergence of the Korean state as later than that of Japan. Tanaka notes that this enabled Shiratori to claim that while Korea and Japan shared common racial origins, Japan’s history had in fact developed separately, progressing beyond its peninsular neighbor (ibid 85).
Shiratori further iterated Japanese distinction from Korea through Japan’s imperial line, what he called the “central pillar” of Japan’s spiritual and cultural essence (ibid 194). This emphasis on Japan’s imperial tradition reflects the efforts of colonial scholars like Shiratori to blend scientific theory with ancient legend, to draw Asia into Japan’s historical narrative while upholding Japanese superiority. Just as the Meiji Restoration had blended tradition and modernity, so too would colonial scholarship incorporate ancient myth with modern science. Origins at once created a pan-Asian unity that nevertheless distinguished Japanese identity.
The Ethnic-Nation. As noted the emphasis on racial discourse that arose in Japan by the late nineteenth century added new definitions to Japan’s evolving identity as a regional power. Describing Japan in racial terms Japanese ethnologists employed the term minzoku, or ethnic nation. While given new meaning as a purely racial marker, the term itself was a derivative of an older Chinese word. Dating back to pre-Han Dynasty sources the term minzu in Chinese was used to identify the many non-Chinese inhabitants of China’s border regions, Koreans among them. The resurrection of this term in Japan created a sense of continuity with the past, imbuing modern racial concepts with traditional meaning. As a result, the minzoku could be presented not as a novel creation but rather as a timeless entity evolving through history and anchored in the nation’s imperial traditions. “This ethnic nationalism,” writes Kevin Doak, “fanned the flames of war and expansion more effectively than the state ever could” (Doak 2).
The annexation of Korea in 1910 was portrayed by Japan as the return of a long separated branch to the main line of the Japanese family (Brudnoy 1970: 171). From the outset the stated goal of Korea’s colonial rulers was assimilation. Korea would become a part of Japan, its historical identity replaced with loyalty and reverence for the Japanese emperor. “Japan’s experiment in Korea,” writes David Brudnoy, “attempted to re-create a closely related but nonetheless separate society by obliterating that people’s identity” (ibid 194). Racially connected to Japan yet historically backward, Koreans became second class members of an emerging Japanese empire that defined itself as ethnically homogenous.
As a means of resistance and in hopes of fostering nationalist sentiment, Korean historians offered their own version of Korea’s past. With the state replaced by Japan’s governor generals, and the Confucian elite blamed for the nation’s demise, this new nationalist interpretation of Korean history shifted its focus away from Chinese tradition as the source of Korean identity and legitimacy (Schmid 8). In an atmosphere of intense nationalist fervor and social unrest, buffeted by the same intellectual currents emanating from the West that affected Japan, Korean historians created their own genealogical history of the Korean race, or minjok (Shin 1999: 337). This history, which countered Japanese assertions, identified T’angun, the mythical founder of Korea’s first state, as the lineal ancestor of all Koreans. From T’angun historians traced the history of the Korean minjok as a single bloodline indigenous to Korea and separate from either Japan or China. Korean origins once again formed the basis of national identity.
IV. Myth as History: The Origins of National Identity
Search for Modernity. In 1876 Korea signed the Kanghwa Treaty, officially ending tributary relations with China. While recognizing Korean independence, it also marked Korea’s entrance into the unequal treaties system and Japan’s first steps towards imperialism. In 1897, reform efforts intended to strengthen the nation’s newly won independence led King Kojong to declare himself emperor, announcing to the world the establishment of Tae Han Min Guk, or the Great Korean Nation. For Korea the replacement of the previous title king with that of emperor was an overt rejection of past Sino-Korean tributary relations and an assertion of Korea’s independent status. This designation would abruptly end with the Protectorate Treaty of 1905 and full annexation five years later.
As noted the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 marked a tragic turning point in the decades long struggle by Korean nationalists to forge an independent, modern nation. By the turn of the twentieth century, Korea’s conservative forces were undermined by the collapse of the Sino-Confucian world that had defined Korea for millennia. The rise of Meiji Japan, defeating first China in 1895 and then Russia ten years later, reconfigured East Asia’s power structure, turning established sadae kyorin relations on their head. While Japan presented a model of modernity, however, for many Koreans its growing potential as a colonial power recalled earlier memories of a militarist Japan under the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Though Korea could no longer take refuge within the Chinese system, Koreans were increasingly loathe to welcome overtures from a Japan harboring imperialist ambitions. The end of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth were thus marked by a desperate search for a new definition of Korean identity, one that would secure Korea’s cultural integrity and ensure a position among the world’s free nations.
As part of their efforts to redefine Korean society, Korean intellectuals published newspaper articles, founded patriotic associations and sponsored progressive activities throughout the country. They channeled their efforts towards the modernizing of Korea, a complete transformation requiring the mobilization of the populace towards national ends. Civilization and Enlightenment, or munmyong kaehwa, became the call-words for this new Korea eager to shrug off the shackles of Confucian tradition and embrace modernity as exemplified by the West (Schmid 24). Progressive intellectuals sought to instill in Koreans a sense of nationalism, attacking the traditional hierarchy, publishing in the indigenous hangul script as opposed to Chinese, and seeking to advance a modern curriculum in public education. Much progress was made during this period, culminating in the announcement by Kojong of the Kabo Reforms of 1894, which succeeded, among other things, in abolishing the centuries old institution of slavery.
In the midst of such change perceived relations between Korean progressives and their Japanese supporters hampered domestic efforts at further reform. Frustrated at Korea’s inability to achieve stability and wary of Western encroachment into Korea, Japan’s leaders increasingly opted for direct intervention, ultimately leading to Korea’s slide into colonial status (Conroy 445). As the self-styled bearer of civilization Japan assumed control over the nationalist agenda of munmyong kaehwa, forcing Korean progressives to abandon this platform as the defining feature of modern Korean identity. “With the creation of the Japanese Residency General in 1905,” writes Schmid, “they could now witness firsthand how munmyong kaehwa was used to undermine their national sovereignty and even push them out of the civilizing process” (Schmid 38). Their energies diverted away from modernization and state building, Korean nationalists turned to their past, searching through history for symbols to rally mass sentiment in opposition to Japan. As was the case for Meiji scholars, origins became the central pillar of a modern Korean identity linked to the nation’s timeless past.
Colonial Assimilation. As stated the goal of Korea’s colonial administrators was assimilation, which began with the inclusion of the Korean monarch into Japan’s imperial genealogy in 1910 (ibid 28). Under this policy, colonial education sought the eradication of a separate Korean identity, portraying Korea as an essential part of Japan. For nationalists the challenge came not only from Japan, but also from the lack of patriotism and historical awareness among Koreans themselves. Eckert writes that under the Choson Dynasty there was “little identification between individuals and the state” (Eckert 17). Echoing the protests of Sirhak scholars a century earlier, nationalists blamed this apathy on the Choson Dynasty’s reverence of China. Historians in particular took aim at Confucian traditions, which placed Chinese history above Korea’s, leading to a dearth of knowledge among the populace about their own country’s past (Robinson 9). In light of Japanese efforts, this historical ignorance made the threat of assimilation highly palpable.
The historical writings of Korea’s nationalist scholars offered an alternate narrative of Korean history to that put forth by Japan (Shin 9). For Korean nationalists the threat of cultural extinction and the destruction of Korean identity was the most vital issue, negating any hope of a future, independent Korea (Robinson 16). Their writings thus aimed at instilling a sense of patriotism and historical awareness among Koreans by recalling a glorious past of ethnic struggle against foreign rule. Rejecting Japanese assertions of cultural dependency and a mixed racial heritage, historians constructed a narrative of Korean history that emphasized essentially indigenous traits of the Korean people and their culture. Korean history became the repository of a collective essence that transcended the state and was embedded within Korean society. As Michael Robinson notes, “in place of the dynasty the minjok became the focal point of nationalist historians” (ibid 74).
This recasting of Korean history presented an enormous challenge, however, not simply from modern Japanese scholarship, but more deeply from Korea’s own historical legacy. Korean history is the record of a small country that achieved and maintained its independence through the adoption of Chinese political and social ideology. By the seventeenth century this cultural borrowing had already led to debates over what constituted the core of Korean identity, as seen in the writings of Sirhak scholars. For nationalists historians, who sought to isolate a pure Korean past which they could then trace through history to the present, this legacy of interaction with China posed a problem. To overcome this, and to challenge the empirical approach of Japan’s colonial scholars, nationalist historians turned to Korea’s ancient myths, recorded traditions of a far removed past that both transcended history and was its starting point.
Popular usage of the term myth often implies erroneous beliefs, illusions and fantasies (Cohen 1969: 337). Working on this assumption Shiratori and others attempted to deconstruct the T’angun myth, stripping it of its symbolic significance by applying a literal interpretation. While empirically valid, their analyses ignored the deeper implications of the T’angun narrative for a Korean society with increasingly nationalist stirrings. Sociologist Percy Cohen wrote that myths are in fact not errors, for although they refer to things which do not exist, and perhaps never did, for those who believe in them their truth “is preserved for eternity” (Cohen 337). For nationalist historians, belief in T’angun as the national progenitor took on a spiritual dimension that rendered myth into historical reality, transcending the techniques of modern science.
Among the key characteristics of myth that Cohen highlighted, of particular relevance is that mythical narratives generally have a sacred quality often linked to origins (ibid 337). While this is certainly the case in Korea, Cohen then goes on to separate myth from history. Like Foucault, who distinguished between genealogy and history, Cohen maintains that myth deals in events and persons that only exist within the mythical narrative itself, and are divorced from historical fact. In East Asia however, with an historical tradition extending back centuries, myth was often blended with history, serving as the basis of national identity throughout the region (Hinsch 2004: 1). The mythical rulers Yao and Shun in China, as well as Japan’s myth of imperial descent from Amaterasu are examples of how myth became the starting point of a national history even in the modern era. In Korea, T’angun would now be elevated to this position, displacing Kija as the pater-familias of the Korean nation.
A Narrative of Resistance. The earliest recorded mention of T’angun is found within the thirteenth century Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), an unofficial history of Korea written by the Buddhist monk Ilyon (1206-1289) towards the end of the Koryo Dynasty (935-1392). Like later Sirhak writings, Ilyon’s history was not sanctioned by the court, and was thus free from the political and ideological constraints of official historians (Ha 9). Unlike the earlier Samguk Sagi (Comprehensive Mirror of the Three Kingdoms), a court sponsored history of Korea written by the Confucian scholar Kim Pusik (1075-1151), Ilyon’s text incorporates various folk customs and oral traditions into his historical narrative. Scholars argue this is where the real value of Ilyon’s text lies, for it offers the only record of local beliefs and religious practices in Korea extant during that period (ibid 10). Ilyon records that in 2333 B.C.E., at the time of the legendary Chinese Emperor Yao, T’angun founded the state of Old Choson in the area of modern Pyongyang (ibid 32). This marks the starting point of Korean history, both for Ilyon as well as for later nationalists.
According to the Samguk Yusa, T’angun was born the son of Hwan-ung, himself the son of Hwan-in, or Heavenly King. The legend recounts that Hwan-ung, desiring to rule among people, descended from heaven and appeared under a sandalwood tree located in the T’aebaek Mountains, along the modern-day border separating China and North Korea. From here the legend tells of a she-bear and a tigress living together in a nearby cave. Desiring to be reincarnated as human beings, they are commanded by Hwan-ung to enter into the cave for a period of one hundred days, eating only garlic and mugwort. While the tigress fails to abide these commands, remaining in her animal form, the bear is transformed into a woman on the twenty-first day. Praying for a child, she is then wedded to Hwan-ung, later giving birth to T’angun Wanggom, or King of Sandalwood. T’angun then proceeds to establish his capital at Pyongyang, from where he rules the region for 1500 years until the arrival of Kija in the twelfth century B.C.E. (ibid 33). At this point the Samguk Yusa states that T’angun then returned to the Taebaek range, where he was transformed into a local mountain god.
Writing on Korea’s foundation myths, Dae-seok Seo states that while Hwan-ung is the clear hero in the legend of T’angun, it is the latter that comes to be regarded as the state-founder (Seo 2000: 17). Offering an historical analyses of the legend, he argues the descent of Hwan-ung symbolized the migration of a distinct tribal group to the northern peninsula. The she-bear and tigress represent local clan groups, and the marriage of the she-bear to Hwan-ung depicts the merger of these new migrants with the local population, leading to the establishment of Old Choson (ibid 17). Seo also points out that Ilyon’s text provides few details about T’angun’s actual rise to power, a reflection of the possibly contentious nature of his accession over other local elites.
As stated, in the Confucian context of the Choson era Sirhak historians traced their origins to Kija, thereby linking the peninsula to the universal concepts of Confucian ideology. For Ilyon, writing four centuries earlier as Korea came under Mongol rule and Buddhism was making inroads into Korean society, T’angun provided a symbol of both religious syncretism and national resistance (Ha 19). As the national priest of Koryo, Ilyon’s text is filled with allusions to Buddhist deities, including the name of the Heavenly King Hwan-in, a reference to the bodhisattva Maitreya. By describing Korean origins with Buddhist terminology Ilyon equated the peninsula with a timeless Buddhist past. In so doing he elevated Korea’s position within the cosmopolitan Buddhist world that encompassed all of Asia during this period, granting Korea a special place by linking its origins with the supreme deities of the Buddhist canon (Pai 1998: 78).
T’angun’s ancestral link to Hwan-in and his filial ties to the figure of the she-bear also reflect the fusion of Buddhist thought with Shamanic traditions. T’angun’s later transformation into a mountain spirit is another example of how Ilyon overlaid Shamanic beliefs with Buddhist themes. As Tae-hung Ha notes in his introduction to the translated text of the Samguk Yusa, “the gods and spirits of primitive religion were simply given the trappings of bodhisattvas and adopted into the pantheon of Buddhism” (Ha 15). By drawing Shamanism into the fold of Korean Buddhism, Ilyon increased the latter’s popular appeal. Under foreign domination, his text brought to light the religious customs and oral traditions of the Korean people. Making native culture his focus, Ilyon created a historical narrative of resistance to Mongol rule by linking the peninsula to a divine past.
More than six hundred years later, as Korea again fell under foreign rule, the same themes of popular tradition and colonial resistance contained within the Samguk Yusa would be revived. For Korean historians writing in the early part of the twentieth century, as the nation became absorbed into the Japanese empire, Ilyon’s history and the accounts contained therein provided an immense reservoir of nationalist symbols. As an unofficial history with no association to the now discredited Confucian state, the Samguk Yusa offered nationalist historians a legitimate record of Korea’s past untainted by the “China worshipping” historians of the Choson Dynasty (Schmid 17). Its focus on local, indigenous tradition as opposed to Dynastic affairs coalesced with nationalist efforts to instill patriotism among the Korean population. T’angun became the embodiment of an ancient past distanced from both China and Japan, and the symbol of modern Korean identity.
Nationalist Origins. Throughout the Koryo and into the early years of the Choson period T’angun was worshipped alongside Kija as a national ancestor. By the mid-fifteenth century, given the growing influence of Korea’s Neo-Confucian elite, his significance decreased within official circles, though he remained an important figure among peasants (Pai 119). It was not until 1908, with the publication of Toksa Sillon (A New Reading of History), that T’angun’s position would again become the focal point of Korean origins. Appearing in serial format and put out by the Korea Daily News, the essay was written by a young journalist and pro-independence activist named Sin Ch’aeho. His work, more than any other, established the framework for historical discourse in Korea up to the present day (Schmid 31).
Sin was born in 1880, the second son of a poor country scholar. He entered the National Confucian Academy in 1898, the same year he joined the Independence Club. Chang Ul-byong notes that Sin’s entrance into the world of activism occurred at a time when nationalists were working to expand their base from elite participation to mass mobilization (Chang 1986: 21). This effort to draw the Korean populace into the movement for independence made a powerful impression upon Sin, an experience that would inform his later historical works. Chang points out that even at this early date Sin advocated the replacement of Chinese characters with native hangul script, a sign of his “dedication to popular enlightenment” (ibid 22).
In 1905, the year Korea became a Japanese protectorate, Sin received his doctorate. He was, as Michael Robinson notes, straddling two worlds, one shaped by Korea’s traditional past, the other by the influx of modern, Western thought (Robinson 7). At this time Sin took a position with the Capital Gazette, widely remembered for its publication of an editorial titled “Today We Weep Loudly,” denouncing Japan’s actions in Korea. Following the seizure of the paper by Japanese authorities, Sin moved to the Korea Daily News, run by the Englishman E.T. Bethel. Being under the control of a British citizen the paper enjoyed extraterritorial privileges and thus escaped Japanese censors, allowing Sin to give voice to his anti-Japanese writings. It was here, notes Robinson, that Sin first became known as a historian, blaming Korea’s current crisis on “the loss of historical consciousness and the weakness of Korean patriotism” (ibid 8). His solution was the resurrection of a Korean past that rejected Chinese influence and challenged Japanese dominance.
As Andre Schmid writes, one of the first concerns of Korean nationalists, even prior to annexation, was the “de-centering of the Middle Kingdom.” Korean activists exerted themselves towards the removal of all aspects of Korea’s traditional relationship with China, defined by the term sadaejuui, which connoted Korea’s subservient position. This effort was reflected in King Kojong’s assumption of the title emperor in 1897, as well as the destruction of the Welcoming Imperial Grace Gate by the Independence Club one year earlier. The gate, located in central Seoul, had been the official residence of Chinese envoys for centuries, and its destruction and replacement with Independence Gate was highly symbolic of Korea’s newly defined independence (Schmid 72).
For Sin, de-centering the Middle Kingdom required not just the redefinition of current political relations, however, but more importantly a thorough revision of traditional Korean history. “Bad histories,’ he writes, “are worse than no histories” (Lee 1996: 24). Thus, in Toksa Sillon he takes aim at the elevation of Kija above T’angun by Confucian historians of the Chsoson period, chastising them for their sadae mentality and “maligning [Korea’s] ancestors” (ibid 424). Sin’s rejection of Kija denied China’s formative role in the emergence of Korean culture and identity. In his writings Sin referred to Kija as a vassal of Puyo, for him the direct descendents of T’angun Chsoson. Rather than establishing Korean civilization, Kija had simply been granted a small fief at the farthest ends of Korean territory (Pai 112). Identifying T’angun as the national progenitor Sin reaffirmed the date of Korea’s origins as 2333 B.C.E., roughly corresponding to the rule of China’s mythical emperor. Through T’angun Korea’s origins were planted on native ground.
Sin reiterated T’angun’s significance as a historical symbol of national resistance, first employed by Ilyon centuries earlier. Unlike Ilyon, however, Sin faced not one but two threats. Rejecting the influence of Chinese civilization was of key concern, yet Sin was also attempting to counter Japanese assertions that Korea lacked an indigenous tradition of its own, and was thus culturally stagnant. As the founder of the Korean nation, T’angun defined a pure Korean culture that had survived intact as the spiritual essence of Korean identity. He represented, as Schmid describes, “the birth of the Korean people, like Huangdi in China and Amaterasu in Japan. History flowed from this seminal event” (Schmid 1997: 34). Echoing the arguments of Japan’s kokugaku advocates, who intoned the imperial line as the basis of a distinct Japanese identity, Sin maintained the influence of T’angun formed the pillar of Korean history.
Minjok History. In his Toksa Sillon, Sin writes that “The history of a state is the record of the vicissitudes of the people” (Lee 1996: 6). This emphasis on struggle becomes the running narrative of Sin’s history, and is reflective of the influence of Social Darwinism then making inroads into Korean society. Lee Kwang-rin notes that as early as the 1880s progressive scholars were publishing works introducing Koreans to concepts such as competition and survival of the fittest (Lee 1978: 37). These new conceptions of natural law reversed traditional Confucian notions of ceremonial etiquette and harmonious relations. For Koreans they provided a logic that shaped understanding of contemporary events, and led to a growing receptivity to the nationalist writings of Sin. Sin goes on to write that any such history that did not make the people its focus was “without soul… giving birth to a people without soul” (ibid 38). Nationalism and the protection of Korea’s sovereignty was for Sin a spiritual crusade that required the full participation of Korea’s masses.
In countering the Japanese theory of nissen dosoron, or shared origins between Koreans and Japanese, Sin added to the cultural definition of T’angun a new racial interpretation that portrayed him as the lineal ancestor of all Koreans. Tracing this lineage through time became the focus of Sin’s history, framing Korea as an ethnic nation unified by a single bloodline, or tanil minjok (ibid 27). Like Japanese scholars, who based nationality on a racial cum cultural notion of ethnicity termed minzoku, Sin redefined the Korean nation along similar lines, tracing Korean genealogy back to a single source. Yet while Japan extended the minzoku to incorporate non-Japanese colonial peoples, in Korea the term took on strongly nationalist and anti-imperialist overtones (Doak 2001: 2). While the minzkoku legitimated Japan’s vision of a pan-Asian unity, in Korea the minjok distinguished the unique aspects of Korean identity that were separate from either China or Japan.
By making his historical focus the people rather than the state, Sin transformed Korean history into an extended genealogical record, or chokp’o, subsuming individual identities into the rubric of the nation. As Pai points out, this emphasis on ancestry reflects the earlier yangban obsession with lineage. (Pai 113). It is also of note that while Sin rejected the views of Korea’s Confucian elite, his emphasis on T’angun as the patriarch of the Korean minjok is in fact a departure from pre-Confucian practice, which traced lineage through both male and female. Nevertheless, by creating a lineal record of the Korean people, Sin demonstrated his populist views, since prior to this chokp’o were maintained only by elite families. As noted, during the Choson Dynasty those of commoner or lowborn status were excluded from government service, and as such did not maintain family records, mainly intended to verify inherited status (Lee 1984: 219). In Sin’s history, lowborn and yangban alike were drawn into a common past, their disparate social positions leveled as descendents of the same ancestor.
As a national symbol T’angun not only embodied the genealogical legacy of Korean society, but also the varied strands of Korea’s historical traditions. As mentioned above in modernizing Korean culture scholars searched for native symbols that would bolster national pride. As a result, notes Roger Janelli, folk traditions came to be seen as purely Korean customs untouched by either Chinese or Western influence (Janelli 30). Of these Shamanism became identified as the foundation of Korean religious belief, stretching back to the origins of the state under T’angun. “Shamanism,” writes Janelli, “could reveal what was uniquely characteristic of Korean culture and identity” (ibid 36). While Korea’s shamanic tradition distanced the peninsula from China, Janelli points out that it also rejected the theories of colonial scholars, who denied any such practice in Japan. For them shamanism was viewed as a backward tradition equated with continental culture (ibid 32). T’angun thus identified the Korean nation with popular religious sentiment while emphasizing its unique heritage.
The absorption of cultural influences from abroad is a recurring pattern throughout Korea’s history. The twentieth century transformation of Korean society repeats a phenomenon that began as early as the second century B.C.E, with the introduction of Chinese culture to the peninsula. Since then ideological currents that shaped the wider region were also felt within Korea. By the fourth century C.E. Buddhism was introduced through China and soon became a state religion. Likewise the development of Confucianism both as a political system and later as a religious doctrine became ingrained into the cosmology of Korean society. By the twentieth century Western notions of nationalism and political sovereignty swept across the region, redrawing the geopolitical map of East Asia and redefining national identities.
In T’angun Sin discovered a national symbol that held together these varied pasts, a single point at which the entirety of Korean history converged. The Shamanic aspects of the Tangun legend lent it a popular appeal to the Korean masses, an overt nod to the very people who were now the repository of Korea’s national spirit. As patriarch he drew on the Confucian principles of filial piety and ancestor worship. The Buddhist elements of the myth, including references to Hwan-in and the role of Ilyon, incorporated Korea’s long standing Buddhist traditions as well. Almost the entirety of Korea’s various historical phases were drawn into this one mythical figure, who in the twentieth century became the symbol of an ethnically unified nation in opposition to Japanese rule. As in all of Asia, the modern era radically restructured the Korean landscape. Yet in adapting to this new order origins again became the focal point of a newly defined Korean identity, rooted in tradition yet thoroughly modern.
V. Conclusions
Origins in the Twenty first Century. As stated in the introduction, the literature on modern Korean identity predominantly focuses on two themes, colonialism and nationalism. Scholars, Korean and Western alike, highlight the impact of Korea’s colonial experience under Japan and the emergence of nationalism as seminal to the formation of a national identity. Yet Korean identity existed long before this. While annexation and the ensuing decades of colonial rule was an epochal event, this focus on the nationalist period of the nineteenth and early twentieth century in some ways affirms colonial assertions that Korea lacked any internal cultural dynamism. By ignoring inherited identities from Korea’s own past scholars create an artificial demarcation between what came before colonialism, and what after. The origins of modern Korean identity are boiled down to a “product of Japanese scholarship” (Pai 5).
While the modern era reined in new definitions of civilization, culture, and national identity, the response of Korean historians followed a pattern well established by their predecessors centuries earlier. By linking national origins to universal definitions of civilization Korean historians particularized Korean identity while at the same time connecting it to wider global currents. Going back to the very foundations myths of Korea’s earliest tribal leaders origins identified political authority by appealing to popular sentiment. By the seventeenth century Korea’s Sirhak scholars interpreted origins in ways to link the nation to Confucian definitions of civilization while maintaining a distinction from China. Throughout, origins remained integral to identity, a common thread linking past and present in an environment of political and social evolution.
As shown the practice of upholding origins to define identity was not limited to Korea. Japan as well honed in on native origins to establish an identity indigenous to the islands and linked to imperial rule. While sharing in the cultural world of Chinese civilization, both Korean and Japanese historians faced the challenge of creating historical legitimacy by molding Chinese influence into the framework of a national past that emphasized native roots. In other words, foreign influence was ‘Japanized’ to fit into the logic of a pure Japanese identity, while Korean historians referred to the innate ability of Koreans to synthesize foreign cultures, to turn them into their own. This continued into the modern era, as Japanese and Korean historians sought for ways to inculcate Western influence while maintaining cultural integrity. While definitions changed, historical tendencies remained intact.
Discourse around tanil minjok, or the ethnic nation comprised of a single bloodline, is a novel aspect of modern Korean identity which emerged in reaction to Japan’s colonial policy of assimilation. The very definition of Korea as a sovereign nation is in itself a modern concept which nationalist historians attempted to project back into Korea’s remote past. And yet their efforts to link Korean history to Western inspired concepts of nationhood and sovereignty echo earlier attempts to link Korea’s past to Confucian principles. In both cases contemporary norms of political and social structure served to redefine the nation’s origins, which nevertheless remained the focal point of historical identity. By the modern era, Korea’s origins in T’angun came to support the full weight of Korea’s collected past.
Since the start of the new millennium the world has seen immense changes in both the political and cultural realm. As technology advances, once separate societies are being drawn closer together. Economic interdependence and shifting geopolitical realities are challenging previously held notions of national identity. Immigration and an increasingly urban landscape are transforming traditional culture at a speed unprecedented in history. Today the Korean peninsula remains divided, the product of unresolved tensions dating back to the nationalist period of the nineteenth century and the era of Japanese colonial rule. While the North struggles under a repressive and isolated regime, the South contends with a modernity that tears at the very fabric of society. Both, however, remain locked in a region of contending national interests and conflicting identities.
As Korean society emerges into the twenty first century, however, origins remain an essential aspect of historical tradition. Nearly all textbooks begin with a reference to T’angun and Korea’s five thousand year history. In both the North and the South, Sin Ch’aeho is revered as a national hero, with organizations devoted to the compilation and preservation of his work. As Korea adjusts itself to ideological currents sweeping the globe, national identity rooted in a shared ethnicity remains a powerful defensive mechanism against the onslaught of economic and cultural globalization. It also holds itself out as a point of unity between two halves of the Korean peninsula that remain bitterly divided on all but this one point. Yet as society evolves, new ideas emerge that attempt to redefine identity. As such, while Korean origins may once again be reinterpreted to suit the global context, they will continue to be, in and of themselves, the starting point of national identity.
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