Narratives of Nation-Building in Korea

A Genealogy of Patriotism

Sheila Miyoshi Jager

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317464112
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

This book offers new insight on how key historical texts and events in Korea's history have contributed to the formation of the nation's collective consciousness. The work is woven around the unifying premise that particular narrative texts/events that extend back to the premodern period have remained important, albeit transformed, over the modern period and into the contemporary period. The author explores the relationship between gender and nationalism by showing how key narrative topics, such as tales of virtuous womanhood, have been employed, transformed, and re-deployed to make sense of particular national events. Connecting these narratives and historic events to contemporary Korean society, Jager reveals how these "sites" - or reference points - were also successfully re-deployed in the context of the division of Korea and the construction of Korea's modern consciousness.

Part One

Modern Identities

1

Resurrecting Manhood: Sin Ch’ae-ho

As physical vigor represents the strength of a man in his struggle for existence, in the same sense, military vigor constitutes the strength of nations; ideas, laws and constitutions are but temporary effulgences, and are existent only so long as this strength remains vital. As manhood marks the height of the physical vigor among mankind, so the militant successes of a nation marks the zenith of its physical greatness.

—General Homer Lea¹

People are always saying that “barbarians value brawn while civilized men value brains.” Alas! Such a statement sees two fives without recognizing ten. How stupidly blind such a statement is to the realities of the world […]. A warlike spirit [shang wu] is the original creative force of any national people. It is that which the nation-state relies on to be formed; it is that which civilization relies on to be maintained.

—Liang Qichao²

Throughout the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), Koreans were led by a Confucian scholarly elite which had, for most of the dynasty, harbored antimilitary attitudes and held little esteem for anyone with specialized military knowledge. In the years that led up to Korea’s annexation by Japan in 1910, however, efforts were made to “strengthen” Korean society through the attainment of “civilization and enlightenment” (munmyŏng kaehwa) in the hope that Korea’s failed traditions and institutions could be remedied. Many Korean nationalists had come to the conclusion that the so-called backwardness of the Korean national character (kukminsŏng) had lead to the nation’s collapse. Concerns about strengthening the national character through a program of reform raised questions about the continued validity of Korean Confucianism and its institutions. It was in this context that some nationalist writers began to reevaluate their previously held views of the military, including the role that the military establishment had played in Korean history. Through the embrace of a new and alternate history of the Korean people in which the military played a dominant and central role, these nationalists hoped to resurrect new ideals of martial manhood from the nation’s past in order to resuscitate Korea’s failed national traditions and institutions.

One of the first modern Korean historians to link issues of martial manhood with nationhood in Korea was Sin Ch’ae-ho (1880–1936). In his attempts to come to terms with the colonial reality, Sin linked the crisis of nationhood with the crisis of (Confucian) manhood. By looking back to the Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.–A.D. 668) of Korea’s ancient history, and in particular, to the great military exploits of Koguryŏ (37 B.C.–A.D. 668) and Silla (57 B.C.–A.D. 668), Sin tried to resurrect ancient warrior male ideals as he forged to build the nation’s future. The effete and ineffective Confucian scholar-bureaucrat (yangban) of the Chosôn dynasty (1392–1910) was largely blamed for Korea’s colonial predicament and thus became an effective ploy justifying the attack on Confucianism in the name of a more “authentically” ancient, and hence more manly, Korean tradition: the Koguryŏ sodo and the Silla hwarang warriors. The liberation of the nation was thus conceived in terms that reflected Korean nationalists’ concern with both Japanese colonial overrule and with the rebuilding of a powerful “manly” ethic that starkly contrasted with the traditional “effete” and “effeminate” masculine characteristics associated with Korea’s Confucian past.

In his groundbreaking book, Korea Between Empires, Andre Schmid reveals the vital role that representations of the yangban, the metaphorical personification of the Chosŏn dynasty, came to play in Korean nationalist and Japanese colonial discourse. For Schmid, both Korean nationalists and Japanese colonialists shared the same conceptual vocabulary, cultural representations, and narrative strategies, and he shows in detail how the stock figure of the yangban—“with his black horsehair hat, flowing white robes, and traditional shoes” was used as a major symbol of Korean backwardness in vital need of reform.³

Implicit in both these reformist agendas was the connection that was also repeatedly made between failed nationhood and failed manhood. The pervasive image of the weak and emasculated yangban that became a centerpiece of the rhetoric of nationalist self-critique had led Korean nationalists like Sin Ch’ae-ho to embrace new and idealized images of the military man.⁴ While many nationalist intellectuals continued to extol military heroes of Korea’s past, some of these same intellectuals also became engaged in restoring and recuperating the legacies of Sirhak (practical learning) of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These reformers carried over Neo-Confucianism’s faith in the civilizing function of moral self-improvement and thus attempted to limit Korea’s problems to those “corrupt Confucians” while salvaging what they saw as the core of Confucianism (Schmid 2002). By contrast, Sin’s representation of the emasculated male was different from these and other instances of nationalist self-critique because Sin declared the yangban to be an aberration, not a veritable representation, of the “authentic” Korean national tradition. The question became not one of reforming the “corrupt Confucians” to revitalize the nation (or to attain civilization), but of declaring Confucianism an alien culture altogether, and then searching for an alternative (military) tradition that could replace it.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold: first, I trace how Sin’s usage of the yangban as a vehicle for nationalist self-critique promoted an alternative image of the national past. Second, I show how the “rediscovery” of Korea’s martial roots in the military kingdoms of Koguryŏ and Silla brought forth alternative perceptions of Korean manhood as distinctly different from the weak and effeminized male figure that came to be associated with the Chosŏn dynasty. To this end, we shall see how the “re-making” of the national past had important implications for the re-making of Korean manhood.

Militarism and Nationalism

Like the majority of Japanese neologisms brought into Korea, either directly or via China at the turn of the century, the concepts of national character (kukminsŏng), national essence (kuksu), and national soul (kukhon) were frequently used by Korean intellectuals to develop their theory of the modern nation-state. While the teleology of history was relentlessly progressing toward the modern, the viability of a culture was measured by its contribution toward this advancement. In the wake of Korea’s colonization by Japan in 1910, Korean intellectuals thus sought to identify the flaws and weaknesses in the Korean national character responsible for the deplorable state of the Korean nation. What were the primary causes that had prevented Korea’s evolution toward civilization, and how might these flaws be remedied? For most, the answer lay squarely in Korea’s traditional relationship to China. Throughout the five hundred years of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), China functioned as the “Middle Kingdom” of a transnational cultural realm within which Korea’s Chosŏn elites had participated (Schmid 1997). By the late nineteenth century, however, Korea’s participation in the old world culture began to be questioned as new intellectual elites, themselves trained in the old school of Chinese learning, became increasingly convinced that the deplorable condition of the nation was rooted in its historical “subordination” to China. Whereas Chosŏn elites had participated in what they perceived as a universal transnational cultural realm of civilization, by the first decades of the twentieth century, Chinese civilization was no longer viewed as universal. Now deemed particular to China, Chinese civilization was rejected on the grounds that it was alien to Korea (Schmid 1997). As Sin related in his essay “Imperialism and Nationalism,” Koreans’ survival in the universal struggle for existence could only be achieved through the complete recovery of their “national essence” as separate from China:

Any nation that wants to protect itself has no other recourse than to stick to nationalism. If, consequently, nationalism displays its physical strength [ch’aeryŏk], it can protect the nation from aggression attempted by an expansionist form of nationalism, that is, imperialism, no matter how atrocious and sinister it may be. In short, imperialism can find its way into a country whose nationalism is enfeebled [pagyak]. Why has the Korean peninsula, as beautiful as silk and flowers, been degraded to a dark den? It was because the Korean people failed to develop their nationalism strongly enough. It is sincerely hoped that my dear countrymen will promote their nationalism. As masters of our nation, we decide our own fate and work to ensure our national survival. (Sin 1962: 108)⁵

The task that immediately became apparent to Sin and to others who were striving to cultivate their nationalism through the rediscovery of their nation’s spiritual essence was to define what exactly this “essence” was. Among the myriad Korean ideas and customs that had been “suppressed” by Chosŏn Korea’s assimilation of Chinese culture, it was the loss of the nation’s ancient military culture and traditions that Sin Ch’ae-ho most lamented. Discarding the enfeebled scholarly traditions of an “alien” Confucian past, the modern period would be one of national “renewal,” one in which a new kind of “fighting” people would be reborn. As an editorial of the Taehan maeil sinbo (June 4, 1909) put it:

It is repeatedly urged that we must create a new people. What kind of people can be called a new people? Are they docile people? No. Docility leads to cowardice, cowardice to regression, regression to defeat, and defeat to extinction. Trying to create a docile people at this time when the East and the West are soaked with bloody rains can be likened to setting sheep free among a herd of ravenous tigers. Are they serene people? No. Serenity leads to conservatism, conservatism to effeteness, effeteness to defeat and defeat to extinction. Trying to create a serene people can be likened to leaving a sleeping person in a pool of gushing water. What should our people be like? They should be determined and forward-moving people. Why? Because without determination, no people can fight gallantly for their survival in this age of rampaging swords and devils.

The modern period (“the age of rampaging swords and devils”) was thus viewed as a period of renewal—the creation of a new fighting people—toward progress. As Sin Ch’ae-ho related, the present age required people of conviction and determination who must “call forth the [original] martial spirit of the people and cultivate the military ethos” (Sin 1962: 201). “The people,” he said,

must climb the Samch’ŏdae dais of Im Kyŏngŏp and grab the Paekgunju iron pole of the Knight of Ch’anghae (kingdom) [Ch’anghae Yeoksa] and embark on whatever risky venture that is necessary to fight and win. (Sin 1962: 201)⁶

As Sin Yong-ha (1984) has noted, Sin Ch’ae-ho emphasized physical conditioning and military training as the basis for developing a newly enlightened “fighting” citizenry. Despite his strong anti-Japanese bias, Sin nevertheless turned to Japan as a model of the ideal modern militarized nation-state:

Physical education exercises the body, strengthens the will, and, by practicing certain skills, develops soldiers. In Japan primary school students are taught physical education and machinery familiarization [kigye undong] and middle school students conduct military training with weapons such as marksmanship. These students display an orderly and disciplined appearance in formation. They are the future supporting and reserve soldiers. There is no one in the entire country who does not go through this military training. Students are future soldiers and merchants former soldiers; machinists too are future soldiers while farmers are former soldiers. Only when a country can count on all of its people to become soldiers in time of mobilization can it be a strong nation. (Sin Ch’ae-ho 1962: 139)

In response to the perceived need among Korea’s national elites to promote and educate a new “fighting” citizenry, numerous Self-strengthening societies began to emerge during the first decade of the twentieth century. Examples of these include the Kukminhoe (People’s Association, 1904), Taehan cha’ganghoe (Great Korea Self-Strengthening Society, 1906), Taehan hyŏphoe (Great Korea Society, 1907), and the Sinminhoe (New People’s Association, 1907), all of which supported military operations and training (Kim Dong-pae, 1986). The New People’s Association, in particular, lent its support to the activities of the uibyŏng (righteous armies), in addition to overseeing plans for the establishment of a military officer school in Manchuria to support the Independence Army, which was later based there (Sin Yong-ha 1984, 1985, 1986; Wŏn Ui-tang 1964). Following Korea’s annexation by Japan in 1910, leading members of the Society, including Sin Ch’ae-ho and An Chang-ho, exiled themselves either to Manchuria or the Russian Maritime Territory, where they founded military schools and organizations to further their armed struggle against Japan. Like many of these self-exiled former Sinminhoe members, Sin Ch’ae-ho ended up for a time in Vladivostok where he helped to establish the Kwangbokhoe (Restoration Association) in 1913 and became the organization’s vice-chairman (Sin Yong-ha 1996: 43).

As most scholars of Sin have noted, the majority of his historical works written before 1910 were heroic biographies of military leaders. After completing his translation of Liang’s Biographies of Three Great Men in the Founding of Italy in 1907, Sin embarked upon writing a biography of General Ŭlchi Mundŏk (1908), Admiral Yi Sun-sin (1908), and General Ch’oe To-t’ong (1909). Like Liang’s own heroic narratives, these works about Korea’s ancient military heroes linked collective action to purposeful individual existence as integral and inseparable (Tang 1996). Unlike Liang, however, Sin focused his efforts on writing entirely about military leaders, those personages who had been sorely neglected in the traditional Confucian canon. Pak Ŭn-sik, who was himself the prolific author of several dozen heroic biographies and an active member of the New People’s Association, shared this hero-centered world-view. As he put it, “history embodies the spirit of a nation and heroes are its vigor. All civilized nations of the world respect their history and worship their heroes” (Pak Ŭn-sik 1906).

If the new history of Korea was the record of a people’s struggle to achieve nationhood, then the people’s warrior-heroes were the nation’s principle protagonists. In Korea, where human agency had always played a significant role in Koreans’ view of their past, the question became not so much how to define the role of the hero in the new history of the nation, as it was about how to redefine the very ideal of heroism.

This ideal underwent a radical transformation during the first decades of the twentieth century. Together with nationalist scholars like Pak Ŭn-sik and Chang Chi-yŏng, Sin set out to “rediscover” the role that the martial hero had played in Korean history. Through this reassessment of the military hero as the new principle agent of Korean history came new ideas about the traditional relationship that had existed between the scholarly (mun) and military (mu) elite in Chosŏn Korea. While tensions between the literary and military elite had always been present in Chosŏn society, it was Sin, more than any other nationalist writer working during this period, who exploited these tensions further to launch a scathing attack on the Chosŏn dynasty’s scholarly elite (yangban) who were, according to him, “devoid of national spirit.” The project of heroic rediscovery, in other words, became intimately connected to the project of forging a new history of the militarized nation rescued from the clutches of Korea’s “slave literary culture” (noyejŏk munhwa sasang) (Sin 1976: 195). And it was in the name of the new military hero—strong, combative, loyal, courageous—that Sin sought to strengthen the weakened nation to ensure its survival in the battle for existence.

Mun (文) and Mu (武)

Before turning our attention to the specific content of Sin’s “militarized” view of history, it is important to grasp how traditional tensions within Chosŏn Korea had become exploited to give rise to new definiti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: Modern Identities
• Part Two: Women
• Part Three: Men
• Epilogue: Kim Dae-jung’s Triumph
• Notes
• References
• Index