Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: The Beginnings 1880s-1910s Survival As an Ideology of Korean Modernity (Brill's Korean Studies Library)

Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: the Beginnings (1880s–1910s)

Brill’s Korean Studies Library Edited by

Ross King (University of British Columbia) In co-operation with

Boudewijn Walraven (Leiden University), Sun Joo Kim (Harvard University) and Rüdiger Frank (University of Vienna)

VOLUME 2

Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: the Beginnings (1880s–1910s) “Survival” as an Ideology of Korean Modernity

By

Vladimir Tikhonov

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

Cover illustration: “Early twentieth century Inch’ˇon (Chemulp’o)—the open port city which symbolized Korea’s early interactions with modernity”. From: Kim Wˇonmo et. al (eds.), Korea 100 years ago in photographs, Seoul: Catholic Publishers, 1997, Photo # 340, P. 203. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tikhonov, V. M. (Vladimir Mikhailovich) Social Darwinism and nationalism in Korea : the beginnings (1880s-1910s) : "survival" as an ideology of Korean modernity / by Vladimir Tikhonov. p. cm. – (Brill's Korean studies library ; 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18503-6 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social Darwinism–Korea–History. 2. Nationalism–Korea–History. 3. Korea–Social policy. 4. Korea–History–1864-1910. I. Title. II. Series. HM631.T55 2010 305.895'709034–dc22 2010018297

ISSN 1876-7079 ISBN 978 90 04 18503 6 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Notes on Romanization and Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Chapter One: Introduction: Social Darwinism and the Ambivalences of Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter Two: Social Darwinist Pioneers: The Cases of Yu Kiljun and Yun Ch’iho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter Three: Social Darwinism for the Public: The Tongnip Sinmun (The Independent) and the Popularization of Social Darwinism in the 1890s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Chapter Four: Salvation of the State and Race: Social Darwinism at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Chapter Five: Survival, God and Buddha: Social Darwinism in the Buddhist Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Chapter Six: Knowledge is Strength: Social Darwinism in Pre-colonial Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Chapter Seven: Muscular Nationalism at the Dawn of the New Century: Social Darwinism as an Ideology of Hegemonic Masculinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Chapter Eight: Conclusion: The Influences of Social Darwinism in Korea (1900s and after) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Glossary of East Asian Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Index of Concepts and Publication Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Index of Personal and Geographical Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have been working on Korean Social Darwinism for almost nine years, and have accumulated many debts. No words of acknowledgment will be enough to express the most profound gratitude to these many people who encouraged me, discussed my hypotheses with me, and supported my undertaking in many ways. The scholars who first alerted me to the importance of Social Darwinist ideology for the formation of Korean modernity, were a veteran South Korean historian, Prof. Yi Kwangnin (Sogang University) who pioneered the subject in the mid-1970s, and a Soviet / Russian Korea scholar, Galina Davydovna Tyagai (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Science, Moscow), who has been writing on the modern bourgeois ideology of Korea since the 1950s. I never met either Prof. Yi or Dr. Tyagai, but always felt inspired by their scholarship. My South Korean colleagues, who have always been helping me with their insights and have rendered invaluable assistance in the collection of materials, provided further inspiration. Discussions with Prof. Huh Donghyun (Hˇo Tonghyˇon, Kyunghee University) were important for me in finding my way through the sources and systemising my findings. In many ways Prof. Huh deeply disagreed with my analysis. He used to attach much stronger weight to the liberal, or ‘proto-democratic’ components of the early modern bourgeois ideology, and gave generally much more positive assessments of the achievements of Korea’s pioneers of modernity. I am also deeply grateful to him precisely for his disagreements, since the truth is born through discussions, and only a thoroughly critical interlocutor allows you to objectively re-assess your conclusions. I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Dr. Pak Sˇongjin (National Archives, Korea) and to Prof. Kim Kisˇung (Soonchunhyang University), two colleagues and sˇonbaes (seniors) who have been writing extensively on Korean Social Darwinism from the mid-1980s onward. Their texts laid the foundation for all subsequent research in the field, including my own. Every time I was doing research in South Korea, I felt nurtured and sustained by the help from Profs. Kim Sanghyˇon (Dongguk University), Kim Wangbae and Hˇo Kyˇongjin (Yonsei University), among many others. They assisted me with everything, from accommodation to access to

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the treasure troves of their university libraries. I was privileged to have been able to discuss my subject with three senior scholars in the field of modern Korean thought, Profs. Kim Tohyˇong (Yonsei University), Pang Kijung (Yonsei University—I was very saddened to learn that he had passed away prematurely in 2008)—and Ch’oe Tˇoksu (Korea University). And I always remember with gratitude my Korean mentors, Profs. Cho Kwang (Korea University) and Chˇong Ch’urhˇon (Pusan National University), who taught me Korean history and literature, respectively, in 1991, when I was the first Soviet student to attend Korea University classes for several months, and who have always lent me a helping hand subsequently. I do not think I could have achieved anything without their compassion and kindness. The person to whom I owe perhaps the greatest debt of appreciation is my original Russian mentor, Prof. Mikhail Nikolaevich Pak (Moscow State University, 1918–2009)—who pioneered studies on the ideology of Korean bourgeois reformism in the USSR in the 1950s. He used to view it in a critical Marxist light, emphasising both the internalisation of imperialist logic by the Korean reformers of the late nineteenth – early twentieth century and their real-life connections with imperialist powers around the Korean Peninsula. And he was lambasted—very undeservedly—for his views by his North Korean colleagues in the early 1960s, since the ‘Great Leader’ was interested at that point in elevating the modernist reformers to the status of ‘bourgeois revolutionaries.’ Prof. Pak’s resolute departure from Stalinist dogmas, his willingness to allow, for example, for the specially central role of the state’s redistributive apparatus in the construction of ‘feudalism with East Asian characteristics’—something that was not necessarily envisioned by Stalinist schemes of the ‘laws of historical development’—were a great encouragement for all of us. He taught us, his disciples, one thing we never forget—that creative Marxism always means an application of the general law of social development through conflicts, alignments and negotiations between different, and often mutually antagonistic, social forces, only and always in combination with inductive reasoning and meticulous regard for the concrete conditions of each and every society. Prof. Pak’s interest in Social Darwinism in Korea as such was rather passing and casual. However, I learned from him the general approach to modern ideologies—as both symbolic expressions of class interests and at the same time, as symbolic devices aligning the local groups which produce and use them with the perceived logic of world-systemic development and with their reference models in the ‘core’ regions of the world-system.

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Academic writing does not belong to the category of ‘creative writing,’ strictly speaking, and so it is open even to non-native speakers like me, who are perfectly aware of the limitations of their English. However, without the kind help of two native Anglophone colleagues, Dr. Owen Miller (SOAS, London) and Mr. Konrad Lawson (Harvard University) who took it upon themselves to edit my manuscript before submitting it to the review, the unnatural language of my writing might have become a further barrier to potential readers. Apart from their purely linguistic support, Owen and Konrad provided, in the kindest manner possible, a wealth of advice on the context of the manuscript, something I deeply appreciate. In the same vein, I owe enormous debt of gratitude to Prof. Ross King (University of British Columbia), whose thoughtful and meticulous editing and good advises made this text much more readable than it originally was. I always remember with gratitude the discussions on the topic of this book I used to have with many of my colleagues in Europe and the USA—Profs. Micah Auerback (Michigan State University), Lee Namhee (UCLA), Lee Jin-kyung (UCSD), Anders Karlsson (SOAS), Koen De Ceuster (Leiden University) and many, many others. Another source of inspiration for me was the work of Prof. Andre Schmid (Toronto University), whom I have never met in person but whose writings on the history of Korea’s early modern ideology I greatly admire. In addition to this, the critical comments by an anonymous reviewer commissioned by Brill were of immense help in streamlining and polishing my narrative, making it more accessible and at the same time more nuanced. Last but not least, the efforts by Brill’s editorial staff—Albert Hoffstädt, Patricia Radder and their colleagues—were of decisive significance for the birth of this book. And finally, the assistance rendered by Mr. Jung Euisung (Psychology Programme, Oslo University) who assiduously compiled the indexes for the book, is sincerely appreciated. Research, as some people say jokingly, is the most expensive sort of leisure—and the nine years of research which allowed me to write this book cost thousands of hours in front of my computer, and tens of thousands of dollars from my sponsors. The Korea Research Foundation’s Overseas Korean Studies Grant (Grant Number: 00-C-04) in 2001 supported the launch of my research and resulted in my first publication on Korean Social Darwinism, ‘Social Darwinism in Korea and its Influence on Early Modern Korean Buddhism’ (International Journal of Korean History, Vol. 2, Dec. 2002, Pp. 65–97). This publication, in completely reworked and changed form, provided the fabric for Chapters One, Two and Five of this book. Oslo University’s generous grants supported me

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from 2002 to 2008, resulting in such articles as ‘The World is a Battlefield: Social Darwinism as the New World Model of Korean Intelligentsia of the 1900s’ (Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung, Vol. 27, 2003, Pp. 81–106) and ‘Masculinizing the Nation: Gender Ideologies in Traditional Korea and in the 1890s–1900s Korean Enlightenment Discourse’ (Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 66, No. 4, 2007, Pp. 1029–1065). These articles, as well as ‘The 1890s Korean Reformers’ View of Japan—A Menacing Model?’ (The International Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2005, Pp. 57–81), after thorough rewriting and supplementation, resulted in Chapters Three, Four and Seven of this book. I would like to use this opportunity to express my deep appreciation for the permissions to use the previously published materials in a rewritten form, kindly given by the editors and publishers of the aforementioned academic journals. Finally, everything was systemized, rewritten and put together thanks to the Korea Foundation’s Advanced Research Grant received in 2006 (No. 1834). In a way, I can say that every page of this manuscript cost tens of thousands of wŏn and kroner to the nameless South Korean and Norwegian taxpayers—to all of whom I would like to express my deepest gratitude! And last but not least, the most personal debt I owe is to my immediate family—my wife Baek Myong Jong (Marina Baek) and my son Yuri Baek Tikhonov, who spent hundreds of hours waiting for their absent husband and father. I always appreciated their boundless patience with me, with the clear understanding that no struggle for academic survival can justify my behaviour. I gratefully dedicate this book to them.

NOTES ON ROMANIZATION AND TRANSLATION

All Korean words have been romanized according to the McCuneReishauer system. Exceptions are those Korean authors who have published in English using the preferred spelling of their own. In those cases, I also give the McCune-Reischauer romanization in parentheses. Revised Hepburn is used for Japanese and Pinyin for Chinese. East Asian names are written according to the standard East Asian usage (family name first). All translations from East Asian languages are mine, unless otherwise noted.

chapter one INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL DARWINISM AND THE AMBIVALENCES OF MODERNITY

‘Cosmos is Might’: Social Darwinism as the Overarching Paradigm of Modern Korean Thought In the December 1931 issue (No. 28) of the popular Korean journal, Tonggwang (The Eastern Light), a poem in prose appeared, the title and content of which represented to a great degree the zeitgeist of pre-colonial and early colonial modernity in Korea. The poem was entitled ‘The New Understanding of Might,’ and its lines read as follows: The Cosmos is Might. All phenomena are the rhythm of the energy’s metamorphoses. There is no Cosmos without Might. Now, war clouds are hanging heavy over the continent of Asia. The attack is signalled, the storm is ordered, and the cannon smoke is rising. This is the expression of a nation’s might. The strengths of two nations collide. There are no plainer representations of the form of Might than War. It is just like wind, water and lightning representing best the force of Nature. War requires healthy physical, intellectual, and spiritual strength […] War between two nations is, in the end, a comparison of the complex strengths of the two contestants. But the problem is just that we do not possess this strength, the Might of body, brains, and spirit. That is why, on today’s scene where the whole of humanity is mobilized and has already gone into action, we cannot assume an [independent] role and just crouch behind the curtain, a bunch of people without even a family name! But once we acquire strength, humanity will politely send us an invitation to the scene. Today is the day of the cultivation of strength!

This short poem, well-timed for the Manchurian Incident (September 18, 1931) and the start of a new round of Japanese aggression against China, is interesting not only for its dubious literary merits, but also because it was written by a highly symbolic figure in early modern Korean intellectual history. The author, Yi Kwangsu (1892–1950), was an acknowledged

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literary prodigy and one of the most eminent ideologues of moderate cultural nationalism in colonial Korea.1 But, while the connection between the poem’s blunt cult of Might and nationalist thought might seem quite possible to any commonsense view, other important features of the author’s profile would definitely look highly incompatible with this paean to might and violence. Yi Kwangsu started his career as a devout Protestant Christian (he was converted in 1907, while studying in Tokyo) and Tolstoy’s most influential follower in Korea, and later combined both Christianity and Buddhism to create a sort of synthetic religion built on universal ethical foundations.2 One of his most important novels is dedicated to Wˇonhyo (617–686), early Korea’s best known Buddhist exegete and Pure Land devotee (Wˇonhyo Taesa, serialized in Maeil Sinbo between March 1 – October 31, 1942). Moreover, he continued to contribute his musings on Buddhist topics to the wartime newspapers from 1937– 1945,3 and is known to have spent his last years—after the end of Japanese colonialism and before the Korean War—in the temple where his relative, Yi Haksu (1892–1980), a famous Buddhist scholar, was abbot.4 The natural question arises: How could religious devotion with explicit universal ethical overtones co-exist with such hymns to violence?5 Another 1 The standard work dealing with Yi Kwangsu’s life and thought is Kim Yunsik, Yi Kwangsu wa kˇu uˇ i sidae [Yi Kwangsu and His Epoch] (Seoul: Sol Publishers, 1999), Vols. 1–2. The available monographs and articles in English dealing with Yi Kwangsu’s political and social ideology, include, among others: Michael D. Shin, “Interior Landscapes: Yi Kwangsu’s The Heartless and the Origins of Modern Literature”, in Gi-Wook Shin & Michael Robinson (eds.) Colonial Modernity in Korea (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), Pp. 248–287, and Ann Sung-hi Lee. Yi Kwang-su, The Novel Mujŏng, and Modern Korean Literature (Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Program, 2004). 2 P’yo Onbok, ˇ “Yi Kwangsu munhak uˇ i Kidokkyo ihae” [Christian Understanding of Yi Kwangsu’s Literature], Mogwˇon Taehakkyo Nonmunjip [Collection of Articles, Mogwˇon University], Vol. 5, 1982, Pp. 129–146; Yi Hwayˇon, “Ch’unwˇon sosˇol e nat’anan pulgyo sasang” [Buddhist Ideas in Yi Kwangsu’s Novels], in Tongguk Taehakkyo Han’guk munhak yˇon’guso (ed.) Yi Kwangsu Yˇon’gu [Research on Yi Kwangsu] (Seoul: T’aehaksa, 1984), Vol. 2, Pp. 119–136; Han Yonghwan, “Han’guk hyˇondae sosˇol kwa pulgyo” [Korean Modern Fiction and Buddhism], Han’guk munhak yˇon’gu [Studies of Korean Literature], Vol. 12, 1989, Pp. 71–83. 3 See, for example, his essay “The Rule of Cause and Effect” (Inkwa u ˇ i ri) in Maeil Sinbo, March 8–9, 1940: Yi Kwangsu chŏnjip [Collected Works of Yi Kwangsu], Revised edition, Vol. 8 (Seoul: Samjungdang, 1976), Pp. 457–458. 4 Sin Yongch’ˇ ol, “Unhˇo Yi Haksu uˇ i saengae wa sasang” [Life and Ideas of Unhˇo Yi Haksu], in Kyˇonghˇui Taehakkyo Inmunhak Yˇon’guso (ed.) Inmunhak Yˇon’gu [Humanitarian Research], Vol. 3, 1999, Pp. 319–363. 5 Actually, the same unresolved contradiction between belief in religious altruism and recognition of the role and significance of ‘strength’ underlies the ideological construction of Yi Kwangsu’s earlier magnum opus, the ‘Treatise on National Reconstruction’ (Minjok

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question is still important to the Korean public, for whom the psychological trauma caused by the reality of pro-Japanese collaboration by the majority of the colonial Korean elite has yet to heal.6 What kind of motives eventually led Yi Kwangsu, a devout Buddhist and ‘culturalist’ nationalist, to become one of the leading pro-Japanese literati at the time of the Pacific War, and to write some of the most notorious examples of poetic praise for Japanese military efforts?7 In a word: How did Yi’s Buddhist religious beliefs become so well adapted to a worldview centred around ‘national might’? How did Yi’s worldview reach the point of including the Korean nation within the boundaries of the ‘greater Japanese race’ and praising Japanese expansionist designs veiled behind the rhetoric of the ‘struggle for survival between the races,’ otherwise known as Social Darwinism? The reasons for the enthusiastic reception kaejoron, 1922). On the one hand, Yi envisions the global aim of the worldwide process of ‘reconstruction’ as ‘transition from today’s struggle for survival to the future world of international mutual cooperation’ and emphasises the ‘recovery’ of Korea’s supposedly long lost ‘basic social ethics’ as the key to ‘national reconstruction.’ On the other hand, another important ‘primeval virtue’ of the Korean race Yi proposes to recover and revive is ‘valour and bravery’ (muyong); to recover it successfully, emphasizes Yi, the building of stadiums in every village, mass physical training and even a ‘better supply of books on physical culture’ are essential. See: Yi Kwangsu chŏnjip [Collected Works of Yi Kwangsu], Vol. 17, (Seoul: Samjungdang, 1962), Pp. 169–217. 6 On these traumas see: Koen De Ceuster, “The Nation Exorcised—The Historiography of Collaboration in South Korea”, Korean Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2001, Pp. 207–242. 7 One of his most notorious paeans to the Japanese Imperial Army, ‘Hit the Americans and the British!,’ was well timed for the Japanese declaration of war against the USA and Britain, and the conquest of Hong Kong and Manila. The excerpts from this poem show well the degree to which it was influenced by Social Darwinist racist motives: […] The first thunderbolt of the Imperial Army, Hitting the accumulated wickedness in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. ‘West Virginia’ and ‘Oklahoma’— America’s Pacific Fleet is broken to pieces! The consequent strike from land, air and sea in the Southern Seas. The British flagship, ‘Prince of Wales’, Sinks into the depths, Taking down the crimes and fate of the Anglo-Saxons with it. The sacred land of Asia is, from its origins, The land where ten thousand generations of the Heavenly ancestors’ offspring are to prosper! It has been profaned by the Anglo-Saxons’ feet for two centuries, But now our Emperor has proclaimed the Restoration! (Sˇonjˇon Taejo [‘The Great Imperial Decree on War Proclaimed’], Sinsidae, January 1942).

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given to Social Darwinist thought by a wide spectrum of modern Korean thinkers—vociferously anti-colonial yet pragmatically accepting the realities of colonisation; Christian and Buddhist; some with domestic educational credentials, others Japan- or USA-educated—is what this chapter will attempt to elucidate.

Social Darwinism: All-permeating and Flexible To proceed further with exploring the origins of the Social Darwinist fascinations of Yi Kwangsu and many other Korean intellectuals between the 1880s and 1940s, we have first to ask ourselves what ‘Social Darwinism’ actually means. Reference to Darwin notwithstanding, the cluster of ideas summarily known as Social Darwinism actually predated their counterpart in the natural sciences (‘Biological Darwinism’). Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), often viewed as the creator of the fundamentals of the intellectual phenomenon later christened as Social Darwinism, had already coined the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ in 18528—seven years before Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection saw the light of the day. Proceeding from Malthusian ideas on the inevitability of a population explosion and inexorable population pressures, Spencer concluded that the struggle for survival amid scarce resources would inevitably result in the ‘survival of the fittest.’ Since the ‘fittest’ usually tend to be smarter and less prolific than their unluckier competitors (‘just as men are less prolific than herring, and the British are less prolific than the Irish,’ to quote Spencer’s own, rather racist, explanation), then, in a teleological way, this competition-driven progress would eventually bring society into a happier state of equilibrium. Spencer’s progressivist optimism contrasted sharply with Darwin’s concerns about a possible degeneration of the human race due to the ability of modern medicine to grant an opportunity to live and proliferate to the ‘unfit’ who should otherwise have perished in the process of natural selection.9 This is not to say that ‘degeneration’ did not bother Spencer as well. He did oppose the excessive concentration of private property in a few hands, favoured equitable distribution of the ‘rights to use the earth’ in his first 8 Herbert Spencer, “A Theory of Population, Deduced from the General Law of Human Fertility,” Westminster Review, Vol. 57, 1852, Pp. 468–501. 9 Michael Ruse, “Social Darwinism: The Two Sources”, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1980, Pp. 23–36.

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works10 and later described society as one huge organism consisting of interdependent individuals.11 However, he turned to an extremist laissezfaire programme from the 1880s onward, ferociously attacking all these who attempted to help the ‘unfit’ to survive through redistributive taxation and welfare provisions.12 But, the explicit anti-Socialist conservatism of his later years notwithstanding, Spencer remained profoundly liberal in his steadfast opposition to militarism (the form of statism he disliked most), particularly to the Boer War (1899–1902)13—something that contrasts markedly with Yi Kwangsu’s aggressively militarist stance in the 1930s. Which position, then, represented authentic Social Darwinism? The question is probably meaningless, since Spencer’s ideas on competition for survival as an ‘evolutionary mechanism’ have been used by a vast array of ideologues defending the interests of different parties and groups and pursuing a bewilderingly diverse range of political and social aims. This diversity—that is, the easy applicability of competitioncentred evolutionism to a wide spectrum of social and political agendas—partly explains the perplexing long-term popularity of the ‘struggle for survival’ gospel among so many thinkers and groups in East Asia (Korea included), as well as in many other regions of the globe. While Spencer—by no means a monolithic thinker—may be defined as a Victorian proto-libertarian,14 many other socio-evolutionists during the era of ‘high imperialism’ (1870–1914) espoused very different sets of political beliefs which are often seen as anticipating the horror of later fascist doctrines. For example, the political programme of Germany’s great evolutionist scholar, Ernest Haeckel (1834–1919) and the Monist League (which he founded on January 11, 1906), took the state as the central agent in the ‘collective struggle for existence.’ It demanded unquestioning loyalty to and sacrifices for ‘state interests,’ strongly disapproved of the ‘illusions of absolute ethics, free will, freedom and democracy’ and hoped that an authoritarian, militaristic state would carry out a drastic 10 Typically, see: Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (London: John Chapman, 1851), Pp. 114–120. 11 Herbert Spencer, “Social Organism,” in Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative (London: Williams and Norgate, 1891), Vol. 1, Pp. 386–387. 12 Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom, Eric Mack (ed.), introduction by Albert Jay Nock (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981 [1884]), Pp. 31–71, 487–519. 13 David Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer (D. Appleton, 1908), Vol. 2, Pp. 206. 14 Marc Francis, “Herbert Spencer and the Myth of Laissez-Faire”, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 39, No. 2, 1978, Pp. 317–328.

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eugenic programme of total physical elimination of all the ‘unfit’ who were a ‘burden’ on society.15 Haeckel’s paeans to the ‘Germanic warriors’ going to the battlegrounds of the First World War,16 which paralleled Yi Kwangsu’s worship of ‘might and battle,’ represented one facet of Social Darwinist thought; but this by no means precluded its development in the politically opposite direction as well. For example, William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), America’s paradigmatic Social Darwinist of the age of industrialization, was famed for his assertion that the ‘drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be.’17 He was also known for his unrelenting attacks on the ‘unfit’ and any state-led attempt to help them, and for his defence of capital accumulation as the very cornerstone of civilization and humanity. However, he was at the same time an important anti-imperialist of his age, a vice president (from 1900 onward) of the American Anti-Imperialist League (1898–1921) who, in good Spencerian spirit, condemned America’s aggression against Cuba and the Phillipines as a relapse into pre-industrial, militaristic barbarity. He was afraid that imperialism would bring to power the ‘plutocrats’— parasitic capitalists unable to compete on the free market and dependent on governmental subsidies and contracts.18 While often justified on Social Darwinist grounds, wars were also opposed by Social Darwinist liberals, fearful that an overly interventionist, militaristic state would destroy or deform the basis for ‘free competition.’ The most salient common ground between all the politically different groups using Social Darwinist logic was arguably their identification of industrial capitalism with progress and their staunch belief in the impracticability of egalitarian solutions. Social Darwinism, as one of the most influential ideologies of capitalism, was just as multi-faceted as capitalism itself, and just as capable of adaptation to diverse times, cultures and circumstances. Devotion to competition and inequality, however, remained unchanging. Social Darwinism’s outgrowths might include moderate reformism based upon a belief in group solidarity as 15 Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League (London: Macdonald, 1971), Pp. 31–126. 16 Ernst Haeckel, Eternity. World War Thoughts on Life and Death, Religion and the Theory of Evolution (NY: Truth Seeker, 1916), Pp. 45–46. 17 William Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (Caldwell: Caxton Printers, 1951 [1883]), Pp. 114. 18 William Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, in Albert G. Keller (ed.) War and Other Essays (Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1911 [1899]), Pp. 297– 334.

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an important factor in the collective ‘struggle for existence.’19 Indeed, some reformist economists soundly grounded in Social Darwinism were active in the 1920s trying to assess living standards on American farms in order to save poorer farmers from ‘degeneration.’20 However, from the very beginning, a wall of alienation separated Social Darwinism from the politico-ideological forces principally opposed to systems of private property and competition as such. While being evolutionists themselves, the Marxists tended from the very beginning to regard the ‘struggle for existence’ as simply a description of the prevailing mores of one particular stage in social evolution, namely the era of industrial capitalism.21 By contrast, they understood socialism as the stage at which the ‘realm of necessity,’ with its animal-like competition over resources, would be substituted by the ‘realm of freedom and friendly cooperation’22 and to strove make strict distinctions between the ethics of the animal realm (as based on ‘social instincts’) and human morals conditioned by socioeconomic and political circumstances.23 Despite a common reverence for science and ‘natural laws,’ Marxian socialism and Social Darwinism differed on the most important point. The former sought to make basic changes to the existing structure of society, while the latter naturalised existing social divisions, thus playing the role of the ultimate ‘scientific’ justification for the social status quo. The ‘struggle for survival’ implied inequality and hierarchy, and this cosmic law was not to be opposed. The inherent elitism and enthusiasm for modernization apparent in Social 19

See an important book by Arthur M. Lewis, a Social Darwinist opponent of ‘excessive,’ cut-throat competition: Evolution: Social and Organic (Whitewish: Kessinger Publishing, 2005 [1908]). Such moderate progressives as Sidney Webb (1859–1947) could agree with Spencer that humans tended to be individualistic and competitive, but thought at the same time that it was up to the society to check and balance the excesses of such possessive individualism. Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945. Nature as Model and Nature as Threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), Pp. 165. 20 Harry C. McDean, “Reform Social Darwinists and Measuring Levels of Living on American Farms, 1920–1926”, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1983, Pp. 79–85. 21 See Marx’s insightful comment on the Darwinian picture of the ‘struggle for life’ among animals as a ‘rediscovery of English society,’ with its competition and struggle for new markets, in the zoological realm. “Marx to Engels”, June 18, 1862, Marx & Engels Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), Vol. 41, Pp. 380. 22 See August Bebel, Women in the Past, Present and Future (San Francisco: Benham, 1897), Pp. 95, or Anton Pannekoek’s definition of Social Darwinism as the quintessentially bourgeois ideology: Marxism and Darwinism (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1912). 23 Karl Kautsky, Ethics and the Materialist Concept of History (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1906).

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Darwinist thought is perhaps the best overall explanation for the popularity of this ideology among Korea’s modernization-oriented elites; but it is certainly far from being the only reason for the pervasiveness of the ‘survival of the fittest’ in Korea’s modern thought. ‘Pervasiveness’ is perhaps not even a strong enough word to describe the meaning of the Social Darwinist gospel for Korea’s early modern intelligentsia. The impact was truly overwhelming. For some time (approximately between the 1900s and 1920s) Social Darwinism functioned as a common, unifying mode of thinking for almost all the major groups and personalities of the modernization-oriented intelligentsia. Those individuals able to transcend its boundaries, usually after being strongly influenced by it in the beginning, remained a small minority.24 Religion was no barrier, and Social Darwinism was indeed seen as the scientific truth beyond any religion—a truth which religions simply had to accommodate. As readers will see in Chapter Two, this was exactly what Yun Ch’iho (1865–1945)—a pioneering Social Darwinist and also one of Korea’s earliest Protestant converts—did. In his understanding, the violence of the ‘fittest’ against the ‘unfit’ was, in the last judgement, simultaneously a providential punishment and blessing for the latter. Given that Korea’s great modernist Buddhist, Han Yong’un (1879–1944), also saw the ‘survival of the fittest’ as a cosmic law which human civilization had not yet been able to transcend (see Chapter Five), we should perhaps not be too surprised by Yi Kwangsu’s simultaneous adherence to both Buddha’s and Spencer’s truths, as mentioned at the beginning of this introductory chapter. His case was typical, since it was indeed Social Darwinism that provided the underlying assumptions for the acceptance of the modern concept of ‘religion’ in Korea, rather than vice versa.25 Allegiance to Social Darwinist dogmas could also transcend otherwise crucially important differences in how the modern ‘nation’ was defined. Yi Kwangsu’s wartime writings—for example, his series entitled Dōhō ni Yosu (‘Thinking of My Countrymen’—October 1–9, 1940, Keijō Nippo) —loudly proclaimed his willingness to become an equal citizen of the Japanese Empire and a part of the greater Yamato nation struggling for

24 One such intellectual was Pyˇ on Yˇongman (Byeon Yeongman, 1889–1954), the pioneering translator of anti-imperialist books in 1900s Korea: Vladimir Tikhonov, “Byeon Yeongman: Colonial Korea’s Alternative Modernity?”, The Review of Korean Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2007, Pp. 91–118. 25 Ko Misuk, Nabi wa chˇ onsa [The Butterfly and the Fighter] (Seoul: Hyumˇonisˇut’ˇu, 2006), Pp. 95–115.

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its survival in a world dominated by its ‘White’ rivals.26 As readers will see in the conclusion of this book, neither Yi Kwangsu’s enthusiasm for the ‘imperialisation’ (kōminka) of Koreans, nor his readiness to support Japan’s militaristic undertakings and wartime mobilization system were necessarily characteristic of many other people from the same cultural nationalist circle, who continued to cling to ethnic Korean nationalism and liberal beliefs. However, the majority of them shared his belief in the crucial importance of national strength for the sake of national survival. Differences in the definitions of ‘our’ nationhood notwithstanding, they all used Social Darwinist notions to define the nation as such.

Social Darwinism in Japan and China: Influential, but Not Pivotal The absolute centrality of Social Darwinist thought for the whole complex of Korean modernity in its initial stage (1890s–1900s) contrasts sharply with the situation in Japan. The latter was the first East Asian country to introduce and translate the European Social Darwinist classics and Spencerian thought; interpreted in a grossly conservative way by Katō Hiroyuki (1836–1916) and much more liberally and optimistically by Tokutomi Sohō (1863–1957) in the 1880s, Social Darwinism made a profound impression on several generations of educated Meiji Japanese. But by the 1900s, ‘competition for survival’—while remaining a potent reference frame, especially for legitimizing Japan’s increasingly self-confident expansionist behaviour abroad—was by no means the overarching paradigm of the modernist weltanschauung in Japan. One prominent development in the 1890s–1900s was the strengthening of the Shinto- and Confucianism-based official ideology of the Imperial Way among the mainstream right-wing. The inevitable—albeit not necessarily desirable—‘struggle for survival’ on the international arena was surely included in the set of dogmas dear to mainstream nationalism. For example, Takayama Chogyū (1871–1902), whose ideology of ‘Japanism’ (Nihonshugi) was an attempt to reconcile ethno-cultural nativist nationalism (kokushuishugi) with official patriotic rhetoric, viewed Japan’s victory over China in the 1894–1895 war as a sign of Japan’s leading role 26 Kim Wˇ onmo and Yi Kyˇonghun (eds.) Ch’unwˇon Yi Kwangsu Ch’inil Munhak: Tongp’o e koham [The Pro-Japanese Literature of Ch’unwˇon Yi Kwangsu: Appealing to My Countrymen] (Seoul: Ch’ˇorhak kwa Hyˇonsilsa, 1997), Pp. 11–29.

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in the ‘racial struggle for survival’ in the future. The same belief led him to oppose the US seizure of the Philippines and to predict ‘racial struggle’ against the ‘White nations’ over the division of China in the future.27 However, in the writings of nationalist ideologues of the 1890s like Takayama, the emphasis was more often placed squarely on the internal cohesion of the political nation (kokumin) unified by worship of the Imperial House, ‘coeval with Heaven and Earth,’ as well as on the ‘sublime moral qualities inherent to the Japanese people.’ At least in theory, a nation of such unparalleled ethical standards had to ‘strive for international peace’—while, of course, never stopping military preparations for all possible contingencies in the international jungle.28 Another development, after the late 1890s, was a deeper acquaintance with socialist doctrines—with their inherently sceptical attitude towards the Social Darwinist ‘naturalisation’ of competition—among the opposition.29 In China, too, Pyotr Kropotkin’s (1842–1921) 1902 anti-Spencerian polemic, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (London: W. Heinemann), secured significant support among the pioneering anarchists and critics of Western modernity by the late 1900s. Liu Shifu (1884–1915) and other founding fathers of China’s anarchist movement were already advocating in 1907–1911 a ‘centreless’ order based on cooperation and free from competition;30 Zhang Binglin (1868–1936), a great philosopher much inclined to view modernity sceptically from a position tinged by his Buddhist and Taoist sympathies, openly rejected the teleology of evolution. In his 1906 treatise on the ‘Duality of Evolution’ (Jufen jinhualun), he stated that evolution is produced by the mental delusions of humans; it implies, simultaneously with improvements on the physical plane, a constant increase in the evilness of humans and their society, to be checked

27 See Takayama Chogyū’s article entitled “Jinshū kyōsō to sima mitaru Kyokutō mondai” [The Far Eastern Question seen from the Viewpoint of the Racial Competition], Tayō, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1898. Cited in Ch’oe Yˇong, Hanjung’il ŭi kŭndae chˇongch’i sasang [The Modern Political Ideology of Korea, China and Japan] (Seoul: Hyˇonŭmsa, 1998), Pp. 162– 163. 28 See, for one good example of such rhetoric, Takayama Chogyū’s renowned 1897 manifesto of ‘Japanism,’ “Nihonshugi o sansuru” [In praise of Japanism], in Matsumoto Sannosuke (ed.) Meiji Shisōshū [Compendium of Meiji Thought] (Tokyo: Chikuma shōbō, 1977), Vol. 2, Pp. 392–397. It appeared originally in Tayō, Vol. 3, No. 13, 1897. 29 Bob T. Wakabayashi (ed.) Modern Japanese Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Pp. 98–167. 30 Ch’ˇ on Sˇongnim, Kˇundae Chungguk sasang segye uˇ i han hˇurˇum [One Tendency in the World of Modern Chinese Ideas] (Seoul: Sinsˇowˇon, 2002), Pp. 53.

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by conscious religious and social efforts.31 Such efforts laid the foundation upon which Li Dazhao (1888–1927), a co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party (1921), stood when he stated in his July 1919 article, Class Struggle and Mutual Aid (Jieji jingzheng yu huzhu), that competition between different classes, inescapable in today’s imperfect society, would cease as soon as cooperation-based socialism was built.32 In a word, less than ten years after Yan Fu (1854–1921) published his pioneering translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (Tianyanlun, 1898),33 Spencerian evolutionism had already become a strongly contested discourse among China’s intellectuals. Nothing like this, however, was to be seen in contemporary Korea, due to a complex interplay of factors which I will attempt to explain below.

Social Darwinism in Korea: The Way of Nation, the Way of Civilization In the case of Korea, even after the beginning of ideological demarcation between the Right and the Left in the early 1920s, when the ‘struggle for existence’ finally became a target for Kropotkinian attacks from the anarchist and socialist camps,34 Social Darwinism was still quite openly recognized on the Right as a set of almost infallible basic assumptions about the essential nature of human society. In its heyday in the 1900s–1910s, Social Darwinism was taken very much as a totalising, all-explaining ideology able to supplant—or, in some more conservative and less popular variations, augment and modernize—the eternal truth of Confucian teaching as a guiding spirit in both private and social life. For many young intellectuals aspiring to understand the basic principles of the new, ‘enlightened’ world, Social Darwinism was synonymous with the discourse of modernity. Especially solid were the positions of Social Darwinism among those modernising intellectuals who might be characterised as radicals—primarily, culturally. Here, this notoriously ambiguous term, ‘radical,’ refers mainly to either the Christian converts or those 31 Liu Mengxi, Zhang Taiyanxuan [Selected Works by Zhang Binglin] (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), Pp. 585–594. 32 Li Dazhao, Li Dazhao xuanji [Selected Works of Li Dazhao] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1962), Pp. 224. 33 Yan Fu (tr.) Tianyanlun [On Evolution] (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan 1981 [1898]). 34 Yi Horyong, Han’guk u ˇ i anak’ijˇum: Sasangp’yˇon [Korean Anarchism: Ideology] (Seoul: Chisik Sanˇopsa, 2001), Pp. 82–107.

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with the experience of sojourn and / or study in Japan. A common feature of those two groups, which transcended their manifold differences in attitudes towards Japanese colonialism etc.,35 was a tendency towards a pronounced, avowed break with Korea’s Confucian past—and at this point, Social Darwinism was to play a major role. Indeed, the new creed was on the one hand unconnected to the ideologies of traditional times, having no analogues, not even very crude ones, among them, and on the other hand structurally close to orthodox Neo-Confucianism as a philosophy explaining both natural and social phenomena.36 Before they arrived via Japan or directly from the USA, Social Darwinist assumptions remained completely unknown even to the most progressive of the Confucian literati of the 1870s and early 1880s (until 1883): Nothing even remotely resembling them could emerge within the realm of orthodox Neo-Confucian ethics. Among the more progressive part of the traditional Confucian political class of the 1870s and early 1880s it was common to talk about the necessity of self-strengthening in a world of aggressive warring Western states, in order, say, to forestall Russian expansion. However, the idea that war, aggression and expansion were a positive necessity of the evolutionary process never entered the minds of Confucians before the arrival of Japanese and Western education.37 At the same time, a general crisis of Neo-Confucian ideology had already been keenly felt in the eighteenth century, leading to the blooming of less rigid and more practical interpretations of Confucianism collectively known as Sirhak (Real Learning School).38 The weakening of the Neo-Confucian 35 On the main political tendencies of Korea’s modernising intellectuals of the first decade of the twentieth century, see: Pak Ch’ansŭng, “Hanmal chagang undong non ŭi kak kyeyŏl kwa kŭ sŏnggyŏk” [The Various Groupings of the Self-strengthening Movement in the Taehan Empire Period and Their Characteristics], Han’guksa Yŏn’gu, Vol. 68, March 1990, Pp. 81–140. 36 Ch’oe Kiyˇ ong, “Sahoe Chinhwaron” [Social Darwinism], Han’guk sa simin kangjwa [Popular Lectures on Korean History], Vol. 25, 1999, Pp. 23–41. 37 On the place of ‘self-strengthening’ ideas and the anticipation of Russian expansion in the thought of one of the best-known progressive Confucian literati, Kang Wi (1820– 1884), see: Chu Sŭngt’aek, “Kang Wi ŭi kaehwa sasang kwa oegyo hwaltong” [Kang Wi’s Progressive Ideas and Diplomatic Activity], Han’guk munhwa, Vol. 12, 1991, Pp. 123– 171. On the general perception of the Western world as a ‘new variation of the Warring States period’—still unconnected to the idea of international rivalry as an ‘evolutionary mechanism’—see: Han’guk kˇunhyˇondae sahoe yˇon’guhoe (ed.) Han’guk kŭndae kaehwa sasang kwa kaehwa undong [Korea’s Modern Progressive Ideology and Progressive Movement] (Seoul: Sinsŏwŏn, 1998), Pp. 146. 38 The conceptualisation of various iconoclastic authors and tendencies in Late Chosŏn Confucianism as Sirhak took place among nationalist intellectuals in colonial Korea in the 1930s. For the Late Chosŏn contemporaries, sirhak meant ‘well-grounded, usable

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orthodoxy seems to have eventually created a certain demand for a new all-explaining, all-encompassing creed; a demand that Social Darwinism came to satisfy for several decades of early modern Korean history. The rush to introduce, internalise, and utilize Social Darwinism so characteristic of Korea’s modernist intellectuals of the 1880s–1920s can be understood and explained from several viewpoints. The most conventional of these is to recall the harsh realities of those times when an internal crisis aggravated by external aggression threatened the very existence of an independent Korean state. It may be seen as quite natural that such a crisis sparked interest in a theory that supposedly explained the deeper evolutionary context of international rivalries and showed clearly the urgent necessity of self-strengthening and reforms. In this connection, it is also usually recalled that, in the Korean—as well as in the Chinese and Japanese—case, the struggle for survival was generally understood, first and foremost, as rivalry between nations (or sometimes even whole races), not persons, and patriotic unity was considered to be the most effective form of interaction between subjects of the same state. In a nutshell, this popular view concentrates our attention on the fact that the state or ‘nation’ (after the demise of Korean statehood in 1910), not the individual, was the subject of ‘struggle’ and ‘evolution’ for Korean Social Darwinists, who were members of a reformist elite group using this imported ideology for the first Korean attempts at modernization from above.39 The same penchant for interpreting the dogma of evolutionary struggle as first and foremost competition between groups (Ch. qun, Kor. kun), was, as has often been noted by researchers, also characteristic of the prominent Chinese and Japanese Social Darwinists, typically Liang Qichao (1873–1929) and Katō Hiroyuki. A famous phrase from Liang Qichao’s seminal treatise, Xinminshuo (New People, 1903) can be seen as the most succinct definition of East Asian Social Darwinism’s general attitude towards the problem of the relationship between the individual and the collective: ‘Freedom means freedom for the group, not freedom for the individual. […] Men must not be slaves to other men, but they must be slaves to their knowledge’ (as opposed to ‘groundless speculations’) in general. See the introductory works on Sirhak in English: JaHyun Kim Haboush, “The Sirhak Movement of the Late Yi Dynasty.” Korean Culture Vol. 8, No. 2, 1987, Pp. 20–27; Michael C. Kalton, “An Introduction to Silhak”, Korea Journal, Vol. 15, No. 5, 1975, Pp. 29–46. 39 This view is well articulated by Kim Chaehyŏn in the voluminous South Korean official History of Korea (Hanguk sa), edited and published by the National History Compilation Committee (Kuksa P’yŏnch’an Wiwŏnhoe): Vol. 45, 2000, Pp. 214, 219.

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group. For, if they are not slaves to their own group, they will assuredly become slaves to some other.’40

Nation as the Basic Unit of the Survival Struggle Another view emphasizes that, while being used sometimes for diametrically opposing purposes (by pro-Japanese Koreans in order to justify the Japanese war against Russia as part of the ‘racial struggle for survival,’ and by anti-Japanese authors in order to support an all-out ‘struggle for existence’ against Japan), Social Darwinism remained a predominantly elitist tool. It was useful for deploring the unenlightened state of the masses and advocating the priority of the rights of the state (kukkwŏn) over those of the state’s subjects (minkwŏn) by the small circle of enlightened reformists.41 An interesting recent study of comparatively late Social Darwinist writings from the 1920s stresses the modernising zeal of elitist reformers, a self-appointed ‘central class,’ which saw its mission as the thorough destruction of Confucian tradition, to be replaced by things Western.42 It may be said that the dominant obsession of 1900s Social Darwinists with Johann K. Bluntschli’s (1808–1881) ideas of organic statehood (popularised by the likes of Liang Qichao and Katō Hiroyuki) eventually evolved into the 1920s theories of an elitist ‘organization [in charge of] reconstruction’ (kaejojuŭi tanch’e, in Yi Kwangsu’s terminology). The people were, naturally enough, seen as one indivisibly entity unified under enlightened leadership. While Liang Qichao stated authoritatively in Xinminshuo that ‘the state is the highest form of the group,’43 one of Liang’s Korean adepts, a certain Kim Sŏnghŭi, was busy explaining 40 James. R. Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), Pp. 189. 41 Kim Tohyŏng, Taehan chegukki ŭi chŏngch’i sasang yŏn’gu [Research on the Political Ideology of the Great Korean Empire Period] (Seoul: Chisik sanŏpsa, 1994), Pp. 65–88, 100–108. 42 Pak Sŏngjin, “1920 nyŏndae chŏnban’gi sahoe chinhwaron ŭi pyŏnhyŏng kwa minjok kaejoron” [Changes in the Social Darwinism of the early 1920s and the Theory of “National Reconstruction”], Hanminjok undongsa yŏn’gu, Vol. 17, 1997, Pp. 26–32, 40–43. 43 He added: ‘Private [interests] related to oneself, family and clan should be sacrificed for the sake of the state. The state is the basis for private attachments, the highest form of universal love’ Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from the Ice-drinker’s Studio] (Beijing, Zhonghua shuju chuban, 1996), Yinbingshi Zhuanji, Fascicle 4, Pp. 17. As modern South Korean researcher, Yi Myŏngsu, noted that this passage also signified the rejection of China’s universalistic tradition in favour of the modern Western universe of mutually competing nation-states. See: Yi Myŏngsu, “Sinmin iron e poinŭn Yang Kyech’o

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to his compatriots in the graphic terms of human anatomy and architecture what the state meant to modern humanity: Humans are made, from the viewpoint of their physiology, of four limbs, five organs, and arteries for the movement of globules. This is a ‘group’ on the individual level. […] Groups, consisting of thousands and tens of thousands of people make up the independent states, which internally resemble the interlinks between wooden beams and well-adjusted stones in a house. […] If one wooden beam or stone were not to be a part of the group, the house could not remain independent.44

The independence of the state under the rule of a modernizing elite that was sought by Korean Social Darwinists meant the deepening of the masses’ dependence on elite-dominated modern institutions (army, press, schools). This fact was well reflected in Korean Social Darwinist theoretical writings, some of them notorious for advocating extreme forms of statism (Kor. kukkajuŭi; Jap. kokkashugi). Ideology, as was shown already in the classical 1930s works by Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) and Otto Hintze (1861–1940), is a set of assumptions about the world produced and maintained by particular social groups as a way of giving meaning to and reinforcing their interests.45 But ‘interests’ should be understood here more broadly, not only as local concerns, but also as the broader global agendas of worldwide groups and institutions with which a particular local socio-political faction may need or wish to associate itself, or into which it hopes to integrate itself. On the local Korean level in the 1880s–1900s, the utility of Social Darwinism was obvious in some respects while doubtful in others. It was obviously useful for those modernizing reformers who wished to claim dominant positions in the discursive space of Korean society. At the same time, given Korea’s evident weakness in the face of imperialist predations, the legitimation of the ‘right of might’ could also imply the de-legitimation of weak Korea’s right to any independent statehood and an acceptance of Japan’s right to rule over its weaker neighbor. Although it might be seen as problematic in the context of the domestic political interests of many of ŭi yŏksa insik” [Liang Qichao’s Historical Consciousness as Seen in His “New People” Theory], Tongyang ch’ŏrhak yŏn’gu, Vol. 11, 1990, Pp. 198. 44 Kim Sŏnghŭi, “Tongnip sŏl” [On Independence], Taehan Chaganghwe Wŏlbo, Vol. 7, 1907, Pp. 15. Reprinted in: Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], 21 vols. (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1976), Vol. 1, Pp. 507. 45 Quoted in Nigel Harris, Beliefs in Society: The Problems of Ideology (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1971), Pp. 14–19.

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Korea’s modernising nationalists, Social Darwinism could still help the Korean modernisers integrate themselves discursively into the context of what was supposed to constitute the substance of contemporary world history. By demonstrating their awareness about and proclaiming their ‘scientific’ understanding of the triumphal imperial conquests of the world’s ‘unfit’ by the ‘fittest,’ Korea’s new intelligentsia claimed to belong to the global ranks of the civilized. While the ability of this elite to elevate its own country to the level of the ‘fittest’ was severely limited at best, it could at least distinguish itself with the possession of knowledge about the ‘scientific’ trajectory of world history.

To Compete with the World, to Belong to the World Korea’s old neo-Confucian elite had once established its prestige in the traditional way by demonstrating its proficiency in the canonical Confucian texts or in the composition of classical Chinese poetry. Similarly, the new elite’s global status was rendered visible by its adherence to contemporary Euro-American intellectual fashion—Social Darwinism. Let us look, for example, at one prominent Social Darwinist polemicist with a background as a Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910) interpreter (yŏkkwan): Yu Wŏnp’yo (pen name: Miraja; 1852–?). Yu boldly stated that Europeans had achieved unprecedented progress due to their willingness to ‘overcome the old,’ while the Chinese ‘admirers of the old’ were ‘unable to strengthen themselves, […] reliant upon others and thus doomed to demise and ruin.’46 He threatened his readers with a catastrophe resembling the demise of Poland or the extinction of the American Indians unless they were able to absorb the ‘enthusiastic spirit of patriotism.’47 Yu was thus demonstrating his discursive belonging to the Euro-American hegemonic center, even if Korea’s real position was closer to that of ruined Poland. To belong globally and to appropriate the vision, knowledge and skills from the ‘world center’—whatever ‘global’ and ‘world center’ meant in the given historical context—had been an important virtue for the ruling elites of the Korean peninsula

46 Yu Wŏnp’yo, “Kisˇ o” [Reader’s letter], Hwangsŏng Sinmun, October 17, 1900. Reprinted in: Hwangsˇong sinmun (reprint), (Seoul: Han’guk munhwa kaebalsa, 1971), Vol. 4, p. 158. 47 Yu Wŏnp’yo, “Miraja sŏ” [Preface by Miraja], Hwangsŏng Sinmun, August 30, 1905. Reprinted in: Hwangsˇong Sinmun (reprint), Vol. 11, Pp. 486.

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ever since the first proto-Korean states established their links to China in the first centuries ad.48 So, the Social Darwinists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were—consciously or unconsciously —continuing this tradition. They derived their cultural capital and status from their ability to view the world in the same way as their supposed peers in what they saw as the world’s centers, and positioned themselves as the nation’s outwardly-oriented ‘brains,’ knowledgeable of the ‘current trends’ in London and New York—or at least Tokyo.49 The latter part was of particular importance in the context of the colonial subjugation of Korea by Japanese imperialism, which often employed Social Darwinist arguments—together with the mission civilisatrice-type of rhetoric ubiquitous in the age of high imperialism (1870–1914)—in an attempt to justify its actions. On the eve of the full colonization of Korea, its intellectuals had to face Japan’s first Resident-General (1905–1909), Itō Hirobumi, claiming that Koreans had either to ‘join Japan’s strength and become a force for defending the Far East [from non-Asian powers]’ or ‘go ahead and try to fight Japan alone if they can.’50 It meant that both those members of Korea’s educated class who preferred to accept their weakness and ‘join Japan’s strength’ as well as those who were still dreaming of ‘strengthening’ themselves and eventually ‘fighting’ back had to refer to the ‘fight for survival’ as the basic matrix of world history and politics. This was a ‘current trend’ of the world too pressing and too challenging for the presumed ‘brains of the nation’ to ignore. As mentioned above, by the 1900s–1910s Social Darwinism was hardly 48 On the role of artefacts from the Han Dynasty’s Lelang Commandery as markers of social status in the proto-Korean chiefdoms and proto-states of the first centuries ad, see: Hyung Il Pai, “Culture Contact and Culture Change: The Korean Peninsula and Its Relations with the Han Dynasty Commandery of Lelang”, World Archaeology, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1992, Pp. 306–319. On the status benefits derived, for example, by the Paekche ruling class from their cultural, religious and other borrowings from China, see: Jonathan W. Best, “Diplomatic and Cultural Contacts between Paekche and China”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2, 1982, Pp. 443–501. 49 On the central importance of English language skills and ‘Western knowledge’— the evolutionist worldview included—as elite cultural capital in Korea between the 1880s and 1940s, see: Kang Naehˇui, “Singminji sidae yˇong’ˇo kyoyuk kwa yˇong’ˇo uˇ i sahoe-jˇok wisang” [English Education in the Colonial Period and the Social Position of English], in Yun Chigwan (ed.) Yˇong’ˇo, Nae maˇum uˇ i singminjuˇui [English, My Soul’s Colonialism] (Seoul: Tangdae, 2007), Pp. 67–104. 50 A speech delivered in Taegu on 12 January 1909, included in: Komatsu Midori (ed.) Itō Kō zenshū [The Complete Works of Duke Itō] (Tokyo: Shōwa Shūppansha, 1928), Vol. 2, Pp. 485–490. Cited in: Stewart Lone, “The Japanese Annexation of Korea, 1910: The Failure of East Asian Co-Prosperity”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, Feb. 1991, Pp. 156.

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pivotal for Japanese nationalism as such, but it remained highly relevant as an ideological background for Japan’s colonial enterprises. Even Okakura Tenshin (Kakuzō, 1862–1913), a gentle, romantic proponent of Asia’s ‘aesthetic unity’ (with Japan, of course, being its foremost ‘embodiment’) and critic of Western predations, viewed the contemporary world as a Social Darwinist jungle where ‘he who does not have the courage and strength to defend himself will be enslaved.’ In such a jungle, Korea, ‘a Japanese colony from ancient times,’ was just a ‘legitimate outlet for Japan’s ever-increasing population.’51 Faced with the colonizer eager to describe its relationship to Korea in the terms of the ‘fittest’ expanding their Lebensraum at the expense of the ‘unfit,’ Korea’s mainstream —non-Socialist—intellectuals had enormous difficulties envisioning a world order free from the Social Darwinist paradigm. The jungles of imperialism and colonialism were the world they were thrown into, the outer world forcefully imposed upon them—and the visions of a less violent world often looked to them like a luxury, hardly available to those ‘enslaved’ on the grounds of lack of ‘strength and courage.’ The present work aims at simultaneously giving a historical outline of the development of Social Darwinist ideas in Korea between the early 1880s and 1910 (Chapters Two to Four) as well as providing in-depth descriptions of the Social Darwinist influences upon Korea’s modern religion (Chapter Five), educational discourse (Chapter Six) and new images of model masculinity (Chapter Seven). The concluding chapter summarises the importance of Social Darwinism as the overall framework for the development of Korea’s modern nationalist ideology, and briefly sketches the continuities and ruptures in the worldviews and socio-political agendas of the major 1890s–1900s Social Darwinists during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) and after. This book is written in the somewhat old-fashioned genre of intellectual history, which means that discussion of the socio-political and institutional background of ideological developments is necessarily reduced here to the absolute minimum needed to understand the logic behind the changes in the weltanschauung of Korea’s modern intelligentsia. This does not mean, of course, that I do not subscribe to the critical Marxist definition of ideology so well put by Nigel Harris, who saw ideological developments as ultimately dependent upon the ‘total organization of a society, its differen51 Okakura Tenshin, The Awakening of Japan (New York: Century, 1904), Pp. 207–223. Cited in: Fred Notehelfer, “On Idealism and Realism in the Thought of Okakura Tenshin”, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2, Summer 1990, Pp. 349–351.

introduction

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tiation in terms of classes and its division of labour within the economy.’ As Harris usefully points out, ideologies are systems created by societies to overcome a given range of problems. In our case, Social Darwinism in Korea was definitely used by the nascent modernising intelligentsia and bourgeoisie in an attempt to justify its position and role. But, as Harris himself mentions, once created, ideology lives a life of its own, being constantly revised, infused with other ideas, and appropriated by different groups for different purposes.52 It is also always embedded in the domain of culture—which can be defined here as a network of signifying practices through which social agents generate ways of giving meaning to their experiences.53To describe the ‘life’ of Social Darwinist postulates in Korea between the 1880s and 1900s in their relationships with various sub-domains of culture—and especially the spheres of gender stereotypes, nationalist narratives, religious beliefs and modern education—is exactly the task I venture to undertake here. Since ideology was at that stage created and consumed mostly by the educated elites, my book will necessarily focus upon them. An unfortunate consequence here is the unintended exclusion of the underprivileged, whose contact with the sphere of modern ideology might have been limited to accidental listening to newspaper editorials being loudly recited by a literate neighbour,54 or a visit or two to the sports contests staged by the pioneering modern schools. I will attempt to reconstruct their perceptions of modern ideologies as far as my materials allow me to do so, but have to confess that the paucity of the available sources makes this a daunting task. It has to be acknowledged, however, that the lopsided focus upon a few privileged voices—however unavoidable it may be, given the choice of the topic—is a major limitation of my project. Lastly, it has to be remembered that Social Darwinism in Korea was in the end just one part of a general regional phenomenon. This becomes particularly obvious if one calculates, for example, the frequency of mentions of Liang Qichao’s name in Korean newspapers and journals 52 Nigel Harris, Beliefs in Society: The Problem of Ideology (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1971), Pp. 47–49. 53 Raymond Williams, The Sociology of Culture (New York: Schocken Books, 1982). 54 On the early modern custom of reading newspapers aloud for the benefit of the whole community, and on the gradual development of silent reading in colonial Korea, see: Ch’ˇon Chˇonghwan, Kˇundae uˇ i ch’aek ilkki: Tokcha uˇ i t’ansaeng kwa Han’guk kˇundae munhak [Modern Book-reading: The Birth of the Reader and Korean Modern Literature] (Seoul: P’urˇun Yˇoksa, 2003). See also Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895–1919 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), Pp. 47–55.

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between February 15, 1898 (when he was first mentioned as a major Qing reformer by the monthly Taejosˇon Tongnip Hyˇophoe Hoebo, Issue 2, Pp. 146–147) and Japan’s annexation of Korea in August 1910 (after which many of Liang’s books were banned by the Japanese authorities).55 In a way, the Social Darwinist discourse of the 1900s, heavily influenced by Liang Qichao and contemporary Japanese thinkers, may even be seen, on a discursive level, as a local outgrowth of a common regional development. Here, however, I have consciously reduced the space devoted to the regional connections of Korea’s Social Darwinism, in an effort to concentrate on developments in Korea. Since Korean Social Darwinism is perhaps the least studied in Anglophone academia, when compared to similar ideological developments in neighbouring countries, I hope that this book will be a useful addition to the existing literature in English dealing with Social Darwinism and prominent individual Social Darwinists in China and Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.56

55 Yˇ op Kˇon’gon, Yang Kyech’o wa Kuhanmal Munhak [Liang Qichao and the Literature of the Taehan Empire Literature] (Seoul: Pˇopchˇonsa, 1980), Pp. 117–222. 56 See especially the masterful and highly readable account by James Reeve Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1983), and the biographical account by Winston Davis, The Moral and Political Naturalism of Baron Katō Hiroyuki (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996). Katō Hiroyuki’s thought is also extensively dealt with in a, insightful and fascinating book by Julia A. Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). An important popular writer and journalist, Tokutomi Sohō, whose writings were strongly influenced by Herbert Spencer, was studied by John D. Pierson (Tokutomi Sohō, 1863–1957, a Journalist for Modern Japan, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). There are several major English monographs on Liang Qichao; the most recent one dealing with Liang’s Social Darwinist nationalism is Xiaobing Tang’s Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: the Historical Thinking of Liang Qichao (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).

chapter two SOCIAL DARWINIST PIONEERS: THE CASES OF YU KILJUN AND YUN CH’IHO

Yu Kiljun: Meeting an American Darwinist in Japan The new guiding principle for natural, personal and social life called Social Darwinism was introduced to Korea via Japan and the United States simultaneously. This should not be surprising if we remember that one of the first apostles of both Darwinian and Spenserian theory in Japan was the American biologist, Edward Morse (1838–1925), who taught zoology at the newly established Tokyo University from 1877. A correspondent of Darwin’s and one of the Darwinian pioneers in American biology during the 1870s,1 Edward Morse was primarily interested in the application of evolutionary theory to zoological issues, but on some occasions he used it in the context of archaeological and historical work too. Known as the father of modern Japanese archaeology for his pioneering excavation of prehistoric shell mounds in Omori, he described the Neolithic inhabitants of Omori as cannibalistic savages incapable even of making pottery and later conquered by the ancestors of the modern Ainu people, who, in turn, were to be conquered by the ancestors of the modern Japanese.2 This understanding of history as a series of violent conquests of the ‘unfit’ by the ‘fitter’ neatly matched the popularised model of Social Darwinism, which began to take root in Japan in the late 1870s–early 1880s.3 Several of Morse’s East Asian disciples later achieved some prominence. One of them was a biologist, Ishikawa Chiyomatsu (1868–1935), who put Morse’s lecture notes into one of

1 See his review of the development of Darwinism on American soil: Edward Morse, “What American Zoologists Have Done for Evolution,” Popular Science Monthly (New York), Vol. 10, 1876, Pp. 1–16, 181–198. 2 Edward Morse, “Traces of an Early Race in Japan”, Popular Science Monthly (New York), Vol. 14, 1878, Pp. 257–266. 3 Watanabe Masao, Dawin to shinkaron [Darwin and Evolutionary Theory] (Tokyo: Kyōritsu Shūppan, 1984), Pp. 191–210.

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Japan’s first accounts of evolution4 and became the foremost advocate of evolutionism in the 1890s–1920s. Another such disciple was a Korean student named Yu Kiljun, who, being much more of a politician and ideologue than a scientist, influenced a whole new generation of Korea’s modernist intelligentsia. His Social Darwinist writings hardly had the same circulation and influence in early modern Korea as Liang Qichao’s explanations of ‘survival struggles’ and the importance of ‘war-like spirit.’5 The second hero of this chapter, Yun Ch’iho (1865–1945), another Korean who learned Social Darwinism directly from its American adepts, also managed to publish little at all on the topic in the turbulent decades of the 1890s– 1900s, the main source for the study of his views being his private diary. However, both Yu Kiljun and Yun Ch’iho developed certain important topics that continued to appear in Social Darwinist writings by other Korean authors of the twentieth century. Identifying the ‘fittest’ as most moral and ‘providentially’ enabled to bring progress in the world, they attempted to fuse Social Darwinism with Christianity—the religion which many Korean intellectuals of the early twentieth century came to regard as the faith most conducive to ‘national survival.’ Unlike Yun Ch’iho—whose early dismissal of Confucianism and Buddhism as ‘hindrances to Korea’s national survival’ anticipated later debates on the issue of religions’ and traditions’ role in the ‘era of competition’—Yu Kiljun attempted to present the logic of competition and survival in a rhetorical form palatable to the Confucian taste of Korea’s educated class. In doing so, he pioneered the process of ‘Koreanization’ of Social Darwinist tenets. This process continued in the first decade of the twentieth century, when the new generation of polemicists started to actively use Korea’s rediscovered ‘great martial past’ as important evidence of its ‘survival capacity’ (see Chapters Four and Six). Yu Kiljun (pen name: Kyudang; 1856–1914) was one of the first Korean students to be allowed to begin regular study at Keiō Gijuku (June 1881) 4 Edward Morse, Ishikawa Chiyomatsu (transl), Dōbutsu shinkaron [Theory of Animal Evolution] (Tokyo: Higashinarikamejirō, 1883). 5 See, for example, Prof. U Namsuk’s (Usŏk University, South Korea) outline of the early history of Social Darwinist ideology in Korea which emphasizes the role of Liang Qichao’s writings, rather than Yu Kiljun’s or Yun Ch’iho’s pioneering efforts, in popularization of Social Darwinism in Korea in the late 1890s—beginning of the first decade of the twentieth century. U Namsuk, “Minjok kwa kukka ŭi palgyŏn” [Discovery of the State and the Nation], in Han’guk·Tongyang chŏngch’i sasangsa hakhoe (Research Association for the History of Korean and Eastern Political Ideas) (ed.) Tan’gun put’ŏ

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after being sent to Japan as a part of the ‘Korean Courtiers’ Observation Mission’ in January 1881.6 His moment of fame came ten years later, as the architect of the Japan-led radical Kabo reforms of 1894–1895 back in his native Korea. While in Tokyo, he was fascinated by Morse’s teachings, as interpreted to him by his Japanese mentor, Keiō Gijuku’s famed founder, Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901). Thus, when sent to the USA in the entourage of the first ever America-bound Korean envoy in July 1883,7 he went to study directly under Morse (who had already returned home) at the Peabody Museum (Salem, Massachusetts). He was under Morse’s personal supervision from November 1883 and until September 1884, when he was at last allowed to enter Governor Dummer Academy. This was a preparatory school in Byfield, Massachusetts from which he hoped to graduate and enter Harvard Law School.8 This did not happen, however, since in December 1884 Yu’s friends and allies among the early radical reformers launched an aborted coup in Seoul, and the news of this event and of the subsequent purge of Yu’s political faction forced Yu to stop his studies and return immediately to Korea.9 He managed nonetheless to learn decent English, and was deeply impressed by Morse’s personality and scholarship. In his preface to his later encyclopaedic work, Sŏyu kyŏnmun (A Record of Personal Experience in the West;

Haebang kkaji Han’guk chŏngch’i sasangsa [History of Political Ideas in Korea from Tan’gun to Liberation] (Seoul: Paeksan sŏdang, 2005), Pp. 635–663. 6 The only English article available so far on this important event in the history of modern Korean-Japanese contacts is Huh Donghyun (Hŏ Tonghyŏn), “The Korean Courtiers’ Observation Mission’s Views on Meiji Japan and Projects of Modern State Building,” Korean Studies, Vol. 29, 2005, Pp. 30–55. In Korean, see: Hŏ Tonghyŏn, Kŭndae Hanil Kwan’gyesa Yŏn’gu [History of Modern Korean-Japanese Relations] (Seoul: Kukhak charyowŏn, 2000). 7 To this day, the most complete monographic research on this first Korean embassy to the USA—known as pobingsa or ‘visiting in return’ because it was sent to the U.S. after the American minister, L.H. Foote, first came to Korea—is Kim Wŏnmo’s extremely detailed book: Hanmi Sugyosa: Chosŏn pobingsa ŭi Miguk sahaeng [The History of KoreanAmerican Relations: Korea’s Embassy to the USA in 1883] (Seoul: Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsilsa, 1999). See also in English: Lew, Young Ick, “The Shufeldt Treaty and Early KoreanAmerican Interaction, 1882–1905,” Asea yŏn’gu Vol. 25, No. 1, 1982, Pp. 1–24. 8 On Yu Kiljun’s educational experiences in the USA, see a series of Yi Kwangnin’s articles, including: “Miguk yuhak sijŏl ŭi Yu Kiljun” [Yu Kiljun During the Time of His Study in the U.S.], Monthly Sindong’a, No. 2, 1968; “Yu Kiljun ŭi yŏngmun sŏhan” [English Letters by Yu Kiljun], Tong’a yŏn’gu, Vol. 14, 1988, Pp. 1–29. See also in English: Frederic A. Sharf, “Yu Kil-chun: A Korean Abroad, 1881–1885”, Peabody Essex Museum Collections, Vol. 133, 1997, Pp. 45–60. 9 Yu Tongjun, Yu Kiljun chŏn [A Biography of Yu Kiljun] (Seoul: Iljogak, 1987), Pp. 106–129.

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Tokyo: Kōshūnsha, 1895), he wrote about Morse in a highly reverent tone: I asked the greatest scholarly authority in the state of Massachusetts, Mr. Morse, to teach me. This place, called Massachusetts, is the most prosperous in the whole United States, having produced many persons of unusual abilities and talents. […] Mr. Morse, with his gigantic talents and erudition, stands out as the scholarly leader of the whole American continent, his fame being so widely known across the whole world […] He allowed me to stay in his house10 and showed utmost sincerity in guiding me through the world of science.11

It is safe to say that Yu’s understanding of the ‘West,’ as reflected in his magnum opus, Sŏyu kyŏnmun, and in a series of later works, was based upon a combination of Fukuzawa’s influences and Morse’s teaching. Another element were Yu’s own reflections upon what he personally observed while making the first round-the-world trip in the whole of Korean history—through Japan to San Francisco with the Korean embassy in July–September 1883, and through Europe, Port Said, Hong Kong and Japan back to Korea in 1885.

World of Competition: The Reason to Respect the Strong and the Rich The product of this first direct transmission of Social Darwinist ideas to Korea was a small treatise, titled explicitly Kyŏngjaeng non (On Competition), presumably written by Yu soon after his return from Japan in 1883 and before his trip to the USA. This treatise—which remained unpublished, but was likely to have circulated privately in intellectual circles— signals a radical change in Yu’s ideas. Previously, Yu’s vision of the world was based on a liberal interpretation of Confucianism in the tradition of the Sirhak (Real Learning) School. Before arriving in Japan for the first time at the beginning of 1881, Yu mostly formed his opinions on the 10 In fact, Yu Kiljun is known to have stayed in Salem not with the Morse’s, but at the accommodation arranged by Morse on Summer Street 33—about 15 minutes walk from the Morse’s. Yu Tongjun, Yu Kiljun chŏn, Pp. 101. 11 Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇ o [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun] (Seoul: Iljogak, 1971), vol. 1, Pp. 5. Peabody Museum (now Peabody Essex Museum), which also has a collection of Korean art named after Yu Kiljun, possesses in its collections some parts of his personal attire, as well as his letters to Morse from 1884–1897. See Alyssa L. Langlais Dodge and Susan S. Bean, Yu Kil-chun (1856–1914) and the Korean Collection at PEM (Salem: Peabody Essex Museum, 2007).

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world beyond East Asia by reading Wei Yuan’s (1794–1856) influential geographical and historical account, Haiguo Tuzhi (Illustrated Gazetteer of the Maritime Countries, 1842). Wei’s narrative provided a far more realistic picture of contemporary world-historical developments than all the previous descriptions of foreign countries in the Chinese tradition, but still did not sufficiently ‘decenter’ China and its Confucian culture, simply proposing instead to learn ‘barbarian skills’ in order to manage the barbarians more efficiently.12 Yu’s memorial to the throne written in 1883, before his departure to the USA, was mostly concerned with the implications of international law (man’guk kongbŏp) in the question of the legal status of Korean residents in the Russian Maritime Province and the possible hostile designs of the Russians, but did not even mention the word competition.13 However, his treatise on competition does not contain a single word on international law. Evidently based on what Yu could learn about Morse’s lectures from his teachers at Keiō Gijuku, as well as on the first translations of books by Herbert Spencer, Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin which had just begun to appear in Japan in the early 1880s,14 this treatise states that competition, both on the interpersonal and interstate levels, shapes everything in the world. A sweeping statement to this end opens the first page of the treatise: Among the all the affairs of human life, it is impossible to find any that does not rely on competition. From the affairs of world’s states down to the affairs of one’s household—everything progresses due to competition. Were there no competition in human lives, how could wisdom, virtues and happiness be advanced? If the states did not compete with each other, how could they increase their strength, wealth, and prestige? Generally, competition starts with personal cultivation of wisdom and virtue and then reaches literature, crafts, and all manners of agriculture and commerce. 12 On the influence of Wei Yuan’s writings upon Yu, see: Yu Tongjun, Yu Kiljun chŏn, Pp. 22–26. See the English translation of Wei Yuan’s own preface to his work in: Wm Theodore de Bary et. al. (eds.) Sources of Chinese Tradition (1st edition, New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1961), Pp. 12–17. 13 Hŏ Tonghyŏn, Yu Kiljun nonsosŏn [Selection of Yu Kiljun’s Treatises and Memorials] (Seoul: Iljogak, 1987), Pp. 5–12. 14 For example, a pioneering adapted translation of Huxley’s and William Jay Youmans’ Elements of Physiology and Hygiene by Kobayashi Yoshinao had already appeared in 1876–1877 (Tokyo: Eirandō) with the title Seiri Teiyō [Outline of Biology]. Spencer’s famed Social Statics (1851) was translated as Kenri Teikō [Essentials of Rights] by Ozaki Yukio (Tokyo: Maruyazenshichi, 1882) and as Shakai Heikenron [Theory of Equal Rights in Society] by Matsushima Gō (Tokyo: Hōkōkusha, 1881). Darwin’s Descent of Man, translated by Kōzu Senzaburō as Jinsōron, appeared in 1881 (Tokyo: Yamanakaichibei).

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chapter two Everybody compares one’s achievements to those of others and wishes to surpass them. […] Generally speaking, dull-witted men and women tend to barely avoid cold and hunger. Because they simply sleep and eat, without making a single effort to advance themselves and knowing nothing about self-cultivation, they are doomed to live and die in poverty and stupidity. The only reason for this is their ultimate lack of competitive spirit. […] At the same time, gentlemen of great ambition and wisdom daily cultivate their intelligence and virtue and improve their skills, thus contributing to the world, advancing their occupations and bringing prestige and happiness to their families. Those who are useful to the states under Heaven are necessarily those with a strong and lofty competitive spirit.15

Typically for a Darwinian Confucian, Yu blends the Social Darwinist view of poverty—and, more broadly, social inferiority—as an inescapable consequence of natural selection with the characteristically Confucian adoration of ‘gentlemen of wisdom’ (kunja), who exhaust themselves in cultivating their virtues, which are ultimately to benefit the state. In fact, one of Yu’s fellow Spencerians in contemporary Japan, Ueki Emori (1857–1892), came to acknowledge poverty in his 1880s treatise, Hinminron (On the Poor), as a socio-political problem, which could and should be resolved by political means (that is, by granting political rights to the poor).16 Unlike Ueki, however, Yu radically substitutes the older Confucian view of poverty as a symptom of bad governance17 with the new, late Victorian orthodoxy which saw poverty as essentially a personal failure. In this view, poverty necessarily occurs in the process of the free exchange of labour, capital and goods due to the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest.18 Thus, even while he extols the noble-minded gentlemen of wisdom, Yu essentially separates himself from Korea’s Confucian past on the issue of socio-economic disparities. 1880s Korea still lacked modern capitalism as a set of institutions and socio-economic practices. However, Korea’s Social Darwin15

Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun] (Seoul: Iljogak, 1971), Vol. 4, Pp. 47–49. 16 Ueki Emori senshū [Selected Works by Ueki Emori] (Tokyo: Iwanami shōten, 1974), Pp. 123. 17 On views of poverty in Confucian Korea, see: Yun Sŏngmo, “Han’guk pin’gon ŭi yŏksa-jŏk pyŏnmo: han siron ŭrosŏ ŭi kaegwan” (Historical Images of Poverty in Korea: An Experimental Overview), Kyŏngje nonjip (Published by Seoul Taehakkyo kyŏngje yŏn’guso), Vol. 30, No. 4, 1991, Pp. 633–663. 18 On the late Victorian combination of individualist economics and belief in ‘moral improvement’ for the poorer classes, see: John W. Mason, “Political Economy and the Response to Socialism in Britain, 1870–1914”, The Historical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1980, Pp. 565–687.

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ism had already announced itself as the ethics of capitalist accumulation. Surely a case of ideology being borrowed in advance, while the social group poised to profit most from it is only just coming into being. Aside from his very anti-traditional view of poverty and the poor, the idea that gentlemen of wisdom are to compete with one other in their pursuit of virtue and wisdom—unthinkable in traditional Confucianism where competition was seen as a vulgarity befitting small-time selfseekers—was perhaps the strongest Darwinian innovation in this synthesis. Still, to present his cause in a better light to his Confucian contemporaries, Yu also had to justify his approval of competition by citing a famous dictum by the Master: ‘The gentleman of wisdom does not compete. If unavoidable, shall he compete in archery? But he bows complaisantly to his competitors, ascends the hall, descends, and exacts the forfeit of drinking.’19 Such was Confucius’ praise for noble and gentlemanly competition, claims Yu. It is not surprising, then, that ‘intense and unrelenting efforts in self-cultivation’ by a ‘village Confucian’ who had felt ashamed at being compared to a more advanced ‘urban scholar’ are offered by Yu as an example of the beneficial effects of competition on society.20 Interestingly enough, the chapter on competition (Sejin aihagemi kiōu—‘Mutual Challenging and Competing by the World’s People’) in Seyō Jijō (Things Western, 1867), the earlier bestseller by Yu’s mentor Fukuzawa Yukichi, does not refer to the Confucian classics at all. Instead, it takes James Watt (1736–1819) and other great inventors of the Industrial Revolution in order to legitimise the principle of competition.21 Compared to his teacher, Yu exhibited a much stronger tendency to utilise Confucianism in order to prove the worth of the newfound truth about the universe and society. 19 Analects of Confucius, 3:7. Cf. the translation by Arthur Waley: ‘The Master said, Gentlemen never compete. You will say that in archery they do so. But even then they bow and make way for one another when they are going up to the archery ground, when they are coming down and at the subsequent drinking bout.’ Arthur Waley (transl. and annotated), The Analects of Confucius (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), Pp. 95. 20 See the detailed analysis of Yu Kiljun’s interpretation of interpersonal competition as a vehicle for promoting personal ethical advancement in: Chang Insŏng, “Yu Kiljun e issŏsŏ ŭi todŏk kwa chŏngch’i—chagi, t’aja insik ŭi chŏngch’i-jŏk sayu” [Yu Kiljun’s Ethics and Politics: His Political Understanding of Self and Other], Kukche munje yˇon’gu, Vol. 23, 1999, Pp. 58–102. 21 Marion Saucier and Nishikawa Shunsaku (eds.) Fukuzawa Yukichi choshakushū: 1. Seyō Jijō [Fukuzawa Yukichi, Collected Works: 1. Things Western] (Tokyo: Keiō Gijuku Daigaku shūppan kabushiki kaisha, 2002), Pp. 101–114.

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Later, writing a chapter on competition entitled “[Mutual] Encouragement by Competition in Human Life” (Inse ŭi kyŏngnyŏ) for his encyclopaedic Sŏyu kyŏnmun, Yu went even further in giving his Social Darwinian thesis a Confucian hue. In contrast to the ‘competition of the savages,’ with its ‘ugly and chaotic struggle for wealth among members of the same crowd,’ the civilized (literally: educated, yugyohan) people were competing in full observance of the ‘norms of politeness and ritual’ (ŭirye). They were supposed to ‘[peacefully] resolve conflicts without causing harm to each other,’ and even ‘advance the interests of others by getting rich and becoming nobler themselves.’ Yu found a theoretical basis for such a picture by invoking (without mentioning the author by name) the Spencerian theory of progressive development from the military to the industrial type of society,22 and—obviously following the lead of Spencer’s writings23—points out the growth of altruism concomitant with the maturation of society. However, at the same time, Yu’s portrait of an ideal society does reveal a distinctively Confucian flavour. In such a society willingness to contribute to the common good is grounded in the ‘Way of Heaven and the Principles of Men’ (ch’ŏndoilli) and relations between citizens are expected to resemble the ‘mutual love and cordiality of familial ties.’ As one would expect from a thinker whose main practical concern was, after all, the catch-up development of the modern state in Korea on the Meiji model, Yu stresses the benefits that good, moral competition brings to the state. As scholars, peasants and artisans strive to outdo each other, their state naturally increases its ‘wealth and power’ (pugang).24 The Kyŏngjaeng non gives primary attention to interstate competition, rather than competition between members of the same society, something that was also characteristic of East Asian elitist Social Darwinism as a whole. In fact, competition is understood as the basic content of any type of interstate intercourse, be it trade (‘peaceful competition’) or war (‘violent competition’). The woes of Asia, the land of ‘fertile soils and lazy populace’—be it the weakness of Korea or ‘the enslavement of 22 John Offer, “Spencer’s Future of Welfare: A Vision Eclipsed”, Sociological Review, Vol. 47, No. 1, Pp. 136–162. 23 Summarizing his previous work, Spencer stated in the The Principles of Ethics (2 vols. London: Williams and Northgate, 1892) that altruism, especially in more developed, complex societies, becomes a pre-condition for egotistic gratification, since the wellbeing of every member of society depends on the general welfare (Vol. 1, Part. 1, Ch. 11– 12). 24 Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇ o [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 1, Pp. 150–154.

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India by the British Government’—are explained primarily as natural consequences of the ‘chronic lack of any type of intercourse,’ not only with Europeans, but even among the Asian states themselves. According to Yu incessant self-strengthening for the sake of victory in actual and potential competition is the key to success and even to the continued existence of a state. The uncompetitive state, typical of Asia, is usually unable even to preserve itself, and the strength and competitiveness of European states was acquired through long centuries of wars, trade and diplomacy. Kyŏngjaeng non does not seem to differentiate much between war and trade, taking both as more or less normal forms of competition. However, the chapter on ‘[Mutual] Encouragement by Competition’ in the Sŏyu kyŏnmun significantly downplays the former. It turns interstate rivalry into a civilized affair in the Confucian sense of the phrase. The countries of the world are described as constantly comparing their policies and laws, the prosperity of their merchants, their scholarly successes, the state of their defences and so on with those of their neighbours, and encouraging their commoner subjects (manbaeksŏng) to exhaust themselves to help their state catch up with the others.25 It is obvious that the Sŏyu kyŏnmun was aimed at a much wider audience than the Kyŏngjaeng non, which was privately circulated and never formally published in Yu’s lifetime. Consequently, the basics of Social Darwinist thought had to be made more palatable to the still very Confucian tastes of Korea’s educated public, which would have preferred to interpret ‘the fittest’ as ‘the most loyal and willing to learn,’ not simply as ‘the strongest and toughest.’ That does not mean, of course, that the Sŏyu kyŏnmun did not provide a realistic description of the harsher realities of the heyday of European militarism and imperialism. It did, but such descriptions were carefully structured along lines acceptable to a moralistic Confucian consciousness. A special chapter entitled ‘The Systems of Raising Troops’ (Yangbyŏng chedo) was devoted to the tools of interstate competition— the conscript (kongjing) armies of continental Europe and the voluntary (chawŏn) and militia (hyangyong) formations of Great Britain and the USA. When it came to the last two countries, Yu readily asserted that ‘all are given military training in their free time and everyone is a soldier.’ But even in his narrative on the armies of the civilized world, Yu began with the moralistic assertion that such armies are kept for defensive purposes only, and not for mistreating weaker neighbours. He also placed

25

Ibid. Pp. 154.

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particular emphasis on the behavioural standards of the soldier: ‘[B]odily cleanliness and neatness, sincerity of heart, loyalty to the king, fidelity in friendships, wholehearted respect for one’s state, sense of shame at being disgraced and thorough observance of the correct norms in relationships between seniors and juniors.’ Officers, in their turn, were supposed to engage in ‘self-cultivation’ (susin) in addition to being patriotic and loyal to their king. Yu asserted that it was precisely these moral standards that determined the strength or weakness of a particular state.26 In 1895, he presented to his compatriots a world dominated by competition; but it was, first and foremost, a competition in virtue.

‘Korean Reforms’: Trying to Master the Art of Survival In 1883, Yu—still unacquainted with the racist underpinnings of European and American Social Darwinist ideology and the place reserved for the majority of non-Europeans in the racial hierarchy by some contemporary European thinkers—was optimistic about Korea’s future. Success among the ranks of the ‘civilized powers’ was guaranteed, so long as competition was taken seriously. Not interpersonal competition, reduced in Kyŏngjaeng non to ‘competition in academic successes and loyalty’ to the state, but international competition, requiring the ‘cordial unity of seniors and juniors’ in each competing state. Later in the Sŏyu kyŏnmun, drawing upon Fukuzawa Yukichi’s world-historical vision of the stages of ‘civilization and progress,’27 Yu defined civilization in very broad terms which would give Korea much higher marks than most Western observers were ready to allow it at that point. Knowledge of morals, evident in Confucian Korea, was defined as ‘civilization of behaviour,’ and a ‘joyous state of great peace for the subjects’ became ‘the civilization of politics.’ Classifying all the societies and individuals in the world into ‘civilized,’ ‘half-civilized’ and ‘non-civilized,’ Yu ascertained that even the uncivilised ones could reach a civilised state once proper efforts had been made. In an attempt to drum up optimism among his readers, Yu specifically mentioned that Korea had already distinguished itself 26

Ibid. Pp. 261–275. See Maruyama Masao’s influential reading of Fukuzawa’s ideas on progress, Bunmeiron no gairyaku o yomu [Reading Fukuzawa’s “Outline of the Theory of Civilization”], (Tokyo: Iwanami shōten, 1986), Vols. 1–3. In English, see Carmen Blacker, The Japanese Enlightenment: A Study of the Writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969). 27

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with the excellence of Koryŏ period celadon, the turtle-shaped battleships (kˇobuksˇon) devised by the illustrious admiral, Yi Sunsin (1545– 1598), during the Hideyoshi invasions (1592–1598) and the metal type that had been used for printing since early times. So Korea could already become ‘the glory of all nations’ if it could only manage to break with the conservative attachment to the old rules and instead follow the progressive tendencies of the times.28 Of course, it is not the case that Yu Kiljun the practical politician was necessarily as sanguine as Yu Kiljun the ideologue of civilization and progress. Six months before Sŏyu kyŏnmun was printed, in October 1894, Yu Kiljun, then a high-ranking member of Korea’s new, pro-Japanese reformist cabinet brought to power by Japan’s successes in the war against China in 1894, visited Tokyo as a member of an official delegation led by Prince Ŭihwa (King Kojong’s son by concubine Chang). In talks with then Japanese minister of foreign affairs, Mutsu Munemitsu (1844– 1897), he remarked: [Korea’s] inability to conduct its reforms on its own, which forces Your esteemed state to advise and press us, is a three-fold disgrace: In the eyes of our own people, in the eyes of all the states of the world, and in the eyes of future generations. At the moment I am in no position to look the world straight in the eyes and only after successful reforms have made us independent will I no longer feel myself disgraced.29

But while he was sober to the point of outright pessimism in his private letters and talks, Yu is likely to have seen it as his duty to publicly preach a message of hope to the Korean public. As time passed, however, both his bitter personal experience of political failures and, more generally, the perceived inability of Korean society to successfully play the catch-up game of progress seriously dampened Yu’s optimistic enthusiasm. Forced into exile in Japan until August 1907 by the collapse of the pro-Japanese Kim Hongjip cabinet after King Kojong’s flight to the Russian legation on February 11, 1896, Yu gradually developed a more thorough Social Darwinist mode of thought. In this phase, a sense of powerlessness about the world of ruthless machtpolitik was interwoven with much stronger racial motives. For Yu the alleged ‘racial brotherhood’ between Korea and Japan now seemed the only thing left to rely upon in a world ruled by brute force. In the preface to his Korean translation of Shibue Tamotsu’s (1857–1930) popularized 28 29

Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 1, Pp. 395–404. Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 4, Pp. 376–377.

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1896 compilation on the history of Frederick the Great’s (r. 1740–1786) ‘Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), Shichinen senshi: furederikku daiō,30 likely written at some point in the early 1900s, he lamented the world’s moral degradation. In contrast to the great times of Chinese antiquity when justice ruled the world, in his own days the ‘rule of the survival of the fittest’ (ujon yˇolmyˇol) was being misused as a pretext for plunder. While the law was more or less observed in interpersonal relationships, interstate relations were completely dominated by the dictum ‘might is right,’ international treaties were no more than sheets of paper, and a ‘thousand words of international law’ did not equal even ‘a single piece of artillery.’31 Yu’s older ideal, expressed in his Sŏyu kyŏnmun, was a law-governed international society, where ‘large and small states are just equal states; there are no states above or below others.’32 This, in a way, could offer a substitute for the orderliness of the old hierarchical Confucian model of international relations. But already by the early 1900s, this idealistic view was more or less destroyed by the reality of interstate rivalries, in which Yu himself was rather directly involved. As the Russian-Japanese competition over Korea gradually increased in intensity in 1902, Yu, together with some of his fellow exiles in Japan, was planning a coup in his native land which would bring down the Russophile cabinet and return power to the pro-Japanese group (the plan was ultimately unsuccessful). In this connection, he wrote to his alleged collaborators in Korea that if a Russo-Japanese war were to break out Korea would have to unite with Japan and contribute militarily to Russia’s defeat.33 One of his main reasons for taking this position was the fact that the Japanese belonged to the same ‘Yellow race’ and opposed ‘White’ Russia.34 Racialist Asianism was gradually replacing the belief in international law as the governing principle of the modern world. Later, after Emperor Kojong was forced by the Japanese to abdicate in July 1907, the new and now completely Japanese-dominated emperor, Sunjong, returned Yu from exile and even presented him with an official post as special secretary (t’ˇukchin’gwan) in the Ministry of the Royal 30 In Korean translation: Porosaguk Hureduik taewang ŭi ch’illyˇ on chˇonjaeng, (Seoul: Kwanghak sˇop’o, 1908). 31 Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇ o [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 3, Pp. 483–484. 32 Yu Kiljun, Sŏyu kyŏnmun, Pp. 84. 33 Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇ o [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 4, Pp. 260. 34 Kuksa P’yˇ onch’an Wiwˇonhoe (ed.) Chuhan Ilbon kongsagwan kirok [Records of the Japanese Legation in Korea], (Kwach’ˇon: Kuksa P’yˇonch’an Wiwˇonhoe, 1988–1994), Vol. 13, Pp. 484: May 13, 1902, “Sˇo Sangjip hangsojang” (The Appeal by Sˇo Sangjip).

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Household (Kungnaebu). Not willing to occupy any official position after a series of political and personal failures during the years 1896–1907, Yu declined the monarchic favour in a carefully worded memorial, which was even serialised by an influential Seoul daily, Hwangsˇong Sinmun (1907, October 29–30). In this memorial, Yu defined Japan as Korea’s benefactor, which had brought it ‘independence’ by defeating China in 1894–1895. He also indirectly criticised Kojong for allying himself with Russia on February 11, 1895, by running to the Russian legation and thus forcing Japan to act against Russian ‘intervention’ nine years later. On top of this, he suggested that the Japanese management of Korea’s diplomatic and military affairs, as well as the appointment of Japanese advisers to the Korean government as required by the Protectorate treaties of 1905 and 1907, would only help Korea to ‘reform its misadministration,’ ‘develop commerce and industry’ and ‘acquire real wealth and power.’35 Korea’s inability to join the ranks of ‘the fittest’ was, in Yu’s thinking, its own failure. In this situation, a partial loss of independence was inevitable and ‘racially close’ Japan was preferable to anybody else.36

Tan’gun for the Country, Jesus for the Soul Yu’s fusion of racialised Social Darwinism on a macro-level and traditional Confucian ideas of loyalty and unity on a micro-level is typical of the first stage of Social Darwinism’s introduction to Korea. At this time it was primarily understood as an explanation for the new international reality of institutionalized interstate rivalry, something that could not be explained by traditional Confucianism.37 In addition, Yu himself, his genuine admiration for American institutions notwithstanding, belonged to a rather conservative group of reformers, wary of the possible radical republican implications of Social Darwinist doctrine once it had been fully applied to domestic politics.38 Another possible threat was European religion: Yu, in his Sŏyu kyŏnmun, described the Catholic religious expansion in East Asia as a harbinger of armed imperialist aggression, something Korea had to forestall. He was alarmed to see the role that 35

Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 4, Pp. 267–284. Yun Pyˇonghˇui, Yu Kiljun yˇon’gu [Research on Yu Kiljun], (Seoul: Kukhak charyowˇon, 1998), Pp. 7–74, 231–261. 37 Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇ o [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 4, Pp. 47–60. 38 Yu Yŏngik, Han’guk kŭnhyŏndae sa ron [Research on Korean Modern and Recent History], (Seoul: Iljogak, 1992), Pp. 159. 36

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Catholic expansion played in the French conquest of Vietnam, and was shocked by the perceived indifference of Chinese Catholics to their government’s loss of suzerainty over Vietnam to France. In his view, this meant that they put their religious affiliation above their state allegiance.39 Yu had already warned his compatriots in the unpublished Segye taese ron (Treatise on the Main Global Tendencies, 1883), of the danger of ‘becoming slaves to an alien religion,’ reminding them that religious matters ‘pertain to the very basis of statehood’ and that ‘every state prevents the spread of alien creeds.’40 A strong desire to preserve Confucian values remained an important characteristic of Yu Kiljun’s worldview even after he had converted to an ‘alien creed,’ Protestantism, in his later days. This conversion is thought to have happened around 1905–1906, possibly following the 1904 conversion of his younger brother Yu Sˇongjun (penname: Kˇungjae; 1860– 1935) who became a Protestant Christian while serving time in Hansˇong prison in 1903–1905 in connection with Yu Kiljun’s coup plot. However, Yu’s conversion to Protestantism did not mean a consistent rejection of Confucian values. In his 1906 Sagyˇonghoe ch’wijisˇo (Bible Study Society’s Declaration of Intentions), he ascertained the ‘mutual closeness of the ethics of Christ and Confucius’ and styled the latter ‘the sage of politics and ethics,’ in contrast to the former, who was ‘the god of religion and ethics.’ Interestingly, Buddha and Mohammed were also recognised as sages on a par with Confucius, but certainly deficient when compared to ‘our only Saviour, Jesus Christ.’41 This professed belief in the worldwide plurality of sagehood was useful when it came to promoting Korea’s own home-grown sage, the mythical progenitor of all Koreans, Tan’gun. By the end of the 1900s, not unlike many contemporary Shinto nativists in Japan, Yu became increasingly obsessed with what he termed in his Sohak kyoyuk e taehan ŭigyˇon (An Opinion on Primary Education; first published in Hwangsˇong Sinmun on June 10, 1908) ‘the spirit of one’s own state’ (chaguk uˇ i chˇongsin). This spirit, embodied, among other things, in ‘our country’s language,’ required ‘maintaining the self-respect befitting [our] state’ and ‘rearing patriotic subjects’ by completely excluding ‘for-

39 Yu Kiljun, “Sŏyu kyŏnmun” [A Record of Personal Experience in the West], Yu Kiljun chŏnjip [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], (Seoul: Iljogak, 1971), Vol. 1, Pp. 366– 367. He added, however, that the Protestants differed in this regard. 40 Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇ o, Vol. 3, Pp. 10. 41 Yu Tongjun, Yu Kiljun chŏn, Pp. 257–261, 304–307; Yu Kiljun chŏnjip, Vol. 2, Pp. 391–402.

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eign’ Chinese characters from the primary school programmes.42 Moreover, it also required nationwide reverence toward the national progenitor whom Yu, in his 1908 textbook for evening school learners, Nodong yahak tokpon (Reader for Workers’ Evening Schools), respectfully referred to as ‘Tan’gun, who four thousand years ago laid the foundations for our country.’43 It appears that for Yu Christianity, which was supposed ‘to teach the humans their inherent rights and duties,’44 and the veneration of Tan’gun as the spiritual basis for Korean patriotism, were both indispensable for the eventual goal of making Korea rich and strong in the Darwinian world of endless struggles for survival. Such an instrumentalist view of religion may have been facilitated by the tactics chosen by many Protestant missionaries in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Korea, namely, positioning their religion as central to Western civilization and accentuating the (indisputable at that point) material strength of the ‘Christian West’ in the struggle to make converts among the patriotic intelligentsia.45

Yun Ch’iho in the 1880s: A ‘Confucian Christian’ in a Troubled World Yu learned the logic of the ‘survival of the fittest’ through both Japanese and American sources. However, his interpretation of this logic owed more to the conservative reading of Spencer by Katō Hiroyuki (1836– 1916), with its distinctive emphasis on the supposedly traditional collectivist ethos of submission and obedience,46 than to Edward Morse. Such a Japan-mediated transmittion was not, however, the only channel

42

Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo, Vol. 2, Pp. 257–261. Ibid. Pp. 282. 44 Ibid. Pp. 400. 45 Chang Sˇ ongman, “Kˇundae munmyˇong i ranˇun irˇum uˇ i kaesin’gyo” [Protestantism: Under the Name of “Modern Civilization”], Yˇoksa Pip’yˇong, Vol. 46, 1999, Pp. 255–268. 46 Yu’s unpublished Chˇ ongch’ihak (Political Theory—presumably translated from an unknown Japanese source at some point between 1896 and 1907) contains references to Katō’s favourite theory of ‘organic statehood,’ which made the whole nation into one body, with a hereditary ruler as its head. See: Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo, Vol. 4, Pp. 652. For more on Yu’s idealization of conservative constitutional monarchy, with a hereditary aristocracy, see: Yun Pyˇonghˇui, Yu Kiljun yˇon’gu [Research on Yu Kiljun], Pp. 74–107. On Katō’s ‘Samurai Darwinism,’ see: Hiroshi Unoura, “Samurai Darwinism: Hiroyuki Katō and the Reception of Darwin’s Theory in Modern Japan from the 1880s to the 1900s”, History and Anthropology, Vol. 2, 1999, Pp. 235–255. 43

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for learning the Social Darwinist lore available to late nineteenth-century Korean modernizers. In contrast to Yu, another important early believer in the struggle for survival, Yun Ch’iho (pen name: Chwaong; 1865– 1945), the pioneer of the Methodist Church in Korea, received his Social Darwinist ‘ordination’—as well as his Christian baptism (1887)—directly from American teachers, without much help from Japanese intermediaries. Of course, this does not mean that Japan did not play the same role as bridge to the ‘new world’ for Yun that it played for most reformist intellectuals in late nineteenth century Korea. A son of Yun Ungnyˇol (1840–1911), the military reformer credited with the organization in 1881 of Korea’s first-ever modern military detachment, the Japanese-trained Special Skills Corps (pyˇolgigun),47 Yun Ch’iho, together with Yu Kiljun, came to Japan for the first time as a part of the Korean Courtiers’ Observation Mission in January 1881. Probably as a result of his father’s lucky encounter with the prominent Japanese modern intellectual and educator Nakamura Masanao (1832–1891) at a party given for the Korean guests by Tokyo’s Pan-Asianist Kōakai (‘Rise Asia’) society, Yun Ch’iho was given a place at Nakamura’s Dōjinsha Academy, and learned Japanese there as his first foreign language from July 1881 to May 1882. However, driven by his mentor Kim Okkyun’s (1851–1894) advice, as well as by his own ambition to learn about the West ‘in the original,’ he began studying English privately in Tokyo from the Autumn of 1882. His first teacher was Kanda Naibu (1857–1923), then a young Amherst College graduate and subsequently one of Japan’s foremost English educators; his next instructor was another non-native speaker, a secretary of the Dutch mission in Yokohama. After approximately four months of such improvised, but intensive and motivated English study, Yun returned to Korea to become the only native Korean interpreter for America’s first minister to be stationed in the country, Lucius H. Foote (1826–1913). After this, Yun was recognised as the Chosŏn court’s foremost expert in things Western, at the tender age of 19!48 While there is little evidence that Yun Ch’iho became aware of evolutionary theory while in Tokyo in 1881–1883, he was among the first Koreans to encounter Edward Morse. In his famed diary, Japan Day by 47 Gaimushō (ed.) Nihon Gaikō bunsho [Japanese Diplomatic Documents], (Tokyo: Nihon kokusai rengō kyōkai, 1949–1964), Vol. 14, “Chōsen kankei”, Doc. No. 153. 48 Yun Ch’iho, “Chosŏn ch’oech’o yŏng’ŏ haksŭp hoegodam” [Memoirs of the Firstever Study of English in Korea], Yŏng’ŏ munhak, Vol. 1, 1932, Pp. 2–4; Yi Kwangnin, “Yun Ch’iho ŭi Ilbon yuhak” [Yun Ch’iho’s Study in Japan], Tongbang hakchi, Vol. 59, 1988, Pp. 171–191.

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Day, Morse writes, without naming names, about ‘two Koreans, father and son’ (Yun Ungnyˇol and Yun Ch’iho), who came to his room on October 18, 1882, the son being ‘very handsome’ and demonstrating ‘that particular sweetness that so many Japanese faces present.’ Morse’s impression was that both father and son were ‘subdued and sad,’ because they must have ‘realized the dreadful degradation and decay of their country from its past intellectual eminence.’ Morse also suggested that both father and son ‘look upon the Japanese as the advance guards of Western civilization.’49 Already one can distinguish here the Orientalist slighting of Korea so typical of such Japan-based commentators on ‘Far Eastern matters’ of the 1880s, such as, for example, William E. Griffis (who first termed Korea ‘the hermit nation’).50 However, it is not impossible that Morse’s diary, influenced by Orientalist stereotypes as it was, still offers us a genuine glimpse of the anguished mental state of Korea’s reformers, who first realised just how successful their eastern neighbour was in its project to catch up with the West. In fact, the diary Yun Ch’iho started to keep on November 22, 1882—at that point mostly in classical Chinese—, does suggest that Morse’s younger guest was overwhelmed by his experiences in Tokyo. From the very beginning, the diary contrasts the atmosphere of the cheerful New Year celebrations in Tokyo—‘streets full of golden and silver, green and purple ornaments’ and an ‘atmosphere of great peace I could not help but envy’ (November 22, 1882) —with the sad news of the rampages of the Chinese troops stationed in the Korean capital. China-dominated Korea, in Yun’s opinion, was simply ‘another people’s slave, unwilling to do anything to improve its position’ (November 23, 1882).51 As a teenager experiencing foreign life for the first time, Yun Ch’iho was unable yet to do much theorising on his observations, and his contacts with Morse, greatly inhibited by the latter’s inability to speak Japanese, were more social than intellectual in character—Yun donated eight Korean articles to the Peabody Museum’s collection.52 49 Edward Morse, Japan Day by Day, 1877, 1878–1879, 1882–1883, (Tokyo: Kobunsha Publishing Co., 1936), Vol. 2, Pp. 327–329. 50 Cheong, Sung-hwa [Chˇ ong Sˇonghwa], “William Elliot Griffis and Emerging American Images of Korea”, The Review of Korean Studies Vol. 3, No. 2, December 2000, Pp. 53– 72. 51 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], (Seoul: National History Compilation Committee, 1974), Vol. 1, Pp. 1–2. 52 Edward S. Morse, Japan Day by Day, 1877, 1878–1879, 1882–1883, Vol. 2, Pp. 353– 354.

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Subsequent events, however, halted for a considerable time Yun Ch’iho’s promising court career and served to push him to much deeper and more thorough reflection on himself and the world around. While the aborted coup launched by the radical reformist fraction in December 1884 forced Yu Kiljun to give up his planned studies at Harvard and return home, it changed the direction of Yun’s life in the opposite direction. Suspected of sympathising with the plotters (the suspicion seems to be rather groundless, but the coup leaders were indeed contacts of Yun’s from his days in Tokyo and close personal friends), Yun was forced into foreign exile at the beginning of 1885. On advice of his friends from the American Legation in Seoul, he chose the Anglo-Chinese College in Shanghai for the continuation of his studies. His main personal experience during his 1885–1888 Shanghai sojourn was undoubtedly his conversion to Protestantism. Having accepted baptism in April 1887, he became the Southern Methodists’ first Korean convert. Judging from Yun’s diary and later memoirs, his conversion was a highly personal religious matter rather than simply a ‘civilizational shift.’ A lonely Korean in his early twenties in forced exile abroad, Yun was deeply moved, on a personal level, by what he later described as the ‘sincerity, softness, modesty and kindness’ of the Shanghai missionary teachers, and especially the famed missionary Young John Allen (Chinese name: Lin Yuezhi; 1836– 1907) who became for him a father figure of sorts.53 By becoming a Christian, Yun hoped to improve himself morally in the classic Confucian manner. He aspired to learn how to keep his own resolutions of ethical behaviour (abstinence from anger, waste of money, excessive sleep, ‘illicit’ sex, etc.) and, according to his diary, he was especially troubled by the drinking habits he had developed after his Tokyo sojourn.54 Being a ‘Confucian Christian’ did not prevent him, however, from becoming increasingly critical towards the Eastern world. China, which, in his eyes, was greatly lagging behind Japan in civilizing itself and in addition was hindering Korea’s progress by putting Kojong’s government under its effective control, was the primary target of his criticism. However, ‘stagnant’ and ‘torpid’ Korea was not spared, either. In one of his earliest English letters from Shanghai dated June 5, 1885, he described

53 Yun Ch’iho, “Chonggyo saenghwal u ˇ i kyˇonghˇomdam” [Tales of My Experience in Religious Life], Chonggyo kyoyuk, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1930, Pp. 33. 54 February 5, 1887: Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 1, Pp. 250–251; L. George Paik, The History of Protestant Missions in Korea 1832–1910 (Seoul: Yonsei University, 1971 [1929]), Pp. 165–167.

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China as an old house about to collapse in the ‘violent storms prevailing in our days’ and Korea as a ‘poor boy educated by a foolish old man— China.’ Japan, by contrast, was upgraded to ‘the most civilized nation in Asia after the Russians.’ Yun Ch’iho predicted that, unless Korea were able to extricate itself from Chinese interference, it would follow Vietnam’s suit in becoming a colony of some European power.55 And, having seemingly internalised the belief of his missionary mentors in the providential nature of the West’s ‘mission,’ he came by 1890 to regard such a possibility as a lesser evil. He wrote in his diary—now kept in English—that even ‘Polandization’ (colonization) of Korea would be preferable to its present state of affairs (November 22, 1889).56 In fact, already on August 12, 1886, while still in Shanghai, and on hearing the scandalous revelations about the failed attempt by a group of Korean courtiers to conclude a secret agreement with Russia and thus check Chinese influence on Korea,57 Yun readily agreed that the idea as such was not bad. He thus concluded that, ‘Entrusting Korea’s territory to some civilized state would be preferable to handing over the fate of the state to the worst barbarians under Heaven [i.e., the Chinese].’58 During his time in Shanghai, Yun still did not regard the ‘violent storms’ of history that were ‘Polandizing’ some countries to the benefit of others as an extension of laws governing natural and social life. However, the mental ‘self-Orientalisation’ he underwent in Shanghai —where, while remaining a Confucian in his private life, he lost whatever belief in the historical value of East Asian civilization he might have had earlier—laid a good basis for his later intellectual conversion to Social 55 “To an Anonymous Person”, Yun Ch’iho ilgi: sˇ ohanjip [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary: Collected Letters] (Seoul: National History Compilation Committee, 1980), Pp. 1–12. 56 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 1, Pp. 409–410. 57 In July 1886, a letter signed by the then Prime Minister Sim Sunt’aek (1824–1906) and bearing the seal of state, was supposedly delivered to Russia’s Minister to Korea, Karl von Waeber (1841–1910). The letter urged Russia to help Korea to achieve real independence from China, and, most likely, reflected the desire of the King, Kojong, to block further interference by China’s proconsul in the Korean capital, Yuan Shikai (1859– 1916), into Korea’s internal affairs and diplomacy. A copy of the letter, however, was forwarded to Yuan by a pro-Chinese member of the all-powerful Min clan, Min Yˇong’ik (1860–1914); Yuan was infuriated and even proposed to his superior, Li Hongzhang (1823–1901), the Viceroy of Zhili Province who was de-facto responsible for China’s foreign affairs, to abolish Korea’s sovereignty altogether. In the end, the episode greatly weakened Kojong’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the Chinese, although doubts about the authenticity of the ‘Sim Sunt’aek letter’ persisted for a long time. See Ku Sˇonhˇui, “Kapsin chˇongbyˇon chikhu panch’ˇong chˇongch’aek kwa Ch’ˇong uˇ i Wˇon Segae p’agyˇon” [The AntiQing Policy of the Korean Government after the Kapsin Coup Attempt and the Dispatch of Yuan Shikai by Qing China], Sahak Yˇon’gu, Vol. 51, 1996, Pp. 33–80. 58 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 1, Pp. 222–223.

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Darwinism. That conversion itself took place shortly after his arrival in the USA for further studies on October 26, 1888.

Yun Ch’iho in the 1890s: Domination and Extermination as God’s Blessings Yun Ch’iho was the first Korean to master fluent English and to become a Methodist convert. He came to reject Confucian values wholesale and to embrace both a belief in the superiority of ‘America’s Christian and democratic civilization’ and a thoroughly Social Darwinist view of the world during his studies at Vanderbilt University (November 1888 to June 1891) in Nashville, Tennessee, and at Emory University (July 1891 to October 1893) in Oxford, Georgia. The conversion happened in the course of deep philosophical and religious reflections over his personal situation and the reality and ideals of the West. As the penniless, physically fragile son of an exiled Korean statesman from an ‘illegitimate’ semi-gentry branch of a noble clan59 and frequently discriminated against on racial grounds,60 Yun Ch’iho had ample reasons to agonize over the issues of weakness, strength and the struggle for survival. For him, as one can judge from his unusually detailed English diary, the Social Darwinist idea of ‘might is right’ was inseparable from the Christian theory of God’s moral judgement. Alienated from Korea both geographically and politically, Yun saw the country now through what may be termed ‘Western missionary eyes’ as a heathen hell on earth where ‘centuries of despotism, injustice, cruelty and oppression have deprived the rulers and the ruled of their sense and reason and they are hastening to ruin and destruction 59 Yun Ch’iho’s father, Yun Ungnyˇ ol, belonged to the category of ‘illegitimate scions’ (sˇooˇl) of the aristocratic (yangban) Haep’yˇong Yun clan. See Hwang Hyˇon (transl. by Im Hyˇongt’aek et al.), Maech’ˇon Yarok [Unofficial Memoirs of Maech’ˇon Hwang Hyˇon], (Seoul: Munhak kwa chisˇongsa, 2005), Vol. 1, Pp. 251. Yun Ungnyˇol returned from exile in Nˇungju only as the result of a decree from King Kojong issued on June 22, 1894 (Kuksa P’yˇonch’an Wiwˇonhoe (ed.), Kojong Sunjong Sillok [Veritable Records of the Reigns of Kojong and Sunjong] (Seoul: T’amgudang: 1970), Vol. 2, Pp. 492), and Yun Ch’iho, unable to receive remittances from his homeland, was eking out a meagre living by occasional jobs, church lectures and support from Vanderbilt University’s Sustentation Fund. See: Yu Yˇongnyˇol, Kaehwagi uˇ i Yun Ch’iho yˇon’gu [Research on Yun Ch’iho in the Modern Reforms Period], (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1985), Pp. 74–75. 60 On September 29, 1888, he was regarded as ‘Chinese’ and refused a place in a hotel in Kansas City (Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 1, Pp. 347–348). On June 24, 1891, he was again pejoratively referred to as ‘Chinaman’ (Vol. 2, Pp. 210), and was treated in a patronizing manner (asked about his age, etc.) on October 4, 1892 (Vol. 2, Pp. 384).

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by their own sins and follies.’61 In contrast to this unmitigated misery, the United States represented a ‘moral Christian community,’62 which, thanks to its religious foundations,63 came to possess the best form of government known to humanity so far,64 and even to suffer from a ‘surplus of freedom’ (on which grounds Yun opposed female suffrage!).65 This was not, however, a freedom Yun—a ‘pitiful alien from a barbarous country’ in his own, self-Orientalising eyes—could ever hope to fully enjoy himself; neither was it a freedom for the ‘persecuted Chinese in the West,’ for the ‘Negroes in the South,’ nor for the Indians, mistreated by the whole nation collectively. ‘In practice the Americans have shown that their doctrine of equality, etc., etc. is only skin deep. That is if you want to enjoy the so-called inalienable right of man in this “Land of Freedom” you must be White.’ Such was Yun’s perfectly realistic judgement of American conditions, as seen from his subaltern angle.66 Consequently, Yun could not escape a logical question: Why did God’s own elect, blessed with the ‘best government in the world,’ treat others, both within and without their democratic paradise, in the way they did? Possible solutions included either decentring both Christianity and America—that is, coming to the understanding that America’s government and morals were not necessarily the world’s most advanced—, or finding some fault with the oppressed Others, significant enough to legitimise segregation and discrimination in the land of the free. For Yun, his cultural attachment to America’s East Asian Others was already weakened in the extreme; Chinese civilization was something he detested, and there was nothing he felt he could be proud about in Korea’s history or culture.67 Thus, decentring America’s hegemonic discourse was hardly a viable option, due to the lack of other, counter-hegemonic points of reference. Uprooted politically, culturally and religiously, Yun chose the easiest way of dealing with the issue of injustice in America’s democratic 61

September 24, 1893, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 171–172. February 10, 1892, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 277. 63 November 12, 1892, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 410. 64 ‘No one will deny that the democracy of America is after all the best form of government in spite of its defects’ (September 24, 1893) Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 174. 65 May 20, 1893, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 80. 66 February 14, 1890 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 18–20. 67 ‘There is not a single thing, either in the past history or the present condition or the future possibility of Corea, that can warm me up with national pride-the most excusable of all prides-or enthusiastic hope’ (February 7, 1890), Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 16. 62

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paradise. He completely accepted the fashionable doctrines of Social Darwinism, blaming the victims for their own victimisation and finally declaring that victimisation of the weak by the strong was not unjust at all, since the strong were also evolutionarily superior. The conquered Asians—or massacred American Indians—were ‘weak’ not only in the physical, but also in the moral sense, first and foremost due to their idolatry, and then to their technical and ‘racial’ level. ‘Isn’t America better off in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon than she ever was under or rather above the control of the Redman? Indeed it would be hard to instance a single case of domination of one race over another but that we find the stronger has been almost always better or less corrupted in morals, religion and politics than the weaker. Thus, we see that what seems to be a triumph of might over right is but a triumph of comparative—I don’t say absolute—right over comparative wrong […]’ (November 20, 1892),68 In addition to being at least partially morally justifiable, Yun found the ‘survival of the fittest’ thesis to be ‘simply a scientific fact.’ That was what his American teachers were telling him, and, lacking any previous scientific background of his own, he was hardly in a position to refute their arguments: In speaking about the Indians, Professor Bradley said that it is sad to see them step-by-step driven out of their possessions; and that their race being run, their race is to be justly extinguished to make room for a superior people. On the surface, there is something very cruel to hear a Christian talk so calmly about the extermination of a weak people by a strong one and that too often by means of treachery and injustice on the part of the so-called Christian and civilized people. Yet, however our sentiments may be against such wickedness, facts are facts. The doctrine of the survival of fittest can never hold true among the individuals of the same race or nation, but certainly it is true among different races or nations. For a nation no crime is greater than weakness; and among nations might is right. Justice and peace will never be established on earth until either the stronger races and nations shall have destroyed all the weaker ones or the latter shall have gained strength enough to protect themselves.69

The logical conclusion of Yun’s painful efforts to reconcile his newfound Christian faith with the unseemly realities of the system of domination this faith was historically associated with, was that the underdogs were themselves criminals, as they had proved unable to gain the ‘strength to

68 69

Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 418–419. November 27, 1891, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], vol. 2, pp. 238–239.

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protect themselves.’ Domination might be, in Yun’s thinking, a providential blessing for them: To me a tremendous and interesting fact is that 10 millions of Africans through circumstances beyond their control, have come in possession of one of the richest and noblest languages in the world—the English. Perhaps they have been amply paid, as a race, for their servitude in this one invaluable gift.70

In Yun’s Protestant Social Darwinist mind, strength was obviously becoming a sign of belonging to ‘God’s elect,’ of having received a higher blessing. Christianity itself was now identified by him as ‘work and power,’ in contrast to what he now disparagingly referred to as the ‘wordsonly Oriental philosophies.’71 Still, the obvious discrepancies between the Christian ethos and the merciless nature of both Social Darwinist postulates and the imperialist reality behind them could not but seriously trouble Yun. He was also greatly worried by the painfully obvious reality of Korea’s weakness, which to a Social Darwinist could mean that his beloved motherland did not belong to the lucky ranks of the fittest: The greatest obstacle to my belief or faith is the inferiority of one race to another and the evils resulting there from. Why did not God give an equal chance to all the races, Caucasians no superior to Mongolians and Africans no worse than either in physical and mental powers. If He did, the shameful and unjust deeds of killing out [italicised in the original—V.T.] one race by another, according to the inexorable law of survival of the fittest would not have disgraced the pages of history. Would He do so, yet could not? Then where is his wisdom? […] O mystery! […] It has often chilled my most sanguine aspirations—the thought that Corea might not be the ‘fittest’ to ‘survive.’ Then what? My business and duty are to contribute my best to make them fit to live. If they cannot be so made after a fair trial, then they are not fit to survive. God help me to look at things as a man.72

The mature view of the slim chances for Koreans to survive the Darwinian trials imposed upon them by God and Nature thus meant forcing oneself to be content with the idea that Koreans would be civilized against their will by somebody ‘fitter.’ Already in Shanghai in 1886, Yun saw the rule of a civilized power as a lesser evil for Korea when compared to continued Chinese domination and this line of thought continued unbroken in his diary well into the 1890s. Observing China’s defeat by Japan in 70 71 72

February 17, 1893, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], vol. 3, p. 29. October 29, 1893, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], vol. 3, p. 193. October 14, 1892, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 388–389.

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1894, Yun concluded that neither China, nor Korea were able to reform themselves on their own, without the major powers intervening (December 10, 1894).73 Believing that, in their present state, ‘as a nation, Koreans have no future,’ he came to think that only a strong-willed Japanese intervention in Korea’s internal politics would lead to the regeneration of the peninsula (November 1, 1894).74 It would be perhaps too teleological to say that the ideological basis of Yun’s collaboration with the Japanese colonial authorities after 191575 was already laid in the late 1880s to early 1890s. However, it seems quite clear that, while internalising Social Darwinism in combination with Protestant Christianity, Yun did undergo a process of mental self-colonization of sorts,76 exhibiting in the end what Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) would probably have termed the distorted consciousness of the de-nationalised peripheral bourgeois.77 De-nationalisation did not mean, of course, that Yun did not attempt to use the grammar of civilization learned from his American teachers, to make texts of his own. Sensing a feeling of ‘White pride’ permeating every nook and cranny of the American mainstream middle-class society he encountered, he developed a feeling of ‘Yellow pride’ in himself. His ‘national prejudices against Chinese and Japanese’ were, in his own words, ‘swallowed up in the broad partiality for the Mongolian race’ (November 27, 1891).78 As a ‘patriot of the Yellow race,’ with a growing sense of admiration for the successes of the ‘racially close’ Japanese people, Yun admitted also to a ‘sense of melancholy patriotism’ at the sight of the Korean Legation in Washington (August 14, 1893),79 and considered patriotism an essential ingredient for successful reform in Korea (June 23, 1894).80 However, his overall vision of a reformed Korea did not differ essentially from the ways in which civilization was conven73

Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 415. Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 399. 75 Kim Yˇ onghˇui, Chwaong Yun Ch’iho Sˇonsaeng yakchˇon [Brief Biography of Mr. Chwaong Yun Ch’iho], (Seoul: Chwaong Yun Ch’iho munhwa saˇop wiwˇonhoe, [1934] 1999), Pp. 269. 76 For a comparison, see David Arnold’s Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) for an outline of the process of mental self-colonization by middle-class colonial Indian intellectuals, who had to internalize the hegemonic assumptions of European medical discourse. 77 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966), Pp. 170. 78 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 238–239. 79 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 146. 80 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 332. 74

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tionally viewed by his missionary mentors. One crucial point was its marked religious belonging. Unlike his older colleague Yu Kiljun, Yun Ch’iho envisioned a ‘regenerated Korea’ as essentially a Christian country, and demonstrated a very particular mixture of scepticism, contempt and hostility with regard to the rest of Korea’s religions and philosophies. Buddhism had been favoured by Korea’s reformers of the older generation and particularly, as Yun himself knew very well, by Yun’s old mentor Kim Okkyun.81 But Yun’s disdain for Buddhism was particularly scathing, and contrasted sharply with the sort of benign indifference toward the religion exhibited by Yu Kiljun.

‘Hindrances to Survival’: Social Darwinist Attacks on Buddhism and Confucianism in the 1890s–1900s As a devoted and radical Christian, Yun Ch’iho was still optimistic enough to believe that once ‘degenerate’ Confucianism had been done away with, Christianity—‘the hope and salvation for Korea’82—would be widely embraced instead; only then did Korea, with its ‘good racial stock,’ have a chance of both moral regeneration and physical survival. Not surprisingly, though, the political failures of his reformist associates and the incessant imperialist rivalry around the peninsula were gradually diminishing Yun’s hopes of a beneficial application of Social Darwinist laws to the Korean case.83 As to the possible role of Buddhism in the process of making Korea fitter for survival, Yun was generally strongly negative. Yun’s Social Darwinized version of Christianity emphasized salvation in this life, not in the afterlife: ‘If we are not saved in this life there will be no salvation in heaven. Saved now, we are all right in future’ (December 11, 1891).84 And it was an established fact for him that the ability of Protestantism to bring this-worldly salvation to Koreans was incomparable with the potential of any ‘native’ religion. Yun Ch’iho was not 81 See Yun’s description of Kim’s remarks on the truthfulness of the theory of the transmigration of consciousness: October 31, 1893: Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 201. 82 ‘There was a time when the most enlightened nation of this age was as low-down as the Coreans; and there may come a time when the Coreans shall be as enlightened as any people. This is one comfort at least. Christianity is the salvation and hope of Corea’ (February 19, 1893), Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 33–34. 83 Kenneth M. Wells, New God, New Nation: Protestants and Self-Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea, 1896–1937, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), Pp. 50–63. 84 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 247.

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alone in dismissing ‘native cults,’ which he hardly acknowledged as religions on par with the Christian denominations at all. Most of the missionaries around him did not even view Buddhists as serious competitors in the struggle for Korean souls. Up to the end of the 1890s, visiting missionaries regularly remarked that Korea ‘lacks any religion at all,’ while Buddhism was seen as ‘unimportant,’ and Confucianism hardly represented anything more than a ‘set of moral rules.’85 In the later 1890s and 1900s, however, those missionaries with longer experience in Korea started to describe Korean religion as an awkward combination of ancestor worship, ‘primitive spirit worship,’ ‘Shamanized Buddhism’ and few other heterogeneous elements of a similar order. Among these elements, Buddhism was viewed as less influential than, for example, ‘Shamanist demon worship’ or geomancy. A veteran missionary who came to Korea in 1885, Horace Grant Underwood (1859–1916), asserted to the American public at the end of the 1900s that Koreans were ‘generally not very religious as such,’ and among their ‘cults,’ Buddhism was a despised, peripheral one. Buddhism, the former national religion of the Koryˇo Dynasty (918–1392), which had ‘degenerated’ due to excessively close ties to the government, was shunned by the Chosˇon Dynasty’s Confucian literati, and ended up as a ‘peasants’ cult,’ in which most monks were ‘lured to the monastic life exclusively by economic considerations.’86 Unlike Underwood, Yun Ch’iho had the benefit of first-hand knowledge of Buddhism. When eight years old, he studied Confucian classics at a Buddhist hermitage near his childhood home in Asan county, South Ch’ungch’ˇong Province.87 He also had many devoted Buddhist friends among the older radical reformists of the 1880s, such as Kim Okkyun, and continuously socialized with Buddhist devotees in the Korean intellectual and political milieu. He was thus much better acquainted with Buddhist religion than his missionary mentors, but hardly differed from them in his attitudes towards it. In a discussion with the famous literati painter and devoted Buddhist Chi Unyŏng (1852–1935), Yun conceded that ‘under a Buddhist government Korea was a better country’ than under the Confucian Chosŏn 85 Robert A. Hardie, “Religion in Korea”, The Missionary Review of the World, December 1897, Pp. 926–927. 86 Horace G. Underwood, The Religions of Eastern Asia (New York: Macmillan, 1910), Pp. 216–218. 87 Kim Yˇ onghˇui, Chwaong Yun Ch’iho Sˇonsaeng yakchˇon [A Brief Biography of Mr. Chwaong Yun Ch’iho] (Seoul: Chwaong Yun Ch’iho Munhwa Saŏp Wiwŏnhoe, [1934] 1999), Pp. 7–8.

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Dynasty. However, he also remarked that in Buddhist societies the metaphysical sophistication of the privileged few was accompanied by the illiteracy of the majority and by general degradation. To this practical argument, Yun also added in his diary the doctrinal ‘abstruseness’ and ‘vagueness’ of Buddhism that meant that even advanced believers are unable to come to any theoretical unity and make it a ‘working’ religion (December 17, 1893 to January 1, 1894).88 It is remarkable that, while fully aware of all the doctrinal differences between Christianity and Buddhism, Yun in his personal thoughts takes only Buddhism’s ‘abstract’ and supposedly unworkable character as the main barrier to developing any sympathy or interest in this religion. It shows how strongly the Social Darwinist quest for a spiritual and physical cure for Korea’s ‘illness’—its lack of fitness— influenced the religious consciousness of one of the pioneers of Korean Christianity. Yun Ch’iho’s Christian and Social Darwinist radicalism in advocating the eradication of all the religious and moral vestiges of the past, as obstacles on the difficult path to Christian salvation and Darwinist survival, contrasts sharply with Yu Kiljun’s tradition-based, gradualist approach. From the point of view of the Buddhist community, the radical, Christian brand of Social Darwinism represented by the likes of Yun Ch’iho was certainly the most threatening. Buddhism, already oppressed by the Confucian government, now came under additional attack from the radical anti-Confucian camp. Yun’s understanding of Buddhism as an obstacle on the road to the regeneration of the country was carried further and greatly popularised by Korea’s first private newspaper, the bilingual (English and Korean) Tongnip Sinmun (The Independent, 1896.04.07–1899.12.04). It was established by the Christian Sŏ Chaep’il (1864–1951; the first Korean to be naturalized in the USA, under the name Philip Jaisohn) and edited by Yun himself from July 1898. The newspaper started a systematic antiBuddhist and anti-shamanistic campaign, considering that ‘superstitious practices’—both folk Buddhism and shamanism—were as harmful as Confucianism to the great design of ‘national regeneration and independence.’ Both monks and shamans were accused of parasitism and deceiving the people, in a tone reminiscent of the Confucian anti-Buddhist polemics. The same accusations had for centuries been the main tool of the Confucian struggle against its spiritual enemies. The Tongnip Sinmun gave a good example of its attitude just one month after coming into

88

Yun Ch’iho ilgi, Vol. 3, Pp. 228–244.

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being, editorialising in its Korean edition on May 7, 1896, in the following manner: People usually believe in absurdities and long for unreasonable things when they lack knowledge. That is why male and female shamans, geomantic teachers and Buddhist monks are able nowadays to charm and captivate commoners into giving them money and lure weak-hearted womenfolk and absurdity-believing males into wasting their property in serving evil spirits. People are deceived simply because they are ignorant. […] Instead of wasting property by treating evil spirits so well, should we not rather use it to help the poor, to build a hospital for the ill or to build a school for educating the people? […] We are not going to reprimand the male and female shamans, Buddhist monks and masters of geomancy, but simply warn them, believing that they themselves are doing all this out of ignorance. Once they understand that all those things are empty absurdities of no use to the people, they will also stop believing in this.89

While popular Buddhist deities (‘evil spirits’) and the collection of funds from the laity for temple services (‘wasting property’) were conceived as a ‘hindrance’ on the road to strength and wealth, original Buddhist doctrines were usually exempt from criticism. Yun and Sŏ systematically emphasized that ‘today’s Buddhism in China or Korea, reduced to making idols and depriving people of their money, has nothing to do with the teachings of Tathāgata Shakyamuni.’ But the newspaper did not show serious interest in the original doctrines either, apparently in the belief that ‘countries believing assiduously in Christianity are now the strongest, richest, most civilized, advanced and blessed in the world.’ Buddhism, meanwhile, remained the religion of some ‘half-civilised, half-barbarian countries,’ like ‘such countries as India, China or Korea’ (Editorial, Korean edition, January 26, 1897).90 While Buddhism was definitely not a part of what the Tongnip Sinmun wanted to construct as Korea’s new, ‘civilised’ identity, Sŏ Chaep’il and Yun Ch’iho remained faithful to their belief in the universality of the modern category of citizenship, and strongly protested every time Korean officialdom infringed on the rights of Buddhist monks as ‘His Majesty’s loyal subjects.’ While the historic abolition of the long-standing Neo-Confucian rule91 prohibiting monks and nuns from entering the 89 Sˇ onu Toryang [Good Friends Society] (ed.) Sinmun ŭro pon Han’guk pulgyo kŭnhyŏndae sa [Modern and Recent History of Korean Buddhism Seen through Newspapers] (Seoul: Han’guk pulgyo kŭnhyŏndae sa yŏn’guhoe, 1999), Vol. 2, Pp. 61–62. 90 Ibid. Pp. 63–64. 91 This rule dated from the beginning of the fifteenth century and was strictly enforced from 1623.

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capital city had already occurred on April 24, 1895, the prohibition was revived in 1896, to be gradually eased only after 1898 and fully abolished on July 27, 1905.92 Prohibiting Buddhist monks from entering the nation’s capital meant openly excluding them from the ranks of ‘nationals.’ However, according to Sˇo and Yun’s modernist logic, no-one should be excluded from this group, which was supposed to be closely united by patriotic devotion. In this way, Tongnip Sinmun sided with the followers of a religion it considered more harmful than helpful for Korea’s ‘civilization and progress.’ In 1899, the newspaper serialised for almost a week a lengthy letter from Muje Sin’gwang, a monk from a temple on Ch’ˇonghwasan Mountain, on the border between Mun’gyˇong (North Kyˇongsang Province) and Koesan Counties (North Ch’ungch’ˇong Province)—actually a copy of the memorial the monk sent in January 1899 to the Ministry of the Interior (Naebu). After describing the author’s bitter experience of being turned away from the Great Eastern Gate (Tongdaemun) of Seoul by the guards, the letter then deplored the state of affairs in which foreigners were free to enter Korea’s capital, while monks, who were formally subjects of the Korean king, were still barred from going into the centre of their own country. It consequently pleaded with the Minister of the Interior to allow the monks, being also ‘subjects of Korea,’ into Seoul (Korean edition, February 18–23, 1899).93 However, while it included Buddhist monks within the political boundaries of Korea’s national statehood, the Tongnip Sinmun did not expect much contribution from them. Good monks, one of its 1899 editorials stated, are those who chant morning and evening in front of the ‘idols of Shakyamuni and Avalokiteshvara’ in the faraway mountains, dreaming of liberating themselves from the world of reincarnations, becoming Buddhas and showing no interest in mundane fame. On the contrary, bad monks are those who commit licentious acts, pursue worldly profits and abuse the protection of the powerful (editorial, Korean edition, June 3, 1899).94 But neither the true seekers of enlightenment, nor the profit-minded dealers in superstitions were about to bring civilisation and progress to Korea, unlike the Christian missionaries, with whom Sˇo and Yun associated the best hopes for ‘national survival and regeneration.’ 92 Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong Kyoyugwˇ on (Republic of Korea, Chogye Buddhist Order, Educational Institute) (ed.) Chogyejong sa: Kˇunhyˇondaep’yˇon [History of the Chogye Order: Modern Times], (Seoul: Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong, 2005), Pp. 28–29; Sinmunŭro pon Han’guk pulgyo kŭnhyŏndae sa, Vol. 2, Pp. 111. 93 Sinmun ŭro pon Han’guk pulgyo kŭnhyŏndae sa, Vol. 2, Pp. 73–74. 94 Ibid. Pp. 80.

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Buddhism remained a widespread, popular religion with a large-scale following across class lines, but it belonged principally to the sphere of private life. Confucianism, on the other hand, was the guiding ideology of the Chosˇon Dynasty, and knowledge of the Confucian classics was the main source of what Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) termed ‘cultural capital’95 for its ruling elite. Thus, it was Confucianism much more than Buddhism that was the target of Yun Ch’iho’s Social Darwinist animosity. While restraining himself in his public statements on Confucian morals and ethics—still believed to be the universal morals and ethics by the majority of educated Koreans in the 1890s–1900s—Yun gave full vent to his anti-Confucian feelings on the pages of his private diary. Confucianism as practised in China and Korea was accused by Yun of being powerless to enforce its ‘beautiful maxims’ in real life, lacking ‘life and vitality’ and encouraging instead ‘gross materialism.’ The consequences of its dominance were ‘licentiousness, revengefulness, lying and hatred’ in every corner of society (December 12, 1893).96 Since power was the cornerstone of Yun’s weltanschauung, the accusation of powerlessness was doubtlessly a severe one. Equally severe was another accusation— that Confucianism inhibited the development of a ‘public spirit,’ which was indispensable for Yun’s nation-building project. This was a result of its elitism, its emphasis on familial rather than broader public, obligations, its ritualism and its encouragement of despotism wherever a social relationship becomes hierarchical, be it relations between ‘prince and subject’ or marriage (March 11, 1894).97 Familialism was seen by Yun as the main cause of the perceived absence of altruism in Korean society and thus the main obstacle to turning Koreans into conscious ‘nationals’: ‘[…] the gross materialism of Confucius has reduced the full range of human duty to the four walls of one’s house. Beyond these walls one’s duty ceases; witness with what indifference the Korean officials barter away the dearest interests of their country just to enrich their dirty selves’ (April 6, 1902).98 The problem, according to Yun, was not simply the impossibility of reinvigorating a Confucianism-ridden society with a national public spirit. It lay deeper:

95 Pierre Bourdieu, “Les Trois états du capital culturel”, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, Vol. 30, 1979, Pp. 3–6. 96 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 227–228. 97 Ibid. Pp. 290–292. 98 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 5, Pp. 310.

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By means of despotism on one side and Confucian materialism on the other, the Koreans’ brain seems to have been pressed into little blocks of wood with a few crude ideas immovably buried in them like fowls embedded in petrified substances. No other supposition can satisfactorily explain the utter impenetrability of our brains to new ideas […] A Korean would have remained a Korean of today to the doomsday but for the new influences from the outside world […].99

The charge of self-Orientalisation would be perhaps too soft to characterise the judgement Yun passes upon Koreans and their Confucian beliefs. Yun Ch’iho’s views anticipated—in rather simplistic form—Max Weber’s (1864–1920) speculations on the ‘innerworldly nature’ of Confucianism, its ‘lack of spiritual content,’ its ritualism and the abuses of the public domain for the sake of one’s family’s profit sanctified by the Confucian concept of filial piety.100 Those views were not much different from the prism through which Korean Confucianism was viewed in the Korea-based missionary community—among Yun Ch’iho’s friends, acquaintances and collaborators. In a column—originally published by The Japan Mail on April 18, 1896, and then quoted at great length by The Korean Repository101—one of the more scholarly missionaries, James Scarth Gale (1863–1937), explained even the supposed dirtiness of Koreans by the long mourning period prescribed by Confucian teachings. According to his explanations, during this procession the ‘poor Korean victims’ of the Confucian orthodoxy were supposedly ‘bowing before the ancestral tablets in dust,’ but not allowed even to wash themselves.102 The claim that Confucianism was not a religion at all, but rather consisted of ethical prescriptions and a formalistic ancestor cult and did not ‘answer the [religious] desire of the human heart,’103 or that it was the chief culprit responsible for the ‘strangling of independent thought,’ the ‘inability of the Koreans to score a single invention in a thousand years’ and social despotism,104 was simply to repeat what counted for common 99

December 31, 1902, Ibid. Pp. 382–383. Max Weber, The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (New York: Macmillan, 1964 [1915]), Pp. 152–163. 101 This was the earliest periodical published by Protestant missionaries based in Korea (1892–1898). 102 “Korean Civilization”, The Korean Repository, June 1896, Pp. 159–161. 103 Horace G. Underwood, The Call of Korea (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1908), Pp. 86–89. 104 James Scarth Gale, Korea in Transition (Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1909), Pp. 95–102. 100

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sense within the group of missionary kulturträgers in Seoul during the 1890s–1900s. However, the wholesale dismissal of Confucianism, fashionable as it was among the missionary community, was not an easy thing to digest even for the most faithful of its Korean followers. As the readers have seen above, Yu Kiljun, although a Protestant after 1905–1906, still made efforts to find a compromise between Christianity as a religion and Confucianism as an indispensable ethical system. Ch’oe Pyˇonghˇon (pen name: T’aksa, 1858–1927), a fellow Methodist convert of Yun Ch’iho, had been brought up in a scholarly Confucian family. In 1909, he published an apologetic treatise entitled Sˇongsan Myˇonggyˇong (Bright Mirror on a Sacred Mountain), where, while claiming that Christianity had a ‘unique ability to save souls’ and ridiculing Neo-Confucian cosmology, he openly used Confucian phraseology for Christian purposes. He took the assiduousness of Confucius and Mencius as an example of how humans, equally endowed by God, are able to develop their talents, and applied the old Confucian formula, ‘the people within the four seas are all brothers,’ to the universality of Christian faith.105 This sort of Confucian reception of Christianity, exemplified by Ch’oe Pyˇonghˇon’s Confucian-sounding apologetics, was much more common in Korean Christian circles during the 1900s than Yun Ch’iho’s outright rejection of the ‘old faith’ as an ‘impediment to survival and progress.’

The God of National Salvation Yun Ch’iho managed to continue his official career after the forcible dissolution of the Independence Club106 in 1899. He rose to the post of acting Minister of Foreign Affairs by the end of 1905, and was considered one of country’s foremost Christian leaders in the late 1900s.107 He was not— reasonably enough—particularly fond of Confucianism-bashing in public. However, while the older generation of 1900s nationalist ideologues was closer to Yu Kiljun’s views on the complementary nature of the old and new faiths,108 some younger Christian converts with Social Darwin105 Ch’oe Pyˇ onghˇon, Sˇongsan Myˇonggyˇong [Bright Mirror on a Sacred Mountain] (Seoul: Taedong Kwangjisa, 1909). 106 A reformist organisation connected with the the Tongnip Sinmun newspaper, which Yun co-founded together with Sˇo Chaep’il in July 1896 and subsequently led. 107 Yu Yˇ ongnyˇol, Kaehwagi uˇ i Yun Ch’iho yˇon’gu [Research on Yun Ch’iho in the Modern Reforms Period], Pp. 160–169. 108 John B. Duncan, “The Confucian Context of Reform”, in Kim Dong-no, John

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ist nationalist convictions began exhibiting views which were strikingly similar to Yun’s. One of them was a certain Yi Sˇungman (Syngman Rhee; pen name: U’nam, 1875–1965), another fellow Methodist convert and a radical activist in the Independence Club, whose radicalism eventually landed him in Hansˇong (Seoul) Prison on charges of subversion (1899– 1904). Yi spent his time learning English, reading on history and Christianity in English and classical Chinese, and penning editorials, many of them anonymous, for a popular daily, the Cheguk Sinmun (Imperial Newspaper, 1898–1910), while also writing small, unpublished pieces for himself. In one of these, Ipkuk i kyohwawibon (The Basis of State is Civilising [the People]), America was defined as the country in which civilisation prospered most, to the point where ‘mutinies, illegal fishing, deceit and jealousy have disappeared.’ This was a result of the fact that America ‘civilized’ its people by taking ‘the almighty Divinity as the judge ruling over men’s hearts.’ Another—untitled—piece, mainly devoted to the encouragement of Protestant missionary work and new education, stated that: […] only Protestantism cuts down all the age-old evils and makes salvation through faith its credo and liberation through freedom its main function. The fact that all the Protestant countries are continuously progressing now is a clear result of and excellent evidence for the advantages [of Protestantism].

A piece entitled Muhˇung sinhangmun (Making Efforts to Develop New Knowledge), ascribed all the progress made in Japan since the Meiji Restoration to the annual dispatch, at great cost, of hundreds of students to the United States. It warned Koreans that, unless they wish ‘to be ruined like India, Vietnam, or Burma,’ they should follow the same course in order to guarantee their survival in a world of rampant foreign aggression and incessant ‘insults from abroad.’ In such an emergency, the ‘readers of the old [Confucian] writings’ refusing to re-educate themselves in ‘civilised’ ways, were simply losers, ‘ruining their whole lives and giving up the wisdom and talents they are endowed with.’109 In Yi Sˇungman’s prison writings, unlike Yun Ch’iho’s diary, Confucianism is not lambasted at length. Instead, it is simply excluded, under the name of ‘old learning,’ from the list of what was considered relevant for Korea’s survival in the Darwinian storms of the new century. B. Duncan, and Kim Do-hyung (eds.) Reform and Modernity in the Taehan Empire (Seoul: Jimoondang, 2006), Pp. 105–127. 109 Yu Yˇ ongik, Chˇolmˇun nal uˇ i Yi Sˇungman [Yi Sˇungman in his Youth] (Seoul: Yˇonse Taehakkyo Ch’ulp’anbu, 2002), Pp. 307–326.

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A mixture of thirst for ‘national salvation and revival in Christ’ with a general Social Darwinist vision of a global hierarchy of the fittest nations with the U.S. at the apex, continued to be an important element of the ideology of Yi Sˇungman, the future first president of South Korea (1948– 1960), throughout his whole career.110 Of course, there was hardly such a thing as one single, consistent ‘Yi Sŭngman ideology.’ A deft, opportunistic politician, Yi Sŭngman was always able and willing to adopt the assumedly popular slogans and stances, even while some of them were mutually contradictory. Immediately before and during the Korean War (1950–1953), much of the South Korean governmental propaganda was based upon the ‘One People’ (Ilmin) ideology, which rejected both ‘capitalist exploitation’ and the ‘communist encouragement of class conflicts’ putting forward instead the ideal of an extended family-like ‘authentic state’ united by a ‘homogeneous bloodline’ and ‘common adherence to ethical standards.’ Korea, as a victimized weaker nation, was supposed to need such an ethno-national unity more than anybody else in a world dominated by Soviet, British and American imperialisms.111 While trying to mobilize anti-imperialist nationalist sentiments, he was said to have privately told Gen. Matthew Ridgway (1895–1993), the Commanderin-Chief of the American forces in Korea during the war, that he was prepared to sacrifice Korea for the sake of heightening America’s status and influence. Korea would be able to recover somehow, but the decline of America would deal a lethal blow to the entire ‘free world.’112 The obviously self-contradictory and rather opportunistic nature of Yi Sŭngman’s ideological pronouncements notwithstanding, it was clear that he basically envisioned the world engaged in unending, permanent strug110

As South Korea’s president in the 1950s, he continued to pride himself on his decision to ‘give up the old learning and fully adopt the new ways,’ learning English and converting to Christianity in the late 1890s. At the same time, he started to include positive references to Confucian ethics in his public statements and speeches in the mid-1950s, obviously hoping to use them as traditional legitimisation for his rule. See Sˇo Chungsˇok, Yi Sˇungman uˇ i chˇongch’i ideollogi [Yi Sˇungman’s Political Ideology] (Seoul: Yˇoksa Pip’yˇongsa, 2005), Pp. 172–205. 111 See the standard analysis of the ‘One People’ ideology in Sˇ o Chungsˇok, “Yi Sŭngman chŏngkwŏn ch’ogi ŭi ilminjuŭi wa p’asijŭm” [‘Ilmin’ Ideology and Fascism in the Early Period of Yi Sŭngman’s Regime], in Yŏksa munje yŏn’guso (ed.) 1950 nyŏndae Nambukhan ŭi sŏnt’aek kwa kuljŏl [Choices and Failures of South and North Korea in the 1950s] (Seoul: Yŏksa munje yŏn’guso, 1998), Pp. 17–71. 112 Cited in: Sˇ o Chungsˇok, “Yi Sŭngman chŏngkwŏn ch’ogi ŭi ilminjuŭi wa p’asijŭm” [‘Ilmin’ Ideology and Fascism in the Early Period of Yi Sŭngman’s Regime], in Yŏksa munje yŏn’guso (ed.) 1950 nyŏndae Nambukhan ŭi sŏnt’aek kwa kuljŏl [Choices and Failures of South and North Korea in the 1950s], Pp. 67–68.

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gle between large human collectives (be it competing nation-states, or ‘Communism vs. the free world’) endowed with unequal strength and resources, and saw collectivistic ‘unity’ as a key to ‘national survival.’ This underlying picture of a struggling world where ‘competition’ and ‘survival’ were the main coordinates seems to have been strongly influenced by the Social Darwinist tenets internalised by Yi Sˇungman already at the dawn of the twentieth century.

The Lineages of Korean Social Darwinism If, following the Social Darwinian logic of competition, we were to imagine that the three East Asian countries, China, Japan and Korea, were engaged in a race to introduce the latest European intellectual fashion at the earliest possible point, Korea would probably come slightly after Japan and much ahead of China. When Yu Kiljun was writing his Kyˇongjaeng non in 1883, the concept of the survival of the fittest was still a completely unknown concept in the country which still enjoyed formal suzerainty over its Korean vassal. Social Darwinist entries in Yun Ch’iho’s diary for the late 1880s to early 1890s also pre-date the introduction of Social Darwinist thought to China by a few years. However, Kyˇongjaeng non was circulated, at best, among a closely-knit circle of Yu’s kindred spirits, while Yun’s diary was not supposed to be read even by the closest members of his family. Yu’s encyclopaedic Sŏyu kyŏnmun, printed in 1895 in Tokyo in 1,000 copies, was not meant to be for sale. Yu personally signed most of the copies and sent them as gifts to his friends and acquaintances in Chosŏn officialdom in the hope of ‘enlightening’ them.113 Both Yu and Yun were probably among the most recognizable public intellectuals in Korea’s ‘enlightenment and progress movement’ of the 1890s and later. However, up to the very end of the 1900s, when both started contributing to newspapers and journals, their popularization of the Social Darwinist weltanschauung was, excluding Yun’s editorial involvement with the Tongnip Sinmun, of a rather private character. The popular Social Darwinism of the late 1900s reformist movement owed much less to Yu and Yun than it did to both Chinese and Japanese translations and interpretations of Euro-American Social Darwinist literature. The ‘Social Darwinisation’ of Korea’s modern consciousness was

113

Yi Kwangnin, Yu Kiljun (Seoul: Tong’a ilbosa, 1992), Pp. 83.

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by no means a smooth and gradual process, but was rather characterised by a series of ruptures and generational shifts. Yu’s and Yun’s Social Darwinism, based in both cases on the Euro-American originals, and heavily blended with Protestantism in the latter’s case, was largely supplanted after the mid-1900s by more localised, East Asian versions, adapted by Chinese and Japanese interpreters to the Confucian consciousness of Korea’s educated class which had been so deplored in Yun’s private writings.

chapter three SOCIAL DARWINISM FOR THE PUBLIC: THE TONGNIP SINMUN (THE INDEPENDENT) AND THE POPULARIZATION OF SOCIAL DARWINISM IN THE 1890S

Tongnip Sinmun and Koreans as a ‘Superior Race’ The Tongnip Sinmun (The Independent) was published from April 7, 1896, until December 4, 1899, by a dedicated group of reformers headed by Sŏ Chaep’il (1864–1951). A member of the scholar-official yangban class and former participant in the abortive December 1884 coup, Sŏ subsequently went to America via Japan, where he became naturalized under the name of Philip Jaisohn in 1890 and obtained his M.D. from the Columbian College (now George Washington University) in 1892. He returned to Korea on December 26, 1895, as an adviser to the proJapanese reformist government, and began the newspaper after King Kojong’s (r. 1863–1907) historic flight to the Russian Legation (February 11, 1896), with the close support of the new, pro-Russian and simultaneously pro-American regime. The newspaper was bilingual; the Korean part was edited by Chu Sangho1 and the English part by several foreign missionaries. Sŏ Chaep’il himself was the foremost editorial writer for both sections. But, as King Kojong became weary of Sŏ Chaep’il’s presumed radicalism and the Tongnip Sinmun’s campaign against ministers who were supposedly too pro-Russian, royal favour toward the newspaper enterprise began to run out. From May 12, 1898, as Sŏ Chaep’il was forced to return to the U.S., the editorship passed to his old acquaintance and collaborator Yun Ch’iho. Under his leadership, the Korean edition of the Tongnip Sinmun, previously printed three times a week, became a daily newspaper with a circulation of almost 1,500 copies. Initially, both Korean and English editions were two parts of a single newspaper, but from January 1897 onwards they were separated, and the English edition was printed only three times a week until the very end of the newspaper’s 1 Chu Sangho, also known as Chu Sigyŏng (1876–1914), later became a famous nationalist linguist.

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publication. Both the vernacular and English editions were discontinued on December 4, 1899, due to changed circumstances: Yun Ch’iho, the leader of the reform-minded Tongnip hyŏphoe (Independence Club), which was forcibly dissolved in November 1898, had to leave Seoul, and management of the newspaper passed to missionaries who ultimately found it impossible to continue publication.2 The perceived radicalism of Sŏ Chaep’il and his associates eventually brought about a strong response from the government and serious persecution of many of the Tongnip hyŏphoe activists. In Western academia, the Tongnip hyŏphoe and Tongnip Sinmun were long considered important milestones in the process of shaping Korea’s modern nationalism in all its aspects—linguistic as well as political and social. Currently the most comprehensive book on the 1890s reform movement is the study by Vipan Chandra, which makes good use of the existing Western and South Korean scholarship. Making extensive references to the Social Darwinist views espoused—in varying forms— by Sŏ Chaep’il and Yun Ch’iho, as well as to their often clumsy attempts to link Christianity with nationalist ideals, Chandra draws a coherent picture of the creation of Korea’s nascent nationalist ideology during the 1890s on the basis of their neophyte admiration for the newly-imported Western ideas. Chandra defines the general attitude of Korea’s self-styled civilizers toward the newly discovered ‘civilized world’ as one marked by ‘enthusiastic curiosity’ and, on some occasions, even the ‘zealotry of new converts.’ He also shows how their optimistic views on the advent of foreign (primarily American) enterprise were underpinned by a Social Darwinist belief in the inevitability and positive effects of competition. But this same optimism was simultaneously tempered by well-founded worries about the possible ‘impoverishment of the nation.’ Thus, Chandra raises the question of the underlying ambiguity in the early nationalistic attitudes toward the foreign models being applied to Korea’s own nation building project.3 Sŏ Chaep’il’s ideas and role in this period were the subject of heated debates in South Korean academia during the 1980s and 1990s, when 2 Yi Kwangnin, “Sŏ Chaep’il ŭi tongnip sinmun kanhaeng e taehayŏ.” [On the Publishing of The Independent by Sŏ Chaep’il] in Han’guk kaehwa sasang yŏn’gu [Studies on Korean Enlightenment Thought in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries]. (Seoul: Iljogak, 1981), Pp. 164–167. 3 Vipan Chandra, Imperialism, Resistance, and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988), Pp. 132–144.

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Occidentalist projects of modernity first came seriously into question with the growth of a militantly nationalist and anti-American Left. The traditional view of the ideological inclinations of the Sŏ Chaep’il-led pro-American reformers described them as enlightenment thinkers and characterized Sŏ himself as the ‘Korean Voltaire’4 and Korea’s first linguistic nationalist. However, the revisionist historians of the 1980s and 1990s questioned both the nationalist and democratic credentials of the 1890s reformers. These critics emphasized Sŏ Chaep’il’s statist (kukkwŏnjuŭi-jŏk), elite-centred view of civic rights, the Eurocentric and Social Darwinist background to his understanding of civilization, as well as the subsequent ‘defeatism’ (p’aebaejuŭi) in his views on Korea’s development. They turned the attention of the public to the fact that Sŏ viewed the imperialist grab for Korean territory and sovereignty as historically inevitable once Korea had followed China in its perceived failure to civilize itself.5 While attacking an early modern figure for his failure to conform to the standards and ideals of a movement that arose several decades after his death may justifiably be considered a rather ahistorical approach, the 1980s–1990s criticism of Sˇo and his modernisation efforts does hold water as far as its analysis of Sˇo’s ideological roots is concerned. The Tongnip Sinmun was indeed the first mass circulation organ in Korean media history that began a serious popularisation of Social Darwinist doctrines; and it was Social Darwinism applied to international politics that formed the backbone of the Tongnip Sinmun’s view of the outside world. In this chapter, I will emphasize the influence which the ‘survival of the fittest’ ideology exerted on various aspects of the Tongnip Sinmun’s worldview. I will show that Sŏ Chaep’il and his collaborators assessed Koreans’ chances to become ‘fittest’ and ‘survive’ comparatively highly, since Koreans were presumed to possess a relatively good ‘natural racial background.’ However, ‘survival’ required not only ‘nature,’ but also ‘nurture’—and both the employment of Russian drill officers for the Korean army and trade with Japan were seen as essential for the ‘civilizing process’ which was meant to enable the ‘Korean race’ to survive in the new, competitive world. The haughty attitudes of some Japanese settlers in Korea were thought to endanger this all-important ‘civilizing process,’

4 Yi Kwangnin, “Sŏ Chaep’il ŭi kaehwa sasang.” [Sŏ Chaep’il’s Reformist Ideology] Tongbang hakchi, Vol. 18, 1978, Pp. 148–193. 5 Chu Chino, “Tongnip hyŏphoe ŭi kaehwaron kwa minjokchuŭi” [The Independent Club’s Views of “Progressive Reforms” and Nationalism], Hyŏnsang kwa ŭisik, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1996, Pp. 11–40.

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and were countered, in some cases, by appeals to the highest known ‘civilized’ authority, that of the Western media and scholarship. All in all, the Tongnip Sinmun’s ‘civilizing project’ envisioned a ‘rebirth’ of the Korean people into a new, internationally integrated and highly competitive entity, belonging rather to the ‘fittest’ of this world than to the ‘unfit’ casualties of the ‘spread of civilization’ in the imperialist age. The latter were blamed themselves for their misfortunes by Sŏ Chaep’il and his associates. Tongnip Sinmun used also to tell its readers that these misfortunes were partly caused by the racial inferiority of the non-Western victims of ‘civilization and progress.’ The modern world as seen by Sŏ Chaep’il and his collaborators was an arena of competition which primarily unfolded on the racial level. It was clear for the mid-1890s Korean reformers that not all races were equally fit to compete: As we have already mentioned, humans also belong to the biological realm of animals. Among the animals, they belong to the mammals. […] If we discuss only the physiology of humans, we are similar to the monkeys. […] Among humans, there are various categories: black humans, yellow humans, red humans, and white humans. […] The Blacks […] are generally even more stupid than the Oriental race (tongyang injong), and are despicable compared to the White race. The autochthonous race (t’ojong) in the USA […] is even less civilized than the Oriental race. […] Today, the White race is the most clever, diligent, and brave among all the races in the world. The Whites are spread all over the world, and gradually win over the inferior races. The Whites take their lands, trees, and plants. That is why those among the inferior races who do not mix with the Whites and do not learn their knowledge in order to become their equals are gradually being extinguished without being able to make progress in civilizing themselves. In countries like the USA, the autochthonous race, being unable to learn civilization and progress from the Whites, have been reduced in numbers from several tens of millions to just several thousand during the course of the last two hundred years. Now they live in the mountains and forests off the clothes and food they are given by the American government, their numbers decreasing every year, so that soon their seed will disappear.6

Though not the members of the ‘superior White race,’ the Koreans were thought by Sˇo and his allies to possess a reasonably good racial background for civilizing themselves. They were often addressed by the Tongnip Sinmun as ‘the first race of the Orient,’ and said to be unquestionably superior to the ‘slow, dirty and stubborn Chinese, unable to 6 Korean editorial, June 24, 1897, Han’guk munhwa yesul chinhŭngwŏn (ed.) Tongnip Sinmun (Reprint), (Seoul: Kabˇul ch’ulp’ansa, 1981), Vol. 2, Pp. 299.

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learn from the good example of others and unable to feel shame even when ridiculed by others.’ Sometimes Koreans were even judged to be superior to the Japanese, who had profited from ‘emulating civilization,’ but still suffered from their ‘innate impetuousness.’ The only thing Koreans had to do in order to realise their supposed racial potential was to study. Then Korea would be able to acquire the dreamed of ‘equality with all the other countries.’7 A later, 1899 editorial, tellingly entitled ‘Differences between Races and Countries’ (Injong kwa nara uˇ i punbyˇol), suggested again that Korea, as a nation belonging to the ‘usable Yellow race’ which had earlier made efforts at ‘civilizing itself and reforming its laws and institutions,’ should consistently work to reinvent itself as a superior state (sangdˇungguk).8 Drawing upon the opinions of two contemporary British scholar-diplomats, William George Aston (1841–1911) and Ernest Mason Satow (1843–1929), Sˇo’s newspaper—in both its Korean and English versions—suggested also that the Ainu-related Neolithic ‘aborigines’ of Japan had been conquered by a proto-Korean ‘Manchurian’ people. The conquerors were assumed to have operated from their bases on the Korean Peninsula, and their conquest of Japan was supposed to have made the Japanese language notably similar to Korean. These ‘civilized proto-Koreans’ were, however, further conquered by ‘warlike and less civilized Malay-like people arriving from the South,’ and that made Japanese phonetics—with substantives ending not with consonants as often happens in Korean but mostly with vowels—different from Korean and more like the phonetic systems of the languages of Southern Oceania.9 This theory did not simply connect the racial origins of the Japanese to Korea, but also effectively elevated Korea to become the original source of Japanese civilization.10 As feats on the scale of the ‘conquest of ancient Japan’ suggested, Koreans were thought to be ‘racially fit’ for soldiering, and this point was often high7

Korean editorial, May 30, 1896. This editorial is omitted in the 1981 reprint of the Tongnip Sinmun, but is cited in its entirety in Kim Yuwŏn, Paengnyŏn twi e tasi ingnŭn tongnip sinmun. [“Tongnip Sinmun” Reread a Century Later] (Seoul: Kyŏng’in munhwasa, 1999), Pp. 284. 8 Korean editorial, September 11, 1899, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 6, Pp. 237–238. 9 Korean editorial, April 6, 1897, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 2, Pp. 157; “The Origins of the Japanese Race”, the Independent, April 15–17, 1897, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 7, Pp. 291–295. 10 On late nineteenth-century European theories on the ‘continental origins’ of the Japanese and their subsequent influence both on Japanese historiography and Korean nationalism, see: Chizuko T. Allen, “Early Migrations, Conquests and Common Ancestry: Theorizing Japanese Origins in Relation with Korea”, Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 2008, pp. 105–130.

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lighted in the Tongnip Sinmun’s editorials. One of the English editorials stated, for example: So far as physique is concerned, the Korean has a decided advantage over all Eastern people—with the exception of the northern Manchu soldiers who are stalwart, powerful fellows. One of the marked characteristics of the Korean is his ability to walk long distances at a stretch. He has a light, springy step that takes him along at four miles an hour all day long; and a hundred li, or thirty miles, is only a common day’s walk for a Korean travelling in the interior. If need be, he can raise the figure to forty or fifty miles a day and keep it up for days in succession. From the earliest days of Korean history till the present time the crying need has been for proper leaders. It is well-known that in China and Korea military rank is not on an equal level with civil rank but is a step below, and so through all the centuries the best places in the army have been filled by men who were not bred to the profession of arms but who had enough influence to secure the best military positions in connection with other offices of a civil nature. […] Consequently, the best things in the army have fallen into the mouth of civilians who were not at all skilled in the art of war or even in the managing of an army in time of peace so as to make it effective if a war should break out. […] The time must come when an army position will be as high an honour as a civil position. Look at Germany, England or France.11

‘New Education’: ‘Nurturing the Strength’ ‘Nature’ was an asset, rather than a liability for Koreans. The problem, Sˇo and his associates suggested, was instead ‘nurture,’ or rather, its deficit. Thus, Korea’s first necessity was the development of a modern education system. Without it, the Tongnip Sinmun assured its readers, the country’s productive capacities would be gradually taken over by foreigners in a couple of centuries. However, if Korea were to introduce a modern education system, it had a good chance in the international competition for wealth and strength.12 Such education had to be freed from the domination of classical Chinese, which encouraged conservatism, discouraged new learning and had eventually transformed East Asia from one of the ‘cradles of world civilization’ into an area ‘backward in comparison with Europe and America.’ It also had to be freed from the obsession with learning foreign languages and the blind emulation of foreign countries, being instead solidly grounded in Korean patriotism and exclusive 11 12

July 11, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 7, Pp. 42. Korean editorial, March 20, 1899, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 5, Pp. 233–234.

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loyalty to the Korean state.13 As the readers will see in Chapter Six, this fear that foreign language instruction without sufficient patriotic learning would result in the mass-production of potential ‘foreign hangerson’ or ‘spies’ became even stronger in the first decade of the twentieth century. On a personal level, the Tongnip Sinmun suggested, the new education had to be based, aside from patriotism, upon ‘enlightened self-interest.’ The willingness to ‘employ nature’s laws to subdue nature’ and increase one’s own comfort and prosperity was encouraged and promoted by the newspaper’s accounts of the pleasures of life in ‘enlightened foreign countries.’14 And, last but not least, it had to be accompanied by the promotion and development of a ‘warlike spirit’ and the habits of military discipline, which Sˇo viewed as one of the central elements of the civilization Korea was set to acquire. Civilization as described in the Tongnip Sinmun was predominantly masculine, ruled by the ethics of competition and conquest. On an individual level, ‘civilized masculinity’ meant controlling, disciplining and training one’s body, making it fit on the most basic physical level, and also strengthening one’s character, and preparing one’s mind and soul for the rigours of the struggle for survival. The writers of the Tongnip Sinmun were undoubtedly influenced, as the readers will see in Chapter Seven, by contemporary European ideals of manhood, as drill and discipline came to prominence in late Victorian times, with all their militarist and imperialist fervour.15 In their belief that only the rigorous training of the body could lead to proper character-building, they paid particular attention to the newlyintroduced militarised exercises in Seoul’s elite schools. For example, an English editorial published on June 26, 1897, described militarised sport exercises performed in the royal presence by three of Seoul’s governmental foreign language schools (English, Russian, and French) in the following laudatory way: The Government schools, in which Koreans are receiving tuition in foreign languages, English, Russian, French and Japanese, are, we believe, all doing excellent work, and the scholars are showing not only that they have no mean capacity for learning languages, but also that they have aptitude 13 “Yujigakhan ch’in’gu u ˇ i kˇul” (An Article by an Awakened Friend), September 19–21, 1898, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 4, Pp. 161–170. 14 “Knowledge”, April 10, 1897, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 7, Pp. 282. 15 James Mangan, “Social Darwinism and Upperclass Education in Late Victorian and Edwardian England”, in James Mangan and James Walvin (eds.) Manliness and Morality: Middle-class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987).

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chapter three for physical exercises, which, in our opinion, though Koreans as a race are well-developed, are necessary to stir up the blood made stagnant by their hitherto indolent and sedentary manner of life. A proof that Koreans also have physical power and endurance was shown a few days ago at the athletic sports of the Royal English School; and on Tuesday last still further proof was given of this when the three first mentioned schools, by royal command, appeared before His Majesty on the new drill ground in Chongdong. The English School appeared first on the parade ground, looking very smart in their new khaki uniforms with red stripes and lacings. The first company carried rifles […]. Sergeant Boxwell of the British Marines, who has been drilling the English School students and to whose efforts the students owe their efficiency, precision and discipline, first put them through various evolutions […]. When the Russian School had gone through their exercises, His Majesty expressed his wish to witness a further exhibition by the English scholars, upon which the boys advanced and went through some physical exercises. […] We think it wise of His Majesty to take a personal interest in the training of his young subjects, and to encourage and foster the spirit of loyalty and patriotism shown by young men […].16

The connection between the precision and discipline of the militarised drill or games, the ‘multi-faceted character’ it supposedly developed, and the ‘spirit of loyalty and patriotism’ was evident for many schoolmasters in the public schools of late Victorian England or for Robert BadenPowell (1857–1941), the founder of the Scout movement.17 And it was elaborated upon in the Tongnip Sinmun’s April 29, 1897, Korean editorial, which cites a speech delivered by Sˇo Chaep’il on the occasion of a gymnastics demonstration by students from the government primary school that had taken place two days previously: Judging from the fact that the place for the gymnastics demonstration here is decorated with Korean flags, we can assume that the Koreans have gradually begun to understand what the national flag is and appreciate its importance. The hoisting of the national flag represents the King above and the people below, and this means that it represents the country [as a whole]. That the students at their sports demonstration have hoisted the national flag means that the Korean people have gradually come to wish Korea to be as sovereign and independent in the world as other countries. 16

Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 7, Pp. 414. Allen Warren. “Popular Manliness: Baden Powell, Scouting and the Development of Manly Character”, in James Mangan and James Walvin (eds.) Manliness and Morality: Middle-class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), Pp. 199–219. 17

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Thus, to train their bodies and enhance their health through sports is no less important for the students than diligent learning. For a weakling […] learning is of no avail, but strength without learning is useless as well.18

In the same way that the bodies of the ‘valorous’ (wehrhafte) German men were understood by patriotic opinion in 1813–1815 Prussia during the wars against France to represent the whole German volk as a masculine entity,19 the healthy bodies of the gymnastics-loving Korean students came, in Sˇo Chaep’il’s nationalist imagination, to be symbolically associated with the Korean flag as the embodiment of the whole nation. The vision of a nation as an entity, represented by a well-disciplined, regimented group of physically fit men, able and willing to exercise or playfully simulate violence on command was a sort of universalistic discourse for the publishers of the Tongnip Sinmun. Other nations were also represented in a similar way on its pages. A brief article from the English ‘Local Items’ column (April 16, 1898), dealing with a party organized by Japanese officers in the barracks of the Japanese troops stationed in the Myˇongdong quarter of Seoul for the Korean officers and some resident foreigners, introduced ‘Japanese wrestling’ (evidently, this meant sumō) as Japan’s national sport. According to this article, ‘almost every son of the Oriental Yankee’ was ‘more or less expert’ in it. Soldiers were obviously the quintessential ‘Japanese’ in this respect, as the sight of their wrestling bodies gave rise to much admiration on the part of the Tongnip Sinmun’s anonymous correspondent: ‘[T]he well-proportioned bodies and limbs of the brawny soldiers displayed a fine play of muscles during the struggle.’ In the same vein, the ‘agility of movement and sturdiness of arms and legs’ demonstrated by the Japanese soldiers during the gymnastic exercises were greatly admired as well. All-in-all, wrestling, gymnastics, and fencing, in addition to a patriotic amateur drama performance and military songs, were understood by the Tongnip Sinmun as displaying the ‘true Japanese spirit; that is, everyone is willing and ready to die for his Fatherland.’20 Disciplined movement and the spirit of self-sacrifice were tied together in the discourse of nationalized masculinity. And, as one of 18

Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 2, Pp. 201. Ute Frevert, “Soldaten, Staatsbürger: überlegungen zur historischen Konstruktion von Männlichkeit” [Soldiers, Citizens: Reflections on the Historical Construction of Masculinity], in Thomas Kühne (ed.) Männergeschichte—Geschlechtergeschichte: Männlichkeit im Wandel der Moderne [The History of Men—The History of Gender: Masculinity in the Transition to Modernity] (Frankfurt a. M.: Campus Verlag, 1996), Pp. 69– 87. 20 Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 8, Pp. 434. 19

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Tongnip Sinmun’s English editorials (January 8, 1898) put it, the drilling of Korean troops by foreign officers so that ‘their demeanours would be brought up to the modern methods’ was the only hope for Korea. Just as ‘native troops’ were made ‘effective’ in India by virtue of ‘civilized’ that is, British leadership and training, why could not Korean males in uniform undergo the same process of regeneration?21

Japan as Model and Partner Japan’s significance to Korea was not limited to the supposed ‘racial connection’ or to the great impression made upon Sˇo and his associates by the degree to which the Japanese had apparently internalised modern notions of patriotism or developed European techniques of bodily discipline. More broadly, Japan’s speedy modernisation after the Meiji Restoration fed the Koreans’ hopes for a similarly rapid climb to the heights of ‘wealth and power.’ In one of his Korean editorials, Sˇo summarized the lessons of Japan’s recent past in the following way: Thirty years ago, Japan was even less open than Korea. After the trade relationship with the West was established, Iwakura Tomomi, Saigō Takamori, Ōkubo Toshimichi, Ōkuma Shigenobu, Fukuzawa Yukichi and others exhausted all their efforts to enlighten the ignorant people, reform the government and educate the populace. Commerce and agriculture were learned from abroad, methods of the production of goods and all kinds of noble subjects were studied in foreign countries, and as a result, today’s Japan is more civilized and enlightened than the Japan of the old days.22

This eulogy to Japan’s elite-driven revolution from above is interesting not only because it finds in the Japanese example the rationale for strengthening the position of Korea’s own modernizing elite, but also because of its obvious efforts to show that such reforms were achievable. Japan, which was ‘even less civilized than Korea’ before the beginning of the Meiji adventure, serves here as a tangible example of the viability of Sŏ Chaep’il’s own reformist project. The same article ends with a picture of what Sŏ Chaep’il considered to be the ideal mode of the Korean-Japanese relationship:

21 22

Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 8, Pp. 266. April 18, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 21–22.

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When Japan, at the point of advising the Korean government, wishes to do it in the best interests of Korea’s government and people, she should not be excessively attached to small issues, but should, instead, treat Korea as a neighbourly, brotherly state, and treat Koreans as friends. It should help the Korean people with the powers of reason, raising up their love of independence, teaching them the laws and philosophy of loyalty to the sovereign and saving the people, and doing everything for the successful implementation of new ways and methods. After doing this, the Japanese will be thought of with gratitude, as good old friends of Korea. If the Japanese residents in Korea work with a thought about their government’s intentions and pronouncements, Korea will become a truly independent state, and the exchanges between the two countries will be closer. This will benefit commerce, but will also strengthen Asia in general. I hope that the intelligent people of Japan will not despise Koreans and provoke mutual displeasure. The new Minister Plenipotentiary of Japan is a graduate of an American university, and is very knowledgeable about Korean affairs. We believe that during his tenure as minister, the relationship between the two countries will become closer, and the two people will assist each other to their mutual benefit.23

With a grain of the Pan-Asianism that was currently fashionable, Sŏ Chaep’il includes Japanese modern expertise in his well-known master plan for the ‘speedy development of Korean resources […] under expert foreign tutelage’ that had been proclaimed in the first issue of the newspaper.24 The kind of ‘neighbourly participation’ expected from Japan in the process of developing Korea is explained in detail in the paper’s English editorial of April 18, 1896: Korea has about the same area as Japan but only one third the population. This has much to do with the question as to what the future of Korea is to be. It is true that at the present moment a coldness has sprung up between the two but in the long run business interests will assert themselves, and Korea and Japan are so situated and their business interests so dovetail the one into the other that whatever their relations may be politically, their business relations cannot but be intimate. […] The relation of Korea’s area to her population shows that she is capable of producing vastly more than her people can consume. It follows that the exports from Korea must increase as fast as Korea opens up her agricultural and mineral resources. […] Korea has so much room in herself and so much to absorb the attention of the people that the carrying trade will for many a decade fall to the lot of others. That it will be Japan is as evident as anything can be in these days of rapid changes. Japan does almost the whole of the carrying trade of Korea and no competitor is in sight. 23 24

April 18, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun Vol. 1, Pp. 22. April 7, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun Vol. 1, Pp. 4.

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chapter three In the second place, Japan is becoming more and more a land of manufacturers. Wool, cotton, and silk manufactories are springing up all over the land. […] Already this tendency has far outrun Japan’s capacity for producing the raw material, and she is looking in all directions for it. Korea is nearest to her and easiest of access; she has the most spare area that is cultivable, and her soil, climate and temperature are eminently suited to supply the very things that are there wanting. The southern provinces of Korea produce cotton of superior quality, and her northern provinces abound in the most admirable timber. Both bituminous and anthracite coal are found in large quantities and as Japanese manufactories increase and her merchant marine multiplies Korean coal mines will be called into requisition. Korea’s capacity for silk culture is practically unlimited. […] As Japanese energies become directed more and more toward manufacturing, she will demand more and more foodstuff from abroad. Here also Korea will supplement Japan to a marked degree. Already Korean rice has obtained a firm foothold in the Japanese market and at times the carrying capacity of all the vessels plying to the Korean ports has been quite inadequate for its transportation. […] A third important consideration relates to the vast tracts of land in Korea that are too hilly for successful cultivation. There is one and only one way by which these could be made to yield splendid revenue. It is by sheep raising [italics in the original—V.T.]. If the Korean people could supply the Japanese woollen mills with their raw material, they could at one stroke utilize their thousands of square miles of steep hillsides, give occupation to thousands of their people and secure a steady and rich revenue to themselves. […] We are all aware of inborn and inbred antipathy between the two races but that need not interfere seriously with these commercial relations. […] There are plenty of capable Koreans to act as agents and middlemen between the Japanese factory and the Korean field.25

This article looks like a blueprint for involving Korea in the sort of process of dependent development characteristic of latecomers into the capitalist world-system. In world-system theory terms, Japan was to act as a regional core state (or semi-core in terms of the world-system as a whole), while Korea was supposed to become Japan’s new periphery, supplying it with raw materials (minerals, foodstuffs, textile raw materials, etc.) in exchange for manufactured goods. Among scholars who have analysed the development of Korean-Japanese economic relations from 1876 onward, there is little doubt that from the beginning of mutual trade, Korea did become Japan’s periphery in economic terms. It exported mainly rice and other foodstuffs (together with gold and some 25

Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 24.

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minerals) and imported manufactured goods, mostly British-made in the beginning, but also an increasing proportion of Japanese-produced goods towards the mid-1890s.26 A British consular report for 1896 admitted that while the import of British shirting, sheeting and cottons was in steep decline, the import of the Japanese-made textiles was speedily increasing, due to their price competitiveness and ‘the care and attention [the Japanese] have paid to the requirements of the Corean market.’ If the value of the British and American sheeting imported to Korea in 1895 (£ 13,094) significantly exceeded the value of Japanese-made sheeting imports (£ 8,529), 1896 saw the reversal of this trend. Japanese sheeting imports of that year (£ 12,548) greatly outweighed their British and American rivals (£ 6,399).27 Even The Times reported on July 20, 1896, that the total imports of Japanese cottons to Korea had risen from £ 5,000 in 1893 to £ 12,500 in 1895, at the expense of the pricier British goods.28 Thus, the Tongnip Sinmun article was rather an expression of approval for existing trends than a novel proposal for Korea’s economic development. In the context of the history of Korea’s Social Darwinist ideology by the mid-1890s, such approval hardly comes as a surprise. Already in the late 1880s and early 1890s, Yu Kiljun was blaming Korean ‘laziness’ and ‘lack of aptitude’ for the diminished stature of the country in the new system of international exchanges. Explaining modern commodity production and trade in his Sŏyu kyŏnmun, Yu Kiljun finds the following reason for the plight of poor resource-exporting countries: As all the knowledgeable people know, merchandise is generally classified into natural and manufactured goods. In countries where the number of idle parasites is small, natural goods are rarely exported, but the production of manufacturers prospers. These countries have to buy the natural goods from other lands, and then process them with their skills and technology. As the processed manufactured goods are afterwards shipped back to the suppliers of the resources, it looks as if these manufacturing countries, their own lack of resources notwithstanding, can own and use the resources of others. But countries where idle parasites abound, even if they have plentiful resources, have to ship these resources to the manufacturing 26 Alvin So and Stephen Chiu, East Asia and the World Economy. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995), Pp. 77–94. 27 “Mr Jordan to the Marquess of Salisbury (received at Foreign Office, June 8, 1897)”, Park Il Keun, Anglo-American and Chinese Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea (Pusan: Pusan University, Institute of Chinese Studies, 1984), Pp. 893–903. 28 Kim Wˇ onmo et al. (eds.) Kaehwagi Han’guk kwallyˇon kumi Sinmun charyojip [Collection of Euro-American Newspaper Materials on Korea in the Modernising Reforms’ Period] (Seoul: Tan’guk Taehakkyo Tongyanghak Yˇon’guso, 2001), Pp. 69.

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chapter three lands and then buy the finished goods, for they lack both skills and technology. England, for example, is known around the world as a land of scant natural resources but it is the biggest manufacturer among all the countries, and the reason for this is the complete absence of an idle parasitic populace there. So, as we can see, the strength and wealth of a country depend on the diligence or laziness of its populace, not on the abundance or scarcity of natural resources. The greatness of Western countries today, with their ability to control the world’s material resources, is due precisely to this quality. African Blacks or American Redmen have natural resources, plentiful to the point of even not being very much treasured, and how are these resources used?29

Yu Kiljun assumed that a civilised state was duty-bound to offer legal protection to its merchants and to maintain the transportation infrastructure necessary for the development of home-grown merchant capitalists. It was also supposed to educate its merchants and to assist in supplying them with information about foreign markets and prices; that is, to create a level playing field for competition with foreign capital.30 Always keen to protect what he regarded as Korea’s national interests, Yu Kiljun also submitted in 1892 a special memorial on the Japanese fishing activities along Korea’s southern coast and in the waters around Cheju Island. He argued that, as long as the existing treaties and Korea’s relatively weak international position could allow it, the Japanese fishermen had to be restricted from sojourning on the Korean coast—lest they, with their superior equipment, should put the Korean fishers out of business.31 But—all his concerns for Korea’s commercial interests notwithstanding —he was too much of an ‘unimpeded international trade’ adept to believe that the state had to go any further in its protectionist efforts. Even the failure of a particular country to develop from a resource exporter into a producer of manufactured goods would not diminish in his eyes the importance of unfettered world trade, which was, in his flowery Confucian parlance, ‘to make the four seas into one house and to help the people increase their mutual benefits.’32 Sˇo Chaep’il, in his declarations of principles, demonstrated a similar degree of enthusiasm. As the readers will see later, he was not unaware of the ruinous consequences of Japanese competition for Korean domestic manufacturing and trade, and he did attempt to stand up for the interests of Korean merchants whenever he 29

Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 1, Pp. 365–366. Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 1, Pp. 363–368. 31 Hŏ Tonghyŏn, Yu Kiljun nonsosŏn [Selection of Yu Kiljun’s Treatises and Memorials], (Seoul: Iljogak, 1987), Pp. 64–71. 32 Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇ o [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 1, Pp. 363. 30

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could do so without violating the cherished principles of ‘unimpeded international trade.’ The Tongnip Sinmun viewed free-trade imperialism as well as penetration into and domination over non-Western regions by the Western powers as simply an extension of biological laws. Thus, Russia’s success in acquiring railway concessions in Manchuria was commented upon as follows: We care very little who owns the railroads and steamships that carry our cargo and ourselves when we transport our goods or when we are travelling. All we care for are good accommodation and rapid transportation. If these can be accomplished by Russia’s energy and diplomatic skill, we would rather praise her for it than entertain any jealousy or ill feeling. China is absolutely incapable of accomplishing any such feat for the good of her own people or the peoples of the world. Then, let some nation go there and open up the immense territory for the good of the whole universe. The result of such enterprise will certainly benefit the Chinese themselves. […] History tells us that wherever Western civilization has made its appearance, the place was transformed into a new country altogether. The […] plains of the Western prairies of America have become happy homes of many million souls […]. We hope the time will soon come when Western civilization will penetrate every corner of the Continent of Asia […].33

Western commercial activities in Korea—including Japanese endeavours, as far as they did not explicitly threaten Korea’s vital interests— were greeted by Sŏ Chaep’il with equal enthusiasm: We are greatly encouraged with the gradual development of commerce, industry, education, and the rapid propagation of Christianity. There are now four foreign banks in this city [Seoul—V.T.] beside two small native institutions. The oldest and one of the most reliable banks here is the Dai Ichi Ginko, which has branch offices right in Seoul, as well as in Chemulpo. It was the first banking house established in the capital after the opening of the country. During the past ten years, the bank has proven itself to the public to be thoroughly trustworthy […]. Now we have the Russo-Korean Bank in Seoul, and it is almost a certainty that the newcomer will soon be one of the chief banking houses in Korea.34

Japan as Threat and Victimiser However, his ardent belief in the beneficial nature of the international trade, the informal imperialism of the concessions, railway construction and investment, and his sincere admiration for Meiji Japan’s develop33 34

English editorial, November 14, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 384. English editorial, March 5, 1898, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 8, Pp. 362.

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mental successes did not dampen Sˇo Chaep’il’s readiness to fight back when he felt that Korea as a whole or individual Koreans were threatened by imperialism in its ruder and more predatory from. Of course, ‘fighting back’ did not mean physical resistance. Korea, as seen by Sˇo, was hardly fit for this, and overspending on the military could jeopardise crucial reforms in other, more important sectors, notably education. Sˇo the journalist, armed with American education and citizenship, resisted Japanese high-handedness by appealing to what the Meiji Japanese themselves were supposed to admire and follow, namely the ‘paramount’ standards of Western civilization. Already in the second month of its publication, the Tongnip Sinmun carried an editorial strongly critical of Japan’s high-handed demands to Korea for governmental compensation for the loss of Japanese life due to the Confucian Righteous Armies (ŭibyŏng) guerrilla war and the general enmity against Japanese in the provinces: The claim made by the Japanese Government for an indemnity of $ 5,000 for each Japanese life taken by Korean insurgents or others in the country is still before the Korean Government pending settlement. […] Japan has no other or larger rights in Korea than has England, America, France, or any other power, and her citizens have no rights in Korea that do not pertain to the citizens of any other power in treaty with Korea. This first proposition seems beyond dispute. The second is that the present disturbed condition of affairs is an outcome of the intervention of the Japanese in the politics of Korea. However good may have been Japan’s motive in this intervening, it is evident that the present state of affairs is due to that intervention. In the third place, this disturbed condition of affairs was very greatly increased by the events of October 8, 1895, when, at Japanese instigation, the Queen was murdered. It enraged the people against the Japanese and made it extremely unsafe for any of that nationality to go into the interior […]. Very few of the Japanese, who have gone into the country during the last year, were provided with passports [italics in the original—V.T.]. When was it that Japanese subjects were accorded the privilege of travelling at will about the country without passports, to be protected by the Korean government at a risk of $5,000 a head? With the known combativeness of Japanese merchants in Korea and the rude way they treat Koreans, it would have been folly to have granted them passports excepting on the clear condition that they went at their own risk. […] The Japanese who were killed in the country were where they had no legal right to be [italics in the original—V.T.] and the Korean government would be wholly absolved from responsibility in the matter even if there were not evidence that the Japanese were the main cause of the troubles. But how stands the other side of the account? The Korean Repository strikes the nail on the head when it says: ‘Kill a coolie in the alley—$ 5,000; murder a Queen in her chamber—gomen nasai’. […]

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We believe that Korea and Japan ought to be of great mutual benefit to each other commercially and industrially but it is evident that Japan needs Korea more than Korea needs Japan and so long as Japan goes on intensifying the hatred which Koreans feel toward her so much farther will she be from attaining an end devoutly to be wished: Reciprocity between the two countries and the supplementing of the material needs of each by the resources of other.35

As the readers can understand from the article, Sŏ Chaep’il appeals to the highest ‘civilised’ authority he knows36—the Korean Repository printed by Western protestant missionaries, in which he himself published, too37—in order to subvert Japan’s attempt to exploit the Korean government’s weakness. He reminds his readers that, from the Korean Repository’s civilised view, the Japanese merchants killed by Korean ‘insurgents’ are no more than ‘coolies.’ He emphatically approves of the Western-enforced system of unequal treaties with the powers—which, after all, guaranteed him, an American citizen, from attempts upon his life and freedom while he was in Korea—as a whole, while censuring Japan for its intentions to go further than the treaties stipulate in pressuring the Korean government. In the end, he again cites his pet theory of the mutually supplementary nature of the Korean and Japanese economies, emphasizing Japan’s urgent need for Korea’s raw materials—and thus, the necessity to treat Koreans in a way which would be more conducive to the maintenance and development of economic ties. It may be said that Sˇo Chaep’il’s eloquent rebuttal of the Japanese claims followed, in a certain way, the interests of the fledgling native commercial class. Japanese constituted 79 percent of all the foreigners in Korea by 1894, and the presence of several thousands of unlicensed Japanese traders (chamsang), well-equipped with Mexican silver dollars, Japanese textiles and sundry modern goods in the interior did have a serious impact on Korean commerce. Rice prices rose in response to the Japanese demand, Korean pottery was gradually supplanted by Japanese 35 English editorial, May 2, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 48; On the Japanese claims for compensation for the loss of Japanese life and property, see more in: “ConsulGeneral Hillier to Mr. Beauclerk, Seoul, March 24, 1896”, Park Il Keun, Anglo-American and Chinese Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea, Pp. 794–796. 36 Andre Schmid, Korea between Empires, 1895–1919. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), Pp. 32–38. 37 See, for example, his article in which he summarised his programme for Korea’s ‘civilization and progress’: Philip Jaisohn, “What Korea Needs Most”, Korean Repository, March 1896, Pp. 109–111.

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factory-produced ceramics, and Korean itinerant traders (pobusang) felt seriously threatened by the Japanese competition. In large part due to Japanese traders’ activities in the interior, by 1900 half of the cotton consumed by Koreans was already of foreign—chiefly Japanese—origin.38 Commercial competition was often behind the murders of Japanese traders,39 and Sˇo Chaep’il evidently felt forced to take the side of his people in their ‘fight for survival’ in trade. An advocate of unimpeded international trade who, as seen above, viewed Korea’s development as an agricultural appendage to industrialising Japan as an inevitability, Sˇo Chaep’il was at the same time himself a stockholder in Taejosˇon Chˇoma Chusik hoesa, one of Korea’s pioneering textile producers.40 He paid due consideration to the interests of Korea’s nascent commercial class, as long as he did not have to deviate too much from his belief in the primary importance of the unimpeded international exchange of goods.41 An article in the 13th issue of Tongnip hyŏphoe’s monthly (Taejosŏn Tongnip Hyŏphoe Hoebo, May 1897), tellingly entitled ‘On Independence’ (Tongnipnon, Pp. 2–9), lamented, for example, that a large part of the Korean capital’s trade was in the hands of foreign merchants, and appealed to compatriots to ‘strengthen themselves’ and then search for ways ‘to right this wrong.’ However, the reason why such a situation was ‘wrongful’ was precisely the supposed lack of parallels for such a monopolistic position for the foreigner in other states open for international trade.42 Even the disadvantages caused by Korea’s opening to international trade were to be condemned from the viewpoint of ‘international trading practice!’

38 Yi Hˇ onch’ang, “Kaehwagi Han’guk kwa Chungguk, Ilbon uˇ i kyˇongje kyoryu” [Economic Exchanges between Korea, Japan and China in the Modern Reforms Period], in Tan’guk Taehakkyo Tongyanghak yˇon’guso (ed.) Kaehwagi Han’guk kwa segye uˇ i sangho kyoryu [Mutual Exchange between Korea and the World in the Modern Reforms Period] (Seoul: Kukhak charyowˇon, 2004), Pp. 42–78. 39 Ku Yanggˇ un, “Kˇundae Ilbon uˇ i Chosˇon naeji haengsang munje” [The Issue of Modern Japanese Itinerant Traders in the Korean Interior], Sahak Yˇon’gu, Vol. 38, December 1984, Pp. 445–468. 40 Korean editorial, June 12, 1897, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 2, Pp. 279. 41 Chu Chino, 19 segi huban kaehwaron u ˇ i kujo wa chˇon’gae—Tongnip hyˇophoe rˇul chungsim uˇ ro [The Structure and Development of Reformist Theories in Late 19th -Century Korea—Focusing on the Independence Club] (Ph.D. dissertation, Seoul: Yonsei University, History Department, 1995), Pp. 196–213. 42 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1976), Vol. 1, Pp. 313.

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Perceived Japanese slights upon Koreans—and especially the Korean officialdom that Sŏ Chaep’il wanted to become the driving force of the reforms—were also systematically rebuked by the Tongnip Sinmun: The Japanese paper in Chemulpo called the Chōsen Shimpo (Chōsen Shinbō is meant—V.T.), in speaking of Korean Government officials, calls them by their given name and omits the family name. For instance, Pak Chung Yang is called Chung Yang & co. We have no space to give in teaching this sheet what good manners are but we hope the habit will not grow on them or soon they may be calling the English Colonial Secretary ‘Joe,’ the President of the U.S., ‘Grover,’ and their own sovereign ‘Micky.’43

The underlying idea of this rather ironic reprimand was that in the international law-governed modern world, where, according to Yu Kiljun’s famous expression, there were ‘no states above the other states and no states below the other states,’44 Korean officialdom’s head, King Kojong, was an equal of both the American President and the Japanese Mikado. It does not need to be repeated that the acquisition of ‘equal status with all the civilized states’—on the basis of international law and the ability of Koreans to ‘civilize themselves’—was always one of the key motifs of the Tongnip Sinmun’s editorials. At this point, the Tongnip Sinmun was faithfully following the official line of Kojong’s regime. In the declaration issued on the occasion of proclaiming Korea an empire and himself its emperor (October 13, 1897), Kojong cited the ‘imperial’ achievements of his ancestors (who ‘conquered Cheju Island’s T’amna Kingdom in the South and all the lands up to the borders of the mohe tribes in the north’) as a reason why the Korean (Taehan) Empire was entitled to the same ‘independence and sovereignty’ as all the powers of the world.45 Interestingly, the Korean version of Sˇo Chaep’il’s rebuke (Korean section, May 16) was seemingly intended to emphasize rather Japan’s residual backwardness than Korea’s presumed equality with the civilized world: The Japanese newspaper Chōsen Shinbō printed in Chemulp’o calls the ministers of the Korean government by their personal names only, without mentioning their family names. This is rudeness not personally to the ministers concerned, but to the Korean government. We believe that being rude to the government of a foreign country you come to and reside in is not what a civilised person is supposed to do.46 43

English section, May 16, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 72. Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 1, Pp. 88. 45 See the original and translation of this document in: Pak Chit’ae (ed.) Taehan chegukki chˇongch’aeksa charyojip [Collection of Materials on the History of Taehan Empire’s Government Policies] (Seoul: Sˇoin munhwasa, 1999), Vol. 1, Pp. 192–193. 46 Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 70. 44

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In combating the colonial attitudes of a self-styled Herrenvolk, an attitude that Korea’s Japanese residents were customarily assuming after the Sino-Japanese War, Sŏ Chaep’il actively invoked the standard Western norms of international politeness, his Occidentalism thus becoming a tool of nationalist protest. Sŏ Chaep’il also took great pains to persuade the Japanese that, apart from being uncivilised, their abusive practices were counterproductive due to the inevitability of a Korean backlash: As we have pointed out before, Japan and Korea mean much to each other and though Korea’s government is not as advanced as could be wished, the wealth and resources are here which, properly developed, would prove a great benefit to Japan. But so long as Japanese merchants and pawnbrokers are allowed to impose upon Koreans, the door to Korea’s wealth will be shut tighter and tighter against Japan. We admire Japan and rejoice in her prosperity so long as she is fair and honest but we fear that she has so aroused the hatred of Koreans that even should ‘fire and sword’ wrest from her an indemnity, the key to her wealth would have been lost. There is just one thing that we would say and say it long enough to reach the ears of those most interested, and that is that it makes little difference what kind and benevolent wishes and intentions the Japanese government has toward Korea so long as Japanese merchants are allowed to brow-beat Koreans and bully them into purchasing goods, and as the Japanese residents are busy helping unscrupulous money-lenders foreclose mortgages on Korean houses, they will make no progress toward gaining the commercial foothold in Korea that they desire.47

The civilised nature of the Japanese government, with all its ‘benevolent intentions’—a government that Korean progressives admired and wished to emulate—is contrasted here with the unscrupulous, violent Japanese moneylenders and merchants, already notorious in Korea for their abusive practices. An example of such abuses soon appeared in the English section of the Tongnip Sinmun (September 24, 1896): A few nights ago three Japanese tried to force their way into Chong Dong past the Korean guards who were at the front of the brick buildings of the Seoul Improvement Co. The guards stopped them from entering, which caused the Japanese to become much enraged and they began to beat the soldiers with their sticks. The officer in charge came to the scene and tried to pacify them but the irate Japanese tried to turn their sticks on the officer. Col. Nienstead was hurriedly summoned and after his arrival the intruders went away without making further disturbance. Such rowdyism on

47

English editorial, June 2, 1896, Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 100.

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the part of Japanese residents in Korea has more injurious effect on themselves than to Koreans in the eyes of the world. We hope the Japanese Consul will make a thorough investigation of the matter and punish those who have overstepped the limit of their rights and privileges.48

Here again, Sŏ Chaep’il appeals to the ‘eyes of the world’ and the authority of civilised Western countries in his attempt to put pressure on the Japanese Legation and force it to tightly control the Japanese residents’ behaviour towards their Korean hosts. But, as Yun Ch’iho’s diary (November 22, 1902) reveals, the disorderly behaviour of low-class Japanese in Korea did not leave Korea’s European residents in peace either, and both Japanese Consular authorities and Western opinion were seemingly powerless to redress the victims’ grievances (Yun 1976: 5, 366– 367): Some months ago, the Japanese coolies in Chemulpo assaulted a European of the Customs outdoor staff in his room and, tying a rope around his neck, they dragged him about through the street like a dog until a Japanese policeman put the coolies to flight. The Japanese Consul actually refused to arrest the dastardly Japanese on the ground that the day being a festival occasion, the coolies had been drunk, and that they, being drunk, could not be held accountable for their deeds. This was cool enough even for the last summer. What a hell and devil the European Minister or consul would have raised had the assailants been Koreans!49

In an earlier interview with the Tongnip Sinmun (English section: July 14; Korean section: July 16, 1896), a Japanese consul did recognize that the problem of the misdeeds of ‘inferior Japanese low-class adventurers’ existed, and promised to take measures to eradicate this evil,50 but the effect of his efforts did not seem to be significant. During the same period, the problem of crimes committed by Japanese settlers was a cause for serious concern even at the very top of the Meiji hierarchy. Ōkuma Shigenobu feared that the influx of ‘corrupt, coarse, arrogant, rough, violent, fraudulent, and bullying’ Japanese would lead Japan to failure in Korea.51 Sŏ Chaep’il’s warnings that Japanese bullying attitudes may gravely jeopardize trade were not totally ignored—and in this respect, it may be said that the Tongnip Sinmun served as a useful reference

48

Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 296. Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 5, Pp. 366–367. 50 Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 1, Pp. 172–173. 51 Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), Pp. 291. 49

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tool for the Japanese leaders in fine-tuning and adjusting their Korea policy. To a large degree, it did not contradict Sŏ Chaep’il’s own original intentions. While he certainly did not sympathise with the eventual colonialist aims of the Japanese actions in Korea, Japan—the disorderly behaviour of its subjects in Korea and their competition with Korea’s own nascent bourgeois class notwithstanding—was much more of a ‘model’ and ‘partner’ that a ‘threat’ for him. However humiliating and injurious for the Koreans the actions of the individual Japanese in Korea might be, Korea had to follow Japan’s example and build a partnership with Japan in order to survive in the struggling, Darwinian world.

Tongnip Sinmun ’s ‘Civilization’ and its Ambiguities Is it possible to fully agree with conventional opinion that Sŏ Chaep’il was the first Korean democrat and a champion of natural human rights? Although he did champion that concept ideologically, the behaviour of this ‘Victorian gentleman’ in ‘half-civilised’ Korea did not always conform to the standards he helped so much to popularize. Yun Ch’iho’s diary (January 1, 1898) tells the following story that was apparently the talk of the day in Seoul’s progressive circles: Dr. Jaisohn is accused of having never paid a visit to the grave of his former wife who, rather than be disgraced, committed suicide in ’84. When her father, old [italics in the original—V.T.] and poor, called on the Dr. after his return to Seoul, the son-in-law gave the old man two dollars, which the latter didn’t take. I know positively that Dr. J. is not over-sentimental but I can’t believe such a story on him. Certainly he has alienated the love of many of his former friends among whom are Mun Yu Yong and Han Sei Chin by his coldness and arrogance. Han was shocked to see Jaisohn kicking a coolie on the street who dared to go near Dr. Jaisohn.52

Obviously, to champion the civilised ideas of human rights, and to be able to check his Victorian disdain for the ‘natives’ (seemingly coupled with a lingering yangban arrogance towards the low-born) were two vastly different things. While struggling to promote the universal orthodoxy of ‘unimpeded international trade,’ to ‘civilise’ Korea (largely along Japanese lines), and to simultaneously defend it from Japanese

52

Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 5, Pp. 125.

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bullying on various levels, Sŏ Chaep’il did not identify himself with the real contemporary Korea outside the gates of the predominantly foreignpopulated Chŏngdong quarter. In his occidentalist imagination, he was already a perfectly civilised human being, predestined to lead his less fortunate compatriots up the ladder of progress, but not to stand equal with them in their present uncivilised state. Sŏ Chaep’il’s odyssey in Korea did not last long. His campaign from October 1897 to March 1898 against Czarist Russia’s attempts to put the Korean government under its control (by replacing a British financial adviser with a Russian, founding a Russo-Korean Bank in Seoul, etc.) was instrumental in providing Kojong with more leeway in dealing with the Russian authorities. It seemingly enjoyed quiet backing from both the British and Japanese legations and from Kojong himself.53 However, the approximately 3,000 member-strong Independence Club led by Sˇo soon became too visible and active to be continuously tolerated by conservative courtiers in the government, many of whom, like the moderately pro-Russian Foreign Minister Cho Pyˇongsik (1832–1907), were bitterly attacked by the Tongnip Sinmun and harboured personal grudges against its publisher.54 It is not known for sure whether Sˇo really, as reported in Yun Ch’iho’s diary, did say on November 30, 1897, to the members of the (missionary) Paejae School’s Debating Society that ‘for the maintenance of one’s rights, one may kill one’s sovereign and one’s father.’55 However, it may be surmised that the sight of mass rallies, such as the gathering of around 10,000 Seoulites in protest against Russian encroachments on March 10, 1898, on Seoul’s central Chongno street, at which people heatedly and relatively freely debated the key political and diplomatic issues of the day,56 was not an easy one to stomach for the government. Korea’s government was accustomed to governance based on elite consensus, not popular consent. Paid a handsome sum of 14,400 U.S. dollars for the remaining period of his 10-year-long advisory contract, Sˇo left Korea

53 Sin Yongha, Tongnip Hyˇ ophoe Yˇon’gu [Research on the Independence Club] (Seoul: Iljogak, 1975), Pp. 38–54, 297–303; Yi Chˇongsik, Kuhanmal uˇ i kaehyˇok, tongnip t’usa Sˇo Chaep’il [Sˇo Chaep’il, Fighter for Reforms and Independence in the Old Taehan Empire Period] (Seoul: Sˇoul Taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 2003), Pp. 229–232. 54 Channing Liem, The First Korean-American—A Forgotten Hero, Philip Jaisohn (Elkins Park, PA: Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation, 1984), Pp. 198–204. 55 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 5, Pp. 118. 56 Sin Yongha, Tongnip Hyˇ ophoe Yˇon’gu [Research on the Independence Club], Pp. 297– 299.

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on May 15, 1898,57 not to return for nearly half a century. On July 6, 1947, he came back as advisor once again, this time to the American Military Government in the southern part of the now divided Korean Peninsula. The Independence Club, increasingly influenced by younger radicals, began from November 1898 to clash with the authorities around its demands to reform the Royal Privy Council (Chungch’uwˇon) into a quasi-parliament, half of the deputies for which would be selected by the Club itself (on behalf of the ‘people’). This movement was, after some temporary successes, suppressed permanently in December 1898, and many of its activists were thrown into prison.58 Short-lived as they were, the Tongnip Sinmun and the Independence Club exerted some lingering influence on Korea’s nascent nationalist politics and thought. The introduction of words like ‘democracy’ (minjujuˇui) into the popular political lexicon was one influence, and some former participants in the Sˇo Chaep’il-led debating sessions at the Paejae school recalled later that it was the first time they had heard this word.59 The popularisation of Social Darwinism was another, equally powerful, influence. Through such a powerful medium as the Tongnip Sinmun, the Social Darwinist message captured the imagination of many fledgling nationalists. One of them was An Ch’angho (pen name: Tosan, 1878–1938), the son of a peasant from Kangsˇo County (Southern P’yˇongan Province), whose subsequent political and ideological line—strongly influenced also by prolonged sojourns in the USA and exposure both to the democratic and Social Darwinist currents in contemporaneous American thought—showed much continuity with the ideas of the Tongnip Sinmun. An happened to attend a missionary school in Seoul from 1895, later becoming a member of the Independence Club and beginning his lifelong career as a famed public speaker at one of the Club-organised rallies. After a stay in the U.S. during 1903–1907 he returned to Korea via Japan (where he met Yu Kiljun, whom he greatly adored), already a known organiser of the nascent Korean-American community. He then found

57 Sin Yongha, Tongnip Hyˇ ophoe Yˇon’gu [Research on the Independence Club], Pp. 66; Yi Chˇongsik, Kuhanmal uˇ i kaehyˇok, tongnip t’usa Sˇo Chaep’il [Sˇo Chaep’il, Fighter for Reforms and Independence in the Old Taehan Empire Days], Pp. 232; Channing Liem, The First Korean-American—A Forgotten Hero, Philip Jaisohn, Pp. 270. 58 Sin Yongha, Tongnip Hyˇ ophoe Yˇon’gu [Research on the Independence Club], Pp. 204– 214. 59 Yi Chˇ ongsik, Kuhanmal uˇ i kaehyˇok, tongnip t’usa Sˇo Chaep’il [Sˇo Chaep’il, Fighter for Reforms and Independence in the Old Taehan Empire Days], Pp. 219.

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himself in great demand as a public orator, and many of his speeches deployed all the usual elements of Social Darwinist rhetoric. A speech to the Pyongyang members of the Friends of the West60Academic Society (Sˇou Hakhoe) reported by the society’s monthly (Sˇou, Vol. 7, June 1907, Pp. 24–27), for example, conceptualised Japan’s post-Meiji modernising development as ‘preparation for the life-or-death struggle against Russia.’ It admonished Koreans to prepare for the fight for their independence in a similar way, and appealed to them to love the state as an extension of their own body, so that it would not be lost in the dog-eat-dog competition of the international arena.61 The declaration of aims (ch’ijimun) of the Sinminhoe (New People Society)—a secret nationalist organisation formed on An’s initiative in April 1907—stated that unless the country and its people were ‘renovated,’ ‘the state will be ruined and our race will be obliterated.’ The Sinminhoe appealed to its members to exhaust themselves for the sake of their state, ‘without even thinking about your families and your own bodies.’62 In exile—mostly in the USA and China— after Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910, An Ch’angho systematised his political and social ideas into a gradualist philosophy of ‘nurturing actual strength’ (sillyˇok yangsˇong). It implied building both visible (economic) and invisible (virtuous moral character, social trust) capital in Korean society, both on the peninsula and abroad. The recovery of Korea’s independence was seen as the eventual goal to be achieved once the necessary degree of national strength had been built up. An Ch’angho’s ‘philosophy of strength’ (him uˇ i ch’ˇorhak) may be characterised as the comprehensive, coherent, self-conscious ideology of Korea’s bourgeois modernisation and nation-state building. As some South Korean researchers noted already in the 1980s and 1990s, its wording owes a lot to the Social Darwinist currents of thought that An encountered from the earliest days of his primary political socialisation in the Independence Club.63 There

60 ‘West’ here referred to the north-western region of Korea—mainly P’yŏngan and Hwanghae Provinces, from which most members of the Sˇou Hakhoe hailed. See: Han Sangjun, “Sŏu Hakhoe e taehayŏ” [On the “Friends of the West Academic Society”], Yŏksa kyoyuk nonjip, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1980, Pp. 169–189. 61 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 5, Pp. 392–395. 62 Yi Kwangnin and Sin Yongha (eds.) Saryo ro pon Han’guk munhwa sa. Kˇ undaep’yˇon [Korean Cultural History Viewed through Historical Materials. Modern Part] (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1986), Pp. 245–247. 63 Pak Ch’ansˇ ung, Han’guk kˇundae chˇongch’i sasangsa yˇon’gu [Research on the History of Modern Political ideology in Korea] (Seoul: Yˇoksa pip’yˇongsa, 1992), Pp. 134–136.

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were, of course, important changes as well as continuities. For one thing, as the readers will see below, An appears to have been much less influenced by the racialist currents of contemporary thought than Sˇo. However, both had in common an overarching view of the world as a place where survival is to be won in life-or-death struggles, where strength constitutes the most inclusive and paramount criterion of progress, and where only selfless patriotic devotion to one’s nation can open up the possibility of becoming ‘fit’ and joining the admired ranks of the great powers.

chapter four SALVATION OF THE STATE AND RACE: SOCIAL DARWINISM AT THE DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Liang Qichao as the Main Authority on ‘Progress and Civilization’ When the saga of the Tongnip Sinmun was drawing closer to its end, an unlikely Chinese guest writer—China being normally associated with ‘barbarity’ and stigmatised as ‘the sick man of the East’ by the newspaper’s contributors—found a place for himself on its editorial pages. It was Liang Qichao (1873–1929), the Chinese reformer, who, together with his venerated mentor Kang Youwei (1858–1927) was among the main ideologues and practical promoters of the Hundred Days’ Reforms (11 June to 21 September 1898) in China and then had to flee to Japan for his life. The newspaper for reform-minded Chinese diaspora and overseas students, Qingyibao, that Liang began to print in Yokohama from December 23, 1898, was well-known to the modernity-oriented segment of Korea’s educated public as well. It was one of its eloquent editorials in classical Chinese, Aiguoshuo (On Patriotism), that was first spotted and reprinted in abridged form by the more middle-of-the-road and circumspect Hwangsˇong Sinmun (March 17–18, 1899) in a form which preserved the original text almost in its entirety (only the grammatical particles and endings were partly Korean).1 Then it was selectively translated into a more vernacular, Chinese character-free Korean and republished by the Tongnip Sinmun on July 27–28, 1899.2 It is not difficult to understand the reasons why this editorial became popular enough with the Korean reformist public to be republished in Korea twice in one year. In good Social Darwinist fashion, the editorial derived patriotism—itself one of the guarantees of a nation’s ‘survival’ in the world of power politics—from the ethics of competition. Liang Qichao ascribed Europeans’ 1 Hwangsˇ ong Sinmun (reprint), (Seoul: Han’guk munhwa kaebalsa, 1971), Vol. 1, Pp. 625–630. 2 Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 6, Pp. 89–94.

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perceived tendency to be more patriotic than the Chinese to Europe’s long (from the times of ancient Greece on) history of interstate warfare and the lack of patriotism among the Chinese—to China’s early unification, which precluded the development of a ‘competitive and patriotic spirit.’ Liang Qichao hoped, however, that the humiliations to which the Chinese emigrants were subject in Hawaii, colonial Indonesia or any other ‘White-dominated’ part of Asia, would eventually teach Chinese the virtue of loving one’s own country and sacrificing for its sake—for ‘your human rights are gone if your state is gone.’3 ‘Patriotism for the sake of survival’ was for a long time the Tongnip Sinmun’s own pet theme. Thus, Liang Qichao’s observation that the Chinese ‘became gradually more aware of the importance of love towards one’s country only after being dealt a succession of defeats during the Sino-Japanese War’ and being then threatened with partition by the Western powers could not but strike a sympathetic cord among Koreans. After all, their own country hung precariously in the balance in the face of Japanese and Russian expansionist ambitions. Then, undeniably, another element in Liang’s popularity was his stylistics—the mood of ‘righteous indignation’ (pibun kanggae), lofty words on ‘patriotism,’ ‘sacrifice’ and ‘treason,’ gloomy warnings about the coming doom and grandiloquent paeans to the ‘martyrs for the nation’s sake’ held sentimental appeal for Korea’s own early nationalists. However, with some rare exceptions, Liang Qichao was not much translated and published in Korea between 1900 and 1905. After the suppression of the Independence Club, the nongovernmental reformist movements in Korea entered into a hibernation period until 1905–1906, as Kojong’s government was launching its bid to rebuild Korea into an absolute monarchy that would not tolerate any sort of political activism from below. The situation changed decisively after the outbreak of the RussoJapanese War in February 1904, as the Japanese occupation of the peninsula worked to weaken King Kojong’s position and forced him to tolerate more of his subjects’ participation in debating clubs and political societies, and even clandestinely support some of them, in order to offset the onslaught of openly pro-Japanese elements.4 Though Tongnip Sinmun was discontinued by the government on December 4, 1899, a 3 See the original version in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju chuban, 1996), Part 1, Book 3, Pp. 65–77. 4 Ch’oe Kiyŏng. Han’guk kˇ undae kyemong sasang yˇon’gu [Research on Modern Korean Enlightenment Thought] (Seoul: Iljogak, 2003), pp. 35–55, 224–294.

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plethora of new modernist newspapers and journals published by highly politicized educational and academic societies came into being after February 1904. Especially worthy of note was the radically nationalist Taehan Maeil Sinbo (Korea Daily News), launched on July 18, 1904, and secretly financed by the royal court.5 That newspaper’s vernacular Korean, mixed Sino-Korean, and English editions had 13,256 subscribers by May 1907,6 and together with the combined readership of 5,357 of the two pre-existing moderately nationalist papers, Hwangsˇong Sinmun and Cheguk Sinmun, it gave the nationalist press 18,613 subscribers— mostly bureaucrats, modernist landlords, wealthy traders, and better-off peasants. However, the real outreach of the modernity discourses carried on by the new media was much broader, as it was customary to recite newspapers collectively in schools, city residential quarters, and villages.7 The journals, which carried on what amounted to a public intellectual discourse the later years of Korea’s first twentieth-century decade, were meant largely for a highbrow readership, mostly with a circulation of 500–1,000 each. They were published either by national and provincial academic or debating societies (e.g., the Korean Self-Strengthening Society launched its monthly Taehan Chaganghoe Wˇolbo in 1906, and the Pyongyang region-based Friends of the West Academic Society started its monthly Sˇou in 1907) or by private individuals. For example, Ch’oe Namsˇon (1890–1957), a young protégé of An Ch’angho, started his journal for would-be intellectuals, Sonyˇon, in November 1908.8 Many of the new media carried Liang Qichao’s translated writings, often in serialised form. Most translations were done in mixed SinoKorean script, preserving most of the Chinese terminology used in the original. The monthly Sˇou, for example, published 2–3 writings by Liang Qichao in each issue between December 1906 and March 1907 (Issues 1–4), and then had a piece by Liang published in each issue between April and September 1907 (Issues 5–10). In total, thirty-three translated writings by Liang appeared in the monthlies published by the academic societies between 1906 and 1909. At the same time, almost all treatises by Korea’s own modernisers appearing in the monthly journals in this 5 Chˇ ong Chinsˇok, Han’guk oˇllon sa [A History of the Korean Media] (Seoul: Nanam, 1990), Pp. 230. 6 Kye Hunmo, Han’guk o ˇllon yˇonp’yo [Chronological Tables of Korea’s Media History] (Seoul: Kwanhun K’ˇullˇop, 1979), Pp. 128. 7 Kim Minhwan, Han’guk o ˇllon sa [A History of the Korean Media] (Seoul: Nanam, 2002), Pp. 138–140. 8 Ibid. Pp. 173–174.

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period and dealing with such topics as the importance of education or economical development for national survival, or reformation of ‘outdated customs,’ included explicit or implicit references to Liang’s works —much in the same manner as the Confucian classics used to be cited before.9 Liang’s first collection of writings, Yinbingshi wenji (Collected Literary Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio), published by Shanghai’s Guangzhi Shuju Publishers in 1902, was available in Seoul—and was, according to later anecdotal evidence, habitually recommended by An Ch’angho to all his more or less educated visitors.10 Thus, the Korean translations were in many cases Liang’s 1896–1898 newspaper writings from this collection. These writings were much less influenced by Social Darwinist currents than the post-1898 ones; perhaps Liang himself in 1906–1910 would have considered them somewhat outdated. Nevertheless, some of the favourites of Korea’s new intelligentsia of the later years of the first decade of the twentieth century were Liang’s novels, treatises and editorials authored after fleeing to Japan in September 1898 and coming into much stronger contact with Social Darwinist thought there. T’aegˇuk Hakpo (Journal of the [Academic Society of] the Supreme Ultimate11), an academic monthly published by Korean students in Tokyo, featured a sizable translated piece from Liang’s essay ‘On Freedom’ (Lun ziyou) in its 3rd issue (October 1906, Pp. 17–20).12 The essay made a 9 Yi Manyŏl, “Kaehwagi ŏllon kwa Chungguk—Yang Kyech’o rŭl chungsim ŭro” [The Press of the Modern Reform Period and China—Centered on Liang Qichao’s Role], in Wiam Chang Chiyŏn sŏnsaeng kinyŏm saŏphoe (ed.) Han’guk kŭndae ŏllon ŭi chaejomyŏng [Reconsideration of the Modern Korean Press] (Seoul: K’ŏmyunik’eisyŏn buksŭ, 2001), Pp. 78–119. 10 Chu Yohan, An Tosan chˇ on [A Biography of Tosan An Ch’angho] (Seoul: Samjungdang, 1975), Pp. 70; Niu Linjie, Han’guk kaehwagi munhak kwa Yang Kyech’o [Korea’s Literature of the Modern Reform Period and Liang Qichao] (Seoul: Pagijˇong, 2002), Pp. 29. 11 ‘Supreme Ultimate’ (Kor. t’aegˇ uk, Ch. taiji) refers here to the Korean national flag first introduced in 1882–1883. It featured four trigrams derived from the Book of Changes (Yijing) and related by Taoist and Neo-Confucian thinkers to the philosophy of the Supreme Ultimate—the highest conceivable principle from which the male (Ch. yang) and female (Ch. yin) elements flow. On the possible political meanings of this symbolism in the contemporaneous political context, see: Yi T’aejin, Kojong sidae ŭi chaejomyŏng [Reconsideration of the Kojong Era] (Seoul: T’aehaksa, 2000), Pp. 7, 243–247. 12 The 9th chapter of Liang’s magnum opus The New Citizen (Xinminshuo), published in book form in 1903. See the original in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 4, Pp. 40–50. See the translation in: Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 13, Pp. 158–162. The translator, Mun Ilp’yˇong (1888–1939), went on to become a famous popular historian and essay-writer in colonial Korea.

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clear distinction between a ‘barbaric’ freedom allowing oneself to pursue one’s interest to the detriment of others, and a ‘civilized’ freedom, rooted in the understanding that the ‘freedom of the collective is the prerequisite for guaranteeing the freedom of its individuals’ and a respect ‘for the limits set by the law.’ The freest people, according to Liang, were the British—because they had furthest developed ‘the habit of obedience’ toward their laws and institutions. The reasons why ‘obedience’ was of such paramount importance to ‘civilization’ could be understood from another treatise by Liang, translated and published in Kiho Hˇunghakhoe Wˇolbo (Issues 6–10: January–May 1909),13 ‘On Hobbes’ Academic Theory.’14 Referring to Thomas Hobbes’ (1588–1679) political theories— and titling The Leviathan’s author ‘the grandfather of the modern social contract’—Liang explained that humans are disposed by their ‘original nature’ to serve their own interests first, even while this may harm others. That was the explanation for bellum omnium contra omnes being the most primitive and basic form of the Darwinian ‘struggle for survival’ that humanity knew. Thus, ‘the establishment of authority’ and ‘delegation of one’s rights to the authorities’ was crucially important for achieving any degree of common good. Certainly, Liang did not forget to take Hobbes to task for his advocacy of unlimited absolutism (‘in this theory, you cannot contradict the ruler even if ordered by him to kill your own father!’) and for his disregard of another ‘natural tendency’ of the human mind, namely, the ‘thirst for freedom.’ However, the tendency to prioritize the rights of the state over those of the individual was more than clear. And it is exactly this pronounced tendency to emphasize statecentred political consolidation that seems to have been the crucial reason the Korean advocates of the reforms from above were so intrigued by Liang’s writings. Other pieces by Liang appearing in Korean translation from 1906– 1910 also exhibited a strong tendency to prioritize ‘authority’ over ‘freedom.’ The volume of Korean translations from Liang printed in Seoul in 1908 (pp. 55–62)15 included, for example, a partial translation of his

13 Issue 6, Pp. 20–22; Issue 7, Pp. 19–21; Issue 8, Pp. 33–34; Issue 9, Pp. 24–26; Issue 10, Pp. 27–29. Translated by Yi Ch’unse—‘Ch’unse’ being the pen name of a famous reformist Confucian, Yi Kˇonbang (1861–1939). 14 See the 1901 original text in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 1, Book 6, Pp. 89–95. 15 Liang Qichao, (translated by Chˇ ˇ on Hanggi), Umbingsil chayusˇo [The Ice-drinker’s Studio’s Book of Freedom] (Seoul: T’abinsa, 1908).

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1899 treatise ‘On the Right of the Strongest’ (Lun Qiangquan).16 It stated, in no uncertain terms, that humans, ‘barbaric’ or ‘civilized,’ follow the same ‘laws of natural selection’ as beasts. A difference between the ‘civilized people’ and the ‘barbarians’ whom the former are easily able to defeat and annihilate is that ‘civilized strength’ presupposes the powers of knowledge and not simply the power of sinews. Another difference lies in the fact that the ruled masses, commoners and women of the ‘civilized world’ had become powerful enough to check the exercise of power by rulers, aristocrats or men in general. Freedom was, therefore, just another name for ‘strength and power’—the fruit of power struggles, which could only be borne in societies where power has become more evenly distributed. And for Korea, given its demonstrated powerlessness as a whole in the face of external threats, another treatise from Liang’s translated volume, a short one succinctly entitled Rich State, Strong Army (Fuguo Qiangbing),17 could be seen as much more relevant (Pp. 161). Looking at China—potentially a strong and rich country, but so shamefully poor and weak for the time being—Liang predicted that it would become an object of ‘mischief’ for some ‘devils,’ and that only the ability to ‘eliminate the mischievous devils’ would grant the Chinese possession of ‘the stage of the twentieth century.’ ‘Rich state, strong army’ was the slogan of the day in the later years of the opening decade of the century in Korea. Liang, his expositions on Hobbes and Darwin being both authoritative and sufficiently accessible to popular consumption, provided the reformist fraction of Korea’s ruling class with excellent explanations of the reasons why the strengthening of the monarchical state and modernising efforts from above were the only road to racial and national salvation, and, eventually, to the ‘civilized’ realm of freedom. Together with the rhetorical wrath of their righteously indignant style and strongly statist attitude, Liang’s writings were treasured by Korean readers for their optimism, and for the belief in the possibility of successful survival in the Darwinian jungles of the ‘brave new world’ they showed. One good example was Liang’s article entitled ‘On China as an Adolescent’ (Shaonian Zhongguo shuo), which first appeared in Qingyibao (Issue 35, February 10, 1900).18 In this article, Liang fiercely rebuffed 16 See the original text in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 2, Pp. 29–33. 17 Written in 1901. See the original text in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 2, Pp. 80. 18 See the original text in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 1, Book 5, Pp. 7–12.

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the arguments of those who had claimed that China was already an ‘old’ empire, its greatness being simply a matter of the past, its ‘vitality’ having been sapped by its long history of stable bureaucratic government. According to Liang, this argument, however suitable it might be for those wishing ‘to wipe China from the surface of the globe,’ was flawed in one crucial point: Traditional China, its greatness notwithstanding, did not possess ‘statehood’ in the modern sense of the word, being simply the ‘private property of any of the ruling dynasties.’ Liang claimed that China, as a ‘familial state,’ was just an ‘adolescent,’ who was still about to ‘come of age’ (i.e., to acquire ‘adult’-like constitutional forms) and ‘show all of its potential to the world in full.’ China, Liang wrote, was rather an analogue to Italy—another ‘young man’ on the international stage, who had emerged only recently as a full-blown actor in world affairs, despite the venerable pedigree of its culture. Liang’s article, which combined political pessimism (China’s current rulers were referred to as ‘old egoists, deaf and blind about everything inside and outside the country’) with long-term historical optimism, was soon translated by one of Korea’s foremost reformist Confucians, Chang Chiyŏn (pen name Wiam, 1864–1921). He made it into a sort of preface to his collection of Liang Qichao’s translations, entitled The Soul of China (Chungguk hon) and published by Kwangmunsa Publishers (Seoul) in 1908. It decidedly invigorated Korea’s reformist movement by showing that Korea, as well, once properly reformed, could play the role of a promising ‘young man’ in the international community. A symbol of effort and promise, sonyˇon (adolescent) became a major figure of speech in the reformist lexicon. In the introduction to the first issue of the journal bearing this name, which he started to publish for children and teenagers in November 1908 in Seoul, Ch’oe Namsˇon, for example, praised the possibilities of ‘making a right commitment’ available to the young. Citing the ‘heroic exploits’ of the likes of Napoleon and Hannibal, he urged his young readers to make stronger patriotic commitments than their potential ‘competitors’ elsewhere and eventually reverse the historical fortunes of their country.19 Citations from Liang—very often without due references, as much of what Liang wrote became a commonplace in the world of Korean modernising intelligentsia—adorned almost all the reformist texts written in Korea between 1906 and 1910. The Chinese reformer was viewed as a visionary who explained the ‘great tendency of our times’ 19 “Sonyˇ on siˇon” [Timely Sayings for the Adolescents], Sonyˇon, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1908, Pp. 5–11.

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(taese) in terms compatible with Confucian thought and Chinese— or Korean—aspirations. The issues and concepts introduced by Liang into the Chinese and Korean intellectual discourse of the first decade of the twentieth century ranged from the new, nation-centred manner of writing history20 to socialism (hardly ever discussed before in China and Korea) to Russian and Western European ‘nihilism’ (anarchism).21 While Liang’s pivotal topics were doubtlessly the requirements for ‘national survival’ in the Darwinian age, his ambition—shared by a good number of his admirers in Korea—was to introduce the whole breadth of contemporary modernity discourse to his readers, thus ‘synchronising’ their historical time with that of Europeans or Americans. In this chapter, however, due to limitations of space, only some of the most essential topics discussed by Liang’s followers in Korea in the first decade of the twentieth century in connection with Korea’s ‘survival’ and modern ‘rebirth’ will be introduced. I will attempt to show how Confucianism, criticised for its failure to prepare Koreans for the task of ‘survival’ in the new, competitive world, was simultaneously reinvented as Korea’s ‘national ethical teaching’ and charged with the task of teaching patriotism to the new generations. Then I will proceed to show that, rather than Confucianism, ‘manly’ muscular strength and ‘patriotic’ pride in country’s supposed ‘great military past’ were seen as the most essential ingredients in nurturing the nation’s ‘survival skills.’ The Western countries being the ultimate ideal of ‘the fittest,’ Japan, with its demonstrated military prowess and oft-advertised ‘national ethos’ of bushidō (‘Way of the Warrior’),22 provided a useful blueprint for a ‘shortcut’ to attaining the desired levels of ‘wealth and power.’ But, all the utilitarian motives in the new dis-

20

Together with such intellectual pioneers as Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940), Liang was among the first to introduce the ‘new history’ to the Chinese public. Inspired by the Japanese discourse of ‘national history’ of the 1880–1890s, the ‘new history’ was dealing with the history of China as a nation, rather than narrating the traditional sequence of the dynastic histories. See Rudolf G. Wagner, “Importing a ‘New History’ for the New Nation: China 1899”, Aporemata: Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte, Band 5, Göttingen, 2001, Pp. 275–291. 21 Yi Horyong, Han’guk u ˇ i anak’ijˇum: Sasangp’yˇon [Korea’s Anarchism: Ideology] (Seoul: Chisik Sanˇopsa, 2001), Pp. 84–86. 22 On the image of bushidō inside and outside of Japan in the 1890s–1900s and the efforts of some contemporaneous Japanese intellectuals to present it to the Western (and domestic) public as ‘the essence of the Japanese spirit,’ see: Colin Holmes and A. Hamish Ion, “Bushidō and the Samurai: Images in British Public Opinion, 1894–1914”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1980, Pp. 309–329.

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course of ‘wealth, power and survival’ notwithstanding, the attainment of those worthy goals was still seen as essentially a collective moral exploit —the nation had to cultivate its spirit of self-sacrifice and loyalty into the desirable condition of ‘strength,’ both muscular and spiritual. The understanding of modernity’s ‘survival game’ as a collective ethical achievement clearly exposed the degree to which residual Confucian moralism was integrated into the Social Darwinist nationalist discourse of the new age.

Confucianism: Asset or Liability for the Task of National Survival? One of the issues that East Asian adepts of modern nation-state building had to face was how to deal with Confucianism—that is, with the ideology of pre-modern statehood. Post-1898 Liang’s basic position on Confucianism was one of scepticism verging on total rejection. Traditional rulers, together with their Confucian advisers, were blamed for everything from ‘ruling the state as if it was their private property’ to inculcating Chinese with an ‘effeminate spirit,’ completely contradictory to the modern needs for ‘bravery’ and a ‘love of adventure.’ A piece from The New Citizen (Xinminshuo), tellingly entitled ‘On Enterprise and Adventure [Spirit]’ (Lun Jinqu Maoxian, Chapter 7),23 translated by a certain Kim Hayˇom and published in Sˇou No. 12 (November 1907, Pp. 1–8),24 laid the blame for the perceived ‘lack of bravery’ among Chinese squarely on the proponents of the Confucian Way. It took the Master and his disciples to task for their famous counsel not to live in the state in the midst of rebellion and to maintain filial duty towards one’s parents by avoiding dangerous—that, is high and deep—places. The reasons why ‘these European nations are able to lord it over the whole world now’ were found both in the ‘adventurous spirit and bravery’ of the likes of Columbus, Martin Luther and Peter the Great, and in the ‘patriotic self-sacrifice’ of their less recognisable compatriots—while Confucianism was seen as encouraging neither. The dim view of Confucianism as an ‘obstacle on the path to progress and survival’—which, as readers have seen

23 See the original in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Icedrinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 4, Pp. 23–31. 24 “Mohˇ om yongjin uˇ n ch’ˇongnyˇon uˇ i ch’ˇonjik” [Adventure and Brave Enterprise are Natural for the Youth], Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji. [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 6, Pp. 132–140.

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in Chapter Two, was already adopted by Yun Ch’iho at the beginning of the 1890s—was spreading among the more unabashedly Westernist segments inside reformist circles throughout the late 1900s. The Taehan Maeil Sinbo, edited by a Christian nationalist and one of the central activists of An Ch’angho’s Sinminhoe (New People Society), Yang Kit’ak (pen name: Ugang, 1871–1938),25 was in the vanguard of anti-Confucian scepticism. On the eve of Japan’s final annexation of Korea, Taehan Maeil Sinbo editorialised (May 15–18, 1910): In general, the thing called ‘religion’ is a great question of principle concerning our human society. […] As the ancients said, ‘Looking at what was added to and subtracted from the ritual regulations (ye), it is possible to know the affairs of ten generations ahead.’26 ‘Ritual regulations’ here have a certain relationship with state policies and moral civilization (kyohwa) of mundane mores (sedo). This is exactly what religion also does: it constitutes the internal part of a society, and has a mutually inseparable relationship with it. Internally, religion assists the civilization of customs through [the ruler’s] virtues (p’unggi tŏkhwa), and externally, it is the decisive force in determining the efflorescence or downfall of a state. Indeed, we may say without exaggeration that it is like the brain (noesu) for humans, or the national essence (kuksu) for a state! In history we see how some states were ruined by religion, and others were driven to prosperity by religion. […] If some religion, whatever it is, is designated as the ‘state religion’ (kukkyo), and remains in such a status for longer than a century, those who are called ‘high class people’ necessarily become its followers, and its strong influence is a decided matter. In Korea, in recent history this religion used to be Confucianism […]. Although for more than five hundreds years the benefits of its virtuous civilizing influence (tŏkhwa) were not small, its methods included lots of other [social] systems, and were intimately connected to autocratic policies of the isolationist period, class society, and veneration of the past. In fact, Confucianism was a product of that period. It not only does not fit this epoch and this society, but can also be utterly deleterious. The followers of this religion have recently come up, organizing such [new Confucian societies as] Kongjagyo, Taedonggyo, or T’aegŭkkyo. Although the purpose of revering the sage(s) is extremely 25 Chang Kyusik, Ilje ha Han’guk kidokkyo minjokchuˇ ui yˇon’gu [Research on Korean Christian Nationalism] (Seoul: Hyean, 2001), Pp. 80–86. 26 A reference to this passage in the Analects (2:23): “Tzu Chang asked whether the affairs of ten ages after could be known. Confucius said: ‘The Yin dynasty followed the regulations of the Hsia: wherein it took from or added to them may be known. The Chou dynasty followed the regulations of Yin: wherein it took from or added to them may be known. Some other may follow the Chou, but though it should be at the distance of a hundred ages, its affairs may be known.’ ” See: Arthur Waley (transl. and annotated) The Analects of Confucius, (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), Pp. 93.

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laudable, do they aim at the preservation of the national essence or restoration of state sovereignty? Or do they aim at the importation of new knowledge?27

Unlike Yun Ch’iho, who, as seen in Chapter Two, was thorough enough privately in his anti-Confucian stance to reduce the basic Confucian value of filial piety to banal family-centrism (and, ultimately, to immoral egoism) and ‘despotism,’ the Taehan Maeil Sinbo editorial writer was apparently somebody grounded in and personally attached to Confucianism. He explained the meaning of a newly coined word, ‘religion’ (chonggyo) through Confucian classics and did not refute the view that Confucius was a ‘sage’ or that his teachings contributed to the ‘civilization’ of Korea’s customs. Generally, the Taehan Maeil Sinbo’s editorial line was to engage the reform-oriented sectors of ‘Confucian circles’ (yurim) in the cause of ‘reform’ and ‘national salvation,’ while harshly attacking the passivity and ‘stubbornness’ of the traditionalists.28 As was the case even with the much more anti-Confucian Sŏ Chaep’il, the author of the above-cited editorial also used an ample variety of traditional Confucian terms (‘transformation by virtuous influence,’ etc.) to drive home his rather anti-traditionalist point—apparently on account of the readers’ ready understanding of familiar Confucian terms (among other reasons). At the same time, he passed an unconditional guilty verdict upon Confucian teaching as a whole from the public point of view: It was proclaimed to be ‘totally unfit’ for tough times when the ‘national essence’ (kuksu) was threatened and national independence all but lost. Just as was the case with China’s early nationalists in the opening decade of the twentieth century29 Confucianism was rejected in this editorial, not as a metaphysical ethical system, but as a state ideology that failed to meet the task of ‘saving the state’ through the ‘importation of new knowledge’ and various other reforms. Scepticism towards Confucianism as political and philosophical dogma did not prevent reformers, however, from continuously adhering, consciously or otherwise, to what would amount, at least from an outsider’s view, to a rather Confucian moralism. In his piece ‘On Persever27 Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo (Reprint), (Seoul: Kyˇ ong’in munhwasa, 1977), Vol. 6, Pp. 6563, 6567. 28 Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895–1919, Pp. 124. 29 John Fitzgerald, “The Nationless State: The Search for a Nation in Modern Chinese Nationalism”, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, Vol. 33 (Jan. 1995), Pp. 75– 104.

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ance’ (Lun Yili, Chapter 15 of The New Citizen)30 translated and published in the successor of Sˇou, the monthly Sˇobuk Hakhoe Wˇolbo in early 1909,31 Liang begins by referring to Zhengzi’s (505–436 bc) aphorism about the importance of perseverance in a world where ‘the responsibilities weigh heavy, and the road to go is long.’ He then cites a pithy saying by Mencius (XII, 1: 29): ‘A man with definite aims to be accomplished may be compared to one digging a well. To dig the well to a depth of seventy-two cubits, and stop without reaching the spring, is, after all, throwing away the well.’ Liang’s understanding of human nature, if measured in terms of the Chinese philosophical tradition, was in this period rather closer to Xunzi’s (ca. 310–238 bc) musings on men’s inherent penchant for competition and profit-seeking than to Mencian theories of the ‘innate goodness’ of man. However, such ‘competitive advantages’ as the ‘spirit of perseverance, which alone is crucial in deciding whether your enterprise succeeds or fails,’ were viewed by Liang as ‘virtues’ per excellence. ‘Failure in competition’ is also castigated in moralising terms, perhaps easiest for the understanding of Liang’s readers. In the 1899 piece entitled ‘National Suicide’ (Guomin zhi Zisha),32 included in the 1908 volume of Liang’s Korean translations,33 Liang equates the destruction of the state caused by the extreme lack of citizens’ patriotism to a ‘suicide on the national level,’ and declares both personal and national suicides ‘sinful from the viewpoint of morality.’ While Social Darwinist patriotism was philosophically based upon a sort of ‘enlightened self-interest’-type of rationalising—after all, ‘national suicide’ bodes nothing good for the individual nationals as well—the rhetoric mobilised by the modernisers for national strengthening was heavily grounded in Confucian moralism, ‘selfless devotion to the country’ being the main buzzword of the day. Paradoxically enough, given the widespread concurrent encouragement of capitalist—that is, profit-making—enterprise ‘in the name of national enrichment,’ the reformist media in the latter half of the first decade of the twentieth century took delight in praising the virtue of ‘selflessness.’ 30 See the original in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Icedrinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 4, Pp. 96–104. 31 “Non Uiryˇ ˇ ok” [On Perseverance], Sˇobuk Hakhoe Wˇolbo, No. 10 (March 1909), Pp. 35–40, No. 11 (April 1909), Pp. 27–30. Available at: http://www.koreanhistory.or.kr (accessed on: November 23, 2008). 32 See the original in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Icedrinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 2, Pp. 90. 33 Liang Qichao (translated by Chˇ ˇ on Hanggi) Umbingsil chayusˇo [Ice-drinker’s Studio’s Book of Freedom], Pp. 200–201.

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In the ‘Educational Column’ (kyoyukpu) of Sˇou No. 13 (December 1907, Pp. 4–6),34 an anonymous author referring to the pedagogical instruction of an anonymous ‘British gentleman,’ stated that Selflessness and the absence of private desires, the greatest of virtues, is not inherent in our character […] and that means that the desirability of selfsacrifice has to be taught to small children by both parents from the earliest age. […] To hear that one’s child became a person of self-sacrificial spirit, who overcomes himself and dreams only of benefiting his compatriots, is more joyful than to hear that he became […] a Nelson or a Bismarck.

As if they wished to turn the attention of the public away from the insidious perspectives theoretically opened by the new, ‘scientific’ view of society as a battlefield of egoisms, the modernisers were painting a picture of the ideal ‘civilized world’ with good old moralistic colours. Given that the Confucian language of ‘morals’ and ‘virtue’ was being actively used even by openly Western-oriented writers, Confucianism was—despite all the criticisms and scepticism—still allowed some legitimacy as a ‘Korean / Oriental religion,’ and as a pivotal part of what was construed as ‘the national essence.’ It was especially promoted as an important component in the construction of ‘Koreanness’ by such media as the daily Hwangsˇong Sinmun, which relied on subscriptions of the traditional educated class and was eager to win them over for the cause of reforms by proposing various compromises between ‘old’ and ‘new’ systems of knowledge. For example, an editorial in the Hwangsˇong Sinmun entitled ‘On Measures for Educational Development’ (Non kyoyuk paltal chi ch’aek: December 11, 1902), attempted to propose a ‘synthesis’ of sorts. It envisioned the central Confucian academy, Sŏng’gyun’gwan, as including geography, mathematics and physics in its curriculum, concomitantly with ‘new’ schools, including the prestigious foreign language schools, adopting the ‘teachings of the sages and worthies’ as part of their ethics programme. Confucian learning was defined in this editorial as ‘our country’s religion’ (ponbang ŭi chonggyo)—a fair cry from the traditional belief in Confucian morals as the (only imaginable) system of ethics worth its name, but still a position important enough to calm the worries and anxieties of the traditional educated stratum.35 Yet another editorial, tellingly entitled ‘Warning to the Defenders of Confucianism 34 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 6, Pp. 198–200. 35 Hwangsˇ ong Sinmun (reprint), (Seoul: Han’guk munhwa kaebalsa, 1971), Vol. 7, Pp. 212.

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and the [Adepts of] Newly Advanced [Learning]’ (Kyŏng seji kuyu kŭp sinjin: April 29–30, 1904), took an even more pronounced relativist stand. If what is known now as ‘new laws’ or ‘new learning’ would seem old and corrupt to our descendants in a couple of centuries, is it possible to denigrate the teachings of Confucius and Mencius for being different from the ‘new knowledge’? If peoples of other countries have religions of their own, why should not Koreans continuously search for patriotic and moral inspiration in the Confucian teachings of humanness, ritual propriety, brotherly love and loyalty?36 Writings of this sort reaffirmed the significance of Confucianism as the ‘national teaching’ or ‘national religion,’ comparable to the West’s Christianity37—but at the cost of relinquishing any claims to the universal, absolute significance of what used to be ‘the sage learning’ of traditional Korea. At the same time, identification of Confucianism as an ‘ethics system’ or ‘religion’ implied that it was losing institutional or practical significance as a political ideology. It might remain a source of patriotic pride, but would hardly be expected to influence the manner in which socio-political or economical institutions were to be reformed.

Past Triumphs as a Source of Strength While Confucianism was relativised as just one of the world’s many ‘religions’ or moral teachings and used mostly as a source of ethical inspiration, Korea’s past was thoroughly reconsidered from new perspectives. And much of it was deemed worthy building material for the edifice of the new nation-state—the military glory of ages past in particular, as it was the best possible proof of the country’s ‘survival potential’ and served as a promising indication of its future potential greatness. As Sheila Miyoshi Jager formulated it, the supposed military grandeur of the past was to help in ‘resurrecting Korean manhood,’ that is, in shedding the legacy of what was now seen, in a rather self-Orientalising language, as the ‘effeminate, slavish literati of Chosŏn times,’ and in returning to 36

Hwangsˇong Sinmun (reprint), Vol. 9, Pp. 330, 334. See a long editorial serialized in Hwangsŏng Sinmun in August 12–20, 1902, and entitled ‘The Origins of the Diverse Religions of the Western and Eastern States’ (Tongsŏyang kakkuk chonggyo wŏllyu). While the account definitely privileged Christianity, and especially Protestantism, as the ‘religion of the civilized nations,’ it addressed Confucianism as ‘our nation’s religion’ (o kungmin ŭi chonggyo) and lamented its ‘decline.’ Hwangsˇong Sinmun (reprint), Vol. 6, Pp. 710–738. 37

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the ‘valour and heroism’ of pre-Chosŏn Korea.38 The Korean male bodies, lamentably enough, had been ‘effeminized and emasculated’ by several centuries of Neo-Confucian rule—but Korea’s military prowess, as proven by its ancient and medieval history, was associated with the country’s ‘spirit’ (chˇongsin) or ‘soul’ (hon). For example, explicitly inspired by Chang Chiyˇon’s translations from Liang Qichao, Ch’oe Sˇokha (1878– 1929), a student activist in Tokyo suspected by some émigré nationalists to be Japan’s man inside Korea’s nascent social movement,39 wrote in late 1906 an article entitled ‘Korea’s Soul’ (Chosˇonhon) for the student journal, T’aegˇuk hakpo (No. 5, December 1906, Pp. 19–22).40 There, the ‘state’s soul’ was proclaimed to be the main guarantee of ‘national survival and expansion’ (‘if not for the Russian soul, with its urge to unify the whole of the globe under Russian rule, how could this northern barbaric nation become a huge empire like now?’). Korea’s ‘soul’ was ˇ Mundˇok especially highly praised—the triumph of Koguryˇo general Ulji (early seventh century) over the invading Sui armies, the expeditions of Koryˇo general Yun Kwan (?–1111) against northern Jurchen tribes (which ‘greatly expanded our territory’), and, of course, the illustrious admiral Yi Sunsin’s (1545–1598) brilliant victories during the ‘Imjin Year [1592] War’ (Toyotomi Hideyoshi invasion of Korea, 1592–1598). All this provided Ch’oe with proof that the disastrous course of history— Korea’s ‘vitality’ (wˇon’gi) being in decline due to the ‘literary weakness’ (munyak) of the ruling classes and their internal squabbles—could be reversed, with the ‘bright sun and moon of independence’ returning to shine once again. ˇ Mundˇok received their share While both Yun Kwan and especially Ulji of nationalist admiration in periodicals and fictionalized biographies in the closing years of the first decade of the twentieth century, worship of Yi Sunsin reached cult proportions. The most famous of the biographic accounts of Yi Sunsin to emerge at that time, by Sin Ch’aeho (pen name: Tanjae, 1880–1936),41 stated explicitly that, in comparison to Yi Sunsin, 38 Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Narratives of Nation Building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism (New York & London: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), Pp. 3–20. 39 “Susanghan Ch’oe Sˇ okha” [Suspicious Ch’oe Sˇokha], Sinhan minbo, December 1, 1909, Pp. 3. He did work for Japan’s Land Survey Bureau in P’yˇongan province in the 1910s, and was promoted in 1921 to membership in the Consultative Council (Chungch’uwˇon) under the Japanese Colonial Government-General—a notorious club of the colonial elite faithful to their Japanese masters (Tong’a Ilbo, April 29, 1921, Pp. 2). 40 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 13, Pp. 301–304. 41 Serialized in Taehan Maeil Sinbo between May 2, 1908, and August 18, 1908.

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Britain’s Nelson was simply ‘a mere child.’ The only reason the latter became so famous was that, as Britain became the world hegemon, Nelson secured worldwide renown. At the same time, due to Korea’s weakness, Yi Sunsin remained known only regionally, at best. Yi Sunsin was described by Sin as both a ‘chivalrous male constrained by the conditions of the time when civil officials’ clothes filled up the whole country’ and simultaneously a model Confucian official. He reportedly treasured the state’s property more than his personal friendships (never allowing himself to make gifts to friends using public funds or property) and devoted all his time, day and night, to the study of military affairs.42 And 17 year-old Yi Kwangsu, then just a penniless Meiji Gakuin student, promoted Yi Sunsin—in a poetical contribution entitled ‘Our Hero’ (Uri Yˇong’ung)43—to the position of ‘hero without peers then and now, hero without parallel in the whole world […] the rhythms of his hammering heart are full of life and freedom […].’ ‘Freedom’ was not exactly a concept Yi Sunsin could plausibly operate with, but—so far as it meant ‘freedom of the state from external dependency’—this was precisely what nationalists wanted his ‘spirit’ to do.

Sin Ch’aeho: Nurturing a ‘War-like Spirit’ for the Sake of ‘Survival’ While (successful) wars of the past were crucial in forming Korea’s newly invented volkgeist, its maintenance and further development required a solid system of military and physical training for the nation’s males and, moreover, militarisation of the society’s whole culture. Typically, Sin Ch’aeho emphasised both the crucial importance of the ‘enhancement of the military spirit’ for the ‘fate of the nation,’ and the deleterious effects of Confucian literary education on Koreans’ military prowess. In an article entitled ‘Culture and Military Force’ (Taehan Maeil Sinbo, February 19, 1910), while acknowledging the importance of ‘culture’ for ‘maintaining the spirit of the state’ (kukka chŏngsin ŭi yuji), he proclaimed military might to be most essential for maintaining the state as such, and excoriated the Korean Confucian legacy in the following way: 42 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], Revised edition (Seoul: Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho sˇonsaeng kinyˇom saˇophoe, 1977), Vol. 2, Pp. 355–414. 43 Sonyˇ on, Vol. 2, No. 5, March 1909, Pp. 43–45.

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Korea has venerated letters and neglected the military already for several centuries. People have been enjoying a long peace, and the literati, infatuated with poetry and belles-lettres, were totally uninterested in military preparations. Therefore, [the defences of Korea’s] eight provinces completely broke down when the Imjin year [Japanese invasion] came, and even the profound humiliation of the Pyŏngja year [1636 Manchu invasion] did not lead to any awakening. In recent years, with the giant demon of twentieth century imperialism overrunning the Six Continents, we still did not awake: the scions of the literati continue to stick to their irrelevant books, and the court ended with today’s debacle while preaching extraneous texts and unnecessary rituals.44

Sin Ch’aeho went on to argue that, while a war-like spirit had to be nourished, culture should not be ignored, either: not the ‘extraneous’ culture of the Confucian past, of course, but that of ‘Western European powers,’ distinguished by its ‘ethical progress,’ ‘scientific development’ and ‘adventure-loving freedom.’45 In another article, ‘Italy of the Orient’ (Taehan Maeil Sinbo, January 28–29, 1909) he poignantly scolded a traditional Confucian primer for children, Tongmong sŏnsŭp (1541), as an ‘evil textbook,’ for its ‘slavish’ view of Korea as ‘little China.’46 Rather than the ‘empty books’ that led Chosŏn dynasty’s ‘civilization’ into ‘decay’ after the illustrious pre-Confucian periods of Silla and Early Koryŏ,47 Sin maintained, Korea would need plain physical fitness nurtured by Western-style ‘physical education’ (ch’eyuk): Generally, all humans, as the first among all animals, are engaged in the struggle for existence. […] In the arena of natural selection (ch’ŏnyŏn), the survival of persons, families, states and societies is being contested; if a freedom-seeking person is physically weak, what can he accomplish? […] If physical strength is inferior, intellectual and ethical developments are hard to expect as well. Consider: A chronically ill weakling, though he may have Darwin’s brains, would never discover any new theory, and though he may possess Aristotle’s teaching skills, would never accomplish any successful teaching. The only obligatory thing in life is none other than physical strength.48

44

Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 6, Pp. 62–83. Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 200–201. 46 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 185–187. 47 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 208–209. 48 Ibid. 45

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After describing the pitiful physical condition of Korea’s (presumably privileged and educated) youth, ‘pale-faced already in their young years, speaking with coughing voices’ and unable to survive a day without a solid intake of Chinese herbal medicines, Sin concluded that this state of affairs was by no means natural for Korea’s ‘innately vigorous stock.’ It was, rather, a consequence of the exclusion of physical education from the Confucian curriculum for the higher classes and lack of hygiene among their lower brethren. All Koreans, Sin wrote, ‘might not be able to imitate the [bodily] strong nations of the civilized states in an instant,’ but at least reading (presumably translated) books on physical education and hygiene could offer much in the way of help (‘Among Intellectual, Ethical, and Physical Education, Physical Education is the Most Urgent Task’, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, February 9, 1908).49 It seems plausible that, together with ‘Western culture’ and ‘physical / military education,’ Sin Ch’aeho in the first decade of the twentieth century also considered Christianity a positive (albeit certainly not the most crucial) force in Korea’s ‘selfstrengthening.’ ‘Dialogue on the Western Lake’ (Sˇoho Mundap, serialized in Taehan Maeil Sinbo between March 5 and March 18, 1908; its ascription to Sin Ch’aeho is generally accepted, but has recently been questioned)50 mentioned that conversion to Christianity might help Korean compatriots ‘atone for the sin of losing the country’s sovereignty’ and ‘practice their love for their fellow Koreans.’ Christianity, says one of the interlocutors, ‘is practiced in Britain, America, Germany and France, and how strong and glorious all these countries are! If our compatriots wish to emulate that, they should follow the religion of these countries.’51 At the same time, all the similarities between Sin Ch’aeho’s ideas and the ‘Occidentalist’ nationalism of his more thoroughly Christianityinspired contemporaries notwithstanding, the differences were still salient. Sin Ch’aeho, in a manner rather resembling Liang Qichao, tried 49 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 129–130. 50 On this ‘Dialogue,’ see a recent article which explores the pre-modern roots of its rhetoric: Yi Kang’yˇop, “Sin Ch’aeho sosˇol e nat’anan hanmun nonbyˇon chˇont’ong uˇ i suyong kwa pyˇonyong” [Acceptance and Transformation of the Classical Chinese Rhetorical Tradition in Sin Ch’aeho’s Fiction], Yˇolsang kojˇon yˇon’gu, Vol. 9, 1996, Pp. 267–302. On the reasons why the attribution of this ‘Dialogue’ to Sin is doubted, see: Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], New edition (Ch’ˇon’an: Tongnip kinyˇomgwan, 2008), Pp. x. 51 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip, Pp. 138–139.

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hard to ‘modernize’ Confucianism instead of abandoning it altogether, and pictured Confucius as a prototypical ‘patriot’ of his Lu ‘motherland’ (‘Addressing My Confucian Countrymen With A Warning’, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, January 16, 1908).52 He considered ‘the force of sincerity of great ancient Confucians’ a part of Korea’s all-important ‘national essence’ (‘On Preserving The National Essence’, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, August 12, 1908),53 and reformulated the Confucian idea of ‘loyalty’ away from that towards a personal ruler towards a state-centred ‘patriotism’ (‘On Loyal Vassals’, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, August 13, 1909).54 The practical motivation for a more interested and considerate approach to Confucian culture, as Sin himself confessed,55 was the influence Confucians still wielded over opinion in the country: Unless persuaded to ‘modernize’ their ways and adapt their original beliefs to meet the demands of ‘national survival,’ Confucians could effectively block any ‘reinvigoration of the nation’ at the grassroots level. From the longer-term prospective, Sin was also afraid that unavoidable imitation of Western and Japanese patterns would lead to Korea being completely culturally absorbed by its ‘advanced’ ‘models’ (‘A Deplorable Picture of Assimilation’, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, March 23, 1909).56 Thus, he seemed to be interested in Confucianism as an instrument of nationalist cultural selfidentification / self-preservation57 and in Christianity as a tool of ‘civilization and progress.’ Ultimately, Sin suggested that, while Confucianism was to be further reformed and developed, Christianity was to become Korea’s ‘civil religion’ (‘New People of the Twentieth Century’, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, February 22 to March 3, 1910).58 This more inclusive attitude towards Confucianism in its reformed version was among the most salient differences between Sin Ch’aeho and the Christianity-inspired

52

Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 106. 53 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 116. 54 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 179–180. 55 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 106–107. 56 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 150–152. 57 Ch’oe Honggyu, Sin Ch’aeho ŭi minjokchuŭi sasang [Sin Ch’aeho’s Nationalist Ideas], (Seoul: Hyŏngsŏl ch’ulp’ansa, 1986), Pp. 78. 58 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 228.

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successors to the Tongnip Sinmun’s thoroughly Westernist modernization project. The basic set of shared and strongly emphasized Social Darwinist beliefs was, by contrast, the most important commonality.

West as Ideal, Japan as Model and Ally Younger nationalist intellectuals’ views on the international situation were rather complicated, if not deeply self-contradictory. Most of them hardly doubted that China, strongly associated with ‘Confucianism,’ was nothing more than an ‘unfit,’ ‘reactionary’ weakling and no good for Korea’s development. Influenced by Sŏ Chaep’il and Yun Ch’iho’s ideas on Chinese ‘racial inferiority,’ Korean nationalists of the first decade of the new century speculated on the ‘innate conservatism of Chinese national character.’ Typically, in the monthly Sŏu, Pak Sŏnghŭm (?–1911; assumed ˇ to be a local literatus from Uiju County, Northern P’yˇongan Province) compared the ‘national characters’ of various peoples in the following fashion (Sŏu, No. 11, October 1907, Pp. 67–71): The strong points of the British are their respect for experience in every matter, and a practical spirit. Even if they lose, they are not ashamed of it, and just work for ultimate victory and final success, without paying attention to the praises and criticisms of others. […] Americans are the descendants of British, but they are even more practical than the British. While the British are aristocratic and constrained by formalities, Americans disregard formalities and are not interested in roundabout ways to accomplish their aims. They like to pioneer new ways in order to achieve their aims in a direct way. That is why, although they had been backward in science, philosophy, literature, and art in comparison with other European nations before, they outdid all European states in the application of sciences. […] Chinese, although they are both practical and optimistic and had been rather advanced in practical [matters], went too far in their pragmatism and became utterly materialistic. They have no ideals, and their optimism has developed into conservatism. Their social development stopped as a result. […] Both the Chinese and Indians are proud of their original civilizations and disinterested in enriching themselves with the results of other countries’ progress. They have developed a stubbornly conservative spirit.59

‘Stubbornness and conservatism’ on the side of the Chinese meant that any progress in China could only be stimulated from outside. Yun Hyo59 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 6, Pp. 67–72.

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jŏng (pen name: Unjˇong, 1858–1939), a former activist of the Independence Club (who remained a non-Christian) and one of the leading members of the Korean Self-Strengthening Society who lived in exile in Japan in 1898–1902 and was known after 1906 to be quite pro-Japanese (albeit still inimical to the most notorious pro-Japanese organisation, Ilchinhoe),60 was a typical adherent of this view. He argued in his article entitled ‘Qing [China’s] Awakening’ (Ch’ˇongguk uˇ i kaksˇong; published in the Society’s monthly organ, Taehan Chaganghoe Wŏlbo, No. 10, April 1907, Pp. 4–7), that only Japan could ‘awaken’ the Chinese from their ‘millennia of sleep.’ After enumerating the ‘insults’ suffered by China on account of various ‘Western predations,’ he noted the following: Thus, China had to swallow the insults, affronts, and encroachments from various states, barely managing to maintain the state of temporary peace. Foreign states became increasingly aware of how to use its weaknesses, and there was hardly any right or interest they did not encroach upon. But, due to Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War, the Chinese began to believe in the prospects of the Asian race and understood that the Whites should not be feared. They obtained the spirit of activity and energy, and, aware now of the history of Japan’s observance of the treaties, began to reflect critically on the fact that they had swallowed insults from abroad before. They started to think that the rights should no longer be ceded to foreigners and that those ceded should be recovered. Public opinion on the question of the recovery of concessions began to be agitated.61

While the West represented the highest ‘heights’ of ‘civilization’ ever achievable, Japan served as an example of an independent, internallydriven ‘civilization’ in a previously ‘uncivilized’ country. Admiration of Meiji reforms and high esteem for the ‘heroes of the Meiji Restoration’ and ‘makers of modern Japan,’ expressed—in different degrees and dissimilar ways—by both Yun Ch’iho and Sŏ Chaep’il, was commonplace in the nationalist journals of the first decade of the twentieth century. Typically, a certain Yi Kyuyŏng, then a student at a Japanese university and a frequent contributor of travelogues, classical Chinese poems and 60 Kwˇ onˇop Sinmun, a newspaper of decidedly anti-Japanese Korean émigrés in the Russian Maritime Province, reported on Yun’s trips to Beijing in 1913 and 1914 that ‘his aim was to conduct surveillance on the Beijing-based Koreans [on behalf of the Japanese police]’ (“Yun Hyojˇong i Pukkyˇong uˇ ro” [Yun Hyojˇong Goes to Beijing], June 28, 1914). More biographical details can be gleaned from his autobiography serialized in the daily Tong’a Ilbo in 1931 and republished in 1995 as a separate book: Yun Hyojŏng, Hanmal Pisa [Secret History of the Last Days of Old Korea] (Seoul: Kyomunsa, 1995 [1931]). 61 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 2, Pp. 168–172.

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treatises on things modern to T’aegŭk hakpo, in his article entitled ‘The Weakness and Strength of Humans and the Rise and Decay of States Depend on Action and Inaction’ (In uˇ i kangyak kwa kuk uˇ i sˇongsoe ka wiyˇo purwi e chaehaya, published in T’aegŭk hakpo, No. 8, April 1907, Pp. 10–13), described Japan’s ‘way to progress’ as a model for Korea’s own ‘young heroes’: The Ten Heroes of the Restoration in Japan abolished the old feudal laws, enabled the Imperial House to assume absolute power over the country, and put into effect the Constitution based on the precedents of the civilized countries of Europe and America. If not for their actions, how could Japan achieve its progress today? […] I would wish you to know that in our Korea, too, the ranks of heroes to follow this example would not yield to any other country. The problem lies in our chronic disease of preferring to depend on others […].62

While the interest in Japan concentrated—for understandable reasons— mostly on the Meiji successes, in the prevailing climate of ascribing the ‘rise and fall’ of nations to the relative strength and weakness of their ‘spirits,’ the ‘spirit of Yamato’ as a driving force beyond Japan’s unexpected ascension into the ranks of ‘powers’ was a hot topic of debate. Ch’oe Sˇokha—whose thoughts on ‘Korea’s soul’ were already mentioned above—dealt with this topic in his piece ‘On Japanese Civilization’ (Ilbon Munmyˇong’kwan, published in Taehan Hŭnghakpo, No. 1, March 1909, Pp. 65–68, No. 2, April 1909, Pp. 56–58). There, he ascribed to the Japanese national character such ‘strengths’ as ‘loyalty to the Emperor, patriotic self-sacrificial spirit, decisiveness and abilities of shrewd observation, self-respect strong enough to resist making concessions to other states, a sense of gratitude, the feeling of righteousness demanding help for the weak and the quest for chivalrous fame urging to restrict the strong.’ At the same time, ‘excessive emotion and a proclivity to develop irreconcilable personal enmities hindering the development of a stable party government system’ were judged main weaknesses.63 More in line with Japan’s official Shinto nationalist stereotypes, another Korean student in Japan, Kang Chˇon, told his readers in an article entitled ‘Diverse Impressions on Japan, with Foreword’ (Ilbon chapkam pyˇongsˇo,

62 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 14, Pp. 16–19. 63 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 20, Pp. 83–86, 184–186.

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published in Taehan Hakhoe Wˇolbo, Issue 9, November 1908, Pp. 43– 45)64 that Japan was an ‘empire’ from the time of its founding ‘more than 2,520 years ago.’ He added that all Japanese were descendants of the heavenly deities. The interest Kang Chˇon showed in the Shintoist myth of the sun goddess Amaterasu—which he faithfully expressed in his piece—is somewhat unusual for Korean nationalists of the late years of the decade, who were much more interested in reviving and ‘nationalising’ their own mythology. They remade, for example, Tan’gun, Korea’s mythical progenitor, into a symbol of the country’s epic greatness, national unity and potential.65 But the understanding of the ‘national foundation myths’ as foundational also for the nation’s ability to compete and survive was evidently universalistic and not limited to Korea only— such that the ‘sources’ of the glory of Japan’s victories over the ‘Russian giant’ could well be sought in the ‘sacred nature’ of the ancestry of Japan. The prevailing views on Japan in its relations to Korea’s own prospects for ‘progress’ encompassed a wide spectrum of often-contradictory opinions. On the one hand, Japan was often viewed as both an example for Korea and a ‘racially close’ ally in the worldwide ‘struggle for existence.’ Japan’s unexpected victories over its gigantic continental rivals, China and Russia, drew the close attention of Korea’s younger intellectuals, the unspoken thought being constantly both astonishment at the achievements of the erstwhile ‘barbarians from the Eastern Islands,’ and a desire to somehow emulate their exploits. One commentator, who wrote an article with the pretentious title ‘Research on Oriental History’ (Tongyangsa uˇ i yˇon’gu) for the nineteenth issue of T’aegŭk Hakpo (March 1908; Pp. 11–13) under the pseudonym ‘Manch’ŏnsaeng’ (‘The one who draws Heaven closer’), explained Korea’s ‘failures’ against the backdrop of Japan’s ‘successes’ in the following way: Now, the race of Yamato (Japan calls itself ‘the race of Yamato’ and also uses it as a generic name for the whole Mongol race), based on these three Eastern islands, defeated the Qing, fought off Russia, obtained hegemony over East Asia, and plays a strong role in the world. […] Both in ancient and modern times, the Chinese and other nations of East Asia rose to prominence by military force, and declined due to literary effeminacy 64 Cited in: Yi Hˇ uimok, Aeguk kyemonggi Hansi charyojip [Collection of Chinese Poems from the Patriotic Enlightenment Period] (Seoul: Sˇonggyun’gwan Taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 2004), Pp. 145–147. 65 Cho Hyˇ onsˇol, “Kˇundae kyemonggi Tan’gun sinhwa uˇ i t’alsinhwahwa wa chaesinhwahwa” [Demythologization and Remythologization of the Tan’gun Myth in the Modern Enlightenment Period], Minjok Munhaksa yˇon’gu, Vol. 32, 2006, Pp. 10–32.

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chapter four [in their neglect of the military arts] […]. The source of all the evils in our country is the worship of literature and disregard for the military. That is why our popular opinion is so feeble-minded, and that is why our chivalrous spirit is thus thwarted. When we meet a stronger counterpart, we lack the ability to resist, and when we look at a bigger counterpart, we cower, and, in accordance with traditional evil practice, resort to makeshift measures in order to avoid a fight. We need to expunge the deleterious customs, change our beliefs, encourage military bravery, make military discipline the state’s ideology, worship simplicity, and strengthen feelings of loyalty among the masses, […] in order to become like the Mongols or the Yamato race of the East.66

Together with the ‘military spirit of Yamato,’ Japan’s ‘modernization’ achievements, as exemplified by the Meiji Constitution, were viewed as a guiding light for Korea’s own race to ‘progress.’ For example, in his article ‘The World of Constitutionalism’ (Iphˇon segye), contributed to Issue 4 (June 1909, Pp. 21–24) of the Taehan hŭnghakpo, Kim Chinsŏng claimed that only peaceful, non-revolutionary progress to constitutionalism along Meiji lines could bring real civilization and independence to Korea: We are currently in an epoch when the world is dominated by two political systems: autocracy and constitutionalism. As I will try to establish, these two systems presently compete with each other, and the newer one will necessarily win, while the older one will necessarily be destroyed. As a result, all countries in the world will inevitably end up adopting the constitutional system. […] Let us turn to the example of Japan. We all know that its distinctive feature is the so-called importation of Western European civilization, but the essence of that process was nothing more than the emulation of the constitutional system. The constitution was promulgated in Japan twenty years ago, and what is the difference between the state of the country and popular sentiments before then and now? That these bullet-shaped small islands could fight off two strong states, China and Russia, is, we may say, only due to the popular patriotism generated by a respect for people’s rights and the protection of individuals’ freedom under constitutional government. Thus, constitutionalism is the root of civilization, wealth, and strength; and civilization, wealth, and strength are simply the fruits of constitutionalism. […] Alas! It is difficult to maintain independence for a state where, in the twentieth century, people lack constitutional ideas; it is difficult to recover

66 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 15, Pp. 316–317.

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lost sovereignty for such a state, and it will be difficult for it to play a role on the international scene in future! Alas! Although the great aim of recovery of independence is what the people of our peninsula think about day and night, it is hard to recover independence without constitutional ideas, and, even if in such a case independence should be recovered, it will not last for long, anyway.67

On the other hand, Japan was considered by some of the more Westernist nationalists to be still an ‘inferior,’ ‘half-civilized’ country, and —realistically enough—a threat to Korea’s independence. For example, Kim Kihwan, in his ambitious contribution to Taehan hŭnghakpo (Issue 6, October 1909; Pp. 18–22) entitled ‘The Task of Today’s Korean Youth’ (Han’guk kˇumil uˇ i ch’ˇongnyˇon saˇop), argued in no uncertain terms that Japan’s modern ‘civilization’ was still inferior to its Western prototypes. He maintained that the West, not Japan, was the best place for Korean students aspiring to learn about ‘civilization’ firsthand: Oh, how beautiful, how beautiful they are, the mountains of America and the rivers of Europe! The universe of freedom, the world of civilization! Alas, I feel as if shut in a cage, as if imprisoned in a jail. Oh, youth of Korea, let us quickly import the freedom and civilization of American and European mountains and waters, so that we can break down the cages and prisons and make Korea’s waters and mountains ideally beautiful and gorgeous! Of course, Europe and America are generally more than ten times richer economically than we, and, in fact, in Korea’s present condition (that of extreme poverty) it is tremendously difficult to go there to breathe the air of civilization and freedom and import knowledge. […] Instead of speaking about Europe or America, how about going to Japan, very close to Korea and a very moderately priced place? Today’s Japanese civilization can rival [that of] the West, of course, and the number of Korean students here is, commendably, to be counted in the thousands. Still, as the East is not the West, there remains a feeling of indirectness [in the transmission of civilization] and discontent. […] I wish you, young people, to go to America’s mountains and rivers, to use English, once used by Washington’s independence fighters, and master the English writing employed in politics all over the world! Here, in Japan, higher schools are also schools of English, and high-level literature is also English and European literature.68

A witty pun helped to emphasize the point of this emotional text. As the ideograph mi, ‘beautiful,’ was customarily used for designating ‘America’ 67 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 20, Pp. 326–328. 68 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 21, Pp. 26–30.

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as well, ‘the mountains of America’ (misan) could simultaneously mean ‘beautiful mountains.’ Relativised as just a ‘pupil’ of the Westerners, Japan was also seen by some of the modernist polemists as a threat to Korean independence, all the Asianist rhetoric of some of its influential intellectuals and politicians notwithstanding. The threat of Japanese aggression, masked by talk of ‘Asian unity’ and ‘learning from the most advanced state of the Yellow race,’ was stressed by several Taehan Maeil Sinbo polemists. Notably, Sin Ch’aeho spared no efforts in persuading his readers that the Pan-Asianist rhetoric employed by the Japanese and their Korean adherents was just a disguise for ‘enslaving our country.’ In his article entitled ‘A Critique of Asianism’ (Tongyangjuŭi e taehan pip’yˇong, August 8–10, 1909), he forcefully argued: What is Asianism? It means to check Western expansion in the East by the united efforts of various Eastern countries. Who are those who advocate it? First, those who would misleed and destroy our state (ogukcha). Those who are going to yield their four thousand years-old fatherland to others, to forcibly consign the 20 millions of our brothers to the other’s slave registers. As they cannot legitimise what they are doing any other way, they mask their deeds under such phrases, cheating Heaven above and people below. They say that now is the epoch of competition between East and West, and between the White and Yellow races. They say that the rise of the East means the downfall of the West, and the rise of the West the downfall of the East, and that these two forces cannot coexist. They say that all Easterners—states and individuals—should unite to resist the Westerners. They say that it is a sin to sell one’s state to others, but now, as both sellers and buyers are Easterners […], what sin can it be? […] When they advocate Asianism, the Japanese all sing the same song together. […] Gradually, the number of those who consider even the hostile Eastern state identical with us and the enemy Eastern race our kin, increases. […] Today, when competition between states is so fierce, even a temporary retreat may throw us into the tiger’s jaws. If our weaknesses pile up, we will find ourselves in the eagle’s claws. […] To follow the venomous gangsters and plot together with them is a slave-like derangement. […] Today, the state is the primary thing, and the East is a secondary one. […] If the Korean state will eternally disappear, the Korean race will vanish forever, too; can we console ourselves with the fact that our land will be taken over by a fellow Yellow race?69 69

Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 3, Pp. 88–91.

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However, Sin’s astute criticism of the dangerous political implications of Asianist phraseology seemed to be a rather isolated phenomenon. Even among modernist intellectuals that were politically opposed to Japanese behaviour in Korea, belief in the importance of ‘racial kinship’ between the East Asian nations and in the possibility of ‘racial wars’ between ‘Yellow and White races’ in future remained strong—and, doubtlessly, was only enforced by the racist currents in contemporary Western thought. As a good example, a middle-of-the road editorial line of the Hwangsŏng Sinmun, which principally advocated Korea’s independence, but also remained a tenacious defender of ‘Asian unity’ up to the end, may be considered.70

‘Survival’ as a Moral Issue and Collective Endeavour In a way, the nationalist modernisers of the first decade of the twentieth century inherited both Yu Kiljun’s racialist commitment to ‘Yellow unity’ and Sŏ Chaep’il’s critical view of Japan’s lacking a ‘degree of development.’ However, Sŏ Chaep’il’s interest in individual rights did not seem to exert much influence: individualism was emphatically rejected in favour of patriotism, and ‘people’s rights’ were mainly understood as a tool for better social cohesion. Constitutionalism was favoured largely on the grounds of its presumed contribution to strengthening social solidarity. For more pro-Japanese segments of the modernist groups, the victory of Meiji constitutional monarchy over Russian autocracy—and the fact that the latter ended up with the social upheavals of the 1905 revolution —was a good demonstration of the ‘usefulness’ of constitutionalism for the all-important ‘wealth and strength’ of the state. It was also thought to prove the superiority of the ‘patriotism and constitutionalism-based’ Meiji model as a whole. Patriotic fervour was apparently to substitute for the Confucian hierarchies that the nationalist intelligentsia tended to challenge. And education, the way to ‘strengthen the nation’ and enhance its chances of survival in the Darwinian jungles of ‘evolutionary warfare,’ was taken as the primary ‘patriotic duty.’71

70

See: Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895–1919, Pp. 96–100. Kim Tohyŏng, Taehan cheguk ki ŭi chŏngch’i sasang yŏn’gu [Research on the Political Ideology of the Taehan Empire Period] (Seoul: Chisik sanŏpsa, 1994), Pp. 119–120, 131– 144. 71

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While the majority of Koreans continued to live in a universe dominated by the Confucianism-based habitus of late Chosˇon times, the discursive space of the modernisation-oriented intelligentsia in the later years of the first decade of the new century was filled with a Social Darwinist rhetoric which largely appropriated the Confucian conceptual legacy. Social Darwinist tenets were mixed with Confucian moral maxims—for example, the imperatives of ‘collective belonging’ and ‘collective survival’ were reinforced by the age-old idea of ‘loyalty to the state’— producing in the end a rather coherent and inspiring ideology of allencompassing national devotion. In this world of ‘Social Darwinism with Confucian characteristics,’ the age-old Confucian concern with ‘ethical self-cultivation’ was remoulded into a theory which put the ‘character’ of the ‘nationals’—‘elements constituting the state’—at the centre of a nation’s ability to compete and survive. As a certain Kim Yˇonggi told his readers in his article on ‘Survival of the Fittest’ (Chˇokcha saengjon, published in Taehan Hˇunghakpo, No. 1, March 1909, Pp. 15–16), both ‘survival’ of the nation and recovery of its sovereignty fully depended on the willingness of its nationals to cultivate both their ‘moral characters’ and the quality of ‘decisiveness.’ A graphic example of the importance of a ‘decisive, manly behaviour’ grounded in the solid ‘development of character’ was the survival and prosperity of smaller countries, such as Sweden, guaranteed by the greatness of such prominent nationals as the famed traveller Sven Hedin (1865–1952).72 Hedin, who actually visited Japan and Korea in 1908,73 became, together with the likes of Napoleon, Peter the Great and Washington, a ‘sage’ of the new epoch—to be admired, studied and emulated in the hope of discovering the secret of how to join the ‘fittest,’ both individually and collectively. After Korea’s complete demise in 1910, this ‘character turn’ took on somewhat extremist features in the writings of more uncompromising émigré nationalists like Sin Ch’aeho. In his unpublished article entitled ‘Ethics’ (Todˇok) and seemingly written after his flight to China and subsequently to Vladivostok in 1910, Sin literally cursed the Confucian virtues of ‘humanity, tenderness, gentleness and affability’ (inyu onhu) as the deeper, underlying reason for Koreans’ failure to fight to the death for their now-defunct state. He suggested that Koreans, now

72 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 20, Pp. 32–34. 73 Sonyˇ on, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1908, Pp. 4.

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stateless, have to develop a new set of personal values, completely centred on a fearless patriotic devotion and free from the legacy of ‘Confucian humanism’: This is a world, where might is right, where the stronger devour the weaker, where those preaching humaneness have guns in their hands, […] where Darwin’s natural selection theory is much more timely than Kropotkin’s ideas on mutual aid.74

This Social Darwinist tirade was completely anti-Confucian in its content. However, his essentially Confucian focus upon ‘character’ and ‘virtue’ made Sin enormously popular among the nationalist émigrés of the 1910s–1920s. In the end, it was exactly this synthesis of Social Darwinist logic and the Confucian ethos of selfless loyalty—buttressed by the influence of the conservative statist (kokkashugi) ideology of Meiji Japan that also syncretised modern nationalism with premodern ethics of allegiance to one’s master75—that embedded Social Darwinist ideas so deeply in the modern Korean consciousness. Patriotism became largely inseparable from the belief, now almost commonsensical, in the persistence of violent international competition in a world where survival was the absolute imperative—and remained closely tied to this belief for decades to come. The Social Darwinism-informed intellectual debates of the first decade of the twentieth century did not result in any convincing victory for any of the platforms presented. For one thing, in the openly politicized issues, such as the attitude towards Japan and the Japan-centred Pan-Asianist theories, the positions of various polemists were, after all, greatly influenced by their divergent political stances. As is well known, Sin Ch’aeho continued his uncompromising fight against Japanese colonialism from his self-imposed exile in Russia’s Maritime Province (1910–1913) and then from China. At the same time, Chang Chiyŏn, once his close colleague, became from 1914 a regular contributor to the GovernmentGeneral’s mouthpiece, Maeil Sinbo, and advocated in his columns for ‘Yellow race solidarity’ in preparation for the coming ‘war between the 74 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 3, Pp. 136–144. 75 On modern and premodern features of the Meiji concepts of patriotism, see: Kado Kazumasa, “ ‘Chūgun’ to ‘aikoku’—Meiji kenbō taisei ni okeru ‘Meiji no seishin’” [‘Loyalty’ and ‘Patriotism’—‘Meiji spirit’ in the Meiji Constitutional System], in Suzuki Noriō and Kado Kazumasa (eds.) Meiji kokka no seishinshiteki kenkyū [Spiritual History of the Meiji State] (Tokyo: Ibunsha, 2008), Pp. 57–126.

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Yellow and White races.’76 Sin does not seem to have shown much interest in Confucianism after leaving Korea in 1910—and indeed, harshly criticised it as an ideological basis of the Chosŏn hereditary status system after having converted to anarchism in the mid-1920s.77 Chang, by contrast, was keen to express his ‘gratitude’ to the Japanese colonial authorities for their ‘efforts towards preservation of Confucian institutions’ in his Maeil Sinbo contributions.78 Sin’s and Chang’s common Social Darwinist convictions did not prevent them from diverging rather broadly in their respective political allegiances and views. However, the early 1900s debates on ways and models for ‘national survival’ did produce a consensus on certain issues, which, to a degree, could transcend the diverse political positions. Both anti-Japanese independence advocates and the adepts of Japan-centred Pan-Asianist theories seemed to agree, for example, that a common religion might be as essential for the ‘survival’ of a collective as modern education, and that physical discipline—be it military drill or peaceful sports—was essential for producing the ‘fittest’ on the individual level. In the following chapters I will examine in more detail the subsequent debates provoked by this ‘Social Darwinist consensus’— the debates on the possible role of Buddhism in ‘national survival’ (Chapter Five), forms and methods of modern ‘education for survival’ (Chapter Six), and ways for making Korean men ‘fitter’ and more ‘soldierly’ (Chapter Seven).

76 Kim Tohyŏng, “Chang Chiyŏn ŭi pyŏnbŏp non kwa kŭ pyŏnhwa” [Chang Chiyŏn’s Reformist Theories and Their Changes], Han’guksa Yŏn’gu, Vol. 109, June 2000, Pp. 97– 103. 77 Sin Yongha, Sin Ch’aeho u ˇ i sahoe sasang yˇon’gu [Study of Sin Ch’aeho’s Social Ideas] (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1984), Pp. 298–303. 78 Kim Tohyŏng, “Chang Chiyŏn ŭi pyŏnbŏp non kwa kŭ pyŏnhwa” [Chang Chiyŏn’s Reformist Theories and Their Changes], Pp. 103–109.

chapter five SURVIVAL, GOD AND BUDDHA: SOCIAL DARWINISM IN THE BUDDHIST CONTEXT

Christianity as new Civilization’s Orthodoxy One of the many modern categories introduced to East Asia together with the notions of ‘nationhood,’ ‘civilization’ and ‘progress,’ was ‘religion’ (Jap. shūkyō, Ch. zongjiao, Kor. chonggyo). What today is termed ‘religion,’ of course, has been existing in East Asia centuries before its modern encounters of the nineteenth century. However, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that ‘religion’ was conceptualised, first in Meiji Japan in the 1860s–1870s, as a force supposed to be both institutionally independent from the state and assisting the latter’s ‘civilizing mission’; and as both transcending the profane society and responsible for improving and ‘civilizing’ its mores.1 Just as diverse Christian denominations were using the common generic category of ‘Christianity,’ defining it as a ‘world religion,’ the dissimilar Buddhist sects and groupings of Japan, China and Korea came to view themselves as ‘fellow Buddhists.’ They also started developing a lively interest in the Indian roots of their religion2—as well as in contemporaneous Buddhist revival movements elsewhere in Asia and in missionary efforts towards the Western public.3 Another aspect of this paradigmatic modern ‘religion,’ Protestant Christianity, which fascinated many Meiji Buddhist leaders, was the idea

1 For a superb account of the Meiji Japanese categorization of ‘religion,’ see: James E. Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), Pp. 87–136. 2 On the Japanese Buddhist pilgrimages to India and Sri-Lanka in Meiji period, see: Richard M. Jaffe, “Seeking Sakyamuni: Travel and the Reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism”, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1, Pp. 65–96. 3 On the late nineteenth-century Japanese efforts to present (Japanese) Buddhism to the West as a ‘true’ religion—comparable to Christianity—and ‘the essence of Japanese civilization,’ see: Judith Snodgrass, Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and the Columbian Exposition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).

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of a ‘rational,’ de-mythologized belief system fully compatible with the ‘scientific civilization’ of the day.4 In this chapter, I will attempt to show that the strategies of ‘survival struggle’ in the modern religious market, as chosen by some of the modern Korean Buddhist leaders, notably Han Yong’un (1879–1944), followed primarily the same logic, Buddhism being now presented as a world religion best fitting modernity’s assumedly ‘scientific and rational’ paradigm. Following Liang Qichao’s lead, Han Yong’un also emphasized Buddhism’s supposed ‘altruistic’ and ‘democratic’ qualities, advertising his religion’s ‘survival potential’ in the modern Darwinian age and offering a blueprint for reforms (allowing monks and nuns to marry, etc.) which aimed at maximizing Buddhism’s chances in ‘competition’ against its new rival, Christianity. I will also show that, unlike many other modern Korean intellectuals—Yi Kwangsu and Yun Ch’iho being cases in the point—Han Yong’un, his understanding of Social Darwinism as ‘the objective truth’ of the modern age notwithstanding, still treated the ‘law of survival of the fittest’ as subordinate to the postulates of Buddhist ethics. His absolute belief in the supremacy of Buddhist dharma over Social Darwinist ‘laws’ made him one of the very few non-Marxist and non-Anarchist intellectuals of modern Korea who managed to relativise the Social Darwinist dogmas and develop an axiology which would go far beyond the values of ‘competition’ and ‘survival.’ The culturally radical camp of the late years of the first decade of the twentieth century, predominantly influenced by Yun Ch’iho and Sŏ Chaep’il, tended towards total and unconditioned rejection of the Confucian legacy in favour of Christianity as more conducive to ‘selfstrengthening.’ Religion was treated as a ‘crucial factor’ in this ‘selfstrengthening’ in the ‘competition for survival,’ as an embodiment of a ‘national essence’ providing the grounds for all sorts of political reforms. This view was most explicitly expressed in the famous editorial that appeared in the Taehan Maeil Sinbo on December 1, 1905, under the title ‘Believing in Religion and Self-Strengthening’ (Sin’gyo chagang):

4 On the efforts to ‘rationalize’ Buddhism by Shaku Sōen (1859–1919), a noted Meiji Buddhist leader and one of the first propagators of Japanese Zen in the USA, see: David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), Pp. 63–72.

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Generally, all over the globe under Heaven, myriads of people are always competing with each other. Neither countries nor peoples can avoid [the laws of] ‘the struggle for survival’ (yangnyuk kangsik) and ‘survival of the fittest’ (usŭng yŏlp’ae). In today’s world, those lacking the power to strengthen themselves, though they are called ‘people’, are never treated as such. They live as slaves, cows, or horses; cannot secure their freedom; are being lorded over by others; and, having been subjected to others’ rule, often get exterminated altogether in the end. This is what has been witnessed by the peoples of the world, but how is it possible to describe this dreadful situation in words? Let us investigate what pertains to the self-strengthening abilities of humanity. There are both intangible (muhyŏng) and tangible (yuhyŏng) types of selfstrengthening: the former means such things as religious beliefs, and the latter—finances, armies, and so on. Of course, in any state the intangible strength precedes the acquisition of material force from the very beginning: For example, the independence of the USA and Greece are owed to the strengths of the religious beliefs [of their respective peoples]. So, even if one’s finances and armies are weak, so far as the religion and history of the state are preserved, its spirit of independence will not be extinguished. How can we not respect the intangible strength for the sake of restoring the state’s sovereignty? In today’s Korea, it can be argued that the nation’s tangible strength is next to nothing, but we dare say that the intangible strength of its religion and society gives us grounds for expectation. Today, the number of Christians in Korea has reached several tens of thousands, and all of them, even at the point of death, pray to Heaven for the maintenance of Korea’s independence, and recommend the [Christian religion] to their compatriots. This forms the foundation of Korea’s independence. Some shallow fellows view these developments cynically, but in a few years they will surely see their results.5

The same belief in Christianity as the driving force beyond Europe’s rise to the top of the international ‘civilization ladder’ was largely shared by most pro-reformist, early nationalist newspapers of the 1900s (especially the Taehan Maeil Sinbo), even if their authors and editors were not themselves followers of the Christian religion.6 Christianity, however, still remained a minority creed—at least numerically. According to 5

Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 2, Pp. 13–53. Kim Tohyŏng, Taehan cheguk ki ŭi chŏngch’i sasang yŏn’gu [Research on the Political Ideology of the Taehan Empire Period], Pp. 31. 6

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Anglican statistics compiled in early 1911, foreign Christian missionaries in Korea, including 57 Catholic and 3 Russian Orthodox priests, totalled 380 and commanded the allegiance of 99,430 faithful (including 43,872 Catholics), with a further 208,289 Koreans listed as ‘seekers’ or ‘awaiting baptism.’ Conversions greatly increased in 1905–1910 since Christians churches, their priests and pastors possessing treaty-based extraterritoriality rights, were often viewed as the potential protectors of their faithful against the rapacity of local officialdom and, more generally, of Korea as a whole against Japanese predations.7 The numerical growth of the Korean Christian church was impressive—especially given the fact that missionary activity in the interior started only as late as in the mid-1880s—but an overall population estimated at 12,935,282 in 1910,8 the Christian believers constituted just less than 1 percent. Compared to this, Korean Buddhism boasted an estimated 1,412 temples and hermitages nationwide (many of them being important local landowners) and 8,339 monks and nuns (these statistics were compiled in 1916, but the numbers were not likely to have significantly increased after the end of the last pre-colonial decade). It was an established religion—especially strongly entrenched among the non-elite rural populations, but also attracting, as readers will see below, positive attention from some of the earlier, 1880s–1890s reformers.9 How, then, was such a significant religious force treated by the nationalist ideologues of the early twentieth century?

Buddhism: ‘Superstitious and Useless for National Survival’? As to the attitude towards Buddhism, the May 15, 1902, editorial in Hwangsŏng Sinmun, published by moderate reform-oriented Confucians, seems to be a typical example. Timed for the celebration of Buddha’s birthday, the editorial praised the Buddhist theory of retribution for both good and evil acts (as ‘ultimately similar to the doctrine of the Book 7 Kim Chŏngnan, “Hanmal Kidokkyodo ŭi sahoe ŭisik kwa hang’il ŭisik” [“Social and Anti-Japanese Consciousness of the Christians in the Last Years of the Taehan Empire”] (M.A. Dissertation in History, Seoul: Sungmyŏng Womens University, 1981), Pp. 15–29. 8 See the Japanese Government-General statistics cited in: Hwang, Kyung Moon, “Citizenship, Social Equality and Government Reform: Changes in the Household Registration System in Korea, 1894–1910”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2, May 2004, Pp. 355–387. 9 On the state of pre-colonial and early colonial Buddhism, see: Yi Nŭnghwa (translated into modern Korean by Yi Pyŏngdu), Chosŏn Pulgyo T’ongsa. Kŭndaep’yŏn [Overview History of Korean Buddhism. Modern Part] (Seoul: Hyean, 2003), Pp. 13–142.

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of Changes’). However, at the same time it lamented the believers’ ‘mistaken faith in the magic abilities of Buddhist deities’ and their ‘misguided rush to needless sacrificial offerings,’ which could only result in ‘the accumulation of bad karma.’10 ‘Degraded’ contemporary Buddhism was thus represented as an enemy in and of itself, unable even to stick to its ‘original’ positive features. Not long after, the next editorial—specially dedicated to the world’s religions (August 12, 1902)—informed readers that Korean Buddhism was already ‘half dead, half alive,’ representing ‘nothing more than other-worldly hermits in the mountains.’11 The following year, in a polemic engaging a conservative Confucian opponent of ‘alien Western creeds,’ an editorial in the Hwangsŏng Sinmun (June 6) suggested that the absence of ‘absurd and superstitious beliefs in shamanistic and Buddhist idols’ in Western religions was an indication of their belonging to a ‘higher stage of civilization’s progress.’12 At the same time, supposedly ‘modern’ Japanese Buddhist missionaries seem to have fared somewhat better in the view of progressive opinion. One of them, Jōdo priest Hiroyasu Shinsui (who came to Korea in 1900), was even honoured by one of ˇ Korea’s famed modernising Confucians, Pak Unsik (1859–1925), who wrote, in his brilliantly florid classical Chinese, a foreword to Hiroyasu’s published missionary diary (Jōdoshū Kankoku Kaikyōji, 1903).13 Explaining that Buddhism, once transmitted to Japan from Korea, had returned from Japan to Korea now, Pak endorsed Hiroyasu’s efforts to ‘save the sentient beings and feed them with the milk of Dharma.’14 Thus, Korean Buddhism, if it wanted to show its relevancy and prove its willingness and ability to join the ‘march to civilization and survival’ already pioneered by its Japanese co-religionists, had to meet the ‘Social Darwinist challenge’: It had to prove that, no less than Christianity, it was compatible with and useful for the period of international ‘competition.’ It was also challenged to either defend its popular cults—the main target of ‘civilized and enlightened’ derision—or reform them in ways more suitable to the new, ‘enlightened,’ epoch of ‘national regeneration.’ 10 Sinmun ŭro pon Han’guk pulgyo kŭnhyŏndae sa [Modern and Recent History of Korean Buddhism Seen through Newspapers], Vol. 2, Pp. 97. 11 Sinmun ŭro pon Han’guk pulgyo kŭnhyŏndae sa [Modern and Recent History of Korean Buddhism Seen through Newspapers], Vol. 2, Pp. 99. 12 Sinmun ŭro pon Han’guk pulgyo kŭnhyŏndae sa [Modern and Recent History of Korean Buddhism Seen Through the Newspapers], Vol. 2, Pp. 104. 13 Reprinted in: Kim Kwangsik (ed.) Ilbon pulgyo kaegyo charyo [Materials on the Missionary Activities of Japanese Buddhists] (Seoul: Minjoksa, 1996). 14 Pak Unsik, ˇ ˇ ˇ Pak Unsik chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik] (Seoul: Tan’guk Taehakkyo Tongyanghak Yˇon’guso, 1975), Vol. 2, Pp. 445–446.

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The attacks against ‘Buddhist superstition’, in which a Eurocentric discourse of ‘civilization and progress’ was mixed with old Neo-Confucian derision of monks and their ‘abstruse, useless and amoral doctrines,’ were a regional phenomenon not necessarily confined to Korea. Zhang Zhidong (1837–1909), China’s great moderate reformer, famously suggested in his seminal 1898 Exhortation to Learning (Quan xue pian) that up to 70 % of the properties of the Buddhist and Taoist temples should be confiscated in order to finance modern education and thus strengthen the modernising Chinese state.15 In fact, many such appropriations had already taken place both before and after the 1911 Republican Revolution in China, so that by the early 1930s only 2.3 % of the temples in western China were used exclusively for religious purposes.16 In Japan, in addition to the violent persecution (“exterminate Buddha”—haibutsu kishaku—campaign) suffered briefly by Buddhists at the dawn of the Meiji era (1868–1870), Buddhists were subjected in the 1870–1880s to ideological attacks by neophyte Christian intellectuals. To take one example, Takahashi Gorō (1856–1935), a distinguished populariser of Christianity and Western thought, characterised in his New Interpretation of Buddhism (Bukkyō sinkai)17 the nirvana doctrine as ‘empty and inconclusive,’ unable to provide a basis for ethical practice and prone to degenerate into superstition. Buddhism, as seen by Takahashi, was a doctrine possibly suitable for a handful of ascetics, but certainly not a religion for the secular world.18 However, the defence of Buddhism was much weaker in Korea compared to that offered by its regional neighbours. There was hardly any lay Buddhist in Korea comparable to Yang Wenhui (1837– 1911), an enlightened scholar-official with several years of diplomatic experience in London, who founded one of the most prolific Buddhist presses in China, the Jinling Spiritual Press, in 1864. He then also taught Buddhism to some intellectual stars of the next generation, including, for example, Tan Sitong (1865–1898), one of the most prominent figures of the ‘Hundred Days Reforms’ of 1898.19 Kang Youwei (1858–1927), the 15 William Ayers, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), Pp. 161–162. 16 Don A. Pittman, Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Reforms (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), Pp. 48. 17 Takahashi Gorō, Bukkyo sinkai (New Interpretation of Buddhism) (Tokyo: Jiseitō, 1883). 18 Notto R. Thelle, “From Conflict to Dialogue: Buddhism and Christianity in Japan, 1854–1899” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Oslo: Oslo University, 1982), Pp. 137–142. 19 Holmes Welch, The Buddhist Revival in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), Pp. 18–22.

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leader of the late 1890s-early 1900s reform movement, and Zhang Binglin (1868–1936), a nationalist revolutionary and accomplished scholar of the classics, both had strong Buddhist engagements. Kang regarded ‘altruistic’ Buddhism, with its salvationist message, as a way of spiritual practice greatly superior to Taoism, while Zhang was captivated by Yogācāra metaphysics.20 In the contemporaneous Korean case, a deep involvement with Buddhist doctrine on the part of public figures of the same stature was hardly imaginable, partly because of the much stronger legacy of the Confucian disdain for the ‘selfish and misleading religion of the barbarian Sakyamuni.’ Some earlier reformers, like Kim Okkyun and Pak Yˇonghyo (1861–1939), were known for their personal Buddhist sympathies, and Kim Okkyun’s enthusiasm for meditation was particularly famous, but such pro-Buddhist sentiments rarely went beyond the realm of personal life. Neither Kim, nor Pak wrote a single piece on Buddhism, all their interest in the subject notwithstanding.21 The ‘patriotic’ defence of Buddhism as a ‘national’ religion, albeit problematic in many ways, was a cause to which even Fukuzawa Yukichi used to lend his authority in the 1870s–1880s.22 However, it was much more difficult to find it in Korea, where the majority of the Neo-Confucian yangban scholar-officials never regarded Buddhism as a tradition Korea could be proud of. These who were to build bridges between Buddhism and evolutionary modernity discourses in Korea, faced a daunting, almost impossible task.

Liang Qichao as a Modern Apologist for Buddhism Unlike young reformist bureaucrats like Yu Kiljun or Yun Ch’iho— enriched by the Japanese and American cultural experience and able to read English books in the original—Korean Buddhist monks almost never travelled to the USA and Europe and completely lacked European language skills before the early 1920s. The 1893 Chicago World Parliament of Religions was attended by a large and representative Japanese 20 Guo Peng et. al, Zhongguo jindai fojiao sixiang shigao [Historical Sketches on Modern Chinese Buddhist Thought] (Chengdu: Bashu shushi chuban, 1989), Pp. 238–244, 354– 392. 21 Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong Kyoyugwˇ on (Republic of Korea, Chogye Buddhist Order, Educational Institute) (ed.) Chogyejong sa: kˇunhyˇondaep’yˇon [History of the Chogye Order: Modern Times] (Seoul: Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong, 2005), Pp. 19–21. 22 Notto R. Thelle, From Conflict to Dialogue: Buddhism and Christianity in Japan, 1854–1899, Pp. 116–117.

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Buddhist delegation, whose participation in that landmark event of international religious life definitely contributed to ‘modernising’ the image of Buddhism inside Japan as well23—but no Korean Buddhist delegates, of course, were to be seen in Chicago. Yun Ch’iho, then one of the few Korean students in the USA, attended the event, and recorded in his diary how appalled he was by the visible popularity of the presentations by the Japanese Buddhists and the well-known Sri-Lankan Buddhist reformer, Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933), among more liberal Christians. Yun conceptualized relations between Christianity and non-Christian creeds as a ‘permanent war,’ and professed his belief that ‘the war between Christianity and other creeds will go on’ until the last decisive battles (September 24, 1893).24 However, the awareness of inter-religious competition seems to have evaded Korean Buddhists until the very end of the first decade of the twentieth century—and even by then, their familiarity with the articles of Social Darwinist faith was hardly comparable with that of Yun Ch’iho or Yu Kiljun. The direct comprehension of Japanese Social Darwinist treatises was in most cases almost impossible for Korean monks (largely lacking ‘modern’ education and financial resources), not to mention the reading of the originals by Spencer and Huxley. Thus, the two ways of acquainting themselves with Social Darwinism mentioned above—through either Japanese interpretations or American originals— were practically unavailable to them. As a result, they had to resort to the third possible channel of familiarizing themselves with Social Darwinist currents, namely the works of Liang Qichao, which were enormously popular with younger, progressively-minded urban intellectuals in the 1900s. As mentioned above (Chapter Four), many of Liang Qichao’s works had been translated into vernacular Korean, published and widely circulated, but even his original writings in Chinese were fully accessible to the Korean Buddhist audience, well-versed in classical Chinese—the main language of doctrinal Buddhist education and scriptures. For a large segment of the Korean Buddhist reformist public, deprived of the opportunities to make independent learned inquiries into the European or American—or even Japanese—sources because of linguistic and manifold practical barriers, Liang’s version of Social Dar-

23 Notto R. Thelle, From Conflict to Dialogue: Buddhism and Christianity in Japan, 1854–1899, Pp. 501–518. See also: James E. Ketelaar, “Strategic Occidentalism: Meiji Buddhists at the World’s Parliament of Religions”, Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 11, 1991, Pp. 37–56. 24 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 3, Pp. 168–180.

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winist teaching was the only one known. For many reasons, the situation gradually changed after the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910. First, the sale of Liang’s collection of writings, Yinbingshi wenji (The Collected Literary Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio), was prohibited for being ‘potentially subversive.’25 Second, the number of Korean Buddhist students in Japan (30 of the total number of 293 Korean students by 1924) and the number of students in modern Buddhist schools inside Korea (832 by 1917)26 increased significantly, gradually raising the average level of mastery of Japanese and Western languages among Korea’s Buddhist intelligentsia. Still, before annexation, Liang Qichao largely dominated the world of Korean reformist Buddhist thought. As could be expected, every group of the reformist intelligentsia tried to resort to Liang’s authority to legitimise its particular favoured ‘key’ to the secrets of ‘states’ wealth and power.’ Given Liang’s versatility and unparalleled ability to correct, shift and change his previous views, it comes as no surprise that most of the self-proclaimed adherents of his thought in Korea could find some congenial pieces in his voluminous writings. For example, Liang’s earlier beliefs in Kang Youwei’s ‘preserved religion’ of ‘true’ and ‘progressive’ Confucianism and a Datong utopia were widely known in Korea and adopted by large fractions of reformist Confucian intelligentsia. Typically, Pak Ŭnsik and his followers even organized a Taedong (Datong) religious sect (Taedonggyo) in September 1909, putting forward the re-interpreted idea of Confucian ren (‘humanity’), Liang’s ‘public virtues’ (gong de), and the desire to save the world from chaos and lead it to universal peace and harmony as the main articles of their religious belief.27 In a similar way, it was the title of Liang’s masterpiece, The New Citizen (Xinminshuo, published in book form in 1903) that gave the name to the Sinminhoe (New People Society) —the secret nationalist organisation formed on An Ch’angho’s initiative in April 1907. It united a group of reformist Confucians, former military officers and USA-based Christian converts with the aim of securing Korea’s ‘renovation’ from within, through adherence to the principle of 25 Pak Kyˇ ongsik, Ilbon chegukchuˇui uˇ i Chosˇon chibae [The Rule of Japanese Imperialism in Korea], (Seoul: Haengji, 1986), Pp. 139. 26 Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong Kyoyugwˇ on (Republic of Korea, Chogye Buddhist Order, Educational Institute) (ed.) Han’guk kˇunhyˇondae pulgyosa yˇonp’yo [Chronological Tables for Korea’s Modern and Contemporary Buddhist History] (Seoul: Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong, 2000), Pp. 227–231. 27 Sin Yongha, Pak Ŭnsik ŭi sahoe sasang yŏn’gu [Research on Pak Ŭnsik’s Social Thought] (Seoul: Sˇoul Taehakkyo Ch’ulp’anbu, 1982), Pp. 195–206.

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putting the state’s ‘freedom’ and ‘survival’ above all personal interests, as expounded by Liang.28 In this atmosphere of a general ‘rush’ to introduce and utilize various parts of Liang’s Social Darwinism-inspired ideological production, it appears only logical that young and progressively minded Buddhists also tried to resort to the same source to find ways to re-interpret their legacy in ‘modern’ terms and to participate in the general movement for ‘progress and reform.’ The turning of Korea’s younger ‘modernity’-oriented Buddhists to Liang Qichao’s works was also greatly facilitated by Liang’s own strong ties with Buddhism, well represented to the Korean reading public through various publications of the 1910s. As Liang’s collection of writings, Yinbingshi wenji, published by Shanghai’s Guangzhi Shuju Publishers in 1902, was available in Seoul, many of his original writings were widely cited in Korean publications beginning from 1904–1905. Among the writings in Yinbingshi Wenji, the one most directly relevant to Buddhism was a 1902 treatise entitled ‘A Discussion of the Relationship between Buddhism and Social Order’ (Lun Fojiao yu qunzhi zhi guanxi).29 According to the treatise, insofar as the present relatively inferior state of ‘civilization’ in the whole world in general and in China in particular made religion an indispensable tool for bolstering social solidarity in the course of the ‘struggle for survival,’ Buddhism was much more suitable to ‘progress’ than both Confucianism or Christianity. While Confucianism lacks proper religious characteristics, Christianity is easily used by Western powers in carrying out their depredations. First, Liang claimed, Buddhism, unlike dogmatic Confucianism, believes in personal enlightenment based on both personal ethical development and Buddha’s philosophical wisdom. And ‘only one tenth’ of this wisdom, Liang assured, ‘is yet reached by the Western philosophers.’ Second, Mahāyāna Buddhism is based on the highest sort of altruism. Bodhisattva, Mahāyāna’s ideal, is sacrificing his personal ultimate goal (the realization of Buddhahood and entering nirvana) for the sake of saving all living creatures from suffering, until the last of them is saved. Buddhism is neither self-sufficient, nor self-righteous: A Buddhist will be never satisfied with personal awakening or joy in the midst of the ignorance and

28 Kuksa P’yŏnch’an Wiwŏnhoe [National History Compilation Committee] (ed.) Han’guk tongnip undongsa [History of the Korean Independence Movement] (Seoul: Kuksa P’yŏnch’an Wiwŏnhoe, 1965), Vol. 1, Pp. 1024–1028. 29 Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 2, Book 10, Pp. 45–52.

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suffering of others. That, exclaims Liang, is exactly the attitude required from a modern ‘progressive’ citizen, who should not be satisfied with personal wisdom in the midst of his compatriots’ ignorance and is supposed to sacrifice personal good for the state’s sake. As was mentioned above, these supposed ‘altruistic qualities’ of Buddhism also received the attention of Liang’s mentor, Kang Youwei. In his magnum opus, The Book of Great Unity (Datongshu, written around 1901–1902, but first published in 1935), he proclaims both Taoism and Buddhism as the two religions of the utopian ‘society of the Great Unity,’ but puts Buddhism higher, since, unlike the Taoists who are interested in becoming immortals for their own sake, Buddhists ‘leave the world and care for the world simultaneously.’30 Third, according to Liang, Buddhism, unlike Christianity, does not lead to world-rejection in search of a better afterlife: ‘Paradise’ and ‘hell’ stand only for certain states of consciousness in Buddhism and do not represent objects of spiritual attachment. Fourth, ‘barbaric’ Christian beliefs in the physical resurrection of the dead on the Day of Judgment are clearly inferior to the subtler Buddhist idea of karmic retribution for good and evil. Taixu (1890–1947), Liang’s avid reader in the first decade of the twentieth century and one of modern China’s foremost Buddhist reformers, took this point further. According to Taixu, the ‘superstitious’ beliefs in salvation by faith or the resurrection of Christ made Christianity simply ‘dead.’31 And last but not least, the Buddhist claim of the universal possession of Buddhahood by—and, thus, equal dignity of—all living creatures, together with a belief in liberation from suffering by strictly personal spiritual efforts, are regarded by Liang as directly conducive to the most important elements of ‘modernity’—equality and the freedom to pursue progress and self-responsibility. Liang concluded finally that ‘all the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Spencer do not go further than two characters—the ‘cause-and-effect law’ from Buddhist writings,’ and that only Buddhist faith can lead society along the road to ‘selfhelp,’ ‘progress’ and ultimate ‘survival and prosperity.’ This conclusion— on which much of the further Buddhist reform efforts in China, by Taixu and other enthusiasts, was to be based—undoubtedly sounded equally encouraging to the Korean Buddhists engaged in their own ‘battle for 30 Kang Youwei, Datongshu [The Book of Great Unity] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1956 [1935]), Pp. 301. 31 Frank R. Millican, “T’ai-hsü and Modern Buddhism”, Chinese Recorder, Vol. 54, No. 6, 1923, Pp. 326–334.

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survival’ against both traditional Confucian disrespect for their religion and ‘modern’ Christian attacks on its ‘uselessness.’ Another of Liang’s clearly pro-Buddhist texts introduced to a Korean audience in 1907 through publication in the monthly Sŏu was a short piece of prose entitled Weixin lun—‘The Theory of Mind-only.’ In that piece, Liang, in a gorgeous ornate style (which surely appealed strongly to the sophisticated yangban readership in Korea), summarized Buddhist epistemology in the following way: Objects are what are created by the mind and all material things are a fictitious illusion: only the mind creates what looks like the objects’ reality […]. All objects under Heaven are just objects of the mind. Those who put on green glasses see all things as green, and those who put on yellow glasses see all things as yellow. Those who have barberry roots in their mouth think that all plants taste bitter, and those who have either honey or wheatgluten in their mouth think that all plants taste sweet. Can we say, thus, that everything is green, yellow, bitter or sweet? We can say that everything is not green, yellow, bitter or sweet, and is also green, yellow, bitter and sweet at the same time. […] The distinction between green, yellow, bitter and sweet is not in the object, it is in us. And, thus, we say that all Three Realms32 are Mind-only.33

Liang summarized the Yogācāra theory of vijñapti-mātratā (Ch. weishi, Kor. yusik—‘consciousness-only’) without any explicit reference to the problems of ‘survival struggle,’ but nevertheless the approval given by the best-known ‘progress’-oriented Chinese publicist to the essence of Buddhist thought was definitely of high significance to the embattled Buddhist community in Korea.

Han Yong’un and the ‘Buddhist Modernity’ Project An especially well-known Buddhist treatise where Liang’s arguments are extensively cited as the proof of Buddhism’s usefulness in the ‘age of competition’ is the manifesto entitled ‘On the Reformation of Korean Buddhism’ (Chosŏn Pulgyo Yusin non). It was written in 1910 (pub32 Either the three realms of samsāra (the ‘desire realm,’ the ‘form realm’ and the ‘formless realm’), or the realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humans in Buddhism. Sanskr. Triloka. Synonymous to ‘all in the Universe.’ 33 Sŏu, Vol. 4, March 1907, Pp. 40–41 (Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji. [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 5, Pp. 228–230). See the original text in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 2, Pp. 45–46.

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lished in 1913) by Han Yong’un, (pen name: Manhae; 1879–1944), one of the noted representatives of the reformist wing of the Korean Buddhist clergy. Scion of the impoverished family of a provincial governmental clerk, and disillusioned with the brutality of the suppression of the rebel Confucian ‘Righteous Army’ guerrillas, Han became a monk in 1905, with a desire to study both doctrinal Buddhism and the sources of modern knowledge needed, as he felt, to solve the current predicaments of the country. This desire led him to tour Japan in 1908, to assume the position of head of a modern land-measurement school in Seoul (attached to the Buddhist Myˇongjin School), as well as to devour Liang Qichao’s writings.34 Both Han’s apologetic defence of Buddhism in his manifesto, and his proposals for reforms inside the Buddhist community—some of which are notably similar to the ideas of his Chinese contemporary, Taixu—drew largely on Liang’s arguments and logic. Another source of Han’s modernist Buddhist inspirations was his experience in Japan, where he briefly studied Buddhist and Western philosophy in April– October 1908 at Sōtōshū Daigaku (the predecessor of today’s Komazawa University in Tokyo).35 The spirit of Han’s ‘Buddhist reform’ proposals that I survey below—especially those emphasizing the benefits of modern education for monks, as well as the crucial importance of missionary work, and those advocating the freedom to marry for monks and nuns— shows obvious connection with his Japanese impressions. Much of what he proposed was already practised in the Japanese Buddhist community, notably the freedom of marriage for monastics.36 However, Han’s manifesto cites mostly Liang Qichao rather than Japanese Buddhist authors, probably due to the authority Liang’s name possessed at that point among the modernity-oriented, Buddhist-friendly Korean intellectuals whom Han was attempting to convert to the Buddhist ‘reformation’ cause. Han’s manifesto begins (‘The Introduction’), symptomatically enough, with philosophical musings on the deeper meaning of the well-known Sino-Korean saying: ‘Man plans and Heaven decides.’ Han claims that 34 Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: from Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist face’ (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2008), Pp. 2– 7. 35 An Pyˇ ongjik (ed.) Han Yong’un (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1979), Pp. 300. 36 On Japanese Buddhism as the main reference point for Han Yong’un’s project of ‘Buddhist reform,’ see: Kim Sunsˇok, “Han Yong’un kwa Paek Yongsˇong ŭi kŭndae pulgyo kaehyˇoknon pigyo yŏn’gu” [Comparative Study of the Modern Buddhist Reform Proposals by Han Yong’un and Paek Yongsŏng], Han’guk Kŭnhyŏndaesa Yŏn’gu, Vol. 35, Winter 2005, Pp. 68–92.

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if Heaven is really able to influence the failure or success of human endeavours, this will cause humans to completely lose their freedom and become ‘slaves;’ but in reality, in his view, neither physical Heaven nor the abstract principle popularly associated with it (‘truth’) has any bearing on the course of human affairs. While the former is just a plain physical object, the latter ‘obeys the rules of freedom’ which allow the ‘stronger’ and ‘fitter’ to succeed.37 Thus, from the very beginning of his reformist program, Han radically reinterprets Nature—a static, rigid and predestined Neo-Confucian ‘order of things’ is transformed into a new, Social Darwinist universe of free ‘competition’ with human-determined results.38 In this way, the Buddhist world is invited to—or rather challenged to enter—the great stage of ‘competition for survival,’ which alone now determines its future. His radical reinterpretation also echoes Liang’s views on the ability of humans—through the process of ‘artificial selection’—to determine for themselves the course of events in their history. Liang’s ideas on the relationship between human will and Heaven (nature) are succinctly expressed in his short 1899 piece, Yuantianzhe wuzhi (‘Those Who Blame Heaven are Weak-willed’). There, he cited a famous dictum from Xunzi (Fascicle 4, Rongru: ‘Of Honour and Disgrace,’ Paragraph 5): ‘Those who know themselves, do not blame others; those who know their lot, do not blame Heaven. Blaming others implies desperation; blaming Heaven implies weak will-power.’39 Liang explained, in his favourite Buddhist spirit, that ‘good karma’ must be created by ‘free efforts’ and thus only individuals themselves were to be blamed for their failures; as to Xunzi’s ‘lot,’ added Liang, it was not uniform Heavenly predestination, but rather the ‘karmic result’ of one’s past

37 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [Complete Works of Han Yong’un], (Seoul: Sin’gu munhwasa, 1974), Vol. 2, Pp. 100–101; see the English translation in: Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist face’, Pp. 42–44. 38 On similar reinterpretations of nature in Japanese Social Darwinist thought of the period, see Julia A. Thomas, “Naturalizing Nationhood: Ideology and Practice in Early Twentieth-Century Japan”, in Sharon A. Minichiello (ed.) Japan’s Competing Modernities (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), Pp. 116–120. 39 See also J. Knoblock’s translation: ‘Those who know themselves do not resent others; those who know fate do not resent Heaven. Those who resent others are bound to fail; those who resent Heaven do not learn from experience.’ Knoblock translated wuzhi (literally ‘to have no will’) as ‘not learn from experience,’ following the earlier commentators who had considered zhi (‘will’) a graphical error of zhi (‘knowledge,’ ‘experience’). John Knoblock, Xunzi. A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), Vol. 1, Pp. 188, 288.

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efforts.40 Liang’s overall understanding of the causative relationship in the universe, in which the idea that ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves,’ so popular in Japan after Nakamura Masanao’s (1832–1891) masterful 1871 translation made Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help (1859) a great bestseller in Japan,41 thus blended with Buddhist ‘cause-and-effect’ theories, could not but attract the sympathy of Korea’s self-proclaimed Buddhist reformer. The manifesto’s First Chapter is the inquiry into the ‘immanent character’—sŏngjil—of Buddhism. Should sŏngjil not be up to the task of ‘survival,’ the author concedes, even a Cromwell or Martin Luther called back to life cannot accomplish the task of its ‘revitalization.’ But, following the lead of Liang Qichao, who placed Buddhism as a ‘philosophical religion based on true, inner enlightenment’ much higher on the ‘evolutionary ladder’ than the ‘superstition’-centered religions of West Asian origins (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Han optimistically states that it is precisely Buddhism’s sŏngjil that gives its followers hopes for a better future. Han declares that, unlike Christianity with its record of forcing ignorant and fanatical people to die on the battleground with threats of ‘hell fire’ or promises of ‘paradise,’ Buddhism is philosophically developed enough to identify both ‘hell’ and ‘paradise’ with inner mental conditions. He then explicitly cites the following excerpt from Liang Qichao (his 1902 essay Lun Zhongguo xueshu sixiang bianqian zhi dashi: ‘On the Main Tendencies in the Changes of Scholarly Ideas in China’): Both Buddhism and Christianity are foreign religions that have entered China from the outside, but while Buddhism prospered, Christianity did not. What is the reason for this? Christianity is based upon superstitions and its philosophical doctrines are too shallow to satisfy the minds of China’s learned gentlemen. Buddhism essentially combines both religious and philosophical aspects. Its ultimate ideal of comprehending the Way lies in the realm of enlightenment, while its teaching on entering the Way lies in the sphere of wisdom, and its source of strength for personal cultivation lies in one’s own efforts. Thus, Buddhism should not be seen as identical with ordinary religions. Chinese philosophy acquired its distinctive features only after Buddhist scholarship entered China and then achieved its maturity there […].42 40 Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 2, Pp. 122–123. 41 Bob T. Wakabayashi (ed.) Modern Japanese Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Pp. 80–85. 42 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [The Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 102; Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From

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Here Han, with Liang’s help, answers in kind the accusations—made, among others, by Christian editors of the Tongnip Sinmun—that Buddhism is a ‘superstitious’ religion. The ‘evolutionary ladder’ of religions is turned upside down, with Buddhism—so often shunned, ignored and even despised by the reformist milieu of the 1900s—accorded the highest possible position. Having established Buddhism’s ‘rightful place’ in the new, evolutionary order of things, Han further cites Liang Qichao in order to show in detail why Buddhism should be judged superior from all possible viewpoints to Western philosophy as the background of rival Christian beliefs. Interestingly, in certain cases Han even goes further than Liang in claiming higher ‘evolutionary status’ for his religion. For example, Liang, having been disillusioned with moderately reformed Confucianism as a ‘preserved religion,’ turned his attention to Buddhism and noticed a close typological affinity between Kant’s ‘subject,’43 endowed with the ‘faculty of reason’ and the ability to explore ‘transcendental objects,’ and the Buddhist theory of Enlightenment as personal awakening to the transcendental reality of Tathātā (‘Suchness’). Han, however, considers the Buddhist understanding of the noumenon to be far superior to Kant’s. According to Han, the noumenal world in Buddhism exists simultaneously on both the personal and universal / cosmic levels, thus being principally different from the ‘narrowly personal’ Kantian ‘subject’s abilities of moral judgement and transcendental reasoning.’ Buddhism, with its idea of transcendental unity between Buddha and all creatures (all of them possessing Buddhahood and thus Tathātā’s ultimate reality), is subtler and deeper than Kant’s personalist philosophy of ‘reason’ and the ‘moral.’ Buddhism—following Liang’s line of interpretation—is described by Han as the religion of interpersonal and, ultimately, transcendental solidarity between Buddha and sentient creatures, ‘enlightenment’ being sought and used for a person’s own benefit but also for the sake of others.44 The authenticity of Han’s understandSocial Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist Face’, Pp. 47–48. See the original in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio], Part 1, Book 7, Pp. 76. 43 Rune Svarverud, “Social Darwinism and China’s Relationship with Korea and Japan in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century”, International Journal of Korean History, Vol. 2, Dec. 2001, Pp. 99–123. 44 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [The Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 103; Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist face’, Pp. 50.

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ing of Kantian philosophy is highly questionable. However, whether or not Han’s idiosyncratic interpretation of Kantian principles is a consequence of indirect transmission (his main source, Liang, read the German philosopher in Japanese translations) or a deliberate misreading, it suited Han’s intentions perfectly. In the end, Han managed to turn the argumentation of Yun Ch’iho and Sŏ Chaep’il, who had accused Buddhism precisely of pecuniary egoism and lack of public concern, on its head. Having also ‘proven’ that other ‘typical’ Western philosophies as interpreted by Liang Qichao—namely, Baconian empiricism and the Cartesian idea of the unity of various branches of knowledge—had already been expounded upon in deeper form in Buddhist scriptures, Han drew his first major conclusion. According to him, once the truth, identifiable with Buddhahood, is one and the same for all living creatures, all more or less reasonable teachings will have to resemble Buddhism in various degrees. In this way, Han practically revitalized the ageold practice of East Asian Buddhist apologists (who used to claim that all elements in Confucianism and Taoism that resemble Buddhism are, in fact, just inferior variations on the same theme), artfully remoulding it in accordance with ‘evolutionary’ fashion. His ideas are also reminiscent of Taixu’s belief that the Buddhist doctrine of cause-and-effect (hetupratyaya) and universal interdependence fitted the modern paradigm of the scientific understanding of the world better than any religion or idealistic philosophy of the West, while Buddhist compassion was the needed cure for Western ‘materialism and egoism.’ Thus, Taixu, argued, Buddhism had to become the ‘new eyes’ for Westerners once Eastern and Western cultures converged.45 The Second Chapter of the manifesto takes the ‘principles’ (chuŭi) of Buddhism, mainly reduced by Han to ‘transcendental egalitarianism’ (based on the universal unity of Buddhahood possessed by all living creatures) and consequential ‘liberalism’ (chayujuŭi) and ‘cosmopolitanism’ (segyejuŭi). The latter, meaning the end of interstate ‘competition’ and wars and egalitarian ‘unity of states and races’ (injong), is proclaimed by Han to be the essence of a more advanced stage of evolution, the hope of humanity for the future. This identification of the happier future of ‘developed’ humanity with Buddhism also reflects Liang’s —and ultimately Kang Youwei’s—beliefs that, as the best of all religions, Buddhism is best suited to the third (and final) epoch (datong—Great 45 Darui Long, “An Interfaith Dialogue between Chinese Buddhist Leader Taixu and Christians”, Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 20, 2000, Pp. 167–189.

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Unity) in the history of human ‘evolution.’ In this way, age-old Buddhist utopian ideas of the ‘Buddha-land’ and ‘Maitreya-world’ are re-thought in terms of ‘evolutionary’ theories. Buddha—in evident reply to Christian claims—is also described by Han as a ‘peerless Saviour,’ who had attained his ‘enlightenment’ solely for the benefit of the universe as a whole and all sentient beings. In a way, Han’s explanation of Buddhist ‘principles’ can be read as an attempt by a Buddhist apologist to accommodate what he considered eternal religious truth to the demands of the current century and its language, structured now along Social Darwinism and Christianity-inspired terms.46 In the Third Chapter, ‘The Reformation of Buddhism Begins with Destruction,’ and in the following chapters (on Buddhist education, meditation, abolition of chanting halls in temples, Buddhist missionary work, relocating temples to the cities, worship of various images in temples, Buddhist ceremonies, monks’ participation in economy and marriages of monks and nuns), Han offers a detailed program of reform. The program was pointedly aimed at putting the religion’s real status in contemporary Korea into correspondence with its high ‘evolutionary potential.’ The starting point of Han’s reformist vision is his Darwinist interpretation of the contemporary world—and Korea’s—situation. Just as ‘one thousand words of international law are not worth one piece of artillery’ in the interstate relationship of an imperialism-plagued world, the truth of immanently morally superior—but practically inferior—Buddhist teaching capitulates to the practical strength of the ‘evolutionary lower,’ but practically richer and better organized Christian missionary movement. Significantly, following Liang Qichao’s Social Darwinist line of argumentation, Han blames first and foremost Buddhists themselves for ‘voluntarily surrendering their freedom’ in their inability to put up a good fight for ‘survival,’ considering as perfectly normal and natural—for the current period of ‘barbaric civilization of struggle,’ of course—their use of superior resources to the detriment of their rivals.47 To outrival Christians, Han proposes on the one hand to make maximum use of the ‘intrinsic superior qualities’ of Buddhism and on the other hand to resort—of course, on the ‘technical level’ only—to the 46 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [The Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 104–105; Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist face’, Pp. 53–56. 47 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [The Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 105–106; Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist face’, Pp. 56–58.

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proven and successful methods of their competitors. For example, just like Liang Qichao,48 Han considered Buddhism ‘inherently’ much more democratic than other religions, both native and foreign, and not only on a doctrinal level, but also in the concrete educational process. An idealized picture of the traditional temple school where students fervently disputed contentious issues in the scriptures and only then asked teachers for explanations, seems to Han best suited to the ‘modern period of freedom and competition.’49 Consequently, he searches for ways to ‘restore’ this ‘traditional democracy’—already much in a state of decline, as he himself has to acknowledge—and adapt it to modern ways. The latter, in Han’s opinion, should mean the introduction of the basics of modern science to the temple schools, as well as encouragement of study abroad: Characteristically, India and China, not Europe, figure as primary destinations. Enthusiastic missionary work, the main ‘condition for nurturing Buddhism’s strength’ in practice, is considered by Han to be also desirable and necessary on purely Buddhist doctrinal grounds as well, as the ‘perfection of the principle of benefiting self and others simultaneously’ (chari it’a). And even such an iconoclastic proposal as permitting monks and nuns to marry is defended not only on obvious Social Darwinist grounds (population growth is crucial to the state in the time of ‘competition between rival races and nations’), but even in a Buddhist way, as ‘inherently corresponding’ to the broadness of Mahāyāna (as opposed to Hīnayāna) teachings. Han specifically invokes the doctrine of ‘artful means,’ which allows unconstrained harmony with the needs of time and place for the sake of the ‘enlightenment’ of self and others.50 Han’s emphasis on modern education for the monks—as well as his proposals to get rid of the ‘superstitious’ sides of Buddhist ritual life (Amitabha prayer halls, all the images of the Buddhist deities except for Buddha Sakyamuni, Buddhist funeral rites, etc.)51—bore a 48

See: Rune Svarverud, “Social Darwinism and China’s Relationship with Korea and Japan in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century”, International Journal of Korean History, Vol. 2, Dec. 2001, Pp. 99–123. 49 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [The Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 106; Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist Face’, Pp. 60. 50 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [The Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 119; Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist Face’, Pp. 104–111. 51 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [The Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 114–116; Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist Face’, Pp. 88–99.

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close resemblance to Taixu’s reform program. Taixu’s reform efforts also focused on modernising monastic education and ‘de-mystifying’ Buddhist religious life.52 Typologically, too, both Han Yong’un and Taixu followed the patterns of what scholars of Ceylonese Buddhism long used to call ‘Protestant Buddhism’53—a modernist Buddhist revivalism which seeks to ‘rationalise’ Buddhist faith, having, consciously or unconsciously, the ‘successful example’ of Western Protestant churches in mind. To what degree the attempts at ‘modernising’ Buddhism actually managed to convince modernising intellectuals of the continuous viability of Korea’s ancient religion, is not an easy question to answer. Some among them could hardly be convinced at all—for example, those former radical nationalists of the first decade of the twentieth century who reinvented themselves as social radicals by the mid-1920s. A good representative of this group, Sin Ch’aeho, had more than a passing knowledge of Buddha’s teachings. From March 12, 1924, and until the autumn of the same year, Sin, now a destitute émigré in Beijing, tried to avoid the pains of hunger by becoming a monk at Guanyinsi Temple in the vicinity of Beijing. He thoroughly studied there The Treatise on the Mahāyāna Awakening of Faith (Ch. Dacheng Qixin lun) and other Buddhist canonical books in classical Chinese. He seems to have exhibited a strong personal interest in the philosophical side of Buddhist doctrine.54 That, however, did not mean that he could approve of what he considered its socio-political implications. Buddhists’ compassion—praised by both Han Yong’un and Taixu—was anathema to Sin, since it signified to him a voluntary surrender to the stronger predators in the unending, violent and all-engulfing struggle for survival and freedom. In one of his writings of the early 1920s, ‘Humanism is Lamentable’ (Indojuˇui ka’ae), Sin commented that the popularity of Gandhist ‘non-violence,’ obviously based on the Buddhist ahimsa notion, would make India ‘into a ghost in the end.’ He added that, if he were born an Indian, he would have tied Sakyamuni up and burned him alive, while drowning Gandhi in a deep sea.55 Less radi52 Daniel Overmyer (ed.) Religion in China Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Pp. 129–131. 53 On the Buddhist reform movement in Sri-Lanka, see: H.L. Seneviratne, The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999). 54 Sin Yongha, Sin Ch’aeho u ˇ i sahoe sasang yˇon’gu [A Study of Sin Ch’aeho’s Social Ideas] (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1984), Pp. 57–58. 55 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 3, Pp. 374–376.

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cal intellectuals were, however, much more susceptible to Buddhism’s appeal. The case of Yi Kwangsu—a close acquaintance of Han Yong’un,56 who exhibited a strong attachment to Buddhism in the 1920s–1930s, was already discussed in Chapter One. Another interesting case was that of Yi Nˇunghwa—another colleague of Han in the latter’s Buddhist journalist and publishing efforts in the 1920s–1930s. The son of a former Independence Club activist-turned-Protestant elder and himself Korea’s firstever native-born instructor in French (1896), Yi converted to Buddhism in the mid-1910s and then authored such renowned magisterial works as Outline History of Korean Buddhism (Chosˇon Pulgyo T’ongsa, 1918).57 So, while the influence of Buddhism upon Korean modern intellectual public from the 1910s–1930s was far from that of Christianity, it must be recognized that the efforts of Han Yong’un and other like-minded Buddhist reformers yielded some results, facilitating the emergence of the milieu of modernist, middle-class urban Buddhist intellectuals in colonial Korea.

A Religion for the Darwinian World? A ‘fusion’ of sorts between a system of religious beliefs and Social Darwinist ideology as attempted by Han Yong’un in the early 1910s—and already tried by Yun Ch’iho in the late 1880s–early 1890s, with the ‘might is right’ principle interpreted as ‘relative’ justice tolerated by God’s providential will—contrasts visibly with Social Darwinism’s own history in Europe and North America. After all, Herbert Spencer and many of his European and American kindred spirits were agnostics, often either uninterested in or even openly hostile to conventional religiosity. Neither Katō Hiroyuki, nor other prominent Social Darwinists in Meiji Japan were ever seriously troubled by the discrepancies between Social Darwinist views and Buddhist or Christian dogmas. This contrast, however, is fully explainable by the specificity of the role played by Social Darwinism in Korea in the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries. As nearly all its intellectual adherents lacked any solid background in science and were primarily concerned with politics or also religiously

56

An Pyˇongjik (ed.) Han Yong’un (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1979), Pp. 286. Key S. Ryang, “Yi Nˇung-hwa (1869–1945) and His Modern Korean Studies”, Journal of Modern Korean Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1984, Pp. 1–20. 57

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motivated, Social Darwinism was not held as an abstract scientific theory independent of mundane concerns. On the contrary, it was the key to the presumably ‘adequate’ understanding of current historical and political experience, and effectively replaced traditional Neo-Confucian notions of an ethical cosmic order and a static Sino-centric world. In as much as the real situation faced by Korea rendered traditional notions obviously completely inadequate, Social Darwinism, its ‘adequate replacement,’ was taken very much as a totalising and all-explaining ‘truth.’ In this way, it possessed certain characteristics of a ‘religion’ in broader sense— a claim to the holistic, universal and all-inclusive explanation of cosmic ways, for example—and thus brought about the need to re-evaluate some religious and ethical standards, or vice versa, could itself subvert and supplant such standards. Often, the latter was the case. The religious hearts of Christian Yun Ch’iho and Buddhist Han Yong’un could bemoan the ‘cruelty of the disgraceful law of the survival of the fittest’ and the present ‘barbaric’ stage of ‘civilization’ as a whole, but they did not doubt its ‘inexorable’ nature—at least, for the time being and the foreseeable future. Still, unconditional surrender to the ‘factual truth of the inexorable law of survival’ was much too shocking for Korean intellectuals to accept, given their Confucian moralistic upbringing and the strong religious (Buddhist, Christian) beliefs of many of them. The ‘law of survival’ not only completely contradicted traditional ‘moral cosmology’ and ethicscentred Buddhist or Christian beliefs, but also—unlike metaphysical and speculative religious views—gave too little hope for a visibly weak Korea; in a word, it was too harsh and tough to accept unconditionally and to live with. A way out of this ‘modern predicament’ was somehow to harmonise the ‘truth of the heart’ and ‘truth of facts.’ One could either interpret the ‘law of survival’ as essentially and inherently ‘ethical’ or subordinate it—as just a ‘temporary rule of the moment’—to ‘higher’ ethical truth. Efforts of this kind were, in mutually different ways, attempted by both Yun Ch’iho and Han Yong’un. For the former, the conviction that ‘the fittest is also the moral’ and ‘the triumph of might is also the triumph of comparative right’ came to constitute the central point of his worldview and political philosophy. However, the latter—even accepting that resorting to the deployment of superior resources in ‘competition’ is not amoral and that the ‘weaker’ is to be blamed—still considered the ‘barbaric’ rules of ‘competition’ a ‘temporary,’ rather than eternal, truth, eventually to be subordinated to Buddhist doctrine and ethics (which, in turn, were predestined to build a better, non-competitive world in the

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future).58 For Han Yong’un, ‘the law of competition’ was but a temporally limited profane aspect of material reality; and reality as such was nothing but a function of consciousness, the laws of which could be fully explained only in Buddhist context and terms. The differences between these two ways of ‘domesticating’ the ‘harsh truth of competition and struggle’ seem to have influenced the political positions of the intellectuals involved. Neither Yun Ch’iho nor Yi Kwangsu—the latter being an important member of Protestant nationalist circles of the 1920s—could eventually resist the temptation (of course, combined with the repressions, threats, and enticements of the Japanese Government-General) to accept the military actions of ‘the fittest’ of East Asia—Japan—as morally acceptable and even laudable. The seminal poem of Yi Kwangsu, cited at the beginning of Chapter One, shows well, in an articulate literary form, how unmistakably strong was the Social Darwinist admiration of the author for the ‘right of might.’ Yi’s gradual drift towards Buddhism in the 1920s did not change his intellectual orientation in this respect: Social Darwinist underpinnings were characteristic of the ideas prevalent among Buddhist circles of the time as well. Perhaps one of the rare exceptions was Han Yong’un. On the basis of his initial understanding of Social Darwinist ‘laws’ as temporarily limited and axiologically subordinate to Buddhist ethics, he managed to build his own original version of non-violent and Gandhi-inspired Buddhist socialism in the 1930s and to stoically withstand such temptations and pressures, refusing to collaborate with the Japanese to the very end.59 Han’s case is a rare example of the philosophical ‘sublation’ (in the Hegelian sense of the word) of Social Darwinism on an essentially traditional basis, still very well adapted to modern needs; perhaps it should be considered somewhat exceptional. In many cases—as typified by the careers of Yun Ch’iho or Yi Kwangsu—the Social Darwinist essentials of their worldview were not overcome and led in the end to the acceptance —in various degrees and forms—of the official wartime ideology of the Japanese Empire built in certain aspects upon the same basis. In other cases, Social Darwinism provided the underpinnings for the formation of the ideology of resistant Korean nationalism, which—as readers will see in Chapter Eight—retained, for a long time, easily distinguishable Social Darwinist traits. 58 Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist Face’, Pp. 55, 73. 59 Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist Face’, Pp. 19–30.

chapter six KNOWLEDGE IS STRENGTH: SOCIAL DARWINISM IN PRE-COLONIAL EDUCATION

Japan: Modern Education for the Sake of National Survival As in most cases of ‘catch-up’ modernization projects,1 the Japanese Meiji state elite considered the accelerated development of institutional education, both on the mass and elite levels, a key to success in the acquisition of ‘wealth and power.’ Mass education was primarily supposed to reduce the illiteracy level of future conscripts and to make them more cognizant of rules and instructions and more conscious of their duties as ‘imperial subjects.’ To this end, a law for the new education system (gakusei) was adopted in 1872 and a conscription law was promulgated in 1873. One of the creators of what can be called the ‘Meiji system,’ Yamagata Aritomo (1838–1922), bluntly described the ideal education for boys as the process of, ‘entering elementary school at 6, moving to middle school at 13, completing their studies at 19, and entering the military at 20.’ The desired result was a state of affairs in which, ‘throughout the country there would be no one not doing soldiering and no one who is illiterate.’.2 Universal soldiering for able-bodied males remained an elusive dream in the early Meiji period. By 1889, only around 5 % of conscript-age males were actually drafted for their three years’ stint of active duty, while 58 % were legally exempted by a system in which many convenient loopholes were easily exploited by the richer or educated classes.3 However, universal mass education made visible progress. By 1899, only around 9.9 % of

1 On the general importance of the modern educational system—able to homogenize newborn modern nations within the framework of ‘national high culture’—for the formation of modern nationalisms, see the classical arguments by Ernest Gellner (1925– 1995): Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). 2 Matsushita Yosiō, Chōheirei seiteishi [History of the Establishment of the Conscription Law] (Tokyo: Nagai Shōbō, 1943), Pp. 121. 3 Fujiwara Akira (transl. by Om ˇ Suhyˇon), Ilbon kunsasa [History of the Japanese Military System] (Seoul: Sisa Ilbonˇosa, 1994), Pp. 82–85.

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conscripts from the downtown areas in Tokyo (and around 18.6 % from remote Akita in the rural north-east) were completely illiterate when entering the barracks, the rest being at least able to read the katakana syllabary.4 Already by 1891, the school enrollment rate exceeded 70 % for boys (simultaneously failing to reach 40 % for girls).5 To what degree progress in universal schooling contributed to Japan’s victories over its continental rivals, China and Russia, which themselves boasted much less success in schooling their populations into modernity,6 is a moot point. However, there was universal admiration in East Asia for Japan’s educational achievements, and a widespread belief that these achievements were most essential factor in Japan’s rise to the rank of world power. Japan’s primary schools, churning out supposedly loyal, docile and physically developed future conscripts, were not the only object of neighbours’ admiration and envy. Japan’s first modern university, Tokyo University, came into being in 1877 and was given the title of ‘Imperial University’ in 1886. Then a new ‘Imperial University’ was built in Kyoto in 1897, followed by the ‘Imperial Universities’ in Fukuoka and Sendai. The new universities were to produce the scholarly and bureaucratic elite, which was to lead the country on the road to ‘power and wealth,’ rather than simply produce ‘pure scientists.’ As of early 1914, around 63 % of the 13,724 ‘imperial university’ graduates whose jobs were known worked as public employees of one kind or another.7 There was a widespread recognition among the governing oligarchy, as well as among the new middle classes, that the ability of these graduates to use their scientific knowledge in public service was the key to ‘national achievements’ in present and future. As Itō Hirobumi, in his capacity as prime minister, told the graduating class of Tokyo Imperial University in 1886, ‘the only way to maintain the nation’s strength and guarantee the welfare of our people in perpetuity is through the results of science. […] Nations will only prosper

4 Richard Rubinger, “Who Can’t Read and Write? Illiteracy in Meiji Japan”, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 55, No. 2, 2000, Pp. 163–198. 5 Sasaki Suguru, Nihon kindai no shuppatsu [The Start of Modern Japan] (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1992), Pp. 85. 6 For example, Russia’s primary school enrolment rate was a meagre 30,1% even by 1914. Narodnoe Obrazovanie, Nauka i Kul’tura v SSSR: Statisticheskii Sbornik [Popular Education, Science and Culture in the USSR: A Statistical Handbook] (Moscow: Statistika, 1971), Pp. 19. 7 James Bartholomew, “Japanese Modernization and the Imperial Universities, 1876– 1920”, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2, 1978, Pp. 251–271.

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by applying science.’8 Itō was more of a statecraft practitioner than a Social Darwinist theoretician, but the voice of the Meiji oligarchy’s chief ideologist, Katō Hiroyuki, was no less clear. Himself president of Tokyo University from 1881, he suggested in his 1882 Social Darwinist broadside against liberalism and democracy, Jinken Shinsetsu (New Theory of Human Rights), that in ‘civilized societies,’ natural selection favoured those possessing superior ‘mental strength’—that is, superior knowledge and skills. They, and the societies distinguished by the ability to produce them, were ‘the fittest,’ destined to dominate the world.9 Katō’s magnum opus, Kyōsha no kenri no kyōsō (Competition for the Right of the Strong, 1893), again differentiated between the ‘fittest’ of the ‘barbarian societies’—those who were physically stronger and older—and the better educated, skilled, richer people supposed to dominate the ‘civilized states.’ The ability of the ‘civilized peoples’ to harness advanced knowledge also justified their appropriation of the lands of the ‘inferior peoples,’ since the ‘superior nations,’ armed with their science, were able to better exploit the resources there and thus further contribute to the ‘cause of progress.’10 In the same year, Katō also produced a separate popular brochure on ‘learning’ (gakumon), in which he stressed the practical role of modern science in a world where geographical expeditions lay the foundation for subsequent colonial conquests.11 Philosophers, in this view, were, as the most respected of scholars, to strengthen societal cohesion and to produce and popularise measures for the improvement (kaizen) of society.12 Fukuzawa Yukichi differed from Katō in emphasizing, especially in his earlier works of the 1870s, the scholars’ role as ‘enlightened leaders’ outside the government—in the media, private schools, industry etc. The ‘personal independence’ of the educated and nationalist middle class was slated to be both a parallel to and a supporting pillar of ‘national independence,’ which remained Fukuzawa’s main

8 Quoted in: James Bartholomew, “Japanese Modernization and the Imperial Universities, 1876–1920”, Pp. 254. 9 Uete Michiari (ed.) Nishi Amane, Katō Hiroyuki (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1972), Pp. 425–426. 10 Katō Hiroyuki (Tabata Shinobu, ed.) Kyōsha no kenri no kyōsō [Competition for the Right of the Strong] (Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1942), Pp. 164, 306–307. 11 Katō Hiroyuki, Gakumon no hanashi [Talks on Learning] (Tokyo: Tokyō Keiseikan, 1893), Pp. 38–39. 12 Katō Hiroyuki, Tensoku Hyakuwa [One Hundred Talks on the Natural Laws] (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1899), Pp. 165–170.

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avowed goal.13 The emphasis upon the paramount role of learning in the ‘national survival’ was, however, more or less the same. The visible importance of Japan’s elite schools and universities for the dreamed attainment of ‘strength and power’ attracted a growing number of Koreans and Chinese, especially after China’s military defeat by Japan in 1895. In 1897 alone, some 155 Koreans came to Japan to study; the annual number of arrivals from Korea reached 196 in 1900 and climbed to 790 in 1909.14 In the case of Chinese students, the numbers were incomparably higher: In 1905–1906 only, around 8,000 went to Japan, and for the entire first decade of the twentieth century military students alone accounted for 727 students.15 In addition, approximately 200 Vietnamese students came by 1908 as a part of the Ðông-Du (‘Study in the East’) movement16—all this making Japan look like a veritable regional educational centre! The degree to which education became widespread in Japan overwhelmed visiting Chinese dignitaries, who could not escape making unpleasant comparisons with their own country’s situation. Qing officials used to speak, for example, about being amused and frightened by the numbers of students among the onlookers at a military parade in Tokyo.17 A similar reaction is visible in a vernacular Korean poem (kasa), Yuillok (Record of Wanderings in Japan), authored by Yi T’aejik (1859– 1903), a secretary with the Korean Legation in Japan in July 1895–April 1896. While poking occasional fun at the ‘barbarity’ of such practices as mixed bathing among the sexes, Yi revealed his genuine admiration for the availability of education to commoners—and even to the blind and deaf.18 In China and Korea alike, Japan’s educational successes were the foremost inspiration for the reformers eager to follow Japan’s path. Kang 13 Fukuzawa Yukichi (transl. by David Dilworth and Umeyo Hirano) An Encouragement of Learning (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1969), Pp. 10–20; Tōyama Sigeki, Fukuzawa Yukichi: shisō to seiji to no kanren [Fukuzawa Yukichi: The Connections between Politics and Ideology] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku shūppankai, 1970), Pp. 55–75. 14 Tsuboi Senji, Chōsen minzoku tokuritsu undō hishi [Secret History of the Korean National Independence Movement] (Tokyo: Nikkan Rōdō tsushinsha, 1959), Pp. 46. 15 Huang Fu-ch’ing (tran. by Katherine Whitaker), Chinese Students in Japan in the Late Ch’ing Period (Tokyo: The Center for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1982), Pp. 1, 33. 16 Vĩhn Sính, “Phan Bôi Châu and Fukuzawa Yukichi”, in Vĩhn Sính (ed.) Phan Bôi Chău and the Ðông-Du Movement (New Haven: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1988), Pp. 101–150. 17 Yan An-Sheng, Nihon ryugaku seishin shi [An Ideological History of Study in Japan] (Tokyo: Iwanami shōten, 1991), Pp. 70–82. 18 Pak Aegyˇ ong, Han’guk kojˇon siga uˇ i kˇundae-jˇok pyˇonjˇon kwajˇong yˇon’gu [A Study on the Process of the Modern Transformation of Korean Classical Poetry and Songs] (Seoul: Somyˇong, 2008), Pp. 173–177.

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Youwei’s famous memorial to the Qing court proposing a large, centralized dispatch of government-financed students to Japan (June 1, 1898), contrasted, for example, Qing’s abortive attempts to send students to the West with Japan’s ‘brilliant success’ in learning things Western. It further argued that learning from Japan’s ‘reform-based education’ (bianfa lixue) would not only be easier for the Chinese students due to its cultural and linguistic proximity. It would also be advantageous for the Chinese state, which could economise on expenses (Japan being closer and cheaper than living in the West) and allow it to come into closer contact with those Japanese politicians who might aspire for a future alliance with China.19 Ten years before Kang Youwei, in 1888, Pak Yˇonghyo (1861–1939), a radical Korean reformer who fled to Japan following the failure of the Kapsin (1884) coup in Seoul, submitted a lengthy and detailed (114 points) reform proposal to Korea’s King Kojong. His wish list included introducing to Korea obligatory schooling for all children older than six and fully revising the curriculum, just as was done in post-1872 Japan.20 Neither Kang, nor Pak were particularly successful as practical politicians, but their admiration for Japan’s educational attainments spread widely, becoming a common theme in the ‘save the nation through education’ discourse throughout the entire region. In this chapter, I will attempt to show how the ‘new education’ in Korea, largely based on Meiji models, was simultaneously conceptualized as the way to the nation’s salvation from Japanese and other imperialist designs. I will emphasize both the discourse on obligatory education as the guarantee of ‘national survival,’ and the Social Darwinist motifs in the contents of early modern Korean textbooks, which aimed at teaching the next generation the art of becoming ‘the fittest.’ While connecting the worship of heroic individuals to the Social Darwinist underpinnings of the modern educational discourse, I will also argue that ‘survival’ was conceived of as primarily a collective (national), and not an individual task.

19 Tang Zhijun (ed.) Kang Youwei zhenglunji [Collection of Kang Youwei’s Political Writings] (Beijing: Zhunghua shuju, 1981), Vol. 1, Pp. 250–251. 20 Gaimushō (ed.) Nihon Gaikō bunsho [Japanese Diplomatic Documents], (Tokyo: Nihon kokusai rengō kyōkai, 1949–1964), Vol. 21, Pp. 306–307.

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In the 1890s–1900s, Korean modernizers’ enthusiasm for ‘learning from Japan’ was on an equal, if not even higher level than among their Chinese contemporaries. Editorials in the Tongnip Sinmun praised the ‘Japanese and Western systems of education’ for making the schooling of boys between 6 and 14 obligatory and for punishing parents who failed to send their children to school. They also applauded Japanese women on their success in following the Western approach and on organizing female educational societies (June 27, 1899),21 while expressing admiration for Japan’s growing educational budget and for the foreign study tours by Imperial family members (September 20, 1899).22 Eight years later, in a congratulatory editorial on the completion of a pedagogical school in the capital, Hwangsˇong Sinmun confessed that Korea was following the example of Japan in establishing its first teachers’ college in 1872. Moreover, the editorial writer urged a further reliance on the Japanese precedent in the matter of alleviating the shortage of teachers by allowing entry into the profession for those who passed the teachers’ exams but did not necessarily graduate from a specialised school (September 20, 1907). The editorial’s logic was based on the idea that, ‘The fate of the state depends on the degree of knowledge possessed by the nationals. National knowledge depends on the conditions of education, and education depends on the supply of teachers; Japan being the country which stands as a model of how to provide schools with teachers.’23 Not surprisingly, Korean students in Japan were among the biggest enthusiasts for the introduction of Japanese ways into Korean education. In a ‘Public Letter to Educators’ (Kyoyukkye chegong ege hˇonhanora) in No. 4 of their monthly, Taehan Hakhoe Wˇolbo (May 1908), they appealed for the speedy introduction of both English (‘just like Japanese do in their schools’) and Japanese languages into Korean school curricula. The reasoning was simple and convincing: ‘The civilization of the stronger neighbours has to be imported, and the languages are most essential for this.’24 Korea needed the example of its stronger neighbours to learn how to become strong itself—this was the reformers’ cry. 21

Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 5, Pp. 573. Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 6, Pp. 269. 23 Hwangsˇ ong Sinmun (reprint), Vol. 16, Pp. 106. 24 Quoted in Kim Kiju, Hanmal chaeil yuhaksaeng u ˇ i minjok undong [The National Movement by the Korean Students in Japan in the Late Taehan Empire Period] (Seoul: Nˇut’inamu, 1993), Pp. 183. 22

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The notion that, as Hwangsˇong Sinmun put it succinctly in its December 9, 1902, editorial, ‘the wealth and strength of a country depend on its ability to employ talent; the availability of talent depends on education; and the development of education depends on how it is encouraged,’25 was a commonly held view in reformist circles. What, then, was the content of the education offered to prospective ‘saviours of the country’ in the 1890s–1900s? Royal Decree No. 145 (July 19, 1895) ‘On Primary Schools’ (Sohakkyoryˇong), created a primary school system in Korea broadly along contemporaneous Japanese lines: Normal primary schools for three years and higher primary schools for 2–3 years for children aged 7 to 15. Following the proclamation of the decree, the government started building primary schools in the capital, main ports and main provincial centres. By 1900, it was using 163,005 wˇon—approximately 3 % of its annual budget—to support nine public primary schools in the capital and around 40 schools in the provinces, each teaching around 20– 50 schoolboys. By 1906, 57 modern public primary schools were educating 1,924 children and adolescents—still only an insignificant fraction of the total school age population.26 The limited number of available public primary schools was deplored by the modernizers of The Independent who, in one English editorial (‘Primary Education in Korea’, July 5, 1898) called the Ministry of Education ‘a farce’ and accused it of misusing even the meagre governmental funds it was receiving.27 In addition to the small number of public schools, around 25 licensed schools had been built by 1906, by private Koreans and, more often, by foreign missionaries: Northern Presbyterians alone boasted 63 schools with 845 students by 1902.28 After 1906, the number of private modern schools on the primary level rose greatly: By July 1910, it reached around 2,000 nationally, and 46 in Seoul alone.29 But if public and private primary schools are taken together, the school enrollment rate for boys was still only 3.7 %

25

Hwangsˇong Sinmun (reprint), Vol. 7, Pp. 204. Furukawa Akira (transl. by Yi Sˇonggak) Kuhanmal kˇundae hakkyo uˇ i hyˇongsˇong [The Formation of Modern Schools in the Late Taehan Empire Period] (Seoul: Kyˇong’in munhwasa, 2006), Pp. 7–141; U Yongje, Ryu Pangnan et al., Kˇundae Han’guk ch’odˇung kyoyuk yˇon’ gu [A Study of Primary Education in Modern Korea] (Seoul: Kyoyuk kwahaksa, 1998), Pp. 67. 27 Tongnip Sinmun, Vol. 9, Pp. 102. 28 Son Insu, Han’guk kaehwa kyoyuk yˇ on’gu [History of Korean Education in the Age of Modern Reforms] (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1981), Pp. 78–79, 125–127. 29 Ch’oe Kiyˇ ong, Han’guk kˇundae kyemong undong yˇon’gu [A Study of Korea’s Modern Enlightenment Movement] (Seoul: Iljogak, 1997), Pp. 266–277. 26

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(40,640 schoolchildren nationally) even by 1912,30 lower than British India’s 1,900 primary school enrollment rate of 4.7 %.31 On the next level, three governmental middle schools (two in Seoul and one in Pyongyang) were, by 1909, supplemented by around 30 private Korean and 13 missionary schools, each enrolling around 50–80 students a year.32 At best, only around two to three thousand students were to benefit from the general middle-level education, and an additional 800–1,000 had the opportunity to take a course at one of around a dozen of the Korean capital’s middle-level professional schools (teacher’s college, postal college, mining college, agricultural college, five foreign language schools, etc.). In 1906, for example, five foreign language schools (Japanese, English, Chinese, French and German) took in 210 new students.33

‘Lest We Should Become like Poor Stateless Jews’: Textbooks of Survival These several thousand pupils in modern educational establishments were to be taught with the help of a few textbooks hastily compiled and printed after 1895 by the Ministry of Education (Hakpu) and by private individuals. Some earlier textbooks—such as one of Korea’s first modern schoolbooks, Sohak Tokpon (Primary School Reader, compiled by the Ministry of Education in 1896)—incorporated texts on Confucius, Mencius and Korea’s Confucian luminaries of the past into the parts dealing with ‘virtue,’ ‘practical affairs’ or ‘worldly behaviour.’34 However, those compiled in the middle of the first decade of the century obviously preferred Social Darwinist ‘patriotic’ reasoning to Confucian wisdom. A good example is Yullihak Kyogwasˇo (Ethics Textbook, Vols. 1– 3, 1906), compiled by Sin Haeyˇong (1865–1909), one of the first Kore30

O Sˇongch’ˇol, Singminji ch’odˇung kyoyuk uˇ i hyˇongsˇong [The Formation of Colonial Primary Education] (Seoul: Kyoyuk kwahaksa, 2000), Pp. 133. 31 Peter H. Lindert, Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century. Vol. 2: Further Evidence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), Appendices 1 and 3. 32 Yu Pongho, Kim Yunja, Han’guk kˇ unhyˇondae chungdˇung kyoyuk paengnyˇonsa [Centennial History of Korea’s Modern Middle Schools] (Seoul: Han’guk kyoyuk hakhoe kyoyuksa yˇon’guhoe, 1998), Pp. 77–78. 33 Kim Yˇ ong’u, Han’guk kaehwagi uˇ i kyoyuk [Korean Education in the Modern Reforms Period] (Seoul: Kyoyuk kwahaksa, 1997), Pp. 301–543. 34 Yi Haemyˇ ong, Kaehwagi kyoyuk kaehyˇok yˇon’gu [A Study of the Education Reforms ˇ in the Modern Reforms Period] (Seoul: Uryu munhwasa, 1991), Pp. 225.

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ans to study in Japan after 1895 and the first schoolmaster of the private Posˇong School (established in 1905), predecessor of today’s prestigious Koryˇo (Korea) University in Seoul. Following the general lines established by Japanese ethics textbooks (as he confessed himself in his foreword), Sin began his first section, devoted to personal ethics, with passages on the importance of physical health and fitness. Physical strength was, according to him, not only the most important prerequisite for one’s moral and intellectual development, but also a precondition for discharging a loyal subject’s most central duty, namely obligatory military service. Bravery was one of the important personal virtues listed by Sin, and sacrificing oneself ‘for the sake of national independence and security’ was described as the highest sort of bravery. Physical strength and bravery were, according to Sin, very much in demand in today’s world, where international order continued ‘to be mostly reliant upon physical force’ and where ‘competition between the states for survival’ often led to wars. In the world of competing states, the ‘strength and weakness, glory and disgrace’ of a particular state depended completely on the ‘amount of patriotic spirit among the subjects,’ their ability to develop a ‘militaristic spirit’ (sangmu chˇongsin) and their progress in education and the sciences.35 A graphic example of what might happen to the losers in the worldwide competition was given in An Chonghwa’s (1860–1924) textbook, Ch’odˇung Yullihak Kyogwasˇo (Primary School Ethics Textbook, 1907). It mentions Jews (‘good in accumulating wealth but massacred in Russia and humiliated in France, without a single place in the world to return to, on account of their state being lost’) and Indians (‘colonial slaves unable to enjoy their lives’) as typical ‘failures in the global struggle for survival.’36 As An succinctly put it, ‘having no state means having no family, and having no family means having nowhere to entrust your body.’ Here we find the central theme of the ethics curriculum in the first decade of the new century in Korea. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, ‘competition’ became a familiar keyword in Korean schoolbooks on ethics and morals, including the state-produced texts widely used in both public and private schools. A popular ethics primer compiled by the Ministry of Education

35 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1977), Vol. 10, Pp. 1–359. 36 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 10, Pp. 520–521.

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and printed in 1909 in Tokyo, Susinsˇo (Book of Moral Self-Cultivation), invoked the appeals for the ‘civilized,’ rule-based competition between members of the same society already found in Yu Kiljun’s 1895 Sŏyu kyŏnmun. A section on ‘gentlemanly competition’ (kunja uˇ i kyˇongjaeng) from this textbook gave an example of a schoolchild who tried in vain to win in a running competition by using a dirty trick against his more successful rival, but was then shamed and punished by his teacher. The students were then warned that competition, in sports or studies, should proceed ‘in a fair and gentlemanly way,’ and that the competitors should even be prepared to demonstrate their skills by helping each other.37 Such niceties, however, did not necessaryly apply to interstate competition. As a 1908 textbook compiled and published at prestigious ˇ Hwimun Uisuk private school in Seoul (today’s Hwimun High School), Chungdˇung susin kyogwasˇo (Middle School Moral Self-Cultivation Textbook), explained, the ‘civilized states’ were supposed to be engaged primarily in peaceful exchanges. Their ‘competition in the enhancement of their national wealth and power’ should, in principle, be non-violent, but sometimes, ‘the clash of interests leads unavoidably to a war.’ It meant that ‘in the era of competition, state sovereignty could be defended only by appealing to the force of arms,’ and that sacrificing one’s life on the battlefield had to be the duty of all nationals (ilban kungmin) in wartime. To enable nationals to develop the necessary patriotic spirit (aeguk chˇongsin), the nation needed both a degree of ‘racial homogeneity’ (injong tongil) and a good measure of educational effort. In relation to the former, the textbook’s compilers congratulated Koreans on the fact that, although Korea was populated by heterogeneous communities in the times of the Three Kingdoms (1st century ad to 668), the prohibitions against crossborder migrations introduced during the Chosˇon Dynasty ‘freed us from the problems that the coexistence of various races might potentially cause.’ The immigration of ‘heterogeneous elements’ in future was not impossible, however, and the textbook warned Koreans that ‘assimilating’ (tonghwa) members of heterogeneous races living in Korea should be their ‘national duty’ (kungmin uˇ i ponmu). As for education, the reading of ‘national history’ (kuksa) was listed as the first precondition for developing the needed ‘national spirit’ (kungmin uˇ i chˇongsin). And fulfilment of the obligatory primary education course (ˇuimu kyoyuk)—which actually did not yet exist in Korea—was elevated 37 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 9, Pp. 619–623.

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to one of nationals’ three main duties, on a par with paying taxes and answering the call to military conscription.38 ˇ Another ethics textbook by Hwimun Uisuk recommended for advanced middle school classes—Kodˇung sohak susinsˇo (Advanced Primer for Moral Self-Cultivation, 1908)—also saw a competitive spirit as a normal and useful part of a human nature. After all, the competitive efforts of one single member of society would benefit everybody else in the end. It was the deplorable ‘retardation of progress and civilization in our country’ which was responsible for a ‘stubborn adherence to the old habits of laziness and idleness’ and for the dearth of a competitive spirit in Korea. Such a spirit was most needed in education, as ‘one person’s single day of study’ was already providing a small fraction of the ‘national light’—the nation’s ‘civilizational glory,’ which was to shine over the whole world in case the nation in question was successful in ‘scholarship and reform of its customs.’39 All in all, in the later years of the first decade of the new century, Korean ethics textbooks, with their ubiquitous references to ‘international ethics’ (kukche uˇ i toˇui) or ‘universal love’ (pag’ae) can hardly be characterized as unusually bloodthirsty. However, one of the aims they obviously encouraged their readers to strive for was to reach a stage when ‘our national flag (t’aegˇukki) is hoisted all over the world’40— that is, the enhancement of ‘national wealth and power’ in the worldwide ‘competition for survival.’

National Spirit, National History, National Survival Korea’s post-1895 history textbook writers generally accepted the idea that historical consciousness is intimately connected to the issues of ‘national spirit’ and ultimately guarantees the ‘survival of the nation.’ History is a narrative of the past loaded with an agenda for the present—and Korea’s historians of the late 1890s and the decade to follow were making no secret about their presentist agenda. In his foreword to the Ministry of Education’s Pot’ong kyogwa tongguk yˇoksa (Primary Textbook of the History of the Eastern State, compiled by Hyˇon Ch’ae, 1899), the Ministry’s 38 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 9, Pp. 335–355. 39 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 9, Pp. 447–472. 40 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 9, Pp. 466.

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Editorial Department Chief, Yi Kyuhwan (1857-?), wrote that his own outlook, at the conclusion of a survey of Korea’s history and geography, was optimistic. Why should a country possessing a three thousand li-long territory and five hundred years of (dynastic) history, suffer from a lack of talent and continuously find itself in an inferior position compared to others? Readers were encouraged to use their historic knowledge as a basis for developing ‘long-reaching strategies related to current trends in the world under the Heaven.’ They also ought ‘to demonstrate their dignity, keep a vigilant eye on opportunities, achieve great deeds of loyalty to the Sovereign, show love for their country, and spread the bright glory [of Korea] throughout the world.’41 The reason why history reading bestowed such a power of patriotic motivation upon diligent readers, was, among others, its comparative nature. Reading the history of one’s own country implied comparing it with reference models elsewhere—and the result was not always favourable to Korea. As Hyˇon Ch’ae, one of the most prolific history writers of the time, wrote in the foreword to his 1906 Korean history textbook (Chungdˇung kyogwa Tongguk saryak [Brief History of the Eastern State for Middle School], published by Pomun’gwan Publishers, Seoul), Korea’s civilization, weaponry excluded, used to be superior to the Japanese. So how could it be that the Japanese state now ‘flies as a dragon and roars as a tiger,’ while Korea was reduced to ‘ducking its head like a turtle, in trepidation’? The reason was its reluctance to accept ‘civilization’ and to educate itself about both the nation’s own and the world’s history. However, once enlightened and aware of their mission, Koreans would certainly be able to restore their independence and old cultural glory.42 Generally speaking, the discourse of ‘national history’ was meant to emphasise the particularity of one’s nation-state as a cultural and historical subject, and to create a modern individuality able and willing to discount the broader regional / global or narrower clan / local loyalties in favour of ‘national’ allegiance.43 This was hardly different in Korea— indeed, the foreword to one of the earliest history textbooks published by the Ministry of Education, Chosˇon Yˇoktae Saryak (Brief History of 41 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 14, Pp. 4. 42 Cited in: Minjok Munhaksa Yˇ on’guso [National Literary History Research Institute] (ed.) Kˇundae kyemonggi uˇ i haksul munye sasang [Academic and Literary Ideas of the Modern Enlightenment Period] (Seoul: Somyˇong, 2000), Pp. 211–216. 43 For a good account of the creation of ‘national history’ in Meiji Japan, see Margaret Mehl, History and the State in Nineteenth-Century Japan (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).

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Korea’s Successive Epochs, 1895), proudly stated that ‘everything unrelated to [our] state, even the beautiful words and meritorious deeds, has been omitted here.’44 The key concept in history-writing was ‘national independence’—Ch’oe Kyˇonghwan’s (1851–1923) Taedong Yˇoksa (History of the Great Eastern [State], 1905) was unambiguously characterized in the foreword as a narrative about the sagely progenitor of all Koreans, Tan’gun, establishing the ‘independent Eastern State’ concurrently with Yao, as he laid the foundation of the Chinese state. Korea was ‘one of the multitudes of independent, sovereign states in the universe’—on a par with China, the old focus of the cultural loyalty of the Confucian intelligentsia, which was now to be stripped of its special global status.45 The ‘natural state’ of national independence was, however, just an ideal—and the national history textbooks were quick to make clear that in a world where the weak are preyed upon by the strong, ‘independence’ was just another name for ‘might.’ Hyˇon Ch’ae, for example, stated unequivocally in his Chungdˇung kyogwa Tongguk saryak that Korea’s independence, downtrodden by ‘Chinese oppression,’ was eventually recovered through the efforts of Japan, including its insistence on the clause of ‘Korea’s independence’ in the Korean-Japanese Kanghwa Treaty text (1876), and following victory in the Sino-Japanese War. Hyˇon Ch’ae disapproved of the 1905 ‘Protectorate Treaty,’ but chose to blame the hopelessness of his own side on the naiveté of Koreans who were ‘unable to understand Japan’s true intentions.’46 The recipe for recovering lost independence was suggested in yet another post-1905 history textbook, Chˇong Inho’s Ch’odˇung Taehan Yˇoksa (Primer of Korea’s History, published by Okho Sˇorim Publishers, 1908). It bravely published the full text of the last will of Min Yˇonghwan (1861–1905), the courtier and diplomat whose suicide in protest against the ‘Protectorate Treaty’ (November 30, 1905) was a cause celebre for Korean nationalists of the time: ‘[…] I warn my compatriots that after this humiliation of the state and the people our nation can disappear in the struggle for survival. […] But if my compatriots will make strenuous efforts, strengthen their resolve, encourage learning and 44 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 11, Pp. 273. 45 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi kyogwasˇo ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 17, Pp. 3–6; Minjok Munhaksa Yˇon’guso [National Literary History Research Institute] (ed.) Kˇundae kyemonggi uˇ i haksul munye sasang [Academic and Literary Ideas of the Modern Enlightenment Period], Pp. 197–199. 46 Hyˇ on Ch’ae, Chungdˇung kyogwa Tongguk saryak [Brief History of the Eastern State for Middle School] (Seoul: Pomun’gwan, 1906), Pp. 366–386.

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all unite together, our freedom and independence will be recovered, and I will smile happily in the next world.’47 At this point, ‘national history education’ became a vehicle for spreading a nationalist awareness strongly embedded in a Social Darwinist vision of the world. While Korea’s contemporaneous history seemed, in the eyes of nationalist educators, to be a perfect vindication of Social Darwinist postulates, the same might be said about the history of colonized Asia and Africa as a whole. Paradoxically enough, the modernist emulators of the West and Japan in 1890s–1900s Korea were also deeply concerned about the history of the West’s non-Western victims.48 The genre of the ‘history of fallen states’ (mangguksa)—mostly Asian and African ones, although ‘White colonies,’ like Poland, were also given attention —enjoyed enormous popularity in the late years of the first decade of the new century in the nationalist milieu, as such books were believed to be able to caution ‘our nation’ about its unenviable fate once its ‘struggle for existence’ had been lost.49 A most typical representative of that genre was Viê. t Nam Wong Guốk Sử (Kor. Wˇollam Mangguksa [History of the Downfall of Vietnam], 1905), a masterpiece by Vietnam’s famed nationalist, Phan Bôi . Châu (1867–1940). It was written in classical Chinese with assistance from Liang Qichao (who welcomed the Vietnamese patriot in Japan where he was seeking to train the next generation of Vietnam’s nationalists) and published in Shanghai through Liang’s help.50 The book was widely read by educated Koreans already in early 1906. The lesson learned from Phan Bôi . Châu by the Korean elite society—shocked by the ‘Protectorate Treaty’ and deeply fearful about the nation’s future—was well summarized by an editorial in Hwangsˇong Sinmun (May 5, 1906) entitled ‘Lamenting Vietnam’ (Ae Annam): ‘Our Korean compatriots are fading in strength now just like the Vietnamese […] We would like you to remember that, should you not take mea47

Cited in Kang Yunho, Kaehwagi uˇ i kyogwayong tosˇo [Schoolbooks of the Modern Reforms Period] (Seoul: Kyoyuk ch’ulp’ansa, 1975), Pp. 202–203. 48 A similar—and closely related—trend emerged also among the Chinese nationalist intellectuals of the early twentieth century. See: Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002). 49 Ch’oe Kiyˇ ong, Han’guk kˇundae kyemong undong yˇon’gu [Research on Korea’s Modern Enlightenment Movement], Pp. 44–62. 50 William J. Duiker, “Phan Boi Chau: Asian Revolutionary in a Changing World”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1971, Pp. 77–88. On Phan Bôi . Châu’s ‘Japanese Period’ (1905–1909), see also: Shiriashi Masaya, “Phan Bôi . Châu in Japan”, in Vĩhn Sính (ed.) Phan Bô. i Châu and the Ðông-Du Movement (New Haven: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1988), Pp. 52–101.

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sures towards self-strengthening in these days of interstate competition, then who knows what will happen to you on the day the interests of different states clash with each other?’51 The book was soon translated into mixed Sino-Korean writing by indefatigable Hyˇon Ch’ae and printed in November 1906. It immediately became popular enough to be reprinted in May 1907 by Kwangmunsa Publishers (Taegu). Since the mixed Sino-Korean script was almost incomprehensible for the less educated, two separate purely vernacular translations, one by famed linguist Chu Sigyˇong (1876–1914) and another by Yi Sang’ik (1881–?), a well-known educator, soon followed in November–December 1907. The book was frequently used in classrooms, mostly at the less controlled private schools, as its anti-colonial pathos was more than obvious to the Japanese Protectorate authorities.52 Interestingly enough, many popular ‘fallen state histories’ of the late 1900s were actually translated Japanese works. For example, Yamanouchi Masaaki’s Shokuminron (On Colonialism, Tokyo, Kanasashihōryūdō, 1905) was translated and published in 1908 (Seoul, Umun’gwan Publishers), with a foreword by the editor, renowned nationalist journalist Wˇon Yˇong’ˇui. He explained that to prevent colonisation by a ‘heterogeneous race’ (iminjok), one has to fight—in ‘knowledge war’ (hakchˇon), through a competition of minds (noegyˇong), or by physical force alone53—a notion that succinctly summarized the central message of the diverse ‘histories of the fallen states.’ While the failure to develop a modern education system was seen as a reason for the national downfall, educational success was regarded as the essential precondition for the most important type of accomplishments: military ones. In his impassioned January 16, 1906, editorial for Hwangsˇong Sinmun, entitled ‘A Plea for You to Work Towards ˇ Improving Schooling’ (Mumang hˇunghak), Pak Unsik (1859–1925), a native of Hwangju county, Hwanghae Province in the north-western part of Korea, and one of Korea’s most prominent early nationalists, invoked the example of the nineteenth-century German revanche against France. He vividly described the humiliations of the Napoleonic victories over Prussia (‘the king and ministers of Prussia became just like

51

Hwangsˇong Sinmun (reprint), Vol. 13, Pp. 18. Ch’oe Kiyˇong, Han’guk kˇundae kyemong undong yˇon’gu [A Study of Korea’s Modern Enlightenment Movement], Pp. 52–60. 53 Cited in Kang Yunho, Kaehwagi u ˇ i kyogwayong tosˇo [Schoolbooks of the Modern Reforms Period] (Seoul: Kyoyuk ch’ulp’ansa, 1975), Pp. 210. 52

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lackeys and concubines of the French emperor’). Then, he eloquently praised ‘Prussia’s wise minister,’ Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom Stein (1757–1831), for having allegedly said that only the development of education could help the Germans avenge the dishonour of their defeat. Then, Pak concluded, German success in doing precisely this was widely shown by their triumph over France in 1870–1871. Following the views of Moltke (1800–1891) and Bismarck (1815–1898), Pak emphasized that credit for Germany’s military achievements should go to the German obligatory elementary school system.54 In fact, this view is largely shared by scholars up to our own times, regardless of differences in value judgements made about German militarism and nationalism per se.55 It is not that Pak relished a world order in which knowledge was just a stepping-stone on the way to military success while the inability to transform schoolchildren into good soldiers threatened the very ‘survival of the nation.’ A devoted translator of Liang Qichao’s writings and distinguished expert in China and Korea’s classical legacy, Pak was an heir to the orthodox noron (Patriarchs’ Fraction) school of Chosˇon Neo-Confucianism (and a close confidant of the mighty noron courtier Min Pyˇongsˇok, 1858–1940)56—Confucian enough to pity the fate of the ‘unfit’ in the new world’s Darwinist jungles. In fact, in one of his betterknown Social Darwinist manifestos on educational matters, ‘[We] do not Gain Survival unless Education is Developed’ (Kyoyuk i purhˇung imyˇon saengjon uˇ l puldˇuk: Monthly Sˇou, Issue 1, December 1906), Pak actually lamented the ‘cruel fate of the black slaves of Africa and America’s Indians.’ It saddened him that those ‘inferior races’ were soon fated to ‘be exterminated,’ since the ‘superior races’ considered them barbaric, expelling and killing them. However, ‘the tragedy of those on the inferior places’ in the hierarchy of humanity was, in Pak’s opinion, no different from the situation of the ‘inferior species of wild beasts that were destroyed by the superior race of humans in ancient times.’ For Pak, all the tragic aspects of competitive evolution notwithstanding, it was a cosmic law ‘ever since the universe came into being—the victor is master and the defeated is slave; the victors survive and the defeated get annihi54 Pak Unsik, ˇ ˇ ˇ Pak Unsik chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik] (Seoul: Tan’guk Taehakkyo Tongyanghak Yˇon’guso, 1975), Vol. 3, Pp. 81–83. 55 Barry Rosen, “Nationalism, the Mass Army and Military Power”, International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1993, Pp. 80–124. 56 No Kwanbŏm, “1875–1904 nyˇ ˇ on Pak Unsik uˇ i chujahak ihae wa kyoyuk chagangnon” [Understanding of Zhuxi-ism and Ideas of Self-Strengthening through Eduˇ cation of Pak Unsik, 1875–1904], Han’guk saron, Vol. 43, 2000, Pp. 91–134.

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lated.’ As the only measure of superiority and inferiority in the modern world was knowledge, educating the scions of the Korean nation properly was the only way to avoid slavery and ultimate extermination.57

Obligatory Education and National Salvation ˇ So, what sort of education did Pak Unsik envision as a path to ‘national survival’? Following Liang Qichao’s understanding of the Spencerian idea of the harmonious development of the moral, intellectual and physical faculties—which gained widespread acceptance in contemporaneous Japan58—he regarded a balanced advance of the trio of physical (ch’eyuk), intellectual (chiyuk) and moral (tˇogyuk) training as the shortcut to achieving ‘the wealth and strength of civilization.’59 An avowed belief in the ideal of holistic education notwithstanding, he seemed to regard physical education—and military training as its logical extension —as the highest priority of the day, partly because he saw it as greatly lacking in Korea’s case. In his programmatic article, ‘The Evil Effects of Literary Weakness Necessarily Destroy the State’ (Munyakchib’ye nˇun p’il sang ki guk, monthly Sˇou, Issue 10, September 1907) he severely castigated Chosˇon’s ruling classes for their ‘degradation into literary weakness.’ Their state, founded by the illustrious warrior Yi Sˇonggye (King T’aejo, r. 1392–1398) and once, in the fifteenth century, able to militarily attack Tsushima in the south and “barbarians’ (Jurchen tribes) in the north, was turned, according to Pak, into an abode of ‘literary weaklings’ capable only of assuming scholarly airs and wasting energy on aimless debates. Being too militaristic implied the shortcomings of unnecessary brutality and troublemaking, but the shortcomings of ‘literary weakness’—when ‘the whole body of the country, with its one hundred veins, is all decaying, making the country easy prey for foreigners’—were deemed much more dangerous. Auto-Orientalising images ˇ ˇ Pak Unsik chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 3, Pp. 86–88. On the Spencerian influences on Meiji Japan educational theory and practice, see: Mark Elwood Lincicome, Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1995), Pp. 16, 65–80. On the influences of Spencerian pedagogics on Liang Qichao, see Onogawa Hidemi, Seimatsu seiji shisō kenkyū [History of Political Ideology of the Late Qing] (Tokyo: Tōyōshi kenkyūkai, 1960), Pp. 381–383. 59 See Pak’s editorial in Taehan Maeil Sinbo (October 11, 1907) entitled ‘Prolegomenon to a Theory of Education’ (Kyoyukhak sˇo)—Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 4, Pp. 35–59. 57 58

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of the ‘effeminate, unmanly Koreans’ were contrasted not only with the ‘bushidō spirit of Japan,’ credited with defeating China and Russia, but also with the images of masculine, war-loving and patriotic Spartans, whom Pak appears to have encountered in Liang Qichao’s The New Citizen, in the chapter ‘On Respecting the Military’ (Lun Shangwu, Chapter 17).60 State-run education for all children older than seven years of age, with a focus on athletics, boxing, military training and the practice of ‘making raids against the enemy in small bands’ (that was Pak’s understanding of the Spartan custom of krypteia, the state-sponsored killing of the helot serfs by young Spartan citizens)61 looked extremely attractive to Pak. He was also mesmerized by stories of Spartan mothers telling their sons to return ‘with a shield or on the shield’ when sending them off to the battlefield. However, bowing to Korea’s Confucian sensitivities, Pak somewhat altered Liang’s description of the killing of unfit babies, writing instead that ‘physically unfit babies were registered as commoners or sent to live in the mountainous areas.’62 The idea that the ‘unfit’ are to ˇ be eliminated by natural selection was somewhat painful for Pak Unsik as a conscientious Confucian, but still acceptable—the supposed ‘laws of the universe’ were not to be contested by mere mortals. Radical artificial selection was, however, too hard to stomach for an early Korean Social Darwinist with a solid Confucian background. How then, was ‘education for the sake of national salvation’ to be implemented? In one of his earlier treatises in classical Chinese, Hakkyu sinron (New Discourse on Education, published by Pangmunsa, 1904), Pak opted for a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, he appealed to ‘popular forces’ (millyˇok)—scholar-officials (yangban), richer peasants or merchants—to establish private primary schools wherever it was feasible, ideally in every village, following the example of north-western or central provinces where such schools were found in relative abundance. That the USA, the representative ‘civilized country,’ supposedly ‘had more than 121,400 schools’63 while Korea could boast at best three to four in each of 60 See the original in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Icedrinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 4, Pp. 108–109. 61 On this practice, see: Stefan Link: “Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der spartanischen Krypteia”, Klio, Vol. 88, 2006, Pp. 34–43. 62 Pak Unsik ˇ ˇ chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 3, Pp. 93–96. 63 The statistics Pak used were apparently largely outdated—already by 1890, there were 219,992 public schools in the United States. See: Department of the Interior, Census Office (ed.) Report on the Education in the United States at the Eleventh Census, 1890 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893), Pp. 45.

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its provinces, was a sufficient cause of concern for Pak. He was sure that his concern would be shared by many among the Korean intelligentsia in a uniting spirit of ‘righteous indignation’ (punbal), the emotion Pak considered most conducive to an accelerated ‘self strengthening’ of the country. The state was, according to Pak, to award certificates of merit to the most arduous educators, and to match private efforts to broaden the educational base at the primary level by setting public middle-level schools in the city centres and a university in the capital. On the other hand, Pak made it clear that should ‘the foolish commoners behave stupidly’ and show no interest in saving their nation from ruin by educating their children, they were to be coerced into doing so by state power. He proposed therefore to introduce obligatory schooling with fines and other punishments for a failure to enroll one’s sons (chaje) in school.64 With the passing of time Pak’s sense of urgency increased, and the emphasis upon the compulsory nature of modern, nation-saving education was strengthened. In the beginning of 1907, the Friends of the West Academic Society (Sˇou Hakhoe)—the north-western provincial ‘enlightenment’ group which Pak and his associates founded in October 1906 —decided to implement obligatory education for boys, first inside the confines of Pyongyang county. The group sent two members of its Educational Committee into each sub-county (myŏn), to encourage schoolbuilding and obligatory schooling implementation at the grassroots level there.65 The initiative was, as expected, immediately praised by Taehan Maeil Sinbo (February 26, 1907).66 The inspection by the Friends of the West Academic Society members showed very soon, however, that for such a drastic project there was too small a number of trained teachers. Then, on March 11, 1907, one of the local educational enthusiasts, the Japan-educated Protestant Christian Ch’oe Kwang’ok (1877– 1910), opened a three month-long teacher course (sabŏm kangsˇupso) in Pyongyang,67 to be reorganized in October 1907 into a regular pedagogic

ˇ ˇ Pak Unsik chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 2, Pp. 3–31. See Yi Songhˇui, “Sŏu hakhoe uˇ i aeguk kyemong undong kwa sasang” [The Friends of the West Academic Society’s Patriotic Enlightenment Movement and its Ideas], in Cho Hangnae (ed.) 1900 nyˇondae uˇ i aeguk kyemong undong yˇon’gu [The Patriotic Enlightenment Movement of the 1900s] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1993), Pp. 291–339. 66 “Sŏgyang ch’onsim” (Feebly-spirited [Talks] in the Evening Time), in Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 3, Pp. 27–78. 67 Yi Myŏnghwa, Kˇ undaehwa uˇ i sˇon’gakcha—Ch’oe Kwang’ok uˇ i sam kwa widaehan yusan [Pioneer of Modernization—Life and Great Legacy of Ch’oe Kwang’ok] (Seoul: Yŏksa konggan, 2006), Pp. 103. 64 65

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school, Sŏu Hakkyo, with Pak Ŭnsik as its schoolmaster.68 All the talk of obligatory schooling notwithstanding, full enrollment for all schoolage boys remained an elusive dream for Pyongyang’s progressives—but Pyongyang county, with its 82 primary schools,69 mostly private, was definitely in the vanguard of the new trends. The country as a whole was hopelessly behind. When the Korean Self-Strengthening Society (Taehan Chaganghoe, launched on April 14, 1906, as a pan-national ‘enlightenment’ group) proposed to the government in January 1907 to implement obligatory schooling for boys throughout Korea, beginning with the capital and other better prepared regions, the initiative was rejected as premature.70 And premature it was indeed. In fact, for the first time in Korean history a plan to provide obligatory education to all school age children was adopted by the Japanese colonial authorities in 1942, with full implementation scheduled for 1946.71 The Japanese colonial empire collapsed before this came about, leaving, in the end, the North and South Korean governments to fulfil this historic task. In South Korea, which enshrined obligatory elementary schooling in its 1948 Constitution, the approximation of near-full school enrollment for children of both sexes was achieved only by the end of the 1950s.72 Pak Ŭnsik’s ambition was running very much ahead of the actual tempo of Korea’s history, indeed. ˇ In the historical moment when, as Pak Unsik succinctly put it in 1907, the ‘achievement of civilization, wealth and power’ through such ‘self-strengthening’ measures as mass education development was perceived as ‘the only way to prevent our Korean nation from disappear-

68

See the advertisement on page 3, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, October 26, 1907: Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 4, pp. 35–77; Yi Songhˇui, “Sŏu hakhoe uˇ i aeguk kyemong undong kwa sasang” [The Friends of the West Academic Society’s Patriotic Enlightenment Movement and its Ideas], in Cho Hangnae (ed.) 1900 nyˇondae uˇ i aeguk kyemong undong yˇon’gu [The Patriotic Enlightenment Movement of the 1900s], p. 310. 69 Yi Myŏnghwa, Kˇ undaehwa uˇ i sˇon’gakcha—Ch’oe Kwang’ok uˇ i sam kwa widaehan yusan [Pioneer of Modernization—Life and Great Legacy of Ch’oe Kwang’ok], Pp. 104. 70 Yu Yŏngnyŏl, “Taehan Chaganghoe aeguk kyemong undong” [The Patriotic Enlightenment Movement of the Korean Self-Strengthening Society], in Cho Hangnae (ed.) 1900 nyˇondae uˇ i aeguk kyemong undong yˇon’gu [The Patriotic Enlightenment Movement of the 1900s], Pp. 39–103. 71 O Sˇ ongch’ˇol, Singminji ch’odˇung kyoyuk uˇ i hyˇongsˇong [Formation of Colonial Primary Education], Pp. 99. 72 Kang Man-gil (translated by J. Duncan), A History of Contemporary Korea (Global Oriental, 2005), Pp. 318.

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ing eternally,’73 the advocacy of a speedier implementation of compulsory schooling became something of an intellectual-political fashion. Practical limitations notwithstanding, national survival in the face of the Japanese encroachments made it imperative that Korea catch up with Japan, especially in the key area of propping up ‘national strength,’ namely, universal primary education—or so Korea’s progressives tended to believe in the first decade of the new century. A good example is an article by Yˇo Pyˇonghyˇon (1867–?), a Protestant convert educated in Japan (Keiō Gijuku, 1895) and the USA (three months at Harvard University, 1896), who worked in the early 1900s as a British Legation interpreter and later became known as one of the Seoul YMCA founders.74 ˇ The article was entitled ‘The Necessity of Obligatory Education’ (Uimu kyoyuk uˇ i p’iryo) and was published in the monthly Taehan Hyˇophoe Hoebo—the organ of the Korean Society (Taehan Hyˇophoe, founded on November 10, 1907, and disbanded at the time of Korea’s annexation by Japan in August 1910), the successor to the Korean Self-Strengthening Society (which was disbanded by the Japanese Protectorate authorities on August 21, 1907). From the beginning, Yˇo asserted that the need for obligatory education was self-evident, suggesting that ‘even a fool would not object to such a proposal.’ Could it be otherwise in the twentieth century, when ‘as a result of the competition for survival, the fit win over the unfit, and our Korean nation’s place is, unfortunately, among the unfit’? The desired effects of obligatory primary education were also quite selfevident to Yˇo: In such powerful states as Britain, America, France, Germany and Japan, around 70–90% of all the people of the country receive primary education. As a result, strong ideas of loyalty and love for the state are inscribed into their minds; they regard the shameful failures of their states as their own and exhaust themselves fully and willingly at their states’ service, allowing their states to top the world’s ranks of civilization, wealth and power.

The possible consequences of failing to inculcate in future subjects a ‘love towards their states’ were pretty self-evident as well. Did not ‘China, Persia, Vietnam, Southern India and such European states as Spain, Portugal and Turkey […] come under blackmail and predations by their stronger neighbours, […] their nations becoming other nations’ slaves, ˇ ˇ Pak Unsik chˇonjip [Complete Works by Pak Unsik], Vol. 3, Pp. 90–91. Chˇon T’aekpu, Han’guk Kidokkyo Ch’ˇongnyˇonhoe Undongsa [A History of the Korean YMCA Movement] (Seoul: Chˇong’ˇumsa, 1978), Pp. 31. 73 74

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on account of their lack of educational progress’?75 As a Pyongyang enlightenment activist, Pak Sˇonghˇum, put it concisely, ‘Education’s eventual aim is to develop the character of the educated into a form befitting a state’s subject (kungmin). The immediate aim is to facilitate adaptation to the present conditions of the competition for survival. Any other education is useless, and an education useless to the aim of survival is simply harmful.’76 Such was the Social Darwinist educational ‘gospel’ which the ‘enlightenment enthusiasts’ were offering to Korea.

Sin Ch’aeho’s World: Heroes and the Survival of the National Family Sin Ch’aeho, one of the most radical and politically uncompromisingly anti-Japanese ‘self-strengthening’ nationalists, also made education into the centrepiece of his vision of Korea’s modern revival—not unlike many of his colleagues and collaborators in the late 1900s media and publishing world. If it was distinguishable from all the other appeals to educate Koreans into ‘nationals,’ it was perhaps to be seen in his style and his ranking of priorities. While most visions of a new, modern and national education included physical training, understood mostly in explicitly militaristic terms, and a thorough study of national history with a view to building and sharpening ‘national awareness,’ Sin Ch’aeho made these two parts of the curriculum into a matter of national life and death. In his manifesto, ‘New People of the 20th Century’ (20 segi sin kungmin, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, February 22–March 3, 1910), he emphasizes that ‘new education’ is supposed, ‘of course, to focus upon the state spirit (kukka chˇongsin), nationalism (minjokchuˇui) and the principles of civilization (munmyˇongjuˇui).’ In addition, Koreans also ‘have to advocate loudly for such an education that will worship military force, since this world is a world of militarist states.’ Unless Korea were to develop a ‘militaristic education’ (sangmu kyoyuk), Sin claimed, ‘nationalism and civilization will be of no use, and the fortunes of the country will never get changed 75 Taehan Hyˇ ophoe Hoebo, No. 2 (April 1908), Pp. 10–11; Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 3, Pp. 82. 76 “Pot’ong kyoyuk u ˇ n kungmin uˇ i yomuda” [General Education is an Important Duty of State Subjects], Monthly Sˇou, No. 9 (April 1907), Pp. 5–6; Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 5, Pp. 491–492.

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for the better.’ Thus, Koreans had to ‘cultivate the spirit and abilities of militaristic state subjects’ (kun’guk min) to survive.77 At the same time, as Sin proclaimed in a 1909 editorial entitled ‘The Progress of Family Education’ (Kajok kyoyuk uˇ i chˇondo, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, June 11, 1908), this education had to be permeated with the awareness of national history —coterminous with one’s familial genealogy: In relation to the world, the state can be regarded as one family, and Tan’gun and Puru78 are your clan ancestors […], while the four thousand years-long [national] history is your familial genealogy.79

The teaching of ‘nationalized’ history was thus seen to be equal to the sacred duty of Confucian gentlemen to transfer knowledge about their clan history to male descendants charged with the responsibility of continuing the family line and the sacrificial offerings to the ancestors.80 The evocation of clan ancestor worship was not Sin’s only attempt to utilize the Confucian past in the service of the nationalist and militarist present. One of the aims of ‘militaristic and nationalistic education’ for Sin was to lead Koreans to worship, admire and emulate ‘heroes’— the saints of the new, nationalistic pantheon. And in his descriptions of the ‘heroes,’ Sin obviously followed, consciously or unconsciously, the old Confucian hagiographical patterns, the ‘sages,’ ‘worthies,’ ‘wise monarchs’ and ‘virtuous subjects.’81 were being substituted by ‘national heroes.’ In some of Sin’s articles on ‘hero worship,’ for example, in the piece entitled ‘The Hero and the World’ (Yˇongung kwa segye, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, January 4–5, 1908), the ‘hero’ image acquires truly cosmic proportions: 77

Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 226–227. 78 Hae Puru, the mythical king of Northern Puyˇ o, whose successor, Kˇumwa (‘Golden Frog’), was said to have obtained the daughter of a river god as his wife. She was supposed to have begotten Ko Chumong, the legendary founder of Koguryˇo, a mighty proto-Korean state (1st century bc to 668 ad). See: Iryˇon (transl. by Yi Kawˇon and Hˇo Kyˇongjin), Samguk Yusa [Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms] (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 2006 [1285]), Pp. 79–81. 79 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 147. 80 On the Confucian tradition of sacrificial offerings in Korea, see: Hongkyung Kim, “A Party for the Spirits: Ritual Practice in Confucianism”, in Robert E. Buswell (ed.) Religions of Korea in Practice (Princeton University Press, 2007), Pp. 163–176. 81 On the image of the ‘sage’ in the Confucian tradition, see: Tu Wei-Ming, “The Confucian Sage: Exemplar of Personal Knowledge”, in John S. Hawley (ed.) Saints and Virtues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), Pp. 73–76.

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chapter six The hero is a god who creates the world, and the world is a stage for a hero’s activities. If there were no heroes at all after the world was created by the Heavenly Emperor, then only the sounds of wild beasts and birds would have resonated through the mountains and fields covered with weeds […]. The so-called humanity would have curled up in the remote corners, having bodies and flocks but neither families, nor states […], just like ants or bees. […] ‘Hero’ is a title presented to these great men […] whose knowledge is superior to anybody else’s, whose spirits lead their generation, who, by whatever demonic powers, are able to overwhelm and dominate whole states, and to whom everybody in the whole world tends to gravitate, just as everything in the world gravitates towards the sun. They are sung about and grieved for, they are loved and worshipped, they are respected and revered—heroes!

New times, according to Sin, meant that heroes tend to become more global than national or regional, ‘scholarly heroes’ like Immanuel Kant and Herbert Spencer—‘revered throughout the whole world’—being good examples. And Korea, once it wanted to simultaneously ‘relate’ (kyosˇop) to the rest of the world and ‘arduously compete’ (punt’u) with it, needed ‘heroes’ of its own for that purpose.82 Befitting the age of global ‘civilization,’ it was hoped that the new, national ‘heroes’ would possess also a transnational significance and appeal. However, the category of ‘heroes’ of primary importance for Sin, namely, the political heroes, was deeply embedded in nation-state politics, many of them belonging to a group long eulogized in Confucian historiography—the ‘founders of the states.’ He lists his reference models in yet another programmatic piece, ‘The Hero of the New, 20th Century Korea’ (20 segi Sin tonggukchi yˇongung, Taehan Maeil Sinbo, August 17– 20, 1909). It includes George Washington, due to whom ‘the bell of freedom sounded over the 13 colonies of America;’ Camillo Benso di Cavour, who ‘raised the independence flag in Italy, a country that had been subjected to the foreign yoke for more than a millennium;’ Britain’s Cromwell, Germany’s Bismarck, and so on. And the ‘new hero for new Korea’ Sin was dreaming of, was also supposed to be an embodiment of national patriotism, albeit understood in strikingly pre-modern terms: He, whose ideals transcend the boundaries of the universe, he whose ardour and devotion are on a par with the sun in the sky, he who regards the whole land of Korea as his own household, he who views Korea’s four thousand years of history as his own family genealogy, he who considers 82 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 111–113.

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life’s trials his school, he, for whom his public business is tantamount to his own life, he who has made love of country and its people into his life’s work, he who treasures [national] independence and freedom as his own life […], he who, aided by the state-protecting spirits, battles a myriad of demons and removes obstacles from his compatriots’ way forward […].

However, in the case that Korea, long dominated by ‘corrupt Confucians’ (puyu) and ‘private cliques’ (sadang), should not be able to beget and accept a ‘national hero’ (kungmin yˇongung), able, among other things, ‘to annihilate the seeds of the lineages of national traitors and slaves,’ the final end, according to Sin, would be tragic. In such a case, Sin claimed, the country was going to share the fate of other ‘casualties of evolution,’ like the Australian and American ‘aborigines.’83 As Sin explained to his readers in an article with the telling title, ‘Relations between History and Patriotism’ (Yˇoksa wa Aeguksim uˇ i Kwan’gye, Taehan Hyˇophoe Hoebo, Vol. 3, June 1908), to escape complete ruin, Koreans had to put national history at the centre of the school curriculum. While world history is needed, inasmuch as it tells us about the conditions of our external rivals and helps us to compete with them, national history is what constitutes the collective ‘we’ of ‘one state’s [ethno-] nation’ (ilguk minjok). It generates patriotism in just the same way as family genealogy generates respect for one’s ancestors. It produces a hatred of the nation’s enemies in just the same way as genealogical books generate an implacable hostility towards any stranger who dares to bury his ancestors on the family gravesite of one’s clan. It breeds contempt towards the traitors of one’s nation, just in the same way as the study of genealogies leads to feelings of hatred and derision towards any clan member who fails to prevent the loss of one’s family gravesite, or is too cowardly to sacrifice his life in trying to do so. To make nationals love their country and hate its traitors in a similar way, and not to go the way of China and India, where the lack of patriotic historical awareness led to defeat and subjugation by foreigners, Korea had to follow the example of Western countries. There, according to Sin, parents used to ‘begin telling their toddlers the stories of the founders of the states from the moment the children learned to speak, and routinely accompanied them on pilgrimages to the monuments of the state-founding heroes.’ In addition to this, enlightened Euro-American parents were said to offer to their offspring both 83 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 3, Pp. 111–116.

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‘elaborate explanations on the military triumphs of the past in the classrooms’ and ‘bitter talks of the past losses of territory.’84 And for Korea’s failure to achieve this universal standard of patriotism, Sin blamed unpatriotic educational officials,85 although it was quite clear that the post1907 Ministry of Education was hardly up to the task of breeding patriotism in any case. The dominant influences there were its Japanese viceminister Tawara Magoichi (1869–1944), secretary Mitsuchi Chūzo, and other Japanese bureaucrats, and they were certainly unwilling to promote anything resembling Sin’s ‘patriotic education’ project, whatever the intentions of their Korean colleagues might have been.86 All in all, both Sin Ch’aeho’s general worldview in the late 1900s and his theories of nationalist education exhibit an interesting combination of a general Social Darwinist explanatory framework and a quintessentially Confucian ethos. With virtuous and filial clansmen ‘modernized’ into patriots, clan genealogy extended into national history, and sages and worthies remade into national heroes of universal appeal and cosmic dimensions, the struggle for survival became also a place of moral self-realization, the ‘fittest’ of the Western countries being revered as ‘patriotic heroes’ that were worthy heirs of Washington and Mazzini. Thus, in Sin’s writings at the end of the first decade of the century nationalist Social Darwinism acquired the moral authority of the same kind old Confucian loyalism was once supposed to possess.

Competing in Patriotism or Competing for Personal Advancement? In short, ‘education’ was practically synonymous with ‘reform’ or ‘civilization’ in Korean reformers’ jargon at the dawn of the new century. The very definition of education was the task of training the (first and foremost, male) members of Korea’s various status groups and clan lineages 84 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 3, Pp. 72–80. 85 “Aeguk ija rˇ ul kusihanˇun kyoyukka yˇo!” (“Oh, You Educators, Who Hate the Words: ‘Love of Country’!” Taehan Maeil Sinbo, January 8, 1909); “Kukka rˇul myˇolmangk’e hanˇun Hakpu” (“The Ministry of Education, which Drives the Country to Ruin” Taehan Maeil Sinbo, March 16, 1909), in Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, pyŏljip [additional volume], Pp. 122–128. 86 Son Insu, Han’guk kaehwa kyoyuk yˇ on’gu [History of Korean Education in the Age of Modern Reforms], Pp. 293–312.

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to become patriotic, physically fit, culturally homogeneous and militarily well-trained ‘nationals’ (kungmin) able and willing to devote themselves to preventing Korea from becoming the next Vietnam and to facilitating its transformation into the next Germany or Japan. This policy was underpinned, first and foremost, by a Social Darwinist vision of the world, where states and nations were permanently, endlessly entangled in a merciless competition for survival, some becoming ‘other people’s slaves’ and disappearing from history forever, and some succeeding in emulating the successes of Bismarck, Moltke and the Meiji oligarchs. The failures were to be simultaneously pitied and blamed for their inability to secure their own survival in the incessant battle of minds, heroic willpower and patriotism. And the experience of the ‘fit’ was to be studied in all its minute detail, even if they often belonged to a different historical time (Spartans) or were political enemies of Korean nationalism (Japanese). The obsession with ‘national survival’ was highly visible in every smallest detail of educational life. A typical student song such as that of Pyongyang’s pedagogical school, Sŏu Hakkyo, went as follows: In this time of competition for survival, The rise and downfall of the state all depends on me. The more I think about the treatment meted out to us by the powers, The more I shame myself about our slavish [consciousness]. Oh, our brothers, our twenty million compatriots! What sort of time is it? What day is it? Look at the circumstances on the six continents— It is only the strong devouring the weak, only the survival of the fittest. Preservation of state sovereignty, salvation of our compatriots— The tasks on our shoulders! Shedding bloody tears, with a righteously indignant mind, Let us study the truly useful subjects!87

It is undeniable that the discourse of the ‘survival of the nation’ influenced the lives of educators, teachers and students alike—and it could hardly be different at a time when the continuous existence of a sovereign Korean state fell under tangible threat. However, it looks also as if in real life the personal ‘survival’ of the educators and their charges figured as no less—if not more—important than the grand narratives of 87 Sˇ ou, No. 4 (March 1907), Pp. 37; Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 5, Pp. 227.

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the rise of more educated nations and the fall of less educated ones. In Japan—to which the Korean educational discourse constantly referred —the idea that diligence in one’s studies was central to one’s success in worldly competition emerged as an essential part of Meiji ideology. As a whole, this ideology was predominantly state-centered. However, that also meant that the dreams of educating oneself arduously and diligently into a major state official and then ‘contributing to the nation’s glory’ were perfectly legitimate—even if it was completely obvious on a more practical level that the examination-based competition was a ‘zero sum game’ which produced also a number of losers being prevented from contributing to national efforts in their desired way. There was a Confucian moralist side to Meiji ideology—but it was also useful for ethically legitimising the prosperity of the ‘diligent’ and ‘studious.’88 That the ‘diligent’ and ‘studious’ were, first and foremost, motivated by personal benefit on some personal level, was not itself necessarily problematic for those Meiji thinkers who came to closer identify themselves with European liberal trends. Writing in 1877, Fukuzawa Yukichi explained that, unless directly harmful to society, any private benefit contributes to the general good in the end, and thus, striving for one’s own best is an ethical mode of behaviour.89 While some younger critics (notably, Kuga Katsunan, 1857– 1907) viewed such thinking as an unhealthy synthesis of extreme egoism with a narrow understanding of ‘common good’ as predominantly economic in nature, it seemed to have influenced greatly the social atmosphere of Meiji Japan, partly because of its compatibility with the official ‘statist’ nationalism.90 In Korea, however, the widespread feeling of despair at witnessing the country’s gradual demise was more conducive to a renewed emphasis upon a conscious sacrifice of the personal good for the sake of the common one, and an aversion for an easy adoption of liberal apologies for self-seeking behaviour. Although Fukuzawa’s disciple, Yu Kiljun, legitimized the prosperity of ‘wise and arduously studying gentlemen’ as 88 Takeuchi Yō, Risshin shūsseshūgi: Kindai Nihon no roman to yokubō [Careerism: Romanticism and Desire in Modern Japan] (Kyoto: Sekai shisōsha, 2005), Pp. 36–38. 89 “Shi no ri o itonamu deki koto” [It is Legitimate to Pursue Private Benefit], Fukuzawa Yukichi zenshū [Complete Works of Fukuzawa Yukichi] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shōten, 1963), Vol. 19, Pp. 634–635. 90 Watanabe Hiroshi, “ ‘Kyōsō’ to ‘bunmei’—Nihon no baai” [‘Competition’ and ‘Civilization’—Japan’s Case], in Pak Ch’ungsŏk and Watanabe Hiroshi (eds.), ‘Bunmei’, ‘Kaiwa’, ‘Heiwa’—Nihon to Kankoku [‘Civilization,’ ‘Progress,’ ‘Peace’—Japan and Korea] (Tokyo: Keiō Gijuku Daigaku shūppankai, 2006), Pp. 249–281.

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opposed to the poverty of the ‘unfit’ as a logical and morally normal consequence of the ‘laws of competition’ in his seminal 1883 Kyŏngjaeng non (On Competition),91 his emphasis was much more on interstate competition than on interpersonal rivalry. In the closing years of the first decade of the twentieth century, contributors to the ‘enlightenment’ journals went even further, explicitly cautioning against education becoming a vehicle for personal—as opposed to national—success. As was already mentioned in Chapter Four, ‘survival’ was seen as an exercise in collective ‘moral cultivation’ and training in ‘selfless devotion to the nation.’ Devotion to one’s own interests was depreciated in direct proportion to the appreciation of ‘unselfish loyalty to the common good.’ Typically, Kim Wŏn’gˇuk, a Tokyo-educated, Pyongyang-based young reformer, argued against purely technical education lacking in ‘patriotic spirit and ideas of collective unity’ in an article entitled ‘The Methods of Education Must Follow the Level of the State in Question’ (Kyoyuk pangbŏp p’il su ki kuk chŏngdo, Sŏbuk Hakhoe Wŏlbo, No. 1, June 1908, Pp. 3–5). According to him, such training would simply produce ‘those with some understanding of foreign languages who would become secret spies for foreign countries, enthusiastic fame-seekers, or people prone to seduction by the sweet promises of foreigners, eventually leading them to destroy their own state.’92 ‘Enlightened self-interest’ and ‘national egoism’ might be perceived as generally acceptable in Japan, but not in the country Japan chose to colonise; certainly not by the people politically opposed to colonisation and wishing themselves to emulate the miracle of the Meiji Restoration in the shortest time possible. In a state where collaboration with malicious foreigners was the greatest possible source of personal benefit, the competition for such benefits, motivated by seeking one’s own ‘survival’ and prosperity, was to be castigated—in a good Confucian spirit—as a moral evil rather than be seen as an inevitable extension of Darwinian laws.93 In a word, in the prescriptive paradigm of the ‘enlightenment age’ in the early years of the new century, ‘educating the nation’ meant training it to compete with other nations—and definitely not educating ‘fit’ nationals in the art of winning over ‘unfit’ ones. Most descriptions of the

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Yu Kiljun chŏnsˇo [Complete Writings of Yu Kiljun], Vol. 4, Pp. 47–49. Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 7, Pp. 7–9. 93 Kim Tohyŏng, Taehan chegukki ŭi chŏngch’i sasang yŏn’gu [Research on the Political Ideology of the Great Korean Empire Period], pp. 137–138. 92

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realities of the ‘new’ education in the first decade of the twentieth century, however, emphasise the predominantly utilitarian motives of the majority of the students, lured by the perspectives of quickly building a career in the modernising government or amongst the foreign establishments.94 Lofty ideals and rather unseemly realities did not converge, and by the end of the decade moralising criticism of the careerists learning foreign languages in order to become ‘secret spies’ formed the foundation of the critical discourse on ‘pro-Japanese collaborators’—a timely topic in both Koreas up to our own day.95

94 See, for example, Yi Man’gyu’s standard work, Chosŏn kyoyuk sa [History of Korean Education] (Seoul: Kŏrˇum, 1988 [1947]), Vol. 2, Pp. 57–60. 95 Koen De Ceuster, “The Nation Exorcised—The Historiography of Collaboration in South Korea”, Korean Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2001, Pp. 207–242.

chapter seven MUSCULAR NATIONALISM AT THE DAWN OF THE NEW CENTURY: SOCIAL DARWINISM AS AN IDEOLOGY OF HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY

Prologue: the Manly Spirit of Self-sacrifice and Struggle Episode 1 Late Summer / early Autumn, 1906, Tokyo, Japan. A self-financing Waseda student sent a lengthy letter that would soon be printed in the first two issues of the monthly journal T’aegˇuk Hakpo, published by Korean students beginning in August–September 1906. The student, Ch’oe Namsˇon, —already mentioned in Chapter Four—was from the rich family of a Chinese medicine trader in Seoul and was seventeen according to the traditional reckoning in Korea at that time. His name would later come to symbolize both the glory of the pioneering studies of Korea’s mythology and religion, and what many disparagingly referred to as the proJapanese collaboration of the colonial period. The letter was entitled ‘The Sacrificial Spirit’ (Hˇonsin-jˇok chˇongsin). Penned in an eloquent style in mixed Sino-Korean script and peppered with classical Chinese citations, it was meant to edify fellow Korean students in Tokyo on the subject of what sort of ‘right resolve’ might be most helpful for ‘displaying the real essence of the four thousand year-old spirit of Korea’. It was also meant to teach Ch’oe’s fellow students how ‘to contribute one of these days to the state, after having mastered the essence of the New World during studies abroad.’ The ‘virtues’ conducive to the ‘right resolve’ in such cases were first dutifully put forward: The ‘[ability] to rouse oneself [to action]’ (pun’gi), ‘bravery in action’ (yongwang), ‘indefatigable, indomitable [spirit shown] in trials’ (paekchˇol puryo, mannan pulgul), and so on. This list of wishes was followed by the statement that the sacrificial spirit was the most central virtue, and the following lesson illustrated how this sacrificial spirit was displayed by Ch’oe’s heroes in history:

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chapter seven Who was the one who managed to revive the nation in the midst of its downfall, restore its fallen fortunes, and build a veritably great power on the Northern Continent? It was the achievement of Peter the Great, made possible by his sacrificial spirit. Who was the one who managed to restore the lands of the state divided into a myriad of small fiefdoms, to consolidate the chaotic management of state affairs, and to unify tens of petty dispersed states under the Prussian Crown? It was the achievement of Bismarck, made possible by his sacrificial spirit. Look at Christ, who was born in a little village as the son of a humble artisan, but succeeded in widely propagating [his] doctrine and saving living beings, being thus revered throughout the eternal ages! Whose force, whose achievement is this? The people of the whole world would unanimously reply that it was done by his blood shed on the cross. Look at Jeanne d’Arc, who was born in an out-of-the-way little hamlet in a remote province, as a farmer’s daughter, but rose to command armies and defeat a strong enemy, being [the figure] everybody in the country pinned their hopes upon! Whose mission, whose fiat was this? It would also be answered unanimously that [her glory] was solidified by martyrdom on the scaffold. The same is true in the cases of Luther, the great man of religion who founded the New Roman Church, and Washington, the builder of the New World who established Republican rule. One risked death in resisting the Pope of Rome, while the other was prepared to die resisting the metropolitan country. This is firm evidence that those possessing a sacrificial spirit have to undergo all sorts of ups and downs in life, having hair-breadth escapes from imminent death [at some points] in order to obtain good results in the end.

Then, after dwelling at some length on the self-sacrificial qualities of the great general Zhuge Liang (181–234); Song dynasty loyalist Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283), who was martyred by the conquering Mongols; and Ming dynasty Confucian martyr Yang Jisheng (1516–1555), who was executed for his critical attacks against the powers that be, Ch’oe proceeded to his conclusion. He concluded that the self-sacrificial spirit was the strongest force permeating, creating, and recreating the whole universe, and also the decisive factor in all human lives. ‘As soon as we utter our first cry after being born, we have to begin hostilities, fighting hard against myriads of demons of all kinds in order to acquire freedom for both body and spirit,’ and the self-sacrificial spirit is the driving force beyond this unending fight. And what should be the ultimate aim of the struggle for survival on the part of all Koreans? Ch’oe ended his contribution with a question about how long it might take before ‘we fly the sacred Korean flag above the eight regions of the world, its wind blowing in four directions, the people of all states on the five continents kneeling down before its majestic power and all living beings in the

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 169 three worlds bathing in its glory.’ Then he appealed to readers to ‘exert yourselves’ in order to realize this purpose (T’aegˇuk hakpo, No. 1, Pp. 17– 19; No. 2, Pp. 12–14).1 Episode 2 In July 1909, approximately three years after Ch’oe’s appeal to his fellow students saw the light of day, a baseball team consisting of Ch’oe’s fellows, seniors and juniors—Tokyo-based Korean students—held a tournament in Tokyo, essentially one of the earliest between Korean teams in Korean baseball history. The tournament song, obviously written by some of the Korean students in Tokyo and entitled ‘Juvenile Men’ (Sonyˇon namja), struck a correspondent of the influential Seoul daily Hwangsˇong Sinmun as ‘moving human feelings’ and was published in full by the newspaper on July 22, 1909: Oh, young men of iron bones and muscles, endeavour to display your patriotic spirit! It came, came, came, the age of action for our boys! Refrain: Train to stand up to the tens of thousands, and to acquire achievements in later battles; Are not the great endeavours of the matchless heroes our aim? Nurture your competitiveness, spirit and attentiveness while developing your bodies! We enter the well-aired, spacious stadium as if flying at ease. The hot blood of the virtuous gentlemen is circulating well, and the legs and arms of the Independence Army soldiers are nimble. Even if thunder and axes appear before us, we will not tremble, not even a little … One by one, we go from one interesting contest to another, through all the playing of maritime battles and infantry Beat the drums of victory where the Triumphal Arch is to be!2

The song later acquired an unusual popularity among young and nationalistically minded Koreans abroad. Republished twice on the pages of the fiercely anti-Japanese Sinhan minbo (New Korea’s Newspaper, established on February 10, 1909, in San Francisco); on February 15, 1911, and September 2, 1915, it was sung on the occasion of the sports competitions at the Young Korean Military School (1909–1914) in Nebraska (before 1 Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 13, Pp. 24–27, 82–84. 2 Yi Hangnae, Han’guk kˇ undae ch’eyuk sa yˇon’gu [Research on the History of Physical Culture in Modern Korea] (Seoul: Chisik Sanˇopsa, 1989), Pp. 70.

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March 1910 situated in Kearney, then moved to Hastings). That school was a training institution for ‘young Korean patriots,’ where its founder, famous nationalist activist Pak Yongman (1881–1928), known for his advocacy of compulsory military service in the independent Korea of the future and for obligatory military training for Korean young people in the United States, envisioned the seeds being planted for a battle-ready Korea of later days. By 1941, it had become known as the ‘Song of the National Independence Restoration Army’ (Kwangbokkun’ga), thus achieving the status of an unofficial anthem of sorts for U.S.-based Korean nationalist youth.3

The Ideal Modern Male: ‘Hero of Competition and Survival’ Both Ch’oe’s flowery literary appeal and the fairly unsophisticated song of the pioneer baseball players may be taken as rather telling textual evidence of the ways in which Korean students in Tokyo during the first decade of the new century—predominantly male teenagers or slightly older from higher or middle-class family backgrounds—imagined the ideal features of a modern male. Ch’oe might enlist Jeanne d’Arc among his ideals of the sacrificial spirit, but it did not change the essentially masculine orientation of the text, as the French heroine was taken as a functional male in her presumed role of commander of the army and without any visible connection to her biological femininity. While Ch’oe’s text presents a romanticized description of the ideal male’s morale and life goals, the song of the baseball players focuses more on bodily details, ‘iron bones and muscles’ and ‘nimble legs and arms’ figuring rather prominently among them. But the references to the patriotic spirit and to the Independence Army—George Washington’s army being the likely reference here as Korea’s own anti-Japanese Righteous Armies (ˇuibyˇong) were never referenced using this term in the censored press during the time of the Japanese Protectorate (1905–1910)—do not leave any doubts as to the contextual relationship between the two texts. Both highlight different aspects of the same discourse on the ideal male, which obviously had currency in the Korean student milieu of the later 1900s in Tokyo and which visibly incorporated both elements of politicized moralizing and the ‘politics of body’ in the Foucauldian sense of the word. 3 Pang Sˇ onju, Chaemi hanin uˇ i tongnip undong [The Korean Independence Movement in the USA] (Ch’unch’ˇon: Hallim Taehakkyo Asia Munhwa Yˇon’guso, 1989), Pp. 37.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 171 The ideal male is described in both texts as, first and foremost, an individual who is inseparably related to the state, which he either serves in a self-sacrificial manner (‘virtuous, patriotic gentlemen,’ Bismarck, Jeanne d’Arc) or rules (Peter the Great). The church—founded and reformed by Ch’oe’s heroes, Jesus and Luther, respectively—appears as a functional equivalent of the state here, the object of an absolute, unqualified devotion. This relationship is represented partly by terms borrowed from standard Confucian rhetoric (‘virtuous, patriotic gentlemen,’ or ch’ungyˇolsa) and partly by Meiji Japanese appropriations from European languages and conceptual apparatuses (‘self-sacrificial spirit,’ ‘sacred national flag,’ ‘Independence Army’). The ideal male is represented as an embodiment of ‘strength,’ both psychological (‘preparedness to die in battle’) and directly physical (‘iron bones and muscles’ and ‘nimble legs and arms’). Manly strength, which is obviously supposed to accompany the patriotic spirit, contains an evident potential for outwardly directed violence: Neither Bismarck, nor Peter the Great eschewed offensive moves against their neighbours. ‘Flying the sacred Korean flag above the eight regions of the world, […] the people of all states on the five continents kneeling down before its majestic power’ is apparently praise for attack and conquest, if only on a rhetorical level. This violence, however, is subjected to a thorough disciplinarian control: ‘Competitiveness’ is ‘nurtured’ and demonstrated in ‘well-aired, spacious stadiums,’ commonly understood in sports to substitute for and / or prepare a practitioner for ‘later battles.’ At this point, Social Darwinist logic enters the discourse of the body in the most direct and unsophisticated way—‘the fittest,’ those able to secure their ‘survival,’ are being nurtered in the stadiums, in the course of a playful rehearsal of real-life competition. Finally, the rhetoric of self-sacrifice and strength is matched by the admiration of success and achievement. ‘Hero,’ the term of choice for Ch’oe and his fellow students, connotes not only prowess in battle, but also the fame earned in this way, even if, as was the case with Jeanne d’Arc and Jesus, the sacrifice either costs one one’s life or is acknowledged only posthumously. And hero-worshipping baseball practitioners were far from doing their exercises out of a sense of duty only. On the contrary, the song describes ‘interesting contests,’ with ‘better blood circulation’ being just one of many possible positive effects. The male ideal, in a word, is a patriot who is strong in body and spirit—but who also aspires to the shining heights of Bismarckian or Petrine fame and enjoys the process of developing and displaying the potential of his body.

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The questions this chapter aims to answer are as follows: Through what relationships was this ideal of manhood, with its visions of masculinity, formulated and practiced in traditional Korea—that is, before the onslaught of Western and Japanese capitalist modernity in the late nineteenth century? How did the new ideal of manhood get articulated, what sort of social reality was decisively important for formulating and articulating it, and in which way were imported conceptual and linguistic codes, especially the Social Darwinist ones, instrumental in this process of articulation? What were the differences between the ideal as described and prescribed in a variety of literary or journalistic texts and the practice of masculinity in daily life? This chapter will attempt to answer these questions primarily on the basis of contemporary texts, in many cases generated by the proponents of the new ideal of manhood themselves, but will also make use of observations by non-Koreans, including Western missionaries, Japanese officials, and journalists.

Masculinity as a Socio-Political Construct Insofar as early modern constructions of masculinity in Korea in their Social Darwinist context are the main subject matter of this chapter, I consider it important to define the concept of ‘masculinity’ first. Masculinity—that is, the social ideals of manhood—refers here to the social constructions surrounding biological maleness, constructions that are underpinned by power relationships and articulated through prevailing cultural and ideological forms. Inasmuch as the complex web of power relationships is always a site of contest between the different factions of the ruling classes and between the rulers and the ruled, masculinity paradigms produced and sustained by these relationships often embrace multiple and mutually contradictory meanings. They are always in constant flux, being contested, subverted, and redefined.4 A good case in point is the complicated relationship of the nationalistic masculinity paradigm with religion in early modern Korea. Sin Ch’aeho’s manifesto, ‘New People of the 20th Century’ (20 segi sin kungmin), published between February 22 and March 3, 1910, in Taehan Maeil Sinbo (1904– 1910), termed religion ‘the great institution which morally reforms the nation, and from which national justice and morals flow.’ It further 4 Joan W. Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 173 rebuked the Korean religions of the day for their ‘slavish lack of state consciousness,’ and proposed, among other things, that Christianity, ‘a growing force in Korean society, which has already assumed commanding positions in all societal spheres,’ be further promoted to become ‘the religion of the new nation of the twentieth century.’ Although ‘foreign intrusions’ (under the guise of religion) were to be ‘fended off,’ it is quite apparent that the new, nationalist male was imagined as a religious, preferably Christian, personality—Christian civil ethics were understood to be an important component of the ‘national strength’ of the great powers.5 In such a context, Ch’oe Namsˇon’s glorification of Jesus Christ and Luther, mentioned earlier, comes as no surprise. But when the annexation of Korea by Japan came in August 1910, foreign Christian missionaries, whose states either approved of or ignored Japan’s action, were forced to acknowledge the colonial reality and avoid any contact with nationalist radicals—and many of them welcomed the ‘Japanese civilizing efforts’ from the beginning anyway.6 Native Christians were placed under strict control, their leaders being ‘preventively’ terrorized by show trials, such as the infamous ‘Case of the One Hundred Five’ in 1911–1912, so as to thwart any will to active anti-colonial resistance.7 Facing disinterested foreigners and either tamely ‘gradualist’ or co-opted native Christian leaders, the exiled nationalist radicals visibly changed their attitudes toward the relationship between Christianity and manliness. In the 1916 fantastic novel Heaven Seen in a Dream (Kkumhanˇul) by Sin Ch’aeho, the eternal ‘other world’ is just an extension of the Social Darwinist ‘this-worldly’ reality. The best warriors who are most loyal to their states go directly to paradise. However, ‘those who looked after going to paradise by believing in Jesus, while their parents, wives and children were becoming the slaves of others,’ were to be ‘fried in excrement in hell’ instead.8 Sin Ch’aeho, an anarchist from the mid1920s, ended his literary career in 1928 by writing the revolutionary 5

An Pyˇongjik (ed.) Sin Ch’aeho. (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1979), Pp. 152–153. Yu Taeyˇong, Kaehwagi Chosˇon kwa Miguk sˇon’gyosa [Korea in the Time of Modern Reforms and the American Missionaries] (Seoul: Han’guk kidokkyo yˇoksa yˇon’guso, 2004), Pp. 413–441. 7 Chang Kyusik, Ilje ha Han’guk kidokkyo minjokchuˇ ui yˇon’gu [Research on Korean Christian Nationalism under Japanese Imperialism] (Seoul: Hyean, 2001), Pp. 102–115. 8 Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [The Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 3, Pp. 174–224. See a fascinating analysis of this novel as a narrative of a nationalist ‘manly redemption’ in: Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Narratives of Nation Building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism, Pp. 16–19. 6

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novel The Great Battle of Two Dragons (Yong kwa yong uˇ i taegyˇokchˇon, in which Jesus is hoed to death by ‘revolutionary peasants’),9 definitely seems to have considered a self-sacrificial fighter without ‘other-worldly’ concerns the only desirable masculine type. Still, the attitude toward Christianity varied vastly in the cases of other radical exiles, some of them retaining the notion of ‘Christian character-building’ and some considering loving one’s enemies a bad start for a ‘manly’ struggle against them.10 In any case, views on the place of ‘civilized’ religion in a ‘civilized’ and ‘competitive’ male’s life were constantly shifting, influenced by differing positions vis-à-vis foreign missionaries, Korea’s own middle-class Protestants, and the ideologies of ‘thrift and industry’ associated with Protestant Christianity. Ch’oe Namsˇon himself became strongly influenced by the Protestant-derived vision of a ‘trustworthy, frugal and industrious’ modern man after meeting An Ch’angho, Korea’s best-known proponent of the ‘cultivation’ (suyang) of modern middle-class virtues, in Tokyo in February 1907. He subsequently became one of An’s protégés and was deeply involved in the Protestant convert-dominated organizations led by An, such as the Society of the Young Friends of Learning (Ch’ˇongnyˇon Haguhoe), established in August 1908. But notwithstanding the fact that the Protestant-inspired notion of ‘industriousness’ (kˇunmyˇon) was a keyword in Ch’oe’s writings throughout the later 1900s and 1910s, he continued to shun institutionalized Christianity, an ‘alien missionary religion,’ almost until his death, before eventually converting (to Catholicism) in November 1955.11 Being produced by a complicated, fluctuating web of power relationships, masculinity is articulated in the languages of cultural and ideological formation. Culture concretizes the ways in which masculinity is perceived and demonstrated, often either strengthening or absorbing and weakening the influences exerted by the changing power structures on the ideal of manliness. The same role is played by ideology—the cultural domain that legitimizes power relations in their totality. Because it is concerned with power relations in their entirety, including tenaciously con9 The novel describes him being ‘made into such a sludge of flesh that he would never get resurrected.’ An Pyˇongjik (ed.) Sin Ch’aeho, Pp. 213. 10 Such was the case of Korea’s famous right-wing nationalist politician, Kim Ku (1876–1949). See: Sin Pongnyong, Han’guk uˇ i chˇongch’i sasang’ga [Political Ideologists of Korea] (Seoul: Chimmundang, 1999), Pp. 187–188. 11 Yi Yŏnghwa, Ch’oe Namsˇ on uˇ i yŏksahak [Historical Research by Ch’oe Namsˇon] (Seoul: Kyˇong’in munhwasa, 2003), Pp. 14–56.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 175 servative micro-social settings (e.g., the patriarchal family structure), and because of the unrivaled legitimizing power of tradition, the ideological field is often remarkably resistant to making innovation too visible, clinging to time-honored signifiers despite all the changes in what they signify. For example, Admiral Yi Sunsin (1545–1598), who was worshipped as a paragon of dynastic loyalty in late Chosˇon society (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries), was remade into a symbol of a fearless, successful, intelligent, and patriotic fighter—‘Korea’s Nelson,’ in modern nationalist culture.12 Despite crucial changes in the content of the cult, the outward trappings of Yi Sunsin’s worship also demonstrate noteworthy continuity, the very traditional nature of reverence toward Korea’s ‘greatest warrior’ playing an important part in the legitimizing of Yi’s exaltation today. But, although the changes in content of what is represented by a particular cultural or ideological form are often masked by the superficial continuation of the tradition, the ‘traditions’ should not be seen as simply decorations employed by their modern ‘inventors’ (following the title of the seminal collection of essays by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger)13 in the quest for legitimacy. When the traditional is being appropriated by modern intellectuals and politicians, the time-honored cultural and ideological forms nevertheless influence the content of the newly built socio-cultural constructions, for example, by indigenizing imported cultural codes in a variety of ways.14 As the present chapter will attempt to show, such was the case with Europe’s nationalized, militarized masculinity, which was imported into early modern Korea. Articulated in a language tinged with Confucian or Confucianized Social Darwinist rhetoric, it was often legitimized both in Social Darwinist terms and as an extension of the Confucian values of self-discipline and sacrifice. It was also accepted and practiced accordingly, with perhaps stronger emphasis on the simultaneous cultivation of the patriotic body and the vigorous, moral and self-sacrificing patriotic spirit (which was to combine the core of Confucian ethics and attitudes with an all-absorbing nationalist enthusiasm) than was the case in the countries of origin. Indigenization of such a sort, which also played on the strong acceptance of tough manliness in popular, non-aristocratic culture, produced as a result the specific 12 Roh Young-koo, “Yi Sun-shin, an Admiral Who Became a Myth”, Review of Korean Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2004, Pp. 15–37. 13 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.) The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 14 Otto Ton and Poul Pedersen, Tradition and Agency: Tracing Cultural Continuity and Invention (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2005).

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patterns of Korean nationalist masculinity, which later became the basis for conceptualizing, standardizing, and demonstrating the ‘authentic man’ in both South and North Korea.

The Geneology of Images of Masculinity in Pre-modern Korea It hardly needs to be emphasized, especially in light of what has already been said about the shifting, fluctuating, and contested nature of the ideal of manliness, that any attempt to construct an image of an unchanging, singular ‘traditional Korean masculinity’ will likely be an exercise in essentialist overgeneralizing. Korea presents an exceedingly rich spectrum of canonical male images, always in complex interaction among themselves and always in the process of change and re-evaluation. To take one example, one finds a long gallery of self-sacrificial, intensely patriotic war heroes from the proto-Korean states of Silla, Koguryˇo, and Paekche in the Samguk sagi (Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms, 1145) biographies (yˇolchˇon) section (fascicles 41–50). In one of the most heartwrenching stories there, a seventh-century Paekche warrior Kyebaek kills his wife and children before the decisive and desperate last stand against Silla in 660.15 Apart from such demonstrations of militarist machismo,16 the masculinity disciplined and tempered by Confucian moralizing was also abundantly on display in the late Chosˇon (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries) genre of ‘heroic’ or ‘military’ novels (yˇong’ung sosˇol or kundam sosˇol), in which the hero was usually simultaneously valiant and strictly observant of Confucian ethical norms.17 Popular consumption of the images of romanticized courage notwithstanding, the valiant fighter did not seem to represent the dominant paradigm of ideal manhood in

15

Kim Pusik (ed.) Yi Chaeho (trans.) Samguk sagi [Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms] (Seoul: Kwangsin Ch’ulp’ansa, 1993 [1145]), Pp. 653–801. 16 See the definition of militaristic masculinity in: Bruce Kokopeli and George Lakey, “More Power Than We Want: Masculine Sexuality and Violence”, in Men Against Patriarchy (ed.) Off Their Backs … and on Our Own Two Feet (Philadelphia: New Society, 1983), Pp. 17–24. 17 Sˇ o Taesˇok, “Yŏng’ung sosŏllon” [On Heroic Novels]. in Han’guk kojŏn sosŏllon [On the Korean Classical Novel] (Seoul: Saemunsa, 1985), Pp. 176–198. A typical example of such narratives is Im Kyˇong’ˇop chˇon, an anonymous fictionalized account of the heroic life and tragic death of Im Kyˇong’ˇop (1594–1646; a Korean general known for his fight against Qing armies on the Ming side). On this work, see: Yi Pokkyu, Im Kyˇong’ˇop chˇon yˇon’gu [Study on Im Kyˇong’ˇop chˇon] (Seoul: Chimmundang, 1993).

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 177 late Chosˇon society, nor was violence required as proof of manhood in the real-time daily life of the dominant classes. Seasonal violent games, such as stone fights or fights with torches between youths of neighboring villages, were commonly practiced in Korea until the first decade of Japanese colonial rule, but these pursuits almost never involved youngsters from the yangban clans.18 That did not mean, of course, that yangbans did not occasionally display violent behaviour in relations with the ‘lower orders.’ The famed nationalist politician, Kim Ku (1876–1949), son of an impoverished commoner family with some distant yangban roots, documents in his autobiography the scene of a Chˇolla yangban cruelly beating up his farmhand simply because the latter ‘audaciously’ asked for higher pay. The yangban explained to the astonished bystanders that ‘better conditions of life make the commoners disrespectful of yangban’ and that the commoners were to be beaten out of their habit of begging for higher daily wages. But, however violent and cruel the yangban could behave toward their non-yangban dependants, violence between social peers inside provincial yangban circles, as depicted by Kim Ku, was highly uncommon. By contrast, Kim Ku’s own family, being unconstrained by strict yangban behavioral codes, could allow itself much more street chivalry. Kim Ku’s father, in Kim Ku’s description, used to punch some of his ‘unjust and arrogant’ neighbours, often petty yangban, half to death almost every month. In this way, he became a hero of the local commoners and a permanent guest of the Haeju county prison. In Kim Ku’s native Hwanghae Province, the local yangban wielded considerably less power than in the parts of Korea to the south of Seoul. So Kim Ku’s father could not only get away with this sort of behaviour, but he even overawed some of his yangban neighbours to the degree that he was sometimes addressed by them in the more polite forms of speech normally reserved for the members of yangban clans only. But at the same time, Kim Ku’s father was also famed for straightforwardly following the path of Confucian virtue in the most crucial matters. He was reputed to be filial (to the extent of cutting off his finger and extracting blood in order to help his ailing mother) and righteous (paying the taxes of the poorest of his neighbours). He shows very well the complexities of the idealized masculinity model among the Chosˇon dynasty commoners: Physical prowess and toughness were de

18 Kim Sŏngwŏn, Han’guk u ˇ i sesi p’ungsok [Korea’s Seasonal Customs] (Seoul: Myˇongmundang, 1987), Pp. 193–194.

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rigueur, but they also had to be balanced with a conspicuous demonstration of loyalty to certain central Confucian values.19 A good description of behavior widely perceived as approximating the orthodox yangban male ideal on the eve of the modern age is found in the stele inscription by the famous patriot and independence activist Kim Ch’angsuk (1879–1962) dedicated to one of his teachers, the eminent neo-Confucian scholar, Kwak Chongsŏk (1864–1919). Kwak’s academic lineage connects, through the agency of his mentor, the renowned Sŏngju (Northern Kyŏngsang Province) neo-Confucian Yi Chinsang (1818– 1886), to one of the greatest neo-Confucian authorities in Chosŏn history, Yi Hwang (1501–1570). The stele inscription, Myŏnu Kwak sŏnsaeng sindobi myŏng, describes Kwak Chongsŏk as a child prodigy who learned to read as soon as he learned to speak and mastered all the four Confucian classics (sasŏ) at the tender age of nine. But he is also described as a strict practitioner of ritual norms who adamantly refused, for example, to live in rooms with a heated floor during the period of mourning for his mother. As a man of restraint, he eschewed any direct confrontation with the rivals of Yi Chinsang’s school, even as the latter were defaming the memory of Kwak’s beloved teacher. As a man of modesty and integrity, he refused all the posts offered to him and stayed away from the corrupt officialdom of his times before being directly summoned by King Kojong in July 1903. Moreover, as a man of bravery, he was able to reproach Kojong both orally and in writing for overburdening the people with taxes, allowing corruption to engulf the administration, and placing Napoleon and Peter the Great above the sage kings of ancient China.20 Reproving the king at the risk of banishment or worse was not, of course, the only way of expressing taejangbu (‘real male’) bravery, as the manifold armed uprisings of literati-led Righteous Armies (ŭibyŏng) in 1895– 1910 amply showed. But in the cases of conservative yangban leaders of those risings, resisting the Japanese was often viewed as more a way of ‘following the cause of righteousness,’ and ultimately dying honourably for it, instead of living dishonourably ‘under barbarian rule,’ not as an occasion for proudly practicing manly toughness and prowess in fighting.21 Brave withdrawal from this world—be it self-imposed exile or sui19 Kim Ku (trans. by Jongsoo Lee) Paekpˇ om ilchi: The Autobiography of Kim Ku (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2000), Pp. 18–20. 20 Simsan sasang yŏn’guhoe [Society for Research on Simsan Ideas] (ed.) Kim Ch’angsuk (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1981), Pp. 135–150. 21 Yi Sangik, Sˇ ogu uˇ i ch’unggyˇok kwa kˇundae han’guk sasang [The Shock of the West and Korea’s Modern Ideas] (Seoul: Han’ul Ak’ademi, 1997), Pp. 173–178.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 179 cide—were certainly important features of the yangban class masculinity ideal. The main emotional backdrop was the romanticized, poeticized state of ‘righteous anger’ (ˇuibun, or pibun kanggae), so important for the construction of an ideal Confucian personality. To summarize, by the end of the nineteenth century, five centuries of neo-Confucian rule had left Korea with a complex range of diverse but sometimes overlapping visions of masculinity. One end of the spectrum was the refined, ascetic restraint of a neo-Confucian kunja (wise gentleman) befitting the ruling class of the Confucian monarchy. But it contrasted sharply with the cheerful celebration of sexuality, itinerant life, and contempt for established social norms embodied in the somewhat comic and somewhat tragic figure of Pyˇon Kangsoe. Pyˇon, the hero of the popular p’ansori opera of the same name, was known as the ‘world’s boor,’ who refuses to work and proclaims that he would happily starve for ten years, if only he be given an opportunity to regularly enjoy viewing the beauties.22 Restrained and confined to only a limited assortment of performative and discursive contexts among the yangban literati, sex and violence could be a touchstone for manliness and a source of pride and enjoyment among the less Confucianized elements of society—basically the dominated classes, those ruled by the neo-Confucian scholar-officials but not necessarily assimilated into their refined cultural world. One overlapping moment among these often-contrasting visions on both sides of the socio-cultural divide may be seen in the common patriarchal belief in men’s birthright to the commanding position in the family—even the loutish Pyˇon Kangsoe is sure about his right to rule over his wife Ongnyˇo, whose labour he unceremoniously lives off while drinking, gambling, womanizing, and fighting. Patriarchy, albeit in widely different forms, was a common denominator linking together otherwise quite heterogeneous cultures of the rulers and the subalterns.23 Another is the common affirmation of the Confucian socio-political ethos, centred on filial piety, which upheld the complex hierarchy of family, clan and state institutions. Subsequent nationalist reconstructions of masculinity 22 Sˇ o Chungmun, P’ansori sasˇol uˇ i yˇon’gu [Research on the Song Texts of the P’ansori] (Seoul: Hyˇongsˇong ch’ulp’ansa, 1984). 23 On the strengthening of patriarchal rules and gradual weakening of women’s public role in the early Chosˇon period (1392–1592), see: Ch’oe Honggi et al. (eds.) Chosˇon chˇon’gi kabujangje wa yˇosˇong [Patriarchy in the Early Chosˇon Period and Women] (Seoul: Ak’anet, 2004). On the influence of patriarchal morals on the marital and sexual life of low-class females, see: Chˇong Sˇonghŭi, Chosŏn ŭi sŏng p’ungsok [Sexual Mores of the Chosŏn Period] (Seoul: Karam Kihoek, 1998), Pp. 52–65, 124–125.

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ideals in the 1890s and the first decade of the twentieth century were, in fact, largely achieved by appropriating these values and ‘modernizing’ them by redefining the dynastic state as a ‘nation’ and placing it in the paramount position previously occupied by the filial piety concept, while the structure of male dominance over women remained basically intact. The ruling class virtue of self-control and restraint was continuously upheld and simultaneously extended to spheres of experience that were not previously common for Korea’s privileged strata, that is, regular physical training envisioned as the ‘cultivation of military virtue.’ And the militant masculinity of the rediscovered old warriors, identified now as Korea’s own brand of Nelsons or Napoleons, came to dominate the imagination of modernist middle- and upper-class males, striving to find the route to ‘survival’ in the jungles of the modern world.

To Drill for the Sake of National Survival: Korea’s Early Modern Masculinity Paradigm In the case of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European nationstates, idealized middle-class masculinity displayed a set of decisively central features that were closely interconnected with each other. The respectable male was expected to practice strict sexual restraint and generally confine himself to the limits of the ‘normal’ heterosexual family, which was built on piety and centred around childrearing rather than ‘sensuality.’ In the evolutionary view of Herbert Spencer, the overemphasis on sexuality was characteristic of beings on the lower rungs of evolution’s hierarchy: The brain and one’s sperm were supposed to come from the same source, and the development of the former required some constraints on the production of the latter. In a complex, developed world, the ‘fittest’ were those who bested everybody else in the art of restraining sexual impulses: The Irish were more prolific than the English, but Homo Britannicus proved himself to be the master of the industrial age.24 Instead of the ‘lower pleasures,’ the ‘fittest’ of the ‘civilized world’ were to employ their energy and vigour for ‘noble causes,’ the range of which in mainstream society, especially in Protestant coun24 Herbert Spencer, “A Theory of Population, Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility”, Westminster Review, n.s.l., 1852, Pp. 266. Cited in: Michael Ruse, “Social Darwinism: The Two Sources”, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1980, Pp. 23–36.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 181 tries such as Britain or Germany, was usually crowned by professional work and ‘glorious sacrifice’ on the battlefield, which nation-states were quick to dress in quasi-cultic clothes. Lofty aspirations of this kind were viewed as requiring not only inner, ‘moral’ rigour but also a good measure of bodily strength and discipline. Thus, English public schools or the Bünde (voluntary sporting associations) in Germany were to produce middle- and upper-class men with bodies hard and lithe, ready for sports and prepared to fight. Being moral meant being athletic in the first instance, following the mens sana in corpore sano (‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’) thesis so cherished by Herbert Spencer,25 which had become widely accepted by the mid-nineteenth century. So it came quite naturally that males in positions of influence and power socialized in this way and lived in a state of ‘permanent adolescence,’ continuing to place male bonding and the virtue of ‘old boy’ camaraderie above anything else throughout their lives.26 Of course, the norms of ideal manhood just sketched applied differently to the various strata of the nation-states’ populaces: Character building on the public school playfield was largely the preserve of the upper-middle and upper classes, whereas the more typical middleclass male persona of the Victorian age was organized ‘around a man’s determination and skill in manipulating the economic environment.’27 The ideals looked lofty, in part, precisely because they were never fully put into practice: Homosexuality, for example, which was criminalized and looked upon in the dominant discourse as a pathology, was, however, a not-uncommon extension of ‘manly love’ in the British public schools.28And the hegemonic ideas of manhood were often contested, both in theory and in practice—Nietzschean or Expressionist rebellions 25 ‘The first requisite to success in life is “to be a good animal”; and to be a nation of good animals is the first condition to national prosperity. Not only is it that the event of a war often turns on the strength and hardiness of soldiers; but it is that the contests of commerce are in part determined by the bodily endurance of producers.’, in Herbert Spencer, Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects (London: Everyman’s Library, 1911), Pp. 116–119. 26 Cyril Connolly, The Enemies of Promise (London: Andre Deutsch, 1988), Pp. 271; John Hargreaves, Sport, Power, and Culture: A Social and Historical Analysis of Popular Sports in Britain. (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 1986), Pp. 41; George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle-Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). 27 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), Pp. 229. 28 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), Pp. 1–2.

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against the societal suppression of passions, or pacifist visions of nonviolent manly virility being among the better known avenues of dissent.29 However, it was primarily the mainstream vision of nationalized, constrained, well-controlled, and sublimated masculinity of training, diligence, and patriotic fervour that descended on Korea’s modernist intelligentsia. These influences were transmitted primarily through the agency of Japanese translations or adaptations of European ideologues (Spencer, who once stated that ‘the first requisite of life is to be a good animal’; Thomas Carlyle, with his ‘hero worship’ and paeans to Cromwell and Frederick the Great; and S. Smiles being particularly revered)30 and Japanese or late Qing modernity discourses. The main emphasis in these discourses was laid on civic morals, consciousness of duty, self-sacrifice and military spirit.31 The question of how this vision was digested and translated into more understandable and acceptable terms for the majority of the still Confucian literate class, and how it was implemented, is to be debated. As the readers have already seen in Chapter Four, Liang Qichao was perhaps the most central authority on modernity in the Korean intellectual discourse of the first decade of the twentieth century. Thus, it was hardly surprising that among all the imported works dealing with militaristic manhood, the chapter ‘On Respecting the Military’ (Lun Shangwu, Chapter 17) of Liang Qichao’s seminal The New Citizen32 influenced Korean reformers the most in the mid- and late 1900s. It was Liang’s paean to the ‘war-like spirit’ that, for example, a Taehan Maeil Sinbo editorial writer implicitly referred to when he assured his readers of the supreme value of the ‘army spirit’ (kundae-jŏk chŏngsin), ‘the spirit of a militaristic state’s citizens’ (kun’guk min chŏngsin) and ‘noble’ death on the battlefield (‘Discourses Left by Two Thinkers of the Past’ [Yang sŏngch’ŏl yuron], Taehan Maeil Sinbo, October 2, 1909). Liang’s belief that an ideal state should always prioritize the military, all of its able-bodied male citizens being constantly prepared to join the colours, was echoed 29 George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle-Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), Pp. 21–51. 30 Kim Pyŏngch’ŏl, Han’guk kˇ undae sˇoyang munhak iipsa yˇon’gu [Research on the Hisˇ tory of the Introduction of Modern Western Literature into Korea] (Seoul: Uryu munhaksa, 1980), Pp. 11, 17, 30, 135–137, 142, 189–192, 195–196, 215, 719. 31 Chˇ on Pokhŭi, Sahoe chinhwaron kwa kukka sasang [Social Darwinism and Ideas of Statehood] (Seoul: Hanul Ak’ademi, 1996). 32 See the original in: Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji [Collected Writings from an Icedrinker’s Studio], Part 6, Book 4, Pp. 108–109.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 183 by a Taehan Maeil Sinbo editorial which called upon all male Koreans to consider themselves as soldiers on active duty. Teachers were to belong to an imaginary ‘Taehan Educational Army,’ fishermen were to view themselves as a ‘Taehan Fishing Army,’ and so on (‘Human Life in Our Days’ [Kŭmil insaeng], Taehan Maeil Sinbo, April 28, 1910). Additionally, models of soldierly behaviour were actively sought in Korea’s own history —Im Kyˇong’ˇop (1594–1646), so prominent in Late Chosŏn ‘military’ novels, was mentioned as an example to follow now for all the patriotic Korean males (‘Culture and Military Might’ [Munhwa wa muryŏk], Taehan Maeil Sinbo, February 19, 1910).33 Im was famed both for his bravery on the battlefield and for being a paragon of Confucian dynastic loyalty, the latter quality greatly increasing the appeal of his newly refurbished image as an ‘ideal man for the time of competition for survival’ to culturally conservative yangban intellectuals. One of the public intellectuals who contributed most to legitimising the new masculinity codes through a modernist appropriation of traˇ ditional masculine images was undoubtedly Pak Unsik—whose contributions to the modernist educational discourse were already outlined in Chapter Six.34 In his earlier treatise in classical Chinese, Hakkyu sinron (New Discourse on Education, published by Pangmunsa Publishers, 1904), he explained that the models of man should be figures from Chinese pre-Zhou and Zhou antiquity: In the old days, newborn males were given bows made of mulberry wood and arrows with fletching made of mugwort, which they would shoot in all four directions of the compass, signifying that everywhere under Heaven is the scene of male activity. That is why the schools of the three ancient epochs of Xia, Yin and Zhou nurtured pupils’ bodies through dance, and taught them to elaborate their [noble] aims in song. The concurrent study of both literature and military affairs started from there. […] The term ‘six arts’—etiquette, music, shooting, riding, writing and arithmetic—meant the study of the essentials and their practice from primary school age. And its methods were really active, not dull and depressed. […] But in 33 Cited in: Kim Kwangjung, “Hanmal Aeguk Kyemong Undonggi ŭi kungmin kyoyuk non” [A Study on Citizen Education Theories in the Patriotic Enlightenment Movement during the Late Taehan Empire], Usŏk taehakkyo nonmunjip [Usŏk University Article Collection], Vol. 16, 1994, Pp. 151–168. 34 On the main sources of Pak’s understanding of modernity—Timothy Richard’s (1845–1919) Chinese translation of Mackenzie’s The Nineteenth Century: A History (1895), entitled Taixi xinshi lanyao (T’aesˇo sinsa namyo), as well as contemporaneous ˇ Japanese literature, see: No Kwanbŏm, “1875–1904 nyˇon Pak Unsik uˇ i chujahak ihae wa kyoyuk chagangnon” [The Understanding of Zhuxi-ism and Ideas of Self-Strengthening ˇ through Education of Pak Unsik, 1875–1904], Han’guk saron, Vol. 43, 2000, Pp. 91–134.

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chapter seven our country today […] pupils are just to sit and stare at the walls as if they fear and avoid something, not daring to make any movements at will. How is it possible to nurture their bodies in this way? That is why they are always depressed and passive, with all kinds of bad consequences resulting from it.35

The modernist ideal of the nurturing of body and spirit is legitimized here by some idiosyncratically interpreted references to Chinese antiquity, much in the same way that Ch’oe Namsˇon provided additional legitimacy to his cult of Bismarck and Peter the Great by comparing their self-sacrificial spirit with that of China’s old heroes. The paramount importance Pak attached to modern ‘patriotic’ values and ‘patriotic’ male behaviour is underscored by his rather instrumentalist understanding of ethics. In his 1911 biography of Yˇon Kaesomun (?–666), the Koguryˇo aristocrat notorious among traditional historiographers for his 642 regicidal coup d’état but also famed for his successful struggle against the invading Tang dynasty armies,36 Pak laments the negative interpretation of Yˇon by Chosˇon dynasty writers. According to him, the Chosˇon dynasty Koreans ‘deified and feared the corrupt, unwise and cowardly’ aristocracy and, ‘in an atmosphere of flattery, blind obedience and selfpreserving opportunism,’ were not inclined to ‘worship and study heroes.’ He then questions the negative portrayal of Yˇon Kaesomun in the following way: Britain’s Cromwell and Japan’s Toyotomi Hideyoshi were guilty in greatly overstepping the norms of morality, but do not the British worship Cromwell as a deity and do not the Japanese worship Toyotomi Hideyoshi as a progenitor of their state? One may say that it means only that those [two] countries respect achievements while not worshipping ethics, but even in the ethic-worshipping land of China did not the first historian Sima Qian put Xiang Yu’s history into the Imperial Annals section?37

ˇ Yi Manyŏl (ed.) Pak Unsik (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1980), Pp. 63–65. For a modern academic study of Yˇon Kaesomun’s abortive attempt at strengthening the central ruling structures of the aristocratic state of Korugyŏ, see: Im Kihwan, “6,7 segi Koguryŏ chŏngch’i seryŏk ŭi tonghyang” [Trends in Political Forces in 6th–7th Century Koguryŏ], Han’guk Kodaesa Yŏn’gu [Studies on Korea’s Ancient History], Vol. 5, 1992, Pp. 5–55. 37 Yi Manyŏl (ed.) Pak Unsik, ˇ Pp. 170–171. It should be said that, despite putting Xiang Yu’s (232–202 bc) biography into the Imperial Annals section of his masterpiece, Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), Sima Qian (145–86 bc) was indeed harshly critical towards what he viewed as Xiang Yu’s recklessness, ambition and lack of moral legitimacy. See 35 36

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 185 The reason that the regicidal Yˇon Kaesomun was to be ‘worshipped’ alongside another hero of regicidal drama, Cromwell, and Japan’s aspiring unifier, Hideyoshi, was Yˇon Kaesomun’s ‘patriotic independence spirit,’ which enabled him to withstand the attacks of the Tang armies. The pattern of placing Yˇon Kaesomun alongside such embodiments of the ˇ Mundˇok or illustrious admi‘soul of Korea’ (chosˇonhon) as general Ulji ral Yi Sunsin was actually quite common in nationalist writings of the first decade of the twentieth century;38 Yˇon was sometimes accused of being too self-confident and not conscious enough of the strength of his Chinese enemies,39 but never of ethical breaches. That the modern ‘hero’ was no longer tied to traditional moralizing was shown also by Ch’oe Namsˇon’s placement of Jesus alongside Bismarck and Peter the Great. That the latter’s ‘national revivals,’ ‘restorations’ and conquests were all executed with all possible violations of the former’s precepts did not matter: what mattered were the achievements and the degree of the hero’s attachment to the ‘heroic endeavour.’ However, the possibility of breaking with ethics for the sake of the nation-state as the highest ethical aim in the nationalist code did not mean that nationals were to behave cynically in their relations with the state and with each other. On the contrary, they were to behave as good old kunja, but with loyalty toward the nation-state placed solidly above allegiance to their family and the ‘cultivation of an adventurous spirit’ considered as important as the bookish education of former days.

Stephen Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), P. 140. But Pak Ŭnsik intentionally ignores here Sima Qian’s overall negative assessment of Xiang Yu in an attempt to shed more positive light on the masculine image of Xiang Yu—a ruthless and uniquely brave warrior. 38 See, for example, Sin Ch’aeho’s admiring treatment of Yˇ on Kaesomun in his articles of 1908–1910, such as “Big ‘I’ and Little ‘I’ ” (Taea wa soa, Monthly Taehan Hyˇophoe Hoebo, Issue 5, August 1908, Pp. 5–10): Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso (ed.) Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 3, Pp. 309–314. In his seminal 1908 treatise, New Reading of History (Toksa sinnon), Sin even addressed Yˇon Kaesomun as ‘the greatest hero in Korea’s four thousand year-long history,’ explaining his regicide with the supposed understanding that ‘the country is more important than a king.’ An Pyˇongjik (ed.) Sin Ch’aeho, Pp. 92–94. 39 See, for example, Hyˇ on Ch’ae, “Learning about State: State History” (Kukkahak: Kukkaji yˇoksa, Monthly Honam Hakpo, Issue 8, January 1909, Pp. 11–16), Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 17, Pp. 483–488.

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The ways in which the old kunja pattern of masculinity was being appropriated for new aims can be seen, for example, in the advice on the ‘Science of [running one’s] Family’ (Kajˇonghak), serialized in Honam Hakpo, the organ of the Honam (Chˇolla Province) Academic Society (Honam Hakhoe). The section, published in Issue 6 of this journal (November 1908), recommended treating children with respect, as ‘they have already become nationals (kungmin)’ and also ‘may one day, who knows, grow into the bulwarks of the state and wise officials of the court.’ To help children to reach this desirable aim, one had to ‘make their ethics progress’ from the earliest age and cultivate their ‘patriotic feelings, bravery and bodily strength,’ but without neglecting their ‘habit of filial piety,’ also an important part of the manly ‘indomitable spirit.’40 Counting children as both actual and potential ‘nationals’ while emphasizing their ‘patriotic feelings and bodily strength’ combined with ‘bravery’ was certainly an innovation. However, the emphasis on ‘filial piety’ and the prospect of state service as the most desirable way of contributing to society also show the influence of the Confucian kunja paradigm appropriated by the reformers. The appropriation of Confucian ideals for modern aims was often conceptualized on a more abstract level as well. It was not unusual, for example, to claim that Korea’s path to wealth, power and competitiveness should be based upon ‘good outcomes from our several thousand years of civilizational experience,’ and, more specifically, on the strength of the ‘innate character’ of the people from Korea’s various provinces, including the ‘Confucian gentlemen’s spirit’ (sagi) of the south-eastern Kyˇongsang region.41 And did not Ch’oe Namsˇon, all his indignation about the adverse influence Confucianism supposedly had on Koreans’ ‘militant spirit’ notwithstanding, serialize The Analects of Confucius (Lunyu) in his journal, Sonyˇon (Adolescent), beginning with the August 1909 issue?42 As readers have already seen in Chapter Four, Confucianism retained in the early modern age its significance as a source—one of

40 Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 17, Pp. 347–353. 41 Kang Chˇ on, “On the Foundations of Wealth and Power for our Korea” (Ahan e taehaya pugang uˇ i kich’o rˇul nonham; Taehan Hˇunghakpo, Issue 2, April, 1909), Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 20, Pp. 149–152. 42 Sonyˇ on, Vol. 2, No. 7, August 1909, Pp. 48.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 187 many, to be sure—of the ‘national essence’ (kuksu), so crucial for the greatness of the ‘national spirit.’ The patriotic, self-sacrificial ‘vigour’ (wˇon’gi) of ‘lofty-spirited nationˇ als’ was to be nurtured through sports. A member of Pak Unsik’s Friends of the West Academic Society (Sˇou Hakhoe), a certain Kim Hˇuisˇon, made clear in his article ‘The Necessity of Physical Education’ (Ch’eyuk uˇ i p’iryo) in the fourth issue of the monthly Sˇou (March 1907) that the vigour of the ‘nation’ (kungmin) was dependent on the state of the nation’s physical fitness. Physical weakness of the nation led to a weakened ‘spiritual / mental strength’ (simnyˇok), and that, in turn, threatened the nation’s academic progress, as well as its ability to get along in the age of ‘armed peace,’ when a nation’s existence depended only on its muscular and intellectual strength. Korea was precisely in a such position when, despite the existence of the ‘spirit of loyalty to the King and love for the state,’ both bravery and the ‘spirit of strenuous exertion’ (punbaljisim) were ‘completely absent’ on account of the lack of physical preparedness. Kim Hˇuisˇon’s practical recommendations mostly emphasized the introduction and practice of light gymnastics, which ‘made the bones more flexible and helped to better use the arms,’ and heavy gymnastics, which was instrumental in ‘obliterating cowardice and nurturing both muscular strength and the spirit of perseverance.’43 Similar arguments were repeated in almost every single newspaper and journal, sports being touted as the ‘the source of wealth and power for a state and an element of happiness for a person […], a way to make the bodily constitution perfectly beautiful and the character strong; a method of nurturing bravery throughout the whole world.’44 It was also acclaimed as ‘the method the Western powers use in order to infuse lofty aspirations and a brave spirit into the minds of youngsters, in a manner unparalleled in the East,’45 or ‘the way of preserving a healthy body and, essentially, the basic precondition for all sorts of human happiness.’46 Certainly, physical prowess was 43 Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 5, Pp. 202–203. 44 Yu Kˇ unsu, “On Physical Education” (Non ch’eyuk sˇol), Taehan Maeil Sinbo, February 5, 1909; Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 5, Pp. 50–79. 45 Mun Ilp’yˇ ong, “On Physical education” (Ch’eyuk non; Monthly T’aegˇuk Hakpo, Issue 21, May 1908, Pp. 13–16); Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 16, Pp. 21–24. 46 Yi Ch’angwan, “Intellectual Education is Inferior to Physical Education” (Chiyuk puryˇo ch’eyuk; Monthly T’aegˇuk Hakpo, Issue 3, October 1906, Pp. 53–54); Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 13, Pp. 197–198.

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not an aim in itself for a modernized kunja—‘survival,’ especially on the national level, was the overarching objective—but it was seen as the most essential prerequisite for achieving anything at all in the realm of ‘civilization and progress,’ both on the collective and individual plane. While physical weakness meant an unhappy life and ultimate defeat in the ‘survival game,’ physical health built on regular exercise was taken as very much a requirement for both ‘normal’ personal life and authentic citizenship. For example, the last of the ‘10 precepts of hygienic theory’ (translated, obviously from either Japanese or English, by a certain Pak Sangmok), published in Sˇou’s August 1907 issue, stated: Everyone who wishes to succeed in necessary things, have joyful thoughts, awaken to the real taste of life, discharge all his obligations toward the state and become a faithful citizen, can achieve this only if healthy—and that is why hygiene is so indispensable.47

The same topic—physical exercise and sports as the crucial prerequisite for ‘healthy’ nationhood and authentic citizenship—was developed in a much longer text by Yi Chongman entitled ‘Effects of Physical Training upon the State’ (Ch’eyuk i kukka e taehan hyoryˇok—Sˇobuk Hakhoe Wˇolbo, November 1909). Yi Chongman maintained that physical training on the national level was as crucial for the business of nurturing conscious nationals as a healthy body was crucial for the development of the individual. Only institutionalized sports could produce ‘brave males’ (yongjanghan namja), able to ‘achieve their results in any affair through strenuous efforts.’ Field sports nurtured team spirit—the ability to follow orders and nimbly move the body from left to right together with other bodies, thus achieving a ‘unity of consciousness’ with the collective. And last but not least, sports fostered the ‘bravery and spirit of adventure’ needed, together with bodily strength, by (male) nationals to strengthen their state in these times of ‘competition for survival and survival of the fittest.’ The disciplined, regimented, vigorous masculinity of a patriotic sportsman was thus defined as the only way to survival in the social Darwinist jungles of the ‘New World.’48 The possible consequences of a negligent attitude toward the nation’s physique were discussed in detail in yet another Sˇou text (June 1907), penned by another Friends of the West Academic Society member, a 47 Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 5, Pp. 497. 48 Cited in: Yi Hangnae, Han’guk kˇ undae ch’eyuk sa yˇon’gu [Research on the History of Physical Culture in Modern Korea] (Seoul: Chisik Sanˇopsa, 1989), Pp. 44–45.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 189 certain Kim Ponggwan. Noting that in the worldwide struggle for survival, knowledge and its prerequisite, physical strength, are both main determinants of success, and that teaching and training children (the text implies that predominantly male children are meant) is the prime responsibility of parents and teachers, he then deplored what he perceived as an utter lack of physical training in Korean education. According to him, in Korea the focus on classroom teaching and the shortage of physical exercise was ‘impairing the development of bodies.’ Consequently, he warned that ‘this evil’ would affect not only individuals, but also the nation as well: With ‘diminishing physical strength,’ ‘the race (injong) will gradually become weakened and degraded, unable to withstand external enemies.’ The only way out of such a predicament, according to Kim Ponggwan, was to institute obligatory schooling and to ensure that pupils got enough regimented, regular sports, as well as strolls, gymnastics and swimming, and were forbidden to drink, smoke and rise too late.49 Another list of recommendations was produced by Mun Ilp’yˇong (1888–1939)—then a Meiji Gakuin student in Tokyo. Afterwards, in the 1920s–1930s, he went on to become one of the most prominent popular history writers of colonial times. His wish list included establishing special ‘physical training schools’ that included the teaching of such subjects as horse-riding, swordsmanship and gymnastics in the regular school curriculum, and even sent some ‘well-behaving and physically strong youth’ abroad to undertake scientific research on physical education issues.50 An influential reformist Confucian, Yi Ki (pen name: Haehak, 1848–1909), opined that, unless the young scholars wished to become like ‘weak grasses growing under the shadow of a wall, or like fishes growing in an aquarium,’ they should ‘train their arms and legs for at least one hour on a daily basis, thus strengthening their muscles and invigorating themselves spiritually.’51 Very much like another crucially important modern concept, namely personal hygiene, physical education was supposed to be personalized and routinized, to be made an organic part of daily routines, on both the individual and collective levels. 49 Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 5, Pp. 378–380. 50 Mun Ilp’yˇ ong, “On Physical education” (Ch’eyuk non; Monthly T’aegˇuk Hakpo, Issue 21, May 1908, Pp. 13–16); Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 16, Pp. 21–24. 51 Yi Ki, “On Cutting [the Knot] with one Strike of the Axe: 3” (Ilbu pyˇ okp’a: 3; Monthly Honam Hakpo, Issue 3, August 1908, Pp. 3–8); Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 17, Pp. 135–141.

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The ‘theoretical’ texts and recommendations of this nature demonstrate well the details of the logical connection between the spread of sports, the nurturing of national vigour, and the paramount task of national survival, which was romantically narrated in the song of the baseball players cited at the beginning of this chapter. The ‘heroic’ masculine spirit, in which ‘patriotism and loyalty’ were upheld by bravery, self-sacrificial attitudes, and bodily and spiritual ‘vigour,’ needed playing fields just as much as it needed battlefields, imaginary or real, past and present. Sport was entrusted with the task of nurturing the masculine ‘national vigour’ (kungmin uˇ i wˇon’gi)—and from this vantage point, even a simple baseball match was a sort of nation-building ritual, affirming and strengthening the participants’ belonging to the imagined masculine community.

The ‘Recovery of Korean Manliness’ and National Survival Where do the modern images of ‘competitive,’ ‘sportive’ and ‘patriotic’ masculinity stand in the world-historical context? The discursive roots of this somatic nationalism in early modern Korea may be unmistakably traced back to the modernist discourses of ‘physical culture / education’ in late nineteenth-century Japan and China52 and, in the end, to the game ethics and character building of nineteenth-century Europe’s middle and higher classes. More generally, the Korean case shows the closest typological affinity with the emergent sport nationalisms of the later nineteenth—and early twentieth—century in Europe’s colonies. Made into a Japanese protectorate (a semi-colony in reality) in 1905 and fully annexed by Japan in 1910, Korea felt the full pressure of imperialist encroachment already in 1894, when it was occupied by Japanese troops from the very beginning of the Sino-Japanese War. And from the time of its inception, Korea’s sporting nationalism was built on the all-permeating 52 The word ch’eyuk (physical culture / education) used in Korean publications since late 1890s is the Korean rendering of the Japanese Meiji term, taiiku, which was first used in 1872 (in a document explaining the new Meiji educational system) as a translation word for the term ‘physical education’ used by Herbert Spencer and other European thinkers. In Chinese discourse, the term (in its Chinese rendering, tiyu) was first used by Yan Fu (1854–1921), the famed translator of English academic literature, in his 1895 Treatise on Strength (Yuan Qiang), again in the context of Spencerian discourse on moral, intellectual and physical education. See: Andrew Morris, “‘To Make the Four Millions Move’: The Late Qing Dynasty Origins of Modern Chinese Sport and Physical Culture”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2000, Pp. 876–906.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 191 sense of national emergency and the painful anticipation of the ‘downfall of the state and the extinction of the race’ should Korea’s manliness fail to be ‘regenerated.’53 An urgent and, at the same time, thorough transplantation of European nationalist masculinity norms (‘regeneration of manliness’) was best achieved by invoking and co-opting the traditional paradigms of idealized manliness into the new construction of patriotic manhood; Korea’s youthful sportsmen of the first decade of the new century were urged, in the spirit of age-old Confucian rhetoric, to be ‘virtuous gentlemen.’ In a similar way, the volunteers of the Hindu nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, founded by Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1889–1940) in 1925, who often received training in martial arts ‘for self-defense purposes,’ were enjoined to follow the timehonoured ideal of brahmachari. In traditional India, brahmachari meant the way of life of a selfless, moral, and celibate disciple whose devotion to the common good stood in direct proportion to his self-control.54 In the same way as the Korean nationalist emphasis on Korean men’s inherent virility, to be ‘regenerated’ through sports, implicitly (and even quite explicitly in the case of radicals, such as Sin Ch’aeho) contradicted Japanese colonialist assumptions about effeminate and unpatriotic Koreans,55 Gaelic football or hurling, made popular by the Gaelic Athletic Association (founded in 1884), was to counteract Victorian characterizations of the Irish as either drunken ruffians or effeminate, feckless, child-like inferiors.56 Like many other peripheral sport nationalisms, the Korean one was to produce and proudly display virile, powerful, beautiful manly bodies—a sight that could provide some psychological compensation for what was commonly perceived as the country’s rather low position in the international pecking order at present and offer some hope for the Social Darwinist ‘survival’ of the embattled, crisis-ridden country. The sporting events, where ‘the fittest’ in the literal sense of the word were to demonstrate their prowess, were a locus of both inclusion and 53 Kim Kwangjung, “Hanmal aegukkyemong undonggi ŭi sin kyoyuk kuguk non” [“National Salvation through New Education” Ideas in the Period of Patriotic Enlightenment Movement in the Last Years of the Taehan Empire], Sahak yˇon’gu, Vol. 43–44, 1992, Pp. 193–213. 54 Joseph Alter, “Somatic Nationalism: Indian Wrestling and Militant Hinduism”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3, 1994, Pp. 557–588. 55 Kim Minsŏn, “Sin Ch’aeho u ˇ i kyoyuk sasang” [Sin Ch’aeho’s Ideas on Education], in Kim Hoil (ed.) Han’guk kˇunhyˇondae ihaenggi sahoe yˇon’gu [Research on Korean Society in the Transitional Period to Modernity] (Seoul: Sinsˇowˇon, 1999), Pp. 563–580. 56 Patric F. McDevitt, “Muscular Catholicism: Nationalism, Masculinity and Gaelic Team Sports, 1884–1916.”, Gender and History, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1997, Pp. 262–284.

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exclusion. Not unlike the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Korean student sports teams of the later 1900s, such as the pioneering baseball team whose song was mentioned in this chapter’s prologue, were keen to emphasize that they strove to transcend the traditional status group boundaries and social divisions in the name of the nation. Indeed, the prominent role that the son of a non-yangban family, Ch’oe Namsˇon, was allowed to play in the Korean student milieu in Japan was a sign of the changing times and the gradual erosion of the yangban’s societal hegemony. However, just as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of colonial times was in reality led by status-conscious members of higher castes, most of the sports-obsessed Korean students in Japan in the later 1900s hailed from yangban or, like Ch’oe Namsˇon, wealthy chung’in lineages.57 For the scions of the poor, those unable to enter the modern schools, the main centres of sporting activities were practically excluded from the nationalist somatic training. In order to enter a governmental middle school, one usually had, for example, to pass entrance exams in classical Chinese and Korean on the basis of previous schooling in some other institution or at home and additionally one was often required to pay tuition.58 Likewise, women were, as in the case of the Gaelic Athletic Association, largely sidelined. Sometimes they were given only some basic gymnastic training in schools on the assumption that it was necessary in order to produce healthy male offspring for the sacrosanct nation, but more often they were reduced to the status of admiring spectators. The nation was to encompass both sexes, but combat and sports, conceived as training for war, were to be male preserves.59 Men, as breadwinners and soldiers, had the ultimate responsibility for the ‘survival of the nation.’ In Korea’s case, ‘the classical symmetry’ of the patriotic mind and a disciplined, well-trained body—the zest of masculinity’s poetics in the age of Darwinian jungles—was a hybrid heir to at least two local masculinity paradigms. One of them was the prescriptive image of the noble-minded 57 Yi Kangho and Song Chunho, “1907 nyˇ on tangsi uˇ i Taehan cheguk kwanwˇon chung yuhak kyˇongnyˇok sojija uˇ i chosa” [Survey of Taehan Empire Officials Who possessed the Experience of Studying Abroad in 1907], Chˇonbuk sahak, Vol. 4, 1980, Pp. 349–367. 58 Kim Yŏng’u, Han’guk kaehwagi u ˇ i kyoyuk [Education in the Period of Modern Reforms in Korea] (Seoul: Kyoyuk kwahaksa, 1997), Pp. 171–173. 59 The 1900s ethics primers, for example, mentioned the need for exercise for girls, too, but emphasized also that in girls’ case, ‘moral education’ (tˇogyuk) should take precedence over ‘physical education’ (ch’eyuk). See: Yi Hangnae, Han’guk kˇundae ch’eyuk sa yˇon’gu [Research on the History of Physical Culture in Modern Korea], Pp. 36.

muscular nationalism at the dawn of the new century 193 kunja literati, whose loyalty was now gradually shifting from the dynastic state and ‘immovable’ morality norms to the new paramount value of ‘national survival.’ Another was the Kim Ku-type commoner whose respect for the figure of a fearless street fighter certainly predated the conversion to the modern national idea. The kunja paradigm, with its traditional emphasis on ‘lofty aims,’ self-discipline, and moral rectitude, has very much manifested itself in the paramount importance attributed by Ch’oe Namsˇon and others to the idea of self-sacrifice—modernist, yet deeply rooted in Confucianism. At the same time, the commoners’ respect for tough manliness was to be channelled into the militaristic aspects of the new masculine ethos. This, however, was not easy, since the institutional mechanisms for the production of the masculinity of the new type were either lacking or in very short supply. The production of disciplined, docile male bodies and souls, which would not simply rejoice in an occasional sportive game or feel vaguely patriotic about their state, but would also measure their manly worth in terms of regular training for the sake of ‘national survival,’ was a task essentially to be fulfilled by an obligatory schooling system and a conscript army. Both were among the things the modernists of the first decade of the twentieth century wished most to achieve, but Kojong’s March 15, 1903, edict on the introduction of the conscription system remained a dead letter,60 and the late 1900s campaign by the academic and educational societies for the introduction of compulsory schooling hardly yielded any tangible results. Of course, low enrollment rates notwithstanding, schools at the dawn of the new century contributed towards making the new ways of performing masculinity highly visible. After the Japanese disbanded the Korean army on July 31, 1907, the schools, with military callisthenics as part of their curriculum, remained the only places to maintain some semblance of quasi-military training. Thus, the years 1907–1910 saw a proliferation of sportive events in schools, mostly centred upon military or quasi-military drills, which used to attract large crowds and a great deal of local attention. Being often a rare opportunity to vent pent-up patriotic hatred of the Japanese, such events could also contribute significantly to popularising the new model image of a muscular, brave and patriotic young man.61 Such events as the large-scale tournament staged 60 Hyˇ on Kwangho, Taehan cheguk uˇ i taeoe chˇongch’aek [The Foreign Policy of the Taehan Empire] (Seoul: Sinsˇowˇon, 2002), Pp. 269–275. 61 Yi Sˇ ungwˇon, Hakkyo uˇ i t’ansaeng [The Birth of the School] (Seoul: Hyumˇonisŭt’ˇu, 2005), Pp. 181–211.

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by Poch’ang School and several dozen neighbouring schools on Kanghwa Island on May 15, 1908, and described by the Taehan Maeil Sinbo (May 17, 1908) as a ‘gigantic sportive competition,’ featured more than two thousand young athletes and a grandiose spectacle of a mock war, with mock canons and Red Cross carriages.62 But, despite all the visibility of such Social Darwinist sport nationalism in the years prior to the Japanese annexation of Korea (1910), the majority of adult Koreans were just spectators of, and not participants in these ‘muscular modernity’ extravaganzas. The new model of disciplined, militarized masculinity was implanted in earnest in everyday modes of life only during the total mobilization of the Pacific War, as primary school enrollment rates for boys climbed to 66.1 % by 1942 and paramilitary drills, including those for adults, became a feature of quotidian existence.63 After decolonization in 1945, the militarized masculinity patterns internalized through compulsory primary school education for all and compulsory military service for most ablebodied men became a societal norm under the authoritarian states in both North and South Korea.64

62

Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 4, Pp. 42–44. O Sˇongch’ˇol, Singminji ch’odˇung kyoyuk uˇ i hyˇongsˇong [The Formation of Colonial Primary Education], Pp. 133. 64 Moon Seungsook, Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea (Duke University Press, 2005); Lee Hyo-Sang, North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress (Westport: Greenwood Publishing, 2001), Pp. 41–81. 63

chapter eight CONCLUSION: THE INFLUENCES OF SOCIAL DARWINISM IN KOREA (1900S AND AFTER)

Social Darwinism and the Radical Relativization of Ethics Social Darwinism’s position in early modern Korea’s ideological history is unique. Unlike Neo-Confucianism in traditional Korea—or ‘liberal democracy’ and ‘Marxism-Leninism’ in South and North Korea respectively after 1948—Social Darwinism was not an ideology to which the Korean state officially subscribed. King Kojong, wary of the rumoured Russian plans to station troops in Hamgyˇong Province in the north of Korea, could confide to Japanese diplomats in Seoul on July 26, 1899, that he viewed the ‘racial and religious differences between East and West’ as irreconcilable and thought that in interstate competition, smaller Asian states like Korea had to ally themselves with the ‘racially close’ Japanese.1 However, this was certainly not an official view. Many of the prominent Social Darwinism-influenced thinkers in Korea from the 1880s to the 1900s—Yun Ch’iho (Acting Foreign Minister), Yu Kiljun (Minister of Domestic Affairs), Sˇo Chaep’il (Governmental Advisor), etc.—were in different periods entrusted with high governmental offices. However, the language of governmental promulgations remained essentially a mixture of an older Confucian rhetoric with the novel idioms of ‘civilization and progress,’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ was certainly not a part of it. The March 15, 1903, Royal Edict formally introducing conscription to Korea (mentioned at the end of Chapter Seven), for example, evoked the ‘old system in which the peasants also received military training’ and assured that the modern conscription systems as practised in ‘various countries of the world’ did not deviate significantly from this time-honoured standard.2 ‘Dog-eats-dog competition’ was not explicitly given as the reason 1 Gaimushō (ed.) Nihon Gaikō bunsho [Japanese Diplomatic Documents] (Tokyo: Nihon kokusai rengō kyōkai, 1949–1964), Vol. 32, Pp. 941–943, Doc. No. 71 (secret). 2 Pak Chit’ae (ed.) Taehan chegukki chˇ ongch’aeksa charyojip [Collection of Materials

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for Korea to turn all of its able-bodied men into soldiers. But, even lacking official recognition, Social Darwinism had greatly changed the intellectual life of Korea’s educated urban society—and, consequently, also the thinking of commoners, to the degree it could be influenced at all by the new trends among their social ‘betters.’ In this way, it was, to a certain extent, comparable to Neo-Confucian ideology, which sacralised the governmental system and the ruling class’ mores from the end of the fourteenth century onwards. In Chapter 1, I have already mentioned a definition of ‘ideology’ by Nigel Harris—a system of beliefs created by society to solve its problems, which evolves with time depending on the total organization of the society and especially its class dimension, since it is directly linked to the interests of various societal classes. Another passable definition of ‘ideology’ explains it as ‘beliefs, values, representations, discourses, interpretative repertoires and behavioural practices which contribute to the legitimation and reproduction of existing institutional arrangements, power and social relations within a society.’3 Taken as the system of beliefs and values propagated by the ruling classes, a (dominant) ideology is supposed to be essentially conservative, legitimising the status quo or, at best, suggesting how it can be gradually improved. In this respect, Social Darwinism presents an interesting case of ‘ideological radicalism from above’—an ideology popularized by a sizable part of the government office-holders and socio-political leaders (albeit without the seal of governmental approval), which, however, takes its starting point in a deep feeling of unease and discontent about the status quo. Far from legitimising realities, Social Darwinism in Korea from 1880 to the first decade of the new century denounces status quo in the strongest possible language, since it was obvious that Korea in its contemporaneous shape had no hope of ‘survival’ in an uncompromisingly brutal Darwinian world. Typical for Social Darwinist rhetoric in Korea from 1905–1910 were, for example, the lamentations of a well-known activist, Yun Hyojˇong (whose biography and views were introduced in Chapter Four). According to him, ‘the rule that the stronger wins and the weaker loses is observed in our daily life and […] is acknowledged practice in our time’; thus, observations of Korea’s current situation could produce ‘only regrets’ (‘Strugon the History of Governmental Policies of the Taehan Empire] (Seoul: Sˇoin munhwasa, 1999), Vol. 4, Pp. 271. 3 Martha Augoustios, Iain Walker and Ngaire Donaghue, Social Cognition: An Integrated Introduction. (London: Sage, 2006), Pp. 266.

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gle for Existence’, Monthly Taehan Chaganghoe Wˇolbo, Issue 11, May 1907, Pp. 6–7).4 While giving the public some hope that Koreans might ‘achieve the task of safeguarding themselves’ if they would ‘rise up with patriotism and unite themselves with resolve to serve the common good,’ another representative writer with strong Social Darwinist tendencies, Chang Chiyˇon (also introduced in Chapter Four), left no doubts about his pessimism. Should the current state of affairs continue, the future would bring only the ‘downfall and disappearance’ upon Korea. The reason was simple—‘the inferior, the ignorant, the isolated and the weaker are destined to be defeated’ (‘Safeguarding the Nation Will Be Possible After Forming Organizations’, Monthly Taehan Chaganghoe Wˇolbo, Issue 5, November 1906, Pp. 1–7).5 Authoritative in the modernist intellectual circles through it was, Social Darwinism demonstrated uncompromisingly radical ideological colours. It functioned as an ideology of drastic modernisational mobilization: To be saved from inevitable doom, Korea had to be changed almost beyond recognition. Of course, the radicalism of the Social Darwinism-influenced ideologues was not primarily political. As was described in Chapter Three, Sŏ Chaep’il could be a republican in the USA—but he returned to Korea as a royal advisor on December 26, 1895, and was realistic enough not to dream about remaking Korea into a republic in the near future. Hailing from established elites and belonging to the scholarly-bureaucratic class, the adepts of Social Darwinism envisioned reforms from above, on the monarch’s behalf or through civic organizations demonstratively loyal to the government, as the only advisable mode of socio-political action. Nevertheless, by the standards of contemporaneous Korean society, their philosophical and social beliefs represented a radical departure from established ways of thinking and living. First, acceptance of Social Darwinism could not but undermine Confucian moralism, which for centuries functioned as the basis of traditional statehood in Korea. In the Neo-Confucian Chosˇon kingdom, it was demonstrated commitment to the observance of Confucian moral norms—which were understood to have cosmic, absolute significance— that legitimised any claim to power or influence. When Chosˇon’s great 4 Cited in: Lee Kwang-rin [Yi Kwangnin], “Korea’s Responses to Social Darwinism”, in Korean National Commission for UNESCO (ed.) Korean History: Discovery of its Characteristics and Developments (Seoul: Hollym, 2004), Pp. 454–455. 5 Cited in: Lee Kwang-rin [Yi Kwangnin], “Korea’s Responses to Social Darwinism”, in Korean National Commission for UNESCO (ed.) Korean History: Discovery of its Characteristics and Developments, Pp. 457.

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Neo-Confucian thinker, Yi Hwang (pen name: T’oegye; 1501–1570) undertook to advise his king, Sˇonjo (r. 1567–1608) on matters of governance, he emphasized in his renowned 1568 Memorial on Six Points (Mujin Yukcho so) that, to succeed, the king had, firstly, ‘to be submerged in righteousness and principle even when eating, resting, or receiving guests.’ Further, he admonished the king on ‘sincerity,’ ‘singlemindedness’ and the ‘ability to curb selfish desires.’6 The art of governance was seen as based upon moral commitments understood as extensions of cosmic principles—and not vice versa. The introduction of Social Darwinism meant, however, that this construction was to be turned upside-down. As Huxley’s famed treatise suggested, evolution was ethically indifferent as such, while many aspects of the ‘struggle for survival’ were surely anti-ethical; ethics, rather than the extension of any cosmic principles, being an artificial system which had, in many cases, to combat cosmic evolutionary norms.7 Instead of ethicizing politics, the new worldview implied politicization of ethics. Since the corps of ethical norms was an artificial creation in any case, it had to be customtailored to the demands of time and place. And since the formulation of these demands was open to contestation, the new views on ethics could at times take unprecedentedly radical turns. Yun Ch’iho could (as described above, in Chapter Two) confide to his diary, for example, his aversion to the sacrosanct norm of filial piety. From his Social Darwinist perspective, ‘amoral familism’ prevented Koreans from becoming civic-minded and eventually decreased their chances for collective survival. While this was still not a public utterance—and perhaps such utterances were close to impossible for a governmental official of the late 1890s to early 1900s —the fact that Social Darwinism destroyed Yun’s belief in the most cherished Confucian ethical principle is noteworthy. Of course, as was mentioned in all the previous chapters, Social Darwinism-influenced thought more often sought to use the legacy of traditional ethics than destroy it, and many believers in the ‘survival of the fittest’ were still personally attached to the different principles they had learned in their childhood as universal standards. For example, ‘civilized competition’ as praised in Yu Kiljun’s Sŏyu kyŏnmun (as mentioned above, in Chapter Two), shows a Confucian utopian touch, with competing individuals being supposed to look altruistically after each other’s 6 Cited in: Peter H. Lee (ed.) Sourcebook of Korean Civilization (NY: Columbia University Press, 1993), Vol. 1, Pp. 509. 7 Thomas Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (London, s.n., 1893), Pp. 46–117.

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interests. When Sin Ch’aeho—a Confucian loyalist-turned-Social Darwinist patriot—defined national history as the ‘familial genealogy of the national family’ and a national hero as a person able to ‘regard the whole of Korea as his household’ (see Chapter Six), it was the Confucian ethical system that remained, consciously or unconsciously, as his reference frame. However, despite the efforts at the politicisation of ethics, the view of ethics after Spencer and Huxley could not be the same as before. While the Neo-Confucian ethical codes were seen as transcendental values to follow unconditionally, as opposed to ‘selfish desires’ (to be curbed), an anonymous contributor to the monthly Sˇobuk Hakhoe Wˇolbo suggested in his piece on ethics that it was precisely out of such egoistic desires that altruistic morals are born. Only society could fulfil an individuals’ demand for security and protection, and it rightfully demanded a measure of loyalty in return.8 Society, the ‘great I’ and the ‘organic unity’ of its ‘members’ and ‘elements,’ could, in this system, demand much from an individual, including the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ in wartime—exactly because it was the only institution capable of satisfying individuals’ ‘selfish wish’ to survive in the midst of cosmic battles for survival and dominance. ‘Loyalty to the state,’ ‘faithfulness to friends’ and all the other Confucian catchphrases appeared continuously on the pages of Korean reformist journals and textbooks in the 1890s and the first decade of the twentieth century—but the starting point now was a human animal needing a society and a state for his own, rather ‘selfish’ ends, and his quid pro quo relations with society. With the discovery of the individual and his desires, morality started to be seen more and more as an inter-individual contract. Sin Haeyˇong’s Yullihak Kyogwasˇo (Ethics Textbook, Vols. 1–3, 1906; see Chapter Six), for example, put in its chapter on ‘cultivation of virtue’ (sudˇok) the virtue of truthfulness (sinˇui) in upholding contractual obligations towards others, relatives and strangers alike, ahead of the virtues of humbleness, frugality and politeness.9 It was in the context of such a ‘turn towards the individual’ that Rousseau (1712–1778) and du contrat social were positively referred to as an important source for constitutional law in at least some of publications of the early 1900s.10 Of course, much more typical was a rejection of Rousseau’s contractual vision of statehood 8 “Yulli ch’onghwa 1: Aegi wa aet’a u ˇ i” [General Talks on Ethics 1: Self-love and Altruism], Sˇobuk hakhoe wˇolbo, Issue 11, March 1909, Pp. 21–26. Available at: http:// www.koreanhistory.or.kr (accessed on: November 23, 2008). 9 Han’gukhak munhˇ on yˇon’guso (ed.) Han’guk Kaehwagi Kyogwasˇo Ch’ongsˇo [Collected Textbooks of Korea’s Modern Reform Period], Vol. 10, Pp. 110–128. 10 For example: Sˇ ol T’aehˇui, “Hˇonbˇop” [Constitution] (Monthly Taehan Hyˇophoe

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in favour of the ‘organic’ theory, which postulated that individuals were essentially born into being subjects of their respective states rather than creating the state by contract.11 However, the discovery of the individual (kaein) as the starting point for an understanding of ethics or social mechanisms is a significant achievement of the two decades surrounding the turn of the century, and this achievement was indisputably linked to the shock waves generated by the awakening to the ‘truth’ of evolution through competition.

Survival Ahead of Ethics? The relativization of (traditional) ethics brought about by the Social Darwinist shift in educated society’s discursive paradigm could imply a variety of choices. Once morals were now re-defined as an artificial construct and a possible obstacle to ‘survival’ (since ‘struggle for survival’ is amoral by definition and might demand immoral actions), a modern individual could proclaim that, given a choice between ethics and ‘survival,’ the former had to be abandoned and the latter chosen. As a matter of fact, this was the position taken by Yi Kwangsu, modern Korea’s archetypical Social Darwinism-inspired thinker (see the beginning of Chapter One), in his seminal early essay, ‘My Awakened Life’ (Yˇo uˇ i chagakhan insaeng). This essay was published, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, by Ch’oe Namsˇon’s journal for youth, Sonyˇon, at exactly the time when the Japanese were finalizing the formal annexation of Korea long awaited by pro-Japanese intellectuals in the country.12 In this essay, Yi Kwangsu proclaimed the ‘desire to survive’ (saengjon yokku) to be the primary function of human (and cosmic) life, and the state to be the chief guarantor of individuals’ survival. The logical conclusion to be drawn was that individuals had to ‘love’ the state without bothering themselves about ‘to which extent it was established morally.’ This position—which could also legitimise collaboration with the Japanese colonial state in Korea—was further developed by a certain Yi Sangch’ˇon, otherwise a lit-

Hoebo, Issue 5, August 1908, Pp. 28–30); Han’guk kaehwagi haksulji [Korea’s Academic Journals of the Modern Reform Period], Vol. 3, Pp. 332–335. 11 Kim Sˇ onggwˇon, Ruso uˇ i iip kwa yˇonghyang e kwanhan yˇon’gu [Research on the Transplantation of Rousseau’s Thought and its Influence] (M.A. thesis, Sˇogang University Graduate School, Seoul, 1982), Pp. 43–45. 12 Sonyˇ on, Issue 8, August 1910, Pp. 16–23.

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tle known Korean student in Japan. In his 1915 treatise, ‘On the New Morality’ (Sae Todˇongnon), he concluded that ethics codes were nothing more than societal consensuses negotiated by individuals seeking to survive in the ‘struggle for life,’ defining their ethics in accordance with the relative strength or weakness of their positions. It was no longer a priori axiomatic that killing or stealing were ‘evil’—since such actions might be necessitated by the imperatives of personal or national survival.13 This sort of moral relativism might have been an understandable choice given the background of the First World War and the lessons about the immanency of killing for modern strategies of ‘national survival’ that the war taught; but it was by no means the only choice opened up by the ‘Social Darwinian revolution’ in the ideological sphere in Korea. Writing half a year earlier for the same medium, the journal Hakchigwang (The Light of Study, published by Korean students in Tokyo, 1914–1930), Korea’s pioneer feminist, Na Hyesˇok (1896–1948) could, for example, allow herself to reject uncompromisingly and openly the modernist patriarchal understanding of the ‘ideal woman’ as ryōsai kenbo (Kor. yangch’ˇo hyˇonmo), ‘good wife, wise mother.’ ‘If no men volunteer to become good husbands and wise fathers, then, do females really have to develop deference and a submissive attitude?’ In a world where no a priori moral attitudes existed any longer and where one’s position was defined by one’s strength in body and soul, submissive women were, in Na’s feminist view, just ‘weaklings dominated by their destiny, afraid of developing themselves and unable to acquire absolute ideals’ (December 1914).14 Rejection of any absolute ethics combined with an affirmation of ‘struggle and strength’ could empower more conformist intellectuals of Yi Kwangsu’s type, anxious to rationalise their reluctant attitude towards active anti-colonial resistance—but also those who wished to completely re-define gender roles in society. The most typical approach at the close of the first decade of the twentieth century was, however, a ‘nationalist-instrumentalist’ one. Following the lead of such Meiji ideologues as Nishimura Shigeki (1828–1902), with his ‘national morals’ as an important tool of ‘maintaining our independence,’15 Korean nationalists defined ‘national ethics,’ together with ‘national essence’ (kuksu: close

13

Hakchigwang, Issue 5, May 1915, Pp. 18–23. Reprinted in: Yi Sanggyˇong (ed.) Na Hyesˇok chˇonjip [Complete Works of Na Hyesˇok] (Seoul: T’aehaksa, 2000), Pp. 183–185. 15 Nishimura Shigeki, Nihon dōtokuron [On Japanese Morals] (Tokyo: Inoueenjō, 1888), Pp. 2–10. 14

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to ‘national culture’ in today’s terms), as the basis of national cohesiveness, essential for the ultimate aim of ‘national survival and greatness.’16 Politics were, in such a way, ethicised once again—but, on the national level, ‘selfish desires’ were now the essence of the sphere of the political, and not an ‘impediment to sagely governance.’

One World, One Survival Dream— The Social Darwinist Pivot of World History Second, the totalising nature of the Social Darwinist picture of a competing world implied a keen interest in the ‘rise and decline’ of states other than Korea and its regional neighbours China and Japan. The world of Social Darwinist ideology was certainly brutal and unforgiving, but it was one world—and Korea’s intellectuals had now to venture into the task of describing the successes and failures of states about which their ancestors had hardly any knowledge at all, and would scarcely have been interested in. In fact, the growth of knowledge of and interest in the outer world was unprecedented and grew exponentially in late nineteenth-century Korea, a phenomenon truly without precedents in Korea’s history. When, in July 1866, one of Chosŏn’s most open-minded mid-nineteenth-century statesmen, Pak Kyusu (1807–1877), led the military assault against an American merchant ship, the General Sherman, as governor of P’yŏngan Province,17 he did it in full confidence that he was dealing with a British, and not an American ship. His views on America were mostly highly positive, but were based on just one source, Wei Yuan’s (1794–1856) rather outdated 1844 Illustrated Gazetteer of the Maritime Countries (Haiguo Tuzhi), which described the USA as a ‘country of etiquette and enlightened governance.’18 Within the next twenty-five or so years, the picture had become much more detailed and realistic: The USA as perceived by Yun Ch’iho served rather as a textbook example of the ‘cosmic law of the 16 Yi Chiwˇ on, Han’guk kˇundae munhwa sasangsa yˇon’gu [Research on Korea’s Modern Cultural Ideology] (Seoul: Hyean, 2007), Pp. 54–64. 17 A British trading company, Meadows & Co, contracted it to sail to Korea in order to ‘open’ it for trade. On this episode, presumably one of the first Korean-American encounters, see: Tyler Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia: a Critical Study of United States’ Policy in the Far East in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Macmillan, 1922), Pp. 416–450. 18 Kim Myŏngho, Ch’ogi Hanmi kwan’gye u ˇ i chaejomyˇong [New Light on the Early Korean-American Relations] (Seoul: Yŏksa pip’yŏngsa, 2005), Pp. 126–128.

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survival of the fittest,’ not that much different from the predatory powers of the Old Continent (see Chapter Two). And the graphic profiles of the victims of these powers began to figure much more prominently in the public consciousness of the Korean intellectuals of the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century. The tremendous influence exerted by Phan Bôi . Châu’s heart-wrenching account of the sufferings of the Vietnamese at the hands of the French colonizers has already been mentioned (Chapter 6); but Vietnam was certainly not the only well-known victim of Western imperialism in 1900s’ Korea. Egypt—hardly a recognizable place at all for the literati of the Chosˇon Dynasty before the epochal epistemological changes of the 1880s–1890s—had high-profile victim status as well. This happened in large part thanks to Chang Chiyˇon’s masterful 1905 Korean translation of Ejiputo Kinseishi, a compilation on modern Egyptian history published by a Japanese Pan-Asianist nationalist, Shiba Shirō (pen name: Tōkai Sanshi; 1853–1922) in 1889 in Tokyo. Shiba—the USA-educated author of the best-selling Pan-Asianist political novel, Kajin no kigū (Unexpected Encounters with Beauties, 1885–1897, incomplete), on the vicissitudes of the lives of exiled Chinese, Spanish and Irish revolutionaries—was attempting to highlight the ‘fairness’ of Japan, the only Asian state able to withstand European predations.19 His Korean translators and readers, however, were more interested in viewing the sad story of Egypt being reduced to a protectorate (a de facto colony) as a ‘lesson’—a dystopic future Korea had to avoid at any cost. Both for Chang Chiyˇon, who ˇ translated the story, and for Pak Unsik who wrote an impassioned foreword to the translation, Egypt’s demise looked like a mystery. Was not Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769–1869), Egypt’s great moderniser, a hero who ‘reformed the corrupt customs and pacified the troubled country,’ a hero on the same level with Washington and Napoleon?20 Was not Egypt an ‘advanced country’ of great antiquity, the ‘original teacher’ of the Europeans in arts and crafts? Were not Egyptians ‘docile, virtuous subjects’ of a state ‘richly endowed with natural resources,’ and governed by able, conscientious rulers, who were assisted by ‘loyal and capable ministers’? What, then, was the reason behind the misfortune befalling the ˇ ‘country of the pyramids’? Pak Unsik suggested that the Egyptian rulers’ 19 Atsuko Sakaki, “Kajin no Kigū: The Meiji Political Novel and the Boundaries of Literature”, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 55, No. 1, 2000, Pp. 83–108. 20 “Aegˇ up kˇunsesa”, in Chang Chiyˇon, Chang Chiyˇon chˇonsˇo [Collected Works of Chang Chiyˇon] (Seoul: Tan’guk taehakkyo Tongyanghak yˇon’guso, 1979–1989), Vol. 3, Pp. 450.

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undoing was their ‘excessive emulation of Europe’ which did not suit ‘the customs of their country,’ and ultimately, their over-reliance on external borrowing which gave the European predators a suitable pretext for imposing their will upon their African prey.21 Thus, a faraway Egypt that Pak and his readers hardly had any hope of ever visiting entered their consciousness as a ‘textbook example’ of the dire consequences of financial dependence on foreigners and ill-advised Westernization. Korea’s own predicament, in this way, was generalized as just one more case in a world-historical drama. ˇ Egypt was not the only place to provide Pak Unsik with an object lesson on the essence of modern international relations. In his ‘Dialogue on our Ability to Strengthen Ourselves’ (Chagang nˇungbu uˇ i mundap, Monthly Taehan Chaganhoe Wˇolbo, Issue 4, October 1906, Pp. 1–3), he uses America’s treatment of the Philippines to show that ‘in this time of competition for survival, the great powers are talking as Bodhisattvas while in reality committing evils like rakˇsa demons.’22 But did not the Filipinos themselves allow their victimization by the ‘demons’? Sin Ch’aeho suggested exactly this, saying in his seminal article, ‘Korea’s Hope’ (Taehan uˇ i Hˇuimang, Monthly Taehan Hyˇophoe Hoebo, April 1908, Pp. 11–20), that Poland, Vietnam, Egypt and the Philippines were ruined because the ‘righteous and loyal’ were a small minority, dwarfed by a ‘stupid, apathetic majority’ of non-patriots. Taking this as a good lesson, Korea might survive and ‘receive good grades when the creator of the world will begin examining the achievements of various peoples’— but only provided Koreans possess enough ‘competitive spirit’ to begin a nationwide patriotic education campaign here and now.23 Encouraging examples of triumphant small nations succeeding in securing their survival were not difficult to find. As it was argued in a Taehan Maeil Sinbo editorial (January 8, 1910), did not Greece manage to become independent from ‘Turkish oppression’ despite the fact that their peninsula is actually smaller than ours? It was also clear that the ‘rakˇsa-like’ actions of the predators did not necessarily go unpunished, especially if the predators belonged to the periphery of ‘civilization.’ Was not Russian autocracy punished for its unjust subjugation of Poland a century 21 See Pak Unsik’s ˇ preface in: Minjok Munhaksa Yˇon’guso [National Literary History Research Institute] (ed.) Kˇundae kyemonggi uˇ i haksul munye sasang [Academic and Literary Ideas of the Modern Enlightenment Period], Pp. 203–208. 22 Pak Unsik ˇ ˇ chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 3, Pp. 68–69. 23 Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇ onjip [Complete works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 3, Pp. 63–72.

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later by the ‘swords of the nihilist party’—that is, during the outbreak of revolutionary terror?24 The newly-discovered variety of the countries ‘under Heaven,’ with all their constantly changing fortunes, with ‘rises and downfalls’ in their competitive strength and hierarchical positions in the ruthless world dominated by ‘might,’ was an evolutionary theater of sorts, one grandiose ‘divine comedy’ of the incessant fight between the wills to power, domination, and survival. Koreans, as spectators, were to draw their conclusions from what the dramas of mysterious, remote Egypt and Poland showed to them—and then to join as actors on the same stage. It was now completely up to Koreans themselves—depending on the success of the ‘selected few’ enlighteners in encouraging patriotism, sports and other important tools of ‘survival struggle’—whether they would play the part of proud Greece or pitiful Vietnam.

Blame the Weak, Praise the Conquerors! Third, their keen interest in the world’s ‘unfit’ notwithstanding, Korea’s Social Darwinism-inspired intellectuals were not inclined to criticise the ‘fitter’ victimizers too harshly. The victimization was natural; and the victims themselves were primarily to be blamed for their failure to successfully resist and win. As Han Yong’un put it in a philosophical way: Basically, if A possesses enough strength to surpass and suppress B, the sin—ethically speaking—is being committed by A and not by B. But from the viewpoint of the world’s natural laws, the sin, on the contrary, is being committed by B and not by A. How do I know this? It is undeniable, simply from a moral standpoint, that all the myriad things under Heaven should not use their strength to attack and harm each other. But it is also undeniable that the survival of the fittest—when the stronger prey upon the weaker—is a natural law as well. […] In a word, all is determined by strength. To make a comparison, the strength of A is like water, and the strength of B is like earth. If some water is poured upon uneven ground, will it flow up or down? Even a five-ch’ŏk25 tall child would understand that it will flow down. Why, after being poured on the same ground, does water 24 “To the Advocates of Korea’s Merger into Japan” (Hanil happangnonja ege koham), in Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 6, Pp. 6147. The June 5, 1909, editorial also showed a positive interest in the ‘self-strengthening’ activities and liberal inclinations of the Young Turks. Chayusin uˇ i piyak sidae (The Epoch When the Goddess of Freedom Flies Up), in Han’guk sinmun yŏn’guso (ed.) Taehan Maeil Sinbo, Vol. 5, Pp. 5471. The Korean reformers saw liberalisation of the regimes in autocratic states like Turkey or Russia, or the struggle for such liberalization, as a part of worldwide evolutionary trends. 25 1 ch’ŏk = ca. 30.3 cm.

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chapter eight flow down and not up? Because the water is placed higher than the ground it flows down. Who could ever guarantee that it would not flow down? In fact, if an area of ground is low there is no guarantee that it will not be flooded. In this case, the best thing to do is to raise the ground, so that the water will not reach there. At this point, we can understand that the strength of A should not be accused of committing a sin, and that the real issue is with the strength of B. Those in the world, who, instead of accusing B, say that A has committed a sin, are not good at self-reflection. For those in this world who find themselves in the same situation as B, it would be good to adopt the above-mentioned view of the circumstances.26

The violence of the strong was simply a natural phenomenon—to be lamented, but not necessarily criticised. More thorough, US-educated, Christian adepts of Social Darwinism like Yun Ch’iho often refused even to lament the application of the ‘law of the survival of the fittest.’ After all, was it not providential that the Whites able and willing to create the ‘most advanced civilization’ took over America from the ‘barbarous Redmen’? Was it not relative, if not absolute, justice?27 This attitude could also be justified through a carefully calibrated, self-conscious appropriation of the norms of Confucian ‘moral politics.’ Did not Mencius once assure us that rulers gain their states through humaneness, and lose them through not being humane (4A: 3)?28 This could be interpreted as good grounds for presenting the failures of the world’s ‘unfit’ as essentially moral failings —and for concurrently preaching ‘spiritual regeneration’ as the right way out of the evolutionary predicament. Thus, a letter from a certain Kim Mansik published by the vernacular edition of the Taehan Maeil Sinbo in 190829 stated that encroachment by foreigners who, ‘following the law of the stronger devouring the weaker,’ colonize weaker countries, is made possible only due to the disunity and egoism of the peoples of the failed states. They ‘bravely engage themselves in internal strife but are so cowardly when it comes to protecting their lands from invaders.’ That was how Egypt, India and Poland stumbled into their present misery, and Korea was now showing signs of the same tendency. The antidote to this, 26 Han Yong’un, Han Yong’un chŏnjip [Complete Works of Han Yong’un], Vol. 2, Pp. 60– 61. See also the English translation in Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen Miller, Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to ‘Socialism with a Buddhist Face’ (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2008), Pp. 73–74. 27 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 2, Pp. 418–419. 28 Wm. Theodore De Bary et. al. (eds.) Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd edition (New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1999), Vol. 1, Pp. 138. 29 “Nara u ˇ i hˇunghago p’yeham i ilsim kwa risim e issˇum” [The Rise and Fall of a Country Depends on Unity or Disheartedness], Taehan Maeil Sinbo, January 5, 1908.

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as a 1908 editorial30 in the vernacular Taehan Maeil Sinbo made perfectly clear, was the ‘spirit of independence.’ Once this spirit was present, ‘even hellfire’ could not prevent the people of a given country from obtaining independence. But it was lacking in Poland, Egypt and the Philippines, these countries being ‘easily cowed into obedience by the emergence of a few battleships and by a few hundred rifle shots’ in the end.31 If the ‘unfit’ lacked not only in muscles but also in spirit, should their fate be lamented at all? And should not the high-spirited, strong-willed conquerors be praised instead? In fact, among those ‘heroes’ whose biographies were almost obligatory reading for younger nationalists at the dawn of the twentieth century, many were better known for offensive, rather than defensive wars—and this increased, rather than diminished the authors’ and readers’ sympathies. One of these novelized biographies, written by Pak ˇ Unsik in 1911 (already in exile in north-eastern China, where he became a teacher at an ethnic Korean school near the Korean border), was entitled An Audience with Jin [Empire’s] Taizu in a Dream (Mongbae Kˇum T’aejo). A famed Jurchen warrior and the founder of the Jin Empire, Wanyan Aguda (Taizu, r. 1115–1123), was, in an outburst of irredentist desire (‘Manchuria is the land of our ancestors. [….] Our ancestors developed it in a struggle with the cold and heat, winds and rains, and ˇ wild beasts and enemies from all four directions’),32 taken by Pak Unsik as a ‘descendant of Tan’gun’ and one of Korea’s historical heroes. In Pak ˇ Unsik’s biography, the Jurchen conqueror explained to the author’s alter ego, the Shameless Fellow (Much’isaeng) who saw him in a dream, that the losers—the ‘weak and inferior’—are those who neglect the sacred duty of developing their Heaven-bestowed abilities and skills, and thus end up ‘losing their rights.’ Aguda’s own victory over the Liao and Song and his conquest of a large part of China were to prove that ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves.’33 And those who do not help themselves and get conquered in the end, have only themselves to blame, since ‘Heaven bestows the same abilities upon all the people, White 30 “Chŏngsin i issˇ umyˇon sasil i pandˇusi nat’anˇunira” [If the Spirit is Present, It Necessarily Gets Its Realization], Taehan Maeil Sinbo, February 8, 1908. 31 The two articles are cited in: Yi Minhˇ ui, P’aran, P’ollandˇu, Ppolsŭkka: 100 nyˇon chˇon uˇ i Han’guk kwa p’ollandˇu uˇ i mannam, kˇu uˇ imi uˇ i chip’yˇong uˇ l ch’ajasˇo [P’aran, Poland, Polska: Searching for the Horizons of the Meaning of Korea’s Encounter with Poland One Hundred Years Ago] (Seoul: Somyˇong, 2005), Pp. 308–309. 32 Pak Unsik ˇ ˇ chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 2, Pp. 194–195. 33 Pak Unsik ˇ ˇ chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 2, Pp. 220–221.

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and Yellow peoples alike, and if I fail to do my job, I reject the blessˇ ing of Heaven.’34 In Pak Unsik’s view, old Korea’s ultimate demise was to be blamed upon the ‘slavish Sinophilia’ of its yangban rulers,35 while ‘national regeneration’ was to be brought about by the ‘patriotic spirit’ ˇ a of the better educated, more self-confident lower classes.36 Pak Unsik, man of Confucian conscience, expressed at least his hope that the ‘Darwinian epoch’ of the present, ‘imperialism’ (chegukchuˇui) being its ‘banner,’ would end at some point in the future with the advent of an ‘era of equality’ (p’yˇongdˇungjuˇui) which the long-suffering Korean people would be first to champion.37 However, most other biographers of the great conquerors expressed little, if any, such sentiment. ˇ Sin Ch’aeho—who, unlike Pak Unsik, did not include Jurchens in the ranks of ‘Tan’gun’s descendants’ and was most obsessed with Koguryˇo’s and Parhae’s (Bohai, 699–926) glorious military past—was more than outspoken in his wholehearted acceptance of the right of conquest. In his ˇ Mundˇok, widely read 1909 biography of Koguryˇo’s famous general Ulji best known for a decisive victory over invading Sui Dynasty troops at Salsu (Ch’ˇongch’ˇon) River in 612 in what is regarded as a defensive war for Koguryˇo’s very survival, Sin Ch’aeho praises Koguryˇo’s ability to conduct offensive operations. As imagined by Sin Ch’aeho, Koguryˇo was an empire of sorts, surrounded by once strong states it had managed to ˇ Mundˇok, far from being simply a tame and remake into its vassals. Ulji ‘defender of the fatherland,’ was, in Sin’s interpretation, leading conquering expeditions into foreign lands every year, and entertained ambitions of conquering the whole of China.38 And, according to Sin Ch’aeho, that was just only one more reason for being proud of Koguryˇo, an ‘empire’ which managed to prosper in a world ‘where the survival of the fittest is a natural law.’ At the same time, Korea’s later ‘degradation into a weaker country which even had to cede Tsushima to the Japanese and all the territories to the west of the Yalu River to the Chinese’ caused Sin Ch’aeho to feel intense shame.39 Koguryˇo’s greatness, according to Sin Ch’aeho, was shown by its ability to ‘unite’ its ‘soldiers-citizens’ (pyˇongmin) in a ˇ ˇ Pak Unsik chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 2, Pp. 217. ˇ ˇ Pak Unsik chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 2, Pp. 223–224. 36 Pak Unsik ˇ ˇ chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 2, Pp. 235, 262–263. 37 Pak Unsik ˇ ˇ chˇonjip [Complete Works of Pak Unsik], Vol. 2, Pp. 309–310. 38 Ulji ˇ Mundˇok (reprinted in Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [Complete works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 2, Pp. 251–357), Pp. 26–28. 39 Ulji ˇ Mundˇok (reprinted in Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [Complete works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 2, Pp. 251–357), pp. 29–30. 34 35

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patriotic, self-sacrificial vigour. The cohesion was so effective that, its relatively small initial size notwithstanding, the ancient Korean kingdom was able to ‘make into its colony all the Jurchen villages’40 and ‘conquer tens of thousands of li of the lands to the west of the Yalu River, inhabited by alien tribes (kaekchok) speaking different languages and having different customs.’41 The conquests by the ‘ancient Koreans,’ their ‘superior strength demonstrated to the world,’ were beacons for the ‘national reinvigoration’ that Sin Ch’aeho dreamed of—great conquering kings and generals were supposed to be both sources of its strength and its eternal symbols.42 While ‘our’ conquerors were certainly most inspiring for ‘us,’ the modern European ones, too, provided important and instructive references. In his ‘Foreword’ (sˇo) to Yu Wˇonp’yo’s 1908 novel about meeting in a dream with China’s great military hero and statesman, Zhuge Liang, Sin Ch’aeho challenges Yu Wˇonp’yo to answer why he writes about an ancient Chinese warrior at a time when everybody, naturally enough, reads and admires the biographies of Napoleon, Washington, Cromwell and Bismarck. Yu replies that the book, indeed, is a ruse intended to awaken the Confucians who would have refused reading anything unless the plot was related to a classical Chinese history. Then he fills the pages of the book with strongly-worded criticisms of Zhuge’s ‘antiquated scholarship completely dedicated to the concept of loyalty to the sovereign, which was to disappear after Zhuge’s death’ and of his ‘inventions used only once, which thereafter were useless for the state and its people.’ In the end, he pronounces his critical verdict over ‘stubbornly conservative China’ in general, its higher classes being ‘reliant upon intrigues’ and its lower classes ‘depending on shamans and sorcerers.’43 An attitude like this towards illustrious European heroes was completely unthinkable. Unlike ‘unfit’ China—which Sin Ch’aeho regarded, together with Japan, as a permanent ‘inimical state’ (chˇokkuk) throughout the course of Korea’s

40 Ulji ˇ Mundˇok (reprinted in Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [Complete works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 2, Pp. 251–357), Pp. 30–31. 41 Ulji ˇ Mundˇok (reprinted in Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [Complete works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 2, Pp. 251–357), Pp. 77. 42 Ulji ˇ Mundˇok (reprinted in Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [Complete works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 2, Pp. 251–357), Pp. 78–79. 43 Yu Wˇ onp’yo, Monggyˇon Chegal Lyang [Seeing Zhuge Liang in a Dream] (Seoul: Kwanghak Sˇop’o, 1908), Pp. 2–8, 44–46, 71; Yi Sˇungwˇon, O Sˇonmin, Chˇong Yˇoul, Kungmin kukka uˇ i chˇongch’i-jˇok sangsangnyˇok [The Nation-state’s Political Imagination] (Seoul, Somyˇong, 2003), Pp. 277–343.

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history44—Europe and America were places, where, as An Ch’angho forˇ Mundˇok, national mulated it in his preface to Sin Ch’aeho’s eulogy to Ulji heroes were constantly praised and gladly served by a patriotic citizenry. Consequentially, legions of new Napoleons and Washingtons were continuously appearing there.45 From them Koreans were to learn how to ˇ Mundˇok in a repeat the great colonizing and conquering feats of Ulji more modern style.

Reforming the Unfit into the Fittest While Korea’s future as ‘new Koguryˇo’ was but a dream, Korea’s colonization by Japan was the sad reality. All the admiration the nationalists expressed towards the Napoleons and Bismarcks of the ‘civilized world’ notwithstanding, their own country ended up sharing—as had been feared so often in the first decade of the twentieth century—the plight of Vietnam, Egypt and Poland. What was the reaction of the pre-colonial adepts of Social Darwinism to the reality of their land becoming an ‘unfit’ appendage to its ‘fittest’ neighbour? An Ch’angho, the youthful nationalist leader who devoured Liang Qichao’s writings in the late 1900s, continued to pin his hopes upon the gradual ‘cultivation of strength through national renovation’ on the ethical and behavioural planes. An acknowledged leader of the Korean-American diaspora, he assumed the post of Minister of the Interior in Korea’s Shanghai-based Provisional Government of nationalist exiles formed on April 13, 1919.46 In this capacity, he made on January 3, 1920, a seminal speech to Shanghai Koreans on the ‘six spheres [of activity needed to recover Korea’s independence]’ (military preparations, diplomacy, education, financial preparations, entrepreneurship and the unity of various factions). In his conclusion, he emphasized that ‘whether we live or die, whether we remain slaves or achieve independence, depends on our intellectual and financial strength.’ To build up this strength, ‘everybody, if you want to be counted as a Korean, including women,’ had to receive obligatory military training. Simultaneously, students had to study assiduously, since 44 Yi Sˇ ungwˇon, O Sˇonmin, Chˇong Yˇoul, Kungmin kukka uˇ i chˇongch’i-jˇok sangsangnyˇok [The Nation-state’s Political Imagination], Pp. 195. 45 Ulji ˇ Mundˇok (reprinted in Sin Ch’aeho, Tanjae Sin Ch’aeho chˇonjip [Complete Works of Sin Ch’aeho], revised edition, Vol. 2, pp. 251–357), Pp. 1–2. 46 Chu Yohan (ed.) An Tosan Chˇ onsˇo [Complete Works of Tosan An Ch’angho] (Seoul: Samjungdang, 1963), Pp. 199–201.

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a pause even for one day in their studies would ‘cause damage to the state.’ On top of this, the willingness to ‘sincerely follow’ the orders of the Provisional Government had to be matched by a patriotic ardour strong enough to assassinate ‘such pro-Japanese traitors as Min Wˇonsik (?–1921), an advocate of autonomy instead of independence from Japan,’ and thus ‘establish sacred discipline.’47 It was also obvious that the Social Darwinist vision of ‘national strength’ underpinned the ideology of the Young Korea Academy (Hˇungsadan), a ‘young leaders-raising organization’ modelled partly on the American Freemason clubs, established by An Ch’angho and 25 other exiles in San Francisco on May 13, 1913. The Young Korea Academy’s stated aim was to ‘unify the righteous and loyal men and women for the sake of collective engagement’ in the Spencerian triad of ‘moral, physical and intellectual improvement,’ with the ultimate objective of ‘building a sacred organization to lay the foundations for the national future.’48 The Young Korea Academy was designated to become the nucleus for a new, ‘fitter’ Korea. An’s hopes for such a ‘gradual cultivation of national strength’ where shared by Yi Kwangsu at least until the late 1920s. In practice, Yi was An Ch’angho’s informal representative inside Korea after April 1921, when he returned from his exile in Shanghai in a compromise with the Japanese colonial authorities.49 Yi Kwangsu’s famed Treatise on National Reconstruction (Minjok kaejoron, Kaebyˇok, Vol. 23, May 1922) took as its starting point that the Korean nation was by no means without hope. Yi Kwangsu argued that what Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) identified as ‘the soul of race,’ or unchangeable basic national character,50 is more than salubrious in the Korean case—brave, humane, a bit ascetic, and altruistic. The problem was defined by Yi Kwangsu as one of improving 47 Chu Yohan (ed.) An Tosan Chˇ onsˇo [Complete Works of Tosan An Ch’angho], Pp. 555– 567. Min was indeed assassinated on February 16, 1921, by a young nationalist, a certain Yang Kˇunhwang (1894–1950), evidently not associated with the Provisional Government. 48 Hˇ ungsadan 50 nyˇonsa [50-Year History of the Young Korea Academy] (Seoul: Taesˇong Munhwasa, 1964), Pp. 14. 49 Chang Kyusik, Han’guk kidokkyo minjokchuˇ ui yˇon’gu [A Study of Korea’s Christian Nationalism] (Seoul: Hyean, 2001), Pp. 142. 50 See: Gustave Le Bon, Les lois psychologiques de l’évolution des peuples (Paris: F. Alcan, 1894), and the English translation, The Psychology of Peoples (NY: Macmillan, 1898). Yi Kwangsu—who systematically used Le Bon’s ideas in the 1920s—was likely to have read the Japanese translation by Maeda Chōta, Minzoku hatten no sinri [Psychology of the Development of Nations] (Tokyo: Dainihon bunmei kyōkai, 1910). See Yi Kwangsu’s direct reference to Le Bon’s work in: “Minjok kaejoron”, in Yi Kwangsu chˇonjip [Collected Works of Yi Kwangsu] (Seoul: Usinsa, 1979), Vol. 10, Pp. 125.

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Koreans’ ‘secondary character’ (pusok-chˇok sˇongkyˇok), the sum of national habits which supposedly had degenerated into Sinophilic ‘flunkeyism,’ impractical aloofness, ‘literary weakness,’ ‘empty ritualism,’ egoism and laziness—all due to the ‘unhealthy influence’ of Chosˇon Dynasty Neo-Confucian politics.51 The methods of ‘national improvement’ suggested by Yi Kwangsu ranged from old Social Darwinist recipes already popular at the opening of the century like the enhancement of physical education, sports and personal hygiene (see Chapter Seven), to ‘moral regeneration’ and the nurturing of a ‘self-sacrificial consciousness,’ that is, the ‘ability and willingness to serve one’s society.’52 The avowedly apolitical nature of Yi Kwangsu’s ‘national reconstruction’ discourse made it an easy target for both radical nationalist and socialist criticism,53 but it has to be mentioned that Yi Kwangsu’s ‘non-political cultural improvement’ efforts inside Korea were meant to augment the uncompromisingly independence-oriented political activities of his exiled mentor An Ch’angho and his émigré followers. Yi Kwangsu was aiming at consolidating the ‘central class’ (chungch’u kyegˇup) of the educated, modern-minded and mostly Christian intellectuals and entrepreneurs whom he, in an unabashedly elitist way, saw as the main agents of Korea’s ‘national regeneration’ and ‘strengthbuilding.’54 With this purpose in mind, he united, in January 1926, several smaller groups of An Ch’angho’s adherents, mainly hailing from the north-western region of Korea, into the Suyang Tong’uhoe (Society of Friends in Moral Self-Cultivation), numbering some 98 members upon formation. Almost half of them were teachers by profession. The majority were graduates of north-western Korea’s Christian schools— Pyongyang’s Taesŏng School (16 persons, including the famous Protestant writer, Chŏn Yŏngt’aek, 1894–1968), Pyongyang’s Sungsil School (17 persons, including celebrated Protestant writer and educator, Chu Yosŏp, 1902–1972), Sŏnch’ŏn’s Sinsŏng School (13 persons, including well-known Protestant educator and scholar, Paek Nakjun, 1895–1985)

51

Yi Kwangsu chˇonjip [Collected works of Yi Kwangsu] (Seoul: Usinsa, 1979), Pp. 126–

131. 52

Yi Kwangsu chˇonjip [Collected works of Yi Kwangsu] (Seoul: Usinsa, 1979), Pp. 131–

137. 53 Pak Sˇ ongjin, Sahoe chinhwaron kwa singminji sahoe sasang [Social Darwinism and Colonial Period Social Ideas] (Seoul: Sˇonin, 2003), Pp. 173. 54 Pak Sˇ ongjin, Sahoe chinhwaron kwa singminji sahoe sasang [Social Darwinism and Colonial Period Social Ideas], Pp. 169.

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and several others. The society included some of the most socially active and well-educated Protestant personalities of colonial Korea. It soon came to dominate some of the important Protestant youth, peasant and other organizations, both regionally in Pyongyang and on the national level.55 The society’s monthly, Tonggwang, became an important organ for moderate middle-class nationalists, who were trying hard to adjust their ‘nation-improving activities’ to the realities of colonial life, against which they had no intention to ‘prematurely’ rebel.56 In the process of this adjustment, prompted both by their own fears of the growing popularity of the radical Left in Korea and their observations of the growth of the radical Right in Europe and Japan, some members of the society themselves began to shift radically towards the extreme Right from the late 1920s on. The archetypical example was Yi Kwangsu himself,57 his December 1931 ‘The New Understanding of Might’ (see the beginning of Chapter One) showing that by this point Yi viewed ‘national strength’ essentially as military might. Some of Yi Kwangsu’s writings from the early 1930s offer good grounds to call their author an aspiring ideological fascist. For example, Treatise on the Leader (Chidojaron, Tonggwang, Vol. 23, July 1931) defined humans as irrational beings led by the ‘innate will to life,’ prone to unending conflicts, and desperately needing ‘submission to firm leadership’ as the main guarantee of their collective survival. Return to the Beast (Yasu e uˇ i pokkwi, Tonggwang, Vol. 21, May 1931) openly praised the Italian fascists for saving their part of Europe from a ‘descent into utter bestial barbarism.’ Nevertheless, a conversion to fascism was not necessarily typical for Yi Kwangsu’s milieu of rightwing journalists and writers. It is undeniable that Social Darwinism, accepted by Yi during his formative years, remained the cornerstone of his worldview throughout his whole life, and greatly facilitated his conversion from a ‘nationreconstructional’ cultural nationalist into a fascistic ideologue, who, after the destruction of his Suyang Tong’uhoe by the Japanese police in 1937,

55 Cho Paewŏn, Suyang Tong’uhoe, Tong’uhoe Yŏn’gu [Research on the Society of Friends in Moral Self-Cultivation and Society of Friends] (M.A. thesis, Sŏnggyun’gwan University, Seoul, 1998), Pp. 11–20. 56 Chang Kyusik, Han’guk kidokkyo minjokchuˇ ui yˇon’gu [A Study of Korea’s Christian Nationalism], Pp. 140–153. 57 Kim Hyˇ onju, “Yi Kwangsu uˇ i munhwa-jˇok p’asijˇum” [Yi Kwangsu’s Cultural Fascism], in Kim Ch’ˇol and Sin Hyˇonggi (eds.) Munhak sok uˇ i p’asijˇum [Fascism in Literature] (Seoul: Samin, 2001), Pp. 95–129.

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had little qualms about collaborating with Japan’s war efforts. However, it is also important to remember that a good number of equally Social Darwinism-inspired intellectuals of the 1920s–1930s were much more reluctant than Yi to accept fascism as ‘the logic of our times.’ An Chaehong (pen name: Minse, 1891–1965), a noted ‘cultural’ nationalist and the assistant editor (1929–1931) of an influential moderate right-wing daily, the Chosˇon Ilbo, was editorialising, for example, on the impracticability of ‘national unity’ without a complicated process of discussions, negotiations and compromises58 and the implausibility of a ‘superhuman’ national leadership by a unique charismatic ‘hero.’59 Another influential public intellectual on the right, Song Chinu (pen name: Koha, 1890–1945), the powerful editor (1927–1937) of the Korean middle-class’ most trusted medium, the daily Tong’a Ilbo, despite his willingness to remake ‘Korean weaklings’ into a ‘strong nation’ through a nationwide sports enhancement campaign,60 was arguing, in the best social-liberal spirit, for the abolition of the death penalty. Like most liberals and socialists worldwide, he called for the prevention of crime through a more equal redistribution of social goods.61 To speculate on the necessity of ‘racial improvement’ and ‘national consolidation’ in times when nationalism still reigned supreme was one thing, but to voluntarily approve of the wholesale destruction of the liberal order was quite another. As one good example, An Ch’angho never became a fascist;62 neither did the most venerable of all the colonial adepts of ‘survival of the fittest,’ Yun Ch’iho. A sceptical position towards German fascism, at least—as contrasted to its Italian prototype—is clearly discernable in his diary.

58 “Pip’an-jˇ ok nonjaeng uˇ ro” [Towards a Critical Discussion], Chosˇon Ilbo, January 20, 1931. 59 “Tan’gyˇ ol kwa chido uˇ i pip’an” [Criticism of Unity and Leadership], Chosˇon Ilbo, August 21, 1930. 60 “Oksen ˇ Chosˇon, kutkˇonhan minjok” [Strong Korea, Muscular Nation], Monthly Sindong’a, March 1934, Pp. 1–4. 61 Song Chinu, “Sahyˇ ong p’ejiron” [On the Abolition of the Death Penalty], Samch’ˇolli, Vol. 6, May 1930, Pp. 42–43. 62 Chang Kyusik, Han’guk kidokkyo minjokchuˇ ui yˇon’gu [A Study on Korea’s Christian Nationalism], Pp. 236–247.

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If You Can’t Beat ’em, Join ’em! Yun Ch’iho chose, after his release from prison in February 1915,63 the path of adjustment to the realities of foreign domination. The justification was simple: ‘We must remember the proverb that the law is further away than the fist, and heed the shrewd advice not to bark until you can bite at the same time’64 (Yun Ch’iho’s Diary, August 10, 1920). That Yun Ch’iho’s Social Darwinist logic served his down-to-earth interest in self-preservation is undeniable. As one of Korea’s richest landowners, he had plenty to lose in the event of any serious troubles with the Japanese authorities. That it led him, in the end, to the practical negation of any public role for his Christian faith and to wholesale collaboration with Japan’s aggressions after 1937, is more than true, too.65 It is also true that Yun’s warm attitude towards Mussolini—on February 11, 1929, Yun was so moved by reading Mussolini’s Autobiography that he wrote in his diary: ‘Not only Italy, but China, Russia, India and Korea desperately need Mussolini to deliver them from the abominations of sentimental internationalism, bestial Bolshevism, sickening Socialism.’ This was certainly self-interested, since ‘bestial Bolshevism’ was a direct threat to Yun’s socio-economical status. Hatred of Bolshevism did not translate, however, into unqualified support for Hitler, the ‘mad dog’ and ‘hungry wolf,’ whose burning of books and persecutions of Jews Yun compared in his diary (May 16, 1933) with the notorious book-burning and slaughter of Confucian scholars ascribed in Chinese tradition to the First Emperor,

63

Yun was a central figure in a large-scale trial the Japanese colonial authorities initiated against the nationalist intellectuals and businessmen (mostly Christians) of the north-western and central provinces of Korea in January 1911. The nationalists (mostly teachers, students and traders) were accused—on the basis of concocted evidence, often extracted under torture—of planning to assassinate Governor-General Terauchi Masatake (1852–1919). While more than 700 people were arrested, only 123 were indicted, due to lack of evidence; 105 were pronounced guilty in the first trial (that is why the case is often referred to as the ‘Case of the One Hundred Five’), but 99 of them had to be acquitted in the second trial, in part due to international criticism. Yun Kyˇongno, 105 sagˇon kwa Sinminhoe yˇon’gu [A Study of the ‘Case of the One Hundred Five’ and the New People Society] (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1990). Yun Ch’ho was said to have pronounced to his Seoul YMCA colleagues upon his release that ‘only strength, and not reckless actions, will save Korea—the strength acquired through ethical and intellectual self-cultivation’—and thus to have greatly disappointed them. Yi Kwangsu, “Kyumo uˇ i in: Yun Ch’iho ssi” [A Man of Scale—Mr. Yun Ch’iho], Tonggwang, Vol. 10, February 1927, Pp. 9. 64 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 8, Pp. 117. 65 Yang Hyˇ onhye, Yun Ch’iho wa Kim Kyosin [Yun Ch’iho and Kim Kyosin] (Seoul: Hanul, 1994), Pp. 75–101.

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Qin Shi Huangdi (259–210 bc).66 One proviso in Yun’s anti-Hitlerism was, however, Yun’s wish (confessed to his diary on June 22, 1941) to see Hitler ‘deal[s] a crushing blow to Communism, the greatest curse humanity has ever seen’ in the course of the Soviet-German war.67 Stalin’s ‘action against Japan’—that is, ‘Bolsheviks’ coming to deprive Yun and the other people of his circle of their positions—was Yun’s greatest nightmare, and dwarfed all the crimes of Hitler in Yun’s eyes.68

Radical Philosophically, Careful Gradualist Politically As one can see from the stories of the leading adepts of ‘struggle for survival’ narrated above, the Social Darwinism-inspired elite from the 1910s to the 1940s—conformist ‘realists’ (Yun Ch’iho) and right-wing independence activists (An Ch’angho) alike—mostly spoke the language of ‘gradualism.’ ‘War-like races,’ like the Italians (among whom ‘such a hero as Mussolini’ was born) and ‘the people of Europe’ generally, were admired69 but the distance between them and Korea was too evident70 to appeal to Koreans for anything more than a ‘gradual cultivation of strength.’ This might be one reason why Yi Sˇungman (introduced in Chapter Two) eventually defeated Pak Yongman (mentioned in Chapter Seven) in the struggle for leadership over the Korean community in Hawaii in 1914–1916.71 Pak was the founder of the Young Korean Military School (1909–1914) in Nebraska and the author of the Treatise on Universal Military Duty (Kungmin Kaebyˇongsˇol; completed in 1911).72 In this treatise, he stated that in the ‘struggle for survival,’ 66

Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 10, Pp. 125–126. Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 11, 396–397. 68 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 11, Pp. 404–405. 69 Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 8, Pp. 117; Vol. 9, Pp. 167. 70 Yun speculated that, ‘If there is one crime more unpardonable than others which the Yi Dynasty committed against the Korean race during the five centuries of its inglorious despotism, it is the systematic suppression, to the point of eradication, of the Spirit of fight or the martial spirit of the people. That damnable policy of effeminizing the whole race just to keep the degenerate Yi family on the throne has made the Korean an easy prey to every aggressor in every line of life’ (Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 9, Pp. 166). Since Koreans were a ‘non-martial,’ ‘effeminated’ race, Yun did not expect them to be able to independently ‘compete for survival’ against the Japanese or Europeans in the foreseeable future. 71 Pang Sˇ onju, Chaemi hanin uˇ i tongnip undong [Independence Movement of the Koreans in the USA], Pp. 78–105. 72 The original 1911 publication has still not been found; most research uses the 67

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in which trade rivalry easily translated into wars, all societies had to militarize themselves to survive, and the Korean diaspora in the USA ought to undergo a process of ‘total militarization’ to prepare for the independence war against Japan.73 The alumni of the Military School included several dozen prominent Korean-American community organizers, independence activists and intellectuals, but by the end of the 1910s, Pak’s profile inside the émigré society seems to have been decisively weakened.74 The belief in the cosmic ‘struggle for survival’ being widespread and pervasive, the majority both inside and outside the borders of colonial Korea were not inclined to see Koreans as able to play any independent role in this universal drama for the time being. This meant that Yi Sˇungman’s attacks against Pak Yongman’s ‘meaningless spending’ on a military school for Korean adolescents could gain the support of many influential Koreans on Hawaii.75 Since Koreans were seen as still not ‘fit’ quite enough, their participation in great ‘battles for survival’ had to be limited to siding with those ‘fittest’—those whose fortunes the Social Darwinism-influenced nationalists deemed most crucially important for their own. Such was the case in Yi Kwangsu’s fascistic enthusiasm, strongly blended with admiration for Japan’s victories already in the early 1930s. The conquest of the weaker per se having been legitimised by Social Darwinist theoreticians already in the 1900s, such a move was hardly surprising. Equally unsurprising was the almost complete absence of a fascist ideology of their own among colonial Korea’s wealthier classes. They had, after all, no plans to launch their own wars of expansion and desperately needed some of the basic freedoms of a ‘normal’ bourgeois society (freedom from arbitrary governmental intervention into their profitmaking activities, first and foremost) to preserve and develop themselves in an essentially unfree, colonial situation.76 One serious problem treatise as serialized in Tongnip, the organ of the American branch of the Korean Revolutionary Party (Chosˇon Hyˇongmyˇongdang), between April 11 and August 22, 1945. See: Kim Tohun, “1910nyˇondae Pak Yongman uˇ i kunin yangsˇongnon” [Pak Yongman’s Theories on the Cultivation of the Military in the 1910s], Kunsa [Military History], Vol. 42, April 2001, Pp. 125–155. 73 Kim Tohun, “1910nyˇ ondae Pak Yongman uˇ i kunin yangsˇongnon” [Pak Yongman’s Theories on the Raising of the Military in the 1910s], Pp. 136–154. 74 An Hyˇ ongju, Pak Yongman kwa Hanin Sonyˇonbyˇong Hakkyo [Pak Yongman and Young Korean Military School] (Seoul: Chisik Sanˇopsa, 2007), Pp. 333–413. 75 Pang Sˇ onju, Chaemi hanin uˇ i tongnip undong [Independence Movement of the Koreans in the USA], Pp. 83–88. 76 Yi T’aehun, “1930 nyˇ ondae chˇonban minjokchuˇui seryˇok uˇ i kukche chˇongse insik

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the established nationalist leadership found with the emergent fascistic groups was their leaders’ claims to power, which threatened the existing hierarchy of influence in colonial society. This was the reason why Korea’s church leaders, Yun Ch’iho included, reacted promptly when Sin Hˇung’u (1883–1959), the Seoul YMCA’s Secretary-General (ch’ongmu) from 1932, attempted in September 1933 to organize the ‘Active Faith Group’ (Chˇokkˇuk sinangdan), a secretive faction modelled on the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), and use it in order to infiltrate various Protestant confessions and put them under his direction. The ‘Active Faith Group,’ built upon the principle of ‘complete obedience to the leader’ and scepticism about the ‘egoistic and predatory nature’ of unorganized capitalism, was strongly condemned in the Yun Ch’iho-initiated February 1935 text ‘Declaration of the Meeting of Seoul Christian Leaders’ (Chae Kyˇongsˇong kidokkyo yuji taehoe sˇongmyˇongsˇo). It soon disappeared from the scene, while Sin tendered his resignation as YMCA Secretary-General.77 Prominent right-wing believers in the ‘survival of the fittest’—Yun Ch’iho being the typical example—became, by the 1930s, staunch conservatives, i.e., unabashed apologists of the established order; not the only radical Left, but also the radical Right appeared threatening to them. To summarize, many of the nationalist leaders influenced by Social Darwinism from the beginning of the century or earlier developed, by the 1930s, into right-wing conservatives, more or less content with the status quo or desiring only gradual changes. While the language of radicalism was appropriated principally by left-wingers opposed to Social Darwinism—that is, by Communists and anarchists78—Social Darwinisminspired conservative nationalists spoke principally the language of ‘realism,’ posing as sober, pragmatic defenders of the ‘nation’s best interests.’ The relativization of ethics and the rejection of Confucian moralism brought by Social Darwinists into the Korean intellectual world at the opening of the new century were in great demand in the 1930s, since

kwa p’asijˇum nonˇui” [Understanding of the International Situation and Discussions on Fascism Among Korean Nationalists in the Early 1930s], Yˇoksa Munje Yˇon’gu, Vol. 19, 2008, Pp. 243–269. 77 Chang Kyusik, Han’guk kidokkyo minjokchuˇ ui yˇon’gu [A Study on Korea’s Christian Nationalism], Pp. 211–217; Kim Sangt’ae, “Iljeha kaesin’gyo chisigin uˇ i Miguk insik” [The Perceptions of America by the Christian Intellectuals of the Japanese Colonial Period], Yˇoksa wa Hyˇonsil, Vol. 58, December 2005, Pp. 95–119. 78 On the refutation of Social Darwinism by the anarchists of the 1920s, see: Yi Horyong, Han’guk uˇ i anak’ijˇum: Sasangp’yˇon [Korea’s Anarchism: Ideology] (Seoul: Chisik Sanˇopsa, 2001), Pp. 82–107.

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Korea’s bourgeoisie needed to justify its unceremonious ‘relativization’ of its nationalist ideals in the pursuit of class interests. This group depended upon the Japanese administrators, but also profited vastly from trade and investment in Japanese-occupied Manchuria.79 And a ‘Confucian’ Social Darwinist like Sin Ch’aeho, who treasured loyalty and patriotism as much as he believed in the inevitability of struggles, battles and conquests, had to adopt a new and radical ideology, anarchism, by the mid-1920s, since ‘national survival’-seeking nationalism was by that point mostly associated with gradualism à la An Ch’angho, which Sin despised.80 The iconoclastic meanings of Social Darwinism in the Korean context were, in this way, limited to its assault upon pre-capitalist, Confucian ‘moral politics,’ as well as to the worldwide scope of its gigantic vision of ‘survival struggles’—vision which encompassed the whole of the capitalist worldsystem. In the 1890s and the decade that followed, some adepts of Social Darwinism were social, if not political, radicals; but by the late 1930s, the erstwhile Independence Club leader, Yun Ch’iho, had turned into a staunch defender of the status quo in all its aspects. By becoming the ideology of the group which represented the capitalist world-system on the Korean Peninsula—the colonial bourgeoisie and conservative, established intelligentsia—Social Darwinism put the brakes on any of its possible further iconoclastic implications. It did not become an ideology of workers or the feminist struggle—their attacks upon the colonial capitalist order were mounted under totally different slogans.

Divided Korea, ‘Struggling for Survival’ Korean Social Darwinism-inspired nationalists did not develop a fullfledged, influential fascist ideology, either, although the situation changed dramatically after decolonization in 1945 and the establishment of South Korea’s independent statehood in 1948. Devoid of the colonial protective umbrella and deeply insecure in the face of North Korea’s relatively quick growth81 and of the strong popularity of left-wingers inside South Korea, the established elites, now defined primarily by their 79 Yi Sˇ ungnyˇol, Cheguk kwa sangin [Empire and Traders] (Seoul: Yˇoksa pip’yˇongsa, 2007), Pp. 285–353. 80 Sin Yongha, “Sin Ch’aeho u ˇ i mujˇongbujuˇui tongnip sasang” [Sin Ch’aeho’s Anarchist Independence Ideology], in Kang Man’gil (ed.) Sin Ch’aeho (Seoul: Koryˇo Taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 1990), Pp. 78–148. 81 Bruce Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun (NY: Norton & Co, 1997), Pp. 420–423.

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vicious anti-Communism, felt keenly that the ‘nation’s survival’—and their own—depended on a ‘strong-headed leader’ and the ‘total unity of our nation.’ An Hosang (1902–1999), one of the best-known intellectuals in power in the late 1940s and early 1950s in South Korea, was, for example, promoting his ‘One People’ (Ilmin) ideology. It stressed Koreans’ ‘national homogeneity,’ their ‘single bloodline,’ and the necessity of ‘full unity under the leadership of our only national Leader, President Yi Sˇungman’ as the only way to overcome the predations of both ‘communist imperialism’ and ‘cruel Euro-American capitalism.’82 An was a Jenaeducated Hegelian philosopher whom Americans understood to have been an ‘open admirer of Hitler during World War II.’ They summarized his line of work during his tenure as South Korea’s first Minister of Education (August 1948 to May 1950) as an attempt ‘to install German authoritarian educational principles in Republic of Korea schools.’83 While An’s ideology, viewed with grave suspicion by South Korea’s American backers, was largely discarded after 1953, the discourse of ‘national survival’ based upon ‘self-sacrificial consciousness’ and an ‘ethics of loyalty to one’s state and nation’ resurfaced again under the Pak Chˇonghˇui (Park Chung Hee) dictatorship from 1961–1979. Pak’s favourite topic already in the early 1960s was ‘the development of national consciousness and national loyalty’ as the only way for ‘national salvation,’ the only guarantee for the ‘eternal well-being of the nation’ and its ‘victory’ in the process of reconstruction.84 ‘Rendering one’s service to the state’ was proclaimed ‘the most beautiful deed in the world,’85 and Israel, together with post-war Germany, were taken as examples of ‘national success’ in ‘survival and reconstruction,’86 At this point, of course, ‘survival’ meant primarily victory in the ‘competition of systems’ being waged with North Korea, this

82

An Hosang (ed.) Ilminjuˇui uˇ i ponbat’ang [The Basics of the One People Principle] (Seoul: Ilminjuˇui Yˇon’guwˇon, 1950), Pp. 14–57; Sˇo Chungsˇok, Yi Sˇungman uˇ i chˇongch’i ideollogi [Yi Sˇungman’s Political Ideology] (Seoul: Yˇoksa pip’yˇongsa, 2005), Pp. 15–112. 83 Department of State, Office of Intelligence Research, Intelligence Reports No. 5615: Political Parties in Korea, November 13, 1951, Pp. 25. 84 Pak Chˇ onghˇui Taet’ongnyˇong yˇonsˇoljip [Collection of Speeches by President Pak Chˇonghˇui] (Seoul: Taet’ongnyˇong pisˇosil, 1973), Vol. 1, Pp. 9, 332–333. 85 Pak Chˇ onghˇui Taet’ongnyˇong yˇonsˇoljip [Collection of Speeches by President Pak Chˇonghˇui], Vol. 3, Pp. 686. 86 Pak Chˇ onghˇui Taet’ongnyˇong yˇonsˇoljip [Collection of Speeches by President Pak Chˇonghˇui], Vol. 2, Pp. 264–266; Hwang Pyˇongju, “1960 nyˇondae Pak Chˇonghˇui ch’eje uˇ i ‘t’alhujin kˇundaehwa’ tamnon” [The Discourse of ‘Overcoming Backwardness’ under Pak Chˇonghˇui’s Regime in the 1960s], Han’guk minjok undongsa yˇon’gu, Vol. 56, 2008, Pp. 241–283.

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‘competition’ being a perfect justification for turning South Korea into a virtual barrack state in the late 1960s.87 The vision of a world engaged in an unending ‘struggle for survival’ seems to have retained its popularity among South Korea’s elites of the 1960s–1970s, but their position—that of the ruling class of an authoritarian developmentalist state on the Cold War frontline—led them to much stronger conclusions than those of the colonial elites in the 1930s. It is undoubtedly easy to accuse the Korean believers in the ‘survival of the fittest’ of the first half of the twentieth century of being cynical advocates of the status quo—from which they obviously profited. The problem, however, is that the worldview of Korea’s Social Darwinisminspired intelligentsia often strikes even today’s reader as profoundly realistic rather than simply cynical. For example, was Yun Ch’iho completely wrong when he said the following about the ‘Great War’ of 1914– 1918? The war cry of the Allies was ‘A world safe for democracy.’ Nearly two years have come and gone since the cessation of the great war. Is the world safe for anything today? The only safe world is, or will be, the world where unselfishness rules. As long as selfishness prevails in the councils of nations, great or small, so long will the world be unsafe. The funniest thing in the world, if it were not the saddest, is that every nation pretends that it is the champion of justice and humanity88

A thorough Social Darwinist adept and ‘brutal force worshipper,’ the ‘pro-Japanese collaborator’ and ‘egoistic self-seeker,’ Yun Ch’iho may be accused of having lacked ideals and enthusiasm—but he is simultaneously to be praised for having harboured few illusions about the world he lived in. Social Darwinism, to be sure, was helpful in legitimising colonial collaboration. But at the same time it was also a prism through which the likes of Yun Ch’iho could discern the real interests behind the smoke screen of rhetoric, ‘democratic’ or otherwise. It could hardly play a role as an agent of socio-political change; but it was, to a degree, liberating, when it came to the destruction of baseless hopes or beautiful, but misleading illusions.

87 Jongwoo Han et al., “Authoritarianism in the Hypermasculinized State: Hybridity, Patriarchy, and Capitalism in Korea”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 1, 1998, Pp. 53–78. 88 August 7, 1920, Yun Ch’iho ilgi [Yun Ch’iho’s Diary], Vol. 9, Pp. 97–98.

GLOSSARY OF EAST ASIAN TERMS Cheguk Sinmun (The Imperial Newspaper) 帝國新聞—privately published daily newspaper in Korean (1898–1910). Ch’ˇongnyˇon Haguhoe (Society of the Young Friends of Learning) 靑年學友會—a legal educational and academic association established in 1908 and unofficially affiliated with the illegal Sinminhoe 新民會. Chōsen Shinbō (The Korean News) 朝鮮新報—a privately published weekly (from 1894, bi-daily) newspaper in Japanese (from 1895, published also in a Korean edition). Publishing started in 1892; renamed as Kanjō Shinbō (The Seoul News) 漢城新報in 1894; merged with several other Korea-based Japanese newspapers into Keijō Nippo 京城日報 in 1906. Chungch’uwˇon (Kor.) 中樞院—Royal Privy Council, a consultative organ consisting mostly of high-ranking officials. Assisted the Korean government’s legislative activities, (1894–1910) chung’in (Kor.) 中人—middle strata of Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910) Korean society, encompassing chiefly various professional experts, petty officials and traders hailing from professionals’ lineages. datong (Ch.), taedong (Kor.) 大同—‘Great Unity,’ a utopian Confucian vision of a completely peaceful and harmonious world. Ðông-Du (“Study in the East”) 東遊—a nationalist educational movement in Vietnam, which regarded studying in Japan as an important step in preparation for the struggle for Vietnamese independence (1905–1909). Hakchigwang (The Light of Study) 學之光—a monthly published by the Korean students in Tokyo, 1914–1930. Hakpu (Kor.) 學府—Ministry of Education (1895–1910). Honam Hakhoe (The Honam Academic Society) 湖南學會—an educational and academic association mainly comprising intellectuals and officials hailing from Chŏlla Province (1907–1910). Honam Hakpo (The Honam Academic Journal) 湖南學報—the monthly journal of the Honam Hakhoe 湖南學會. Hwangsˇong Sinmun (The Imperial Capital Newspaper) 皇城新聞—a privately published daily newspaper in Korean (1898–1910). hyangyong (Kor.), xiangyong (Ch.) 鄕勇—local militias in late nineteenth-century China. Ilchinhoe (The Advancement Society) 一進會—a Korean non-governmental political association formed in 1904, which actively cooperated with the Japanese army and civil authorities during and after the Russo-Japanese war (1904– 1905). Ilmin (Kor.) 一民—‘One People,’ i.e., a racial nation united by unitary leadership and self-sacrificial service to the state. An extreme form of statecentred nationalism propagated by An Hosang (1902–1999) and several

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other important politicians and intellectuals of South Korea in the late 1940s to early 1950s. Kabo 甲午—the name of the year 1894 in the traditional East Asian sexagenary cycle. This year was marked by sweeping modernising reforms (the Kabo 甲 午 reforms) in Korea. Keijō Nippo (The Keijō Daily) 京城日報—a daily newspaper in Japanese, the mouthpiece of the Resident-General and the colonial Government-General in Korea (1906–1945). Kiho Hˇunghakhoe (The Kiho Society for the Encouragement of Learning) 畿湖興學 會—an educational and academic association mainly comprising intellectuals and officials hailing from Kyŏnggi and Ch’ungch’ŏng Provinces of central Korea (1908–1910). Kiho Hˇunghakhoe Wˇolbo (The Monthly of the Kiho Society for the Encouragement of Learning) 畿湖興學會月報—the monthly journal of the Kiho Hˇunghakhoe 畿湖興學會. Kōakai 興亞會—‘Raise Asia Society,’ a Japanese Pan-Asianist group (1880– 1883). kˇobuksˇon (Kor.) 거북船—turtle-shaped iron-clad battleships used by Korean Admiral Yi Sunsin (1545–1598) in the Korean-Japanese wars of 1592–1598. kokumin (Jap.) 國民 see: kungmin. kokkashugi (Jap.) 國家主義, see: kukkajuŭi. Kongjagyo 孔子敎 Kongja kyohoe (The Confucian Church) 孔子敎會—a Korean Confucian organization formed in 1909. Politically, it supported the Japanese colonization of Korea. kukkajuŭi (Kor.) 國家主義—‘statism,’ i.e., state-centred nationalism. kukkwŏn (Kor.) 國權—‘state rights,’ a term for ‘state sovereignty’ or ‘state’s authority over its citizens’ in the Korean literature of the 1890s to early1900s. kuksu (Kor.), kokushui (Jap.) 國粹—‘national essence,’ a generic term for national culture, traditions, customs, etc. in Japanese and Korean nationalist publications from the late 1880s onwards. kun (Kor.), 群 see: qun. kungmin (Kor.) 國民—political nation. Kungnaebu (Kor.) 宮內府—Ministry of the Royal Household (1895–1910). kunja (Kor.), junzi (Ch.) 君子—‘gentleman of wisdom,’ an ideal ethical person in the Confucian axiology. Maeil Sinbo (The Daily News) 每日申報—a daily newspaper in Korean, the mouthpiece of the colonial Government-General in Korea (1910–1945). manbaeksŏng (Kor.) 萬百性—‘commoner subjects,’ commoners. man’guk kongbŏp (‘Common Law of Ten Thousand Countries’) 萬國公法—a generic designation for international law in Korea after the 1870s, derived from the title of W.A.P. Martin’s (1827–1916) highly influential classical Chinese translation of H. Wheaton’s (1785–1848) Elements of International Law (Wanguo gongfa, 1864). minkwŏn (Kor.) 民權—‘people’s rights,’ or ‘popular rights.’ mohe (Ch.), malgal (Kor.) 靺鞨—the Tungusic tribes of Manchuria in the first to tenth centuries A.D., often considered to be the ancestors of later Jurchens and Manchus.

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Naebu (Kor.) 內府—Ministry of the Interior (1895–1910). noron (Kor.) 老論—Patriarchs’ Fraction, an academic and political grouping in late Chosŏn Dynasty Korea (late sixteenth to late nineteenth centuries). pobusang (Kor.) 褓負商—members of the state-licensed itinerant traders’ guilds in Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910) Korea. pyˇolgigun (Kor.) 別技軍 - Special Skills Corps, a Japanese-trained unit of the Korean army (1881–1882). Qingyibao (The Pure Opinions Newspaper) 淸議報—a Chinese newspaper published in Yokohama, Japan, from 1898 to 1902. qun (Ch.) 群—‘group’ or ‘collective’. Generic term for larger human collectives (nations, races, etc.) in Chinese and Korean literature from the 1890s to early 1900s. Sinminhoe (New People Society) 新民會—a secret Korean nationalist organisation formed in 1907. Sirhak 實學—‘Real Learning School,’ a generic term for more critical Confucian thinkers in seventeenth to nineteenth centuries’ Korea in South and North Korean historiographies. Sonyŏn (The Adolescent) 少年—a Korean monthly journal aimed mainly at adolescents and students (1908–1911). Sˇobuk Hakhoe Wˇolbo (The Monthly of the Northwestern Academic Society) 西北 學會月報—the monthly journal of the Sˇ obuk Hakhoe 西北學會. Sˇobuk Hakhoe (The Northwestern Academic Society) 西北學會—an educational and academic association formed as a result of the merger between the Sˇou Hakhoe 西友學會, which represented intellectuals and officials from the northwestern provinces (P’yŏngan and Hwanghae), and the Hanbuk Hŭnghakhoe 漢北興學會 (The Society for Encouragement of Learning North of the Han River, 1906–1908), which represented the educated natives of Hamgyŏng Province (1908–1910). Sˇou (The Friends of the West) 西友—the monthly journal of the Sˇou Hakhoe 西 友學會. Sˇou Hakhoe (Friends of the West Academic Society) 西友學會—an educational and academic association mainly comprising intellectuals and officials hailing from north-western Korea (1906–1908). susin (Kor.), shūshin (Jap.) 修身—‘self-cultivation,’ also a term for civics in Japanese (1870s–1945) and Korean (1890s–1945) school curricula. Suyang Tong’uhoe (Society of Friends in Moral Self-Cultivation) 修養同友會—an academic and educational association of Korean colonial intellectuals (1926– 1937). Published the monthly Tonggwang 東光. Taedonggyo (The Religion of Great Unity) 大同敎—a Korean Confucian organization formed in 1909. Politically, it opposed the Japanese colonization of Korea. T’aegˇuk Hakhoe (The [Academic Society of] the Supreme Ultimate) 太極學會— an academic and educational association of Korean students in Japan mainly comprising students hailing from northern and northwestern Korea (1905– 1909). T’aegˇuk Hakpo (The Journal of the [Academic Society of] the Supreme Ultimate) 太極學報—the monthly journal of the T’aegˇ uk Hakhoe 太極學會.

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T’aegŭkkyo (The Religion of the Supreme Ultimate) 太極敎—a reformist Confucian movement launched by Song Pyŏnghwa (1852–1916), Yun Ch’ungha (1885–1946) and other Confucian scholars in 1909. taejangbu (Kor.) 大丈夫—‘real male,’ ‘manly male.’ Taejosˇon Tongnip Hyˇophoe Hoebo (The Journal of Great Chosŏn’s Independence Club) 大朝鮮獨立協會會報—a monthly in classical Chinese published by the Independence Club in 1896–1897. Taehan Chaganghoe (Korean Self-Strengthening Society) 大韓自强會—a pan-national educational and academic association (1906–1907). Taehan Chaganghoe wˇolbo (The Monthly of the Korean Self-Strengthening Society) 大韓自强會月報—the monthly journal of the Taehan Chaganghoe 大韓自强 會. Taehan Hakhoe (The Korean Academic Society) 大韓學會—an academic and educational association of Korean students in Japan mainly comprising students hailing from central and southern Korea (1908–1909). Taehan Hakhoe Wˇolbo (The Monthly of the Korean Academic Society) 大韓學會 月報—the monthly journal of the Taehan Hakhoe 大韓學會. Taehan Hŭnghakhoe 大韓興學會 (The Korean Society for the Encouragement of Learning)—an academic and educational association of Korean students in Japan formed in 1909 as a result of the merger between the T’aegˇuk Hakhoe (The [Academic Society of] the Supreme Ultimate) 太極學會, which represented students from the northern and northwestern provinces (Hamgyŏng, P’yŏng’an and Hwanghae), and the Taehan Hakhoe (The Korean Academic Society) 大韓學會, which represented students from central and southern Korea. Taehan hŭnghakpo (The Journal of the Korean Society for the Encouragement of Learning) 大韓興學報—the monthly journal of the Taehan hŭnghakhoe 大韓 興學會. Taehan Hyˇophoe (The Korean Society) 大韓協會—a pan-national educational and academic association, which succeeded the Taehan Chaganghoe (1907– 1910). Taehan Hyˇophoe Hoebo (The Journal of the Korean Society) 大韓協會會報—the monthly journal of the Taehan Hyˇophoe 大韓協會. Tathātā (Kor. chinyŏ, Ch. zhenru) 眞如—‘suchness,’ the ultimate transcendental reality in Buddhism. Tonggwang (The Eastern Light) 東光—a Korean journal (1926–1927, 1931– 1933). Tongnip Hyŏphoe (Independence Club) 獨立協會—a Korean non-governmental political association (1896–1898). Tongnip Sinmun (The Independent) 獨立新聞—a privately published bilingual Korean-English newspaper (1896–1899). t’ˇukchin’gwan (Kor.) 特進官—special secretaries in the Ministry of the Royal Household (Kungnaebu 宮內府, 1895–1910). ŭibyŏng (Kor.) 義兵—Righteous Armies, the Confucian anti-Japanese guerrillas in Korea in the 1890s–1900s. ŭirye (Kor.), yili (Ch.) 義禮—‘norms of politeness and ritual’ in the Confucian teachings.

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yangban (Kor.) 兩班—the ruling class of Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910) Korea, mostly scholar-officials belonging to distinctive aristocratic lineages and schooled in the Confucian classics. Yogācāra (Kor. yusik, Ch. weishi) 唯識—a school in Mahāyāna Buddhism which regards all phenomena as existing only in the human mind. Also known as the ‘Consciousness-Only School.’ yŏkkwan (Kor.) 譯官—the members of the semi-hereditary status group of interpreters (from colloquial Chinese, Manchu, Japanese, etc.) in Chosŏn Dynasty Korea (1392–1910); usually classified as chung’in 中人.

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INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND PUBLICATION TITLES Aiguoshuo (On Patriotism) 83 Analects of Confucius, The (Lunyu) 186 anarchism 112, 219 see also nihilism anti-Hitlerism 216 Asianism 32, 108, 109 Pan-Asianism 36, 67, 108, 111, 112, 203 autocracy 106, 109, 204 barbarism 213 Bolshevism 215 brain (noesu) 92 bushidō (ways of the warrior) 90 capitalism 6, 7, 26, 218, 220 Cheguk Sinmun (Imperial Newspaper) 53, 85 China Awakening (Ch’ŏngguk ŭi kaksŏng) 103 Chōsen Shinbō (The Korean News) 75 Chosŏn Ilbo, daily 214 Communism 55, 216 anti-Communism 220 Confucianism 9, 12, 22, 24, 27, 33, 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 101, 102, 110, 121, 122, 128, 129, 186, 193 Neo-Confucianism 12, 16, 48, 52, 97, 118, 119, 126, 134, 152, 178, 179, 195, 196, 197, 198, 212 Confucian circles (yurim) 93 Confucian loyalism 162 cosmopolitanism 129 constitutionalism 106, 109 Critique of Asianism, A (Tongyangjuŭi e taehan pip’yŏng) 108

defeatism (p’aebaejuŭi) 59 democracy (minjujuŭi) 5, 80, 131, 139, 195, 221 Diverse Impressions on Japan (Ilbon chapkam pyŏngsŏ) 104 Dōhō ni Yosu (Thinking of My Countrymen) 8 egalitarianism 129 egoism 129, 164, 165, 206, 212 Ethics (Todŏk) 110 fascism 213, 214 familialism 50 Great Battle of Two Dragons (Yong kwa yong ŭi taegyŏkchŏn) 174 Haiguo Tuzhi (Illustrated Gazetteer of the Maritime Countries) 25, 202 Hwangsŏng Sinmun (The Imperial Capital Newspaper) 33, 83, 85, 95, 109, 116, 117, 142, 143, 150, 151, 168 Hinminron (On the Poor) 26 Hŭngsadan (Young Korea Academy) 211 Hakchigwang (The Light of Study) 201 Hakkyu sinron (New Discourse on Education) 154, 183 Heaven Seen in a Dream (Kkumhanŭl) 173 HonamHakpo (The Honam Academic Journal) 186, 223 imperialism (chegukchuŭi) 5, 6, 17, 18, 29, 54, 71, 72, 99, 130, 203, 208, 220 imperialisation (kōminka) 9

250

index of concepts and publication titles

international law (man’guk kongbŏp) 25 intelligentsia 121, 182, 219, 221 internationalism 215 Ipkuk i kyohwawibon (The Basis of State is Civilising [the People]) 53 Japan Day by Day 36 Japan Mail, The 51 Judaism 127 Japanism (Nihonshugi) 9 Kajin no kigu (Unexpected Encounters with Beauties) 203 karma 117, 126 Kiho Hŭnghakhoe Wōlbo (The Monthly of the Kiho Society for the Encouragement of Learning) 87, 224 Korea’s Soul (Chosŏnhon) 97 Korean Repository, The 51 kunja (gentlemen of wisdom) 26 Kyŏngjaeng non (On Competition) 24, 28, 29, 30, 55, 165 Leviathan, The 87 liberalism 129, 139 Lun Zhongguo xueshu sixiang bianqian zhi dashi (On the Main Tendencies in the Changes of Scholarly Ideas in China) 127 Lun Yili (On Perseverance) 94 machismo 176 Mahāyāna 122, 131 Maeil Sinbo 111, 112 Marxism viii, 7, 18 Marxian socialism 7 Marxism-Leninism 195 materialism 50, 51, 129 Meiji, period 9, 28, 53, 66, 71, 72, 77, 81, 98, 103, 104, 106, 109, 111, 113, 118, 133, 137, 139, 141, 163, 164, 165, 171, 201 modernity 1, 9, 10, 11, 59, 83, 85, 90, 91, 114, 119, 122, 123, 124, 125, 138, 172, 182, 194

modern bourgeois ideology vii moral civilization (kyohwa) 92 Muhŭng sinhangmun (Making Efforts to Develop New Knowledge) 53 mundane mores (sedo) 92 My Awakened Life (Yŏ ŭi chagakhan insaeng) 200 nation 1, 3, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 31, 37, 39, 41, 42, 49, 50, 54, 55, 58, 61, 65, 71, 81, 82, 83, 84, 90, 91, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 109, 110, 115, 131, 138, 139, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 163, 164, 165, 168, 172, 173, 180, 186, 187, 190, 192, 204, 220, 221 politic nation (Kor. kungmin, Jap. Kokumin) 10 national essence (kuksu) 92, 93, 95 national homogeneity 220 National Suicide (Guomin zhi zisha) 94 nationalism 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 18, 19, 52, 54, 58, 59, 65, 76, 80, 81, 84, 85, 92, 93, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 109, 110, 111, 115, 116, 119, 121, 132, 135, 139, 149, 150, 151, 152, 158, 159, 162, 163, 164, 173, 175, 176, 177, 179, 181, 190, 191, 192, 194, 201, 202, 207, 210, 213, 214, 218, 219 nativist ethno-cultural (kokushuishugi) 9 Christian 92, 102 and masculinity 65 New Citizen (Xinminshuo) 91, 94, 121, 154 New People of the 20th Century (20 segi sin kungmin) 172 New Understanding of Might (Him uˇ i chaeinsik) 1, 213 nihilism 90 Nodong yahak tokpon (Reader for Workers’ Schools) 35

index of concepts and publication titles

251

nurturing actual strength (sillyŏk yangsŏng) 81

ryōsai kenbo (Kor. yangch’ŏ hyŏnmo) 201

occidentalism 76, 79, 100 On China as an Adolescent (Shaonian Zhongguo shuo) 88 On Enterprise and Adventure [Spirit] (Lun Jingu Maoxian) 91 On Japanese Civilization (Ilbon Munmyŏng’kwan) 104 On the Right of the Strongest (Lun Qiangquan) 88 On Respecting the Military (Lun Shangwu) 154, 182 On the New Morality (Sae Todŏngnon) 201 On the Reformation of Korean Buddhism (Chosŏn Pulgyo Yusin non) 124 One People (Ilmin) ideology 54 organization [in charge of] reconstruction (kaejojuŭi tanch’e) 14 Our Hero (Uri Yŏng’ung) 98 Outline History of Korean Buddhism (Chosŏn Pulgyo T’ongsa) 133

Sagyˇonghoe ch’wijisˇo (Bible Study Society’s Declaration of Intentions) 34 Segye taese ron (Treatise on the Main Global Tendencies) 34 Seyō Jijō (Things Western) 27 Shichinen senshi: furederikku daiō (Frederick The Great’s Seven Years War) 32 Sinhan minbo (New Korea’s Newspaper) 168 Sirhak (Real Learning School) 12, 24 Soul of China (Chunggukhon) 89 Social Darwinism passim Socialism 90, 215 Sohak Tokpon (Primary School Reader) 144 Sonyŏn (The Adolescent) 85, 88, 186, 200 state religion (kukkyo) 92 statism (Kor. kukkajuŭi Jap. kokkashugi) 5, 15, 111 superior state (Sangdŭngguk) 60 Sohak kyoyuk e taehan ŭigyŏn (An Opinion on Primary Education) 34 Sŏbuk Hakhoe Wŏlbo (The Monthly of the Northwestern Academic Society) 94, 225 Sŏho Mundap (Dialogue on the Western Lake) 100, 165, 188, 199 Sŏngsan Myŏnggyŏng (Bright Mirror on a Sacred Mountain) 52 Sŏu (The Friends of the West) 81, 85, 91, 95, 10, 124, 152, 153, 187, 225 Sŏyu kyŏnmun (A Record of Personal Experience in the West) 23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 55, 69, 146, 198 Susinsŏ (Book of Moral SelfCultivation) 146 survival of the fittest (chŏkcha saengjon) 99, 110, 210

patriotism 62, 84, 89, 90, 94, 95, 104, 106, 109, 111, 160, 161, 162, 163, 190, 197, 205, 219 philosophy of strength (him ŭi ch’ŏrhak) 81 physical education (ch’eyuk) 99 Qingyibao 83, 88 Research on Oriental History (Tongyangsa ŭi yŏn’gu) 105 Return to the Beast (Yasu e ŭi pokkwi) 213 rich state, strong army (Fuguo Qiangbing) 88 rights of the state (kukkwˇon) 14, 59, 88, 164 rights of the state’s subject (minkwˇon) 14 ritual regulations (ye) 92

252

index of concepts and publication titles

Taedong Yŏksa (History of the Great Eastern [State]) 149 Taehan Hakhoe Wŏlbo (The Monthly of the Korean Academic Society) 105, 142, 226 T’aegŭk Hakpo (Journal of the [Academic Society of] the Supreme Ultimate) 86, 97, 104, 225 Taehan Chaganghoe Wŏlbo (The Monthly of the Korean SelfStrengthening Society) 85, 103, 197, 204, 226 Taehan Hŭnghakpo (The Journal of the Korean Society for the Encouragement of Learning) 104, 106, 107, 110, 226 Taehan Maeil Sinbo (Korea Daily News) 85, 92, 93, 98, 99, 100, 101, 108, 114, 115, 155, 158, 160, 172, 182, 183, 194, 204, 206, 207 Taehan Hyŏphoe Hoebo (The Journal of the Korean Society) 157, 161, 226 Taehan ŭi Hŭimang (Korea’s Hope) 204 Taejosˇon Tongnip Hyˇophoe Hoebo (The Journal of Great Chosˇon’s Independence Club) 19, 226 Taoism 119, 123, 129 Task of Today’s Korean Youth (Han’guk kŭmil ŭi ch’ŏngyŏn saŏp) 107 Tong’a Ilbo, daily 214

Tonggwang (The Eastern Light) 1, 212 Tongmong sŏnsŭp 99 Tongnipnon (On Independence) 74 Tongnip Sinmun (The Independent) 47, 48, 49, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 102, 128, 142 Treatise on National Reconstruction (Minjok kaejoron) 211 Treatise on the Leader (Chidojaron) 213 Treatise on Universal Military Duty (Kungmin Kaebyŏngsŏl) 216 utilitarianism 90 Viêt Nam Wong Guốk Sử (Kor. Wŏllam Mangguksa [History of the Downfall of Vietnam] ) 150 Wˇonhyo Taesa 2 World of Constitutionalism (Iphŏn segye) 106 Xinminshuo (New People) 13, 14 Yinbingshi wenji (Collected Literary Writings from an Ice-drinker’s Studio) 86, 121, 122 zeitgeist 1

INDEX OF PERSONAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES An Ch’angho 80, 81, 85, 86, 92, 121, 174, 210, 211, 212, 214, 216, 219 An Chaehong 214 An Chonghwa 145 An Hosang 220 Anagarika Dharmapala 120 Aston, William George 61 Auerback, Micah ix Bluntschli, Johann K. 14 Bourdieu, Pierre 50 Ceuster, Koen De ix, 166 Chandra, Vipan 58 Chang Chiyŏn 89, 97, 111, 112, 197, 203 Cheju, island 70, 75 Chemulpo 71, 75, 77 Chi Unyŏng 46 Cho Kwang viii Cho Pyŏngsik 79 Ch’oe Kwang’ok 155 Ch’oe Kyŏnghwan 149 Ch’oe Namsŏn 85, 89, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 184, 185, 186, 192, 193, 200 Ch’oe Pyˇonghˇon 52 Ch’oe Sŏkha 97, 104 Ch’oe Tˇoksu viii Chˇong Ch’urhˇon viii Chŏng Inho 149 Chu Sangho 57 see also Chu Sigyˇong Chu Sigyŏng 151 see also Chu Sangho Darwin, Charles 4, 25, 88 Fanon, Frantz 44 Foote, Lucius H. 36

Fukuzawa Yukichi 23, 24, 27, 30, 66, 119, 139, 164 Gale, James Scarth 51 Griffis, William E. 37 Haeckel, Ernest 5, 6 Han Yong’un 8, 114, 124, 125, 132, 133, 134, 135, 205 Han Sei Chin (Han Sejin) 78 Harris, Nigel 18, 19, 196 Hedin, Sven 110 Hedgewar, Keshav Baliram 191 Hintze, Otto 15 Hiroyasu Shinsui 117 Hˇo Kyˇongjin vii Hobbes, Thomas 87, 88 Hoffstädt, Albert ix Huh Donghyun (Hˇo Tonghyˇon) vii Huxley, Thomas 11, 25, 120, 198, 199 Hyŏn Ch’ae 147, 148, 149, 151 Ilchinhoe 103 Ishikawa Chiyomatsu 21 Itō Hirobumi 17, 138 Iwakura Tomomi 66 Jager, Sheila Miyoshi 96 Kanda Naibu 36 Kang Chŏn 104, 105 Kang Youwei 83, 118, 121, 123, 129, 141 Kangsŏ County 80 Karlsson, Anders ix Katō Hiroyuki 9, 13, 14, 20, 35, 133, 139 Keiō Gijuku 22, 23, 25, 157 Kim Ch’angsuk 178

254

index of personal and geographical names

Kim Chinsŏng 106 Kim Hayŏm 91 Kim Hŭisŏn 187 Kim Kihwan 107 Kim Kisˇung vii Kim Ku 177, 193 Kim Mansik 206 Kim Okkyun 36, 45, 46, 47, 119 Kim Ponggwan 189 Kim Sanghyˇon vii Kim Sŏnghŭi 14 Kim Tohyˇong viii Kim Wangbae vii Kim Wŏn’gŭk 165 Kim Yŏnggi 110 King, Ross ix Kojong, King 31, 32, 33, 38, 57, 75, 79, 84, 141, 178, 193, 195 Kropotkin, Pyotr 10 Kuga Katsunan 164 Kwak Chongsŏk 178 Lawson, Konrad ix Lee Jin-kyung ix Lee Namhee ix Liang Qichao 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 97, 100, 114, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 150, 152, 153, 154, 182, 210 Lin Yuezhi (Young John Allen) 38 Mannheim, Karl 15 Mencius 94, 95, 206 Miller, Owen ix Min Pyŏngsŏk 152 Min Yŏnghwan 149 Min Wŏnsik 211 Morse, Edward 21, 23, 24, 25, 35, 36, 37 Muje Sin’gwang 49 Muhammad Ali Pasha 203 Mun Ilp’yŏng 189 Mun Yu Yong (Mun Yuyong) 78 Mussolini, Benito 215, 216 Mutsu Munemitsu 31

Na Hyesŏk 201 Nakamura Masanao 36, 127 Nishimura Shigeki 201 Okakura Tenshin 18 Omori 21 Ōkubo Toshimichi 66 Ōkuma Shigenobu 66, 77 Pak Chŏnghŭi (Park Chung Hee) 220 Pak Kyusu 202 Pak, Mikhail Nikolaevich viii Pak Sangmok 188 Pak Sŏnghŭm 102, 158 Pak Sˇongjin vii Pak Ŭnsik 117, 121, 151, 153, 154, 156, 183, 187, 203, 204, 207, 208 Pak Yŏnghyo 119, 141 Pak Yongman 170, 216, 217 Pang Kijung viii Phan Bôi Châu 150, 203 Powell, Robert Baden 64 Qin Shi Huangdi 216 Radder, Patricia ix Ridgway, Matthew 54 Satow, Ernest Mason 60 Schmid, Andre ix Shakyamuni 48 Shiba Shirō 203 Shibue Tamotsu 31 Sin Ch’aeho 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 108, 110, 111, 112, 132, 158, 162, 172, 173, 191, 199, 204, 208, 209, 210, 219 Sin Haeyŏng 144, 199 Sin Hŭng’u 218 Song Chinu 214 Sŏ Chaep’il (Philip Jaisohn) 47, 48, 49, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 93, 102, 103, 109, 114, 129, 195, 197

index of personal and geographical names Spencer, Herbert 4, 25, 133, 160, 180, 181 Sumner, William Graham 6 Sunjong. King 32 Taixu 123, 125, 129, 132 Takahashi Gorō 118 Tan Sitong 118 Tan’gun 33, 34, 35, 105, 149, 159, 207, 108 Toyotomi Hideyoshi 184, 185 Tyagai, Galina Davydovna vii Ueki Emori 26 Ŭiju 102 Ŭihwa, Prince 31 Underwood, Horace Grant 46 Wanyan Aguda 207 Watt, James 27 Weber, Max 57 Wei Yuan 25, 202 Wˇonhyo 2 Wŏn Yŏng’ŭi 151 Xunzi 94 Yamagata Aritomo 137 Yamanouchi Masaaki 151 Yang Kit’ak 92 Yang Wenhui 118 Yi Chinsang 178 Yi Chongman 188 Yi Haksu 2 Yi Hwang 178, 198

255

Yi Ki 189 Yi Kwangnin vii Yi Kwangsu 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, 98, 114, 133, 135, 200, 201, 211, 212, 213, 217 Yi Kyuhwan 148 Yi Kyuyŏng 103 Yi Nŭnghwa 133 Yi Sŭngman (Syngman Rhee) 53, 54, 216, 217, 220 Yi Sang’ik 151 Yi Sangch’ŏn 200 Yi T’aejik 140 Yŏ Pyŏnghyŏn 157 Yu Kiljun 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 45, 47, 52, 55, 56, 69, 70, 75, 80, 109, 119, 120, 146, 164, 195, 198 Yu Sŏngjun 34 Yu Wŏnp’yo 16, 209 Yun Ch’iho 8, 22, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 77, 78, 79, 92, 93, 102, 103, 119, 120, 129, 133, 134, 135, 195, 198, 202, 205, 214, 215, 216, 218, 221, 219, 221 Yun Hyojŏng 102, 103, 196 Yun Ungnyŏl 36, 37 Zhang Binglin 119 Zhang Zhidong 118 Zhengzi 94 Zhuge Liang 209