May 2, 1997

In their attempts to formulate appropriate paradigms to explain the differing elements, movements, and events of modern Korean history, Korean Historians have focused on four distinct models: Confucian (yukyo), Colonial(singmin), nationalist(minjok), and minjung, or "populist," historiography.


The first of these paradigms, Confucian historiography, is concerned on the idea that a nation's "culture" constitutes the overriding determinant of its history, and that as such, given Korea's long history as vassal state under Chinese cultural and geopolitical suzerainty, an understanding of this influence is crucial in understanding the strains of Korean historical development. During the Three Kingdoms period, for example, cultural and diplomatic relations between China and Korea greatly influenced Korean social and political development in the areas of education ( the Chinese writing system), the development of a strong state apparatus and the rise of a central bureaucracy, and a deep respect for history, as epitomized in scholar Kim Pu-shik's 1145 Samkuk sagi, or "History of the Three Kingdoms," which sought to present an accurate record of Korean history as well as illustrate the importance of moral rule on government and society. By the Koryo period, then, Chinese Confucian culture had supplanted Buddhism as the leading influence on Korean society, and it is this influence that is the source of Korea's historical legacy, according to Confucian historiography.


But this school has its detractors, most notably modern nationalist historians who criticize the Confucian school as taking an overly Sino-centric view of Korean history, reflecting the Chinese bias that it was the center of the world -- the " Middle Kingdom" -- and thus that Korea's position was little more than as the recipient of Chinese influence. Objections to Korea's inferior position vis-a-vis China and to Korea's overly deferential attitude to China in the form of its history of sadae-juui, or "lackey-ism," are manifestations of this nationalist historical criticism, which arose during and after Korea's colonial experience under Japanese rule, which will be discussed in greater detail below.


The second paradigm, colonial historiography, or singmin sahak, is of a fundamentally geopolitical nature and is the direct consequence of Korea's colonial experience under Japanese rule(1910-1945). This school points to geographic determinism as the leading factor in Korean history and argues that given Korea's geographic position, international interaction with surrounding powers, especially China, Japan, Russia, and more recently, the United States, is inevitable. According to this school, the influence (or interference) of foreign "actors" has resulted in the inability of Koreans to chart an independent course in making policy, leading to a subservient national character and the predominance of acute factionalism in Korean politics. Colonialist historians have also pointed to the unusual extent of foreign influence in Korea(what Japanese call gaiatsu) and to the retarded or stunted nature of Korean historical development, as reflected in the continued existence of slavery up to the end of the Choson dynasty and the lack of a feudalist stage in Korea's historical development. In short, the colonial school of historical interpretation argues not only that historical development in Korea is distinguished by its lack of indigenous progress, but also that what progress that has occurred has been the direct result of foreign influence and/or pressure. In the context of Japan's colonial rule, then, modern Korean history is the history not of autonomous but of dependent development.


This view is, to say the least, controversial, and nowhere more so than among its nationalist detractors. The third paradigm of Korean historiography, the nationalist school, emerged as a reaction against Japanese colonialism and the political turbulence that followed national liberation in 1945. According to this school, Korean development as a modern civil society was thwarted just as it was emerging from the long, slow decline of the Choson dynasty. In the late 19th century, so the argument goes, Korea was on the verge of a cultural, political and social renaissance, led by a number of enlightened intellectuals (e.g. the Kapsin and Kabo reform movements and the Independence Club) who saw the decay of the Choson dynasty and recognized the need to bring Korea out of its self-imposed isolation. Unfortunately, this indigenous progress fell victim to Japanese encroachment on th Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, notably with Japanese victories in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95, and in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-04, both of which represented the emergence of Japan as a regional hegemon. In this international environment, Korea was the proverbial "shrimp caught between fighting whales," and the ensuing 35-year-long Japanese colonial period, coupled with Korea's subsequent national division and a devastating civil war, essentially wiped out any possibility of an indigenous movement building a modern, civil society independent of outside interference.


In the post-Korean War period, the nationalist school was divided over how to interpret the historical legacy of the "practical learning"(silhak) movement of the late Choson period. Despite the essentially conservative and stagnant nature of the Choson dynasty, historians such as Chon Kwan-u and Han U-gun argued that there were elements of capitalist development in late Choson society that suggested that, had it not been for the intervention of outside forces, Korean society might have progressed along modern development lines. By the 1960s, this school began to dominate historical discourse. In the aftermath of the April Revolution, which saw the collapse of the corrupt Syngman Rhee government in 1960, and the widespread protests against the normalization of diplomatic relations with Japan in the mid-1960s, there emerged a renewed emphasis on nationalist sentiment -- a sentiment that increased with Korea's continued economic development. By the end of the 1970s, Korea's economic success seemed to confirm the nationalist model: Korean development, far from being dependent on outside factors (e.g. Chinese suzerainty, Japanese colonialism, etc.), had in fact undergone its own, unique evolution. Success in the economic field was matched by discoveries in Korean archaeology, which added a timeless dimension to the debate. The discovery of paleolithic artifacts and the widespread existence of bronze culture in ancient Korea were combined with the existence of private landholding during the Three Kingdoms period and the slow emergence of an upwardly-mobile class system during the Choson dynasty to argue that, far from being stagnant, traditional Korean society, while not exactly dynamic, was at the very least much more fluid than previously thought. In short, the nationalist school has sought to argue that Korean history is one of slow but steady indigenous progress toward modern, civil society.


Despite the strength of the nationalist school, it too has its detractors. The fourth paradigm of Korean historiography is the so-called minjung, (populist, grassroots, "the masses," etc.) school of historical interpretation. This school emerged out of Korea's rapid economic development, with its uneven distribution of wealth and the rising class-consciousness of Korean workers, combined with popular resentment against continued authoritarian rule and the widely perceived illegitimacy of the Chun Doo-hwan government in the aftermath of the Kwangju Pro-Democracy Uprising in 1980, to explain the conflicts inherent in a system defined more by its individual elements than by its cohesiveness.


As mentioned in class, there is no single, encompassing minjung theory, and minjung theorists themselves have had mixed success in gaining widespread respect for their views, possibly in part by a reluctance by more conservative academics to give credibility to a movement admittedly inspired by Marxist ideology. In any event, minjung sahak has certainly contributed to the Korean historical discourse, particularly with its emphasis on the influence of indigenous cultural elements such as shamanism, the customs of traditional peasant culture, religious rituals and beliefs, and the defining Korean emotion of han, or acute bitterness, that has so shaped the Korean psyche -- between individuals, between regions, and even internationally. [One could argue that a defining moment for the minjung came in 1894 with the Tonghak Peasant Uprising, where a wide range of non-yangban(ruling class) commoners sought to overthrow the established order and replace it with a more egalitarian social structure. This interpretation is problematic, however, as the Tonghak uprising was as much anti-foreign as anti-yangban. In any event, it is not at all clear whether a fundamentally conservative peasant class had the class consciousness necessary for significant social change.]


Significantly, for minjung theorists, Korean history is one of suffering -- of the masses subjugated socially, politically, and economically, whether it be in the form of Chinese cultural hegemony, the domination of the yangban class, Japanese colonialization, the "neo-colonial" influence of post-liberation superpowers (Japan and the United States in the South; China and Russia in the North), authoritarian government rule, or, most recently, international pressure on trade issues. For minjung historians, then, history is defined by relations between ruler and ruled, the powerful and the weak, and history's "heroes" are more easily recognized by what they are not than by what they are.


By the 1990s, though, the minjung school was in intellectual crisis. Following the June 29, 1987, announcement by general-turned-ruling party presidential candidate Roh Tae-woo to allow elections following widespread demonstrations against the then-military government, minjung advocates claimed an intellectual vindication of their theories. But within five years, with the election of former pro-democracy opposition leader Kim Young-sam as president in 1992 following his party's merger with Korea's two leading conservative parties, the rise of a dominant Korean middle class and its concomitant influence on policy making, the emergence of a new generation of Koreans unfamiliar with past hardships, and the rise of globalization (and the decline of nationalism) as a defining influence, mainstream Korean society has all but rejected minjung theory. As a result, minjung historians now find themselves at an impasse: having developed a historical framework from the point of view of the subjugated masses, where is a minjung historian to go when his erstwhile victims have gone mainstream and have adopted many of the perspectives of their newfound (middle) class?


These four paradigms of Korean historiography -- Confucian, Colonial, nationalist, and minjung -- are inherently conflicting. To be sure, like other theories, there are elements of each that bear up well under scrutiny, but it is also fair to say that no single theory is all-encompassing: each explains a part of a much greater whole. Certainly, the strength of Confucian historiography is its historical continuum, that is, the elements of Korean culture that have their roots in the centuries-long influence that China has had on Korea. But like all cultural arguments, it suffers from reductionism and implies a stagnation that is hard to justify in light of the dramatic events of recent Korean history. Likewise, colonial historiography explains Korea's relations in an unfriendly international setting, but it does not explain why Korea was unable to better adapt to an admittedly hostile environment. For its part, nationalist historiography is also unable to adequately explain why Korea was unable to register impressive economic and political development until after its liberation from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule, and even then only in the context of U.S. liberation and protection during the Korean and Cold Wars, and without addressing the roles played by Japanese capital and a receptive U.S. market for Korea's export-led growth. Finally, minjung historiography, to its credit, has reintroduced to the discourse the often neglected role of mass movements and popular will in the shaping of Korean history, but at the same time it has failed to provide a road map for where this popular sentiment might be headed -- a failure all the more conspicuous in light of recent progress in Korean democratic and economic development.


In conclusion, each of these four paradigms has its strong and weak points, and each explains part, but not all, of the forces, events, movements, and trends that have together shaped Korean history. In explaining these developments, then, it might benefit the would-be scholar to take a multifaceted approach to Korean historiography. At the very least, a comprehensive understanding of these historical schools is in order for any significant understanding of modern Korean history.