A Study of Research Trends in Korea on the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592 (Imjin War)
Journal Title: International Journal of Korean History - Year 2013, Vol 18, Issue 2
Abstract
Following the Imjin War, the way Koreans viewed the Japanese came to be fixed. Prior to the war, Koreans held a mixed view of Japan and its people. Some Koreans held a negative view of Japan due to the damages inflicted by Japanese pirates, while there were others who held a positive view of Japan. In the 16th century and thereafter, Koreans tended to look down on Japan as being a culturally inferior country in tandem with their respect for Ming China as being the No.1 civilized country. The war cemented their view and Korean intellectuals came to regard the Japanese as being an enemy that they could not share the sky with. As it happened, the threat from the Manchurians made Korea mend fences with Japan. Following attacks by the Manchurians in 1627 and 1636, Japan’s presence loomed larger than before. Korea had to take a conciliatory attitude toward Japan. A leading scholar went so far as to insist that Korea should establish a friendly relationship with Japan and depend on its power to fight the Qing. By the 19th century, Koreans’ animosity towards Japan, particularly their hatred for them, which was caused by the Disturbance of Imjin, re-surfaced. During the Japanese colonial rule of Korea, Korean historians studied the Imjin War out of the desire to recover the country’s sovereignty and sense of national pride. They wanted to inspire Koreans’ national consciousness by having them remember how their ancestors got over national crises and to get out of the humiliating situation of the colonial rule under the leadership of national heroes like, Admiral Yi Sunsin. A sense of pride was the core factor in Korean researchers’ study of the Imjin War following the liberation of Korea in 1945. In the 1960s, Korean researchers carried out their studies of the Imjin War in earnest. They explored diverse subjects, such as militias and Yi Sunsin. They focused on events that would point to Koreans’ diehard resistance during the war and on the Imjin War not becoming a lost war for Korea. In the 1970s, the social atmosphere was about upholding past war heroes like, Yi Sunsin, under the encouragement of the military regime. Studies on the Imjin War were moving in the direction of praising war heroes who got the country out of hardships. In the 1980s, the subjects that were dealt with became more diverse and researchers used more historical materials, but the overall trend of research was not much different from that of the 1970s. In the 1990s and thereafter, studies on the Imjin War deepened and widened. The new prevailing view was that the Imjin War should be reviewed from a perspective of East Asian history and, for that matter, world history rather than that of a specific country. Active studies were made on details of the said event with a focus on facts that had remained unknown. There was also a new research trend where there was a heightened interest in the stories about those from diverse walks of life who experienced the war and their memories about the war as, well as a focus being placed on concrete aspects of the war, such as the cause, development, and result.
Authors and Affiliations
Myung-Gi Han
Keywords
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