A History of Korea (5 page)

Map of Korea

Courtesy of Yongjoon Cho.

Introduction

This book assumes no prior knowledge of Korean history, but it does ask that the reader remain open to an uncommon narrative structure for presenting the richness and distinctiveness, as well as the universality, of one of the world’s oldest cultures. The sweep of Korean civilization, furthermore, is matched by the scope of its modern transformation. This book attempts to make this complex history more accessible by dividing its coverage into short chapters, each of which uses a representative event, or “episode,” as a window into the chapter’s broader topic and themes. The order of the chapters is chronological as well as thematic. Not everything important that happened in Korean history is highlighted, but the hope is that a focus on particular events, people, and patterns will provide the reader a full understanding of the major historical connections and issues.

This is, then, a somewhat personal, idiosyncratic narrative. Some historians of Korea will undoubtedly find major topics either being neglected or given short shrift, while others will disagree with the author’s choices. This book contains, for example, relatively little coverage of the mythological era of ancient Korea, King Y
ngjo’s reign in the eighteenth century, independence movements during the Japanese colonial period of the early twentieth century, or the current North Korean leadership. The rationale for these decisions will either be explained or strongly implied in the respective chapters. Still other observers will of course object to the author’s own biases, however veiled, in interpretation, analysis, and even periodization. This book remains mindful of the significance of legendary accounts of earlier times, for example, but its coverage of Korean history starts much later—with the Kogury
kingdom around the fourth century CE—than in most narratives. Approximately half of the book is devoted to the premodern era, and half to the modern, with
Chapter 14
, covering the events of 1894, functioning as a narrative fulcrum just as the year 1894 acted as a historical turning point.

The reader will also wonder how to make sense of all this information, particularly about a culture that for many will be completely unfamiliar. The following themes can act as narrative anchors that ground the information to a comprehensible structure: Korean character and identity; forms of political authority; religion; economy and daily life; gender and family; social hierarchy; and external relations. The themes will allow the reader to draw connections over vast temporal distances through the perception of recurrent patterns, such as Korea’s complicated relationship with China and Japan, the ties between social hierarchy and political power, or the bursts of momentous change inspired by religion. Some chapters will tackle multiple themes, some just one or two, but all the information is designed to illuminate either a theme or a specific argument. No content is presented just for the sake of transmitting information. Interpretative statements infuse every chapter, with the hope that these claims will spur further thinking and exploration from the reader. For this purpose a list of English-language sources and further readings is provided at the end of the book. Many of the primary texts from a given historical period that are referenced in this book are, in fact, available in English translation.

Historiography, or the study and method of historical inquiry, is thus featured prominently, with most chapters alluding to a historiographical debate, usually by connecting the topic at hand to larger perspectives on Korean history. Each chapter acts, then, as an intervention, of varying degrees, in these considerations of historical meaning. The historiographical issues are also critical because they reflect contemporary circumstances in Korea. While always a point of contention (and control), the historical consciousness of Koreans is key to understanding Korea today; in both the North and the South, Koreans are fully aware that they are the products of their past, from the ancient to most recent times. This book attempts to demonstrate why.

l

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Kogury
and Ancient Korea

CHRONOLOGY

108 BCE	Establishment of Han dynasty commanderies on Korean Peninsula
1st c. BCE	Founding of Kogury
3rd–4th c. CE	Emergence of Paekche and Silla kingdoms
581	Founding of the Sui dynasty in China
598	First Sui invasion of Kogury
612	Sui dynasty campaign of 1 million soldiers against Kogury
618	Fall of Sui, founding of Tang dynasty in China
668	Defeat of Kogury at hands of joint Silla-Tang forces

THE GREAT BATTLE OF SALSU RIVER, 612

In the first half of the year 612, China attempted to conquer a pesky kingdom on its northeastern border and threw at this effort the full might of its resources and skill. The decisive battle in this campaign took place in what has come to be known in Korea as the “Great Battle of Salsu River,” when the outmanned defenders of the Kogury
kingdom maneuvered the invading army into a death trap that left barely 3000 Chinese survivors out of an initial force of over 1 million soldiers. The utter failure that the Chinese Sui dynasty experienced in what should have been an easy victory does not enjoy major coverage in China’s long historical lore, but in Korea this event has been considered the breakthrough for a nascent civilization, when it withstood the first of many major threats to its existence from the continent.