당신은 주제를 찾고 있습니까 “코리아 1919 – [Catchy Korea] The Cradle of Korea’s Founding Ideology [1919 Philadelphia First Korean Congress]“? 다음 카테고리의 웹사이트 ppa.maxfit.vn 에서 귀하의 모든 질문에 답변해 드립니다: https://ppa.maxfit.vn/blog. 바로 아래에서 답을 찾을 수 있습니다. 작성자 Arirang Culture 이(가) 작성한 기사에는 조회수 1,689회 및 좋아요 72개 개의 좋아요가 있습니다.
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[ARTSY streaming] The Cradle of Korea’s Founding Ideology [1919 Philadelphia First Korean Congress]Calling for Korea’s independence resounded a century ago in Philadelphia, USA! The heartbreaking history of Korea’s independence has been forgotten by many. [1919 Philadelphia First Korean Congress] deals with the true story of 150 Koreans gathering at the Little Theater in Philadelphia, USA, from April 14 to 16, 1919, for the proclamation of Korea’s Independence. Let’s see the country’s historic moment in a newly developed genre, documentary musical.대한민국 건국이념의 요람 [1919 필라델피아]백 년 전 미국 필라델피아에 울려 퍼진 대한독립만세!
그동안 잊고 지낸 가슴 아픈 대한민국의 독립 역사 이야기. 1919년 4월 14일부터 16일 총 3일 동안 미국 리틀씨어터 필라델피아의 작은 극장에서 한인 150명이 모여 한국의 독립에 대해 선포한 실화를 다큐멘터리 음악극이라는 새로운 장르로 재탄생시켜 공연으로 만든 [1919 필라델피아]를 함께 만나본다.
#Documentary_Musical #1919PhiladelphiaFirstKoreanCongress #Korean_Independence #SeoKwangJae #PhilipJaisohn #SyngmanRhee #KangWoon #CatchyKorea #KwanglimArtsCenter #BBCHHall #다큐멘터리_음악극 #1919필라델피아 #대한독립 #서광재 #서재필 #이승만 #강운 #캐치코리아 #광림아트센터 #BBCH홀
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March 1st Movement – Wikipedia
These were among the earliest public displays of Korean resistance during the rule of Korea by Japan from 1910 to 1945. The event occurred on March 1, 1919, …
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Date Published: 1/22/2022
View: 1629
러브코리아 1919 페이지 > LDTV.KR
러브코리아 1919 페이지 > LDTV.KR. 즐겨찾기; RSS 구독; 08월 15일(월). 로그인 · 회원가입 · 정보찾기 · 접속 387 (2) · LDTV.KR 성도의선택-라오디게아방송.
Source: ldtv.kr
Date Published: 7/5/2022
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The Truth About Korea (1919) – YES24
The Truth About Korea (1919). [ Hardcover ] 바인딩 & 에디션 안내이동. Kendall, Carlton Waldo | Kessinger Publishing | 2010년 02월 17일 저자/출판사 더보기/ …
Source: www.yes24.com
Date Published: 8/4/2022
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1919 in Korea: National Resistance and Contending Legacies
The March First Movement of 1919 (samil undong) was the first nationwe political protest in Korea under Japanese colonial rule (1910–45) and …
Source: www.cambridge.org
Date Published: 9/5/2021
View: 8661
Korea 1919 – Young Suh Kim
On February 8, 1919, a group of Korean students in Tokyo had a meeting to declare the Independence of Korea from Japanese colonial rule.
Source: ysfine.com
Date Published: 7/18/2021
View: 3393
The 1919 Independence Movement in Korea and …
The desire for a republican system expressed by the March First led to the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea …
Source: apjjf.org
Date Published: 10/14/2021
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Declaration of Independence (March 1, 1919)
The first decade of Japanese colonial rule in Korea was one of harsh repression. In 1919, however, a group of prominent Koreans secretly prepared a Declaration …
Source: afe.easia.columbia.edu
Date Published: 10/13/2021
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Year 1919 Calendar – South Korea – Time and Date
South Korea 1919 – Calendar with holays. Yearly calendar showing months for the year 1919. Calendars – online and print friendly – for any year and month.
Source: www.timeanddate.com
Date Published: 11/3/2021
View: 3454
Koreans protest Japanese control in the “March 1st Movement …
In January of 1919, Koreans living in Shanghai formed the New Korea Youth Association and sent representatives to France, Korea, Japan, Manchuria, Siberia, and …
Source: nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu
Date Published: 7/15/2021
View: 6397
주제와 관련된 이미지 코리아 1919
주제와 관련된 더 많은 사진을 참조하십시오 [Catchy Korea] The Cradle of Korea’s Founding Ideology [1919 Philadelphia First Korean Congress]. 댓글에서 더 많은 관련 이미지를 보거나 필요한 경우 더 많은 관련 기사를 볼 수 있습니다.
![[Catchy Korea] The Cradle of Korea’s Founding Ideology [1919 Philadelphia First Korean Congress]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ybPPRpIGvWs/maxresdefault.jpg)
주제에 대한 기사 평가 코리아 1919
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March 1st Movement
1919 Korean public display of resistance to Japanese rule
March 1st Movement Official name March 1st Movement
Samil Movement Also called Manse Demonstrations Observed by March 1, National holiday in South Korea since 1949 Type National Significance Marks one of the first public displays of Korean resistance during the Japanese occupation of Korea Date March 1, 1919
The March 1st Movement, also known as the Sam-il (3-1) Movement (Hangul: 삼일 운동; Hanja: 三一 運動), was a protest movement by Korean people and students calling for independence from Japan, and protesting forced assimilation into the Japanese way of life. Thirty-three Korean cultural and religious leaders issued a proclamation, supported by thousands of students and civilians in Seoul. There were over 1000 demonstrations in many other cities. They were brutally suppressed, with Korean historian Park Eun-sik reporting about 7,500 killed and 16,000 wounded, and 46,000 arrested. These were among the earliest public displays of Korean resistance during the rule of Korea by Japan from 1910 to 1945. The event occurred on March 1, 1919, hence the movement’s name, literally meaning “Three-One Movement” or “March First Movement” in Korean. It is also sometimes referred to as the Man-se Demonstrations (Korean: 만세운동; Hanja: 萬歲運動; RR: Manse Undong).
Today, March 1st is celebrated as a national holiday in the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
Background [ edit ]
The Samil Movement arose in reaction to the repressive nature of colonial occupation under the de facto military rule of the Japanese Empire following 1910, and was inspired by the “Fourteen Points” outlining the right of national “self-determination”, which was proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1918. After hearing news of Wilson’s speech, Korean students studying in Tokyo published a statement demanding freedom from colonial rule.[1]
Former Emperor Gojong died on January 21, 1919. There was widespread suspicion that he had been poisoned, which was thought credible since previous attempts (the “coffee plot”) by Kim Hong-nuik, the former Russian interpreter of the Russian Legation, were well-known.[2]
Events in Korea [ edit ]
The March 1st Movement monument.
Japanese soldiers were barricade at the entrance of Pagoda Park in Seoul to prevent the peaceful demonstration.
A Korean house burnt by Japanese.
At 2 p.m. on March 1, 1919, 33 activists who formed the core of the Samil Movement convened at Taehwagwan Restaurant in Seoul; they read out loud the Korean Declaration of Independence, which had been drawn up by historian Choe Nam-seon. The activists initially planned to assemble at Tapgol Park in downtown Seoul, but chose a more private location out of fear that the gathering might turn into a riot. The leaders of the movement signed the document and sent a copy to the Governor General.
We herewith proclaim the independence of Korea and the liberty of the Korean people. This we proclaim to all the nations of the world in witness of human equality. This we proclaim to our descendants so that they may enjoy in perpetuity their inherent right to nationhood. In as much as this proclamation originates from our five-thousand-year history, in as much as it springs from the loyalty of twenty million people, in as much as it affirms our yearning for the advancement of everlasting liberty, in as much as it expresses our desire to take part in the global reform rooted in human conscience, it is the solemn will of heaven, the great tide of our age, and a just act necessary for the co-existence of all humankind. Therefore, no power in this world can obstruct or suppress it!
The movement leaders telephoned the central police station to inform them of their actions and were publicly arrested afterwards.
Before the formal declaration, Korea also published and broadcast the following complaints, in order to be heard by the Japanese people through papers and media:
Discrimination by the government when employing Koreans versus Japanese people; they claimed that no Koreans held important positions in the government.
A disparity in the quality of education being offered to Korean and Japanese people.
Mistreatment and open disregard of Koreans by the Japanese occupiers.
Political officials, both Korean and Japanese, were arrogant.
No special treatment for the Korean upper class or scholars.
The administrative processes were too complicated and new laws were passed too frequently for the general public to follow.
Too much forced labor that was not desired by the public.
Taxes were too heavy and the Korean people were paying more than before, while getting the same amount of services.
Land continued to be confiscated by the Japanese people for personal reasons.
Korean village teachers were being forced out of their jobs because the Japanese were trying to suppress Korean culture and teachings.
Korea’s resources and labor had been exploited for the benefit for the Japanese. They argued that while Koreans were working towards development, they did not reap the benefits of their own work.
These grievances were highly influenced by Wilson’s declaration of the principle of self determination as outlined in his “Fourteen Points” speech.[3]
Massive crowds assembled in Pagoda Park, Seoul to hear a student, Chung Jae-yong, read the declaration publicly. Afterwards, the gathering formed into a peaceable procession, which the Japanese military police attempted to suppress. Special delegates associated with the movement also read copies of the independence proclamation from appointed places throughout the country at 2 p.m. on that same day.
As the processions continued to grow, the Japanese local and military police could not control the crowds. The panicked Japanese officials called in military forces to quell the crowds, including the naval forces. As the public protests continued to grow, the suppression turned to violence, resulting in Japanese massacres of Koreans and other atrocities.
Approximately 2,000,000 Koreans had participated in the more than 1,500 demonstrations. Several thousand of Korean people were massacred by the Japanese police force and army.[4] The frequently cited The Bloody History of the Korean Independence Movement (Korean: 한국독립운동지혈사; Hanja: 韓國獨立運動之血史) by Park Eun-sik reported 7,509 people killed, 15,849 wounded, and 46,303 arrested. From March 1 to April 11, Japanese officials reported 553 people killed, and more than 12,000 arrested. They said that 8 policemen and military were killed, and 158 wounded. As punishment, some of the arrested demonstrators were executed in public.[5]
Even as Japan suppressed the protestors, an independence activist named Yu Gwansun continued to show her demonstration of independence by waving the Korean flag and organizing independence declarations. She was arrested and tortured to death by Japanese police. Now often called “Big Sister Yu Gwansun”,[6] she is considered a national heroine in Korea.
Effects [ edit ]
March 1st Movement celebrations in Seoul, 2013
The March 1st Movement provided a catalyst for the Korean Independence Movement, which was crucial to the spread of Korea’s independence movement to other local governments, including Hoengseong. Given the ensuing suppression and hunting down of activists by the Japanese, many Korean leaders went into exile in Manchuria, Shanghai and other parts of China, where they continued their activities. The Movement was a catalyst for the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai in April 1919. It also influenced the growth of nonviolent resistance in India and many other countries.[7] The Korean Liberation Army was subsequently formed and allowed to operate in China by the Nationalist Government of China. During this period, there was a mobilization of Catholic and Protestant activists in Korea, with activism encouraged among the diaspora in the U.S., China, and Russia.
The Japanese government reacted to the March 1st Movement by heightening its suppression of dissent and dismissing the Movement as the “Chosun Manse Violent Public Disorder Incident” (조선 공공 만세 폭력 사건). Governor-General Hasegawa Yoshimichi accepted responsibility for the loss of control (although most of the repressive measures leading to the uprising had been put into place by his predecessors); he was replaced by Saito Makoto. The military police were replaced by a civilian force. Limited press freedom was permitted under what was termed the ‘cultural policy’. Many of these lenient policies were reversed during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
On May 24, 1949, South Korea designated March 1st as a national holiday. General Choe Hong-hui dedicated the first of the three patterns (삼일 틀 – Sam-il teul) trained by III-degree black belts of Taekwondo to the Sam-il Movement.
International reaction [ edit ]
United States and Korea [ edit ]
Scribner’s Magazine an article entitled “Korea’s Rebellion: the part played by Christians” appeared In the May, 1920 issue ofan article entitled “Korea’s Rebellion: the part played by Christians” appeared
President Woodrow Wilson issued his Fourteen Points in January 1918. The points included… in terms of US relations with Korea, “a free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims.”[8]
However, as manifested at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Wilson was not interested in challenging global power relations. Since Japan was one of the victors and Korea was its colony, a discussion of the status of Korea was not undertaken.[8] In general, except for depriving the defeated Germany of its overseas colonies, the US did not interfere with any colonial empire.
In April 1919, the US State Department told the ambassador to Japan that “the consulate [in Seoul] should be extremely careful not to encourage any belief that the United States will assist the Korean nationalists in carrying out their plans and that it should not do anything which may cause Japanese authorities to suspect [the] American Government sympathizes with the Korean nationalist movement.”[9]
From April 12 to 14, 1919 the First Korean Congress was convened in Philadelphia by Philip Jaisohn in support of the independence of Korea.
Delegation [ edit ]
Japan violently suppressed the March First Movement. The United States remained silent.[8] Despite this, the Korean National Association planned a three-man delegation in the United States to attend the Paris Peace Conference and attempt to represent Korea’s interests. Dr. Rhee (representing Hawai’i), Rev. Chan Ho Min (representing the West Coast) and Dr. Henry Han Kyung Chung (representing the Midwest) were selected, but they were unable to attend. They encountered visa problems and feared that the delegates may not be allowed to reenter the United States.[10]
A delegation of overseas Koreans, from Japan, China, and Hawai’i, did make it to Paris. Included in this delegation was Kim Kyu-sik (김규식), a representative from the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai.[8] After considerable effort, he managed to arrange passage with members of the Chinese delegation to the peace conference. He traveled on a Chinese passport and under a Chinese name in order to evade the Japanese police. The Chinese were eager for the opportunity to embarrass Japan at the international forum, and several top Chinese leaders at the time, including Sun Yat-sen, told U.S. diplomats that the peace conference should take up the question of Korean independence. Beyond that, however, the Chinese, locked in a struggle themselves against the Japanese, could do little for Korea.[11]
The United States did not pay substantial attention to these individuals, and the delegation was blocked from official participation as Korea was classified as a Japanese colony.[12]
The failure of the Korean nationalists to gain support from the Paris Peace Conference ended the possibility of foreign support.[13]
Commemorations [ edit ]
Centennial Anniversary of March 1st Independence Movement and Korean Provisional Government Centennial Anniversary Ceremony for March 1st Independence Movement March 1, 2019 Native name 3ㆍ1운동 및 대한민국임시정부 수립 100주년 기념사업 Date February 6, 2018 – June 30, 2020 ( 2018-02-06 – 2020-06-30 ) Location South Korea Theme 100th Anniversary of the March 1st Movement and the establishment of Korean Provisional Government Organised by Government of South Korea
The Presidential Commission on Centennial Anniversary of March 1st Independence Movement and Korean Provisional Government(2018-2020)
The March 1st Movement is commemorated annually by Koreans to pay respect to those that died, fought and protested for the Korean independence movement and to celebrate Korean independence. This is done by prominent display of the Flag of South Korea in Korean businesses and homes as well as running and participating in festivals, concerts, events and activities. The Korean Declaration of Independence is read in Tapgol Park on the day, as was done in 1919.[14]
In 2018, Moon Jae-in administration established the Commission on Centennial Anniversary of March 1st Independence Movement and Korean Provisional Government. The commission was in charge of planning the year-long celebration the 100th anniversary of the March 1st movement and the establishment of the KPG.[15] North Korea refused to participate in the joint project of the anniversary due to “scheduling issues”.[16] The commission ceased its operation in June 2020.
Seoul Metropolitan Government stated the March 1st movement as “the catalyst movement of democracy and the republic for Korean people.”[17]
Centennial Ceremony for March 1st
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
The Truth About Korea (1919)
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1919 in Korea: National Resistance and Contending Legacies
This excerpt, written in 1920 by a then seventeen-year-old girl, Yu Kwansun, while imprisoned at Seodaemun Prison, is a powerful expression of Korean national resistance against Japanese colonialism. As a student at Ehwa Haktang in Seoul, Korea, she joined other protesters on March 1, 1919, shouting “Mansei!” (“Long live Korean independence!”), which became the first nationwide protest movement against Japanese rule. After being convicted of sedition, Yu was sent to Seodaemun Prison in Seoul, where she demanded the release of other prisoners and continued to express her support for Korean independence, even organizing a large-scale protest on the first anniversary of the movement. She was transferred to an underground cell, where she was repeatedly beaten and tortured for speaking out. She reportedly wrote the excerpt above before dying of her injuries on September 28, 1920, at the age of seventeen.
Korea 1919
He was quite excited about his own country becoming an independent nation, and went out to shout “Mansei,” but he was beaten up by Japanese police officers.
As you know, I brag too much about my Princeton background. Many people ask me the following two questions. Did I meet Einstein? To answer this question, I prepared this webpapge. This page will tell you I have a very strong Christian background, as a man from the village where my grandfather reconstructed his family fortune. Am I the first Korean to receive a PhD degree from Princeton?
Syngman Rhee received his PhD degree from Princeton in 1910. He was widely known as Woodrow Wilson’s student. Wilson became the president of the United States in 1913. This was a great political asset for Rhee, but he never mentioned Wilson’s name after 1919. Why?
The second question is very interesting. The answer is No. There was a man far more famous than I am. He is known as Syngman Rhee in U.S.A. He is known to us as Rhee Seungman. He received his degree from Princeton 1910. He was admitted to Princeton’s graduate program thanks to Woodrow Wilson. At that time, Princeton was a very racist organization, and Wilson is well known for hiring the first Afro-American professor. Furthermore, Rhee’s thesis advisor was Edward Elliot, whose wife was Wilson’s cousin. We thank Prof. Kim Beom-Hoon of Inha Univ. for telling us about Rhee’s advisor. Woodrow Wilson was very busy as the president of the University, but must have maintained interest in how Rhee was doing. Wilson was 50-to-100 ahead of his time, and could have considered the Korean Peninsula as an American base in Asia. I met a distinguished American physicist (12 years older than I am) in 1993 at a social occasion. When I told him I got my PhD degree from Princeton in 1961, he did not believe me. He told me Princeton did not accept orientals at that time. He was stunned when I told him Syngman Rhee got his PhD from Princeton in 1910 (41 years before 1961). He was old enough to know who Syngman Rhee was. Rhee was thus known as Wilson’s student at Princeton. This was a great political asset for Rhee, and this was precisely the reason why he was invited to become the first president at the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai.
However, Rhee never mentioned Wilson or his Princeton background throughout his political life, even in dealing with Americans. Why? The reason is very simple. After World War I, Wilson produced a declaration calling for the self-determination of all nations. This encouraged the Korean students in Japan to produce a document calling for Korea’s independence.
Wilson with Raymond Poincaré (president of France) in Paris for the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919, where he made his declaration of the self-determination of all nations. There, a young vietnamese reporter attempted to approach Wilson to deliver his petition for the independence of Vietnam from the French colonial rule, but he was chased away like a dog by French police. The name of this young reporter was Ho Chi Minh. Rhee undoubtedly attempted to contact Wilson to discuss of Korea’s independence. Alas, Wilson refused to see him and sided with Japan against Korea. Many Korean scholars say that Wilson did so in accordance with the secret agreement the United States had with Japan known as the Taft-Katsura agreement , guaranteeing Japanese right in Korea while Japan promising not to invade the Philippians.
Rhee never mentioned Wilson since then. It is easy for big powers grab or divide the lands of small nations. It is however for the small nations to fight for their own independence. Both Israel and Korea are small nations. We all know how strong Jewish roles are in the United States. The six Hungarian-born Jewish physicists produced the first nuclear bomb for the United States. Almost all Americans still believe the United States should be the only country with nuclear weapons. After staying in the U.S.A. for 64 years, I also believe in the same way. In either case, not many Americans know that this superiority complex is a product of the scientists without their own country.
As for Korea, every American household owns at least one Samsung or LG TV set. This effect was not achieved overnight. For the struggles Koreans went through, you may be interested in one of the war stories. In this web page, I compare Koreans to a native American tribe (American Indians) trapped between French and English armies struggling for the control of the North American Continent in 1750.
These days, the main lecture hall in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton is called “Synman Rhee Lecture Hall.” Princeton University is acknowledging Rhee was Wilson’s most accomplished student. I was very happy to have a photo at the this bronze plaque.
The point is that Wilson never helped his former student who was a Korean. I had the same experience with my own advisor at Princeton. In 1966, I almost lost my job at the Univ. of Maryland for publishing a paper not friendly to an American physicist of my age. His name was Roger Dashen. In 1965, he was elevated to a genius status by the leadership of American physics. I became very unhappy because of my Herod Complex (I do not want to hear anyone other than myself is a genius). I published a paper saying Dashen’s work, which elevated him to his genius status, was wrong. You may click here to see how wrong he was. My paper did not sit very well with the American leadership in physics, and the Univ. of Maryland attempted to fire me. At that time, the only person who could possibly help me was my former advisor at Princeton. However, his attitude was “Dashen is a genius but you are a Korean.”
Indeed, the Univ. of Maryland was nice enough to me to examine my case carefully. It took my senior colleagues one full year, and they promoted promoted me to an associate professor with tenure in 1967. In praise of my own department, I prepared this webpage to talk about the research environment at the Univ. of Maryland. There, you will note that the ranking of Princeton’s physics program came down from No. 1 to No. 7 among the U.S. universities. The UMD’s program moved up to No. 10 from nowhere. My last lunch with Wigner took place at Princeton in 1991. In 33AD, there was a more elegant meeting somewhere in Jerusalem.
Like Rhee Seungman, I never mention the name of my own advisor. Instead, I worked hard on the issue of extending Einstein’s relativity to the inside of the atom or nucleus which can move with relativistic speeds, and published papers with Eugene Wigner, who was Princeton’s No. 2 man (after Einstein) and was one of those six Hungarian physicists who developed the first nuclear bomb for the United States. Thus, I am known to the world as Wigner’s youngest student, and this allows me to place my photo of 1961 to Einstein’s photo of 1947. These two photos were taken by the same photographer named Orren Jack Turner.
Like Rhee, in spite of difficulties with some people, I worked within the frame of the American system which rewards hardworking individuals. On this issue, you may be interested what I say in this page.
The 1919 Independence Movement in Korea and Interconnected East Asia: The Incremental Unfolding of a Revolution
Abstract: The articles re-examines the March First Movement of 1919 in light of the “Candlelight Revolution” of 2016-2017 and situates the latter as part of the incremental unfolding of a long revolution that started with the former. To do so, it turns attention to the East Asian configuration in which three nations—Imperial Japan, semi-colonial China, and colonized Korea—were all connected to the world order and interacted with one another while occupying their respective positions in the world hierarchy. The March First can be regarded as a beginning of a national revolution that sought a kaebyŏk (開闢, a great opening of a new heaven and earth), not only to adapt to modernity but also to overcome it, and the subsequent history is characterized by “incremental unfolding” of the revolution – through April Nineteenth (1960), May Eighteenth (1980), and lately, the Candlelight revolution (2016). These revolutionary transformations have been forwarded by the Korean people who remain inspired by the light of the March First. Their longing for a kaebyŏk that involves more than a mere reform of political institutions/systems connects the years of 1919 and 2019.
Keywords: March First Movement, May Fourth Movement, Candlelight revolution, East Asia
1. Revisiting the Significance of the March First Movement in World History
What new light does the zeitgeist of the “Candlelight Revolution” shed on the March First Movement of 1919?
The new political space created by the “Candlelight Revolution” (2016-2017) and the reconciliatory initiatives between North and South Korea that immediately followed encourage intellectual re-engagement with the March First Movement to see it anew. At the same time, the Movement’s 100th anniversary in 2019, just a couple of years after the Candlelight Revolution, prompts critical explorations of more fundamental issues. Having experienced another historical shift through the Candlelight Revolution, we have come to reassess the past hundred years on a fundamental level. As the emergence of the phrase the “March First Revolution” evinces, the conventional historical framework of the March First Movement (hereafter, March First) must be reexamined.1
The March First has been constantly redefined in the context of sociopolitical changes since the 1920s. The Movement has been remembered differently by the South and the North, especially as Korea’s division became more entrenched after Korea’s liberation. Moreover, there have been battles over how the March First should be remembered and defined even within the South itself. A disagreement on the “National Foundation Day”, for example, triggered a heated debate on the historical meaning of the March First and the Provisional Government of Korea during the Park Geun-hye administration. How one should remember China’s May Fourth Movement (hereafter the May Fourth), which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2019, has similarly been a subject of debate. How we should remember the May Fourth is not just a question of the past, but also of the present. It is beyond a doubt that the recent advent of new ways to characterize the March First—we are even seeing proposals to replace the term (March First) “movement” with “revolution”—is a response to the latest sociopolitical changes. The question is thus how well this new remembering can function as a common intellectual foundation for the future. For that to be achievable, it is imperative that we examine the significance of the March First in the context of the world history as well as its meaning in the context of civilizational shifts.
Beijing students protest the Treaty of Versailles during the May Fourth Movement of 1919
There have, of course, been discussions in the Korean academia about the significance of the March First in world history. Arguments about the influence that March First had on contemporary national movements, including China’s May Fourth, have in fact existed for decades. This line of interpretation, however, has also been criticized for the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. An alternative view proposes that the movements’ significance in world history can be reestablished from a frame that focuses on the simultaneity of weak and oppressed people.2 In addition, a suggestion followed that the relationship between the March First and the May Fourth should be considered in terms of historical simultaneity.3
While interpreting the March First’s significance in world history from the perspective of simultaneity, I also want to draw attention to the singularity of the March First that becomes clear when one compares it with other events that occurred simultaneously in other countries. To this end, I will first re-examine the March First based on the notion of East Asia’s interconnectedness. I use the term “interconnection” as a word that “articulates the space (i.e., structure) in which intimately intertwined East Asian countries interact with each other multi-directionally as well as signifies their autonomous acts of solidarity.”4 Additionally, interconnection means a structural relation as well as the mutual referencing among agents, the latter of which can be observed not just in (sociopolitical) movements but also throughout the broader realms of ideologies and institutions. This study pays attention to the East Asian configuration in which three nations—Imperial Japan, semi-colonial China, and colonized Korea—were all connected to the world order and interacted with one another while occupying different positions in the world hierarchy. As Imperial Japan, which acted as the Western powers’ surrogate in East Asia, played a role in defining the other two nations’ semi-colonial and colonial status, it is imperative that we pay heed to such complicated relations. I do not, however, intend to compare the events in these three nations point by point. I am, rather, interested in examining March First in the light of the differences between the colonial and the semi-colonial conditions5 that can be discovered when one contextualizes it within May Fourth, China’s anti-Japanese national movement.6
I take this approach in order to understand the complexities of (semi-)colonial modernity created by Imperialism that asserted its mission of civilizing colonies. I also want to uncover the opportunities to overcome modernity that inherently lie in such complexities. In this context, a particularly useful methodological frame is the theory of the “double project,” which articulates a simultaneous pursuit of adapting to and overcoming modernity.7 This framing should make clear the structural meaning of the similarities and differences between China’s May Fourth, which occurred 8 years after the successful revolution of 1911, and Korea’s March First, which occurred 9 years after the forced annexation by Japan in 1910.
I hope that this project, which revisits the significance of the May First in world history and probes its meaning as a civilization-shifting event from the perspective of East Asia’s interconnectedness and “double-project” theory, will serve as an elucidating methodological inquiry. It is also my intention that this study contributes to conceptualizing the historical foundation of the “Candlelight Revolution” and to reassessing the past 100 years of East Asia, especially Korea’s history of the last 100 years.8
2. 1919, the Coming of a New Era: The Strong Currents of Reconstruction and Liberation
The paths to modernity taken by Korea, China, and Japan diverged critically from one another’s during the ten years between the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, China fell to the status of a semi-colony as the prospect of divided rule by imperial powers loomed over it. Japan had joined the world system’s semi-periphery following the Ganghwa Treaty of 1876, and ascended to the center following the Russo-Japanese War. Chosŏn was the pivot that set the two nations on the divergent paths.
In China’s case, its semi-colonial condition allowed for a relatively autonomous space in which the 1911 Xinhai Revolution could succeed. But the superficiality of the revolution that led to the establishment of a republic only in “form” also caused the May Fourth, a movement that sought to substantialize this republican form with meaningful content.9
On the other hand, Chosŏn was annexed by Japan a year before the 1911 revolution. The colonial authorities declared that they would employ a “civilizing” policy of establishing—legally and institutionally—major components of capitalism in the colony, but tried to implement the policy in haste despite the lack of its financial resources because they were conscious of Western powers’ eyes. This is why Japan implemented a violent rule—a policy that used military police, police, and officials to impose violent control over all aspects of people’s lives—to enforce colonial modernization in Korea.10 Instead of respecting the unique, self-governing system of local communities and the indirect management of the people by the central government of Chosŏn, the colonial authorities dismantled the autonomy of country districts and instead imposed a direct control, thus antagonizing Koreans. They instituted new taxes, such as a liquor tax, house tax, cigarette tax, and stamp tax to help fill their financial shortfalls. They also introduced convoluted tax statement forms that were troublesome to fill in, making the everyday burdens of the colonized people heavier. Koreans suffered from day-to-day discrimination on educational, administrative, and legal levels and from policies of micro-management such as the enforcement of a cemetery order—which prohibited the burying of the dead in family burying grounds—an order forcing the cultivation of mulberry trees, strict regulations on using the slash-and-burn method in agriculture, and forced labor in reclamation projects. A deadly surge in prices and the outbreak of infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and the Spanish flu aggravated colonial Koreans’ discontent, which was already on the brink of an explosion. The civilizing mission could thus no longer be justified.
This is not to say, however, that March First, a nation-wide resistance movement, can be explained simply in terms of the people’s growing feelings of resentment and rebelliousness. With that said, I would next like to examine the climate of the time in which 1919 was perceived as a new epoch for humanity and a new era for liberation.
What led 1919 to be interpreted in such a way was none other than World War I. Although the war itself was seen as a tragedy, the notion that its results were paving the way to a “new society” centered on justice and humanitarianism spread throughout the world, and made “reconstruction” a vogue term. Having experienced WWI in “near real time” through modern media, such as newspapers and telegraphs, people awakened to the “wordliness of the world” and developed a sense of “contemporaneity.”11 As they went through WWI, Koreans in particular overcame the sense of inferiority they had been feeling toward Western civilization and “civilized and enlightened countries” ever since they had opened their ports to trade under coercion. Moreover, they anticipated a fundamental reconstruction and reordering of the world system that included Japan, and they dreamed of a future in which their country would become an independent nation-state in the process of such reordering.12 In other words, one can say that the Koreans were sensing, for the first time, the coming of a new era of civilizational shift as they shared this “global moment” of history that was regarded by their contemporaries as a groundbreaking moment.13
It is important to note here that although Koreans felt this sense of “contemporaneity” with the rest of the world, they worried about missing opportunities brought about by these shifting currents. The question whether colonial Korea (which could not send a formal delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, unlike semi-colonial China, which could) had a chance of playing a part during this time of global transformation caused anxiety for Koreans. This anxiety became a major variable that influenced the Koreans’ thinking and actions.14 Two historical cases that dramatically drive the above point home come to mind. For example, Yun Ch’i-ho refused to participate in the March First Movement because he was wary of the optimism that spread in response to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s talk of rights to self-determination and foresaw that the Korea problem would not even be mentioned at the Paris Peace Conference. On the other hand, Choi Lin participated in the movement as he believed that it would be better for Korea to join other nations in their cry for peace despite there being no guarantee what result such cries would bring.15 While a majority of the Koreans probably stood somewhere between Yun and Choi, it should be pointed out that the March First Movement was not led by those who took a pessimistic stance based on an accurate knowledge of world politics. Rather, it was led by optimists whose hopes were grounded on their will, a will to join the “global moment” by appropriating the cracks in the changing world order. I should make clear that these optimists did not misunderstand the meaning of these changes and their will to improve their society matched the transformations happening in the world at the time.
Such an awareness of world history was shared widely among many, including religious leaders of Christianity and Ch’ŏndoism, teachers, and students. For instance, Moon Chang-hwan (then 24 years old), a Ch’ŏndoist and farmer, told the detective interrogating him that “as the Hague International Peace Conference is fast approaching, it seems reasonable to believe that the issue of Korea’s independence will be a topic discussed at this conference and that a good conclusion will come of it.” His words quite dramatically reveal the extent to which global self-awareness had spread among Koreans.16
Koreans had a hopeful understanding of the times and international affairs that “a new heaven and earth” (a new world) would unfold, as pithily expressed in the Korean Declaration of Independence. At the same time, they were besieged by the angst of living under an intensely oppressive colonial government. These two contradictory and yet synergistic sentiments mightily contributed to catalyzing the mass resistance movement called the March First. However, a more influential factor was the development of resistant subjects.
3. People’s Mass Gathering Experiences during March First: Agents, Mediums, and Aims
In what follows, I shall discuss the people’s mass gathering experiences in terms of agents, mediums, and aims. The peculiar traits of the people’s March First experiences stemmed from the co-existence of modernity and pre-modernity caused by the colonial condition of Korea, and from their reconstructed understanding of the two. These circumstances led people not only to become aware of the negative aspects of the modernity that Japan’s “civilizing mission” promoted but also to revive their previous resistance experiences and intellectual resources to fuel the national resistance movement.
Let us first examine the agents of the March First. The protests in 1919 erupted spontaneously across the country during March and April without a national commanding headquarters. Admittedly, the sporadic nature of the movement and the consequent lack of organized plans were an inherent weakness that contributed to its failure to overcome the military oppression of the Japanese empire. It is, however, important to note that its very spontaneity, as well as the protests’ national spread, active participation, and the participants’ selfless devotion to the movement’s cause, are important aspects of the March First Movement.17
It is true that the organizational capacity to mobilize the protesters was rather weak. That the 33 representatives who proclaimed the Declaration of Korean Independence on March 1st, 1919 were all religious figures (15 Ch’ŏndoists, 16 Christians, and 2 Buddhists) reflected the exceptional reality that these religious organizations voluntarily assumed the role of representing the people when the Koreas could not be represented by their own government under the colonial rule, although it is also true that this grouping was inevitable after other prominent figures refused to step forward.18 Ch’ŏndoism (a continuation from Tonghak, “Eastern Learning” in 1905) had nearly 3 million followers and maintained the doctrine that religion cannot be separated from politics, unlike the Christian churches that followed Japan’s policy of separating politics from religion. It played an especially significant role in forming the national leadership and financing the movement as well as spreading the demonstrations in rural areas. In addition, the movement was bolstered by young students who had been brought up on nationalist education developed during the era of the Patriotic Enlightenment Movements and austere colonial rule and yangban (aristocrat) disciples of Confucianism who managed to stay alive in local communities despite Japan’s systematic efforts to dismantle them. It was also aided by the experiences of the earlier movements such as the Tonghak Peasant Movements and the Righteous Militia Movements.
While it is commonly argued that their activities changed from peaceful protests in urban centers to violent revolts in rural areas,19 these two types of protests seem, if the whole picture is seen, to have co-existed from the beginning. Recent studies of Korea’s local histories have brought to light how the participation of peasants, the driving force of March First who spread the movement across the country, transformed the manse demonstrations to something akin to a rebellion.20 There were signs of violent protests, and there were cases in which people resorted to violence from the outset. These actions mentioned here were expressions of legitimate anger at the injustice of the asymmetrically brutal crackdown of the demonstrations. Moreover, the targets of this violence were restricted to colonial institutions and agents, in other words, the acting deputies of the Japanese Empire that inflicted institutionalized violence.21 Thus, these acts of resistance were significant in the world history as part of the global movement to realize the positive peace of national self-determination, civil rights, and equality, and could be seen ultimately as “peace from below.”22 These actions did not conflict with the tenet of non-violence that the March First’s national representatives promoted as their strategic method of protest.
The agents of the March First were different from those of the May Fourth. The latter was an urban-centered nationalist movement that was carried out by an alliance of the people from various sectors (functional/professional). Modern intellectuals and the “new youth”—that is to say, students— led merchants and laborers into protesting through strikes in markets, factories, and schools. In Korea also, students catalyzed the March First and merchants and laborers participated as well. Merchants in particular protested by closing their shops, which was a traditional means of voicing their objections to government policies during the Chosŏn dynasty. Laborers and craftsmen went on strike, and students boycotted classes for more than three months. However, these protests were smaller in scale than their Chinese counterparts. This difference was due to the disparate circumstances in which the two countries found themselves. China as a semi-colonized nation had a government, and although it was a government with limited autonomy, it was, unlike the colonized Korea, able to adapt to modernity by developing its national industry during the brief period when WWI caused Western powers to focus on their own problems, creating a little breathing room for China.
Things were different in Korea. Here, the unique characteristics of the March First become quite clear—modernity and pre-modernity co-existed and the meaning of the two was reconstructed as the movement went on. Religious groups, young students, and yangban disciples of Confucianism were the primary agents of the March First, as mentioned before. They were joined by others with the shared experience and memory of the Tonghak Peasant Movements and Righteous Militia Movements. In this sense, the March First can be regarded as a national movement encompassing more diverse subjects and social classes than the May Fourth. (One major difference is that religious groups and peasants were major driving forces of the March First. They had the potential to become catalysts for overcoming modernity).
This uniqueness is reflected in the various media that were used in the development of the March First movement. Let us examine, first, the state funeral and manse protests that served as mediums of mass-gatherings. Anticipating that countless people would gather for the funerary ritual of Emperor Gwangmu (Kojong) who was the de facto last King of the country, March First protesters took advantage of this opportunity to start the movement. At the demonstration, a sense of mourning for and memorializing of the late emperor oddly comingled with a sense of appreciation for the manse as an occasion for joy and festivities that was rather incongruous with a funeral.23 To understand this mixed response better, we must examine the meaning of the rallying cry of manse.
Manse (literally ten thousand years) and chŏnse (literally one thousand years) were used interchangeably during the Chosŏn Dynasty, and were unified as manse at the time that the Daehan Empire (the Korean empire) was established in 1897. Manse, which was popularized when the Korean Independence Club and Patriotic Enlightenment Movements were active, developed into something more than a simple exclamatory word. In fact, it came to signify a political culture that Korea’s modern intellectuals disseminated as they sought to enlighten the populace. And finally, at the time of the March First, manse, “mediated by the political cultures of previous peasant revolts,” came to “foster a sense of national unity and to serve as a medium through which people’s voices of protests against Japan could be sounded nation-wide.”24
The same can be said of another major medium that was used to mobilize the populace—the T’aegŭkgi (Korean national flag) and other flags. It seems that the leaders of the March First refrained from using the T’aegŭkgi systematically during protests because they feared that the flag that was emblematic of the emperor of Daehan’s sovereign power would evoke memories of the lost empire. Despite their circumspection, however, the T’aegŭkgi gradually came to represent national unity rather than the emperor’s sovereignty.25 In addition, protesters frequently used flags to disclose their names or their affiliation, following the precedent of the participants of the Tonghak peasant movement. Flags, in other words, had become not only a means to express an individual or collective political stance, but also a modern symbol of struggle and resistance. As the manse spread from urban to rural areas all across the country, flags, circulars, and appeals came to be more frequently used as expressive mediums than underground newspapers or manifestos.26
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that schools, religious facilities such as churches, and marketplaces were used as a public sphere of discourse. Local markets that took place at regular intervals served as an explosive intermediary space where rumors about the movement traveled through the grapevine. On a related note, it would be remiss to overlook the fact that “gasa”—a simple form of premodern verse with twinned feet of three or four syllables each—was another important medium during the March First. The socio-critical gasa that had been sung at peasant resistance movements at the end of the 19th century and the enlightenment gasa that became a modern means of communication through the newspapers in the 1900s had a great influence on the various patriotic songs that were heard during the March First.27 March First participants also utilized traditional means of protest such as beacon fire protests and lamplight marches.28 Also it is thanks to trains that amplified the sound of rumors and visits—which can be said to be more traditional mediums of communication—as well as the modern print media (mimeographs etc.) that the March First grew nationwide.29
The March First is distinguished by the multiplicity of the media that were used, from traditional oral media to modern print media, in accordance to the movement’s specific needs. It contrasts with China where although traditional mediums for mass gatherings were sometimes used during the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, various social groups organized in major cities as well as modern print media such as newspapers, magazines, and telegrams were primarily used to spread the news by the time of the May Fourth when capitalism had developed further in China. This difference too derives from the different historical circumstances in which colonial Korea and semi-colonial China found themselves.
Let us now examine the objective of the March First participants. Their cries of manse heard at scenes of the demonstrations reflected a desire for individual and national liberation as well as a hopeful anticipation for a new state. Was this “new state” envisioned as a republican polity? Despite the traditional belief that to be patriotic was to be loyal to one’s sovereign, the March First protesters who shouted manse at Kojong’s funeral were “performing historical funeral rites for both Kojong and the dynastic order.”30 Although restoration movements did occur around 1919, the forced annexation in effect ended monarchism in Korea. The forced break from the monarchic past served to promote republicanism as an irreversible route that had to be taken. News of the Xinhai revolution that reached Korea also influenced Koreans’ thinking. What happened in Korea was, in other words, quite different from the course of action in China. The Chinese had made a formal break with the emperor system through the 1911 Xinhai revolution and then found ways to establish a republic in both form and content through the May Fourth.
The title of “national representatives,” which was prominently used during the unfolding of the March First, holds a special meaning especially in relation to the issue of republicanism. In the course of newly establishing a nation state, an awareness emerged that the people had sovereign rights and that they delegated their rights to their representatives. This awareness is quite well reflected in the title of “national representation.” The massive protest that occurred on April 23 around Posin’gak Pavilion in Chongno—a central district in Seoul—was called a “national convention.” This “national convention” inspired the idea that local representatives form a national representative group. The ideal of a republic consisting of people’s representatives spread rapidly among the populace, and during the March First movement, some individuals appointed themselves as national representatives without joining or formulating political groups or organizations.
On the May Fourth, the masses gathered held a “national convention” at Tiananmen Square. Their experiences of this led to the initiative to establish a “national congress”—an organizational force consisting of various allied groups—and a “national congress movement” that sought to complete the initiative. Such movements continued into the 1920s and influenced the Chinese National Party as well as the Chinese Communist Party. The people, in other words, were seeking ways to achieve democracy at a time when they could not have elected regional representatives. It is worthwhile to reflect on the significance of their directness and representativeness. The so-called representatives of the March First and the May Fourth were not elected through formal and/or legal elections. Thus, the legitimacy of these “representatives” was retrospectively confirmed in the context of the people’s mass protests or earned when they refused Japanese imperial rule and represented the people’s interest.31 The latter seemed more salient in the colonial Korea. I assume this experience can be read as an experiment with a new type of democracy that moved beyond the representative democracy composed of regional delegates.32
The desire for a republican system expressed by the March First led to the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea on April 11, 1919, in Shanghai. The “Provisional Constitution of the Republic of Korea,” consisting of ten articles, reflected the spirit of March First. While there are still debates among scholars about the legitimacy of the Shanghai Provisional Government, its political significance, and questions about whether the Provisional Government’s representativeness has been over-anticipated and overrated,33 I do not wish to intervene in the debate. I instead would like to emphasize the fact that the internal logic through which the March First legitimized Korea’s independence (as well as the Provisional Government’s establishment and goal) was grounded on the notion that the right to self-determination was a means by which to realize democracy and equality. The national independence, in other words, was inspiring as a wellspring from which democracy would be newly imagined.34 To the extent that the goal of establishing a democratic republic was based on aspirations to go beyond representative democracy and to achieve equality, it “encompassed a will to overcome modernity even though it may seem, on the surface, to have sought a modern political model.”35
At the same time, I would also like to emphasize that the Koreans’ yearning for a new state should not be reduced to a mere hope to establish a republican system. Rather, we need to pay attention to what we may even call the religious longing for a utopia that erupted during the March First, a “secular utopianism” where personal gain, national independence, and global liberation would come true altogether.36 Also we need to see in this desire an explosive expression of the people’s awareness of their “agency as subjects of liberation” that had been inherent but repressed until then.37
Hopes for a kaebyŏk (開闢, a great opening of a new heaven and earth) and the philosophy of taedong (大同, great harmony), which had been transmitted through various folk beliefs including Tonghak, were then reborn as a longing for a new world that fueled the March First.38 The protests that went on throughout March and April thus developed into a national resistance bringing people of all classes together, from rural and urban areas alike, transforming the whole country into “a liberated zone of the self-governing people.”39 Unlike in China where the revolution occurred in two phases in 1911 and 1919, Korea saw the people’s repressed energy erupting at once, and this eruption had a great impact. This is why the events of 1919 Korea have been remembered as showing a “great leap of spirit” and serving as a “heterotopic space.”40
The experience of liberation that people gained through the March First had a great influence on the ways in which time was conceptualized in social and personal realms. The new idiomatic phrase “post-1919” (己未以後) was frequently used to signify “the never before imagined circumstances” of the time during which “numerous neologisms appear, and never-before-heard terms are employed.” The March First set, in other words, an important milestone with which to distinguish different periods of national movements and/or “social movements.” It was also a “temporal base point” from which time experienced by individuals could be understood.41 Intriguingly, the prevalence of such an understanding of the March First made a positive re-evaluation of Korean national characteristics possible—traits that had been negatively defined prior to the March First.42
It is this confidence that gave birth to the “March First Generation.” And these people, who experienced a great time of change, can be referred to as “those who saw the heaven.”43
4. Beyond the Success and Failure of the March First: Incremental Achievements of the Movement and Thoughts
At the Washington Conference (1921-22) where unresolved issues from the Treaty of Versailles were discussed, the United States, Britain, and Japan established a collaborative system (i.e., the Washington System), which initiated a “relatively stable period” during which the greater powers enjoyed assured privileges in East Asia. This development led, contrary to predictions that had been made by some of Korea’s independence activists, to the solidification of Japan’s political status. This turn of events in international politics around 1922 also dampened the hope for Korea’s independence that had been fostered by the March First movement. As the March First subsided, the populace seemed to have returned to their everyday lives. And the social atmosphere, compared to that right after the March First, was prominently pessimistic.
The primary cause of this state of affairs was the Japanese colonial government’s violent crackdown of the 1919 national rebellion. However, it should also be noted that the diverse aspirations that exploded in the form of the March First in 1919 and converged into an aspiration for the establishment of a republic started diverging again as the colonial system that systematically frustrated the realization of the envisioned republic caused contests over how it should be fulfilled. As a result of such contestations, nationalist movement forces were divided into left and right wings.
Let’s take a closer look at this situation. Peasants and workers led the movements since April 1919 when the participation of other classes of people were comparatively weakened. They initially protested the colonial rule on the basis of their lived experiences and their demands were thus confined to immediate changes in their living conditions. As they gained collective experiences of the protest and the authorities punishments, their national and class consciousness grew in an embryonic form. Especially, the expansion of Japanese capital investment in Korea since the end of World War 1 brought about so-called colonial capitalism and consequential class division. The Communist Party was organized in response to the situation in 1925, and the forces of national movements were divided into the left and right in accordance with their ideological lines around this time.44 Does this split, then, mean that the March First was a failure?
If we consider the March First in terms of political institutionalization, i.e., building a nation-state, which is an indicator of modernity, it is difficult to deny that it failed. The Koreans did not achieve immediate independence, nor did they establish an autonomous nation-state. Even if the significance of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea is acknowledged, it cannot be denied that it could not exert leadership over the entire nationalist movement in and outside of the Korean peninsula due to its factionalism and internal conflicts. Obviously, the situation for the Chinese was different. During this time China was seeing young students, who had experienced the May Fourth in the semi-colonial China and had become new political agents, developing a sense that they were the “selfhood for social reformation.” These students further matured into professional revolutionaries, going onto to participate in the anti-imperial, anti-warlord revolution that was jointly organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party.45
The March First Movement provided the momentum that Japan’s Hara (原敬) cabinet needed to push the factional divisions among powerful authority groups in the direction of reforming its colonial management strategies. The March First showed that a colony could have an impact on the imperial mainland and especially its policies and institutions. One of its impacts could be seen in the change of Japan’s colonial policy from a military rule to a more lenient cultural rule, which opened up an institutional space wherein nationalist movements could unfold with vigor. This development was another pivotal achievement of the March First.46
However, the significance of the March First should not be assessed only within the narrow scope of institutionalization. I rather suggest that we pay attention to the March First as bringing about incremental and cumulative achievements that experiences of (resistance) movements and ideas continued to develop and accumulate.47 Since the 1920s, not only were youth groups organized throughout Korea but national-level organizations of peasants, workers, and women were also established. Even transnational groups (including anti-Japanese guerilla groups) were formed by Korean émigrés in China. Because of these, and other, broader developments, called The March First was called “the Great Revolution” by overseas independence activists who recognized the broader developments since 1919. It was also called “the Great Revolutionary Movement of March First” by the Provisional Government (established through the collaboration of the left and right) in 1941 and written as such in the Provisional Government’s “Doctrines for the Founding of the Nation.” Its significance continued to be emphasized by both the left and the right immediately after Korea’s 1945 emancipation. It has since the 1950s been associated with the goal of Korea’s unification of the two Koreas, and has been tied to democratization since mid 1950s, as previous studies show. Hence, I will take a more in-depth look from a civilizational perspective.
First, it is significant that the Koreans sharply understood the global simultaneity of the March First within the world history. Let us examine the lines from a newspaper editorial from Dong-A Ilbo (Dong-A Daily) that clearly reveals that the Koreans knew about the March First’s impact on the May Fourth in the 1920s. Noting that “the May Fourth in China is one among all the national movements that came after our March First movement in 1919” (March 2, 1925), the writer conceived of the May Fourth as an event that was related to the March First. Furthermore, the Koreans saw the “rice riots” of 1918 that occurred in Japan as an event interconnected with their life. These well-known “rice riots” happened due to a precipitous rise in rice prices that caused the urban poor of Japan—who had, thanks to the economic prosperity that followed WWI, gotten used to eating cooked rice—to rise up in anger. Such riots did not occur in Korea because the Koreans, who had to consume other grains due to the increase in the quota of Korean-produced rice to be exported to Japan after the annexation, were less sensitive to a spike in the rice price.48 Despite this contrast, Yeom Sang-seup, a Korean novelist and essayist, still suggested that “there is no difference in the fundamental demands of the rice rioters and Korean students in Japan; their actions may differ on the surface, but their actions both call for the rights to survive.”49
The Koreans’ realization of an “interconnected East Asia” as such is especially noteworthy as it stems from a new understanding of the era and the world that derived from their local appropriation of the “global moment.” In the same vein, we must pay attention to a new perspective on East Asia that emerged during the March First. At the time when Britain and the United States sought to safeguard peace by maintaining the status quo and Japan as a challenger criticized the Euro-America centric peace, advocating instead a new order in East Asia centered on her, the Koreans exposed the contradictions in the Japanese perspective.50 They betrayed in the Declaration of Independence a new perspective on East Asia that the independence of Korea, a double periphery, was “an indispensable stage in Asia’s peace that makes up an important part of world peace.” Moreover, those who experienced the March First took a step further and looked for ways to overcome modernity through such emerging perspectives.
It was difficult to take a critical stance toward Japan on the basis of the standard of “advanced civilization and technology” that it espoused during the colonial period, for the standard emphasize only one’s level of adaptation to modernity. But the Koreans brought up a new criterion of whether Japan lived up to the global trend of justice and humanitarianism in the new era of reconstruction. By this standard, Japan could be judged not only a country saddled with gender inequality, class inequality, and poor living conditions for workers and farmers, but also an unjust entity that had invaded Chosŏn and China. In other words, the Koreans constructed a new frame of reference that could evaluate Japan as inferior by the global standard.51 If they had stopped at pointing out how Japan did not accomplish the achievable (and must be achieved) traits of modernity, they would not have created an opportunity to overcome modernity. But this kind of civilizational critique, if contextualized in the colonial reality of Chosŏn, could open an entire new horizon.
To illustrate this, let us delve deeper into the Korean discourses at the time. Chosŏn was able to find a shortcut to an alternative civilization without being overwhelmed by the imperative to adapt to modernity because she as a colonized nation in the world system’s hierarchy was sensitive to the disparity between the global time and hers.52 The passage in question reads that “while there is nothing more to say if modern civilization is the ultimate standard, there are certain circumstances where modern civilization must be destroyed to move beyond it.” “If human beings make boundless efforts [to advance in that direction], we shall not find a greater happiness. Koreans—or nations in the same situation as they— should endeavor with no despair.”53 Although this quotation is just one example, the argument was tied to the core thesis articulated on the pages of Kaebyŏk, (published from June 1920 to August 1926), a commercially successful magazine operated by Ch’ŏndoists. This idea was grounded in the civilizational transformation movement in pursuit of Ch’ŏndoism’s ideal of kaebyŏk that was tied to contemporary critiques of the civilization (particularly, reconstructionist theories critical of the ills of the capitalism). To the extent that it resonated with the lived and felt realities of the Koreans suffering from their poor daily lives, it became the beloved ideal of the contemporaries in the 1920s.54
That the Koreans were aware of an alternative path to civilization that they should take together with other oppressed people of the world had a particular significance in the context of the heated debate about Eastern and Western civilizations that was being carried out throughout East Asia . In the 1920s, China saw a lively “debate on Chinese and Western cultures. In the debate, cultural conservatives argued that Western civilization was declining and that Chinese civilization should be regarded as its alternative for the humanity. Opposed to them were Marxists as well as a group of westernizationists (西化論者) represented by Hu Shih (胡適) who opined that China still had much to learn from the West. Baik Jiwoon, who compares the above Chinese debate with Japanese discourses of civilization appearing in Kaizo (Reconstruction, one of the most influential magazines of the early 20th century in Japan), points out that Japanese discussions were rather limited. According to Baik, Kaizo did not betray the same kind of deep skepticism toward modern civilization as shown by Chinese intellectuals; rather, it remained at the level of conveying new currents of knowledge from the West as pure theories. In contrast, Chinese intellectuals were fundamentally critical of Western civilization, but their ideas were often enmeshed with cultural nationalism.55
Korean intellectuals at this time, however, separated values of modern civilization from past imperial states to hold up the universal modern values such as liberty, equality, justice, and humanity as a basis on which to critique the Japanese imperial ideology that was buried deep in its obsession with modernization. That provided the Koreans with an intellectual foundation on which they could relativize and criticize Japan’s colonial rule for a long period.56 It might be pointed out, from the perspective of the “double projects,” that Imperial Japan veered toward adapting to, or rather, catching up with modernity while semi-colonial China had an interest in overcoming modernity but ended up focusing on adapting to modernity and complementing it with a cultural nationalism that emphasized the particularity of Chinese culture. Korea, which had the first-hand experience of negative consequences of the colonial modernity and thus came to be more interested in overcoming modernity, in contrast, was motived to both adapt to and challenge modernity. The Koreans thus opened up, it might be argued, a path to go beyond the one-nation state and forge an alliance with other oppressed peoples.
The significance of this alternative civilization discourse is brought to relief when it is compared against the background of the contemporary intellectual debate in Korea. The reformists (“gaehwa-pa”) who had since the late 19th century emphasized the imperative to adapt to modernity, showed a tendency to tilt toward a compromised position that advocated a colonial self-government, ignoring the colonial reality, as the force of the March First waned. The Wijǒng Ch’ǒksa faction—which had sought to defend Confucian orthodoxy and repel western civilization—refused even to consider the positive aspects of modernity, with some participating in overseas anti-Japanese guerilla fights and others cultivating individual minds without engaging in politics. In comparison, the kaebyŏk group led by Ch’ŏndoists can be said to have been more responsive to the “double project” of adapting to and overcoming modernity.57 After the Tonghak Peasant Movement failed, its members accommodated a part of the reformist faction and transformed Tonghak into a religious organization of Ch’ŏndoism. They thus contributed greatly to the March First Movement and wielded a considerable influence in Korea’s intellectual terrain by developing a discourse on an alternative civilization.58
The alternative civilization discourse was shared not only by intellectual circles but also to some degree by the populace—who had returned, after the March First, to their routine lives. Some people who had experienced an eruptive desire for liberation during March First and still had the March First spirit in their minds continued to keep the spark alive by engaging with national religions. Here we ask whether it was not riddled with its own risk to choose the transcendental religious path that relies on spiritual power when the colonial Korea was more deeply embroiled in the global market.59 To find an answer, it is imperative that we disaggregate the national religions of the time.
On the one hand, Ch’ŏndoism’s leadership was divided into old and new factions in the late 1920s and some of its factions, due to their focus on adapting to modernity, gradually complied with the modernization policies of the colonial government and ended up ultimately turning the religious organization into a supporter for Japan’s war efforts. On the other hand, the Society for the Study of Buddhadharma (the predecessor of Won Buddhism that appeared after Korea’s emancipation) had inherited Tonghak’s theory of a “Great Opening” and combined this approach with Buddhism. This group engaged in civilization transformation movements that promoted the simultaneous pursuit of finding spiritual mindfulness and achieving social change. These movements aspired to bring about a “Great Opening” on a spiritual level that resonated with a material “Great Opening” (i.e., the coming of a material civilization). Such aspirations are noteworthy, as they made the Society for the Study of Buddhadharma the most suited of all the national religious groups to take on the “double project” of adapting to and overcoming modernity.60 Of course, one might point out that the Society had little influence in colonial Korea and that their objectives were not directly related to the more urgent task of establishing an independent nation-state. I, however, would like to add that given that Song Kyu—the second master of Won Buddhism—published the Treatise on the National Foundation just two months after Korea’s Emancipation on August 15th 1945, the Society was internally preparing for the political task.61 It is of course necessary to take a closer look at how the Society and Won Buddhist groups dealt with the tension between having to perform the “double task” of enduring colonial systems and attempting to overcome them. In addition, further discussions are necessary about how other social groups (religious, socialist, and groups grounded on other trends of thought) dealt with the said tension. These topics will be left for future projects.62
The discourses I have introduced above were the result of the rigorous ideological struggles Korean thinkers went through as they were exposed to new intellectual stimuli in the 1910s—a period that can be referred to as the “dark ages.” They were also the fruits of the experiences of the populace who saw their desires for a “new world” converge and erupt in March First, found a surge of confidence in their hearts, but saw their hopes ultimately replaced with a sense of frustration. Korea, in this respect, experienced a “new cultural movement” along a different path than China that took the route of anti-traditionalism and westernization as they critically reflected on the process by which their success in formally establishing a Republic was soon reversed by Yuan Shikai’s (袁世凱) Restoration Movement of 1915.
It was due to the struggles and aspirations of the Koreans that the thoughts and resistance movement experiences of the March First could serve as a source of a continuous learning. Let us therefore listen to the words of two intellectuals from different periods. Shortly after Korea’s liberation, novelist Ahn Hoe-nam (安懷南) called for “a new March First, bigger and more powerful” than the March First of 28 years ago. Long after that, social and environmental activist Jang Il-soon (張壹淳) pointed out that calls for an autonomy of the nation were impregnated with “a spirit of non-violence” that “was the spirit of the Tonghak.” Ahn thus poetically remembered the March First as a spiritual force against everything that was anti-life.63 As such, the words of Ahn and Jang reveal that the March First cannot simply be regarded as a date in history that can be made into an anniversary, but is a fountain of inspiration that continues to breathe life into new subjects of change.
5. A Conversation between 1919 and 2019
It seems that I must now, before concluding this paper, explore the unavoidable question of whether we should revise the term March First Movement and call it the “March First Revolution.”
It is true that the March First has since the Emancipation been referred to as the March First “movement” rather than “revolution’ or demonstration. However, we must also take a look into the past, to the times before and after March First during which restrictions put on the press and a lack of publishing spaces prevented one from using the word “revolution.” Even during this time, the Korean youth who had experienced the Xinhai Revolution as a contemporaneous event and were influenced by the cultural atmosphere of the Taishō democracy in Japan, had a certain degree of understanding about the concept of revolution. Instead of being beholden to the old notion that revolution referred to dynastic changes, they interpreted revolution in a more “universal way, as the destruction of the old world.”64 As mentioned earlier, March First had been called the “March First Great Revolution” during the colonial period, and a call for this term to be readopted has been made in recent years as well.65 That is to say, the term March First “Revolution” has its own epistemological genealogy.
What caused the term March First “Revolution” to garner renewed attention was the direct reference to this issue by the current Moon Jae-in administration and the ruling party. In the background was also the hot debate surrounding National Foundation Day, which occurred during the Park Geun-hye administration days. However, we should not overlook the fact that the memory of March First has been dynamically “reconstructed” during the course of Korean democratization movements by the movement’s contemporary subjects.
The significance of this issue becomes even more profound when we look at it from a broader scope and place it within the context of what is happening in East Asia today. Both China and Japan are striving to reinterpret the past one hundred years of modern history. Facing another phase of civilizational transition wherein deepening crises of the world capitalist system have muddled the existing world order and rendered developmental models feeble, they are looking back at historical paths to find new developmental models. Our attempts to put the years 1919 and 2019 in conversation will lead us to asking how we should respond to and contribute to the current trends at hand. These most important questions will need to be addressed in more depth and length, but I would like to briefly address my personal opinions on whether March First should be regarded as a “revolution.”
When dealing with this issue, we must be somewhat free from textbook (or dictionary) definitions of the word “revolution.” Of course, this is not to say that we should arbitrarily expand the meaning of revolution or abuse history by overrating the meaning of March First. However, it is certainly necessary to redefine the concept of “revolution” as we compare cases from world history. At the same time, we need to discuss this point rigorously from the dimension of Korean history. We need to balance our vision of the present-ness of the March First Revolution, as well as the perceptions of the Koreans in the 1919 revolution, who recognized revolutions “from a more universal manner, seeing them as ways to destroy the old world.” I define revolution as an extensive transformation shifting the whole of society rather than an event that ends with the subversion of an existing regime. I thus refer to revolutions of which the results reveal themselves through incremental achievements as “revolutions that continue to be learned” or “on-going revolutions.” For the March First to be recognized as such a revolution, three criteria have to be met.66
First, it needs to be confirmed whether there is a clear continuity between the objectives of the March First Revolution and the historical challenges we have taken on today. The tasks of achieving national autonomy, integration, and democracy still remain relevant to Koreans today, who have lived through periods of colonialism and the Cold War. These tasks are in fact becoming more important as reconciliation processes between South and North Korea develop further and we aspire to map out a new Korean peninsula community.
Secondly, we must ask the question whether the March First was associated with a desire to change historical currents on a fundamental level, i.e., a desire to change the world on a “revolutionary level.” The people’s radical break from monarchism, pursuit of republicanism, and recognition of civilizational transitions, all of which were expressly revealed through phrases like the “destruction of the old world” or “coming of a new era,” have significance not only in the history of Korea but also in global history as signals of revolutionary change. The March First’s significance additionally lies in its having occasioned the Koreans to acquire ideas while under the colonial condition, ideas that could be used in resolving the exigent task of tackling the “double project of modernity.” The experiences of March First wherein paths to overcome the colonial condition were sought, can be said to have historical significance today, as they indicate the ways in which people undertook this “double project of modernity.” This meaning of March First becomes even more apparent when we examine the ways in which Korea was interconnected with Japan. “Finding a way to aptly respond to the March First Movement” was for Japan a critical test that could well determine “the future of both its domestic social reform movements and its colonial establishment.”67 During the era of the Taishō democracy (1905-1932), however, Japan failed to respond effectively to March First, either from the perspective of the social movements or the establishment. The Japanese ended up settling for a limited form of social reforms consisting of an establishment of constitutionalism at home and continuing to run and expand their empire abroad.68 As such, the March First can be understood as a decisive historical event through which we can reassess the last hundred years’ history of interconnected East Asian countries including Korea. Japan as a core country seemed to have adapted successfully to modernity as it (empowered by its victory in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars) forcibly annexed Chosŏn in 1910, experienced 3.1, and made a slight concession to its control of Chosŏn. In reality, however, Japan did not pay enough attention to overcoming modernity as it devoted much of its energy to adapting to modernity, and the “national interests” it pursued were in the long run neither beneficial for all the Japanese people nor sustainable. In contrast, the semi-colony of China supported the March First and followed it up with its own May Fourth, thus making a mark in terms of historical transitions and participating in a “global moment.”
Lastly, it should be confirmed whether this seminal movement that started with the March First has persistently maintained its core. The endeavor to revolutionize society and reach a new world inherent in Tonghak has remained the dynamic energy that fueled Korea’s modern history. The history can be characterized by “incremental achievements,” demonstrated from the struggles of March First (1919) through April Nineteenth (1960), May Eighteenth (1980), and finally, the Candlelight revolution (2016) (that these Korean transformations can be characterized as an incremental and cumulative process of “persevering through impossibility” with constant twists and turns becomes evident when we compare Korean history to the history of China or Japan69). The subjects of this history are the people who overcame the despair of colonization and experienced the light of the March First with their entire existence, that is, the ones who “saw the heaven.” The longing for a “new world” that involves more than a mere reform of political institutions/systems connects the years of 1919 and 2019.
Since the March First meets the “criteria for a revolution,” it thus deserves such titles as “a revolution that continues to be learned” or “an on-going revolution.” If an agreement cannot be reached on this, it is acceptable to call it the “March First Movement.” Nevertheless I would like to emphasize that it was at least a revolutionary phenomenon with the characteristics of a revolution.
Would the South and the North, however, be able to share this historical perception as the reconciliation and unification process progresses? A division definitely exists between the North’s understanding of March First as “the People’s Uprising of March First”—which is based on the North’s reading of history according to its ideology of “Juche”—and the South’s understanding as “the March First Movement” (the same can be said of their assessments of the Provisional Government). The memory of 3.1 is, however, still valuable, for it offers the nation and democracy as the shared topics in the journey toward historical reconciliation that must actively take advantage of the divergent historical perceptions as a productive catalyst to transform the current coexistence of differences to the more advanced “sharing of perceptions.”70
The experiences of 3.1 constitute a contemporary history whose lessons we continue to learn. Molding this new remembering into a commons (without being embroiled in legitimacy controversies associated with a particular administration) is a world-history project that must be achieved together by historians and ordinary citizens who once again “saw the heaven” during the Candlelight Revolution.
Year 1919 Calendar – South Korea
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Koreans protest Japanese control in the “March 1st Movement,” 1919
Database Narrative
In 1905, Korea was placed under the military rule of Japan and in 1910 it was officially annexed as part of Japan’s thirty-five year imperialist expansion. In Korea, the period of Japanese rule (between 1910 and 1945) is generally referred to as a “Japanese forced occupation,” and there was widespread discontent within Korea over Japan’s management and strict control of the region.
Energy for a Korean independence movement grew between 1910 and 1919, as the general populace became increasingly educated and willing to stand up against the Japanese. General resentment erupted into wide-scale protest on March 1st, 1919, slightly more than a month after the death of Korea’s Emperor Gojong. Slightly over a year before, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had given his famous Fourteen Points speech that apparently served as a rallying point for students and community leaders in their efforts to form a strong independence movement. The events that followed are referred to as the March First Movement, the Samil Independence Movement, or the Manse Demonstrations.
In January of 1919, Koreans living in Shanghai formed the New Korea Youth Association and sent representatives to France, Korea, Japan, Manchuria, Siberia, and others in order to meet with leaders and look for new ways of proceeding toward Korean independence. This prompted a new student organization to form in Tokyo, which called itself the Korean Youth Independence Corps. They met on February 8th in Tokyo and issued a demand for Korea’s independence.
These international catalysts, both Woodrow Wilson’s concept of national self-determination and the growing support from international Korean groups, gave hope to Koreans pressing for independence from Japan. Thirty-three leaders came together, made up of Methodist (nine of the thirty-three), Protestants, (seven of the thirty-three), Ch’ondogyo (fifteen of the thirty-three), and Buddhist (two of the thirty-three) religious leaders. This group was led by Son Pyongo-hui, Yi Sung-hun, and Han Yong-un. Together they drafted a Korean declaration of Independence and prepared to spread it throughout the country.
The death of the emperor, a strong supporter of Korean independence, brought many mourners to the capital city of Seoul for the funeral, which was to take place on March 3rd. On March 1st, the thirty-three leaders proclaimed Korea’s independence, and announced a series of nonviolent protests about to begin all across the country. After presenting the declaration, the thirty-three leaders sent out copies of the declaration to activists around the country, called the police to explain what they had done, and were promptly arrested. After that point, the campaign for independence had no primary leader.
Campaigners held nonviolent rallies in Seoul, Ansong, P’yongyang, Chinnamp’o, Uiju, and Wonsan on March 1st, and over the next two days groups organized more rallies and marches in Hwangju, Sangwon, Kaesong, Suan, Anju, Sonchon, and the vast majority of the country’s cities and towns. The protestors were school children, housewives, farmers, craftsmen, as well as politicians, intellectuals, and religious leaders. These protests were designed to appeal to the consciences of the Japanese, and erupted unpredictably throughout the country. However, the Japanese power holders’ response was brutally violent. By April 10th, more than 300 cities had held nonviolent parades, demonstrations, and nonviolent raids of police stations, post offices, and other Japanese outposts. Over 200 of these were met with violence as Japanese forces fired into the crowd.
On March 5th, students were expected to return to school, yet none arrived. Students continued protesting along with the rest of the populace, as Japanese forces killed or tortured protesters and set fire to buildings, including schools. The protesters also attempted intermittent boycotts, which they were unable to sustain. In all, the pro-independence groups held more than 1500 protest gatherings, in which more than two million civilians took part. The number of deaths is estimated be around 7,500, along with 46,000 arrests.
People continued protesting into mid-April, yet they continued to be brutally repressed by the Japanese, who, although they were unwilling to allow Korea independence, did change their method of governing so as to be more acceptable to the Koreans. Some of the changes made included exchanging the military police force for one made up of civilians, and allowing a limited degree of freedom to the Korean press. The protest also sparked the creation of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, a partially recognized government in exile that played an important role in Korean history over the next decades.
Despite the campaign’s failure to achieve its goal of independence, March First is celebrated as a national holiday in both North and South Korea today. The campaign for Korean independence is remembered as the most serious act of resistance to Japanese power of its time, and as a canonical example of nonviolent struggle against a foreign power.
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