뉴스레터

The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Japan's annexation of Korea. As widely known, Japan has never expressed a genuine remorse on its past occupation of the Korean peninsula since Korea gained independence in 1945, fueling the so-called historical disputes. Japan is now at a crossroads of decision: whether to usher in the next century without resolving this matter or to change its attitude and settle the historical conflict.

In this context, in an effort to take the centenary of Japan's annexation of Korea as an opportunity to urge Japan to sincerely reconsider its annexation and establish a new Korea-Japan relation, we are planning to produce a special issue of the Iwanami Shoten' monthly magazine "Sisou" (Ideology) in January 2010. Dozens of Japanese and foreign researchers will write papers on topics like Japan's historical perception and its annexation of Korea, modern Korea-Japan relation and Japan's rule over Korea and post-war Japanese perception of Korea. Furthermore in August of 2010, a symposium with regard to the special issue of the magazine is scheduled to be held. I wish Korean researchers would keep an eye on this move. Here, I will examine some topics that will be covered in the special issue.

How to understand the Japanese annexation of Korea is closely associated with the perception of Japan's entire history. This means that the annexation is not a matter only related with the Japanese modern history but it is inseparable from the recognition of Japan's entire history. Accordingly, reexamining the perception of the annexation requires a fundamental change in the perception of Japan's entire history. I will take the following example.

About two months after the annexation, on November 3, 1910, the Joseon Issue was published as a temporary edition expanded from the History and Geography. The History and Geography was the official journal published by the Japanese Association of History and Geology Researchers (later Japanese Association of History and Geology) that Sadakichi KITA and other scholars launched in 1899. The association published the makeshift issue to celebrate Japan's annexation of Korea. Touting that the annexation was the essence of Japan's 2,600-year-long history, the congratulatory address explained that the issue was devised to celebrate the brilliant achievement of realizing a dream that was cherished for 1,000 years and to extol the nation's prosperity together with the readers.

Is it justifiable to evaluate "research findings" that didn't acknowledge Japan's invasion of Korea?

A total of 22 scholars contributed their papers to the magazine including 13 well-known Japanese historians: Hisashi HOSHINO, Kumezo TSUBOI, Kunitake KUME, Tadashi SEKINO, Togo YOSHIDA, Sadakichi KITA, Michiyo NAKA, Katsumi KUROITA, Hiroyuki MIURA, Seiichi OKABE (then editor of the magazine), Yoshinari TANAKA, Ryu IMANISHI and Gennoske TSUJI. In other words, the whole circle of Japanese historians praised the annexation. What's notable here is not their assertions but how these researchers are evaluated by the post-war Japanese history society.

Keiji NAGAHARA's "20th Century Japanese History" was published in 2003. As the title shows, the author NAGAHARA is an expert on the history of 20th-century Japan and one of Japan's representative researchers on Japan's medieval history. Many historians were cited in this book, and of the 13 scholars referred to in the aforementioned Joseon Issue, 11 historians' names appear in the book excluding Seiichi OKABE and Ryu IMANISHI, and research of all the 11 historians is highly appreciated today.

For instance, this book contained no mention of the "theory of Japan and Korea sharing the same ancestry" maintained by Sadakichi KITA who praised Japan's rule over Korea as returning to the ancient relation between the two countries. Instead, it touted KITA as the first researcher who paid attention to "burakumin" (disadvantaged people). And the book gave Hisashi HOSHINO credit for making the first case in favor of the "theory" before Sadakichi KITA. It also mentioned positivist historians like Kunitake KUME, the first professor of Japanese history at the University of Tokyo, and Gennosuke TSUJI, the first director of the Historiographical Institute The University of Tokyo. But it only highlighted their critical attitudes to imperial country historical views.

Criticizing the NAGAHARA-style assessment of researchers on Japan's history

NAGAHARA evaluated each scholar from the perspective of a Japanese historian, and he completely neglected Japan's attitude toward its annexation of Korea and its understanding of the Korean history. Of course, I don't want to argue that their research is meaningless just because the scholars wrote papers to celebrate the annexation. I can't agree to the approach, however, that separated the historians' research on the Japanese history and their understanding about the Korean history from their acknowledgement of Japan's invasion of Korea, and only extolled the former aspect.

The study of nation states critically views the modern age which originated from the West and has the same root as post-modernism. I agree to the study's criticism of the modern age's repressiveness but its historical understanding too much focuses on imperialism. If such view is applied to Japan's rule over Korea, Korea unavoidably becomes an object and its national movement will be highlighted. Furthermore, Japan's occupation of Korea and its rule over Ai-nu or Okinawa (so-called domestic colonies) will be considered the same. In my opinion, such view resulted from a lack of understanding about civilization established during the Joseon dynasty and thus led to a perspective that oversimplifies the Korean resistance to Japan's annexation.

NAGAHARA came to a conclusion in the above book, summarizing the Japanese historical science as follows: "Generally, predecessor historians have sincerely tried to sensitively respond to the situation of the time and undertaken tasks since the Meiji Restoration. Japan's historical studies have consistently looked at the past from the present and explored the past that is needed at present through in-depth verification and theory. This was the direction that the Japanese historical science took in assuming its responsibility as critical studies." (pp. 315-316)

I can't agree to such assessment altogether, but in order to overcome such perception, I examine the problem that the centenary of Japan's annexation of Korea raised to the Japanese historical perception.

* The Japanese Government-General of Joseon, the headquarters of Japan's colonial rule over Joseon