뉴스레터

On February 11, 1896, two palanquins were whisked through the chill early morning air and headed hurriedly toward a hill in Jeong-dong, Seoul. While all else was still asleep, two court maids followed by King Gojong and his crown prince were hidden in the palanquins that slipped out of Gyeongbok Palace. There was no telling how long the ride took. The spot where the palanquins stopped was in front of the Russian legation on top of a hillside in Jeong-dong. Whether King Gojong had then foreseen that his stay there would last for more than a year remains unknown.

After going through Empress Myeongseong's brutal assassination by the Japanese in 1895, the tragedy known as the Eulmi sabyeon (乙未事變), King Gojong felt a threat to his safety and spent his days in anxiety. The pro-Japanese cabinet led by Kim Hong-jip had been conducting radical measures of reform at the time, such as enforcing the use of the solar calendar, reorganizing the military system, and banning males from wearing topknots. These drove anti-Japanese sentiments to an extreme among Koreans who then joined righteous armies to participate in resistance movements. This led to a secret arrangement between the then Russian consul Karl Ivanovich Weber and pro-Russian officials Yi Beom-jin and Lee Wan-yong of Joseon to have King Gojong leave the palace and take refuge at the Russian legation.

That incident is what is now known as Agwan pacheon (俄館播遷), a combination of "agwan" (俄館), which refers to the Russian legation, and "pacheon" (播遷), which literally means the King fled the capital city at the outbreak of a war. Once the bizarre situation turned into reality of a state's sovereign sojourning in a foreign state's legation set on the sovereign's own soil, it at first seemed to preclude Japan and the pro-Japanese forces from growing more powerful. However, judging from the way internal affairs began to be controlled by the hands of Russian advisers and the rights to various state-run projects, such as logging, mining, and railroad building, were handed over at bargain prices to Russia, the United States, and France, the king's refuge only managed to open the door to another form of despoliation.

The Russian legation's construction began in 1885 shortly after Joseon-Russia Treaty of Protection and Commerce (Joreo suho tongsang joyak 朝露修好通商條約) was concluded and the building was completed by 1890. Built of stones and bricks, the two-story building had an underground floor and an observation tower rising above the second floor. It was one of the several modern buildings designed by the Russian architect A. I. Seredin-Sabatin who came to Korea in 1883. Standing at the top of this Renaissance-style building's tower that rose high above the straw-thatched or tiled roofs back then would have given a full view of the royal palaces and the capital city's four gates.

The pro-Russian cabinet and the Russian consul retained their position for a while at the center of power even after King Gojong moved into Gyeongun Palace (慶運宮) one year later in February 1897. However, their influence took a sharp plunge as Japan won the Russo-Japanese War that broke out in 1904. Later on, after the Russian legation was voluntarily closed down due to the Russian Revolution, the building went through ups and downs, once being used as the consulate general of the Soviet Union until most of it became destroyed during the Korean War.

The South Korean government officially announced the Russian legation as native cultural property no. 2 of Seoul in 1969, restored the remaining observation tower as well as its surroundings in 1973, and then designated it as historic site no. 253 by 1977 under the title "Former Russian Legation." The site is only one of many that convey dismal memories of modern Korean history, but its presence appears more chilling in the winter as it reminds people of how King Gojong must have felt when he made the inevitable choice to take refuge there and how his people were left to wholly bear the pain of losing national sovereignty.

References: Culturecontent.com – Russian Legation
http://www.culturecontent.com/content/
The Independence Hall of Korea 《Historic Sites of Independence Movements in Seoul》 - Former Russian Legation
http://sajeok.i815.or.kr/ebook/ebookh01/book.htm