Shin Chae-ho

• Name — Sin Ch'aeho • Native Name — 신채호 • Born — 8 December 1880 • Died — 21 February 1936 • Birthplace — Chungcheong, Sannaeri, Joseon • Place of death — Port Arthur, Empire of Japan Sin Ch'aeho, or Shin Chae-ho or Sin Chaeho (December 8, 1880 – February 21, 1936), was a Korean independence activist, historian, anarchist, nationalist, and a founder of Korean nationalist historiography (민족 사학, minjok sahak; sometimes shortened to minjok). He is held in high esteem in both North and South Korea. Two of his works, A New Reading of History (Doksa Sillon), written in 1908, and The Early History of Joseon (Joseon Sanggosa), published in 1931, are considered key works of nationalist historiography in modern Korea. He argued that modern Koreans and the people of Manchuria were of a single minjok which has an ancestral claim to both Korea and Manchuria, Shin also studied Korean mythology. During his exile in China, Shin joined the Eastern Anarchist Association and wrote anti-imperialist and pro-independence articles in various outlets; his anarchist activities lead to his arrest and subsequent death in prison, February 21, 1936. • Illustration — Statue of Sin Ch'aeho in Seoul's Grand Park.

Sin was born on December 8, 1880. His grandfather was an official in the royal advisory department. His pen name was "Dansaeng", which he later changed to "Danjae". Sin was taught various Neo-Confucian books and concepts by his grandfather, and later enrolled in the Confucian academy Sungkyunkwan, receiving a doctoral degree in 1905. Sin, to a limited capacity, read Italian literature and history and published some Italian-related works; There is some speculation that Dante might be an influence on Sin Ch'aeho's work, in particular Dream Sky (1916). Sin went on to work for the editorial boards for two newspapers, the Hwangsŏng Sinmun and the Taehan Maeil Sinbo, and became the leader of the underground "patriotic enlightenment" group, the Sinminhoe. His group would later migrate to Manchuria in 1910 and attract such radicals as Yi Tong-hwi, a Korean Bolshevik who participated in "The Conspiracy case of 1911," which was an effort to assassinate Japanese Governor-General Terauchi, leading to the arrests of several Sinminhoe members and eventually the dissolution of the Sinminhoe.

Sin went into voluntary exile in August 1910 when Japan declared its annexation of Korea. He traveled to the Shinhanchon Korean enclave in Vladivostok, where he became the head writer for the newspapers Haejo Sinmun and Taeyangbo. He moved to China in 1913, and traveled the country. Sin never returned to Korea, and since he refused to file for citizenship with the Empire of Japan he became stateless. The March First Independence Movement, in 1919 spurred him to join the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai. Sin quickly became frustrated with the Provisional Government, culminating in a clash with interim leader Syngman Rhee (I Seung-man) and Sin leaving to embrace anarchism and draft the "Declaration of Korean Revolution" for the Righteous Brotherhood (Uiyeoldan) in 1923. Sin went on to join the Eastern Anarchist Association (동방 무정부주의 연맹; 東方無政府主義聯盟) in 1926.

Sin was arrested by the Japanese Military Police in Taiwan in May 1928 for the attempted smuggling of 12,000 yuan in forged banknotes out of Taiwan under the pseudonym "Yu Byeong-taek" (유병택; 柳烟澤) in an effort to help fund the Eastern Anarchist Association's general activities and bomb factory. He was sentenced to a 10-year prison term by the Dalian District Court to be served in Lüshun Prison. Sin died while in solitary confinement at Lüshun Prison of a brain hemorrhage on 21 February 1936. The Republic of Korea posthumously awarded Sin with the "Presidential Order of Merit for National Foundation" in 1962 and citizenship on April 13, 2013.

People People

Sin Ch'aeho wrote extensively on a theory of ethnic history which sought to challenge traditional border concepts in Korea and encourage Korean nationalism. This theory is broadly referred to as the Korean minjok (민족; 民族); An early form of the minjok is found in his article "New History Reader." Sin's minjok works contested the traditional conception of Korea as a geographically defined "peninsular nation" (반도 국; pandoguk), which was born out of politics associated with the Mandate of Heaven in classical Chinese political philosophy. This Chinese hegemony was interpreted as Sinocentric by Sin, and others, as it placed border control in the hands of the Chinese Court. Sin's minjok historiographical work traced a nation's history by its ethnic genealogy and lineage, relying on heritable traits and culture. The minjok was defined by the terms of its history, and history was shaped by the minjok, hence these two concepts were reciprocal and inseparable. For Sin, "if one dismisses the minjok, there is no history"; to ignore or to down-play the minjok was to devitalize history itself. Within the greater minjok history of a nation there was a host ethnic group, the chujok (주족); the identification of the chujok was necessary for tracing the authentic history of a nation, and solidified an ethnocentric national history. For Korea, the chujok was the ancient Korean-Manchurian Kingdom of the Buyeo (부여; 夫餘), which, by Sin's estimate, began 5,000 years ago with the birth of Dangun, the legendary son of a bear who was transformed into a human by the god Whanin. By combining mythology and genealogy, a common ancestry of Koreans and Manchurians was traced, effectively making them family. Sin thereby attempted to erase the geographical border between Korea and Manchuria in favour of ethnic re-unification. Distinct from the minjok was the state or country, the gukga (국가; 國家; or kukka). The minjok as a more basal concept than the gukga and did not substantially change between generations, whereas the gukga could change between kingdoms, government, and rules. By defining the minjok as a rich and powerful ethnic history, Sin constructed an anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism social defence. Largely, the goal was rejection of both Chinese and Japanese governmental oversight and influence. Contemporaneous Japanese historians also argued that Koreans and Manchurians were the same group, but their efforts were to prove Korea was historically indistinct from other nations and thus mitigate Korea's importance.

Sin is sometimes called a social Darwinist, a popular concept in the early 20th century. Within Sin's work, the Manchurian-Korean Buyeo minjok is interpreted as the standard of measure for historical progress in Korea. Sin described a minjok history of conflict between the various ethnic groups of East Asia, as well as a political history. Towards this progress, Sin's minjok project was laid out in terms of national victories: specifically for the Buyeo, victory would be complete reunification of the Korean ethnicity and then-on defending against cultural assimilation and imperialism. This "Darwinian-Spencerian" framework, which prized ethnic nationalism and purity, allowed Sin to write a minjok-centred history of Korea that attempted to shut down the Japanese colonial justifications by conjoining ethnic history and progress, necessarily making harmful the adulteration of Korean society with Japanese culture, not a progressive one. Sin did not describe Korea as the "victor" of these ethnic battles. Sin described a slow fall of the minjok, primarily attributing a high point to King Muyeol of Silla, and then descent through the fall of Balhae and slow fracturing of Korean social unity through politics and war. Sin praised the Koryeo and Choseon dynasties, but insisted that the successes that they brought were only partial, lamenting that if scholars "are searching for a full unification, it cannot be found after Tangun."

Sin Ch'aeho is often credited as the primary source in the Juche (주체; 主體; meaning Self-reliance or Autonomy; sometimes spelt Chuch'e) political ideology. Juche aspires towards a country's complete autonomy, both in a national sense and in an historical sense. However, it is not clear whether the North Korean Juche is modelled upon or is merely similar to Sin's Juche. Scholars such as Sheila Miyoshi Jager have written that strong references about the history of North Korean ideology are uncommon, but similarities in language, symbolism, and the concepts make Sin a good candidate as an influence on Kim Il Sung and his own Juche state ideology. Sin's Juche concept is also specifically Korean; however it bears a likeness to Japanese Kokutai (국체; Kukche).

Sin Ch'aeho's anarchist philosophy is largely ignored by contemporary Korean scholars. One of his later works, The Dream Sky, is considered one of these anarchist-themed works, and explores themes of "clear understanding," an individual's "own way", and praises "human struggle" as a righteous path. The book also challenged literary standards by ending on an ellipsis and breaking historical continuity by borrowing characters from Korean history.

Sin Ch'aeho's high standards of education and early enrollment of children in school (at age 4) were criticized as excessive. He responded that some four-year-olds already knew the Thousand Character Classic and that some had already begun the Children's First Learning Programme (Tongmong sŏnsŭp). He also argued that historical standards of education were steeper than the contemporary standards. All the while, Sin believed all Korean citizens should learn both Hangul and Hanja to aid in preserving Korean identity, rather than subject themselves to the Chinese language system, and to study Korean patriotic literature.

As part of the minjok historiography, Sin rebuked some scholars for focusing too much on geography and borders rather than minjok ethnic boundaries; he called these scholars "territorial historians". However, his own works consistently employed territorial terms, boundaries, borders that only differ by how Sin justified them by a very ancient Korea, while the "territorial historians'" terms are usually traced to younger Chinese courts. This is aggravated by the fact that Sin had few, if any, compelling references for his historical claims, making his boundaries largely arbitrary or folk-history based.

Sin Ch'aeho's Dream Sky at times resembles Dante's Divine Comedy. If Sin had knowingly presented a Korean-ized Divine Comedy as an authentic work of Korean fiction, it would be an adulteration of the minjok historiography project by Sin's own standards of ethno-cultural autonomy. Whether or not Sin even read Dante's Divine Comedy is purely speculative.