(489) Fame and Fortune

By Andrei Lankov

Confucian history was moralistic, essentially a morality tale about great sages who fought repulsive villains, and the vestiges of this approach are still alive in Korea. The sages and heroes of modern history are people who fought the Japanese, like Kim Ku or An Chung-gun, while the major villains are the evil collaborators.

Of the latter group nobody is so frequently attacked as Yi Wan-yong, a politician from the early 1900s who is often presented as the embodiment of collaboration and treason.

To be frank, the question of pro-Japanese activities is often manipulated, and not all people branded as ``pro-Japanese'' deserve the venom their memory is now tainted with. Some of them were just merely paying lip service to the rhetoric of the colonial masters, since it was a way to be left alone.

Some others sincerely believed that Japan would become the protector and teacher of a small and weak Korea. But it seems that Yi belonged to neither of these groups. He was an opportunist, pure and simple: smart, to be sure, but always looking for opportunities to increase his power and, in later years, his fortune.

Born in 1858 to a poor family of the countryside gentry, someone in Yi's position would not usually have many chances to reach nationwide prominence, but fortune smiled on him. When the boy was nine years old, he was adopted by a distant relative, a dignitary from Seoul.

This was fairly typical for that era: successful men often adopted distant male relatives if they had no sons of their own. It was important, since adoption insured that the family line, so paramount from a Confucian worldview, would not be interrupted.

Following his adoption, his life followed a fairly standard path. Yi passed the state exams that made him eligible for joining the bureaucracy. He took some minor appointments and ended up learning English at a government-sponsored school.

This was rather unusual for a Confucian gentleman, and made him a likely candidate for diplomatic service. Indeed, in 1887 Yi went to the U.S. to become a member of the first Korean diplomatic mission in Washington where he spent several years.

It is remarkable, however, that unlike many educated Koreans of his age, Yi was not involved with the Reformist movement of 1884. Perhaps, it was too risky for him (and indeed, many reformers paid with their lives for their attempts to change the country's path).

The American experience could easily had turned Yi into a staunch Westernizer ― such was the usual fate of educated Koreans who spent time in the U.S. in the late 19th century.

But he did not particularly like the U.S., and always stressed that an ideal choice would be the combination of Western technology and Eastern thought, exemplified by Confucianism and Buddhism.

When Japanese troops marched into Seoul in 1894, they established a new government which, depending on one's personal tastes, might be described as ``pro-Japanese'' or ``reformist.''

In this government, Yi was given the position of chief of national police. Eventually he became the minister of education.

Politically, Yi joined the pro-Russian faction. It was attractive to people like him, since the Czar's empire for a while appeared to be proof that technological innovations could co-exist with a non-democratic society.

Later, Yi became active in the Independence Club, the first Korean political party, which included people of pro-Western inclinations. In other words, he then belonged to the same cohort as Syngman Rhee and other Korean nationalists who later become leaders of the anti-Japanese movement.

However, he soon broke off relations with the Westernizers. After 1900 it appeared that Japan was the decisive force in the region, so Yi joined hands with the Japanese.

In 1905 he was instrumental in supporting the infamous Ulsa Treaty that made Korea into a de-facto Japanese protectorate.

By around 1907 he was perceived as the most notorious pro-Japanese personality in the government, so in 1907 an arsonist set fire to his expensive mansion in Seoul. Along the way he was also the target of a number of assassination plots.

In 1910 when the Japanese forced the last Korean emperor to sign the formal treaty of annexation, Yi once again was one of the major forces pushing this treaty through the sometimes reluctant bureaucracy.

He was richly rewarded for his services, becoming one of the most affluent people in Seoul. There were talks about the huge bribes he allegedly took as an official. This is possible, but even the official rewards bestowed on him by the Japanese were large.

In 1925 his fortune was officially estimated at 3 million won. In those days, 25 won was a good monthly salary for a white-collar worker, so very roughly nowadays this would be equivalent to a quarter of a billion dollars.

In the colonial era, Yi served as a figurehead for some pro-Japanese agencies, signed a few letters in which he criticized the pro-independence activists and extolled them to be loyal to Japan.

He died in 1926, in great comfort and with official recognition, which, however, eventually turned itself into nearly universal condemnation.

Prof. Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He has recently published ``The Dawn of Modern Korea," which is now on sale at Kyobo Book Center and other major bookstores. The book is based on columns published in The Korea Times.