The 'zombie' in Korean history
There is an idea in Korean history that will not die. I, and others, try to kill it, but it won’t die. It’s a zombie.
I think I can talk about zombies in Korean culture, although I would think that the concept is alien to native Korean culture, but with the rash of zombie movies made in Korea as of late, I’ve decided I can use the term to look at an issue within Korean culture.
This came to the fore again recently when I was interviewed for a YouTube broadcast, not my own, but for a channel called “Intelligence Inside.” They made two videos, where we discussed a wide range of topics. I mentioned two of my favorite subjects within my ever-constant refrain about the peaceful traditions of Korean history — No. 1, peaceful transitions between dynasties, and No. 2, the dominance of the surnames Kim, Lee and Park.
These were royal surnames of old dynasties and therefore are a symbol of the continuation of tradition and the peaceful transitions of Korea. I like to compare Korea with other countries where, with a change of dynasty, the old dynastic social order is exterminated in a revolution where the have-nots take from the haves. That’s the way it is with most changes of dynasties. We say “torches and pitchforks.” In Korean, however, the main line of dynasties, Gaya to Silla to Goryeo to Joseon, retained their aristocratic class, and thus the names were passed down to the present day — Kim, Lee and Park.
This was not true for the outlier dynasties. Baekje and Goguryeo saw the annihilation and the extermination of their ruling class. But for the main line of the winning dynasties, there was never a wholesale revolution, rather the ruling class continued on into the new dynasty.
Inevitably, in comments to the video, some people said they disagreed and that with the Goryeo to Joseon transition, in 1392, there is evidence that it was not peaceful because all the royal family of Goryeo, the Wang clan, were all killed off. Annihilated. And therefore, my theory of peaceful transitions is incorrect since Korea had a violent change of dynasty.
Well, that is the zombie. I’ve made two videos on the subject, one recently in response to the comments on my interview in the other channel’s video and another I made about four years ago. In these videos, I set out the facts that show the Wang were not all killed off. But still the idea persists. I can’t seem to kill it.
The basic fact that most people don’t seem to know is that there were not many of the royal Wang family to begin with. People assume that based on what we know of the founding of the Goryeo dynasty, by Wang Geon, and his infamous political marriage alliances with 27 powerful families, and that he gave the surname Wang to some of his supporters, that there must have been a lot of people named Wang. And we have the interence from the Joseon period of the Jeonju Lee family that is huge, then surely there were a lot of Wangs.
Not so. One factor might be that some families simply don’t proliferate. Look at the royal family of Seok from the Silla period. The Seok shared the throne alternative with the Kim and Park clan, yet their numbers today are very small, about 11,000. And the Seol clan that was very prominent (Won Hyo and Seol Chong) in the Silla period, yet they never proliferated, about 42,000. Was it that Wang simply did not proliferate? Or was it related to their inner-clan marriage preferences?
Whatever the reason, the facts on the ground are that there were not many of them. We don’t have a good census, but from the names that appear in the historical record, they don’t dominate. And one really telling statistic is the exam — the all-important civil service exam as an entrance into government service. There were only four royal Wang who passed the exam. By contrast the Jeonju Yi clan of Joseon had the highest number of passers of any clan with 871. That statistic alone speaks volumes about the numbers of Goryeo royalty.
Another factor to show that the Wang family was not exterminated is the fact that the last Wang king and the first Lee king of Joseon were in-laws. Three of Wang U’s daughters married sons and grandsons of Lee Seong-gye, the founder of the dynasty. Seong-gye’s son, Bang-won, in his fight to be the successor king killed brothers and nephews, but he did not kill their Wang wives. The word is Bang-won killed more of his own Lee than Wang.
And two Wangs were honored as “founding fathers” of the Joseon state supporting Lee Seong-gye, and they were rewarded richly for their support.
So, there weren’t many Wangs to begin with and we see that not only were they not annihilated by the Lees but were supported by them. And there are 25,000 Wangs in Korea today — not an insignificant number.
So, why won’t this zombie die. It’s a Japanese era issue. The historiography of the early 20th century, dominated by the Japanese looked for revolutions. Korea wanted to claim a dynamic history, like that of Japan, so the Wang story was created to show the dynamism of Korean history. To create a revolution when there was none and to disguise Lee Seong-gye as an upstart who came in and changed everything. He changed nothing, except to make himself the chief among an aristocratic elite that had been dominating Korea for almost 1,000 years.
Mark Peterson (frogoutsidethewell@gmail.com) is a professor emeritus of Korean studies at Brigham Young University in Utah. The views expressed here are his own.