Controversy in historiography

By Mark Peterson

I was privileged to visit Korea recently, for a series of lectures. I’ve been on the city hall lecture circuit, it seems. I’ve given lectures to the city hall officials in Pohang, Busan, and Gyeongju. And I’ve given lectures to the parents meeting at a couple of elementary schools ― the “hakpumo” meeting, what I would call a “PTA” [parent-teacher association] meeting.

The lectures were my take on Korean history, titled “New Perspectives on Korean History,” and it was clear that I was presenting a foreigner’s view of Korean history. The basic argument was one that challenges several core assumptions and beliefs about Korean history held by most Koreans.

I have decided to “tell it like it is”, you might say. And I have ended up telling quite a different story of Korean history than that which is told in Korea. It is somewhat controversial, but I didn’t start out that way. I haven’t intended to be controversial; I usually avoid controversy. And I’ve been a “good boy” as a student of Korean history and learned the history that Koreans teach me.

But there are some problems. When I’m with other historians, and someone says something about Korea being 5,000 years old, the other historians and I look at each other, and with a subtle glance, a kind of “eye roll” we show each other that we know that’s not true. But that it’s not nice to say so.

There is a kind of code of silence when it comes to certain claims of Korean history ― such as that it is 5,000 years old.

If history means mythology, and exaggeration, then, yes, Korean history goes back to 2333 BCE (that makes 4,349 years) and then you round up to the next millennium, thereby you get 5,000 years of Korean history.

But if history means written history, then Korea’s claim to antiquity is a little shorter. The oldest records written in Korea date from the sixth, or fifth, or maybe a little from the fourth century (CE), and if you look at Chinese records about Korea ― well, Korea before it was ever called Korea ― you can find things that are around 2,000 years old. But there is no way you can find historical records older than that.

Now if you mean history is based on the archaeological records, then that’s a whole different matter. Then you can easily get 5,000 years. In fact, you can get double that and even more. The archaeologist have Neolithic evidence of man on the Korean peninsula going back to xxxx, and Mesolithic man going back to xxxx and Paleolithic evidence as early as xxxx years ago.

But somehow the culture as a whole has settle on the magical number of 5,000 years. Why? Maybe because China likes to claim a 5,000 year history. And Korea is tagging along with that. The Dangun story, the first mythical ruler of Korea, states that Dangun was born in the 50th year of the Yellow Emperor, the first Emperor of China. That is appropriately humble ― 50 years younger than China!

And there is the East Asian preference for “older is better.” Americans tend to error as badly on the other side in declaring that “younger is better.” We claim our country is a little over 200 years old, and yet students who have attended Harvard University have attended a school that is 380 years old ― nearly twice as old as America. Yet, it is in America. And even if you accept the pre-Independence era of America, the days of being a British colony, and a 400-year history (Jamestown, Virginia dates from 1606), there is still an older history of the original Americans, the Indians, or native Americans.

So as much as Americans like to exaggerate their history on the “younger” side, Korean’s like to exaggerate their history on the “older” side.

In my lectures in Korea lately, that issue, how old is Korea, is just the starting point, however. I deal with several other interpretations of Korean history that I have come to think are distorted. At least, there are areas where a different perspective is helpful.

One of the core issues is that of what kind of history has Korea had? In “tweet” length, to reduce Korean history to 147 words, the short version of Korean history as most Koreans would tell it, it is a history of wars and invasions. In the same way that Korean history is portrayed as 5,000 years old, I believe the portrayal of Korean history as one of war and invasions is also a distortion. It is just as easy to find evidence of peace and stability as the dominant themes of Korean history. That will be the subject of my next article in this series.

Mark Peterson works as professor at the Korean department at Brigham Young University and can be reached at markpeterson@byu.edu.