'Phony' history

By Mark Peterson

Once again, Korea is caught up in a battle over history ― not an argument with China or Japan ― we've seen those arguments ― but a battle between Korea's own historians.

Well, technically it's between the establishment historians (what the non-establishment historians call the "pulpit" historians) and the non-establishment historians (what are also called pseudo-historians). The non-establishment historians like to call themselves the "jaeya" historians using the term that was used in the olden days for people out-of-power, non-office holders, or literally "in the fields."

What is the dispute that has raised its ugly head? It is the publication of the "Jeolla Thousand-year History" project. The project began in 2018, marking a thousand years since the term Jeolla was first used to designate the province of the southwest part of Korea. For the last five years, about 213 scholars from the area have written 13,559 pages in 34 volumes ― a massive effort covering multiple disciplines within what can broadly be called history.

There's no problem here? The Jeolla region, often ignored, often put-down, often blamed for being out-of-step with the rest of the country, felt a need to establish its legitimacy once and for all. But what happened? The pseudo-historians came in with their favorite song-and-dance ― that foreign powers have unrighteously controlled Korea ― or rather, they are accusing the 213 historians of writing a history that gives credit to the Japanese.

You can put all the historians of Korea in one room and ask all those who give Japan credit for anything they've done in Korea to raise their hands, and you will see no one raise their hand. Yet, the pseudo-historians have seen a window of opportunity, and they have criticized the project for not being sufficiently xenophobic. Sorry, that's my interpretation of the thing. Not being sufficiently suspicious of Japanese historical sources. In fact, the pseudo-historians even criticized the use of Japanese and Chinese sources at all. They claim that Korean history ought to only be written from Korean sources. Huh?

Of course, the 213 historians, only a few of whom worked on the early period, were sufficiently critical of the Japanese sources. Good historians are critical of all source materials, yet, to ignore any pertinent material is really a greater offense. But the pseudo-historians tore into them in written reviews and broadcast interviews and discussions on TV.

Why are the pseudo-historians doing this? They have a following. If you are not sufficiently nationalistic and not sufficiently xenophobic, you can be criticized. And the criticisms have taken the form of demonstrations. In the streets. In front of scholars' offices. Signs. Placards. All printed up nicely by someone who wants to make sure the "demos" look well done. Yes, now we see it. There is a political dimension to all this.

This is not the first time pseudo-historians have struck. The first found an audience among the politicians in the national assembly. The first issue was Harvard University's Early Korea Project. Funded generously by the Korean government, the Harvard project was once the pride and joy of archaeologists and early historians. Getting Harvard to devote faculty and resources to Korea was a major achievement. Korean government sources have given funding for other projects, but in addition to history, and literature, they now had archaeology. It was a real feather in Korea's cap.

But things went south when Harvard published several volumes of research involving Harvard scholars, and scholars from around the world, that included results that the pseudo-historians didn't like, to wit, confirmation of the idea that the Han Chinese, about 2000 years ago, had a military outpost in Korea.

The archaeological digs seemed to prove it, but the pseudo-historians are ultra-nationalistic, and any hint of colonization of Korea brings back the horrors of the Japanese occupation from 1910-1945 and the Japanese murderous invasion of 1592-1598. Thus, they have come up with a face-saving alternative idea ― the Chinese outpost never was in Korea, but was in the Liaodong Peninsula. There! No pre-modern colonization. Why, after all, that 2000-year-old Chinese outpost must have been a Japanese invention in the first place to show that Korea should be colonized again in the 20th century!

This earlier dispute also had a political dimension. Not just well-managed demonstrations at faculty offices, but at the National Assembly. And no nationalistic National Assemblyman can pass up a chance to look more nationalistic, therefore, they cut off the budget for Harvard's archaeology department, the Early Korea Project was stopped, and the xenophobes won.

One needs to be sympathetic, to some degree. Korea was severely abused by the Japanese occupation, and the psychological effects still linger. But on the other hand, wouldn't the historians of whatever stripe be better off to work together with scholars from other places, in multiple disciplines, to look at the data, debate the analysis and let the best publications win? That's the way it is supposed to be. Not to shut off funding for serious research, or ― as this latest group is calling for ― destroy the 34 volumes of Jeolla history.

It's not hard to tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in an academic dispute. The bad guys want to burn the books!

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.