User:Madalibi/Korean historiography

Until the very late nineteenth century, the dominant form of historiography in Korea was Confucian historiography.

Before 1392
History writing in pre-modern Korea was a temporary task for government officials and learned amateurs, rather than a profession. Confucian historiography drew heavily on the Confucian Classics emphasizing "form and practice" (ch'eyong kwang'ye). Confucian historiography viewed history as a political tool to educate both rulers and educated subjects on how to act wisely in the present by reflecting on the past.

Chinese and Confucian historiography
The earliest historical accounts of Korea come from the Chinese historiographical tradition and its Twenty-Four Histories, dating back the Records of the Grand Historian (109-91 BCE) by Sima Qian. References to what are now considered to be Korean progenitors, the Dongyi ("eastern barbarians"), are especially replete in the Book of the Later Han (compiled in the 5th century CE), Records of the Three Kingdoms (compiled in the 3rd century), and the Book of Wei (6th century). No indigenous historical records from the ("Korean") Three Kingdoms have survived, although the Nihon Shoki (720 CE) of Japan alludes to some Korean sources. Historical literature from Later Silla (668-935) and early Goryeo (918-1392) have survived, and Seongjong of Goryeo (981–997) established a History Office (Sagwan, later Ch'unch'ugwan), based on the Tang Dynasty institution of the same function, to create and preserve historical records of each reign. The most important historiographical work in Goryeo was the Samguk sagi, written by the scholar-official Kim Bu-sik (1075-1151) based on Zizhi Tongjian on other sources. Kim aimed to rectify the "deporable" state of Goryeo scholars knowing the Chinese classics and the history of the Dynasties in Chinese history, but not the history of "our [own] country" which he regarded as distinct from China, a sentiment which Ch'oe Yŏng-ho identifies as "nationalistic", despite later nationalist criticism of Kim's work. The Samguk sagi was divided in the style of the Chinese dynastic histories: annals, chronology, treatises, and biographies. Kim Bu-sik wrote this history in a judgmental Confucian style, documenting "the good and wicked acts of rulers, the loyalty and evil-doings of subjects, the safety and peril of the country, and the peaceful and rebellious acts of the people" with the goal of providing guidance to readers on moral behavior. A individual Buddhist monk working without state support compiled the Samguk yusa 140 years later, to which it is favorably compared to the sagi (on which it is partially based) by later nationalist historians as a source. The Samguk yusa is a collection of folk beliefs, supernatural stories, and Buddhist accounts from the Three Kingdoms era, and had no ordered format until the nationalist historian Choe Nam-seon reorganized it in 1926.

Neo-Confucian historiography
As Joseon (Yi) dynasty (1392-1910) was founded on the Neo-Confucian ideology of Zhu Xi (1130-1200), the state was mindful to keep meticulous historical records and sponsor history writing that shored up its own legitimacy and which fulfilled other Neo-Confucian ideological purposes, such as the rectification of names. During the early Joseon, histories focused on the concept of the Mandate of Heaven&mdash;how dynasties gained, maintained, or lost the legitimacy to rule. According to this narrative, the Emperor of China was the sole holder of the mandate, and rulers of peripheral realms, such as Korea, were merely kings. In this tradition, Joseon officials wrote chronicles (p'yŏnnyŏnch'e) and annal-biographies (kijŏnch'e) as pedagogical aids to monarchs on how to rule morally and ethically. To fulfill the Confucian duties of ancestor worship, Joseon officials led some inquiries into Korean geneaological origins, which foreshadowed Korean nationalist historiography's focus on tracing a "blood lineage" that connects modern Koreans to glorious ancestors.

After the Manchu conquest of China overthrew the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Korean Neo-Confucian intelligentsia wrote annotated histories (kangmokpŏp sasŏ) to reinforce their sense of undisturbed superiority and legitimacy (Chŏngt'ongnon) in Korea after the Manchu "barbarians" vanquished the "civilized" Ming. After a period of conceiving the peninsula as a "little China" which had inherited cultural orthodoxy from the Ming, these annotated histories declined in favor during the reigns of the Kangxi (1661–1722) and Qianlong (1735–1796) emperors in China, whose policies were more reconcilable with Confucian norms. In the mid-eighteenth century, the dominant form of historical writing became historical treatises (kijŏnch'e), which used well-established Chinese historiographical techniques dating back to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. Such methods included recording the achievements (pon'gi) of reigning monarchs and leading families (sega), the lives of living officials (yŏljŏn), the tools of statecraft (chi), and important events (yŏnp'yo). As compared to before the Manchu conquest, these historical treatises stopped observing the Sino-Barbarian dichotomy which placed Korea and China into the same cultural category.

Precursors of nationalism
During the later half of the Joseon dynasty, a trend of private individuals compiling their own histories emerged contemporaneously with the silhak, or "pragmatic learning" movement. Such historians who acted without government support or sanction included An Chŏngbok, Han Ch'i-yun, and Yi Kŭng-ik. In the 17th century, and especially after the Manchu conquest of China, some Joseon historians such as Seongho Yi Ik and An Chŏngbok began to challenge the China-centered writings of scholar-officials, arguing that Korea could have a court "at least on par if not above the Chinese court". The most representative silhak historiographical work is Seongho Yi Ik's Tongsa Kangmok (Essentials of the History of the Eastern Country), which although written in a neo-Confucian framework, demonstrate a more critical than apologetic tone towards the early Joseon dynasty and its establishment.

Nationalist historiographical ideas began to arise in the works of the scholars Park Ji-won (1737–1805), Yu Deuk-gong (1749–1807), and Yi Chong-hwi (1731–1786). Park Ji-won argued that the prevailing Korean historians of his day were beholden to Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian framework, which placed China at the center of the international system. Yi Kyu-gyŏng (李圭景, 1788–1856) wrote an appeal to intellectuals to write a comprehensive history of Korea within a nationalist framework. Yi Kwang-su (1892–1950), a Korean intellectual who searched history in order to explain the supposed degeneration of the "great and civilized Korean race", likewise blamed the Confucian yangban scholar-officials for toadying to China. Some late Joseon intellectuals wistfully wrote of the "old lands of [Goguryeo]" (the majority of them laying north of Joseon), which preceded Shin Chaeho's same irredentist historiography that justified itself with the ideas of Dangun and the minjok rather than previous dynastic connection. The role of the yangban class in history-writing faded with the Gabo Reform in the late Joseon. A nationalistic "new historical" style or studies (shin sach'e, shin sahak) emerged from the textbooks written by the chungin, or middle class. Written in a compressed, colloquial style, the new historical style did not cite sources, and often accepted tales from the Nihon Shiki without question. Until the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905, which turned Korea into a protectorate of Japan, these histories treated Japan positively, asserting Korea's independence instead against China.