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Attitudes and Perceptions about the First World War by Members of Joseon Society During the 1910s and 20s

  • The Review of Korean History
  • 2012, (105), pp.187-228
  • Publisher : The Historical Society Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

TAE HUN Lee 1

1연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Offering the most extensive coverage of the First World War at the time,the “Maeil Shinbo”(Korean Daily News), stated that Japan was achieving political and military success in the Kiautschou Bay as well as Manchuria. The ultimate purpose of the war, the newspaper argued, was to prepare for a racial confrontation with the West. However, the general perception of the war within the Joseon community differed from this news propaganda. Although some accepted the First World War as a process by which weaker nations were merely integrated into more powerful countries, the newly developed group of intellectuals of Joseon society saw that the current state of Japanese imperialism had deeper implications. At a minimum, these intellectuals viewed it as a subject for criticism. Some went further to interpret it as evidence of the eventual demise of imperialism. Regardless of the Joseon intellectuals’ views, pro-Japanese supporters as well as the ethnic movement forces of the 1920s each separately used these perceptions to support their own political agendas. First, the pro-Japanese supporters argued that great nationalistic integration as strengthened by the First World War. In turn, they criticized the Russian Revolution as a phenomenon of social destruction. Furthermore, this perception was also employed as evidence for supporting the political interference in Joseon. Yet the Joseon intellectuals continued to perceive the First World War and its aftermath as a shift in the global sociopolitical structure as opposed to a destructive force upon East Asia. In other words, the group stated that the First World War destroyed imperialistic order to newly apply the modern values of freedom and equality as the principles of global reconstruction. In addition,Joseon’s new intellectuals believed that this international order would ultimately weaken the imperialistic order of Japan in East Asia in the end. Such perception regarding the First World War continued to function as a perspective on international political trend, supporting the reasoning of pro-Japanese supporters as well as the ethnic movement forces after the mid-1920s.

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