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Narration of Unification of Three Kingdoms·North South States in the Textbook and Unification Education

Park, Mi-sun 1

1대림대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The need for unification education is increasing but the existing unification education is limited because it focuses on security and the agreement between South and North Korea. In order to explore the direction of unification education in the common historical experience between South and North, we have paid attention to the Unification of Three kingdoms and North South States Period in this paper. Controversies between the Unification of Three Kingdoms and North South States Period theories were started earlier and have been continued, however there has been no change in the textbooks from the 5th curriculum (1987) to the present to describe the meaning and limitations of the Three Kingdoms’ Unification. The name of the North South States Period also appeared for the first time in the 7th curriculum(1997) textbook. This is because North Korea first referred to the term North South States and referred to this period as Balhae and later Shilla. Of course, North Korea does not concede the Unification of Three Kingdoms. The shadow of the division of the South and the North appears in the view of the Unification of Three Kingdoms and North South States Period too. Therefore, the narration of the current textbook is not suitable for unification education. We should pay attention to the historical fact that after the Unification of the Three Kingdoms by Shilla, there was no war for more than 200 years when Shilla and Balhae coexisted. The fierce war among the three kingdoms in the 7th century ended with the Unification of Three Kingdoms. During the 200 years without war, while Shilla could overcome a lot of disasters and enjoy prosperity, Balhae could also grow into a thriving country in the east of China. As such, the Unification of Three Kingdoms and North South States Period have implications for inter-Korean relations today in terms of ‘war and peace’. Therefore, the meaning of peace can be awakened by describing the changes in the phases of lives and social aspects before and after the war in the North South States, turning off the narration centered on wars. Unification education should start with peace education.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.