Thirty-Six Years — The Light and Shadow of Colonial Rule

Last time, we saw the Korean Empire vanish from the map and the peninsula pass under the rule of the Government-General of Chosen. From here to 1945 lie the thirty-six years of what is called the colonial period. There is no subject in which the scene depicted shifts more by the standpoint of the one who views it. There are voices that speak of the laying of railways, the building of schools, and the growth of population as aspects of modernization; and there are voices that decry the realities of plunder and assimilation — land and resources taken, language and names changed, people mobilized for war. To take up only one side or the other would be to tell but half the history. In this installment, we trace, as calmly as we can, both the harm done and the harm suffered, setting the clashing assessments out just as they stand.

From Military to Cultural — Why Did the Rule Turn?

The rule just after the annexation came to be called military rule. Japanese military forces, gendarmes, and police were stationed throughout the peninsula, and a system that severely cracked down on independence movements and acts of resistance is said to have been imposed. Under an arrangement in which gendarmes also served as police, the speech and assembly of the people were strongly constrained, as multiple records convey.

What shook this system greatly was the March First Independence Movement of 1919. On March 1, sparked by the reading aloud of a declaration of independence at Pagoda Park (present-day Tapgol Park) in Seoul, a movement seeking independence spread at once across the whole peninsula. This was a time when the principle of national self-determination, raised the previous year by U.S. President Wilson, was emboldening subjugated regions around the world, and that current is said to have reached the peninsula as well.

As for the number of victims in the suppression of this movement, there is a wide divergence among the sources. The records of the Government-General of Chosen at the time put the dead at a little over five hundred, while the book by Pak Eun-sik, who took part in the independence movement in Shanghai, records the dead as a little over seven thousand five hundred, and some tallies by recent Korean research institutions put it at a little over nine hundred. With figures diverging this much, one cannot speak in terms of a single fixed value. What is certain is the fact that there was a fierce clash in which many lives were lost, and the fact that the dispute over its scale continues even now.

Modernization and Plunder — Two Faces of the Same Fact

When speaking of this age, what clashes most sharply is the assessment over modernization and plunder.

On the peninsula under the rule, facts are pointed to such as the building of railways, roads, and harbors, the establishment of modern schools and hospitals, advances in agricultural production and industrialization, and the growth of population. There are voices that assess these as aspects that contributed to the peninsula’s modernization. On the other hand, pointing to how, in the same period, many farmers are said to have lost their rights to their land through the land survey project, how rice and other produce is said to have been shipped to the Japanese mainland, straining the food situation within the peninsula, and how industrialization and development is said to have proceeded first to suit Japan’s convenience — there are voices that decry it as not a modernization for the peninsula’s people, but a mechanism for plunder.

What makes it difficult is that these are not separate events but, often, two faces of the same fact. A railway, for instance, made the coming and going of people and goods convenient while also becoming an artery for moving resources and troops. The spread of schools is said to have raised the literacy rate, while the content of that education is pointed to as having woven into it the intent of assimilation we will touch on later. Whether to call a single fact ‘modernization’ or ‘a means of plunder’ shifts according to which aspect one shines a light upon. For that very reason, we wish to be cautious about speaking of the whole while looking at only one face.

Names and Mobilization — The Weight of Assimilation Policy

In the latter half of the rule, especially in the period heading from the Second Sino-Japanese War toward the Pacific War, the so-called imperialization policy — which sought to unify the peninsula’s people as subjects of Japan — is said to have intensified. What is often spoken of as its symbol is the Soshi-kaimei carried out around 1940.

Soshi-kaimei is said to have consisted of two elements: ‘soshi,’ the establishment of a Japanese-style family name in place of Korea’s ancient surnames, and ‘kaimei,’ the changing of given names to Japanese-style ones. Studies argue that its original aim lay in bringing the form of the Korean family — based on patrilineal kinship groups — closer to the Japanese household system, and in instilling loyalty to the emperor. The registration of family names was strongly urged, and where none was registered a name is said to have been set based on the head of household’s surname; while changing the given name itself was formally said to be optional, and it is also pointed out that those who actually changed even their given names were limited. Even so, the fact that the rule reached into one’s own name — something bound deeply to a person’s dignity — is weighty, and voices that take this as a forced assimilation wounding the dignity of a people persist strongly.

Over the span of thirty-six years, the peninsula was deeply changed. While railways ran, schools multiplied, and the forms of life were recomposed toward the modern, the land, the language, the names, and the people themselves were woven into the logic of rule and of war. That experience long remained in the memory of the peninsula’s people even after liberation, and became the ground on which they would consider their relationship with Japan.

And in 1945, Japan’s defeat put an abrupt end to these thirty-six years. Yet it was not the beginning of a calm liberation for the peninsula. What awaited after one rule departed was an unforeseen fate — the dividing of the peninsula in two by new great powers.