Sin Chae-ho’s Doksa sillon

Sin Chae-ho serialised the Doksa sillon ("A New Reading of History") in the Daehan Maeil Sinbo, beginning a history centred on the nation.

In 1908, as Korea’s sovereignty slipped away, Sin Chae-ho serialised the Doksa sillon in the Daehan Maeil Sinbo. Seeing history as the record of a nation’s rise and fall, he placed the line from Dangun through Buyeo and Goguryeo at the centre of Korean history, and criticised the old China-centred histories and the distortions of Japanese scholars.

Around the same time he wrote biographies of heroes such as Eulji Mundeok and Yi Sun-sin to stir patriotism. The work is a starting point of nationalist historiography and leads on to his later Joseon sanggosa.