Park Eun-sik
Nationalist historian, author of the Painful History of Korea, and second President of the Provisional Government
Known as Baegam, he was born in Hwangju in Hwanghae and steeped in Neo-Confucian learning, but took up enlightenment ideas through the Independence Club. As chief editorial writer of the Hwangseong sinmun and the Daehan maeil sinbo he led the patriotic enlightenment movement, and he headed the Northwestern Educational Association. In his 1909 essay on renewing Confucianism he called for a practical faith that served the people, and founded the Daedonggyo.
After the annexation he went into exile in western Jiandao in 1911, where he wrote lives of national heroes such as King Dongmyeong and the founder of Balhae. Moving to Shanghai, he led the Dongjesa with Sin Gyu-sik, and in the Painful History of Korea (1915) wrote that "the state is the body, history is the spirit": while the national soul lived, the country would rise again. In 1920 he published the Bloody History of the Korean Independence Movement, recording the March First Movement and the struggle that followed.
In 1924 he became the Provisional Government's premier and acting president, and when Syngman Rhee was impeached in March 1925 he became its second president. He led the amendment that replaced the presidency with a cabinet system under a premier and then stepped down, and died in Shanghai that November, leaving the words that independence required the whole nation to unite. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation (Republic of Korea Medal) in 1962, and his remains were brought home in 1993 and buried at the Seoul National Cemetery.