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Person1880 – 1936

Sin Chae-ho

Nationalist historian who wrote the Ancient History of Joseon and the Declaration of the Korean Revolution; died in Lüshun Prison

Known as Danjae, he was born in Daedeok (now Daejeon) and became a doctor of the Seonggyungwan academy, but gave up office to write editorials for the Hwangseong sinmun and Daehan maeil sinbo. His "New Reading of History" (1908) put the nation, not the dynasty, at the centre of Korean history, and his biographies of Eulji Mundeok and Yi Sun-sin stirred patriotism. He also joined the Sinminhoe.

Going abroad in 1910, he worked in the Russian Maritime Province and Beijing. He took part in founding the Provisional Government in 1919 but broke with it in protest at Syngman Rhee's petition for an American mandate over Korea. In 1923, at the Uiyeoldan's request, he wrote the "Declaration of the Korean Revolution", calling for direct revolution by the people and armed struggle.

In The Ancient History of Korea he wrote that "history is the struggle between the self and the non-self", and rebuilt early Korean history around Gojoseon and Goguryeo. Turning to anarchism, he was arrested in Taiwan in 1928 while trying to raise funds, sentenced to ten years and died in Lüshun Prison on 21 February 1936. He was posthumously awarded the Republic of Korea Medal in 1962.

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6 related events

  1. 1
    1904Daehan maeil sinbo Foundedparticipant

    The Briton Ernest Bethell and Yang Gi-tak founded the Daehan maeil sinbo; with a British publisher it escaped Japanese censorship and could take an anti-Japanese line.

  2. 2
    1908Sin Chae-ho’s Doksa sillonauthor

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

  3. 3
    1919 – 1935Uiyeoldan (Heroic Corps)author

    Kim Won-bong founded the Uiyeoldan at Jilin in Manchuria to destroy key Japanese institutions and assassinate officials.

  4. 4
    1923National Representatives' Conferenceparticipant

    Delegates of the independence movement at home and abroad met in Shanghai to decide the future of the Provisional Government. The "creation" and "reform" factions clashed and the conference broke up.

  5. 5
    1925 – 1938Korean History Compilation Committee and the Colonial View of Historyrelated figure

    The Government-General set up the Korean History Compilation Committee to publish "Joseonsa" and spread a colonial historiography of stagnation, heteronomy and factionalism to justify its rule.

  6. 6
    1931Sin Chae-ho's Ancient History of Joseonauthor

    Sin Chae-ho’s Ancient History of Joseon was serialized in the Chosun Ilbo. It saw history as "the struggle between self and non-self" and stressed the autonomy of Korea’s ancient past.

People who appear alongside

  • Park Eun-sik1859 – 1925

    Nationalist historian, author of the Painful History of Korea, and second President of the Provisional Government

  • Ernest T. Bethell1872 – 1909

    British journalist who published the Daehan maeil sinbo with Yang Gi-tak, beyond the reach of Japanese censorship as a British subject

  • Yang Gi-tak1871 – 1938

    Co-publisher of the Daehan maeil sinbo who led the National Debt Repayment Movement and the New People’s Association

  • Kim Won-bong1898 – 1958

    Leader of the Uiyeoldan, the National Revolutionary Party and the Korean Volunteer Corps; Deputy Commander of the Liberation Army

  • Kim Sang-ok1890 – 1923

    Uiyeoldan member who bombed Jongno police station in 1923 and took his own life after a gunfight with the Japanese police

  • Na Seok-ju1892 – 1926

    Uiyeoldan member who bombed the Oriental Development Company and the Chosen Industrial Bank in Seoul in 1926 and then shot himself

  • Ahn Chang-ho1878 – 1938

    Founder of the Sinminhoe and the Heungsadan; as Interior Minister of the Provisional Government he set up the yeontongje network

  • Park Yong-man1881 – 1928

    Founded the Korean National Brigade in Hawaii to train for armed struggle; a "creation" faction leader in 1923

Themes this person appears in

  • Writing Korean HistoryAD 375 – 1931

    From the Seogi, Guksa and Sinjip to the Joseon sanggosa — history-writing as royal display, Confucian record, assertion of independence and nationalist scholarship

  • Republican China and Imperial Japan1912 – 1949

    The age when the Republic of China, born of the 1911 Revolution, passed through warlord division, the May Fourth Movement, the United Front and the Northern Expedition, fought Japan’s invasion and split in civil war — as Japan moved from Taishō democracy through the Manchurian Incident and military coups to the war in China and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and colonized Korea resisted through the March First Movement and armed struggle