高句麗가 韓民族史로 인식되는 과정에 대한 고찰 - 民族에 대한 과학적 개념 규정을 바탕으로 -

The Goguryeo History Regarded as a Part of Korean History in Terms of the Correctly Defined Ethnicity

Before we understand the origin and history of Korean ethnicity(韓民族), we have to define correctly the ethnicity or the ethnic group. An ethnic group(民族) is defined as the people of identical language, religion, and custom. Now Koreans, the people of the Korean Peninsula, have a homogeneous culture and they are surely classified as one ethnic group. So it is not easy for them to understand that different ethnic groups existed before they were acculturated and fused into one. The Korean language(韓國語) does not tell ethnicity from nation and most Koreans, even highly educated Koreans, do not understand the difference between the former and the latter. Goguryeo(高句麗) began as a small kingdom about two thousand years ago along the middle Abnok River Valley(鴨綠江 中流) and grew gradually an empire of many ethnic groups. Goguryeo was destroyed by Shilla(新羅) and Dang(唐: China) in AD 668 and the ethnic groups of the empire were included in three political entities: Shilla, Dang, and Balhae(渤海) Mahan(馬韓) people were unified into Shilla, the peoples of the central part of Goguryreo were ruled by Dang, and Goguryreo royal people and Malgal(靺鞨) people were included in the newly established Balhae. In AD 918, Wanggeon(王建) named his new state as Goryeo(高麗) in order to succeed Goguryeo symbolically. With the name of Goryeo he tried to justify his policy of northward territorial expansion. But the symbolic naming does not mean that the Goryeo ethnicity succeeded really the Goguryeo ethnicity. The most important thing for us to understand, when we study the origin and history of Korean ethnicity, is that a number of ethnic groups had been acculturated and fused into the Korean, the single ethnic group in the Korean Peninsula(韓半島). Key words: ethnicity, nation, Korean, Goguryeo, Goryeo.