근대화의 길, 역사가의 선택

In the Name of Modernization : A Critical Reflection on Seok-Hong Min As a Historian

The article endeavors to review, analyse, and criticize the scholarship of the late Seok-Hong Min(1925-2001). Born and educated under the Japanese Colonial Era, Min, after liberation, had been one of the founding members of Korean Historical Association, taught at Seoul National University for almost three decades, and selected to a prestigious membership of the Korean Academy of Arts and Sciences. There is no exaggeration that he is remembered as ‘the founder of Western and French history in modern Korea'. But, what kind of historian was he, and how and where can we situate him in historiography of modern Korea? These are the questions that this essay aims to raise and answer, if possible. The main body of the article consists of two major issues: one is on why and how Min decided to be a voluntary advocate for modernization movement of the late 1960s and 1970s; the other is on his peculiar appropriation of Western history in general and French Revolution in particular, which are ‘rearranged’ in compliance with modernization theory. Once being an outspoken critic against authoritarian rule of the FirstRepublic, he later ‘converted’ into an active and convinced ideologue for Park Chung-Hee's Revitalization Reform. Relying upon the model framed by Walt Rostow, ‘the most hawkish anti-communist modernization theorist’, Min played an important role both in drawing a blue-print for modernization program for Koreans to follow and in end orsing the legitimacy of Park's call for ‘Korean version of democracy’. Min 'reinterpreted' Arnold Toynbee's famous theory of the ‘challenge and response’ and reappraised Maximilien Robespierre as a democrat in a way of vindicating historical necessity and urgency of Park's military regime. The author also points out that Seok-Hong Min's understanding of Western history illuminates how Korean Western history books including textbooks had been seriously biased by the Orientalism. Perceiving ‘modernization’ as synonymous with ‘Westernization’ and ‘Civilizing Process’, he tended to treat almost every historical events such as Reformation, Renaissance, French & Industrial Revolution as a kind of milestones and jumping-stones to arrive at a final destination of modernization and democratization. By urging Koreans to chase and copy Western path and model of modernization, he after all ended in contributing to serving and spreading the Orientalist discourses. The story of Min's scholarly life presents an excellent case-study which demonstrates how an intellectual had managed to live and survive at the times of political and economic turmoils. Sometimes he, as a historian, had to change, readjust, and discard his point of views in order to cope and cooperate with the emergent circumstances. Sometimes he had to exchange his scholarly honesty and integrity with earthly success and reputation. In this respect, the story of Min's professional life might be nothing but a shameful self-portrait of us. The author thus concludes that the coming of 50th Anniversary of the establishment of Korean Society for Western History(2007) should be amoment of self-examination and introspection, not a year of cheerful celebration. Unless the critical reassessment of modern Korean historians is properly fulfilled, the task of (re)writing a correct(?) modern history of Korea would remain as an unaccomplished noble dream.