崔南善의 通史 서술에 나타난 역사인식의 변천

The Change of Historical Understanding Appeared in Writings of Korean History by Choe Nam-sun

Choe Nam-sun is a scholar who represents the academia of Modern Korean Historiography. Despite of Choe's importance, his life and philosophy did not receive much attention from Modern Korean historians based on the reason that he cooperated with Japanese Imperialism. However, it is not possible to correctly establish the studies of Modern Korean Historiography if Choe's accomplishment and research trend are not studied in depth and assessed objectively. Facing this kind of problem, this paper examines and compares Choe's representative historical writings, Chosun yuksa ganghwa (1930), Gosatong(1943) and Kukmin chosun yuksa(1945). Before the March First Movement in 1919, Choe Nam-sun was active in many variety of fields including publishing, media, and literary. Then he decided to solely concentrate on history research after he served a prison term for his involvement in the March First Movement. However, this did not really happened until right after the Sidae daily incident of 1924. Therefore, he published papers about Tangun from 1925 and became a leading historian at that time. In 1930, Choe nam-sun published his first Korean history book, Chosun yuksa ganghwa. It is centered on cultural rather than political history. Published after 6 years of research, it was evaluated as a narrative history book that contains superb narration techniques and perfect organization. But his appendix, an editorial Chosun people seen through History, received criticisms. It was viewed to illustrate Choe's defeatism or pro-Japanese sentiment. Nevertheless, this editorial deserves attentions because it is a mouthpiece for historical understanding of cultural nationalists and gradualist reformists at that time. Choe's second Korean history book is Gosatong published in 1943, in which the Japanese oppressive military rule was at its peak. In Gosatong, Choe concentrated on cultural exchange between Korea and World. This history book is a conclusive version of Choe's historical studies where the cultural research is emphasized. However, he tried to bring light on subject of homogeneity of Korean and Japanese cultures. Also when he wrote the history of Korean and Japanese interchange, he defended Japanese position. As the result, this book was evaluated as a history book that was most influenced by the history of Japanese colonialism. After liberation in 1945, Choe Nam-sun published Kukmin chosun yuksa. In this book, he mostly dealt with the history of oversea resistance. In that point, this book is very different from his previous two works. While emphasizing the condition of suffering Koreans as the result of external invasions in his previous two works, he stressed resisting and conquering aspects of Koreans in Kukmin chosun yuksa. As mentioned above, three historical writings contain different written organizations and historical understanding. This believes to be resulted from the inherent limitation of Choe's historical understanding. First, his historical understanding has mystical and religious characters. Secondly his theory of cultural sphere has a character of cultural universalism. Lastly, his position of Cultural Absolutism, which resulted the goal of his history research being cultural rather than the nation, can be cited. These kinds of inherent limitations of Choe Nam-sun's historical understanding are important cause that induced change in historical understanding occurred in his historical writings.