일본학계의 안중근 연구 쟁점과 과제

A Review of the Studies on An Jung-geun(安重根) in Japan

An Jung-geun’s patriotic deed was practiced as a kind of righteous armies war against the invasion Korea by imperial Japan. Ito Hirobumi is regarded as the founder of Japanese modernization. Therefore it is not easy to come to an agreement between Korean and Japanese academia on Aung-geun and his patriotic deed. So this paper looks into the research trend in Japanese academia, focusing on the meaning of his deed, the possibility of third person shooting or double shooting, and the appraisal about his “Theory of Oriental Peace”. First, regarding An Jung-geun’s patriotic deed, Japanese scholars argue that Ito opposed the Japanese forced occupation of Korea before the patriotic deed. But this argument has a serious flaw, since it is directly linked to the view that An’s patriotic deed frustrated Ito’s moderate position on Korea and accelerated Japanese forced occupation of Korea. Some studies consider An s act as a patriotic one executed for the independence of Korea and oriental peace without any personal resentment. Thus we have to focus on the meaning of An’s patriotic deed. His deed disclosed the character of Japanese invasion policy to the world and made direct damage to that policy. Another well-known distortion of An’s patriotic deed is the theory of third shooter. It was first suggested by Murota Yosiaya, one of Ito’s retinue. It seems that this view reflected Japanese prejudice or Murota’s wrong pride, which does not accept that Ito was killed by a Korean. Still this third shooter theory is widely known in Japan and there are many speculations on who really shot Ito. But this third shooter theory has no grounds and is criticized even in Japan. Lastly, there are positive appraisals on An’s “Theory of Oriental Peace”, which argued for the independence of Korea and opposed Japanese annexation. But the viewpoint on the “Theory of Oriental Peace” should be reconsidered. The essence of the theory is in the necessity for the unity of Korea, China, and Japan facing with the invasion of Western powers and the removal of the causes of war and conflict between nations regardless of East and West. His “Theory of Oriental Peace” neither fell into racism nor contradicted the Idea of World Peace. So we should point out that this theory aimed for universal internationalism beyond the theory of Asian Solidarity.