Sang Woo Jeong

10.18399/acta.2022.25.2.002

Tōyō aristocracy monarchy Inaba Iwakichi Naitō Konan

The expansion of the Japanese Empire from the late nineteenth century coincided with the modernization of the nation. In this context, historical research conducted on Korea by Japanese historians from the late nineteenth century to 1945 had the double function of supporting Japan's colonial expansion and establishing historical studies as a modern discipline, which entailed the creation of Tōyō (Japan's Orient). While previous studies on Japanese historiography from this period have tended to focus on its function as a tool supporting Japanese colonialism and have not paid due attention to its role as a part of Tōyō, this paper examines how Japanese historians ascribed the notion of Tōyō and the position of Korea within this historical space. It achieves this by focusing on the work of Inaba Iwakichi on Korean political history. His study was based on his teacher Naito Konan's interpretation of Chinese history. Naitō, who was a professor in the department of history at Kyōtō Imperial University, explained the Tang-Song transition as the evolution from medieval aristocracy to early modern monarchy. Following this line of thought, Inaba claimed that the political system of the Chosŏn dynasty had remained at the aristocracy stage, thus highlighting the stagnant character of Korean history. In addition, it shows that Japanese historians positioned Korea as the most backward state in Tōyō, which comprised Korea, China, and Japan.