Remco E. Breuker

Kaesŏng Kim T’aegyŏng (1850–1927) Historiography national and regional identities Sin Koryŏsa

As one of the earliest professional Korean historians, the activities of Kim T’aegyŏng (1850–1927) took place against a background of Japanese encroachment on the Korean peninsula. As a native of Kaesŏng, Kim tried to establish a historical narrative that would acknowledge both Chosŏn and Kaesŏng, the former capital of the preceding Koryŏ dynasty. Confucian by training and conviction, Kim’s criticism of the bankrupt Chosŏn society was harsh, but the fact that he was a Kaesŏng native played a decisive role in the formation of his historical vision. The former capital of Koryŏ had been at the periphery of Chosŏn politics, but despite its low political status or perhaps because of it, Kaesŏng developed into a city with a bustling economic and intellectual life. As a result, tension developed between the focus of the local view and that of the national view in historical narratives from Kaesŏng. Kim and his predecessors made attempts at adopting a bifocal view of history that would be able to reconcile the divergent views of the state center and the region periphery, but the Japanese annexation of Chosŏn in 1910 undercut these efforts and made them futile.