History
of Korea
| How Korea Started..... | Ancient Choson | Three Kingdoms | Unified Silla | Koryo | Choson |
Korea has been known as "The Land of the Morning Calm" for a long time, but in history it has never been calm.
Korea is a small country surrounded by larger countries. For centuries the Korean peninsula has been attacked by neighbors, most often China and Mongolia. From 1910 to 1945 it was occupied by Japan. At the end of World War II, it seems Korea was free and one whole country, but it didn't last long. It was soon partitioned into two zones, the north to be administered by the Soviet Union, the south by the United States. After that the Korean War started in 1950 and it is still divided into two countries, North Korea and South Korea.
Bronze
eight-belled rattles of the Bronze Age(3rd-2nd century B.C.)
According to legend, Korea was founded in 2333 B.C. A prince had come from heaven to govern this peninsula at the edge of East Asia. The prince made his home near a sandalwood tree. When the bear and tiger who lived together heard about his arrival, they went to him. Both animals had a deep desire to become human, so they begged the heavenly prince to give them human form.
The prince gave each animal some garlic and a bitter herb called mugwort. He told them to go into the cave, stay inside for hundred days, and eat nothing but the garlic and the herb. If they obeyed his introductions, he would make them human.
The tiger was not patient enough to follow these introductions, but the bear did. After 21 days the prince kept his promise and transformed it into a beautiful woman. Then the prince transformed himself to a human and got married with her. They had a son and their son was named Tangun, the Sandalwood King.
Tangun was the first king in Korea and his capital established near Pyongyang, which is today the capital of North Korea, would be the oldest capital city in Asia. According to legend, Tangun ruled 1500 years and he became a mountain god when he was 1908 years old. Ancient Choson was destroyed by Han from China in 108 B.C.
Hunting
scene on the wall of the Tomb of Dancers (Koguryo, 5th-6th century)
Koguryo, the northern kingdom, included what is now North Korea and part of present-day China, as well. Koguryo was more powerful than the other two kingdom, Paekche or Silla. There was a great mayor who was more powerful than his king. He had three sons, but after his death, his three sons fought over his place. When the army of China and Silla attacked them, Koguryo fell easily.
A gilt broze incense burner (Packche, 6 century) 
Packche was in the southwest. They had a great business in seaborne trade. Its last king was king Eui Ja. He ruled well in his early years, but after winning some battles with Silla and Koguryo, he became conceited. When Packche fell to the combined armies of Silla and China, his beautiful 3000 court ladies committed suicide by jumping from Nac Hwa Am into the river. Nac Hwa Am means the falling of petals.
The
golden diadem ornaments from Silla.
Silla, the third kingdom, was a smallest, isolated area along the wild east coast, separated from its neighbors by rugged mountains. In Silla there were seventeen ranks of officials. Each level was indicated by the color of robes worn. A person was born into a certain class and could not rise above it. Silla finally united the peninsula with the help of China.
Kyoung Ju was capital of Silla, but it was far in the southeast so it was hard to govern the entire kingdom. While the central capital remained there, five other cities were made subcapitals. Buddhism increased at this time. Many monks traveled to China and India. Many temples and statues were built. Although Silla had a high level of craftsmanship, it was weak militarily. Silla broke into four countries.
Silver-inlaid
broze kundika ( Koryo, 10th century)
The Silla government was weak, there were thieves everywhere. There were three major thieves. Each of the three had followers and tried to build an individual country. Wang Kon was more powerful than the other two. He took over the other two and was able to reunify the land. He was renamed Taejo ('First King'). The name Koryo was shortened from Koguryo by Taejo and his followers. This is a story of how Korea got its name. I don't know if it's true but there were some Arabian merchants who pronounced Koryo "Korea," so Korea has had its name since then.
Choson is also known as the Yi dynasty. It is because General Yi Song Gye from Koryo started it. He turned back the army that was trying to march to China. He thought it was a suicide mission; he thought many people would die when Chinese army marched through Koryo, so he turned back and took over the country. He named the country Choson and it lasted until the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1910.
King Sejong, the fourth ruler of this kingdom, grandson of Yi Song Gye, brought important advances in scholarship, administration, science, medicine, music, and the humanities. He also invented the Hangul alphabet, the modern system of Korean writing. Under his rule, people developed metal movable type from Koryo, about 200 years earlier than western countries. Their religion was Confucianism, but Buddhism was also practiced. In Choson there were strict class lines. The royal family was at the top and beneath them there were mostly yangban (bureaucrats, officers, and professionals), sangmin (commoners, peasants, fishermen, and merchants), and chunmin (slaves, serfs, actors, and butchers exc.). Chunmin included the female entertainers, similar to Japanese geishas, know as Kisaeng. Kisaeng's son or daughter will work as serfs in public buildings.
In 1592 the Japanese attacked Korea. The Japanese almost took over Choson, but help from China and battles in the sea drove the Japanese back to their country. Admiral Yi Soon Sin was the hero who saved Choson. He came up with an idea, which is cover the ship's surface with iron in order to protect it from attack, put a sharp object on it so the enemy can't climb it and it had dragon face which fired at the enemy's ship. These ships called 'turtle ships,' were in fact the first ironclad vessels in history. They were used successfully nearly three hundred years before the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac during the American Civil War. The Japanese captured and took home with them many of Korea's most capable technicians, artisans and lots of artifacts. This helped Japan a great deal in the fields of medicine, printing, and in the manufacture of ceramics and textiles. When Korea was without leadership in those areas, the government was seriously weakened after that war.
Korea had closed its door from foreign countries except for China until 1876. In the year 1785 Roman Catholicism was illegal. In 1866 thousands of Korean Christians were arrested and hundreds were put to death, but now the largest religious groups are Christian. Choson was weakened by many other foreign countries when it opened the door for new ideas. There were many fights and wars, but they weren't Korea's war or fighting, it was other countries' war in our own land. In the year 1910, Japan took over the Korea.
In the year 1910, Japan declared that Korea no longer existed, it was now Japan. The Japanese military government in Korea set out to eliminate the Korean culture completely. Two million Korean farmers were forced to give up their land. The Oriental Development Company was head of all industry, land, mines, and food. They traded them to the Japanese for a cheap price. The Korean language was illegal and all Koreans had to change their name to Japanese. Many editors and writers were put in prison for writing against the Japanese. Political meetings were held under guard of Japanese. They made Koreans believe in their gods. On March 1, 1919, there was a marches in the name of Korean independence. It was nonviolent, people carried the Korean flag and shouted "Mansei!" which mean. "May Korea live ten thousand years." Seven thousand Koreans were killed and over fifty thousand imprisoned. There weren't enough jails.
Many railroad and industries developed in this time, but Koreans didn't learn how to construct or design them. Most of the professional work was done by Japanese and Koreans only did the labor.
In 1926, a Korean got a gold metal in the Olympics, but he had the Japanese flag on his chest. One of the Korean newspaper published his picture, but erased the Japanese flag. This newspapers was shut down for a while. It was this company's fourth shut down. In 1945, at the end of the World War II, Korea finally became free.
| History of Korea |