한말 근대 주권 개념의 수용 양상 ― ≪황성신문≫과 ≪대한매일신보≫를 중심으로 ―

Abstract

Around the 1870s, the concept of sovereignty was introduced to the Korean Peninsula and the Korean people's understanding of it varied depending on class and time period. However, in the 1900s, as Joseon's sovereignty began to be seriously threatened, the formation and settlement of the modern concept of sovereignty at that time emerged as an important task regarding the Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, several newspapers, including the Hwangseong Shinmun and the Daehan Maeil Shinbo, published articles on sovereignty, introduced the concept of modern sovereignty, and cast images regarding the concept of sovereignty. This paper examined the meaning of the terms related to modern sovereignty based on 400 articles about sovereignty published in the Hwangseong Shinmun and the Daehan Maeil Shinbo as the main research subjects. Through this analysis, the following conclusions were drawn. First of all, the term sovereignty was used in the Hwangseong Shinmun and the Daehan Maeil Shinbo with the meaning of national sovereignty from an external perspective. In the Hwangseong Shinmun, a phenomenon in which the terms of sovereignty and national authority being used as synonyms is found. On the contrary, in the Daehan Maeil Shinbo, the term of national authority is not only used as a synonym for sovereignty, but there are cases in which they are used as distinct from each other. Next, in the Hwangseong Shinmun and the Daehan Maeil Shinbo, both forms of sovereignty were used to convey the meaning of monarchical sovereignty, mainly from an internal perspective. In the process of introducing western knowledge, the author of the related article used Confucian thoughts including Mencius as a basis. This appears as a phenomenon in which the modern concept of sovereignty and the remnants of traditional ideas coexist and can be seen as the result of the modern concept of sovereignty being settled upon regarding the Korean Peninsula. Lastly, the declaration of the sovereignty of the Korean people on behalf of the sovereignty of the state may be seen as the sprout of recognition of national sovereignty.