申采浩의 시대구분과 고려·조선시대사 인식

Abstract

As we all know, Sin Chaeho, who was representative nationalistic historian in early 20th century, paid great attention to ancient korean history rather than medieval or modern korean history. This tendency was originated from his will and desire to make historical korea independent from foreign powers, because according to his view, only in ancient times korea preserve the independent, and struggled with foreign powers such as china. On the contrary, Goryeo and Joseon dynasty period was filled with dependent spirit because of buddhism and confucianism. Anyway, it seems that Sin Chaeho did not completely deny the meaning of that period. As one of ways to establish national identity, he emphasized to preserve the national characteristics(國粹) which consist of ancestral absolute beauty in religion, language, history, customs and so on. Needless to say, core of national characteristics was seongyo(仙敎) in ancient times, but he admitted the virtue of fundamental confucianism, and buddhism simultaneously. He thought that the virtue of fundamental confucianism did not realized well in Joseon period except Jo Gwangjo, Yi Hwang, and the possibility of realization of fundamental confucianism was depend on the fact how figures deal with confucianism. In case of realization of fundamental confucianism, it could be included in the category of national characteristics. In this context, Sin Chaeho paid attention to some distingushed figures of Joseon dynasty such as Bak Jiwon, Han Baekgyeom, Yi Ik, Jeong Yakyong who tried to reach and realize virtue of ancient confucianism by way of studying a lot of classics. This means that he regarded Joseon period as the period of preservation national characteristics, whereas he rated Joseon period in the aspect of political military ability poorly.