일제강점기 조선유교회 성격에 대한 재검토

Abstract

This study reconsidered the character of the Joseon Confucianism Assembly founded by Sun-Hwan Ahn in 1932. Through the excessively dichotomous analysis from Pro-Japanese and Anti-Japanese perspectives, the existing studies defined the Joseon Confucianism Assembly as a pro-Japanese group and a national movement group, respectively. Accordingly, that brought about the irony that various and dynamic historical facts of the Joseon Confucianism Assembly were hidden. Both pro-Japanese Confucian scholars who participated in Kyeonghakwon (The Academy of Confucian Classics Studies) and reformed Confucian scholars who participated in the Myeonggyo Hakwon of the Joseon Confucianism Assembly attached importance to Confucianism; however, the orientation was very different. The former was the Confucianism as a means of the ideological cooperation with the Japanese Empire, which was connected to ‘Hwangdo Confucianism’ and participated in the Joseon Federation of Confucianism organized in 1939. However, the latter neither cooperated with the Japanese Empire nor participated in the Joseon Confucian Alliance even during the period of the wartime system but chose ‘to maintain personal integrity during chaotic times.’ Like in the legal framework allowed by the Japanese imperialist rule, the activities to improve the Joseon people’s social rights, interests, and political status may be resistance against or cooperation with the Japanese Empire, depending on the circumstances, the Joseon Confucianism Assembly may be ‘the gray zone in the colony’ for Confucian scholars. It is judged that in the situation in which the country already perished, the passion of the persons concerned in the Joseon Confucianism Assembly, who would protect the ‘tao’ of Joseon Confucianism, summoned Confucian scholars’ participation, other than pro-Japanese Confucian scholars. Even so, the significance of the Joseon Confucianism Assembly in the first half of the 1930s was that the opportunities were prepared for Confucian scholars to utter their voices and check their identities though temporarily, like a business for paying a visit to Confucius’s Tomb in Qufu. Thus, paradoxically, it is time when a rigorous study is required in earnest on the Joseon Confucianism Assembly and its important members.