계봉우의 한국역사 인식과 역사관

Abstract

Gye Bong-U(桂奉瑀, 1880~1959) was a leader of nationalistic movement in Manchuria and Russia. He was also a pioneer who studied various fields of Koreanology such as Korean language, history, and folklore etc. His Koreanology could be characterized by “Korean studies conducted by an overseas Korean”, which were formed by the works of educating Korean people in foreign land. This article examines the characteristics of his Koreanology, especially focusing on his understanding of Korean history. Gye Bong-U adopted historical materialism which means history is all about that of class struggle and social evolution is no more than a change of the mode of production. He insisted that ‘immature’ feudalism emerged in the earlier stage of modern state and also emphasized the importance of class struggle through peasant movements. We can interpret this opinion as an attempt to adopt historical materialism. However, if we closely examine his original view of ‘age of four kingdoms’ and ‘age of southern country and northern country’, we can find out this view is more or less related to a nationalistic historian's view. His work of applying historical materialism to Korean history was not automatic and mechanical. Although he learned and accepted Marxian views as he lived in the socialist nation Russia, his own view was not totally Marxian, rather, his view was partly nationalistic. It's because he tried not to forget the national identity while devoting himself to educating Korean people.