한국 서양사학의 선구자 조의설(趙義卨)의 역사관

Abstract

Already 50 years has passed since the western history was firstly introduced in Korea. As a critic cried out, too much water had gone through the bridge. During this very half century the Korean western historical society was safely structured, its membership was greatly enlarged, and the bulky research achievement of the society has enormously accumulated on until now. So it is very important to remember that these excellent results could not have been achieved without the valuable preceding works of their first generation scholars like Eui-Seol Cho, Sung-Sik Kim, Sung-Keun Kim etc. Although many younger scholars would have almost a critical viewpoint of their academic achievements without studying deep into the subject, it is now necessary to appraise their precious achievements rightly through the deep examination. In this vein this essay makes a new attempt to research into a great forerunner of the western history in Korea, Eui-Seol Cho. I think that Eui-Seol Cho had mainly three important contributions to the Korean western history academic. Firstly, he had greatly helped to educate and bring up the younger scholars who became the representative members of the 1.5 generation in the academic circle in Korea. Secondly, he had firmly set up the main frame of the Korean western historical society and as a president conducted an important role to maintain the academic organ at the first phase of its development history. And he had also rendered great services to the development of the Korean historical society, which came a member of the World historical society in 1970 with the help of his untiring efforts. Thirdly, he had a pioneering role to actively introduce the quite new theories and methods of the world historical academic. As a result, his historical viewpoint became very unique. For example, according to his view of cultural history, all histories should be a cultural one. His unique historical attitude was different from the basic position of the cultural historians in the late 19th century as Jacob Burkhardt etc. and rather be similar to the new cultural historical concept of Peter Burke. Accordingly, it can be said that his historical viewpoint seems like a prelude for the cultural history of the 21th century. His unique concept of global history and everyday life history are no exception, too. All these facts lead us to the conclusion that a forerunner of the Korean western historical society as Eui-Seol Cho should become a object of the collective biography which can light up the historical position of the first generation of the western historians in Korea.