동아시아 봉건 담론의 연속과 단절

Abstract

After the immigration of western history in late 19th century, The traditional meaning of ‘fengjian (封建)’ was changed with the word ‘feudalism’. I studied this issue from two aspects, first, traditional disputes on ‘fengjian’, and second, the appropriation of ‘fengjian’ in modern western historiography. In ancient China the fengjian meaned the divided - ruling of the family in Chu (周) dynasty. The power of domination was given from the conference of the king (王) to the dukes (諸侯, 公). The fengjian of that age was very similar to the feudalism of middle age of western society. However the unification of Qin (秦) dynasty of China forced to convert the whole state system. Qin dynasty drove the policy of centralization. As a result, the fengjian became the subordinate under-system of the centralized government. As was the same case in Joseon dynasty. In the period of centralization, the fengjian functioned a role for self-governance mainly forced of the rural community. In this respect, the disputes around the fengjian contributed to the balance to restraint the central power. After the introduction of ‘feudalism’, all thing around the fengjian was changed. The traditional disputes about the fengjian was absorbed in the traditional disputes into the vortex of ‘feudalism’, so to speak, reconstructed in the frame of the universal history which was prevailed in 19th century and I called it a ‘pseudo’-universal history, a fiction of several historians and a ideology of modern imperialism. Both, feudalism and fengjian, were translated same term ‘fengjian’ since 19th century in East Asia despite the different historical context. This means that the discourse of the feudalism may be de-constructed by the concept of ‘fengjian’.