일제하 중추원 개혁 문제와 총독정치

Abstract

The Privy Council (中樞院, Chungch'uwôn in Korean) played a role partly as a kind of the assembly to limit the absolute royal authority. It was originally established as the product of a political compromise between the political reform demands from below and Emperor Kojong of the Great Han Empire. After Korea was colonized, the political function of the Council, however, turned into the advisory institution of the Government-General. Korean Councilors (參議, Ch’amûi in Korean) of that institution who had collaborated with the Japanese colonialism attempted to use it as the their political footholds. One group demanded that they should be granted the political right to participate in Japanese politics, and another group maintained that the Privy Council be institutionalized as an assembly of colonial Korea. Colonial government also was somewhat inclined to the latter, but home government was not so. Despite these hopes of some Korean councilors and colonial elites, the Privy Council remained as a kind of advisory institution to the Government-General. Given this, colonial politics was more reactionary than the politics of the Great Han Empire. This colonial politics revealed its realities and also the colonial modernity in terms of politics.