태권도 역사에 내재된‘기원’의 의미

Abstract

The objective of this study was to expand the cognitive horizon of Taekwondo history research by evaluating the relationship between Taekwondo and the historical situation from the 1960s to the 1970s, the epistemological limitations of nationalist ideology, and the meaning of “origin”, which functioned as the subject and foundation of cognition in historical studies. The results are as follows. First, from the 1960s to the 1970s, nationalist ideology was at its peak. During this period, the Park regime recognized the discourse of “traditional culture” as the most powerful and effective dominant discourse and carried out a policy to promote traditional culture. In this process, Taekwondo became a traditional martial art and was invented as a national sport. Consequently, Taekwondo developed rapidly owing to the nation's all-around support policy. Second, the nationalist ideology revealed in the study of Taekwondo history contains sensibility and the concept of a group sharing a common destiny, which were irrational and totalitarian characteristics. There is an epistemological critique that the essence of Taekwondo can be distorted because it is injected with a biased historical view that emphasizes the universality of Taekwondo rather than the specificity of the nation and asserts the continuity and exclusivity of history by aligning the origin of traditional martial arts with that of Taekwondo. Third, historical facts are human actions based on interpretation. Consequently, the perspective of understanding “origin” cannot be universal or absolute. It has to be emphasized that it is possible to reconstruct the past, called in the present age, more closely to its actual appearance only when accepting diverse perspectives and overcoming the limitations of historical continuity.