대한제국기 ‘유신(維新)’의 정치학— 개념의 치환과 「일본유신 30년사」—

Abstract

Kings of Chosun who represented a dynastic transition, or who attemptedreforms, often decreed a new beginning in state affairs under the slogan of維新(Yu-shin). Currently, the word is generally understood as ‘reform’,‘innovation’, or ‘renovation’, indicating the renewal of outdated policies, butthe traditional concept of ‘Yu-shin’ did not necessarily imply a renewal. Yu-shin was grounded in the legitimacy of the royal succession, seeking tocorrect any deviations in ‘natural law’, ‘morality’, and ‘customs’ from the‘original state’ represented by the ideals of the Yo-Sun era (堯舜時代). Thus,the word implied both ‘restoration’ and ‘renovation’ in its traditional context. This traditional concept of ‘Yu-shin’ was impacted by the open-doorpolicies resulting from Chosun academics learning about the Japanese MeijiYu-shin (or Meiji Restoration), when the Japanese officials of theJapan-Korea Legation described the reforms of King Go-Jong as beingYu-shin modelled on the Meiji Yu-shin. Thus, a schism arose when theJapanese historical concept of ‘Meiji Yu-shin’ influenced Chosun’straditional concept of ‘Yu-shin’. The catalyst for this schism was 日本維新三十年史, which was translated and serialized by the newspaper Hwang-Sungin 1906. This series was significant for introducing the Daehan Empire tothe accomplishments of Japanese modernization in the 30 years since theMeiji Restoration, but the publication of 明治三十年史 presented the biasedperspective of Kokoku Shikan (a nationalistic view of history centered onthe Emperor), together with Japanism, and a progressivism rooted in theMeiji Restoration. These factors contributed greatly to the disintegration anddistortion of the concept of Yu-shin in Daehan Empire. In response to this, Hwang-Sung altered the original introduction to itstranslated series 日本維新三十年史 to state that the Japanese Meiji Yu-shinand the subsequent establishment of national sentiment and modernizationrepresented a natural process of ‘Yu-shin’, and that this process formed anessential topic of scholarship to drive political changes and progress in theDaehan Empire. Thus, ‘Yu-shin’ was coupled with the concept of ‘progressivism’,with priority in scholarship, and then with ideology, so that it wasdecoupled from its original target, ‘state’, and associated instead with lessimportant targets. Within the concept of ‘Yu-shin’ in the Daehan Empire,the foreign concept of Meiji Yu-shin became established. This functionedprimarily as an index for the progress of civilization, decoupling Yu-shin’soriginal connection to the legitimacy of national policies in whichprogressivism represented fundamental political reform. The altered formof the concept was then recycled within a closed circuit, affecting the valuesof scholarship, ideology, patriotism, and education.