경복궁 중건과 대원군의 정치－『경복궁영건일기』를 중심으로-

Abstract

It was last summer that some Korean historians recognized an important historical material, called Chronicle of the reconstruction of Kyongbok Palace (CRKP), which has been preserved at Waseda University in Japan. Daewongun(DWG), the biological father of the King Kojong, led the reconstruction project, which had been viewed as a national event. Seoul Historiography Institute translated it into Korean this year. This article focused on some issues including the reconstruction process, the way that the project was romanticized and the desire projected onto the palace and neighboring region. The project started in 1865, when DWD was entrusted with powers regarding the reconstruction of the palace. A temporary organization was established. Officially top officials of the government were chosen to the high-ranking post of the organization. Regarding reconstruction project, however, it was a private group called, “18 literati” that backed up the project. The group was virtually an alliance between relatives of DWG and the grand queen dowager. What was critical to DWG was to romanticize this project in the name of Heaven’s will. On the one hand, He claimed that a stone where prophecy had been inscribed was discovered. He also argued that commoners voluntarily joined the project. On the other hand, He asserted that as the original Palace was the symbol of new Dynasty that was established by the Heaven’s will, so was the reconstructed palace. The reason why DWG tried to justify the reconstruction process was because he imagined a new political order that was totally different with the political system maintained for more than 200 years. CRKP clearly shows how his desire for a new political order was expressed inside and outside of the palace. Hundreds of thousands of private houses belonging to the commoners and the privileged were demolished. Even some buildings belonging to a palace called Kyunghee were forced to face the same fate. New public offices, administration offices and even some military agencies were established in the very place where private houses were demolished. On the whole, what DWG intended was to make the reconstructed palace to be the central place for a newly revitalized dynasty.