Shin Chae-ho

Korean historian (1880–1936)

Shin Chae ho, or Sin Chaeho (; December 8, 1880 – February 21, 1936), was a Korean independence activist, historian, anarchist, nationalist, and a founder of Korean nationalist historiography (민족 사학, minjok sahak; sometimes shortened to minjok). He is held in high esteem in both North and South Korea. Two of his works, A New Reading of History (Doksa Sillon), written in 1908, and The Early History of Joseon (Joseon Sanggosa), published in 1931, are considered key works of nationalist historiography in modern Korea. He argued that modern Koreans and the people of Manchuria were of a single race which has an ancestral claim to both Korea and Manchuria, Shin also studied Korean mythology.

Shin was born on December 8, 1880. His grandfather was an official in the royal advisory department. His pen name was "Dansaeng", which he later changed to "Danjae". Shin was taught various Neo Confucian books and concepts by his grandfather, and later enrolled in the Confucian academy Sungkyunkwan, Shin, to a limited capacity, read Italian literature and history and published some Italian related works; There is some speculation that Dante might be an influence on Shin Chae ho's work, in particular Dream Sky (1916). Shin went on to work for the editorial boards for two newspapers, the Hwangsŏng Sinmun and the Taehan Maeil Sinbo, and became the leader of the underground "patriotic enlightenment" group, the Sinminhoe. which was an effort to assassinate Japanese Governor General Terauchi, leading to the arrests of several Sinminhoe members and eventually the dissolution of the Sinminhoe.

Shin went into voluntary exile in August 1910 when Japan declared its annexation of Korea. He moved to China in 1913, and draft the "Declaration of Korean Revolution" for the Righteous Brotherhood (Uiyeoldan) in 1923. Shin died while in solitary confinement at Lüshun Prison of a brain hemorrhage on 21 February 1936. An early form of the minjok is found in his article "New History Reader." Shin's minjok works contested the traditional conception of Korea as a geographically defined "peninsular nation" (반도 국; pandoguk), which was born out of politics associated with the Mandate of Heaven in classical Chinese political philosophy. The minjok was defined by the terms of its history, and history was shaped by the minjok, hence these two concepts were reciprocal and inseparable. For Shin, "if one dismisses the minjok, there is no history"; to ignore or to down play the minjok was to devitalize history itself.

Shin Chae ho's anarchist philosophy is largely ignored by contemporary Korean scholars. North Korea also sponsored re reading Shin, among other Korean authors. In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Il Sung is said to be the leader of the minjok, and follows similar genealogical tracings of Koreans into ancient Korean Manchuria.

Shin Chae ho's high standards of education and early enrollment of children in school (at age 4) were criticized as excessive. He responded that some four year olds already knew the first one thousand characters in Chinese and that some had already begun the Children's First Learning Programme (Dongmong seonseup). He also argued that historical standards of education were steeper than the contemporary standards. All the while, Shin believed all Korean citizens should learn both Hangul and Hanja to aid in preserving Korean identity, rather than subject themselves to the Chinese language system, and to study Korean patriotic literature.

As part of the minjok historiography, Shin rebuked some scholars for focusing too much on geography and borders rather than minjok ethnic boundaries; he called these scholars "territorial historians". However, his own works consistently employed territorial terms, boundaries, borders that only differ by how Shin justified them by a very ancient Korea, while the "territorial historians'" terms are usually traced to younger Chinese courts. This is aggravated by the fact that Shin had few, if any, compelling references for his historical claims, making his boundaries largely arbitrary or folk history based.

Shin Chae ho's Dream Sky at times resembles Dante's Divine Comedy. If Shin had knowingly presented a Korean ized Divine Comedy as an authentic work of Korean fiction, it would be an adulteration of the minjok historiography project by Shin's own standards of ethno cultural autonomy. Whether or not Shin even read Dante's Divine Comedy is purely speculative.