A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 32. Kunt Ernő emlékére. (1994)

TANULMÁNYOK - KI-DONG LEE: A koreai nép és nemzeti kialakulása

országot, mintegy 1300 éven keresztül a nemzeti határok változatlanok maradtak. Ez egyedülálló jellegzetessége a koreai történelemnek. Történelme során Koreát harciasan hazafiaskodó és háborúra szomjas népek vették körül, aminek következtében az országot kívülről nemcsak kulturális hatások érték, de szinte állandó katonai nyomásnak is ki volt téve Kína, Japán és a tőle északra levő területek felől. Korea földjét nemegyszer teljesen lerombolták. A nép azonban öntudatra ébredve ellenállt az ismétlődő invázióknak. A nemzeti tragédiák során Korea népe bizonyos értelemben megerősödött, s identitásának tudatában már korán sikerült felülkerekednie minden megpróbáltatáson és nehézségen. FORMATION OF THE KOREAN PEOPLE AND NATION During the middle of the nineteenth century, those Europeans who traveled through East Asia could not possibly imagine that the secluded „Kingdom of Chosun", which was then known as „the Land of Morning Calm", turning into a thriving modern country one hundred years later. To the Westerners, the nineteenth century Korea was a poverty stricken agrarian country that had rejected the Western approach and thus remained as a hermit kingdom. It was, however, during the last part of the nineteenth century that Korea finally opened its country to the Westerners, and that Korea also established diplomatic relation with Hungary. The bi-lateral relations thus established between Korea and Hungary got nowhere because the triumphant Japan in 1905 took over the Korean diplomacy as a result of its victory over Russia and its subsequent demand of severance of the diplomatic relations with other nations. Being stripped of sovereignty, the Korean government at that time was powerless to resist the overwhelming forces of Japan, and consequently it was compelled to sign „the Treaty of Protection". Ito Hirobumi, the Japanese Resident General in Korea, reported to the king of Korea that the state of Protectorate should make the relationship between Korea and Japan comparable to that relationship between Hungary and Austria within the framework of dual monarchy of your great nation. Such was proved to be a diplomatic chicanery, and the Empire of Japan annexed Korea outrightly in 1910. Korea was liberated from the Japanese colonial rule, which lasted for 35 years, as a result of the allied victory over the Fascist powers in World War II. While there reached a national consensus that the people should united together and build a new independent state, the country was divided into north and south, and then the nation was involved in an internecine war which turned the country into ruins. Korea as a nation, thereby, came a long way through a series of trials and misfortunes, and it, however, presently ranks as a newly industrialized nation in the world. In terms of race, the Korean belongs to the Mongolian stock and linguistically speaking Korean is part of the Ural Altai language family. The ancestors of Korean drifted from Sungari River basin into Korea across its northern land frontier, and although the early Korean tribes may have been of diverse origins, North Asian strains were predominant, and that the southward movement of the northern people from Manchuria continued into historic times. By the first millenium B. C, the Korean peninsula entered the period of the bronze age, and the remains show connections with the prehistoric wares of that south of Lake Baikal, Siberia, wich was different from that Shang China's. 181