"An Ch'angho (1878-1938) and the Nationalist Origins of Korean Democracy"Jacqueline Pak
PhD thesis in progress, to be submitted early 1999. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
A Revisionist InquiryAn intellectual biography of An Ch'angho, the study explores the life, thought and activities of the founding father of the Republic of Korea who unified the Provisional Government, wrote the first republican constitution and waged the war of independence against Japan.
Comparable to Sun Yat-sen of China or Gandhi of India, An Ch'angho was a republican revolutionary like Sun and an ethico-spiritual leader like Gandhi. Yet, as a "Revolutionary-Democrat", An Ch'angho not only championed constitutional democracy but also led the efforts for the war of independence. The pioneer of Korean democracy, An Ch'angho was also an institution-builder, constitution writer and military strategist.
A revisionist effort, the aims of the inquiry are two-fold: first, it attempts to shed new light on how the idea and practice of democracy were transmitted to and assimilated in Korea through the vehicle of the Korean nationalist movement, and second, to rectify the previous misjudgments of An Ch'angho by revealing the genuine nature of his transnational leadership as well as liberational ideology and strategy by investigating his private papers for the first time.
As the most significant and extensive collection among Korean nationalists, the An Ch'angho Collection of private papers not only provides valuable insights into his role as the chief architect and strategist of nationalist movement but also offers a rare glimpse of the actual modus operandi of the global network of exile and underground activities. The constitutional drafts of his revolutionary organizations such as the Kongnip hyôphoe (1905) in America, Sinminhoe (1907) in Korea, Taehan kungminhoe (1908) in Manchuria, Russia and America, and Hungsadan (1913) in America demonstrate creative and original, if evolving and complex, character of An Ch'angho's constitutional philosophy and institutional experiments. His "Master Plan of Independence and Democracy" is as much a war preparation roadmap as a prophetic blueprint for sovereign independence and democracy. The Shanghai Diary captures the nature of the Provisional Government's political and military activities. Among others, the private papers of Sô Chaep'il (1866 -1951) and An Chunggûn (1879-1910) are also consulted.
Overcoming a storm of academic controversy, the revisionist findings replace the earlier conceptions of An Ch'angho as a "gradualist-pacifist" or "cultural nationalist", the idée fixe which had not been questioned since the 1960s.
Defining An Ch'angho as a "revolutionary-democrat", the study delineates his comprehensive vision and systematic stratagem to achieve independence and democracy. With an uncanny systematic ability, he invented a one-of-kind paradigm as a synthesis of democratic ideology and revolutionary strategy. The study illumines the distinctive manner in which An entwined constitutional democracy-building and preparations for the independence war in his nationalist ideology and methodology, especially within the colonial/nationalist duality of appearance vs. reality.
By investigating the nature of his role in shaping the ideal and process of nascent democracy and the war of independence, a new interpretive framework is offered to re-think the pattern and dynamics of the Korean liberational struggle. Indeed, a revisionist understanding of the capacious ideology and methodology of An Ch'angho as a "Revolutionary-Democrat", who reconciled democracy and revolution, nationalism and communism, as well as the left and the right, allows to re-conceptualize and re-paradigmize the Korean nationalist movement.
The Family Legacy
The study originated from my intellectual curiosity about the nature and scope of the my family's involvement in the Korean independence and women's movements. My nationalist great-grandfather, Charles Youngjik Park (1893-1959), was one of the earliest members of the Hûngsadan, a revolutionary leadership-training organization, founded by An Ch'angho in 1913 in San Francisco. With a democratic constitution prescribing the system of separation of powers, the Hûngsadan survives as the leading nationalist organization in Korea.
Eventually becoming the earliest Korean Impressionist painter and professor of Western painting at Seoul National University, an "unusual" distinction for my great-grandfather seems to have been that he lived with An Ch'angho and his family for over fifteen years. As a progressive Christian enlightenment family, his nieces became the pioneers of Korean women's movement, leading the influential YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) since the liberation in the past half century.
A major figure of the Hûngsadan, the activities of Park Youngno (an older brother of Charles Youngjik Park) are particularly noted in my study. Park participated in the critical strategy meeting with An Ch'angho and Sin Ch'aeho at the Qingdao Conference in 1910. Solicited by Sô Chaep'il at the First Korean Congress in Philadelphia in April 1919, he wrote "An Appeal to America" with Syngman Rhee and Rev. Charles Lee. Park Youngno served as an assistant of Sô Chaep'il.