Dear
Frank Hofmann,
Re.
your comment on my last posting,
What
is wrong with such statement? There was a pretty clear labeling attempt here,
and as you know a very intense discussion followed. Wouldn't it be too blue-eyed
to claim there was no such intended labeling going on? UNESCO declaring that
things should not be this way seems wishful thinking at best. What is wrong here
with Dr. Petrov's statement?
I
think my comment was not very well understood. My apologies for Dr Petrov, if it
sounded criticizing, which was not my intention. I did not say there was no
such attempt, but simply wanted to take this opportunity to bring attention to
what is the appropriate definition of being in the WHList and accurate
understanding on the UNESCO WH Convention ( I think accurate understanding on
the Convention is also important).
After
that, independently from how Convention should work, how member states would use
it in reality for any political purpose, is a totally different matter and these
two things should not be mixed and must be dealt with separately. So as a South
Korean, before being UNESCO official, I fully agree with you that in the case of
Koguryo, there was and still is ¡°clear attempting¡± , no doubt. But again, I also
would like to insist that does not mean that inscription of Koguryo heritage in
the Chinese side on the WHList brings an automatic official recognition by the
Committee for their cultural identity.
That
is why I mentioned the role of ICOMOS. I am currently in
In
reality and officially, it is only the Central Government of China who is
entitled to submit the Koguryo sites in
At
the Secretariat there was even reminder of the code of ethics on conduct of international civil servant¡¯,
and of course that was more or less targeted officials like me with delicate
nationality (Korean in this business). ¡¦
I
hope this time, I made myself understood. There was clearly a political attempt
from Chinese side, but I wanted to explain there theoretically how UNESCO
Convention functioned and again would like to insist that this should be dealt
with separately from how state parties would use it according to their
intention¡¦
Regarding
your comment on authenticity,
I
think your point is exactly what I wanted to point out in my previous email, as
I felt the Tongmyong Tombs (in Dr Petrov¡¯ s paper) authenticity was questioned
in the article of Dr Petrov.
Did
I misunderstood the article of Dr Petrov ? If yes, again my apologies. At least
that was my understanding when I read his article so I wanted to explain that
indeed, that beautification (I think Dr Petrov used another wording, maybe
¡®reconstruction?¡¯) was hotly debated but at the end it was accepted by ICOMOS
that the beautification carried out
did not much damage authenticity of the Tomb. It is true that many European
historic cities, damaged during the second world war, were put on the WHList
after having gone through the reconstruction.
Re.
Tangun tomb, I used the wording of reconstruction, because it was reconstructed
on the basis of a tomb, so actually the tomb itself of reconstruction. But
again, of course, one can argue that if the tomb originally placed is not the
Tangun tomb, then we can not possibly call it ¡° reconstruction¡±. We can go on
and on with these issue, but I will stop here. I thank Frank Hofmann for
providing me with the opportunity to bring additional comment.
Best
Junhi
Han
First of all, through the article [by Dr Petrov], one could believe that when the koguryo cultural heritage was put on the list of WH from Chinese side, then it could be considered as if ¨«Koguryo was named a Chinese state©ö. (...)
Inscription of a cultural or natural property on the List of WH provides in no case a direct link to its cultural identity or nationality.
Regarding the authenticity, this is a very much argued issue, I must say. However, I also would like to mention that the notion of authenticity has been evolved since 60s (since the declaration of the Venice Charter) and it is now applied into much broader context, in particular since the adoption of the Document on Authenticity declared in Nara 1994 (so-called the Nara Document on Authenticity). Since then, the notion on authenticity blindly applied until recently according to the Venice Charter (1964) is no longer valid.
Authenticity should comprises not only physical authenticity but also intangible value of monuments or sites. The intangible value can be traditional knowledge, technique or even tradition(practice). For such reason, the beautification of the Tongmyong Tomb (Jinpari X) provided an intensive debates and deliberation between experts involved in the evaluation and in the WH inscription procedure. It is true that in Korea, there is a tradition of taking care of ancestors©ö tombs and beautification can be perceived even as duty even for ordinary citizensŠ I do not know what is the usual practice in South Korea or in China in care of a dynasty©ös founder©ös tombsŠbut it was from this point of view that the beautification of the King Tongmyong©ö tomb was argued and finally accepted. Fortunately, the tumulus itself was not included in the beautification rangeŠ
Certainly the beautification of Tongmyong©ö Tomb is at a different level than the reconstruction of the Tanggun Tomb which is not included among the complex of the 63 Koguryo tombs inscribed on the WH List. I am not arguing here that the beautification of the Tongmyong Tomb was appropriate or not, but simply say that this issue could be seen from different anglesŠ.
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