5. Competing states, diverging societies

Author(s):  
Michael J. Seth

By 1953 almost all Koreans had accepted that they belonged to a single nation united by blood, culture, history, and destiny. However, the end of the Korean War left them divided into two states. ‘Competing states, diverging societies’ explains that each state shared the same goal of creating a prosperous, modern, unified Korean nation-state that would be politically autonomous and internationally respected. The leadership of each saw the division as temporary and themselves and the state they governed as the true representative of the aspirations of the Korean people, and the legitimate successor to the pre-colonial state. While sharing many of the same goals they followed very different paths to reach them and became ever more divergent societies.

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-247
Author(s):  
Fábian Armin Vincentius

A „Han folyó csodája” kifejezésről sokan hallottak Dél-Korea rendkívül gyors és drámai fejlődésének eredményeként, ám az talán kevesek számára ismert, hogy a Japántól való felszabadulást (1945), illetve a koreai háborút (1953) követően a kereszténység is komoly áttörést ért el az országban. Jelenleg a lakosság több mint negyede, 13.5 millió személy vallja magát kereszténynek, a domináns protestáns felekezetek mellett pedig számottevő a hozzávetőlegesen 5 millió katolikus száma is. Mindez nemcsak a régióban található többi államhoz viszonyítva különleges, hanem azt is jelenti, hogy a Dél-Koreában élő keresztények aránya meghaladja az országban létező többi vallás követőinek számát együttvéve. A folyamat különösen érdekesnek tekinthető azon szempontból, hogy a távol-keleti állam teljesen más kulturális, vallási és történelmi szempontok alapján fejlődött a kereszténység megjelenése előtt, napjainkra azonban mégsem a sámánizmus vagy a buddhizmus, hanem a kereszténység bír központi szereppel vallási életében. Jelen tanulmány célja épp arra választ adni, hogy milyen okoknak köszönhetően volt képes a kereszténység hívek sokaságának bevonzására, illetve milyen egyedi, Dél-Koreára jellemző sajátosságok alakultak ki a fejlődés eredményeként. Jelen kutatás során egy rövid összefoglaló keretén belül szó esik a kereszténység Korea területét érintő kezdeti megjelenéséről, majd külön fejezetekben olvasható a katolicizmus, ortodoxia, anglikanizmus és protestantizmus helyzete. A munka autenticitásához és részletességéhez hozzájárul, hogy a szerző kilenc kvalitatív interjút készített a különböző felekezetek képviselőivel, illetve délkoreai tanulmányútja során személyesen is meglátogatta több felekezet lényeges helyszíneit. = The term "Miracle on the Han River" has been heard by many as a result of South Korea's fast and dramatic development, but it is probably known to few that in parallel Christianity managed to gain as well a significant popularity in the country after the liberation from Japanese occupation (1945) and the end of the Korean War (1953). Currently, more than a quarter of people living in South Korea consider themselves as Christians, and in addition to the dominant Protestant denominations, the number of Catholics is also significant with a number of around 5 million followers. The high share of Christians may seem peculiar not only compared to other states in the region, but also by acknowledging that before the emergence of Christianity Korea evolved based on different, cultural and religious principles. Still, instead of Buddhism or Shamanism nowadays Christianity has a central role in the religious life of South Korean people. This study attempts to find the main reasons behind the remarkable popularity of Christianity, as well as to show the unique features of South Korean Christianity resulted by the distinctive development. After a short introduction presenting the first stage of Christianity on the territory of Korea, the main features and situation of different Christian branches are discussed, namely Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism and Protestantism. Contributing to the authenticity and detail of the work, nine qualitative interviews with representatives of different denominations are included, all conducted by the author during his study trip to South Korea. Also, as the author had the opportunity to visit important religious sites during his field trip in Seoul, his experiences are briefly reported too in the study.


This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book tells a story of the changing script of warfare in the mid-twentieth century through the Korean War. At stake in this conflict was not simply the usual question of territorial sovereignty and the nation-state. The heart of the struggles revolved around the question of political recognition, the key relational dynamic that formed the foundation for the post-1945 nation-state system. This book argues that in order to understand how the act of recognition became the essential terrain of war, one must step away from the traditional landscape of warfare—the battlefield—and into the interrogation room.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87
Author(s):  
Jini Kim Watson

In his controversial 2001 novel,The Guest(Sonnim), Hwang Sok-yong tells the story of elderly Korean American Ryu Yosŏp, who embarks on a journey back to his childhood home in Hwanghae province, now North Korea. At once a spatial, temporal, and psychological return, the novel revisits the early years of the Korean War to unveil the truth behind one of the war’s most horrific crimes: the slaughter of 35,000 Korean civilians in the Shinch’on massacre of 1950. In particular, Hwang examines the arrival of the two “guests” of the title—Christianity and Marxism—during the colonial period and their subsequent role in the violence of Shinch’on. By making visible forms of political agency achieved through the assimilation of these two guests, the novel complicates the ideological binaries that appear to have arrested decolonization of the Korean peninsula. Watson’s article reveals how Hwang’s experimental, multivocal narrative structure rewrites usual historical accounts of the Korean War and division by attending to the spatialized production of regions, nation, state, and diaspora. It offers a rethinking of the congealed ideologies, stories, desires, and topologies of this not-yet-postcolonial peninsular.


2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (S24) ◽  
pp. 213-241
Author(s):  
M. Erdem Kabadayi

AbstractIn most cases, and particularly in the cases of Greece and Turkey, political transformation from multinational empire to nation state has been experienced to a great extent in urban centres. In Ankara, Bursa, and Salonica, the cities selected for this article, the consequences of state-making were drastic for all their inhabitants; Ankara and Bursa had strong Greek communities, while in the 1840s Salonica was the Jewish metropolis of the eastern Mediterranean, with a lively Muslim community. However, by the 1940s, Ankara and Bursa had lost almost all their non-Muslim inhabitants and Salonica had lost almost all its Muslims. This article analyses the occupational structures of those three cities in the mid-nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, tracing the role of the state as an employer and the effects of radical political change on the city-level historical dynamics of labour relations.


Author(s):  
Daniel Y. Kim

This chapter analyzes cinematic and journalistic depictions of the Korean War that centered on the role played by African American soldiers serving in integrated combat units. Heroic depictions of “Tan Yanks” in both the mainstream press and black newspapers highlighted the usefulness of an integrated military to the global ideological battle against Communism, especially in terms of winning “the hearts and minds” of the formerly colonized. This chapter demonstrates how the Korean War facilitated the articulation of an early version of the ideology that Melanie McAllister has termed “military multiculturalism,” which is evident in two Hollywood films from the 1950s: Pork Chop Hill (1959) and All the Young Men (1960). This chapter also addresses two strains of Orientalism that also surfaced on the pages of black newspapers: the first expressed an Afro-Asian sense of racial solidarity and intimacy with the Korean people as a nonwhite nation that had suffered under a Japanese colonialism that had been supported by US and European powers prior to World War II; the second took shape as a fascination with amorous relationships that had formed between black servicemen and Japanese female civilians prior to and during the Korean War and the interracial desires they embodied.


Author(s):  
Josiah Gabriel Hunt

This essay has been written to critically explore the societal idealization of oneness held among the Korean people. Particular emphasis is paid to scholarly works published between the years 2010 and 2016. The central finding procured by reviewing works meeting this study’s inclusion criteria suggests that the notion of ethnocultural oneness is a modern myth structured along the political ideologies of the state. As such, attention is duly afforded to the historic origins of oneness and how this perception emerged in the twentieth century as a response to the period of Japanese colonization (1910-1945), the Korean War (1950-1953), and the years (1960-1988) in which Korea experienced rapid industrial development. It is assumed that the knowledge generated from this study may be used to (a) extend critical discourse on Korea’s cultural history, (b) provide an alternative view on the formation of Korea’s national identity, and (c) illuminate taken for granted perceptions that have been propagated among the people of Korea in the twentieth century as means to promote a sense of togetherness.


Author(s):  
Dr. Nilufer Ruzgar

Leadership, as a social phenomenon, has emerged in any society regardless of geography, culture and nationality. Antique China and Greek philosophers were respected as leaders whose advices were valuable and famous authors like Homer and Machiavelli authenticated leaders’ smart and masterly strategies. As for today’s globalworld, leaders have to display various roles in order to cope with the changing external and internal environments and direct their followers by focusing on general and strategic problems so as to create a vision that will shape the future. Developing strategies and creating a clear vision is not only a need for the organizations, but also a crucial need for the nations to have peaceful and safe ties and connections in terms of international relations. In this sense, the president of South Korea Moon Jae In, seem to displayvisionary and strategic leadership roles, in the context of his being the first South Korean leader that have melted the ice between North Korea since the Korean War. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the leadership traits of Moon Jae In, in the frame of visionary and strategic leadership styles. With this purpose a literature review has been performed in the context of leadership styles, the personal and political lives of Moon Jae In have been researched and the leadership traits of South Korean leader have tried to be examined in order to prove that he carries strategic and visionary leadership traits. According to the evaluations, Moon Jae In carries almost all characteristics of both strategic and visionary leadership styles.


2018 ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Paul J. Heer

This chapter discusses how the impact of the Korean War undermined and ultimately destroyed Kennan’s strategic vision for US policy in East Asia. It led to the US militarization of Japan; US security commitments in Korea, Taiwan, Indochina, and the Philippines; and a hardening of US policy toward Communist China—all of which he had opposed. The net result was the application in East Asia of a version of Kennan’s own containment doctrine that he did not support. The final tragic casualty was Davies himself: the chapter describes how McCarthyism and charges of Communist sympathies led unjustly to Davies’s dismissal from the State Department, and the impact this had on Kennan.


Author(s):  
Pitchapa Cheri Supavatanakul

Monochrome painting, otherwise known in Korea as Tansaekwa, was an art movement that emerged after the Korean War, lasting from the late 1960s through to the 1980s. It rose to prominence during an era of strict censorship and rapid industrialization in the 1960s and the 1970s. The policies imposed by South Korea’s then-president Park Chung-hee restricted direct political messages, thus actuating the emergence of hidden themes in abstractions within the limitations administered by the state. The Monochrome movement’s pioneer, Park Seobo (1931--), worked both with abstract artists who were critical of the government and with the National Documentary Paintings Project, producing government-commissioned artworks that advocated nationalism. Through abstraction, Monochrome paintings can raise awareness without being overtly political, and still resonate Korean tradition without submitting to the confines of the artistic establishment of the time. The Monochrome movement responded not only to political censorship, but also to the established standards of the Korean art world, eliminating notions of representation and the distance that sets the image apart from the canvas.


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