Organizer: Jae-Kyo Jin, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea Discussant: Milan G. Hejtmanek, Seoul National University, South Korea This panel is based on the private letters from the late Chosŏn era, including a collection of private letters by King Chŏngjo (r. 1776-1800) sent to his high ministers and close relatives, as well as a collection by Kim Yun-sik (1835-1922) in his correspondence with other Chinese and Japanese intellectuals and politicians. The panel intends to illustrate what these private letters tell in different or supplementary way about the personal, political, and literary behaviors of the authors hitherto known through ‘official’ documents.
Jin JaeKyo’s paper shows how Chŏngjo’s private letters addressed to his close relatives and ministers revel the king’s personality, as well as his opinions about political issues in unpretending way. Ahn DaeHoe’s paper illustrates what Chŏngjo’s private letters tells about his private life hitherto obscured by the official dynastic records. Milan Hejtmanek’s paper examines the correspondence of Chŏngjo to throw new light onto the strengths and limitations of the standard court sources used to study the period, including the Choson wangjo sillok, Sǔngjǒngwon ilgi, and the Ilsǒng-nok, focusing on the nuances of how they portrayed the political relationship between Chǒngjo and Sim Hwan-ji, his high minister. These papers are based on Chŏngjo’s letters, while Kim YongTai’s paper uses Kim Yun-sik’s letters to show how the correspondence was utilized to build the overseas personal network to exchange new ideas.
One unique feature of King Chŏngjo (r. 1776-1800) for dynastic ruler is his ample collection of letters. Compared with his official accounts found at such official dynastic records as Chosŏn wangjo sillok, Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi, Naegak ilgi, and Ilsŏngnok, the private letters addressed to his close relatives and ministers revel the king’s personality, as well as his opinions about political issues in unpretending way. These letters are a valuable supplement to the refined official records, because they led us to the inner quarters of his personal history and relations with his close relatives, as well as to the hitherto obscured background of specific political issues and strife.
Remarkably, many of Chŏngjo’s letters received high ministers were to be destroyed, so they constitute confidential documents for sensitive political issues. This type of confidential letters tell much of the behind-the-scene political maneuvers and skills exercised by the top power holder, confirming the very important reality in the court politics that the institutional channels and regularities were not the only resource marshaled by the king. Chŏngjo’s recourse to private confidential communications with his high ministers in managing the current issues is comparable to the zouzhe system favored by the early Qing emperors in their private communications with the provincial officials. Therefore, the King Chŏngjo’s private letters provide not only the spaces between lines of the official history but also the new perspectives to see it.
This paper aims to see the private life of King Chŏngjo (r. 1776-1800) through his letters sent to the close ministers and relatives. We can see some fragments of his private life through the official dynastic records. But his 300 secrete letters sent to a high minister, Sim Hwan-ji, and the similar pieces sent to other ministers present a substantially different image of him from those depicted in the official documents and histories. Sim Hwan-ji was an elderly high minister, and a leader of a political faction, so the letters sent to him may well be a limited picture of his private life. Still, they provide a sufficient clue to see the less known character of his in private settings.
On the other hand, the letters sent to the close relatives present still another aspect of his private life. This type of letters, thousands in number tell of his personal feelings expressed, his concerns and worries, illnesses, and so on. In short, King Chŏngjo’s letters sent to the high ministers and close relatives constitute invaluable sources materials to know his private life hitherto obscured in the official records.
The literary legacy of the twenty-second monarch of the Chosǒn period, Chǒngjo (r.1776-1800), presents an embarrassment of riches, far beyond those available for any other monarch in the entire stretch of Korean history. They include a vast amount of material assembled in his collection, Hongjae chǒnsǒ; a wide variety of compendia he helped edit and publish; and a personal political diary, Ilsǒng-nok. It came as a distinct shock, therefore, in 2009 to discover how revelatory the recently disclosed personal correspondence between the king and a high official, Sim Hwan-ji, was. These hundreds of letters, written between 1796-1800, present a richer, more complex, and politically darker side to Chǒngjo than hitherto understood. By the king’s own request they were written to be destroyed. They treat in detail a wide range of highly political topics, as well as discussions of previously hitherto unknown personal details of his life and thought.
This paper examines the correspondence to throw new light onto the strengths and limitations of the standard court sources used to study the period, including the Choson wangjo sillok, Sǔngjǒngwon ilgi, and the Ilsǒng-nok, focusing on the nuances of how they portrayed the political relationship between Chǒngjo and Sim Hwan-ji. Does the correspondence provide evidence that Chǒngjo sought with to create a public record at variance with his private intentions? What insights are we provided into the role of history in faithfully recording events versus providing a decorous, if partial, rendering of the rough and tumble play of court politics?
The exchange of correspondences with foreigners in pre-industrial world including East Asian countries was severely limited. The opening of treaty ports in this region (in 1876 in case of Korea) greatly facilitated personal travels to foreign lands and correspondences with foreigners, resulting in ever expanding personal network across the country borders. This personal network, especially among the reform-minded intellectuals was critical in conveying and exchanging modern ideas which would propel important political and social movements in the early modern era.
The fast forming of personal network among East Asian intellectuals was very much helped by their common command of literary Chinese (hanmun in Korean) Thus the contemporary intellectuals in East Asia, when they tried to build personal network, were benefited from the time-honored legacy of communication through literary Chinese.
This paper examines the overseas letters of Kim Yun-sik (1835-1922; penname, Unyang) in order to know how the personal network was built. Kim was a Korean high ranking official and diplomat during the treaty-port era, devoting himself to the cause of modernization of his country. His foreign intellectuals and politicians included Li Hongzhang, Zhou Fu, Zhang Shusheng, Yuan Shikai, and Zhang Jian in China, and Itō Hirobumi, Suematsu Kencho, and Ayugai Husanoshin in Japan. The Kim Yun-sik’s letters with them show how the personal network worked in detail and what historical role it played in their efforts to bring modern reforms in East Asia.
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