KOREA FOCUS

"In view of the fact that it pursued modernization internally while struggling externally to build an independent state, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea stood out prominently among all liberation movements of colonized nations around the world.”

 

This book documents the 26-year struggle of the Korean Provisional Government to surmount a host of adversities after it was founded in the wake of the nationwide independence movement of March 1, 1919. The nine authors ­­― Kim Hui-gon, Han Sang-do, Han Si-jun, Go Jeong-hyu, Ban Byeong-ryul, Lee Hyeon-ju, Jang Seok-heung, Choe Gi-yeong and Sun Kezhi – faithfully chronicled all major events surrounding the Korean government in exile until national liberation of 1945. All of the authors are leading researchers in Korean independence movement. They contributed a series of articles to the Chosun Ilbo, under the title “Annals of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea,” for five months in 2005 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of national liberation. The articles were retouched and published in a book commemorating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Provisional Government.

 

The Korean Provisional Government was a modern institution that denied absolute or constitutional monarchy. It instead adopted a republican system in pursuit of democracy and human rights. With the Provisional Legislative Council formed at the outset, it tried to implement the basic principles of democratic rule, i.e., the division of power and checks and balances. However, it had to traverse China in relentless struggle. The Provisional Government had to leave Shanghai, where it had been based for the first 13 years, because of Japanese oppression following Yun Bong-gil`s bombing attack on high-ranking Japanese officials in 1932. From Shanghai to Hangzhou, Zhenjiang, Changsha, Guangzhou, Liuzhou, Qijiang and then finally to Chongqing, it had a march of unending hardship, which was no less arduous than the Long March of the Chinese Communist Party. But those tough years were a significant period of training when the Provisional Government refined its political and military ideology while strengthening solidarity with China and exploring the road to coalition between left and right. 

 

The authors acknowledge that there was a time when the Provisional Government was in such a wretched state that it was even hard to be called a government. Nonetheless, they emphasize that it “persistently withstood for over 26 years, seeking unity among different forces of independence movement and eventually forming a government uniting left and right in 1942 in Chongqing.” Not every leading member was able to share the joy of national liberation and return home, however. After “subsisting on wind and sleeping under dew” for decades to fight for national liberation, gallant leaders passed away without seeing their homeland achieve independence. Among them were Lee Dong-nyeong, head of the Executive Council; Cha Ri-seok, chief secretary; and Song Byeong-jo, speaker of the Legislative Council. Kim Gu, who served as president of the Provisional Government during its last years, lost his mother and eldest son.

 

[ April 11, 2009 ]