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The Centenary of Korea's Sam-il (March First) Independence Movement: Remembering Japanese Art Critic Yanagi Sōetsu's Solidarity with Colonized Koreans
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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One hundred years on from Korea's Sam-il (March First) Independence Movement, this article outlines a number of factors that led to the mass mobilization of Koreans in sustained nationwide efforts to oust the Japanese colonizers from the peninsula. Although much of the pro-independence activism took place at the grassroots level in Korea, the movement also provided an opportunity for contemporaneous transnational commentators to publicly make known their disapproval of Japan's escalating imperial expansionism and its rigid colonial policies. In Japan, a number of concerned observers questioned the dominant mode of thinking at the time which pitted the colonial project as a noble and altruistic venture that would “civilize” Koreans. Criticisms ranged from a distrust of the empire's political motivations to the economic costs of running the colonies, and moral opposition based on humanitarian grounds. One Japanese commentator who demonstrated solidarity with the colonized Koreans was the art critic Yanagi Sōetsu 柳宗悦 (1889-1961), who published a number of impassioned appeals in an effort to demonstrate his indignation at Japan's occupation of the peninsula and to highlight the importance of acknowledging and protecting Korea's vast repository of extraordinary visual cultures.
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References
Notes
1 Daeyeol Ku, “The March First Movement: With Special Reference to its External Implications and Reactions of the United States,” Korea Journal 42, no. 3 (2002): 219–55.
2 Yanagi's given name was Muneyoshi, but he preferred the on'yomi pronunciation of the characters, calling himself Sōetsu. Following convention, all Asian names in this article are given in the traditional order, with surname preceding personal name, except in the endnotes where an author's work is published in English.
3 Takasaki Sōji, Chōsen o omou (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1984), 237.
4 Sŏkkuram was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995.
5 Hyung Il Pai, “Tracing Japan's Antiquity: Photography, Archaeology and Representations of Kyŏngju,” in Questioning Oriental Aesthetics and Thinking: Conflicting Versions of “Asia” Under the Colonial Empires, ed. Shigemi Inaga (Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2011), 289–316.
6 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Sekibutsuji no chōkoku ni tsuite,” in Yanagi Muneyoshi zenshū, Volume 6 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1981), 110-44. All translations in this article are mine.
7 Erin Schoneveld, Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-garde (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 1.
8 Yanagi's early support of militarism was likely forged due to his family circumstances. Yanagi's father Narayoshi 楢悦 (1832-1891) was an admiral in the Japanese navy until his death when Yanagi was eighteen months old.
9 Penny Bailey, “The Aestheticization of Korean Suffering in the Colonial Period: A Translation of Yanagi Sōetsu's Chōsen no bijutsu,” Monumenta Nipponica 73, no. 1 (2018): 27-85.
10 To shore up the validity of its colonization of Korea, the Japanese authorities propagated such ideas as the “Japan-Korea common ancestry theory” (Jp. Nissen dōsoron 日鮮同祖論) and historical narratives describing Empress Jingū's conquest over the southern part of the peninsula—as recounted in the eighth-century Nihon Shoki 日本書紀 (Chronicles of Japan). Henry Em, The Great Enterprise: Sovereignty and Historiography in Modern Korea (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 11-12; Michael Kim, “Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Transnationalism in Korean History,” Journal of Contemporary Korean Studies 1, no. 1 (December 2014): 15-24.
11 Henry Em, The Great Enterprise, 202, note 111. Other important nationalist activists of the era include Pak Ŭn-sik 朴殷植 (1859-1925), An Chae-hong 安在鴻 (1891-1965), and Mun Ilp'yŏng 文一平 (1888-1939).
12 Colonial apologist Nitobe Inazō (1862-1933) quoted in Alexis Dudden, Japan's Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005), 134.
13 Mark E. Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 82; John Lie, Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 9.
14 This was an event hosted by the League for Small and Subject Nationalities, a self-determinist group set up in New York during World War I which aspired “to establish a permanent congress of the small, subject and oppressed nationalities of the world; to assert the right of each nationality to direct representation at the peace conference following this war…[and] to emphasize the importance of restoring to these nationalities the right of self-government as an indispensable condition for world peace.” See Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, The Survey: Social, Charitable, Civic: A Journal of Constructive Philanthropy 38 (1917): 120-121.
15 Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1984), 339.
16 Guoqi Xu, Asia and the Great War: A Shared History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 120-21.
17 Yŏng-ho Ch'oe and Tae-jin Yi, “The Mystery of Emperor Kojong's Sudden Death in 1919: Were the Highest Japanese Officials Responsible?,” Korean Studies 35 (2011): 122-51. See also Carter J. Eckert, Korea Old and New: A History (Seoul: Korea Institute, Harvard University, 1990), 277-78.
18 “The Nervousness about Korea,” The Japan Chronicle, 19 February, 1919.
19 “Korean Declaration of Independence,” in Source Materials on Korean Politics and Ideologies, ed. Donald G. Tewksbury (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1950), 48-50.
20 Richard H. Mitchell, The Korean Minority in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 21; Xu, Asia and the Great War, 133.
21 Richard H. Mitchell, The Korean Minority in Japan, 19. See also Xu, Asia and the Great War, 131–32; Erez Manela, “The ‘Wilsonian Moment’ in East Asia: The March First Movement in Global Perspective,” Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 9, no. 1 (2009): 11–27.
22 Gi-Wook Shin, “March First Movement of 1919 (Korea),” in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, Volume 2, eds. David A. Snow et al. (Malden, Mass.: Wiley, 2013), 710–11.
23 For details on Son and T'apkol Park, see Guy Podoler, “Revisiting the March First Movement: On the Commemorative Landscape and the Nexus between History and Memory,” The Review of Korean Studies 8, no. 3 (2005): 137–54.
24 Dae-Sook Suh, “The Revolutionary Movement: A Brief Evaluation of Ideology and Leadership,” in Korea Under Japanese Colonial Rule: Studies of the Policy and Techniques of Japanese Colonialism, ed. Andrew Nahm (Kalamazoo: Center for Korean Studies, Western Michigan University, 1973), 187.
25 Manela, “The ‘Wilsonian Moment’ in East Asia,” 11–27.
26 Frank Baldwin, “Participatory Anti-Imperialism: The 1919 Independence Movement,” Journal of Korean Studies 1 (1979): 123–62; Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, 344.
27 Richard S. Kim, “Inaugurating the American Century: The 1919 Philadelphia Korean Congress, Korean Diasporic Nationalism, and American Protestant Missionaries,” Journal of American Ethnic History 26, no. 1 (Fall 2006): 50–76; Gi-Wook Shin, “March First Movement of 1919 (Korea),” 710–11.
28 “Assimilation,” Korea Review 2 (August 1920): 8–9.
29 The estimates for the numbers of deaths and casualties differ dramatically in Korean and Japanese records. Simons uses Korean estimates of 45,000 deaths and 7,000 wounded, but official Japanese estimates cited in Eckert report 553 and 1,409 respectively. See Geoff Simons, Korea: The Search for Sovereignty (New York: St Martin's Press, 1995), 132–35; Carter J. Eckert, Korea Old and New, 279.
30 For example, the US State Department sent a missive to its ambassador in Japan stipulating that “The Consulate [in Seoul] should be extremely careful not to encourage any belief that the United States will assist the Korean nationalists in carrying out their plans… It should not do anything which may cause the Japanese authorities to suspect that the US government sympathizes with the Korean nationalist movement.” United States Department of State, United States Policy Regarding Korea, Part I: 1834–1950 (Chunchon: Hallym University Press, 1987), 35–36.
31 Xu, Asia and the Great War, 121.
32 Ubukata Naokichi, “Nihonjin no Chōsenkan: Yanagi Sōetsu o tōshite,” Shisō 448 (October 1961), 66–77; Xu, Asia and the Great War, 124–27.
33 Richard H. Mitchell, Censorship in Imperial Japan (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983), 160.
34 Mari Nakami notes that Yanagi's first acquaintance with a Korean national occurred on 2 February 1920, when a Korean student, Namgung Byŏk, visited him at his home. See Mari Nakami, Composite Beauty: Yanagi Muneyoshi's Aspirations for Peace (Balwyn North, Vic: Trans Pacific Press, 2011), 309, note 4.
35 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Chōsenjin o omou,” in Yanagi Muneyoshi zenshū, Volume 6 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1981), 23-32.
36 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Chōsenjin o omou,” 23-32.
37 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Chōsenjin o omou,” 23-32.
38 Sakuzō Yoshino, “Liberalism in Japan [1921],” in What Japan Thinks, ed. K. K. Kawakami (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921), 79-92, accessed 8 August 2019.
39 Ishibashi Tanzan, “Senjin bōdō ni tai suru rikai,” in Ishibashi Tanzan zenshū, Volume 3 (Tokyo: Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha, 1971), 79.
40 Taiyō quoted in “Assimilation,” 8-9.
41 Sven Saaler, “The Kokuryūkai and the Rise of Nationalism, Pan-Asianism, and Militarism in Japan, 1901-1925,” International Journal of Asian Studies 11, no. 2 (2014): 125-60.
42 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Chōsenjin o omou,” 23-32.
43 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Chōsenjin o omou,” 23-32.
44 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Chōsen no tomo ni okuru sho,” in Yanagi Muneyoshi zenshū, Volume 6 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1981), 33-51.
45 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Hihyō: Arekisandā Paueru ‘Nihon no Chōsen tōchi seisaku o hyōsu’,” in Yanagi Muneyoshi zenshū, Volume 6 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1981), 184-86.
46 Jae-eun Kang, The Land of Scholars: Two Thousand Years of Korean Confucianism (Paramus, New Jersey: Homa Sekey Books, 2006), 180-81, 430.
47 Yuko Kikuchi, “Yanagi Sōetsu and Korean Crafts within the Mingei Movement,” Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies 5 (1994): 23-38.
48 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Ushinawaren to suru ichi Chōsen kenchiku no tame ni,” in Yanagi Muneyoshi zenshū, Volume 6 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1981), 145-54.
49 Kim Ŭr-han, “Kōkamon to Yanagi Sōetsu sensei,” Shinwa 175 (June 1968): 23-27.
50 Kim Ŭr-han, “Kōkamon to Yanagi Sōetsu sensei,” 23-27.
51 Yi Chin-hŭi, “Richō no bi to Yanagi Sōetsu: Chōsen no tomo datta Nihonjin,” Kikan sanzenri 12 (1978): 46-59.
52 In 1968, under Pak Chŏnghŭi's (1917-1979) administration, the stone base of the gate was again relocated to the front of the Capitol building, where it underwent a reconstruction in concrete. In 2006, another project began on Kwanghwamun which restored much of the gate's wooden structure and relocated the gate to its original position 14.5m to the south. Completed in 2010, it stands at the northern end of Kwanghwamun Plaza in Seoul's Jongnogu district. It is a popular site for tourists, and each year attracts many visitors who jostle to take photographs of the royal changing of the guard ceremonies held daily.
53 Tsurumi Shunsuke, Yanagi Muneyoshi (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1994), 195-96.
54 Kim Hui-myŏng, “Yanagi Sōetsu sensei to Chōsen no geijutsu,” Shinwa 91 (May 1961), 16-17.
55 Tsurumi Shunsuke, Yanagi Muneyoshi, 193-94, 198-99.
56 Yanagi Sōetsu, “Chōsen no tomo ni okuru sho,” 33-51.
57 Ku, “The March First Movement,” 223.
58 In North Korea, 1 March is not a holiday, and is regarded as a failed attempt at an anti-imperialist revolution. See Gi-Wook Shin and Rennie Moon, “1919 in Korea: National Resistance and Contending Legacies,” The Journal of Asian Studies 78, no. 2 (2019): 399-408.
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