1 Wells observes that the movement is regarded a milestone in Korean history because it remains the only large protest organized under Japan’s rule and a rare case of unity that “at once stands as a reproach to disunity and serves as inspiration to overcome that disunity.” Wells, Kenneth M. “Background to the March First Movement: Koreans in Japan, 1905—1919.” Korean Studies 13 (1989): 5-21. Baldwin adds that “Koreans glimpse in the March First Movement the national unity and continued sacrifices required to establish Korea as a united and independent country.” Frank Prentiss Baldwin, Jr. The March First Movement: Korean challenge and Japanese response (Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services, 1999), 223.

2 Baldwin reports several estimates that range from a half million to two million demonstrators before he picks one million as “a tentative hypothesis.” Baldwin, op. cit., 231.

3 Capitalist modernity presents many late capitalist developers such as South Korea, most of whom have experienced colonial and/or neocolonial exploitation with challenges of both adapting to capitalism and overcoming its contradictions. Paik Nak-chung, “The Double Project of Modernity,” New Left Review 95, September/October 2015, 65-66.

4 They are selected from an anthology, Paengnyŏnŭi pyŏnhyŏk: 3.1esŏ ch’otbulkkaji (One Hundred Years of Change From 3/1 to the Candlelight), edited by Paek Yŏngsŏ (Baik Youngseo), (Seoul: Ch’angbi, 2019).

5 This article discusses Korean modern historiography since the colonial period and limits itself to historical works produced in South Korea afterward.

6 Henry Em, The Great Enterprise: Sovereignty and Historiography in Modern Korea (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013), 102.

7 旗田巍, 日本人の朝鮮観 (東京 : 勁草書房,, 1969), pp. 34-5.

8 Hayashi Taisuke. Chōsen shi (Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, Meiji 25 [1892]). For an overview of the dispute over Mimana, see Atkins, E. Taylor. Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945. 1st ed., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 114-117.

9 Hayashi Taisuke, Chōsen kinseishi. (Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, Meiji 33 [1900]).

10 August 13, Meiji 18 (1885). Quoted in杵淵信雄, 福沢諭吉と朝鮮 : 時事新報社説を中心に (東京 : 彩流社, 1997), pp. 124-5. See also安川寿之輔, 福沢諭吉のアジア認識: 日本近代史像をとらえ返す (東京 : 高文研, 2000)..

11 Shigeno founded a school of evidential history in Japan along the lines of Rankean historiography. Kokushigan, long used as a college textbook, left a long lasting impact on Japanese historical views. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writings, edited by Kelly Boyd (New York: Routledge, 1999), 1089-90.

12 The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki describe Susano-O as the son of the god Izanagi and the younger brother of Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, and of Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon. Inahino Mikoto is one of Emperor Jinmu’s three older brothers, according to these records.

13 In his own writing, Hoshino characterized Japan’s loss of Korea in ancient times as “most grievous and unfortunate” and “highly praised the military feat of arms” of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea. Eiji Oguma, translated by David Askew, A genealogy of Japanese’ self-images (Melbourne : Trans Pacific Press, 2002), 68. 小熊英二, 単一民族神話の起源 : 「日本人」の自画像の系譜 (東京: 新曜社 , 1995).

14 旗田, op. cit.

15 Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 17.

16 Michael Robinson, “National Identity and the Thought of Sin Ch’aeho: Sadaejuūi and Chuch’e in History and Politics,” Journal of Korean Studies 5 (1984), 128.

17 Sin collaborated with anarchists from China, Taiwan, India, and Vietnam to establish in 1927 the All East Asia Anarchist League which expanded in 1929 to the Eastern Anarchism League with representatives participating from not only China, Taiwan, and Korea, but also Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, etc. In his anarchist manifesto, The Declaration of Joseon Revolution, he advocated overthrowing not only Japanese rule but also the privileged classes. For his intellectual journey from nationalist historiography to anarchism and post-nationalism, see Henry Em, “Nationalism, Post-Nationalism, and Shin Ch’ae-ho,” Korea Journal Vol.39 No.2 (1999), 283-317.

18 Ch’oe Namsōn, for example, wrote extensively about the Tan’gun story not only to establish it as a symbol of Korea’s indigenous cultural and historical heritage but also to “depict Korea as a central nation in world history, placed higher than Japan or China” (803). Chizuko A. Allen, “Northeast Asia Centered around Korea: Ch’oe Namsŏn’s View of History,” Journal of Asian Studies Vol 49, no. 4 (1990), 787-806.

19 朴殷植; 姜徳相訳注, 朝鮮独立運動の血史1 (電子ブック)b(平凡社, 1972, 2003), p. 8.

20 李萬烈, “近現代韓日関係研究史―日本人の韓国史研究を中心に,” 日韓歴史共同研究報告書（第1期、2005年6月), 240.

21 朝鮮總督府 朝鮮史編修會,朝鮮史編修會事業槪要, 1938.

22 Ibid.

23 Oguma, op. cit., 81-90 & 95-109.

24 金澤庄三郎, 日鮮同祖論 (刀江書院, 1929)..

25 Inaba Iwakichi, who was representative of the new historians, vigorously promoted mansenshi, holding that the history of Korea must be understood as that of Manchuria-Korea, both subordinate to Japan. Also, he explicitly refuted the nationalist historiography that the Korean nation had maintained a distinctive pedigree that could be traced to Tan’gun, the core of Sin’s nationalist historiography. 旗田, op. cit., 41 and 180-198.

26 I Manyōl argues that the Society “ignored Koreans’ unique historical stories or episodes that would highlight their independence or cultural richness” in order to justify Korea’s colonization. 李萬烈, op. cit., 242-246.

27 He was a leading intellectual in the post-liberation South Korea until his death in 1989, having taught a next generation of historians as a history professor at Seoul National University until 1961 before serving as Minister of Education briefly and the President of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Korea for 21 years.

28 He was known to have taken a skeptical look at Records of Ancient Matters and Chronicles of Japan, and while he did not endorse the nissen dōsoren that was used to legitimize the colonization of Korea, he participated in the mansenshi group developing another historiography that delegitimized Korean nationalist historiography and legitimated the colonization of Korea. Oguma, 300-301.

29 서중석, 김덕련, 서중석의 현대사 이야기 1 (서울: 오월의봄, 2015).. John Merrill, Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989), 98-129.

30 The Chindan Society, formed in 1934 to compete with Japan’s official history writings in terms of academic rigor, included members with diverse inclinations such as nationalism and Marxism but, after Korea’s liberation, became dominated by those who promoted positivism, “fair and accurate” history, as the colonial government had. 정병준. "식민지 관제 역사학과근대학문으로서의 한국역사학의 태동 - 진단학회를 중심으로" 사회와역사 no.110(2016) : 105-162.

31 Edwin G. Beal, K.T. Wu, and Key P. Yang, “China and Korea,” Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1960), pp. 95-103. The original plan was to publish five volumes.

32 Em, op. cit., 13.

33 De Ceuster, Koen. “The Nation Exorcised: The Historiography of Collaboration in South Korea.” Korean Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 2001, 207-242.

34 National History Compilation Committee started Han’guksa, an ambitious 23 volumes history project in 1970 to, among other goals, establish “the correct national history” and highlight the nation as a historical subject that has developed according to its own internal dynamic. Han’guksa 1 (Seoul: National History Compilation Committee, 1973). Han’guksa follows, more or less, the narrative strategy established by its predecessors. It, for example, treats the Tan’gun story as a myth that nonetheless offers an important window into the life of the pre-historic Korea (Volume 2) and highlights non-communist movements of the 1920s and 1930s as a national struggle for independence while minimizing labor strikes or armed struggles led by leftists (Volume 21 and 22).

35 林鍾国. 親日文学論 (서울: 평화출판사, 1966) [Im Chong’guk, Ch’inilmunhangnon (Seoul: P’yongwhach’ulp’ansa, 1966)]; 林鍾国 大村益夫. 親日文学論 (東京: 高麗書林, 1976). It took 13 years to sell the 1,500 copies of the first print with 1,000 of them sold in Japan, according to Hŏ Ch’angsŏng, President of the publisher. It went into the second print after Park Chung- Hee’s assassination in 1979 and had 8 prints by 1993, reflecting the transition to democracy and the deepening of the critical discourses on the colonial period. 정운현, 임종국 평전 (서울:시대의 창, 2013)..

36 He was known for his uncompromising style to the point of including his own father in the list of pro-Japanese collaborators.

37 林鍾国, 日帝侵略과 親日派 (서울: 청사, 1982) [Im Chong’guk, Ilchech’imnyakkwa ch’inilp’a (Seoul: Ch’ ŏngsa, 1982)].

38 De Ceuster, op. cit.

39 Kim and Chong, both journalists, published and edited numerous books about collaborators and independence fighters. They were as prolific as Im. See, for example, the first volume of their co-edited three volume study on pro-Japanese collaborators, Kim Samung, Yi Hŏnjong, and Chong Unhyŏn, Ch’inilp’a: Kŭ in’gan’gwa nolli (Seoul: Hangminsa, 1990). 김삼웅, 이헌종,정운현, 친일파: 그 인간과 논리 (서울: 학민사, 1990).

40 Haebang chonhusaŭi insik 1 (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1979). While his chapter was omitted in a revised edition due to censorship until 1989 after Korea’s democratization, it inspired or at least was followed by an explosive growth of critical nationalist historiography in the 1980s. 정운현, 임종국 평전 (서울: 시대의 창, 2013).

41 Historian Kang Man’gil coined the expression “the age of division” to highlight the national division as the most salient characteristic of Korean history in the post-liberation period. He made clear that the division system must be overcome and historians had the contemporary task to develop a historiography that would help overcome the division, 姜萬吉, 分断時代의 歴史認識: 姜萬吉 史論集 (서울: 創作과批評社, 1978). He contributed the framing first chapter “A Direction for Understanding Postliberation History” to the second volume of Haebang chŏnhusaŭi insik. 해방전후사의 인식 2 (서울: 한길사, 1985). Even though historian Henry Em characterizes Kang, together with Kim Yong-sop, as “closet Marxists,” they were in a sense trying to resurrect the emancipatory potential of the nationalist historiography by highlighting the frustrated, unfinished state of the nationalist projects that sought to liberate the masses, minjung, from imperialism and oppression. Henry Em, “Historians and Historical Writing in Modern Korea,” The Oxford History of Historical Writing Volume 5: Historical Writing since 1945, ed. by Axel Schneider and Daniel Woolf (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 668.

42 See Jae-Jung Suh, ed., Truth and Reconciliation in South Korea: Between the Present and Future of the Korean Wars, (Armonk, NY: Routledge, 2012).

43 AP reporters drew international attention to the civilian killings by U.S. soldiers during the Korean War although Korean survivors and reporters had written about them before. Lee Jai- eui, translated by Kap Su Seol and Nick Mamatas, Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age (Los Angeles, Calif.: UCLA Asian Pacific Monograph Series, 1999). Charles J. Hanley, Sang-hun Choe and Martha Mendoza, The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001). Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation, ed., The Jeju 4.3 Mass Killing : Atrocity, Justice, and Reconciliation (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2018).

44 Gi-Wook Shin, Michael Edson Robinson, eds., Colonial Modernity in Korea (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999).

45 Chayujuŭiyŏndae (Solidarity for Liberalism) was launched in 2004 to pursue, among other goals, a reform that focuses more on the construction of the future rather than the eradication of past injustice, rejecting revisiting the issues of pro-Japan collaboration or state violence committed during the authoritarian past. Kyogwasŏp’orŏm (Textbook Forum), another new right organization that some compared to Tsukurukai (Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform), published an alternative history textbook that consciously included positive contributions made by Japan’s colonial rule (the modern civilization was learned) and the authoritarian rule (the military coup d’état of 1960 was called the “May 16^th Revolution”), as part of an effort to correct what it viewed as a leftist bias in Korean history textbooks.

46 박지향, 김철, 김일영, 이영훈, 엮음, 해방 전후사의 재인식 1, 2 (서울: 책세상, 2006). It is notable that new right scholars made a tactical collaboration with postcolonial, and sometimes feminist, scholars as they criticized nationalism in Korea. It is almost as if Japan’s neonationalists were misappropriating a postcolonial outlook to criticize the historical work that took a self-reflexive look at Japan’s imperial past.

47 이영훈, 김낙년, 김용삼, 주익종, 정안기, 이우연, 반일 종족주의: 대한민국 위기의 근원 (서울: 미래사, 2019); 李栄薫編著 反日種族主義: 日韓危機の根源 (文藝春秋, 2019). 이영훈, 김낙년, 차명수, 김용삼, 주익종, 정안기, 이우연, 박상후, 반일 종족주의와의 투쟁: 한국인의 중세적 환상과 광신을 격파한다 (서울: 미래사, 2020). 金東椿, 佐相洋子, and 李泳釆, 韓国現代史の深層 : 「反日種族主義」という虚構を衝く (梨の木舎, 2020).

48 For an analysis of Korea’s “new right”, see Jamie Doucette & Se-Woong Koo, “Pursuing Post-democratisation: The Resilience of Politics by Public Security in Contemporary South Korea,” Journal of Contemporary Asia (2016) 46:2, 198-221.

49 The revolution, for example, brought about such fundamental changes in the male-female relationship that the Provisional Declaration declared “the people of the Korean Republic are all equal without male-female distinction or rich-poor class.” I Chiwŏn, “3.1undong, Chendŏ, P’yonghwa [March 1^st Movement, Gender, and Peace],” in Paengnyŏnŭi pyŏnhyŏk, 199-226.

50 Chŏng Hŏnmok, “Miwanūi, hokūn chinhaeng chungin hyōngmyōng [Incomplete, or “in progress” Revolution],” in Paengnyŏnŭi pyōnhyōk, 354-375.

51 De Ceuster, op. cit., 218. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War Volume 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

52 白永瑞, ｢活力東亞的1919: 爲革命起點的“五四”與“三一”｣ 探索與爭鳴 2019年5期.

53 See also Yu Chaekŏn, “Hanbando pundanch’ejeūi tokt’ūksŏnggwa 6.15shidae [The Uniqueness of the Korean Division System and the 6.15 Period],” in Paengnyŏnŭi pyŏnhyŏk, 325-353.

54 He calls the event “the March 1^st” without naming it a revolution or a movement in his attempt to remind readers of the imperative to continue the movement.