Sin Ch'aeho

Early years Sin was born on December 8, 1880. His grandfather was an official in the royal advisory department. His pen name was "Dansaeng", which he later changed to "Danjae". Sin was taught various Neo-Confucian books and concepts by his grandfather, and later enrolled in the Confucian academy Sungkyunkwan, Sin, to a limited capacity, read Italian literature and history and published some Italian-related works; There is some speculation that Dante might be an influence on Sin Ch'aeho's work, in particular Dream Sky (1916). Sin went on to work for the editorial boards for two newspapers, the Hwangsŏng Sinmun and the Taehan Maeil Sinbo, and became the leader of the underground "patriotic enlightenment" group, the Sinminhoe. which was an effort to assassinate Japanese Governor-General Terauchi, leading to the arrests of several Sinminhoe members and eventually the dissolution of the Sinminhoe. Abroad Sin went into voluntary exile in August 1910 when Japan declared its annexation of Korea. He moved to China in 1913, and draft the "Declaration of Korean Revolution" for the Righteous Brotherhood (Uiyeoldan) in 1923. Sin died while in solitary confinement at Lüshun Prison of a brain hemorrhage on 21 February 1936. The Republic of Korea posthumously awarded Sin with the "Presidential Order of Merit for National Foundation" in 1962 and citizenship on April 13, 2013. == Thought ==

The Minjok and Korean ethnic nationalism Sin Ch'aeho wrote extensively on a theory of ethnic history which sought to challenge traditional border concepts in Korea and encourage Korean nationalism. This theory is broadly referred to as the Korean minjok (민족; 民族); An early form of the minjok is found in his article "New History Reader." Sin's minjok works contested the traditional conception of Korea as a geographically defined "peninsular nation" (반도 국; pandoguk), which was born out of politics associated with the Mandate of Heaven in classical Chinese political philosophy. The minjok was defined by the terms of its history, and history was shaped by the minjok, hence these two concepts were reciprocal and inseparable. For Sin, "if one dismisses the minjok, there is no history"; to ignore or to down-play the minjok was to devitalize history itself. Anarchism Sin Ch'aeho's anarchist philosophy is largely ignored by contemporary Korean scholars. North Korea also sponsored re-reading Sin, among other Korean authors. In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Il Sung is said to be the leader of the minjok, and follows similar genealogical tracings of Koreans into ancient Korean-Manchuria. == Criticism ==

Standards of education Sin Ch'aeho's high standards of education and early enrollment of children in school (at age 4) were criticized as excessive. He responded that some four-year-olds already knew the Thousand Character Classic and that some had already begun the ''Children's First Learning Programme (Tongmong sŏnsŭp''). He also argued that historical standards of education were steeper than the contemporary standards. All the while, Sin believed all Korean citizens should learn both Hangul and Hanja to aid in preserving Korean identity, rather than subject themselves to the Chinese language system, and to study Korean patriotic literature. Concerns with Minjok thought As part of the minjok historiography, Sin rebuked some scholars for focusing too much on geography and borders rather than minjok ethnic boundaries; he called these scholars "territorial historians". However, his own works consistently employed territorial terms, boundaries, borders that only differ by how Sin justified them by a very ancient Korea, while the "territorial historians'" terms are usually traced to younger Chinese courts. This is aggravated by the fact that Sin had few, if any, compelling references for his historical claims, making his boundaries largely arbitrary or folk-history based. Dream Sky borrowed from Dante's Divine Comedy Sin Ch'aeho's Dream Sky at times resembles Dante's Divine Comedy. If Sin had knowingly presented a Korean-ized Divine Comedy as an authentic work of Korean fiction, it would be an adulteration of the minjok historiography project by Sin's own standards of ethno-cultural autonomy. Whether or not Sin even read Dante's Divine Comedy is purely speculative. == Bibliography ==