시데하라 다이라[幣原坦]의 『韓國政爭志』와 조선시대 정치사

Abstract

Shidehara Taira (1870-1953), as an educational administrator, was deeply involved in establishing education policies for colonial Korean and Taiwan. He planned the modern education system for colonial Korea around the installation period of the Government-General of Joseon, took a leading role to found Taiwan Imperial University and later served as the first president of the University. Also as a historian who published tens of written works on Korean history, he became well-known as the progenitor of the factionalist-nature theory who coined the term factional conflict (dangjaeng 黨爭), to describe the political history of Joseon Korea. Despite the series of criticism on the colonialist view of his book, History of Korean Political Strife (Kankoku Seisōshi 韓國政爭志), none of them have adequately analyzed it from the inside. The objective of this article is to analyze the research methodology and rationales of Shideharas History of Korean Political Strife, and shed a new light on the significance of the work in genealogical terms of historiographical perceptions and narratives of Joseon-period political strife through following tasks. First, the types of sources and how Shidehara made use of them will be examined. Second, a its features will be diachronically identified through a comparative analysis of Shideharas argument and logics with those of the traditional historiography of the Joseon period. Ultimately, such analyses are intended to provide a starting point to build up an alternative narrative of Joseon political history that will hopefully develop free of colonialist and modernist frames.