Kangaku and the State: Colonial Collaboration between Korean and Japanese Traditional Sinologists

Abstract

This article examines the response of kangaku 漢学, or traditional sinological study, to modernity in Japan and colonial Korea by focusing on institutionalization and the interactions between scholars of traditional sinology in Japan and colonized Korea. In the Japanese Empire, kangaku actively demonstrated that it could contribute to the nation-state and became a part of the modern educational system, including the Imperial University. The favorable atmosphere toward kangaku in the Japanese Empire also enabled the institutionalization of kangaku in colonial Korea. The process of institutionalization there was deeply influenced by the traditional network of Japanese sinologists. Traditional sinologists in Japan and colonial Korea were able to cooperate based on a shared “shibun (斯文 “This Culture of Ours”) consciousness,” a kind of consciousness of crisis that originated in the Analects. The shibun consciousness was rooted in the traditional literary world, where borders and contemporaneity were relatively ambiguous. Within the university system, kangaku gradually faced the pressure of specialization and elaboration of modern scholarship and the demands of the nation-state. Thus, successive generations of Korean and Japanese sinologists moved toward a new modern ideology that went beyond “shibun consciousness.”

Introduction

In the Japanese context, kangaku 漢学 (C. hanxue, K. hanhak) is generally accepted as having the meaning of “Sinitic Learning” and contrasts with “Japanese Learning” (wagaku 和学) or Japanese “National Learning/Nativist Learning” (kokugaku 国学) (Kurozumi 2000: 201). Specifically, the main focus of kangaku is Confucian studies, but Chinese history and culture are included (Mehl 2000: 48–49). Interestingly, the term kangaku originally referred to the academic trend of the Han 漢 Dynasty (202 BCE–9CE, 25–220 CE) in premodern East Asia. This trend was generally philological and focused on empirical research on the Confucian canon, which was considered to be opposed to the philosophical and metaphysical tendencies and aims of neo-Confucianism—Sōgaku (宋学, the academic trend of the Song dynasty) (Kawahara 2020: 4).

From the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth, in Japan, kangaku was redesignated as the “National Learning” of China, quite different from the academic trend during the Han dynasty. This was a phenomenon associated with the birth of new conceptual words, such as kanji (漢字 sinograph) and kanbun (漢文 Literary Sinitic). On the one hand, kangaku referred to the activities of reading, examining, and reconstructing literature written in Literary Sinitic. On the other hand, it was defined as the traditional study of China's nation-state. This was in accordance with the process of discovering “Shina 支那” as a nation-state in East Asia. In other words, a series of actions was involved in transforming the Middle Kingdom of the past into a state under the modern system of universal law, given the reality of its decline from its past splendor.

Japan was the driving force behind the shift in the meaning of kangaku. While a new academic style developed after the eighteenth century in China, Japan, and Korea, Japan began to establish a dichotomy between the study of the nation—kokugaku, and the study of China—kangaku. During the rapid nation-building period preceding and following the Meiji Restoration, kangaku was allocated the role of “other.” Nevertheless, kangaku had been the cornerstone of East Asia's knowledge culture for thousands of years, so its impact could not be eradicated overnight. Rather, combining kangaku and kokugaku, instead of separating them, was more compatible in practice with existing traditional studies (Ryu 2009).

Nonetheless, the notion of “othering” kangaku as the study of “Shina” spread quickly throughout East Asia. This ostracism of kangaku was caused by the zeitgeist of skepticism about—and denial and rejection of—East Asian traditions that came to prevail under intense Western pressure. Korea and China, a colony and semicolony, respectively, strove to acquire the attributes necessary to compensate for their failures to become modern nation-states, including a national language (國語), national script (國字), and national literature (國文). As a result, various initiatives in the service of linguistic nationalism within a larger obsessive quest to achieve congruence of speech and writing (genbun'itchi 言文一致) (Kaske 2006: 219) were implemented across East Asia.

By the 1920s, kangaku had become the general Japanese term used to refer to traditional sinological studies and their practice, especially as concerned neo-Confucian schooling in colonial Korea. With the beginning of modern colonial rule by Japan, to practice kangaku was considered an anachronism, and traditional scholars were regarded as outdated in the modern magazines and newspapers of colonial Korea (Kim C. 2011: 143–45). Because kangaku was considered to belong to “Shina,” it was criticized as one of the reasons Korea had become a colony, instead of establishing itself as a modern nation-state. One of the most prominent modern intellectuals, Yi Kwangsu 李光洙 (1892–1950), even criticized the hanmunhak (漢文學 Sinitic literature)¹ written by earlier Koreans and excluded it from the category of Korean literature all together (Yi K. 1929: 7).

Currently, the most widely held belief is that, in the early twentieth century, kangaku was deemed an outdated practice and that kangakusha 漢学者—the traditional scholars who practiced kangaku in the same way as their predecessors—were archaic and obsolete. If one examines modern media in Japan and colonial Korea from this period, the proportion of kangaku/hanhak or kanbungaku/hanmunhak is small, and was marginalized by the demand for “National Literature” (国文学 kokubungaku). Stefan Tanaka's research has shown that the discourses relegating things sinological to “Shina” started in the academic world and spread widely in popular media.² In his study, kangaku yields to modern Oriental studies (東洋学 tōyōgaku) before making its exit (Tanaka 1993: 120–30).

However, the downfall of kangaku was a long and laborious process. A component that had once been an integral part of society for thousands of years could not be eliminated overnight. Tanaka's viewpoint can be considered a modern understanding and simplification. The trend of hegemonic expansion of Western studies centered on the university system was never a zero-sum game leading to the decline of the influence of traditional studies symbolized by kangaku. However, kangaku, which from the modern perspective was eliminated once and for all and without a trace, was in fact changing, albeit slowly, as it struggled to survive, even expand, and continued to wield influence in some sectors of society.

Ever since the meaning of kangaku was renewed in modern Japan, previous studies have focused on the Meiji period (1868–1912), which is considered to be a transitional period from the premodern to the modern era. Previous studies also share the premise that the modern nation-state is a discursive construct and show the contribution of kangaku to the establishment of Japan as a modern nation-state. Mehl demonstrates that kangaku was a crucial part of the Japanese modern educational system, focusing on the end of the Edo period (幕末 bakumatsu, 1853–1868) and the Meiji period. She also confirms that kangaku played a significant role in the formation of modern Japan (Mehl 2000). Kurozumi, based on a long-term perspective, shows that Japan's “National Literature” and kangaku have in fact undergone hundreds of years of interdependent formation. In particular, the existence of Japanese kangaku, which was difficult to separate from Shintoism and Buddhism, reveals that to insist Japan is an unalloyed nation-state is a construct and product of modern times (Kurozumi 2000).

In both Korea and Japan, few studies have focused on modern kangaku. The primary reason for this in Korea is the artificial segregation in modern scholarship between the premodern and modern periods. Classical literature scholars rarely assess matters of the twentieth century, and modern literature scholars find it challenging to approach modern kangaku due to their lack of proficiency in Literary Sinitic. The exploration of “modern hanmunhak” was thus rarely undertaken in Korea until the early and mid-2000s (Kim C. 2015). A modest number of Korean works on modern hanmunhak are classified as pro-Japanese or do not mention Japan and Japanese at all, as if Korea had never been a colony. Such “modern hanmunhak” studies comprise research, on the one hand, about respectable Korean sinologists like the “four great masters of the late Korean Empire era” (hanmal sadaega 韓末四大家) and, on the other hand, research on morally stigmatized “pro-Japanese hanmunhak.”³ The study of “modern hanmunhak” (excluding “pro-Japanese hanmunhak”) has proposed ambitious concepts like “hanhak (J: kangaku) habitus” (Han 2012), but further studies have been slow to materialize.

Research on modern kangaku was carried out in Japan until the Meiji period (Yi Saebom 2020), but few studies were conducted about the Taisho (1912–1926) and early Showa (1926–1945) periods. Considering that Taisho and Showa are deemed quintessentially modern periods, such research has been limited for reasons similar to those in Korea. Another reason for the lack of research could be the active wartime cooperation of sinology professors at Tokyo Imperial University, who were considered to be modern kangakusha. Since it has been an uncomfortable research topic for Japanese scholars, unsurprisingly, little research has been conducted by non-Japanese scholars (Liu 2003; Chen 2005). Overall, the burdens of “pro-Japanese” in Korea and wartime “cooperation” in Japan have become significant obstacles to research on “modern kangaku.”

This brief overview of the research history reveals several interesting points. For instance, kangaku is recognized for its contribution to the formation of modern Japan, or is mainly embodied as an object lesson for pro-Japanese forces in Korea and wartime cooperation in Japan. On the surface, it seems logical to identify the contribution of kangaku to the formation of Japan's modern nation-state in the Meiji period and ultra-nationalism in the late 1930s, and join them into one genealogy. However, this method perpetuates the historical vacuum of kangaku in the early twentieth century, and unintentionally helps repeat the nation-state-centered view. We need to pay attention to the gaps in the nation-state-centered perspective and address the lack of a robust history of research.

In this context, what is noteworthy is the role of Sŏnggyun'gwan 成均館 during the colonial period (1910–1945)—that is, the role of the Kyŏnghagwŏn 經學院 and Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn 明倫學院, the immediate predecessors of today's Sungkyunkwan University. With the advent of colonial rule, Sŏnggyun'gwan, which had served as the pinnacle of the education system during the Chosŏn dynasty, was reestablished as the Kyŏnghagwŏn, an organization directly under the Japanese government-general of Korea. Founded in 1911, the year following Annexation, the Kyŏnghagwŏn continued only the ritual functions of Sŏnggyun'gwan's various traditional roles. By contrast, Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn, which was not established until 1930, became an educational institution advocating traditional kangaku.

In this “kangaku preservation space,” Japan and Korea, both modern and premodern, constantly intermingled. Professors from Tokyo Imperial University came to Seoul's Confucian Shrine (Munmyo 文廟) to pay their respects to Confucius,⁴ and Korean Confucian scholars attended the Yushima Seidō 湯島聖堂 ceremony in Tokyo (Pak 2009). The curriculum of the Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn followed the traditional Korean method, starting with the Xiaoxue (小學 “Elementary Learning”) but also including Japanese Confucian history and the Nihon gaishi (日本外史 Unofficial history of Japan) by Rai San'yō 頼山陽 (1781–1832). Korean lecturers conducted traditional reading; however, Takahashi Tōru 高橋亨 (1878–1967) and Fujitsuka Rin 藤塚隣 (1879–1948),⁵ both professors at Keijō Imperial University, conducted rather modernized lectures.

Early studies of Kyŏnghagwŏn and Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn were largely based on a value judgment that viewed them as “pro-Japanese” and collaborationist. Sungkyunkwan University, their modern-day successor, refers to this era as the “dark period” in its six-hundred-year history. A recent study points out the relationship between Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn and Keijō Imperial University, which was the only university in colonial Korea. The study tries to clarify the mutual relevance of Keijō Imperial University and Kyŏnghagwŏn and Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn in two respects: institutional history and the research achievements of university professors in modern Confucian studies (Yi Hyojin 2016). This approach is significant in that it pays attention to the relationship between kangaku and modern knowledge creation. However, there is also a gap in this literature stream. As the focus is on the modern academic system, the complex contexts that overlapped in the “kangaku preservation space” are not fully examined.

In colonial Sŏnggyun'gwan, research questions of crucial importance were superposed: the reversal of the historical hierarchy of civilization, the newly coalescing relationship between empire and colony, the interaction between traditional Confucianism and modern academism, and the longue durée existence of kangaku and its modern transformation. It is difficult to create a holistic picture of these various strands with only the perspective of the nation-state as a criterion for value judgment or from an institutional history approach focused on the modern education system.

Based on a long-term historical perspective, this study investigates the response of traditional academism (kangaku) to the modern age during the development of the modern nation-state in East Asia. In general, it is believed that kangaku was mostly otherized in modern times. The othering of kangaku, however, was not a unilateral process. Although it appears paradoxical, otherization occurred concurrently with internalization. Specifically, traditional kangaku was dismantled; some aspects were rejected, while others were accepted. The state presided over the modern restoration of kangaku, and its practitioners were modern intellectuals based in kangaku. Within it, however, differences between Korea and Japan existed.

This study thus aims to investigate modern kangaku in Korea and Japan. The second section examines the integration of kangaku into the university system from the standpoint of internalization by the state. The Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn monopolized control in the institutional sphere and opposed the private sector in colonial Korea, where the establishment of a university occurred comparatively late. The third section delves into the “shibun (斯文 “This Culture of Ours”) consciousness” of kangakusha scholars and practicioners, which stemmed from a sense of extinction and can be traced back to the Analects, serving as a crucial backdrop for cooperation between kangakusha in Korea and Japan. The fourth and final section discusses the interaction between younger generations, who encountered another challenge to kangaku, and the aftermath of the collaboration.

Institutionalization and Fragmentation of Kangaku

According to the history of Japanese traditional sinology, kangaku began in earnest after the unification of Japan by the Tokugawa shogunate (Inoguchi 1984). As Japan experienced a period of peace, education began to thrive across the country. Local schools run by provincial governors (daimyō 大名) flourished throughout the country, in stride with the shogunate's premier Confucian educational institution, the Shōheikō 昌平黌 academy, and the fashion of sinological study became prevalent among common citizens, with private institutions sprouting up one after another.

Nonetheless, this growth was lacking in comparison with the dissemination of Confucian ideology and strength of sinological study in China and Korea. In these two countries, the neo-Confucianist teachings of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) became the controlling basis of the state, with kangaku-based scholars dominating the bureaucracy and sometimes even resisting the king on the basis of Confucian ideals. In Japan, by contrast, a warrior persona was still preferred. During this time, Shionoya Tōin 塩谷宕岩 (1809–1867), one of the Bunkyū 文久 period's (1861–1864) most distinguished scholars, stated, “I do not want to join the hagiography of Confucianism; I have stored a light suit of armor at home (不願死入儒林傳, 輕甲一聯藏在家)” (Inoguchi 1984: 402).

Shionoya's statement is broadly reflective of the characteristics of Japan, where military studies were more popular than the study of Confucianism. Furthermore, the rigid teacher-pupil relationship and genealogy emphasized in Confucianism were not appreciated in Japan. Maeda Tsutomu describes how kangaku in Japan was considered to be based on the tradition of kaidoku (會讀, “roundtable reading and discussion”), wherein anyone could comment on sinological texts in equal capacity (Maeda 2017). Such an open platform for discussion facilitated the rapid expansion of kangaku's base, but it also created the drawback that Japanese kangakusha's authority as interpreters of the sacred Confucian canon was relatively weak.

In Japan, serious engagement with kangaku continued to develop before and during the Meiji Restoration. As is well known, loyalty to the king (emperor), one of the intellectual foundations of the Meiji Restoration, was based on the Confucian ideology of zhong (忠 “loyalty”). With the restoration of the monarchy, the potential for fully incorporating Zhu Xi's teachings and terminology into the constitution and operation of the country emerged on the Japanese archipelago. The grand rhetoric of kangaku was actively used by the Meiji government. The etymology for the Meiji ishin 維新 or “restoration” came from the Book of Odes 詩經. The grandiose writing style and contents of the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers in 1882 and the Imperial Rescript on Education in 1890 were also significantly influenced by the kangaku tradition. The Meiji period also saw a rapid increase in the use of Literary Sinitic (kanbun) among the general public (Yi Yŏnsuk 1996: 46).

It can be said that Japanese kangaku achieved its second flourishing in the Meiji period. But Japanese kangaku was not the protagonist of the nation-state. After the Meiji Restoration, the goal of modernizing Japan as a nation-state involved creating a constitutional monarchy following Europe rather than creating a polity based on Zhu Xi's royalist politics. The role of kangaku in the composition of the government or the deployment of human resources was insignificant. During this period, kokugaku, another pillar of traditional academic disciplines in Japan, was successfully introduced into the government through the Ministry of Divinities (Fujita 2007), while kangaku failed.

The only field in which kangaku was able to establish itself within the national organization was education. With the establishment of the University of Tokyo in 1877, the Department of Literature in Japanese and Literary Sinitic (Wakan bungaku ka 和漢文學科) was formed. When the University of Tokyo was renamed as Imperial University in 1886, the Department of Literature in Japanese and Literary Sinitic was divided into the Department of Japanese Literature (Wabungaku-ka 和文學科) and the Department of Sinitic Literature (Kanbungaku-ka 漢文學科). Even after the separation, the two departments shared a majority of overlapping subjects, including the study of the Confucian canon. The main distinction between the two was that the Department of Japanese Literature studied Japanese poetry, including waka (和歌 “Japanese-style verse”), while the Department of Sinitic Literature practiced Sinitic poetry, a classic literary genre in East Asia. Nonetheless, these distinctions were negligible, and the difference between the two departments was more institutional than academic. This also reflected the continued influence of premodern academic studies (Ryu 2009: 210).

The division into two separate departments was unavoidable if traditional studies of a comprehensive nature were to enter the new Imperial University system, which was structured on the modern Western university system. The segmentation can be observed in two ways. The first was a disconnect from the practice of creating Sinitic literature. While intellectuals in the past were expected to create literary works, professors at the Imperial University were not required to do so. The second was specialization into detailed academic subfields. The Imperial University's Department of National History (Kokushi gakka 国史学科), formed in 1888, invited famous kangakusha who had long served the national history bureau as professors. At the same time, the Department of Japanese Literature changed its name to the Department of National Literature (Kokubungaku-ka 国文学科) and the Department of Sinitic Literature became the Department of Sinology (Kangaku-ka 漢学科). In 1904, the Department of Sinology was split into the Department of Chinese Philosophy (Shina tetsugaku-ka 支那哲学科) and the Department of Chinese Literature (Shina bungaku-ka 支那文学科) (Tōkyō daigaku 1986, 712–42). Consequently, kangaku became established in the university system across the three categories of literature, history, and philosophy, which currently define the humanities in East Asia.

Already rather isolated in its ivory tower, kangaku experienced another crisis in the early 1920s. Rumors surfaced concerning the removal of Literary Sinitic (kanbun 漢文) from Japan's middle- and high-school curricula. Kangaku was placed in a situation in which its existence needed to be validated. Academic and political opposition to the abolition of Literary Sinitic as a subject from school was expressed in the “Proposal for the Promotion of Kangaku” made to the House of Representatives in March 1921. The logic for protesting against the abolition was that kangaku emphasized Japan's kokutai (国体 national polity). Meanwhile, the deliberations of the Committee of the House of Representatives included phrases such as “Japanized kangaku” or “Confucianism refined by kokutai” (Kang 2021: 454). Discussions from the political field highlighted the need for kangaku from the perspective of serving the country.

The Daitō Bunka Gakuin 大同文化學院 was founded in Tokyo in 1924 with the goal of “offering a refined Confucianism for this nation's distinct Imperial System and National Polity, and providing education on Eastern culture” (Shibunkai 1929: 340).⁶ The format of kangaku disciplines in Daitō Bunka Gakuin differed from the contemporary academic system within the university system. The former was reminiscent of the four traditional bibliographic classifications (Jingshiziji 經史子集), namely, the Confucian canon, History, Philosophers, and Masters, with a focus on the Confucian canon and Philosophers, supplemented by additional history and literature topics (Yun 2020: 314–15). Within Japan, kangaku in educational institutions took on a hierarchical form: it was divided into literature, philosophy, and history at the Imperial University and retained a more traditional form in (lower-status) private schools such as Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Nishōgakusha 二松學舍.

What, then, was the position of Confucianism in colonial Korea? Neo-Confucianism had been the ruling ideology of the Chosŏn dynasty and had permeated the lives of people over the past five hundred years. Takahashi Tōru, who had arrived in Korea even before the advent of colonial rule and served as professor of Korean literature at Keijō Imperial University beginning in 1926, stated that the Chosŏn dynasty “created a nation and society molded by Zhu Xi's neo-Confucianism” (Takahashi 1932: 18). Kangaku (hanhak in Korean), the foundation of the ruling class's habitus, still boasted authority in tandem with the social system developed over hundreds of years. Yet, in colonial Korea hanhak was primarily passed down outside the modern educational system, which in any case was slow to develop under Japanese rule. Traditional educational institutions such as sŏdang 書堂, or the tradition of family studies, were the most crucial foundations upon which traditional sinology relied. Even luminaries of Marxist thought such as Paek Namun 白南雲 (1894–1979), who penned Korea's first Marxist history book, received a strict neo-Confucianism education at home (Pang 1992).

It took twenty years after the onset of colonial authority to merge traditional sinological studies with modern education on the Korean peninsula. The Japanese governor-general of Korea established the Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn 明倫學院, affiliated with the Kyŏnghagwŏn 經學院, in 1930. The Kyŏnghagwŏn, which opened in 1911, inherited the site and facilities of the highest educational institution of the Chosŏn dynasty, the Sŏnggyun'gwan. The Kyŏnghagwŏn succeeded only in following the traditional ceremonial functions of the Sŏnggyun'gwan's various educational and ritual responsibilities. Until recently, Korean historians have mostly focused on two causes for the formation of Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn: Korean Confucian scholars’ demand for the establishment of modern sinological educational institutions and the establishment of Keijō Imperial University in 1926 (Yi Yongbŏm 2019: 226).

This study suggests a third factor that must have led to the establishment of Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn: the spread of sinological discourse throughout the Japanese Empire. As previously stated, a widespread belief persisted throughout the empire that sinological studies (kangaku) might aid the state. The formation of the Daitō Bunka Gakuin in Japan was one of the by-products of this belief. In this context, Saitō Makoto 齋藤實 (1858–1936), who was reappointed as the governor-general of Korea in 1929, played a crucial role. Besides laying the foundation for Keijō Imperial University, Saitō also sought ways to employ traditional sinology for colonial administration. A Korean graduate of Daitō Bunka Gakuin, An Insik 安寅植 (1891–1969), happened to meet Saitō at an opportune time and insisted on the establishment of a sinological educational institution fashioned after Daitō Bunka Gakuin (Pak 2015). Considering his knowledge gained from studying in Japan at a modern kangaku educational institution, An became the only full-time lecturer and assistant administrator when Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn was established in 1930.

Thus, in colonial Korea, too, hanhak 漢學 succeeded in penetrating modern educational institutions, albeit in a limited capacity. Nevertheless, the sinological studies established in modern educational institutions were only a part of Korea's vast hanhak legacy. Most Korean traditional sinologists opposed colonial control and modernization. Korea's sinological tradition, which had existed for more than a millennium, managed to survive even after Liberation in 1945 (Yi Hyŏnil 2022). The traditions of hanhak are not readily dismissed even today. Nonetheless, with the advent of Western modernization, one point shared by Japanese and Korean traditional sinological scholars was that kangaku/hanhak was steadily losing its hold and that its annihilation was imminent.

Modern Sinologists and Shibun (斯文) Consciousness

A network of kangakusha from premodern times was responsible for developing Japan's kangaku as a modern academic system. The premodern Japanese kangakusha, who were a minority, strengthened their bonds not only through student-teacher relationships but also through marital relationships. For instance, Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉 (1867–1939), the first president of Keijō Imperial University and the father of modern Chinese studies in Japan, married the third daughter of his mentor, Shimada Kōson 島田篁村 (1838–1898), thus forming a relationship by marriage with famed kangakusha such as Kawada Ōkō 川田甕江 (1830–1896), Shionoya Tōin, and Yasui Sokken 安井息軒 (1799–1876) (Pak 2009: 108–9). One of Shionoya's descendants, Shionoya On 塩谷溫 (1878–1962), became related to Hattori Unokichi when Shimada Kōson married Shionoya Tōin's granddaughter, while Karashima Takeshi 辛島驍 (1903–1967), who married Shionoya On's daughter, also became a professor of Chinese literature at Keijō Imperial University. These personal relationships helped form a close-knit community intertwined by academic links and marriage ties, just as Hoshino Hisashi 星野恒 (1839–1917), a pupil of Shionoya Tōin, became a teacher to Fujitsuka Rin, Professor of Chinese Philosophy at Keijō Imperial University. These scholars dominated Japan's Imperial University faculty. Furthermore, they had a mixed self-identity, insofar as they invented the new idea of “Japan's Orient” within the university, while nonetheless continuing traditional practices of kangakusha, such as exchanging traditional Sinitic poems (kanshi 漢詩). This confluence of seemingly opposing identities earned them the title of “kangakusha-professors” (Yi Yongbŏm 2019: 228–34).

The community of kangakusha-professors, which can be traced to the late nineteenth century, established the Shibunkai (斯文會 Society for Shibun) as a formal community in the early twentieth century. The Shibunkai was founded in 1918 in Tokyo with the intention of “proclaiming the purification of the Japanese kokutai and supporting the Meiji Emperor's Imperial Rescript on Education by elucidating the East Asian traditional field of study, Confucianism.”⁷ The Shibunkai was established by integrating the Shibungakkai (斯文學會 Research Society for Shibun), Kenkeikai (硏經會 Society for Study of the Confucian Canon), Tōa Gakujutsu Kenkyūkai (東亞學術硏究會 Research Society for East Asian Scholarship), Kanbun Gakkai (漢文學會 Research Society for Sinitic Literature), and Kōshi Saitenkai (孔子祭典會 Society for Confucian Rituals). The Shibunkai rehabilitated the Yushima Seidō temple in Tokyo, resumed suspended Confucian rituals, and published the journal Shibun from 1919 until the present day. Duke (kōshaku 公爵) Tokugawa Iesato 德川家達 (1863–1940) was anointed chair of the Shibunkai in a symbolic sense, but it was kangakusha-professors such as Tokyo Imperial University vice president Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郞 (1856–1944), along with manager Hattori Unokichi and chief editor Shionoya On, who were the actual staff in control of day-to-day operations.

In the early twentieth century, the Shibunkai actively participated in practically every aspect of modern Japanese kangaku. The Chinese studies departments of all nine Imperial Universities and major high schools (kyūsei kōtō gakkō 旧制高等学校), and even the selection of Daitō Bunka Gakuin faculty members, were all influenced by the Shibunkai. Influential members such as Hattori Unokichi became deeply involved in the Japanese Ministry of Education's Eastern Cultural Project (Tōhō Bunka Jigyō 東方文化事業) beginning in 1922. The project was an academic exchange program launched to mitigate the anti-Japanese sentiment that had arisen during China's May Fourth Movement (Yamane 2005), and the funds for the program were derived from the compensation paid by China after the Boxer Rebellion. Shibunkai members Takahashi Tōru and Fujitsuka Rin taught at Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn in colonial Korea while serving as council members who voted on the academy's major decisions.

The Shibunkai took the name “Shibun” from the following verse in the Analects:

This passage reflects a dire situation. Confucius perceives the predicament and proposes philosophical countermeasures. He claims that he will be protected since shibun stretches from King Wen down to himself, and Heaven has the desire to maintain “This Culture of Ours.” “This Culture of Ours,” or shibun, is reintroduced as a word that refers to the Confucian ideas that Confucius emphasized and taught. By engaging in shibun, Confucian scholars become agents to protect it and pass it on. These agents of “This Culture of Ours” gain the same self-justification as Confucius by placing themselves in the same lineage of truth as that of representatives from King Wen to Confucius.

In the early twentieth century, the term shibun served as an allegory for the position of kangaku. The lessons handed down from King Wen were at risk of extinction in the face of modernity, but the details of the crisis scenario differed slightly between Korea and Japan. While the decline in the fortunes of traditional sinological studies was considered a fall from former glory in Korea, a veritable sense of panic arose in Japan, with the fear that kangaku would lose the ties it had earlier acquired with the nation-state. While Japan's modern kangaku was flourishing, it could by no means be deemed satisfactory in terms of its level and influence. The kangakusha-professors of Japan were restricted from the sacred task of “administrating the state and relieving the people's suffering (jingshijimin 經世濟民),” a prerogative that premodern kangaku in both Korea and China enjoyed. Modern Japanese kangaku was restricted from participating in state affairs. As noticed during the blasphemy incident (1925) surrounding the interpretation of the Imperial Rescript on Education,⁸kangaku was at a complete disadvantage in its relationship with the state. The Japanese Empire authorized kangakusha only to conduct certain forms of volunteer work for the emperor, such as formulating the ideology of loyalty or producing the grand rhetoric based on the Confucian canon for ceremonial purposes.

Another point to consider is the interpretation of the bun 文 in shibun. Today, bun is typically considered a written text—a passage comprising inscribed words. However, Zhu Xi interpreted bun as “manners, music, and institutions” (liyuezhidu 禮樂制度). In other words, shibun traditionally comprised not only the teachings of Confucius but also form and ritual. In this respect, it is understandable that one of the former entities of the Shibunkai was the Kōshi Saitenkai, the Society for Confucian Rituals. The purpose of the Kōshi Saitenkai was to revive the sekiten 釈奠, the semiannual Confucian ritual in Japan that had been discontinued after the Meiji Restoration. In Japan, where the kangaku heritage had not permeated as deeply into society as in Korea, it was crucial to perform grand ceremonies to persuade the public and the imperial family. This is evident from large-scale Shibunkai-hosted events, such as the 1922 Confucius Festival commemorating the 2,400th anniversary of Confucius's death and the Great Symposium on Confucianism held to commemorate the reconstruction of the Yushima Seidō in 1935.

The sŏkchŏn 釋奠 (J. sekiten), which was discontinued in Japan, continued to be held at the Sŏnggyun'gwan during the Chosŏn dynasty and at the Kyŏnghagwŏn during the colonial occupation. In other words, in this respect Korea was a place in which “manners, music, and institutions” were still upheld in the twentieth century. Shibunkai members sought to participate in these services themselves. When visiting colonial Korea, Shibunkai members generally visited the Confucian Shrine (Munmyo 文廟) (Pak 2009: 97–99). Hattori Unokichi attended the services held on September 26, 1922, and composed and recited a declaration to Confucius (Hattori 1923: 12–13). To Shibunkai adherents longing for the revival of kangaku in Japan, colonial Korea, with its Confucianism-based society and varied ceremonies and customs still prevalent, must have seemed utopian.

This shibun consciousness was shared to a certain extent by traditional sinological scholars in colonial Korea. Consider the case of Chŏng Manjo 鄭萬朝 (1858–1936, pen name Mujŏng 茂亭), a representative Korean member of the Shibunkai. Chŏng was a prominent scholar, poet, and official during the late Chosŏn dynasty. After passing the literary examinations in 1889, he served as a key central government official with a bright future ahead of him. Unfortunately, after eleven years in exile on allegations of involvement in the assassination of the queen in 1895, his devotion to the Chosŏn dynasty waned (Chŏng Ŭ. 2010). From the inception of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, Chŏng served in different colonial institutions: the Literary Department of the Japanese Government-General of Korea, the Korean History Compilation Association, and the Kyŏnghagwŏn.

A glimpse of Chŏng's shibun consciousness can be seen in his article “Historical Transitions of Korean Prose and Verse” (Chosŏn simun pyŏnch’ŏn 朝鮮詩文變遷), which he used for a lecture at Keijō Imperial University in late 1920s. Overall, it sketches out the genealogy of major scholars in Korean sinographic literature, but it is his portrayal of the future of kangaku that draws our attention. Chŏng diagnoses the current situation as follows: “Ever since the wave of the West pushed East, schools have been formed far and wide to promote exclusively modern studies. Some argue that hanmun (漢文, Literary Sinitic) is unnecessary, and that the subject should be deleted from elementary schools. Everyone agrees that the foundation of hanmun has been weakened.”⁹

While Chŏng uses the term hanmun, this word can be seamlessly replaced by kangaku or shibun. He also expresses a sense of impending doom, fearing that Westernization will taint kangaku. Despite this, Chŏng also expresses a slightly different point of view, contending that, in the future, “true study and true literature shall emerge ten times better than in previous generations”¹⁰ because the partisan strife of the Chosŏn dynasty and stereotyped state examinations, which were impediments to true study and literary creation, had vanished.

His statements may be criticized as anachronistic, but his focus on true study and true literature is noteworthy. According to Chŏng, the transmission of “This Culture of Ours” is carried out in the form of the traditional idea of conveying Confucianism through literature (wenyizaidao 文以載道). As a result, true study—the genuine realization of Confucian thought—would be manifested. To take another Korean example, that of An Insik, the aforementioned lecturer at Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn, it is clear that he held shibun consciousness and that shibun was being discussed at an abstract level.¹¹

Shibun is a notion that embraces both metaphysical teachings and all visible or tangible “manners, music, and institutions”; yet, Korea and Japan differed in their approaches to appropriating the concept. The clearest difference was the shift in emphasis when discussing it. In Japan, kangakusha prioritized formal aspects, such as ritual and ceremony. Because the social base of kangaku in Japan was weak, more focus was placed on the physical manifestations of shibun. By contrast, the hanhakcha (J. kangakusha) of colonial Korea were less concerned with formal elements and emphasized nonmaterial literary and metaphysical themes. In short, the hanhakcha/kangakusha of Korea and Japan shared the sense of “This Culture of Ours” in crisis but differed in how they thought about the form of shibun itself.

Nonetheless, such disparities could be overcome by sharing a kangaku worldview. Sharing a sense of participation in the world of Sinitic prose and verse with its hazy sense of time since antiquity and tracing their lineage from King Wen to Confucius and down through Zhu Xi was the driving force behind their bilateral connections. Colonial Korea's “pro-Japanese” kangakusha were temporarily able to suspend the current imperial–colonial hierarchical relationship in that world and communicate freely with their kangakusha peers in Japan.

The Next Generation and the Waning of Shibun Consciousness

Traces of exchanges between Korean and Japanese Chinese scholars based on shibun consciousness can be found in a few publications besides the journal Shibun. Considering the latest data, a generally uneven pattern is observed. There are far more writings sent from Korea to Japan than vice versa. Of course, this difference in quantity cannot be said to be absolute. Traditionally, poetry and literary exchanges were mainly distributed in personal relationships rather than public spaces, so it is difficult to accurately determine the total amount. There is also a risk that the small number of Sinitic literary works published in modern times may cause statistical distortion. Furthermore, there is a possibility that scholars removed traces of exchanges during the colonial period to conceal their pro-Japanese or wartime cooperation.¹²

With these risks in mind, let us observe some of the materials that remain. The following article is an afterword written by Chŏng Manjo for the Seiun shōja sonkō 靜雲精舍存稿 (Manuscripts from Cloud Calm Abode) of Takahashi Moichirō 高橋茂一郎 (1854–1944) (pen name Suison 翠村), the father of Takahashi Tōru, a professor at Keijō Imperial University.

Takahashi Tōru was a professor in the Korean Literature major He was particularly well versed in the history of Confucianism in the late Chosŏn dynasty. He graduated from the Department of Sinology (Kangaku-ka) at Tokyo Imperial University and came to Korea in 1904. He continued to work as an educational official at the Japanese Government-General of Korea, earning a doctorate in 1919. He was appointed professor at Keijō Imperial University upon its launching in 1926, and served as a council member and lecturer at Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn. The close relationship with Takahashi mentioned by Chŏng Manjo can also be confirmed on Takahashi's side (Takahashi 1957: 23). In this piece, Chŏng repeats his firm belief in conveying Confucianism through literature. He expresses his relationship with Moichirō and, by extension, with the Shibunkai with the term “Our way (吾道)” (Chŏng M. 1931: 103). “Our way” is derived from Confucius's “Our party (吾黨).” The expression “Our way” clearly demonstrates shibun consciousness and participation in it. The relationship between Korean and Japanese sinologists became closer as they repeated the literary imagery based on shibun consciousness.

When Chŏng Manjo died in January 1936, the Shibunkai immediately organized a special feature in its journal Shibun announcing the news of his demise the following month. The issue announces the death of Chŏng in a solemn tone, and includes the declaration to Confucius of the Kyŏnghagwŏn, editor-in-chief Shionoya On's eulogy for Chŏng Mujŏng Taejehak (“鄭茂亭大提學の長逝を悼む” [Teimotei daiteigaku no chōsei o itamu]), and one of Chŏng's writings (“On correcting corruption in Korean Letters” 朝鮮詩文捄弊論 [Chosŏn shimun gup'yeron]) was also published. In his eulogy, Shionoya describes Chŏng's personal profile in considerable detail and describes various scenes from their interactions while crossing back and forth between Korea and Japan. Among the poems exchanged with him, phrases such as “support this Culture of Ours for fifty years 扶植斯文五十年” can be said to be a typical example of their exchange (Shionoya 1936: 7).

Exchanges between Korean and Japanese scholars based on sinographic prose and verse continued not only with the older generation but also with younger people. Takata Shinji 高田眞治 (1893–1975, pen name Tōken 韜軒), a disciple of the first president of Keijō Imperial University Hattori Unokichi, was appointed as a professor in Keijō Imperial University's preparatory course as soon as he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University. Takata was expected to become the future leader of the Shibunkai, following in the footsteps of the previous generation who were now nearing retirement. Upon the retirement of his teacher, he succeeded to his position and moved to Tokyo Imperial University. At this time, the following dramatic scene occurs in the colonial capital: “When Takata wrote a farewell Sinitic poem on the blackboard during his last class before moving to Japan, Kim T'aejun reciprocated. Other students who did not know much about Sinitic poetry also recalled that they took pride in their teacher and student's exchange in Literary Sinitic” (Yi Ch'ungu 1980: 130).

Kim T'aejun 金台俊 (1905–1949, pen name Ch’ŏnt'aesanin 天台山人), the student who appears here, graduated from Keijō Imperial University with a major in Chinese literature and worked at Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn. He is considered a pioneer in the study of modern Korean sinographic literature. The Sinitic poetry from this sketch was published in Seiryō 淸凉, a magazine published by the Gakuyūkai 學友會 [Student Friendship Society] of the preparatory course at Keijō Imperial University. Takata Shinji wrote, “Seeking your esteemed response to my reminiscences upon leaving Korea” 將辭朝鮮述懷索高和, to which Kim responded with two poems, namely, “In humble reply to Teacher Tōken's reminiscences upon leaving Korea” 猥和韜軒先生辭朝鮮述懷韻, and “Congratulating Takata Tōken on his visit to Europe and promotional transfer” 祝高田韜軒洋行幷且榮轉 (Gakuyūkai 1928: 202–4). The basic principles of Sinitic poetry composition, such as the rules of rhyme and appropriate use of historical texts, were clearly observed in their poems. However, the sense of crisis shared by older generation kangakusha is not very evident. Perhaps the shibun consciousness was gradually fading away?

There may be several reasons for this, but these were people who began their intellectual growth after the establishment of the modern national education system. Although they had benefited from traditional sinology to some extent, which explains their ability to participate in an exchange of Sinitic poems, they were nonetheless scholars who had studied “Chinese studies” as a newly systematized modern discipline within the university system. In other words, as time passed, the aftermath of the modern institutionalization and transformation of kangaku was becoming evident.

An important figure here is Karashima Takeshi 辛島驍 (1903–1967), who was appointed to the Department of Chinese Literature at Keijō Imperial University, succeeding the first professor, Kojima Kenkichirō 児島献吉郎 (1866–1931). Kojima was already in his sixties when he took the position. He was one of the famous “Meiji-era sinologists,” while Keijō Imperial University was opened during the Showa period. He had an especially strong attachment to and talent for the creation of Sinitic poetry, rather than interest in the study of Chinese literature in the modern sense (Miura 1998: 231–43). The newly appointed Karashima was a pupil and son-in-law of “kangakusha-professor” Shionoya On. Shionoya recognized Karashima as his academic successor and expected him to devote himself to research on Ming 明 dynasty novels, following in the footsteps of his research on Yuan 元 dynasty drama (Tōhogakkai 2000b: 145).

Karashima mainly taught Chinese drama at the beginning of his tenure at Keijō Imperial University but gradually began to express his own interest in contemporary Chinese literature. Among contemporary Chinese literature, he was fascinated by radical leftist works. Accordingly, he caused a great stir by publishing an article titled “A Partial Introduction to Chinese Proletarian Literature” (中國普羅列搭利亞文學の一臠) in Shibun, where the most conservative kangaku contents predominated (Takeuchi 1981, 16: 242). Although Takeuchi Yoshimi simply describes the impact he caused as “a scandal,” it was a symbolic event that showed the rupture of the traditional worldview upon which shibun consciousness was based.

The world of traditional literature, referred to as kangaku, was essentially based on the premodern sense of time. In this worldview, time was very slow or at a standstill, and was measured in such incredibly large intervals that centuries were considered short. The best standards of Sinitic writing were to exemplify the idea that “Verse should follow the Tang, and prose the Song” (唐詩宋詞). In this sense, it is not important to belong to the here and now but instead to the translocal and transcendent sinographic world of Wen 文. The following anecdote from Myŏngnyun Hagwŏn in colonial Korea is a cliché commonly found in premodern stories. It was possible for the time of romantic sinology, practicing traditional prose and verse, to survive while excluding contemporaneity:

This traditional sense of time that could be maintained in the colony was already cracking in Japan, where the modernization of the education system had begun much earlier. The contours of elite-oriented literary history, based on prose and verse, began to dissolve in the Chinese Literature Department of Imperial University. One of the scholars who drove this trend of change was Shionoya On. He vigorously cultivated the new field of Chinese popular literature, especially Yuan dynasty drama. One of Shionoya's teachers, Hoshino Hisashi, expressed fear about the expansion of his research purview in this way, saying, “How could you abandon the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasty?” (Shionoya 1956: 59). This must have been the honest feeling of a traditional sinologist facing modern Chinese studies.

Karashima went even further, proceeding all the way to contemporary China. He presented a worldview based on the modern nation-state system. Every country in the world has its own national language in which its national literature is written. The adoption of this nation-state-based perspective led to the dismantling of the Sinographic Cosmopolis and at the same time, confirmed that sinographs, which formerly had constituted a common cultural heritage, belonged now to the nation-state called China. Determining the nationality of a literary work based simply on a writing system represents a problematic form of epistemic violence, but Western literatures, the model for “Literature” at the time, were regarded as national literatures—kokubungaku. The close relationship between national literature and the nation-state emerged as a new focus, and clear borders were required even in the world of kangaku where formerly nationality had been relatively ambiguous. As soon as one embraces the modern system of nation-states, national borders come to be drawn between individual researchers and their sinographic materials.

The gradual disintegration of the traditional worldview and the discovery of contemporary China within the Imperial University of Japan can also be observed in Kim T'aejun's letter to Karashima. As seen above, Kim, who exchanged Sinitic poetry with Takata Shinji, gave Karashima a letter written in modern vernacular Sinitic (baihua 白話) in 1931, in a remembrance of his oral defense.¹⁵ In the wake of China's May Fourth New Culture Movement of 1919, Kim's baihua here is much more contemporary compared to traditional yulu 語錄-style vernacular Sinitic. Here we can see that in just three short years, sinographic writing, which had been the écriture of shibun, has been transformed into modern baihua, a Chinese genbun'itchi inscriptional style. Of course, this is just one example, but it is a crucial one because both Kim and Karashima show strong nationalist sentiment afterward. In other words, the next generation of kangakusha-professors was more inclined to modern nationalistic ideology than to traditional shibun consciousness.

The shibun consciousness that enabled cooperation across the borders between Korea and Japan in the early modern era was based on the weak presence and uncertain future of Chinese studies in a period of rapid modernization. The next generation of China scholars, or sinologists, grew up in the newly established modern education system. For them, the nation-state was a fixed constant, and the ideal of Datong 大同 (Great Unity) in the traditional worldview of shibun grew evermore distant. The ideal world of the shibun, once shaken, could not reject the world of modern nation-states. Kangakusha-professors gradually moved into the world of nationalism. Thus, Kim T'aejun wrote his History of Sinographic Literature in Korea 朝鮮漢文學史 in 1931 and claimed that sinographic literature fell outside the category of Korean literature and must be “cleared away” (Kim T. 1931: 191). Later he became a communist, a countercurrent transformation that should be carefully analyzed in future research. Takata Shinji and Karashima Takeshi, for their parts, became ultra-nationalists and engaged in the most active wartime cooperation. After Japan's defeat in the war, the Shibunkai was designated as a group to be purged, and expelled former wartime collaborators from key positions (Tōhōgakkai 2000a: 213).

In Closing

After 1945 Korean and Japanese hierarchies of knowledge and culture underwent extensive reconstruction, with the US at the apex. The First World perspective, centered on the UK and the US, along with tough anticommunist policies, naturally influenced academic society. Traditional academic studies were in a vulnerable position because they could not fit into the Western university system. Nonetheless, traditional sinological studies secured their survival through a self-renewal that successfully persuaded the state.

In Japan, kangaku succeeded in surviving by transforming into modern “Oriental studies” or Tōyōgaku. Additionally, insofar as the modern Japanese language uses sinographs extensively as part of the Japanese writing system, kanji retained a solid position as a key component of the “National Language.” During Korea's authoritarian developmental period, the theory of intrinsic development that emerged in Korean academia demonstrated the efficacy of hanhak for the state, while also satisfying the demand for modernity. As a result, with state funding, the National Culture Promotion Association (now the Institute for the Translation of Korean Classics) was established in 1965 and continues to this day.

Over the past century, hanhak in Korea and kangaku in Japan have undergone recurrent self-renewal through colonization, modernization, the Cold War, and Westernization, but have managed to survive. Of course, it is difficult to state whether the hanhak/kangaku of today is the same as that of the premodern era. However, it is clear that kangaku/hanhak has survived by proving its relevance to the state. This leads us to consider the relationship between modern academism and the state in East Asia. If the nation-state did not support the university system, could traditional sinological study, and furthermore, the humanities be maintained? Is this a characteristic of East Asia, or is it shared by non-Western regions? Such questions remain for further research.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2021S1A5C2A02086839).

Notes

References