동양, 탈아와 정체, 아시아연대와 타율 - 식민주의 역사학에 대한 단상

Abstract

The modern historiography of Japan, developed since the late 19th century, revealed the progress of the Japanese people in response to the demands of Japanese society, which developed modernization and imperialism at the same time after contact with the West. However, it is said that the Japanese thought of Japan in Asia after contact with the West, rejected the Chinese-centered worldview in the past, relativeized China and other Asian countries, and created the Tōyō as a new space centered on Japan. In Tōyō, Japan was the only one in Asia to succeed in Westernization out of Asia and lead the solidarity of Asia. Japanese historians’ study of Korean history was to explain the historical inevitability of the task of “Out of Asia” and “Asian Solidarity” that the Japanese imposed on themselves to achieve modernization and imperialism.BRIn order to explain the “Out of Asia” that only Japan was able to do, the others such like Korea and China, which were historically stagnant and failed, were essential. The view of Japanese historians to Korea’s past, which we have summarized as “the stagnation theory”, was aimed at reflecting Westernization, which was only possible by Japan. And in order to historically show that Japan was bound to be the leader of the Asian Solidarity, it had to reveal that the past of Japan, the island nation at the eastern end of Asia, was accompanied by the historical development of the Asian continent. At this time, the Korean history of the peninsula close to Japan takes on more important meaning to them. From their point of view, Korea is a place where the historical changes of the continent are condensed, with the absolute inuence of continental forces such as Manchuria, Mongolia, and China, and Japanese history can be linked to the historical changes of the continent as Japan has established relations with Korea since the beginning of history. What we have summarized as the “Heteronomy eory” of Korean history is to connect Japanese history to the historical development of the continent, and in this regard, the so-called “Heteronomy eory” opens the way for Japanese history to be newly organized around Japan. If so, the more prominent the character of Japan’s modern historiography is, the more stagnant and heteronomous the history of other Asian countries, including Korean history, is revealed.BRMeanwhile, the view of colonialist historiography had its influence even after the war. This didn’t stop in Japanese academia after 1945, but it seems likely to affect American academia. e U.S. policy stance in the northeast Asia, which sought U.S. national interest and hegemony by blocking the spread of socialism centered on Japan, resembled the idea of Japanese historians who wanted to paint the Tōyō centered on Japan, talking Korea’s lack of feudalism and insisting on the impossibility of internal modernization.