대한제국기 지식인의 국경 문제 제기와 영토 인식 - 장지연의 『대한강역고』를 중심으로 -

Abstract

After Daehan Empire was established, the Imperial government planned to launch an academic project designed to compile historical and geographical data concerning the Northern territories of the country, as such data could surely be used in resolving border disputes with Qing. Abang Gan g’yeok-go, written by Jeong Yak-yong was primarily consulted as an important source of information, and Jang Ji-yeon, who was at the time serving as Managing Editor of the Hwangseong Shinmun Newspaper, was put in charge of the supplementation process.BR In Abang Gan g’yeok-go, particularly through a series of discussions of history and geography, Jeong Yak-yong emphasized that boundaries of the Joseon territory was ‘finalized’ by the establishment of the Four Gun units and Six Jin Garrisons, during the reigns of kings Sejong and Sejo. He also argued that in order to maintain such territory the late Four Commanderies below the Abrok-gang river should be rebuilt, and the Northern regions be properly defended and stabilized. Then 70 years later, in Daehan Gan g’yeok-go, Jang Ji-yeon, instead of just acknowledging Jeong Yak-yong’s position which viewed the Duman-gang and Abrok-gang rivers as natural borderlines, displayed an alternative view of Joseon’s territory in which he suggested the idea of expanding the country’s territory to other regions and re-demarcating the country’s borderlines. In other words, Jang Ji-yeon was essentially offering a critical view of Jeong Yak-yong’s stance, by providing a new take on the origin of the country’s Northern territories, and asking for a new borderline that would recognize ancient territories of the country. In order to do this, while utilizing the contents of Abang Gangyeok-go nonetheless, Jang left out several parts of Jeong’s original writing while supposedly creating a ‘supplemented version,’ and even eliminated certain segments he deemed unnecessary. He also added some new contents regarding the ‘Monument at Mt. Baekdu-san for Demarcation,’ and strongly asked for recovery of ancient territory as well as anew borderline.BR Coexisting in Jang’s mind were two types of thinking that came from different eras. He pointed to Gando as the place of origin for the dynasty itself, and then argued that it should be reclaimed and recovered. It was a fairly premodern, and also a conceptual, even abstract attitude to begin with. Then again, he wanted the new borderline, based on the aforementioned ‘Monument at Mt. Baekdu-san for Demarcation,’ to be officially recognized by International law(the ‘Universal law,’ as referred to at the time), and this was admittedly a significantly modern take on seeking acknowledgements on territorial rights. Although Joseon resorted to consulting the study of Jeong Yak-yong, which was a product of a mind from the past (the Shilhak trend of the late Joseon period to be exact), in response to a territorial dispute that occurred in the present(late 19th century), the people of the time including Jang Ji-yeon were also in the process of newly accepting modern geographical concepts (“territorial sovereignty”) and opening up to the idea of entering the Universal law system of the world. As a result, what Jeong Yak-yong considered as ‘complete’ in his Abang Gan g’yeok-go had to be newly defined by Jang Ji-yeon as ‘incomplete (with regions that were yet to be claimed),’ which displays the nature of modern historio-geographical views of the Daehan Empire period.BR But Jang’s such view and ideals needed the existence of a modernized, sovereign state to be properly realized. The political condition of the Empire was a variable that could either facilitate or thwart Jang’s intentions. And after the Empire was annexed by Imperial Japan, the concept of establishing imperial borderlines and preserve the legitimacy of the dynasty was effectively nullified, and the range of ‘ancient territories that would have to be reclaimed’ was conceptually expanded (beyond Gando) to the entire Manchu region which was under imperial Japanese rule. And the notion of ‘reclaiming ancient territories’ transformed into another idea of ‘citizens of colonized Joseon pioneering the Manchu region.’