대한제국기 입헌군주제 논의와 한국사 교과서 서술

Abstract

This study set out to discuss two issues by reflecting new viewpoints related to the power of king, people"s right, and national sovereignty during the Great Han Empire. And the study reviewed descriptions about constitutional monarchy during the activities of the Independence Association n the high school Korean History textbooks. Recent authorized textbooks reflect the research achievements of the academic circles to a great degree. Most of the textbooks pursue a modern political system and took a neutral position of the people, thus revealing their limitations with the viewpoint of the people. They especially highlighted differences between the political system sought after by the Independence Association and the one by the Great Han Empire through all sorts of inquiry activities. In such a case, however, it is highly likely that a viewpoint of binary opposition will be applied to constitutional and absolute monarchy, which does not match the new recent research perspective and makes no contributions to the nhancement of historical thinking. It also contradicts the textbooks that assess the “modernity” of the Gwangmu Reform positively and put King Gojong at the center of the anti-Japanese ovement. Will it be then more appropriate to deal with the context in which national sovereignty based on the strong power of king was expected those days together with the problems of such nationalism? This approach will help to overcome the dichotomous viewpoint of acknowledging constitutional monarchy as an ideal system and the Great Han Empire as an actual state in parallel.