Trends and Prospects: Historical Studies on Koryŏ-Mongol Relationship in the 13-14th centuries

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review major achievements in historical studies of Koryŏ-Mongol relationship in the 13-14 th centuries made by Korean researchers so far, and explore the proper way the researchers should take in the future. The trend of historical studies on Koryŏ-Mongol relationship in Korea can be divided into three following periodical categories: (1) the period during 1960s-80s when the emphasis on nationalistic historical consciousness was rampant in the overall Korean history academic world, (2) the period from the late 1980s to 1990s when criticism on the bias embedded in the nationalistic interpretation of history was raised, and the effort to understand the history of Koryŏ-Mongol (Yuan) relationship in structural perspective was made, and (3) the period since 2000 when the researchers tried to explain Koryŏ-Mongol (Yuan) relationship in the most objective way by actively adopting the results of researches on Mongol history made both in Korea and in overseas. Among those categories, as “the effort to understand the relationship in structural perspective” was made to eliminate the subjective elements in the nationalistic perspective, the first two categories can be defined as “rise and fall of the nationalistic perspective,” and the third period can be defined as “the appearance of the approaches in world historical perspective” which tried to understand the nature of the relationship in the world order centered around the Mongol Empire in the 13-14 th centuries. This paper examined the overall trends in historical studies made on Koryŏ-Mongol (Yuan) relationship inside Korea since the 1960s, and categorized them into two groups: studies which employed a structural perspective, and those whose notion were based upon global historical orders. Also added are a few comments on recent studies made since 2000 in the conclusion.