It was in the late 1960s that the description of the character Yu Gwan-sun began to appear in history textbooks. At that time, textbooks described the March First Independence Movement as a national movement that could not achieve its purpose due to J...
It was in the late 1960s that the description of the character Yu Gwan-sun began to appear in history textbooks. At that time, textbooks described the March First Independence Movement as a national movement that could not achieve its purpose due to Japanese oppression, and Yu Gwan-sun was described as one of the figures oppressed by the Japanese. Entering the 1970s, the March First Independence Movement began to be defined as a ‘family struggle’ in which all nationalities participated, and a phrase appeared in textbooks that “all nationalities participated without distinction of men and women”. At this time, Yu Gwan-sun went beyond “the distinction between men and women” and became the basis for the narrative that everyone participated in this movement. The definition of the March First Independence Movement as a family struggle was related to the Park Chung-hee administration’s creation of a dominant discourse that prioritized “national unity as a powerful driving force for the pursuit of national interests”. These descriptive characteristics continued even after the introduction of certified textbooks and remain to this day.
In order to further improve the image of Yu Gwan-sun in Korean history textbooks, it is necessary to first improve the narrative content related to the March First Independence Movement, and the direction of this movement is that national representatives and participants criticized imperialist aggression at the time of this movement and aim for peaceful coexistence and national sovereignty. It should be revealed that The description of Yu Gwan-sun also needs to be improved in a way that explains his values and ideals, going one step further from revealing that he was a simple victim or martyr.