『극동의 열쇠 한국』(1905)과 쉐로셰프스키의 한국 인식 = Korea : Klucz Dalekiego Wschodu (1905) and Wacław Sieroszweski’s View of Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this paper is to examine Wacław C. Sieroszweski’s (1858~1945) view of Korea, by analyzing his book, Korea : Klucz Dalekiego Wschodu (1905). It was the only book written by Polish of all the Western publications concerning Korea in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. Considering that most of them were written by American, English, French, and German travelers, it is a highly rare and valuable material.
Westerners’ perspective of Korea has never been the same all this time. There was a change in it around the late 18th century. For instance, Europeans did not belittle nor ignore Korea in the 17th and 18th centuries. The author believes that Asia’s superiority in the world would affect their view of Korea. At that time, they highly appreciated Chinese civilization and economically depended on Asia. On the other hand, since the 19th century, Korea had been described as a less-civilized country in the most Western literature, including Korea : Klucz Dalekiego Wschodu. Poland, Sieroszweski’s motherland, was one of the weakest country, but it did not change the fact that he was European. He viewed Korea just the way English, French, German, and American writers did.
Sieroszweski constantly compared Korea and Japan, because he was deeply impressed by modern Japan before he arrived Korea in October, 1903. He even thought that Japan was better than Europe in some ways. Therefore, he believed that Japan was the only country to carry out reform for Korea, and he was against that Russian ambition to rule Korea. In his eyes, Japan was a replacement of a fully-civilized Western country in East Asia, which was also similar to other Westerners’ idea.