2019: The Centenary of Korea’s Sam-il Independence Movement
Die Unabhängigkeitserklärung vom 1. März 1919 und das Jubiläum 2019
Die Bewegung des ersten März, Samil Undong, war eine Unabhängigkeitsbewegung in dem von Japan 1910 annektierten Korea. Die Bewegung richtete sich gegen die Besetzung Koreas durch Japan und dessen Kolonialpolitik und begann am 1. März 1919 mit der öffentlichen Verlesung der Unabhängigkeitserklärung in Seoul, gefolgt von über Monate andauernden Demonstrationen in fast allen Provinzen des Landes, bis sie durch die japanische Armee niedergeschlagen wurden. (Aus Wikipedia).
Quelle: The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 17 | Issue 16 | Number 1 | Aug 15, 2019
Mit freundlicher Erlaubnis von Japan Focus
The Centenary of Korea’s Sam-il (March First) Independence Movement: Remembering Japanese Art Critic Yanagi Sōetsu’s Solidarity with Colonized Koreans
Penny Bailey
Abstract
One hundred years on from Korea’s Sam-il (March First) Independence Movement, this article outlines a number of factors that led to the mass mobilization of Koreans in sustained nationwide efforts to oust the Japanese colonizers from the peninsula. Although much of the pro-independence activism took place at the grassroots level in Korea, the movement also provided an opportunity for contemporaneous transnational commentators to publicly make known their disapproval of Japan’s escalating imperial expansionism and its rigid colonial policies. In Japan, a number of concerned observers questioned the dominant mode of thinking at the time which pitted the colonial project as a noble and altruistic venture that would “civilize” Koreans. Criticisms ranged from a distrust of the empire’s political motivations to the economic costs of running the colonies, and moral opposition based on humanitarian grounds. One Japanese commentator who demonstrated solidarity with the colonized Koreans was the art critic Yanagi Sōetsu 柳宗悦 (1889–1961), who published a number of impassioned appeals in an effort to demonstrate his indignation at Japan’s occupation of the peninsula and to highlight the importance of acknowledging and protecting Korea’s vast repository of extraordinary visual cultures.