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Русская пресса и письма российскихобшественныхдеятелей...149

рованного дипломата. К сожалению, ввиду неразборчивости почерка и большого количества материала для полноценного исследования по­ требуется значительное время.

В одно время с бароном Розеном в Азиатском департаменте русского дипломатического ведомства служил Д. Е. Шевич (посланник в Японии с 1886 г.). В фондах РГИА находится его докладная депеша. Такие докла­ ды о деятельности русской духовной миссии в Японии отправлялись в Синод каждый год, но архивное дело с докладом Шевича от 1 октября 1888 г. носит своеобразное название: «По записке Товарища Министра Иностранных Дел о положении христианских общин в Японии и об успехах миссионерской деятельности Начальника нашей Духовной Миссии Преосвященного Николая»10. В докладе Шевич отмечает ошиб­ ки протестантских и католических миссий и реакцию на их пропаганду синтоистского и буддийского духовенства, а также говорит, почему деятельность русской православной миссии, в частности о. Николая, успешна. Проповедь католических и протестантских миссионеров «на ломаном японском языке» иногда вызывает «и ропот со стороны скан­ дализированных поселян, которые кроме того подвергаются еще на­ сильному вручению разных брошюр и рисунков, порицающих или поднимающих на смех местную религию». О причинах быстрого и успеш­ ного распространения православия в Японии Шевич пишет: «Досто­ уважаемый Начальник нашей Духовной Миссии положил здесь основа­ ния нашей веры при содействии лишь одного или двух сотрудников и в самую критическую минуту жизни Японии, когда христианство дей­ ствительно подвергалось гонениям и притеснениям всякого рода; но при всем том вдохновенное слово его проникало в отдалённейшие кон­ цы Империи по-видимому беспрепятственно и число православных хри­ стиан увеличивалось со дня на день, несмотря на неприязненный хри­ стианству дух, царствовавший тогда в Японии». Конечно, строительство собора в Токио, впоследствии получившего название Никорай-до, на са­ мом деле проходило не так гладко, как об этом сообщалось в офици­ альной печати, о чем пишет в письмах к барону Розену о. Анатолий11 од­ нако, по мнению Шевича, «новый Суругадайский православный храм, хотя еще и в неоконченном виде, но уже гордо возвышается над столициею Японии без всяких протестов со стороны жителей или местной печати против этой величавой обители Христианской Веры, одно при­ сутствие которой уже может служить явным и красноречивым доказа­ тельством фактической веротерпимости Японского Правительства и здешнего народонаселения».

Как мы видим, в русской прессе, письмах и официальных докладах российских общественных деятелей концаXIX— начала XX в. : архиманд­ рита Анатолия, русских посланников в Японии барона Р. Р. Розена и

10 РГИА. Ф. 797. Оп. 58. Отд. 2. Ст. 3. Д. 335 (канцелярия обер-прокурора Си­ нода).

11 РГИА. Ф .1038. Оп.1.Д. 75.

Д. Е. Шевича, о. Николая и других, многие из которых были лично знако­ мы друг с другом, — обнаружен пласт ценнейшего и при этом в большей степени еще мало изученного материала, характеризующего религиоз­ ные настроения в Японии эпохи Мэйдзи. Религиозная ситуация в Япо­ нии отслеживалась и отражалась в русских журналах риулярно. Это ка­ сается не только вопроса религий, но и японской общественной жизни периода Мэйдзи вообще, поэтому можно выдвинуть предположение, что у части русского населения складывалось мнение о Японии, далекое от презрения и уничижения, которые зачастую можно увидеть в учебниках и работах некоторых исследователей.

successors of which, Posöng College and eventually Koryö University, he became connected again after the end ofJapanese colonialism in 1945.

By 1914, it was decided that Hyön would go to Tokyo, to receive the liberal education of the sort which was inaccessible in colonized Korea. In doing so, he was a part of a wider trend — nationalistically-minded Koreans were continuously heading to Japan in the 1910s to receive the in-depth, universitylevel training in humanities and social sciences. In 1914 Korea, after all, there were neither universities nor colleges. The first four public colleges received their permits only in 1915. Restricting Koreans the access to higher education and thus preventing the emergence ofthe counter-elite armed with «dangerous» nationalist thoughts was, after all, one of the important point of the 1901s colonial policy. This, ironically enough, meant that Koreans had to go to the colonial mother country to receive there the education which the colonial policy disallowed them at home. In the wake of Korea’s annexation, with all the frustrations it brought to the nationally-minded intellectuals and the new and restrictive regulations for these wishing to come over to Japan for study (two guarantors and a permit from the local colonial authorities signed in the central headquarters of the Government-General were required), the numbers of the Korean students in Japan went somewhat down from 600 in 1910 to 518 in 1914. From 1916, however, the numbers started to steadily grow (Pak 2003).

By 1920, there were 1141 Korean students in Japan, ca. 90% of them being self-financed. The figure was greatly exceeded by a much larger number of the Chinese students from China proper (ca. six thousands), while being twice larger than the number of the Taiwanese students (ca. six hundred) (Pak 2003). Studying in Japan— in the situation when going to USA or Europe was prohibitively expensive and required doing extremely complicated paperwork beforehand1— was seen by many of them as a way of preparing oneselfto eventual work for the sake of Korea’s modernization, and, hopefully, ultimately its independence (Weiner 1989, 120-133). Not unlike the cases of Hyön’s fellow Korean students in 1910s Tokyo, Hyön’s four years in Japan had the central meaning for the rest of his public life. In Japan, he further developed his beliefs in the incompatibility of the Korean tradition with the Darwinian «survival of the fittest» which, as he saw it, prevailed in the modem world. As the editor of Korean students’ influential journal, Hakchigwang (The Light of Study), he was in position to socialize with the best and the brightest among the young Koreans learning the ways of new «civilizaüon» in

Some of his Tokyo friendships later proved essential for his further career in colonial Korea. For example, his fellow Waseda alumnus Kim Söngsu (18911955) was the owner and manager of the Central High Normal School

1 During the whole 1910s, only 26 Koreans managed toget their passports fromthe colonial Government-General, to proceed further to the US for the purpose of study. However, already by 1915, around 100 young Koreans illegally crossed the Chinese border in order to reach US via Shanghai, mostly with the American missionary sponsorship (Chang 2008).

(established in 1908) which consequently employed Hyön from 1918 onward. A student friend from Meiji University called Song Chinu (1889-1945) who used to edit Hakchigwang before Hyön, was the Central High Normal School principal who employed Hyön there in 1918; after this, as a long-term director of the influential national daily Тощ'a Rbo, he provided Hyön with an opportunity to publish his writings in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet another Waseda alumnus and a fellow native of the northern part of Korea, Chang Töksu (1894-1947), was Tong’allbo’s vice-director in 1936 and after resigning from there served as a professor of Posöng College — Koryo University’s predecessor — having gotten a PhD from Columbia University in 1936 (On Kim Söngsu and his network of Japan-educated pro-capitalist nationalistic intellectuals, see: Eckert 1991 34; Yi 2007, 322-325). In a word, while in Tokyo, Hyön found itselfin the very centre of the nexus of connections between the people who afterwards were to become the backbone of the moderately nationalistic colonial establishment in Korea.

His views on Japan — the very paragon of the «civilization» Hyön was searching after, and at the same time the colonizer the independence from which, Hyön hoped, Korean would regain at some future point — were fairly typical for his milieu (Ch’oe 2009). His first impressions ofTokyo he published in Seoul-based monthly CKongcYCun (issue 2) in December, 1914, under the title «The Life of a Tokyo Student» (Tonggyöng Yuhaksaeng Saenghwaî) is a highly belletristicaccount ofHyön’s obsessionwith what he sawasJapan’spresumably «superior» degree of «civilization development». As is mentioned in the pre­ existing research, Hyön’s self-appointed task was to «enlighten» the compatriots onthe «civilization» of the colonial mother country, in the way of focusing on his «feelings» and «impressions» — that is, on «civilization» as internalized and subjectively reflected upon by a young, knowledge-hungry Korean intellectual insearch for his new, «modem» self (Kim et al.,2006, 50—59). The present paper will focus on the aspects of Hyön’s subjective reflection on the «modem» which distinctively distinguish his vision of the Japanese «civilization» from the «enlightening» writings on Japan produced by the preceding generation of the Korean students — that is, by those who studied in Tokyo in the first decade of the twentieth centuiy. The main novelty in Hyön’s view of Japan, as this paper will show, is his attentiveness to the socio-political dynamism of the Japanese society, to the social consciousness and political awareness of the rank-and-file Japanese. Different from the earlier emphasis on the modernizing achievements ofthe Meiji state, this focus signaled the important change in the consciousness of younger Korean intellectuals, namely their gradual discovery of the new driving force of history — the people, the «masses».

2. Mass Dynamism as the Key Point of the «Japanese Civilization»

Penning down his impressions after less than ayear of student life in Tokyo, Hyön had the full understanding that he was no longer a pioneer. In colonized Korea, as he himself mentioned in the very beginning of his essay, there were «hundreds» ofthe people— mostly students— who already experienced all the

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«strangeness» of life in the colonial mother country. In fact, the number of the Korean students in Japan has reached 600 already by 1910 (Kim 1993, 23) — and, in addition to the students, hundreds of educated Koreans visited Japan for other purposes, including the colonial administration-sponsored «tours». Still, this sort of life remained «strange», and it was exactly the aroma of this «strangeness» Hyön was trying hard to convey. The «strangeness» of Japan had, first and foremost, a linguistic flavor — after all, the absolute majority of Koreans did not speak or even read Japanese in mid-1910s — and to import on his Korean reader the sense of it, Hyön peppered his essay with the «exotic» Japanese words. Nemaki ( sleepwear), amado ( sliding storm shudder), irezum i(Atl® , tattoo), all transcribed in vernacular Korean script, were to give the reader a feeling of some essential «strangeness» of Japan as «another countiy», a geographically and ethnographically different space. Still, the most essential cultural quality of Japan as a fellow «Oriental civilization» was the visual homogeneity of the written language — and the absolute majority of the «civilizational» objects Hyön describes, the likes of «libraiy», «cinéma» and «zoo», are all written down in karyi/hartcha which the educated Koreanreaders could easilyidentify and readin Koreanpronunciation (Hyön 2002, 55-62). Japan, as an untypical «Oriental» colonizing power, was to be seen as simultaneously «strange» and «familiar».

Aside from the visible and audible ethnographic «foreignness»— typified by the «old samurai songs» which, Hyön claimed, he had overheard from thejudö training halls — Hyon's imagination was captured by what he understood to be Japan’s «civilizational advancement». One essential feature of this «advancement» was the noticeable difference in the development of urban infrastructure. Hyön mentions, for example, the «asphalt pavement» on the streets, the «illumination» (illuminated sign-boards) above it, the «benches» in the parks and the «cement» used for building the public bath facilities — and writes «asphalt» «illuminations» or «cement» in the vernacular transcriptions from English, without even an attempt into translating these words (Hyön 2002, 56-60). By doing so, consciously or otherwise he was obviously trying to emphasize the Western origins of all these features of Japan’s material civilization his Japanese hosts were obviously proud about. As long as Japan’s «advancements» sprang from a common — or, in other words, universal— Western origin, there was still a chance that Korea could successfully follow in Japan’s steps. That was the sort of development that Hyön — who, in his contribution to Hakchigwang ‘s December 1914 issue, ambitiously entitled «Who are the young people we are looking for» (Kuha nun pa Ch^ngnyon i кй Nugunya?), appealed to the fellow Korean students in Japan to mind practical improvements in Korean life first and foremost and learn practical things, such as science on fisheries or meteorology — desired more than anything else for his native country (Hyön 2002, 79-83).

However, material improvements were, as Hyön himself expressed it in his sketches on his Japanese experiences, nothing more than «imitational civilization» (mobang munmyöng). In one of his later contributions to Hakchigwang (February 1915 issue) entitled «[I] speak to the Peninsula’s

Youth» (Mal ul Pando Ch'öngnyön ege Puch'im), Hyön — seemingly influenced both by the Confucian belief in the perfectibility of the humans and the personal ethical responsibility ofthe elite «gentlemen» (Kor. kurya) for the state of socio-political affairs in their societies and the modernist appeals for personal «moral regeneration» as the basis for «national regeneration» — demanded that his fellow students overcome the level of sartorial imitation of the foreign civilization («expensive Western suit, eye-glasses set in gold, stick inhand») and internalize its values (responsibility for one’s society etc.) instead (Hyön 2002, 94-99). That was exactly the degree of the internalization of «civilized» values in Japan that Hyön found to be «foreign» — and most desirable.

One of the «new» values Japanese seemingly excelled in adopting, was their politeness — typified by the «polite and modest» female servant of the boarding-house near Sumida River where Hyön lived (Hyön 2002, 56). Another, and apparently even more emphasized by Hyön, was the energetic, life-approving, and sportive character of the Japanese daily life as he saw it. Japanese students with whom he boarded together in the house on Sumida River were doing cold-water rubbing eveiy morning; Judo was growing in popularity; and students were enjoying «baseball» and «football» (Hyön transcribed both word in the vernacular, without even attempting to translate these» «universal» cultural codes), together with more traditional sumo wrestling, in the parks (Hyön 2002,56-61). Following the lead of Liang Qichao (1873-1929) who praised the «militant, enterprising and adventurous spirit» of the Europeans in his seminal New Citizen (Xinminshuo, 1903) (Levenson 1959, 117-119), Korea’s modernists of the 1900-1910s were trying hard to persuade their compatriots that «vigorous» life on an individual level translates into the coveted «wealth and power» for the state/nation as a whole (Ch’ön 2005, 82-115). Japan, with the growing popularity of modern sports there, was the case in point for these in Korea wishing to establish the cause-effect relationship between the states of personal and national fitness. Japanese (and the Korean students preferring to follow the local customs) were habitually going barefoot and often in very light clothes, which meant the necessity of washing the feet daily and bathing at least twice a week to maintain the personal hygiene— another modem invention Korean modernist intellectuals, Hyön included, admired in Japan (Hyön 2002, 59-60). Polite, sportive, hygienic Japanese personified the «civilization» dream the modernist intellectuals of colonized Korea were sharing with their colonizers.

For a person with a Confucian background — whom Hyön undoubtedly was — interest in philosophical reasoning was a sure sign of the person belonging to the selected ranks of «gentlemen».Hyön, who later became famous for his History of the Korean Confucian Ideas (Chosön Yuhaksa, 1949), the pioneering attempt at systemizing the Korean Confucian history by a modem Koreanscholar (Hyön2008, Vol.1) himselfregularlyindulged in philosophizing from his young days onward. For example, in one of his unpublished manuscripts, «Why the Death is Feared» {Chugüm i wae Musöunya?; dated by January 1 1914) he reasoned that the fear of death is directly proportionate

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to the attachment to life, and that, on the contrary, stronger attachment to «spiritual life» might prompt a person to be more determined in dealing with the «corporal life», easily ending itby awillful decision whenever such a sacrifice is needed for the «victory of the spirit». Significantly, he also came to the conclusion that individualism might be beneficial once, «as in Europe», it means mainly the respect for one’s individuality and NOT the rejection of the public interest; he was, however, against «individualism as it is practiced currently in Korea», by which he meant simply egoistic dereliction of the public duties (Hyön 2002, 51-55). While the piece remained unpublished, Hyön’s acceptance of individualism was a ideological novelty for the Korean modernist discourse of the 1900s and early 1910s, which mostly emphasized individual’s «national», social duties and functions, often emphatically rejecting the suggestions for a more pronounced highlighting of individual’s uniqueness (Pak 2007, 315-324). It presaged a more relaxed attitude towards «individuality» and «individualism» which emerged in the Korean modernist milieus by the end of the 1910s (for example, «individuality» in Yi Kwangsu’s late 1910s writings are analyzed in Chong 2002). Another unpublished manuscript, entitled «Do not Cheat Yourself» (Süsüro Sokÿi Malla; dated by May 2,3, 1914), dealt, as it can be assumed from the title, with the danger of being insufficiently «faithful to oneself» and deceiving both the self and others on the extent of one’s abilities (Hyön 2002, 43-45).

Philosophizing of this kind — which indisputably was important as a part of the creating of modem «self» — was what Hyön seemingly approved greatly of in the Japanese university life as he saw it. In the essay on his life in Japan, Hyön mentions the self-study in the evenings, the pleasurable time of immersion into «Wordsworth’s poetry, Emerson’s essays, Turgenev’s novels and Eucken’s and Bergson’s philosophy» — all this, presumably, in Japanese translations and adaptations — and contemplating on the necessity of the «creation of the self and thorough awakening to the life» for creating authentic art, or on the inner demands of the life to reach the total and eternal utopian state (Hyön 2002, 58) •Japan — or, at least, Japanese universities — was seen as the place for abstract thinking, something thatwas associated in the Korean Confucian tradition with the noble vocation of the scholar-official.

Even more importantly, Japan was seen as a place where «thinking» became a mass preoccupation. That was exactly what Hyön envied most in Tokyo — «the fourth largest city on earth and the city the thriving streets and busy thoroughfares of which are unparalleled in the Orient». Much more than the glamour ofthe luxurious buildings, Hyön admired the abundance ofbookshops and periodicals readings rooms ( — Jöransho), where «the books and journals suitable for the workers are available to the workers, the reading stuff good for primary school students are available to primary school students, and books on women are available to women». Another signs of the presence of what Habermas termed the «modem public sphere» (Habermas 1989) were visible too — the public speeches were audible eveiywhere, so that everybody could listen to the «new ideas and directions [ofthought]». There were speeches and books available on «emancipation ofwoman» (the expression, still unusual

in Korean, was written down in English by Hyön and then interpreted asjosht kaihö/yösöng haebang in Sino-Korean) — and, given the fact that fourteenfifteen years old girls who frequented Hyön’s boarding house, were already «discussing simple and compound interest rates», it looked as if the women were more or less ready to be emancipated! Another sight rather unimaginable in contemporaneous Korea, were rickshaw drivers and other menial workers dressed in happi ( coats, who were, newspapers in hand, sitting and discussing Yuan Shikai's coup d'etat and the domestic news on factory strikes while resting. Newspapers’ content was vividly discussed by almost everybody Hyön met, even by rather ignorant old neighbouring lady who used to come to Hyön’s boarding house owner to share recent neighbourhood gossip (Hyön 2002, 57-62). In a word, unlike Korea — which Hyön, in a later essay entitled «Social Criticism and its Standards» (Sahoe üi pip’an kwa mit p ’yojuix Hakchigwang, May 1915), termed «stagnant», «calm» and «cold» (su saihan) (Hyön 2002, 106-109) — Japan possessed lively, bustling public sphere which seemed to engage pretty much a majority ofits inhabitants. This characteristic was central for the «civilization» in Japan as Hyön observed it.

The description of Japan as a «civilized» society with a highly developed Westernized material culture, populated by informed and engaged citizeniy, implied a comparison with «stagnant» Korea — which, as Hyön assured in his essay «From the Old People to the New People» (Yet Saram uro Sae Saram e; drafted on August 28,1914, published in Ch^ongch'un March 1915 issue), urgently needed the «new people» — diligently working, vigorous and just as competitive as the polar explorers who rivaled each other in their expeditions tothe South and North Poles, or the scientists who enthusiastically worked to pave the way to painless deliveries at birth or complicated transplantations surgeries (Hyön 2002, 103-106). Korea, as Hyön saw it in his 1917 piece on the «differences between the Occidental and Oriental civilizations», belonged to the «passive, infantile, submissive and inert Oriental world» (Hyön 1917), in urgent need of both Western ideas and Westemers-like «dynamic and enterprising people» to rejuvenate it.

An important step to such a rejuvenated Koreas, as Hyön saw it, was the community of the Korean students in Tokyo, in which Hyön himself was a central participant. In his essay on the life in Tokyo, Hyön describes regular meeting of the Korean students’ friendship association (ch'inmokhoe), where allsorts ofKorean dialects— from the remote northeastern Hamgyöng Province dialect to the characteristic speech of Kyöngsang Province natives — were to be heart. Symbolically, it could imply that, confronted with the «foreignness» of the host society, all the Koreans, the provincial parochialisms notwith­ standing, were to be forged into one, unitaiy modem nation. Korean students in «civilized» Japan, «fairly-looking and self-confident», were to become the «nucleus» of future’s Korea, its «floweiy peak», the «central axis of the Korean youth». One reason why Hyön appeared to believe so strongly into the grand historical mission of his own community was the diversity of the majors, interests and, consequently, future occupations of his comrades: everything, fromjurisprudence to much less ambitious agriculture and horticulture, was

represented there (Hyön 2002, 60-61). In fact, statistically, 68% of all Korean students in Japan in 1920 were majoring in law, economics, or social sciences; 8,6% were humanity majors, while only 1,5% chose much more practical agricultural studies (Pak 2003). Another reason may be defined as class consciousness of sorts: as Hyön remarked, Korean students could look relatively poor against the backdrop of the Japanese society, but they still were the prodigy of Korea’s «few rich people». That the scions of the rich were to lead the nation obviously seemed a self-evident truth to Hyön.

Hyön’s impressions of the Japanese life appear to be rather common — in a way, fairly representative, — for his milieu, mostly consis ng of the sons (and very rarely daughters) of richer, mostly either landowning or/and enterprising or officials’ families sent to Tokyo to receive the modem education opening the way to career and future prominence. Not every returning student, of course, could reach these goals: statistically, from among 1312 students who returned from Japan in 1912-1923, 43,6% remained unemployed or were simply helping to run their family-owned lands in the countryside (Pak 2003). Only approximately one-fourth of the returning students secured positions in the officialdom, education, jurisprudence, or intellectual life — whoever, often they were to secure leading positions. Good examples are such friends of Hyön as Kim Söngsu, Chang Töksu or Song Chinu, mentioned above. From the viewpoint of such upwardly mobile, Japanese-educated Koreans, the point of difference between the colonial mother country and their native colony was clear: the first possessed the «civilized», «advanced» looks the latter could only dream of.

For example, Ch’oe Namsön (1890-1957) the youthful publisher of the monthly СкЪпдс^ип in which Hyön published his essay, himself described his impressions from the day-long railway travel via the route ShimonosekiTokyo (Koreans came to Japan by boat often from Pusan to Shimonoseki) in a short essay entitled «The Way to Tokyo» (Tonggyöng ка пйп Щ as seeing «cedar and pine forests everywhere — and there are Shinto shrines amidst each such forest. Tall roof-ridges in eveiy village on the way signify the presence of the Buddhist temples, and larger buildings with the glass in the windows every five or ten li on the way are primary schools.» In another words, the Japanese population appeared to be permeated by the «civilizing» influences of formal modem education and (mostly traditional) religion. Besides that, Ch’oe was impressed by the walls which were prevent the passer-byes from finding their death under the wheels of a ain and trackmen — indeed, often track women — who were to take care of the railway safety (Ch’oe 1917). Yi Kwangsu (1892-1950), Hyön’s Waseda alumnus who was to become colonial Korea’s bestselling novelist, mentioned in his sketches, «From Tokyo to Keijö»

(Tonggyöng eso Kyöngsöng kkqji; CYCöngcKun, July 1917, issue 9), the «shabby» (ch'orahan) looks of Korea, with its barren hills and dried-out rivers (Yi 1917). Of course, «shabbiness» implied a comparison with Japan, to the natural beauty of which Yi devoted a sizable part of his essay.

Unsurprisingly enough, Japan’s «civilization» did not appear fully in­ clusive — even to the youthful members of the colonial elite bent on making