Koreans and Central Europeans: Informal Contacts up to 1950, Vol. 1. Vienna: Praesens, 2015. xi, 241 pp. (Illustrations.) €35.90, paper, ISBN 978-3-7069-0873-3; €24.90, ISBN 978-3-7069-3005-5, eBook.
This book represents the first publication in a three-volume series titled “Koreans and Central Europeans: Informal Contacts up to 1950.” Unlike the two subsequent publications in the series, which will focus on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this book examines the complexity of the experiences of the “Berlin Koreans,” as well as the portrayal of the image and culture of Korea as the “noble savage” in German advertisements and artistic works in the first half of the twentieth century.
Research for this book is based on thorough examinations of an impressive range of materials, such as photos, letters, sound recordings, journal articles, newspapers, pamphlets, college documents, various certificates, and even US Army intelligence reports. Also, every section of the book contains a useful overview of Germany’s cultural, social, and political context as well as the changing international environment. The result is a highly engaging account of the personal experiences of various Koreans in Berlin, their interactions with the politically tumultuous German society, and also with the remote but tremendously influential Japanese empire. The book thus represents a valuable and timely contribution to the currently sparse literature on Korea-German interaction in the first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, the experiences of the Koreans in Berlin during this time period are virtually a forgotten chapter in the field of Korean studies. Reflecting on the formative role of the Berlin Koreans in both South and North Korean societies, the biographies of these Berlin Koreans certainly represent a small but crucial piece to the jigsaw of Korean national history.
This book is organized into three sections: the first section analyses the experience of Koreans who lived or worked in Berlin in the first half of the twentieth century, while the subsequent two sections examine the portrayal of Korea in advertisements and artistic works in Germany.
The first section of the book, which accounts for two thirds of the publication, carefully explores the biographies of twelve Berlin Koreans who came to play crucial roles in various sectors in the new-born “republics” in both South and North Korea. These twelve Koreans and their biographies are allocated to three groups. The first group, referred to as the “Chosŏn generation,” comprises An Pong-gŭn and Kim Chung-se. Next, “the twentieth generation,” who were very active in the socialist and nationalist movements in Berlin, comprises Yi Kŭng-no, Kim Chun-yŏn, Ko Il-ch’ŏng and Yi Kang-guk. The third group comprises Pae Un-sŏng, Ahn Eak-tai, Pak Yŏng-in (aka Kuni Masami), Chang Kŭk, and Kim Paek-p’yŏng. It is noteworthy that this third group is also referred to as the “Nazi honors” in this book, not least because these Berlin Koreans owe their successful international careers to their collaboration with the Nazi regime, not to mention with the Japanese empire.
The second section of the book explores the image of Korea as portrayed in a highly popular card series produced by Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company between 1870 and 1940. These cards were issued on the occasion of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, at a time when the European media showed unusually keen interest in the Korean Peninsula. The third section discusses the image of changsŭng, (i.e., “village guardian pole” or “totem pole”) as reflected in the famous painting titled “The Missionary,” one of the most famous works of the renowned German expressionist painter, Emil Nolde. Taken together, these chapters examine a similar message delivered through different media: the image of the Koreans and traditional Korean culture as the “exotic Other,” “noble savage,” or “primitive originality” that Western societies leveraged as their source of inspiration. The point is Korean culture must be portrayed as strange as possible and this intention necessarily led to the distortion of the image of Korea.
This book offers original and provoking insights from careful analysis of the above biographies, with two key points particularly deserving of our attention. First, this book argues for the significance of Berlin in the history of the Korean nationalist movements. As the centre of the international socialist movement as well as of period artistic work and academic research, Berlin attracted many Korean nationalists and provided them not only the stage for their artistic and scholastic talents, but also the necessary political connections to international socialists and Korean nationalist networks. According to Hoffmann’s analysis, Berlin provided the generation who were in their twenties in particular with the enabling environment to establish multi-faceted relations with various socialists. That international connection must have been very crucial to enhancing our understanding about the roots of the division of Korea.
Next, Hoffmann argues that the Koreans who lived in Berlin in the late 1930s and early 1940s were active participants in both the Japanese empire and the Nazi regime. Based on clues from various archival materials, the author contends that the successful careers of some of the Berlin Koreans in various fields such as music, dance, science, and engineering cannot be fully understood without reference to their “Nazi honors.” To complicate matters, these Berlin Koreans were not isolated individuals, but played crucial roles in the new-born Republic of Korea. The connection is dramatically illustrated in the author’s discussion of the case of Kang Se-hyŏng: the author alludes that ultra-right politics in Korea after World War II can be ascribed, at least partly, to “Korean fascists” such as Kang who introduced Nazi ideology to the Korean Peninsula during Japanese imperial rule, a quite interesting, and completely neglected, explanation for the formation of ideology and strategies that buttressed military dictatorship in Korea.
These two key insights, although derived from the unusual and exceptional biographies, allow us to venture beyond the dominant framework of nation-centred historical scholarship in Korea and to explore historical contingencies and international connections of the era. By capturing moments of the intersection between individual Korean biographies and changing historical circumstances in Berlin, the author highlights the international dimension and simultaneity, both of which have been neglected in existing scholarship, to Korea’s colonial history. Overall, this book will be welcomed by not just historians or scholars but also by readers interested in the complexities of the formation of modern Korea.
Soo-Hyun Mun
Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
pp. 379-381