Yi Kwang-su and Leo Tolstoy

• Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) and Yi Kwang-su (1892-1950) were both writers. Tolstoy was one of the great Russian writers, and you should have read his "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina."

• Yi Kwang-su was a Korean writer, and he is famous for his romance novels. If I ask young Koreans about him these days, not many of them know who he was. However, to Koreans born before 1945, Choonwon Yi Kwang-su was a very important but controversial person. In addition to his novels, he published one article which Koreans did not like. Let us talk about Yi Kwang-su first.

• If you are interested only in Yi's Tolstoy connection, go to this webpage.

Choonwon Yi Kwang-su

In 1910, when Yi was 18 years old, Japan annexed the Korean peninsula into their territory. 1919, Yi Kwang-su was a student at Waseda University in Tokyo. Encouraged by Woodrow Wilson's 14-point declaration, a group of Koreans in Tokyo gathered and declared Korea's independence on February 8, 1919. He was in that group and wrote his declaration of independence.

Japanese authorities did not like those Koreans and expelled from Japan. Yi went to Shanghai to join the Korean provisional government there, but he was disillusioned. He came back to Korea and decided to cooperate with Japanese. He thought this was the only way to enlighten Koreans. He then published an article which "Minjok Gaejoron" (How to remake the Korean race?) which angered many Koreans. This document still remains controversial among Koreans.

Yi Kwang-su was forced to the North when North Korean troops retreated from Seoul in 1950, but he died there in the same year. His grave is near Pyongyang. In 1991, his son, living in the United States, went to Pyongyang and brought this photo of Yi's grave. He was kind enough to give me a copy of the photo.

This picture is from one of NK's propaganda book. Kim Il-Sung's mother was a devoted Christian. Thus, she must be telling a Bible story to him.

• In his later years, North Korea's Kim Il-Sung became somewhat grown up. Perhaps he was remorseful about what he did as a puppet of Stalin and Beria. He wrote a number of articles indicating that he wanted to be identified as one of the Korean nationalists, and that he wanted to go to heaven in the way he learned from his mother who was a devoted Christian. You will be interested what he said about Ahn Chang-Ho, and Yi Kwang-su.
  • Kim Il-Sung talks about Yi Kwang-su in his article about

  • Ahn Chang-Ho and other Koreans whose names are familiar to us. This is a 600kb pdf file. It may may take more than ten seconds to open the file.

  • Click here for Kim Il-Sung's Christian background. This is also a heavy pdf file.

• In his Minjok Gaejoron, Yi Kwang-su listed a number of weaknesses Koreans have, and explained them in detail. I read this article when I was in high school, but I cannot recollect all the items he listed, except one. He said Koreans could not become world-class persons because Koreans hate those who rise above them. (Seung-gi Ja reul Yom handa).

  From my childhood, I have been and still am a very competitive person. When I was in high school, I was constantly tuned to Japanese radio programs with with my short-wave receiver. I wanted to make sure that I was ahead of Japanese students. I was an outstanding student in my high school class, but I was not able to sense from hatreds from my classmates. They were all nice to me.

  However, during my Pittsburgh days (1954-58), I was becoming a target of hatreds from my Korean friends. I suspect Yi Kwang-su was hated by his fellow Koreans while studying in Tokyo.

  When I started publishing papers from Princeton (1961) and was becoming known to the world, the hatreds came from all over the world. The hatred I received from my Korean friends were minimal compared with those from my Japanese, Chinese, American, and European colleagues. In order to describe this destructive psychology, I developed the concept of Herod Complex.

  I have not studied all the items Yi Kwang-su mentioned, but it is likely that his Korean weaknesses are shared by all the people in the world. I know Yi had a strong Buddhist background, but it is not clear whether he studied the Bible before saying negatively about his fellow Koreans.

  In the Old Testament, Cain hates Abel (hatred from blow). In the New Testament, King Herod orders all the babies be murdered (hatred from above).

• Thus, if you wish to become a world-class person, it is absolutely necessary to learn how to manage the hatreds.

  Here Koreans have a definite cultural advantage. Around 1900 AD, Sigmund Freud wrote a psychology book based on human nature to become interested in opposite gender. Yes, I still enjoy looking at beautiful girls. In the 4th Century BC, Chinese scholar named Sun Tsu (called Sonja in Korea). He wrote a psychology book based on another important human instinct: to fight and win. This Suntzuism is deeply imbedded in Korean culture.

  My maternal grandfather was an expert on this book, and I received an excellent education on this subject. Based on Sonja's teaching and my own experience in the competitive academic world. I was able to develop my own philosophy of competition.

  1. If anyone below me hates me, ignore him/her. If anyone above me hates me, it is because I am moving ahead of him/her. Avoid him/her. Jesus avoided Herod by going to Egypt.

  2. If anyone is better than I am, should I hate him/her? No! In competition, the winner is the one who understands and respects his/her rivals. This is the wisdom I derived from Sonja's teaching. I have been and still am practicing this wisdom.

  3. Americans like to win the wars, but they do not always succeed. When they fail, it is not because their country is weak, but because they do not understand their enemies.

• Another controversial issue. Yi Kwang-su encouraged young Koreans to join the Japanese army when Japan was expanding the war against China, Britain, and the United States. Many Koreans say Yi was on the Japanese side against Koreans, but I have a different view. It is not right to blame him on this issue.

  Japanese Arisaka rifle. Well-designed machine. Photo from Wikipedia.

  Korea became annexed to Japan in 1910 because Korea did not have any military power. The only way for Koreans to construct their own army was to pick up the basic military skills from Japanese.

  Furthermore, what Yi said did not have much impact, because Japanese drafted many Koreans to their army. In addition, they imposed the basic military training to all Korean students. In 1945, when I was ten years old, I learned how their Type 38 works. It was a very heavy (4 kg) rifle for a small boy, but was an impressive machine to me.

  In 1946, Koreans started constructing their army, starting from their military skills obtained from Japanese. We still practice "kihap" in the army. My brother once served as a medical doctor in the Korean army. He told me most of the illnesses among soldiers can be treated with "kihap." This is the military culture inherited from the old Japanese army.

• Yi Kwang-su's real contribution. When he wrote his Minjok Gaejoron, Koreans men did not know how to write Korean sentences. For instance, his sentence "Seung-gi Ja reul Yom handa" consists of two Chinese words. He used "Yom" for hate, and "Seung-gi Ja" for a person who gets ahead of yourself. Yes, while writing his romance novels, Yi developed his style of writing Korean sentences. Koreans now know how to write beautiful sentences. In my opinion, this is the most significant contribution Yi Kwang-su made to his country.

Tolstoy and Koreans

As for Yi Kwang-su's romance stories, it is generally agreed that he was heavily influenced by Leo Tolstoy. In order to study this point, let us go to an interesting webpage.

• Click here for the webpage entitled "Tolstoy and Koreans."

  This webpage contains more than 300 photos mostly from Russia. Those photos will illustrate why Tolstoy's stories and Yi Kwang-su's stories were so popular in Korea.