32 Facts About Shin Chae-ho

Shin Chae-ho, or Sin Chaeho, was a Korean independence activist, historian, anarchist, nationalist, and a founder of Korean nationalist historiography.

Shin Chae-ho is held in high esteem in both North and South Korea.

Shin Chae-ho argued that modern Koreans and the people of Manchuria were of a single race which has an ancestral claim to both Korea and Manchuria, Shin studied Korean mythology.

Shin Chae-ho's grandfather was an official in the royal advisory department.

Shin Chae-ho was taught various Neo-Confucian books and concepts by his grandfather, and later enrolled in the Confucian academy Sungkyunkwan, receiving a doctoral degree in 1905.

Shin Chae-ho went on to work for the editorial boards for two newspapers, the Hwangsong Sinmun and the Taehan Maeil Sinbo, and became the leader of the underground "patriotic enlightenment" group, the Sinminhoe.

Shin Chae-ho's group would later migrate to Manchuria in 1910 and attract such radicals as Yi Tong-hwi, a Korean Bolshevik who participated in "The Conspiracy case of 1911," which was an effort to assassinate Japanese Governor-General Terauchi, leading to the arrests of several Sinminhoe members and eventually the dissolution of the Sinminhoe.

Shin Chae-ho went into voluntary exile in August 1910 when Japan declared its annexation of Korea.

Shin Chae-ho traveled to the Shinhanchon Korean enclave in Vladivostok, where he became the head writer for the newspapers Haejo Sinmun and Taeyangbo.

Shin Chae-ho moved to China in 1913, and traveled the country.

Shin Chae-ho never returned to Korea, and since he refused to file for citizenship with the Empire of Japan he became stateless.

Shin Chae-ho quickly became frustrated with the Provisional Government, culminating in a clash with interim leader Syngman Rhee and Shin Chae-ho leaving to embrace anarchism and draft the "Declaration of Korean Revolution" for the Righteous Brotherhood in 1923.

Shin Chae-ho went on to join the Eastern Anarchist Association in 1926.

Shin Chae-ho was arrested by the Japanese Military Police in Taiwan in May 1928 for the attempted smuggling of 12,000 yuan in forged banknotes out of Taiwan under the pseudonym "Yu Byeong-taek" in an effort to help fund the Eastern Anarchist Association's general activities and bomb factory.

Shin Chae-ho was sentenced to a 10-year prison term by the Dalian District Court to be served in Lushun Prison.

Shin Chae-ho died while in solitary confinement at Lushun Prison of a brain hemorrhage on 21 February 1936.

Shin Chae-ho wrote extensively on a theory of ethnic history which sought to challenge traditional border concepts in Korea and encourage Korean nationalism.

For Korea, the chujok was the ancient Korean-Manchurian Kingdom of the Buyeo, which, by Shin Chae-ho's estimate, began 5,000 years ago with the birth of Dangun, the legendary son of a bear who was transformed into a human by the god Whanin.

Shin Chae-ho thereby attempted to erase the geographical border between Korea and Manchuria in favour of ethnic re-unification.

Shin Chae-ho is sometimes called a social Darwinist, a popular concept in the early 20th century.

Shin Chae-ho described a racial history of conflict between the various races of East Asia, as well as a political history.

Shin Chae-ho did not describe Korea as the "victor" of these racial battles.

Shin Chae-ho described a slow fall of the minjok, primarily attributing a high point to King Muyeol of Silla, and then descent through the fall of Balhae and slow fracturing of Korean social unity through politics and war.

Shin Chae-ho is often credited as the primary source in the Juche political ideology.

In South Korea, after the emancipation from Japan, Shin Chae-ho was not considered an important author.

Shin Chae-ho is held in high esteem by North Korea and made a lasting impact on the Korean perception of Japan and imperialism generally.

Shin Chae-ho responded that some four-year-olds already knew the Thousand Character Classic and that some had already begun the Children's First Learning Programme.

Shin Chae-ho argued that historical standards of education were steeper than the contemporary standards.

All the while, Shin Chae-ho believed all Korean citizens should learn both Hangul and Hanja to aid in preserving Korean identity, rather than subject themselves to the Chinese language system, and to study Korean patriotic literature.

However, his own works consistently employed territorial terms, boundaries, borders that only differ by how Shin Chae-ho justified them by a very ancient Korea, while the "territorial historians'" terms are usually traced to younger Chinese courts.

Whether or not Shin Chae-ho even read Dante's Divine Comedy is purely speculative.

Shin Chae-ho wrote at least 12 novels and 28 poems ; he wrote essays on literary criticism, articles published in news papers and journals, historical books, and a translation of Three Great Founders of Italy from Chinese into Korean.