Episode 23: Korea University Museum, Seoul
Constitution Day is back as a public holiday after a long absence.
It marks the day South Korea's first constitution was proclaimed.
And the draft of that constitution
survives in an unexpected place —
Korea University Museum.
The man who wrote that draft
was Yu Jin-o: legal scholar, educator and politician.
He was the defining elite intellectual
of the liberation era,
the author of the founding constitutional draft,
the first head of the Ministry of Government Legislation,
president of Korea University,
and an opposition party politician.
But his record carries a dark shadow too.
During the Japanese colonial period,
he left behind conduct that historians
have classified as pro-Japanese collaboration,
and in his later years he served
as an advisory council member
under the Chun Doo-hwan government.
Yu Jin-o is a figure who can be
neither easily celebrated
nor easily erased.
The opening line of the constitution
we take so completely for granted —
"The Republic of Korea is a democratic republic."
The sentence that gave rise to it,
"Joseon is a democratic republic,"
was also there, in the draft he wrote.
The founding constitutional draft is the artifact
that most fully captures
the complexity of modern Korean history.
History does not always divide neatly
into clear-cut heroes and villains.
A history that can be neither easily celebrated
nor easily erased.
To be continued...
Korea University Museum (145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul)
※ The founding constitutional draft is held in the Korea University Museum collection but is not on permanent display.
Written and illustrated by Lee Ju-seop, CP jusoeba@heraldcorp.com
[Produced with the assistance of AI]
why37@heraldcorp.com
