Children make Taegukgi prints using their handprints at an event marking the 81st Liberation Day flag-flying campaign held Thursday at the Daebak Interbill apartment complex in Buk-gu, Daegu, two days before Liberation Day.
Children make Taegukgi prints using their handprints at an event marking the 81st Liberation Day flag-flying campaign held Thursday at the Daebak Interbill apartment complex in Buk-gu, Daegu, two days before Liberation Day.

Could the Taegukgi — the flag that embodies Korean national identity — be elevated from national treasure to the highest tier of national heritage? Attention is mounting over the outcome as the Cultural Heritage Administration has launched a formal designation review of three Taegukgi currently classified as national treasures.

The Cultural Heritage Administration is conducting a national heritage designation review of three historically significant Taegukgi: the Seoul Jingwansa Taegukgi, the Denny Taegukgi (held by the National Museum of Korea) and the Kim Gu signed Taegukgi (held by the Independence Hall of Korea). All three were designated national treasures on Oct. 25, 2021.

The push to elevate the three flags grew out of calls from within and beyond the cultural heritage community to reassess the value of the Taegukgi as a symbol of the desire for independence. The Cultural Heritage Administration convened two expert advisory meetings, in January and March, to examine whether a formal designation process was warranted. Those meetings concluded that, given the Taegukgi's symbolic and historical significance, an official review was necessary.

The formal designation process for all three flags has only just begun. The movable cultural heritage subcommittee of the National Heritage Committee confirmed the three items as official review subjects at its first meeting in June and launched the full examination procedure.

This review marks the first time the Taegukgi's standing as a national heritage asset has been assessed against national heritage criteria. Final designation requires on-site inspection, preparation of a review report, deliberation by the movable cultural heritage subcommittee, a public notice period of at least 30 days and collection of public comment before a decision is made.

The Denny Taegukgi [National Museum of Korea]
The Denny Taegukgi [National Museum of Korea]

Each of the three flags carries distinct scholarly and independence-movement historical value based on when and under what circumstances it was made. The Denny Taegukgi, believed to have been made before 1890, measures 262 centimeters wide and 182.5 centimeters tall, making it the largest surviving old Taegukgi in Korea. Once owned by Owen Nickerson Denny, a diplomatic adviser to King Gojong, it is the oldest known Taegukgi in existence and offers a window into the earliest days of the national flag's establishment.

The Seoul Jingwansa Taegukgi [Cultural Heritage Administration]
The Seoul Jingwansa Taegukgi [Cultural Heritage Administration]

The Seoul Jingwansa Taegukgi was discovered in 2009 during the dismantling of the Chilseonggak shrine at the Buddhist temple and is believed to have been made shortly after the March 1 Independence Movement of 1919. It was created by painting the Taeguk symbol and four trigrams in ink over a Japanese flag, a method that powerfully expresses anti-Japanese resistance.

The Kim Gu signed Taegukgi was presented in 1941 by Kim Gu, president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, to Father Charles Meeus, and bears Kim's handwritten appeal for support for the Korean Liberation Army. It vividly captures Kim's longing for independence and is the only Taegukgi from the late 19th to early 20th century whose precise date of creation and chain of provenance have been confirmed.

The Kim Gu signed Taegukgi [Independence Hall of Korea]
The Kim Gu signed Taegukgi [Independence Hall of Korea]

The Cultural Heritage Administration had originally planned to complete on-site inspections from July through September, prepare review reports from September through November, and hold a movable cultural heritage subcommittee deliberation in December — with a decision on elevation expected by year's end. The Jingwansa Taegukgi's on-site inspection was completed July 30. However, the Denny Taegukgi and the Kim Gu signed Taegukgi are currently on display at their respective institutions, making on-site inspections difficult. The administration said it will proceed according to each institution's exhibition schedule. As a result, the final national heritage designation process for the flags is expected to carry over into next year.

"On-site inspections for the other two flags — aside from the Jingwansa Taegukgi — will be conducted in December and January next year, when their exhibitions end," a Cultural Heritage Administration official said. "After all three inspections are complete, we plan to conduct a comprehensive review and prepare a single consolidated report."

Children from a Buk-gu district nursery wave Taegukgi in front of Minjumaru at Chonnam National University in Buk-gu, Gwangju, on Thursday, two days before Liberation Day.
Children from a Buk-gu district nursery wave Taegukgi in front of Minjumaru at Chonnam National University in Buk-gu, Gwangju, on Thursday, two days before Liberation Day.

To be elevated to national heritage status, a cultural asset must meet at least one of the following legal criteria: it has high historical, scholarly or artistic value; it is of great age and representative of its era; it is outstanding in its aesthetic form or craftsmanship; or it has a close connection to a prominent historical figure.

The three Taegukgi are each regarded as emblematic artifacts — representing, respectively, the early establishment of the flag of the Korean Empire, the anti-Japanese Buddhist heritage, and the Provisional Government's longing for independence. All three bear witness, in different ways, to defining moments in Korea's modern history.

However, unlike paintings or ceramics, no Taegukgi has previously been designated a national heritage treasure, meaning there is no established benchmark for comparison — a factor that could prove a significant variable in the review. Even among national treasures, the absolute assessment of value differs from artifact to artifact, and the Cultural Heritage Administration said all outcomes remain possible: all three elevated, some designated, or none at all.

"National heritage elevation requires objective investigation results and formal deliberation by the committee, so it is difficult to predict the likelihood of designation at this stage," a Cultural Heritage Administration official said. "That said, given the profound historical and independence-movement significance of the Taegukgi, we will ensure the process proceeds without a hitch."


terry@heraldcorp.com