Newsletter

One of the certainties of an AKSE Newsletter is the ever returning plea by the editor for the submission of information.  This year around, I would like to stress the need for a timely submission of materials to be included in the Newsletter.  If I would have held to the deadline as originally set, the Newsletter would have broken an all-time record!  Hardly any information had reached me by the original deadline of June 30, 1999.  The later I receive your materials, the later the Newsletter is published.

A further reason for this year’s delay, has been a letter to the editor I received somewhere in August.  This letter was not only a novelty for the Newsletter, but also proved to contain a bombshell announcement.  In her letter, Prof. Haboush raises the specter of plagiarism.  After consultation with other council members, I thought it my duty as editor to include this letter in the Newsletter, on condition that the person charged with plagiarism had a chance to respond.  Let it be understood that publishing these letters does not involve any judgment on the part of the editor, nor AKSE on this matter.

This Newsletter is your lifeline to the world.  Here you publish all the information on your activities in the past year.  Through this Newsletter, other Korean specialists, wherever they may be, will get to know about your activities.  The Newsletter is also a chance to highlight the Korean studies program at your university or research institute.  This is your chance at promoting your home institute and presenting yourself to the Korean studies community.  Judging from the reactions I get as editor, the impact of this Newsletter should not be underestimated.

So, as we are heading for a new century, into a new millennium, let’s commit ourselves with even more fervor to Korean Studies in Europe and its dissemination abroad.  We have a contribution to make.  Make sure that your contribution is known!

Deadline for submission of materials for inclusion in Newsletter 24 will be 15 July 2000.  Further information on the format can be found on inside the back cover.

Relevant AKSE information which inadvertently was not included in this Newsletter, can be found on the AKSE Homepage:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dmu0rcp/aksepage.htm

Koen De Ceuster
AKSE Newsletter editor

AKSE Conference 7-11 April 1999, 
Hamburg

Abstracts 

Monks' Epitaphs of Koryô 
Yannick Bruneton 

For the Study of Buddhist Institutions in Koryô, Steles (pisôk) and Epitaphs (myoji) are materials of primary importance.  There is no general study however about Epitaphs of monks, considered as a distinct category of Epigraphs.  Analysis of the materials' characteristics of that kind of documents and comparison with Steles, show two facts:
 
    1) Monks' Epitaphs combine monastic lineage (pômmun) and family aspects (kamun), 
    2) They are restricted to the Kaesông area and that only for a short period (especially 1140-1160). 

To be more thoroughly studied, they will have to be compared with the Epitaphs of Tang and Song Monks in China. The apparition of Monks' Epitaphs at Kaesông for a short period might be explained by a high level of "functionnarisation (kwallyowha)" in the Koryô Capital of monks issued from the royal family or from the ranks of Aristocracy.  Monks' Epitaphs are not so different from Epitaphs of secular high dignitaries of the regime because they also participate in the same logic of valorization of a small number of aristocratic lineages.  Epitaphs, I think, reflect a tendency to concentration of power in the Capital and to the reduction of the number of aristocrat families. 

 

South Korean Military Power Elite during the Era of Pak Chông-hûi
(16.05.1961-26.10.1979)
The Ruling Elite and the Power
-Myth and construction of national History-
Marie-Orange Rivé 

At the end of the 1990's, some Koreans seem to look back nostalgically to the Pak Chông-hûi era.  This phenomenon is called "Pak Chông-hûi syndrome" in the mass media.  Do Koreans have a short memory?  Are they forgetting the difficulties and the coercion of the military dictatorship?

Such an attitude contributes to creating a myth about the past.  We try to show how this myth is born.   Explaining how the different crises of the 1990's (economical, political and sociological crisis) are involved in the process, we suggest in the same time that some individuals or groups can also be concerned by the initiation of the Pak Chông-hûi myth.  We have focused on the significance of the conceptualisation of the myth called "Pak Chông-hûi syndrome" because it contributes to give it its strength.

The role of the mass media is central.  Source of information about the crisis, it has contributed to favour the nostalgia.  On the other hand, mass media are very active to promote the myth because Pak Chông-hûi became a good subject to sell.  We introduce here a few categories of mass media with examples and we try to appreciate the quality of the documents about Pak Chông-hûi put on the market.

Accordingly, we end by saying that the beneficiaries of the Pak Chông-hûi myth are, eventually, the presumed authors and, definitively the industrial owners of mass media.  To that, we have to add the benefit for the political field, but the effectiveness is not so easy to appreciate in this case.

We think that historians are almost absent from the field of contemporary History of Korea, especially concerning the History of power and the History of elites for example.  It seems that contemporary socio-political History is the property of journalists, story writers or social-scientists.  We do not reject the contribution of such people, but we consider that the stake in the use of the myth is very heavy for the Korean society of today, and that historians could be useful.

To conclude, we are able to say that nobody can evaluate precisely the consequences of the media coverage given to Pak Chông-hûi.