Korea

KOREA. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - In Japanese Chōsen (freshness of the morning). A peninsula of eastern Asia that juts out between Manchuria and the Japanese archipelago, at the latitude of southern Italy. A powerful natural rampart (Chang-paik; 2,750 m. at Paikto-san) separates it to the N. from Manchuria, and a long mountain ridge (Taihaku, maximum height 2,473 m.) runs through it along its entire length. To an unbroken, high and harborless coast on the E. there is opposed on the E. and S. an articulated coastline, fringed with islands, onto which open wide plains, irrigated by rivers. The climate feels the influence of the sea to a relatively slight degree: Keijo (Seoul), at the latitude of Catania, has the average annual temperature of Paris. Rainfall increases from N. to S., where it reaches a maximum of 1,500 mm. per year.

K. is an agricultural country (rice, barley, wheat, cotton). Forests occupy almost 3/4 of the territorial surface. Livestock raising (cattle, swine, poultry) is considerable, and even more so is sericulture and fishing. Mineral resources (gold, coal, iron, graphite, arsenic, lead, copper, tungsten, etc.) are not adequately exploited.

Over a surface of 220,788 sq. km. live (1940) 24 million inhabitants (density: 110 per sq. km.), of whom ca. half a million are Japanese and 40 thousand foreigners. Keijō, the traditional capital, in 1946 counted 1.1 million inhabitants; Fusan, the most important junction for communications with Japan, 400 thousand; Heijō (Pyeng-yang), the capital of northern K., 286 thousand; Taikyu, 269 thousand; Jinsen (Chemulpo) 216 thousand, etc. The great majority of Koreans profess shamanism (barely 1/7 are Buddhists and perhaps no more than 80 thousand are Shintoists). There is an official estimate of March 1, 1947 that gives Christians as numbering 666,000.

A Chinese possession until the Sino-Japanese War (1895), K. was recognized as a Japanese protectorate after Nov. 18, 1905, and annexed to Japan on Aug. 22, 1910. With the Second World War it was supposed to regain its independence. Meanwhile northern K. (N. of the 38th parallel; 124 thousand sq. km. with 8.2 million inhabitants) constitutes a people's republic of the Soviet type, as has been imposed by the Russian occupation; the rest (96 thousand sq. km. with 14.6 million inhabitants) is under United States control.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. EVANGELIZATION OF KOREA

The missionary history of Korea began with the baptism of Peter Ri Seung-houn-i in Peking in 1784. During the Japanese occupation from 1592 to 1599, probably by Christian soldiers, dying children were baptized; nothing, however, is known of the founding of a Christian community. Korean slaves, transported to Japan, having become Christians, were martyred in the great persecution of the 17th century. Among the Japanese martyrs beatified in 1867, nine were Korean. All attempts at penetration in the 17th century, whether from Japan, from China or from Manila, failed before the hermetic closure of the country, interrupted only by the annual embassy to the court of Peking, of which Korea was a vassal. By this route Christian books reached Korea as its first missionaries.

In 1777 some Korean men of letters, among them Piek-i, began to study these books. Piek-i charged Ri-Seung-houn-i, a member of the legation of 1783, with establishing contact with the missionaries. Ri was baptized in Peking by Fr. Jean Joseph de Grammont, a former Jesuit, and, having returned to his homeland, baptized Piek-i and Kouen Il-sin-i, fervent propagators of the new faith. It is true that Piek-i apostatized in the persecution that soon broke out, as did Peter Ri in 1789, after the bishop of Peking, Alessandro de Gouveia (1751-1808), declared invalid the hierarchy introduced by Ri and unlawful certain ceremonies similar to the Chinese ones. But the Chinese priest Giacomo Tsiu, who arrived in Korea in 1795, found about 4,000 Christians, and at his death in 1801 the number had risen to about 10,000. In the persecution of 1801 Tsiu, with more than 300 Christians, died a martyr. In 1802 an anti-Christian decree was issued which lasted until 1882. From 1801 to 1834 the Korean Christian community once again remained without priests.

Nevertheless it endured, and in 1811 and then in 1825 it asked for priests from Peking and from Rome. In 1831 the apostolic vicariate of Korea was erected, and Msgr. Barthélemy Bruguière of the Society for Foreign Missions of Paris (1792-1835), coadjutor of Siam, was appointed apostolic vicar. He never succeeded in entering his vicariate and died in 1835. The Chinese priest Pacifico Ryou, however, was able to enter it in 1834. In the years 1836 and 1837 the two missionaries Pierre-Philibert Maubant (1803-39) and Jacques-Honoré Chastan (1803-39) and the new apostolic vicar Laurent-Joseph-Marius Imbert (1796-1839) were able secretly to enter and organize the mission, all three dying as martyrs in 1839 (beatified in 1925). Once again the Christian community remained for six years without priests. In 1845 Msgr. Jean Joseph Ferréol (1808-53), successor of Msgr. Imbert, and the missionary Marie Nicolas Antoine Daveluy (1818-66), helped by the first Korean priest Andrew Kim, educated at Macao, succeeded in entering the mission. Kim was martyred in 1846 (beatified in 1925). Fortunately Msgr. Ferréol (d. 1853) and his successor Siméon-François Berneux (1814-66) with the coadjutor Daveluy and other missionaries, who arrived there secretly, were able to work until 1866, raising the number of Christians to about 23,000. In 1866 the persecution intensified again: the two bishops, 7 missionaries and more than 10,000 Christians were its victims. The 3 surviving missionaries had to take refuge outside the country. Once again, therefore, the Christian community remained without priests until 1876 and the following years, in which missionaries of the seminary of Paris entered it secretly. Msgr. Félix Clair Ridel (1830-84) and the missionary Victor Marie Deguette (1848-89) were captured, and following the intervention of the French government they were not killed but expelled.

From 1882 the commercial treaties with Japan, the United States and various European states opened the country to trade. The treaty with France of 1886-87 also obtained a certain freedom for the missions. In the following years the number of Christians rose to 77,000 (in 1910) despite continual difficulties. The annexation of the country to Japan in 1910 placed it in the same conditions as that country. In 1888 the first nuns, Soeurs de St-Paul de Chartres, arrived in Korea for the education of orphans. The printing press already existing earlier in Japan (in 1880 and 1881 it had published a Korean grammar and a vocabulary) was transported to Korea. A seminary was erected in 1892 in Ryang-saun near Seoul and

(from O. Fischer, Die Kunst Indiens Chinas und Japans, Berlin 1925, p. 395)
KOREA - Bodhisattva. Relief of the 8th century, from the Temple of the Earth near Keishn.

thus the formation of the native clergy progressed happily.

Until 1909 the missionaries of the Paris seminary had been alone in evangelizing K. In 1909 the Benedictines of St. Ottilia arrived, who erected a normal school and an industrial school in Seoul and from 1920 also undertook the mission of northern K. In 1923 the missionaries of Maryknoll followed and in 1933 those of St. Columban.

The apostolic vicariate of K. was divided in 1911 into 2 vicariates: Seoul and Taiku, both entrusted to the Paris seminary. The north of K. was detached in 1920 from Seoul and entrusted to the Benedictines of St. Ottilia as the apostolic vicariate of Wonsan. For the missionaries of Maryknoll the apostolic prefecture of Hpyang-Yang was detached in 1927 from Seoul, from 1929 under the name of Peng-Yang, elevated to the apostolic vicariate of Heijō in 1939. To the missionaries of St. Columban were entrusted in 1937 the apostolic prefecture of Kwonzu or Koanju, detached from the apostolic vicariate of Seoul. In 1940 the apostolic vicariate of Wonsan was divided: the southern part remained with the Benedictines as the abbey nullus of Tokugen or Tokwan, the northern part passed as the apostolic vicariate of Kanto or Hancheung into the hands of the Korean clergy, to which already in 1937 a part of the apostolic vicariate of Taiku had been entrusted as the apostolic prefecture of Zenshu or Chonju. In 1949 the apostolic delegation was created.

Giovanni Rommerskirchen

III. ART OF KOREA

Tributary to China, K. was for many centuries bound to that artistic tradition, centered essentially on the currents of the T'ang dynasty (7th-10th centuries A.D.). It then became independent and developed original forms that were later transmitted to Japanese art, which derived in the greatest part from those influences.

The most significant constructions of K. were the temples, many of the most ancient datable to around the 7th-8th century. Their characteristic forms are marked by a sumptuous yet graceful decorativism that distinguishes them from the Chinese temples; also notable are the pictorial and sculptural decorations of the interiors. Among the most celebrated frescoes are remembered those of Doujō (Tantjōng), in the temple of Hōryūji near Nara. Korean palaces, on the other hand, repeat the traditional Chinese scheme. Magnificent examples are the Kyŏng-pok-hung and the Chang-tŏk-hung in Sōul.

Notable interest is presented by sculpture in the decoration of the pagodas, of which the most ancient date back to the 7th century, in the tombs, and above all in Buddhist statuary, among which emerges the very rich series in the Temple of the Earth, near Keishū, of the 8th century.

Ceramics were practiced in K. with sobriety and composure of style, and reached very high developments that greatly benefited Japanese ceramics.