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Government-General Museum of Chōsen

Coordinates: 37°34′43″N 126°58′42″E / 37.5785°N 126.9782°E / 37.5785; 126.9782
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Government-General Museum of Chōsen
朝鮮総督府博物館
Map
General information
Town or cityKeijō
CountryKorea, Empire of Japan
Coordinates37°34′43″N 126°58′42″E / 37.5785°N 126.9782°E / 37.5785; 126.9782
Opened1 December 1915[1]

The Government-General Museum of Chōsen (Japanese: 朝鮮総督府博物館, Korean: 조선총독부박물관) was a museum in Seoul, Korea, Empire of Japan.

History

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The Government-General Museum of Chōsen began as a temporary museum in the East Palace of the former royal palace Gyeongbokgung in 1909.[2] In September 1915,[3] in anticipation of the Chōsen Industrial Exhibition,for the 1915 Chōsen Industrial Exhibition,[4]: 96  a permanent facility was constructed for the museum on the former site of Geoncheonggung.[3] After the building was used for the exhibition, the museum moved into the building and opened to the public on December 1 of that year.[3][5][1]

The museum established a Gyeongju branch in 1926 and a Buyeo County branch in 1939. Related museums (although not explicitly branches) were established in Kaesong in 1931, Pyongyang in 1933, and Gongju in 1940.[6]

The museum did not operate as an independent agency, and the department under which it fell was subject to bureaucratic reorganization.[7]

The museum and Japanese Korean studies research in general have been described as intentionally focused on Korea's ancient history, in order to portray Korea as old and Japan as modern.[2][5] Only 4.5% of the museum's collection was from the Joseon period; 76% was from before that.[2] It had six exhibition halls and operated under the government-general's Bureau of Education.[6]

After the 1945 liberation, the museum was seized by the United States Army Military Government in Korea and reorganized into the National Museum of Korea.[6][4]: 106  That museum opened on 3 December 1945.[1] The Government-General Museum's former building was used by an art institution until 1987. From 1897 until 1995, it was used as a traditional crafts museum.[5] In 1998, the museum building was demolished, after it had come to be viewed as a "symbol of colonialism".[8]

Statistics

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# visitors per year by ethnicity[9]
Year Korean Japanese Foreign Total
1921 57,337
1922 1,800 64,420
1923 39,004
1925 27,483 21,182 996 49,061
1926 32,471 25,648 2,006 60,125
1927 15,280 28,129 1,307 44,716
1928 18,859 30,308 1,221 50,338
1929 16,349 28,935 1,355 46,639
1930 9,304 25,787 1,513 36,604

Publications

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  • Bulletin of the Government-General Museum of Chōsen (朝鮮總督府博物館報), 1926–[4]: 105 [10]
  • Museum Exhibits Illustrated (博物館陳列品圖鑑), 1918–1943 (17 volumes)[4]: 105 [11]
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See also

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Government-General Museum of Chōsen.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "History: 1945~1954". National Museum of Korea. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  2. ^ a b c Shin 2018, p. 132.
  3. ^ a b c Cultural Heritage Administration 2020, p. 273.
  4. ^ a b c d Koo, Lina Shinhwa. "Structuring Hierarchies: Archaeological and Museum Projects of the Government-General of Korea and its Colonial Legacy" (PDF). The SOAS Journal of Postgraduate Research. 14 (2020-21). SOAS: 90–112.
  5. ^ a b c Seoul Historiography Institute 2022, p. 118.
  6. ^ a b c Seoul Historiography Institute 2022, p. 119.
  7. ^ 문서소개 (in Korean). National Museum of Korea. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  8. ^ "History: 1996~2004". National Museum of Korea. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  9. ^ Shin 2018, p. 133.
  10. ^ 朝鮮總督府博物館報 [Bulletin of the Government-General Museum of Chosen] (in Japanese). National Institute of Informatics. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  11. ^ 博物舘陳列品圖鑑 [Museum Exhibits Illustrated] (in Japanese). National Institute of Informatics. Retrieved 26 October 2023.

Sources

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