However, the strange words and concepts became the categories and
concepts which functioned as criteria for the cognition of things. The power
of foreign countries and the new trend of modernization had been so forceful
that Koreans had no other choice but to accept the changes as an unavoidable
necessity.
Some eagerly welcomed the changes as something positive. That was
especially true among the progressive intellectuals and political groups, such
as the Reformist Cabinet of Gapsinjeongbyeon(Radical reformation move-
ment) in 1884 and the Dongnip hyeophoe (Independence association,
1896–1898), who had tried to overturn the closed traditional society. The
strange words gave them ‘a perspective of modernity’ and influenced them to
form a new worldview.
But before such a new cultural self-consciousness could be demonstrated,
Korea was colonized by Japan (1910–1945). Koreans were not able to do
autonomous, independent scholarly work, and academia was controlled to
serve the colonial policy of Japan. In spite of this situation, the Japanese regime
made a significant mark on religious studies in Korea. Gyeongseong Imperial
University, established in Seoul in 1927, established courses for the study of
religions in its Department of Philosophy, among them courses entitled
‘Introduction to the Study of Religions’, ‘Introduction to Buddhism’, ‘Intro-
duction to the History of Religion’, and ‘Seminar on Specific Themes in the
Study of Religions’ (Kang 1995). Most of all, the Japanese government
sponsored field research on the traditional beliefs of the Korean people, in the
name of ‘folk belief’ or ‘folk religion’. One of the results was A Study of Korean
Shamanism(1937–1938) by Akamatsu Chijou (1886–1960) and Akiba Takasi
(1888–1954), who conducted fieldwork from 1930 to 1933 under the auspices
of The Japanese Imperial Academy of Sciences (Institute of Religious Studies
1999: 115–179). They used the concept of ‘religion’ practically, and so their
study was an offshoot of the study of religions in the modern sense.
At the same time an academic interest arose in traditional culture in general.
For example, the study of the origin myth of the Korean nation and people,
the re-evaluation of Korean folk belief, and the re-description of each religion
were undertaken with the new descriptive categories and concepts associated
with ‘religion’. In other words, the diverse theories of history, philology, and
folklore produced by modernity in Western culture were utilized in the study.
Two prominent scholars were Lee Neung-hwa (1869–1943) and Choi Nam-
sun (1890–1957). The former left massive publications on Korean history and
culture: A General History of Korean Buddhism (1918), A History of Gisaeng
(Courtesan) in Korea(1927), A Study of Korean Shamanism(1927), A Study
of Korean Feminine Customs (1927), A History of Korean Christianity and
Korean Diplomacy(1928), and A History of Korean Taoism(1929), and so on
(Lee Jin-gu 2000: 287). The latter concentrated more on the national history
and myth: A History of Our Country(1925), and ‘Korean Mythology and178
HE GUANGHU, CHUNG CHIN-HONG, AND LEE CHANG-YICK