Samjeondo Monument - Further History

Further History

This section provides few references, and tries mostly to be a fair synthesis of the Chinese, Japanese and Korean Wikipedia pages (thereafter referred as C-J-K).

Because of the strong emotional charge attached to it, this monument has been buried down and then erected again several times from 1639 till nowadays.

• 1895. (C-J-K). The monument was buried down as a result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki that concluded the First Sino-Japanese War(1894-1895). Remark: since 2004/05/12, this English page was saying : the monument was wiped out during the First Sino-Japanese War but was re-erected in 1895 (assertion that looks weird indeed).

• 1913. The monument is erected again. K-J pages agree on the date, but don't give further explanations. One can guess that motives were vexatious. C page says 1931 (without context, could be a typo).

• ???. The monument is buried down after 1945. Korean page says: 1945 by the inhabitants, Chinese page says 1956 by the South Korea's Minister of Culture and Minister of Education, Japanese page gives no details. During Syngman Rhee's presidency (1948–1960), orders were given to destroy the stele, but the Ministry of Culture had it buried instead.

• 1957. South Korean Government appoints the site as Historic Site No 101 (1957/02/01).

• 1963. (C-J-K). The monument comes again to the eyes due to a flood of the river.

• 1983. (C-J-K). Monument is placed in a park, 37.503351 N,127.107083 E, i.e. in Seokchon-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea (cf pictures, second line of the Gallery section).

• 2010. Monument is relocated 37.510407 N, 127.101635 E. Korean page says 2010/04/25, Japanese page says decision taken 2008, Chinese page gives pictures of the new location. The same pictures are given in the first line of the Gallery section.

On the contrary, from 2004/07/03 to 2011/08/29, the section History of this English page was ending by the following remark, that has NEVER been challenged (even from 2008) apart from reversions patriotic/nationalist :

Understandeably, the South Korean government has done little besides this to attract attention to the site, which is generally considered shameful by nationalist Koreans.