Calligraphy by An Jung-geun

This work, inscribed with the verse "Year after year the flowers resemble one another; year after year people are not the same," is one of a group of works of calligraphy (yumuk, brush-written mementoes) that An Jung-geun (1879–1910) wrote in prison after he shot and killed Itō Hirobumi, the man chiefly responsible for the invasion of Joseon, at Harbin Station in Manchuria on 26 October 1909, in the period before his death at Lüshun Prison on 26 March 1910. The pieces in this group were written in February and March 1910. On the left of each, he wrote, in Chinese characters, "In the second (or third) month of gyeongsul [1910], in Lüshun Prison, by An Jung-geun, a man of the Korean Empire," and then stamped it with the print of his palm. Much of the content draws on instructive passages from the Analects and the Records of the Grand Historian, together with expressions of his own state of mind, observations on the changing world, warnings to Japan, and hall names he inscribed for particular people. Most of the works were given to Japanese officials of the day, such as procurators and prison guards. Among them, the calligraphy reading "Yokbodongyang seongaejeongryak sigwasilgichuhoeha-geup" was given to Orita Tadasu, who had served in the Russo-Japanese War and worked afterwards at Lüshun Prison; when his family returned to Japan at Liberation on 15 August 1945, it passed to his nephew, Orita Kanji, who donated it to Dankook University on 20 February 1989. The calligraphy reading "Eonchungsin haengdokgyeong manbangga haeng" was donated to the Society for the Veneration of Patriot An Jung-geun in October 2002 by the grandson of a man who had served as a police officer at Lüshun Prison during An's imprisonment. And the works reading "Gukga anwi noshimchosa" and "Wiguk heonsin gunin bonbun" were, as their inscriptions read "Presented to Procurator Yasuoka," given to a procurator who had been involved in his case at the time. The phrase on this piece means: year after year the flowers look alike, yet year after year the people are not the same.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Yongsan-gu, Seoul

Designation

Treasure · 보물