Haedongjegukgi

Haedongjegukgi is a comprehensive account of the politics, diplomatic relations, society, customs and geography of Japan, compiled by Sin Suk-ju (1417-1475), who travelled to Japan in 1443, the twenty-fifth year of King Sejong, as a documents official, and who was then ordered by the king in 1471, the second year of King Seongjong, to set down what he had personally observed. It is a valuable source for the study of Korea-Japan relations and Japanese society in the fifteenth century. Because of this historical value, the book was reproduced in facsimile in 1933 by the Joseonsa Pyeonsuhoe (the Committee for the Compilation of Joseon History), and again in 1974 by the Minjok Munhwa Chujinhoe (now the Institute for the Translation of Korean Classics), which included a facsimile of Haedongjegukgi when it published the Haehaengchongjae. Editions of Haedongjegukgi currently known and accessible in Korea include a five-page fragment printed with Chojugabinja type, an early Joseon cast-metal font, held at the National Library of Korea; a wood-type edition set in imitation of the Eulhaeja typeface, printed by the Hullyeondogam, the Military Training Command, in the early seventeenth century, immediately after the Japanese invasions of 1592-1598, in the last years of King Seonjo's reign; and a wood-type edition published in 1923 by a descendant, Sin Yong-hyu, in the modern era. Among these, the copy owned by An Suk-ja is a wood-type edition in the Eulhaeja style, presumed to have been printed in the seventeenth century. The Yeonsangun ilgi, the official annals of Yeonsangun's reign, contains an entry dated the twenty-second day of the first month of 1501, the seventh year of Yeonsangun's reign, concerning Haedongjegukgi: the Minister of War, Yi Gye-dong, requested that, since the customs, people and successive generations of Ryukyu were not fully known, Seong Hui-an be made to enquire into them in detail and record the findings at the end of Haedongjegukgi to prepare for the future, and the king agreed. At the end of the second volume of the An Suk-ja copy, following the note recorded on the second day of the ninth month of the ninth year of Chenghua, that is 1473, material on the geography and customs of Ryukyu and a phonetic translation of vocabulary have likewise been added, running to five pages. According to the explanatory notes accompanying the 1933 facsimile published by the Joseonsa Pyeonsuhoe, four editions were known at that time: three were identical printings estimated to date from around 1506, that is, from the final years of Yeonsangun's reign to the early years of King Jungjong, while the fourth was estimated to have been printed in the early years of King Injo's reign, in 1623. The grounds for dating the three identical editions to around 1506 were said to include the date the appendix was added and the palace-issue record. The source text used for that facsimile, then held by the Committee, is presumed not to have been a woodblock print but a metal-type edition printed with Chojugabinja type. This copy, too, carries at the end of the volume a note reported to the Seungmunwon, the Bureau of Diplomatic Documents, on the twenty-second day of the fourth month of the fourteenth year of Hongzhi, that is 1501. This date refers to when the matter was reported to the Seungmunwon, but it also indicates the likely printing date. In the early seventeenth century, immediately after the Japanese invasions of 1592-1598, in the last years of King Seonjo's reign, the Hullyeondogam printed a number of books using wood type carved by soldiers, and this book, too, was printed with wood type in the Eulhaeja style made by the Hullyeondogam. However, the Korean-language phonetic translation of vocabulary at the end of this book is identical to that found in the facsimile of the Chojugabinja printing published by the Joseonsa Pyeonsuhoe. Taken together, this shows that when the Hullyeondogam printed this book with Eulhaeja-style wood type in the early seventeenth century, it reproduced content identical to that of the Chojugabinja edition printed roughly a century earlier. Although the An Suk-ja copy of Haedongjegukgi is a wood-type edition in the Eulhaeja style printed in the seventeenth century, it is, in the absence of any complete surviving Chojugabinja edition, the oldest known edition of Haedongjegukgi, the only wood-type edition from before the modern era, and its condition is fully intact, giving it very great value for preservation as cultural heritage.

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Where it is

Region

Yongsan-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산