Villa Album Ⅱ

The 'Terauchi Library' held at Kyungnam University Museum refers to Joseon-period documents returned from the Terauchi Library in Japan (now held at Yamaguchi Prefectural University), a collection built up by Terauchi Masatake (1852–1919). Terauchi served as Korea's third Resident-General and first Governor-General, and later as Prime Minister of Japan, and took to Japan the materials he had gathered while stationed in Korea. It is said that the Terauchi Library at Yamaguchi Prefectural University holds around 1,500 items across roughly 1,000 titles relating to Joseon. Of these, Kyungnam University Museum received 98 titles in 135 volumes and one scroll (1,959 items in total) as a donation from Yamaguchi Prefectural University on 24 January 1996, and has since displayed and preserved them. These artefacts were able to be returned through a combination of Kyungnam University's active and sustained commitment to recovering cultural heritage, the willingness of the Terauchi family to donate them, and cooperation between Korean and Japanese parliamentarians, and the case is regarded as a model example of the repatriation of cultural heritage that had been taken out of the country. The significance of the artefacts held at Kyungnam University Museum is further heightened by the fact that cultural heritage which had flowed abroad during a period of hardship for Korea was recovered in bulk through cooperation among the public, government and academic sectors.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Changwon, Gyeongnam

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산