Son Byeong-hui Birthplace, Cheongju

The Son Byeong-hui Birthplace in Cheongju is a reconstruction of the house where Son Byeong-hui (1861–1922), a late Joseon-period Donghak leader and one of the 33 national representatives in the March First Independence Movement, was born. It stands within the Son Byeong-hui Historic Site. His clan seat was Miryang, and his childhood name was Eung-gu. He was born on 8 April 1861, the twelfth year of King Cheoljong, in Daejuchon, present-day Geumam-ri, Buk-i-myeon, Cheongwon-gu, Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province. Uiam was his religious name, and while in exile in Japan he used the alias Yi Sang-heon. In 1882, the nineteenth year of King Gojong, at the age of twenty-two, he joined Donghak (later Cheondogyo). During the Donghak Peasant Revolution of 1894 he led 100,000 people in battles against government troops in Chungcheong and Gyeongsang provinces, and in 1897 he became the third leader of Donghak. In 1904 he organised the Jinbohoe (Progressive Society), and after returning to Korea in 1907 he renamed the religion Cheondogyo and worked to expand it. After Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, he took over Boseong College and Boseong Middle School in the name of Cheondogyo and devoted himself to training talented people. In 1919, as the leading representative of Cheondogyo, he was at the centre of the March First Movement and, as the foremost of the 33 national representatives, declared Korea's independence. He was arrested by the Japanese police and imprisoned at Seodaemun Prison, but was released on bail and died of illness while recuperating at Sangchunwon. The birthplace consists of a straight (il-shaped) main house and a shed building set at right angles to each other, each enclosed by a wall of mixed earth-and-stone construction topped with wattle (oe). The main house is a wooden thatched-roof building four kan wide and one-and-a-half kan deep. Its floor plan comprises three ondol-heated rooms, a kitchen, and a wooden-floored veranda (maru) in front of the rooms. The pillars are round, and the doors are lattice doors (sesalmun) with fine wooden slats. The surroundings of the birthplace were dismantled, repaired and restored in 1971, and the wall was renovated again in 1978, bringing it to its present state. On the hill near the birthplace stands a commemorative stele erected in 1961 to mark the hundredth anniversary of his birth. In addition to the birthplace and the stele, the Son Byeong-hui Historic Site also contains the Uiam Shrine, the Uiam Memorial Hall, a statue, and a management building, and serves as a place for patriotic education and commemoration. The Son Byeong-hui Birthplace in Cheongju, reconstructed on the site where Son Byeong-hui — the Donghak leader and national representative of the March First Movement — was born and raised, is a vernacular house of the region, and stands as both a site of academic value and a vivid place for patriotic education.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Cheongju, Chungbuk

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물