Okcheon Confucian Academy, Seongju

This seowon (Confucian academy) was built to hold memorial rites for Yi Sa-ryong, a figure of the mid-Joseon period. It originated when, in 1692, the 18th year of King Sukjong, the magistrate of Seongju together with local scholars and commoners first built a shrine called Chungnyeolsa at Jakchon, in Inchon-ri, Wolhang-myeon, the place where Yi Sa-ryong had lived; the shrine received a royal name plaque (sa-aek) in 1796, the 20th year of King Jeongjo. It was afterward known as Okcheon Chungnyeolsa or Okcheon Seowon, but was abolished in 1872, the 8th year of Emperor Gojong, under the decree ordering the abolition of seowon, and was rebuilt in 1919 at its present site, a village settled by Yi Sa-ryong's direct descendants. Yi Sa-ryong (1595–1641), whose clan seat was Seongsan and whose courtesy name was Sa-jung, was a military official of the mid-Joseon period. In 1640, the 18th year of King Injo, he was conscripted as a reinforcement soldier for the Qing campaign against Ming China and fought in battles in the northeastern region. In an engagement the following year, remembering the debt owed to Ming China for its help during the Imjin War (the Japanese invasions of Korea), he fired blank shots at the Ming forces rather than fight them; when this was discovered he was executed. He came afterward to be honoured as a righteous man (uisa), and in 1793, the 17th year of King Jeongjo, he was posthumously appointed magistrate of Seongju and granted a commemorative gate (jeongnyeo). Because the academy stands on a sloping hillside, its grounds are laid out in four terraces: at the front stand the lecture hall Chunguijae and the east and west dormitories, while at the rear, on the highest ground, stands the shrine Chungnyeolsa, following the "lecture hall in front, shrine behind" arrangement typical of seowon. To the right of the lecture hall stands a family shrine (gamyo) that had served in place of the academy shrine during the period between its abolition and its reconstruction. Okcheon Seowon is of note architecturally for showing a changed pattern of seowon development, in that a shrine and a family shrine coexist within the one precinct, and its cultural heritage value is further heightened by the fact that Yi Sa-ryong, the figure honoured here, is a notable historical figure who provided an important impetus for the late-Joseon ideology of reverence for Ming and rejection of Qing.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Seongju, Gyeongbuk

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물