Munchungsa Temple

This is a shrine where the spirit tablets and portraits of brothers Song Byeong-seon (1836-1905) and Song Byeong-sun (1839-1912) are enshrined and memorial rites performed, in commemoration of their grief and protest at the Eulsa Treaty and the Japan-Korea annexation forcibly imposed during the Japanese colonial period, for which they both took their own lives. Song Byeong-seon was a ninth-generation descendant of Song Si-yeol (Uam) and, though recommended for office on account of his outstanding scholarship, never took up a government post. As foreign powers poured into the country like a flood in the late 19th century and the nation's future grew bleak, he published the Geunsasokrok, a work of Neo-Confucian teaching. When the unlawful Eulsa Treaty was concluded in 1905, he petitioned Emperor Gojong to annul the treaty and to punish the Five Traitors of the Eulsa Treaty. He was arrested by Japanese military police while attempting to see Emperor Gojong again, and after submitting a memorial to the throne he took his own life by poison. Song Byeong-sun became an Uigeumbu Dosa (an officer of the Royal Investigation Bureau) in 1888, the 25th year of Emperor Gojong's reign, but soon resigned and devoted himself entirely to scholarship. When the unlawful Eulsa Treaty was concluded, he wrote a statement denouncing Japan and distributed it throughout the country. On hearing the grievous news of the Japan-Korea annexation in 1910, he shut himself away from the world and, in the end, took his own life by poison, following his elder brother. The shrine originally stood in Yeongdong, North Chungcheong Province, from 1908, but in 1966, to mark the 60th anniversary of Song Byeong-seon's death, it was moved here, to the place of his birth and death for the nation. In 1970 the lecture hall, Yongdong Seowon, was built, giving the shrine the complete form of a Confucian academy.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Dong-gu, Daejeon

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료