Seogojeongsa Temple, Miryang

Seogojeongsa is a private retreat (byeoreop) built by Hangjae Yi Ik-gu (1838–1912) in 1898, the second year of the Gwangmu era, eight years after he and his two younger brothers, Neunggu and Myeonggu, had moved from Mureung, Danjang-myeon, to settle in Toero in 1890, the twenty-seventh year of Emperor Gojong. He built it so that he could enjoy the surrounding scenery while devoting himself to education, reading and writing. The complex consists of the main hall, Seogojeongsa itself, a four-bay tiled building with a single eave and a hip-and-gable roof, together with a detached three-bay tiled building with a hip-and-gable roof called Hanseoam, plus a caretaker's house and a gatehouse. It stands on the western hillside of Toero village, about two hundred paces from the main family house, which is why the retreat was named Seogojeongsa, meaning West Hill Retreat. The two-bay room on the east side was named Hangjae, and two halls built on the west side were together named Yeongnakdang. The room had two side chambers, so that adults and children could be housed separately; a double wall on the north side was used to store books, and a door on the south-west side connected it to the hall. The hall in turn projected southward to overlook a pond, and a window on its north-west side let in cool air, with a small wooden floor built outside the window. Hangjae wrote Doksa Chagi, a ten-volume, four-book critical history analysing and evaluating 1,300 years of Chinese history from the Warring States period to the late Tang and Five Dynasties period. Arguing that the restoration of the nation's fortunes depended solely on the spread of the philosophy of silsagusi, or seeking truth from facts, he studied the classics and histories while guiding younger scholars through reformed approaches to the economy. After the national humiliation of 1910, he shut himself away from the world and spent his remaining years consoling his grief over the loss of the nation through writing. He left a nine-volume, five-book collected works, Hangjaejip. After his death, the retreat was carefully maintained and used for study by his elder son, Seongheon Yi Byeong-hui (1859–1938), and his younger son, Hwaha Yi Byeong-su (1861–1930). Seongheon always said, "A nation may fall, but its people and culture cannot," and regarded the compilation of national historical documents and the training of younger scholars as his life's mission. In 1917 he published, for the first time in Korea, the collected works of Seongho Yi Ik (1681–1763), the Seonghojip, and he also wrote the fourteen-book Joseonsa Gangmok, a world history centred on Joseon. He left a seventeen-volume, nine-book collected works, Seongheonjip. At the command of his father Hangjae, he wrote the Seogojeongsa-gi, a record of the retreat, and the wooden plaque he inscribed still hangs on the wall of the main hall more than a hundred years later. Seongheon's grandson, Byeoksa Yi U-seong (1925–), who later served as chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Korean Culture, also studied at this retreat from the age of six to nineteen, between 1931 and 1944. The Gwanseongye, a society formed in March 1919 by scholars from the Yeongnam region to celebrate Seongheon's sixtieth birthday, still holds its annual gathering at Seogojeongsa on the first Sunday of April, more than ninety years later. Hangjae's descendants have also formed a group called the Hwaseokgye to protect and preserve Seogojeongsa.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Miryang, Gyeongnam

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료