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This chapter narrates the systematic efforts of nationalist leaders in the diaspora to establish a national Korean state in the aftermath of the large-scale 1919 March First uprising. Japan’s brutal suppression of the national uprising in Korea made it necessary for national liberation activities to be carried out from abroad, ushering in a new phase in the nationalist movement as the locus of political activities occurred largely outside the Korean peninsula. These activities resulted in the formation of the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) in Shanghai, which developed out of multiple ideological and strategic strands within the diaspora. The globalization of American power following World War I empowered the U.S. component of the Korean diaspora to play significant roles, ideologically and organizationally, in defining the vision of a new Korean nation-state that was embodied in the KPG. For the next several years, the activities of the KPG would remain at the center of the national liberation movement.

This chapter deals with the period from the 1880s to the end of the 1910s, with special attention to the years 1907 and 1919. The first date is meaningful primarily to Korean Protestants, for this was the year of the great revival of 1907, in which Korean Protestants experienced a nometic breakthrough and fulfillment of their search for personal salvation. The second date is significant to all Koreans; this was the year of the March First Independence Movement which led to the birth of modern Korean nationalism. Though its significance was national, encompassing Koreans of all walks of life, the March First Movement was especially meaningful to Korean Protestants. It was through this movement more than anything else—more specifically, through the Protestants' preponderant contribution to it—that evangelicalism successfully bonded with Korean nationalism and became legitimated in South Korean history.

This chapter details events in Syngman Rhee’s life following the March First Movement of 1919. The mass demonstrations not only forced Korea’s Japanese rulers to rethink their colonial policies on the peninsula, but it also proved to be a catalyst in bringing about a significant increase in organized resistance by Koreans within the country as well as abroad. The first republican government (in exile) in Korea’s long history came into being in the wake of the March First Movement, with Rhee as its president, even though he had not actively sought the job. An examination of the documents shows that Rhee was elected in absentia and was not even aware of his own ascendancy until well after the election occurred. As his first order of business, President Rhee sought recognition for the new Korean republic from the United States and other powers participating in the Paris Peace Conference, which had been in session since January 12, 1919.

Chapter 2 examines the lobbying activities of Rhee and the Korean independence movement in the immediate aftermath of the March First Movement and in the context of Woodrow Wilson’s embrace of self-determination as an American war aim. The Koreans used this new American interest in international affairs to expand their lobbying activities beyond those who had been involved in the American missionary effort in Korea. Through grassroots organizing, print media, and Chautauqua lectures, the Koreans established a small but influential constituency of American supporters who were willing to publicly advocate for the Korean cause.

This chapter studies the war’s impact on Korean national independence movements. The war had little direct impact on the population of the Korean peninsula. Koreans did not get involved in war, nor were they much interested in it. Nonetheless, the war marks a turning point in Korean history because it gave rise to Wilsonian promises of a new world order to be worked out after the war. When Korean nationalists learned of President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points address and his subsequent declarations in January 1918, they were, like the Chinese and Indians, thrilled at the prospect and its implications for the future of Korea. Many Korean nationalists recognized “the Wilsonian moment” as an unprecedented opportunity for Korea and decided to take quick action to make the most of it. This chapter emphasizes the extraordinary journey Koreans shared with fellow Asians to shape their own national development.

The student vanguard was to serve as the core protagonist of postcolonial nation building. Prevalent in the 1950s, this premise was built upon ideologized memories of anticolonial resistance that provided a model for patriotic everyday action among postwar youths. This chapter starts by examining the ways in which middle school and high school textbooks called upon students to lead the process of postcolonial nation building by enacting the “spirit” of the March First Independence Movement (1919) and other extraordinary outbursts of anticolonial resistance. It then turns to Yu Gwan-sun (Ryu Kwansun, 1959)and Nameless Stars (Irŭm ŏmnŭn pyŏl tŭl, 1959), two historical films that put forth evocative representations of youth-driven independence activism. Like schoolbooks, these works and other contemporary historical films were designed to promote patriotic dispositions among postwar youths. The burgeoning of ideology and discourse on the student vanguard constituted a crucial condition of possibility for April 19^th.

Shifting focus back to the Paks, this chapter tells the story of more ordinary chungin and their descendants, living, working, and assuming new identities in the era of Japanese colonial rule (1910–45). Some Paks expressed resentment toward Japanese colonialism, others served it dutifully, while the majority just struggled to survive. In particular, the stark contrast between a school teacher constantly expressing his frustrations with the Japanese and his distant cousin who rose to become a colonial police chief repeatedly rewarded by the colonial authority illustrates the wide range of available career trajectories for educated Koreans who chose to remain in Korea. All the same, the daily life of the Paks prominently features various dimensions of modern life in colonial Korea, including education for daughters, the coexistence of old and new marriage practices, and the meaning and spread of Christianity.

This chapter discusses the nature of student activism in South Korea in the early twentieth century. Passionate patriotism characterized student activism in South Korea. Student activists played a crucial role in advancing anti-Japanese nationalism and the uprising in 1960 which forced the resignation of the country’s ruler, Syngman Rhee. They also led protests such as the March First Movement of 1919, the June 10 uprising of 1926, and the Gwangju student uprising of 1929. However, the visibility and impact of student protest has declined significantly because of the deepening political divisions within the student movements.

This chapter explores the space for permissible criticism under the authoritarian rule of Syngman Rhee and the Liberal Party. While constraints on public expression certainly did exist, they were by no means insurmountable. Through an examination of Sasanggye and other monthlies, the chapter reveals the common tactics that intellectuals used to express critical viewpoints on the regime, postwar politics and society, and the South Korean political settlement. Remaining within the limits of authorized liberal nationalism, cautious writers took pains to obfuscate their objects of criticism and blunt their political grievances by incorporating them into social-science explanations and encoding them into the nation narrative. The circulation of critical, liberal nationalist discourse in the national media enabled the mounting of public disaffection for the corrupt and ineffectual Rhee-LP regime, and thereby set the stage for April 19^th.