Understanding the country
Korean history, fast
Five thousand years boiled down to a handful of markers. Not to pass an exam, but to grasp why Koreans hold their democracy so dear, why Japan remains a sensitive subject, and what that line on the map north of Seoul actually means.
Origins
The founding myth
Legend has it that a son of the lord of heaven united with a bear turned woman, and that Dangun was born — ancestor of the Korean people and founder of the kingdom of Gojoseon, a name meaning calm morning. The story took on particular force under Japanese occupation, becoming a symbol of identity and resistance. The national holiday of the opening of heaven still marks it every 3 October.
Under Chinese influence
The Han dynasty brings Gojoseon to an end and the region falls under Chinese tutelage. From the three leagues that form, the Three Kingdoms will emerge around the 1st century BC.
The Three Kingdoms
Silla, Goguryeo and then Baekje are founded in quick succession and share the peninsula for seven centuries, between alliances and wars. In 372, Goguryeo is the first to make Buddhism a state religion.
The age of dynasties
Silla unifies the peninsula
The weakest of the three kingdoms comes out on top, backed by the Chinese Tang. A Buddhist golden age opens, and Gyeongju keeps its treasures: Bulguksa Temple and the granite Buddha of the Seokguram grotto.
The Goryeo dynasty
Wang Geon founds an empire whose name, as pronounced by Arab merchants, would become Corea. This is the era of celadon, of painting — and of movable metal type: the Jikji was printed in 1377, well before the Gutenberg Bible. Its second volume sits today in the National Library of France, and Korea is asking for it back.
The Mongol invasions
Having taken China, the Mongols ravage the peninsula. The country takes decades to recover. Yet it is during this period that the Tripitaka Koreana is completed: 81,340 carved wooden blocks, kept today at Haeinsa Temple.
Joseon is born
A coup brings Yi Seong-gye to power. He names his dynasty Joseon, echoing the first kingdom, and makes neo-Confucianism the official doctrine — at Buddhism's expense. Two years later the capital moves to Hanyang, the future Seoul. Joseon will last five centuries.
The king who invented an alphabet
The reign of Sejong
Regarded as the father of the nation. His statue stands before Gyeongbokgung and his face is on the 10,000 won note. His reign is synonymous with prosperity, science and reform.
The creation of hangeul
His crowning work: an alphabet designed so ordinary people could finally read and write, where Chinese characters had remained the preserve of scholars. The founding text is called Hunminjeongeum, the proper sounds for instructing the people. An alphabet invented by political decision to democratise knowledge — an almost unique case in world history.
The Imjin War
Japan invades the peninsula. Admiral Yi Sun-sin drives back the Japanese fleet in a series of naval battles that became legendary. He remains one of the country's most revered figures.
King Jeongjo
A reforming monarch, follower of the silhak movement — practical learning. He modernises agriculture, founds a royal library, and builds the Suwon fortress in tribute to his father. His sudden death cuts the momentum short.
Occupation and war
The Ganghwa incident
A Japanese ship provokes an exchange of fire near Ganghwa Island. Japan claims aggression and imposes a treaty opening three ports to Japanese trade — the first in a long line of unequal agreements.
Japanese colonisation
Thirty-five years of brutal rule. Korean language and culture are suppressed, wealth diverted, men conscripted. Thousands of young women are forced into sexual slavery — the so-called comfort women. That Japan has never fully acknowledged these crimes explains much of the tension still felt between the two countries.
The March 1st Movement
A peaceful uprising prepared by intellectuals and religious leaders. Thousands of Koreans take to the streets singing the national anthem. The repression is ferocious: imprisonment, torture, executions.
Division
Japan surrenders. As quietly agreed at Yalta, the USSR occupies north of the 38th parallel and the United States the south. That line was meant to be temporary.
The Korean War
On 25 June 1950 Northern troops cross the border; Seoul falls in three days. Three years of murderous back-and-forth follow across the 38th parallel, with UN intervention and then hundreds of thousands of Chinese volunteers. A ceasefire is signed at Panmunjom in 1953 and the demilitarised zone created. No peace treaty ever followed: technically, the two Koreas are still at war.
From dictatorship to democracy
Park Chung-hee
A military coup brings the general to power. His rule is authoritarian, but he launches the industrialisation that will make the country a major world economy within thirty years — a take-off often called the miracle on the Han river.
The Gwangju uprising
Faced with a new military dictatorship, one city alone stands its ground. Hundreds of civilians, many of them students, lose their lives. Long portrayed as North Korean manipulation, the event is now recognised as the founding act of Korean democracy.
The first civilian president
The election of Kim Young-sam closes forty-four years of military rule. Korean democracy is young — which is exactly why Koreans guard it so fiercely.
The candlelight revolution
For weeks, millions gather every Saturday, candle in hand, demanding the removal of President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal. She is impeached, then convicted. A revolution without a single broken window.
Parasite
Bong Joon-ho's film wins four Oscars including Best Picture — a first for a non-English-language work. A symbol of Korean culture going global, from cinema to series to K-pop.