Choi Nam-seon

Korean historian, poet, and thinker. His pen name was Rokudō. After studying at Waseda University, he returned to Korea and, along with Lee Kwang-soo, became a pioneer of the New Culture Movement. In 1919, he drafted the March 1st Declaration of Independence and was imprisoned. He later served as a member of the Korean History Compilation Committee under the Government-General of Korea, and in 1938 became a professor at Konkuk University in Manchukuo. After liberation in 1949 (1945), he was imprisoned under the Anti-National Acts Punishment Act, but was released on bail after one month due to illness. His achievements are, first, as an enlightener who, in his early days, encouraged self-reliance, new education, and new ideas through various publications; second, he created a new style of writing which prioritized national literature and subordinated classical Chinese, and published Korea's first free verse (prose poem) in a magazine he himself published, as well as reviving the classical short poem form, Sijo, into the modern era; and third, he collected ancient books that had been scattered, making great contributions to classical and historical research.

[Masuo Ohmura]

"Korean Common Knowledge Questions and Answers (Study of Korean Culture)" written by Choi Nam-seon and translated by Aiba Sei (1965, Soko Shobo)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

朝鮮の歴史家、詩人、思想家。号は六堂。早稲田(わせだ)大学に就学したのち帰国し、李光洙(りこうしゅ／イグァンス)と並んで新文化運動の先駆者となった。1919年、三・一独立宣言書を起草し投獄され、のち朝鮮総督府管下の朝鮮史編修委員会委員を経て、1938年「満州国」の建国大学教授。解放（1945）後の1949年、反民族行為処罰法により収監されるが、病気のため1か月で保釈された。彼の業績は、第一に、初期において各種出版物を通じて自主独立と新教育、新思想を鼓吹した啓蒙(けいもう)家としてのそれであり、第二に、国文を主とし漢文を従とする新しい文体を創造し、自ら出版する雑誌に朝鮮最初の自由詩（散文詩）を発表したほか、古典的短詩型である時調(じちょう／シジョ)を近代によみがえらせたこと、第三に、散逸する古書を収集、古典研究、歴史研究に大きな成果をあげたことである。

［大村益夫］

『崔南善著、相場清訳『朝鮮常識問答（朝鮮文化の研究）』（1965・宗高書房）』

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