Salvation through History: On the Relationship between An Kyŏngjŏn's Millenarian Doctrine and Pseudohistory

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In recent years, South Korean pseudohistorians, who accuse the academic establishment of promoting "colonial-era historiography," have achieved political influence impacting professional research on early Korea. Their alternative narrative imagines ancient Korea as an expansive continental empire giving rise to northeast Asian civilization. Archetypal to this conceptualization is the apocryphal history Hwandan kogi 桓檀古記 (1979). Placed in the history sections of bookstores, the most accessible edition today is that translated by An Kyŏngjŏn, second-generation patriarch of the syncretic new religion of Chŭngsando. An's Hwandan kogi contains an extensive introduction both synthesizing the full canon of Korean pseudohistory, and incorporating his own millenarian doctrine drawn from Sino-Korean esotericism; An further supplements both these aspects with corresponding Western pseudoscience pertaining to lost civilizations and imminent apocalypse. Situating An's doctrine in diachronic contexts of popular Korean history and new religion, this paper seeks to illuminate one of the lesser known forces currently abetting Korean pseudohistory.