(Yonhap Feature) French-seized Korean royal books in limelight ahead of G-20 summit

By Kim Hyun
GANGHWA ISLAND, South Korea, Oct. 29 (Yonhap) -- About an hour's drive west of
Seoul, Ganghwa Island offers an idyllic getaway with its rolling green hills,
exotic mud beaches and prehistoric stone monuments.
But in ages past, Ganghwa's bucolic landscape often served as a bloody
battleground for foreign powers trying to forcibly enter Korea, and its villagers
and their keepings were often the first to suffer from the invasions.
One such incident that still resonates today is the French invasion in 1866, the
first armed conflict hermit Korea had with a Western power. In retaliation
against Korea's persecution of French Catholic missionaries, French troops swept
the island, destroying official buildings, and took home stacks of royal
recordings.
Now held by the National Library of France, the stolen books have been thrown
back into the diplomatic limelight as leaders of the two countries will meet at
the G-20 summit in Seoul in November.
After a long tug-of-war, anticipation is rising of a breakthrough in South
Korea's efforts to get the artifacts back during the Seoul summit. France
reportedly has been reluctant to return the books in fear it would set a bad
precedent in similar cases with other countries.
"We think it would be best if we could get them back at the G-20 summit," Foreign
Minister Kim Sung-hwan told reporters this week. "That would be a good
opportunity as President Nicolas Sarkozy comes here. We're now undertaking
intensive discussions with the short-term goal of receiving them at the G-20
summit."



Nineteenth-century geopolitical environs around the Korean Peninsula were
complex. In 1864, Russia was demanding Korea's Joseon Dynasty open up for trade.
Historical records show that to fend off Russian influence, Joseon initially
sought to join hands with France through French Catholic missionaries in Korea.
But the idea somehow fell through, and anti-Catholic sentiment mounted at the
royal court. The country was then ruled by Heungseon Daewongun, the father and
regent of King Gojong, who had turned to isolationism after short-lived
engagements with foreign powers.
Nine out of 12 French missionaries in Korea were killed, and over the course of a
few months, about 8,000 local believers were put to death. One of the surviving
priests, Felix-Claire Ridel, managed to escape to China and informed the French
troops there of the persecution. A fleet of seven French naval ships set out to
punish Korea in October that year.
Armed with advanced weaponry, the French troops received little resistance from
Ganghwa islanders and soon advanced into its fortress where Oegyujanggak, the
annex of the main Gyujanggak royal library in the capital of Seoul, was located.
The troops set fire to the Ganghwa library, destroying more than 6,000 royal
books that were kept there. More precious-looking artifacts, including about 340
royal books and large amounts of silverware, were taken away.
Jean Henri Zuber, a naval officer who participated in the invasion, said in his
essay published by the French magazine Le Tour du Monde in 1873 that the French
troops "discovered a number of books and a tremendous amount of paper stacked
there. Most of those books, including several collections of manuscripts
embellished with remarkable drawings, now can be found in the National Library of
France."
The royal manuscripts, called Uigwe, are a unique Korean document heritage now
listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The Uigwe recorded and
illustrated all the rituals and formalities of the royal court during the Joseon
Dynasty (1392-1910). One such book covers the wedding ceremony of 66-year-old
King Yeongjo and his 15-year-old bride in 1759 with its proceedings illustrated
in colorful drawings.
Historians say that such thorough royal recordings do not exist in China, Japan
and other Asian countries. Tokyo also spirited away some of the Uigwe during its
1910-45 colonial rule of Korea, but earlier this year, it pledged to return them.
"Koreans' nature is kind but rather uncultivated, though most of them can read
and write," Zuber wrote in his essay. "In all nations of the Far East, we could
find one common trait that amazed us and at the same time hurt our pride, which
is that every household, however poor it is, has books inside."



Weeks after the invasion, Koreans staged a successful ambush that compelled the
French troops to withdraw.
The whereabouts of the Oegyujanggak books were unknown in Korea until 1975, when
a Korean bibliographer at the French National Library discovered them. But there
has been little progress in Korea's efforts to get them back.
In 1993, when France was competing with Japan to sell its high-speed train TGV
technology to South Korea, then-French President Francois Mitterand visited Seoul
and gave back one of the stolen books, in what was seen as a suggestion that the
entire collection could be returned.
France won the train bid, but the books never came back.
In 2008, a Seoul-based civic group launched a lawsuit in France against the
French National Library, demanding the stolen books back. A Paris court rejected
the demand in December last year, saying the Korean books are now a "national
property" of France and such status cannot be affected by the circumstances of
their acquisition. The civic group, Cultural Action, has appealed.
Support in France for the books' return has been picking up. A group of French
scholars, including Vincent Berger, president of Paris Diderot University, which
has a Korean studies department, launched a movement in April to promote the
books' repatriation to Korea. Months earlier, Paris returned stolen painted wall
fragments in the Louvre Museum to Egypt.
Aude Feuillerat, a political science major from Sciences Po Paris who is now in
South Korea on a student exchange program, said she supports the South Korean
demand for its artifacts back, but she also has mixed feelings about its possible
repercussions.
"It's better and more logical to return the artifacts that were stolen or taken
illegally," Feuillerat said. "But at the same time, I'll be very sad if the
Louvre disappears because of that... When I go to Paris and visit the Louvre,
it's exciting to be able to see all kinds of artifacts from different parts of
the world."
hkim@yna.co.kr
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