Chosen-jingu

Ascent to the Chōsen-jingū (photo from the 1930s)

Front view (Japanese postcard)

Complete system (Japanese postcard)

The Chōsen-jingū ( Japanese. 朝鮮 神宮 , lit. "Korea Grand Shrine") was the most important Japanese Shinto shrine in Korea at the time of Japanese colonial rule . He stood on Mount Namsan in today's South Korean capital, Seoul .

Contemporary history background

In 1910, Korea was incorporated into the Japanese Empire as a province with the name Chosen . In the course of the policy of Japaneseization that followed, Shinto was introduced. In 1925, schoolchildren and students in particular were given regular visits to the shrine. In order to weaken the foreseeable resistance, especially in Christian circles, the governor general Saitō Makoto stated that this was not about the acceptance of Shintō as a religion; Rather, the shrines are dedicated to the ancestors, so visiting them is a patriotic duty. Towards the end of Japanese rule, the Chōsen Jingū was considered the most important of the 1140 Shinto shrines in Chōsen.

History of the shrine

On July 18, 1919, the Tokyo government decided to build a Korea shrine. In the following year, construction work began in the immediate vicinity of the summit of the 265 m high Mount Namsan in Keijō , which lasted until 1925. The cost was about 1.5 million yen. The architecture of the main hall ( honden ) followed the style at the top of the shrine hierarchy standing shrine Ise Grand Shrine . In elaborate ceremonies, the Chōsen Jingū was inaugurated as an imperial shrine of the first rank ( Kanpei-taisha ). The importance of the shrine was worshiped here according to the important Shinto deity and ancestor of the Tenno family Amaterasu-ō-mi-kami . Then there was Tennō Meiji , who died in 1912 , for whom the so-called Meiji Shrine had been built in Tokyo just five years earlier .

In October 1945, just a few months after the capitulation of Japan and thus the end of colonial rule over Korea, the facility was torn down.

In 1970, a memorial hall for the Korean Panasian and nationalist An Chung-gun , who shot Ito Hirobumi , the first General Resident of the Protectorate of Korea and former Prime Minister, in an assassination attempt in October 1909 , was built in the same place . The television tower " N Seoul Tower " is in the immediate vicinity .

literature

• Suga Kōji: Nihon tōchika no kaigai jinja: Chōsen jingū, Taiwan jinja to saijin . Tōkyō: Kōbundō, 2004 ( 菅 浩 二 『日本 統治 下 の 海外 神社: 朝鮮 神宮 ・ 台湾 神社 と 祭神』 弘文堂 )
• Lee Eun-jeung: Ahn Choong Kun as a symbol of “being Korean”: Forms and changes in the Korean discourse on self-assertion . In: German Institute for Japanese Studies (Ed.): Self-assertion discourses in Asia: China - Japan - Korea . Volume 34, 2003, iudicium Verlag , Munich, pp. 391-415.

Web links

Commons : Chōsen Jingū  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Chōsen Jingū (Japanese website with photos and a floor plan of the facility)
• Kanagawa University 21st Century COE Program Database (Photos, Floor Plans of Chōsen Jingū)
• Ogawa Kazumasa: Dai-Nippon Teikoku Chōsen shashinchō - Nikkan heigō kinen . Tokyo, 1910 (contemporary commemorative album on the annexation of Korea in the digital collection of the Japanese parliamentary library)

References and comments

1. ↑ In the notice of cabinet no. 2086 one speaks of the Chosen-jinja . The name jinja (shrine) was then changed to jingū , a name reserved for high-ranking shrines, according to the rank of the shrine and the close ties to the Japanese imperial family .

Coordinates: 37 ° 33 ′ 13 ″  N , 126 ° 58 ′ 58 ″  E