Korean historians tend to agree upon the causes that triggered the breakout of the March 1<SUP>st</SUP> Movement. It was perceived by many, that the Japanese colonial authorities’ blatant oppression as well as economic exploitation essentially gave birth to the National Liberation Front of Koreans. And then, the U.S. President Wilson’s declaration of the Principle of National Self-determination in 1918 was coincidentally followed by Joseon King Gojong’s death. The public’s anger and frustration that had been building for years finally exploded, and the religious leaders were apparently able to channel them into a grand social movement.
At first, these explanations concerning the causes of the very movement do not provide us with a clear answer to the questions, such as how a countrywide social upheaval involving the entire spectrum of Korean population was even made possible in the first place, and what was the most prominent factor that ultimately provoked the movement. Secondly, It also prevented us from further engaging in the research of several institutional as well as cultural elements that would have contributed to the aggravation of social problems in the 1910s.
In the past, Korean historians used to suggest either Wilson’s Declaration or the Russian October Revolution as external causes of the March 1<SUP>st</SUP> movement. And in their analysis of the domestic background of the movement, they also raised several notions of either the national elites leading the charge or the general public being the main thrust behind it. Sometimes they even employed a theory that all those shout-outs that occurred in different areas were staged for different reasons and with different backgrounds.
In this article, colonial oppressors’ discriminative policy, excessive and hasty implementation of modern institutions, unbearable exploitation & mobilization ofresources in Korea, and society-wide anger that had accumulated for yearstoward brute forces of the Japanese Military police, are mentioned as systemicelements that caused the movement to initially form. Meanwhile, it also seems like some additional elements were in play, as landlords and religious leaders of Joseon could have been inspired by or simply inclined to utilize international elements and mobilize the Korean population, which needed a channel to vent their anger that would ultimately spark a globally unprecedented National movement.
This kind of perspective employed in searching for the causes of the March 1st movement would hopefully prompt us to understand the dual nature of colonial modernity of Joseon society, which had both a ‘colonized’ aspect and a ‘modernized’ aspect.