An Analysis of Maurice Courant’s Understanding of Ancient Korea-Japan Relations and Its Characteristics

This study focuses on examining five papers of Korean history written by Maurice Courant (1865~1935), a French scholar who laid the foundation for Korean studies in Europe. In doing so, it makes an attempt to reveal how he understood ancient Korea-Japan relations. What makes Courant stand out among the nineteenth-century Orientalists is that he, unlike his predecessors who exclusively used Japanese sources in writing Korea-Japan relations, scrupulously studied both Korean and Japanese sources comparing and checking them with each other. However, Courant, despite his familiarity with Korean sources, accepted the core argument of what is now called ‘imnailponpusŏl,’ that is, that Japan had ruled the southern part of the Korean Peninsula from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Courant seems to have made a conscious judgment based on the sources accessible to him at that time such as the Samguk sagi, the Nihon Shoki, and the stele of King Kwanggaet’o and the existing European and Japanese literatures. He could not but follow in the Japanese scholars’ footsteps because it was them that conducted most of the studies on the Nihon Shoki and the stele of King Kwanggaet’o in the nineteenth century. Courant, although making an earnest effort to take into account Korean sources in writing Korea’s relations to Japan, based his understanding of the historical relationship between the two nations on the viewpoint that is found in the Nihon Shoki. His understanding also conforms with the ilsŏntongchoron, a theory that several influential Japanese historians begun to put forward during the period. His interpretation of ancient Korea-Japan relations exhibits a striking similarity with not only that of the late nineteenth-century Japanese scholars but also that of his contemporary European colleges whose studies were greatly influenced by the Japanese. In other words, Courant’s interpretation of the article of year shinmyo on the stele of King Kwanggaet’o and his understanding of ancient Korea-Japan relations were historical products that came into being in the historical environment that mainly consisted of the practices of studying Korean and Japanese histories and the existing interpretations of the relevant materials in late-nineteenth century Europe. Therefore the flaws seen in his understanding of ancient Korea-Japan relations cannot be entirely attributed to him as shortcomings he had as a historian. Rather they should be viewed as an example that shows how deep and far-reaching the influence of the Japanese scholars on the European ones was.