The Gija Dynasty History and ‘National History’ in Daedongcheongsa

This paper examines the narrative of the Gija(箕⼦) dynasty history and its background as presented in Hwang Euidon(⿈義敦)’s Daedongcheongsa (『⼤東⾭史』). To this end, Daedongcheongsa is compared with Doksasillon (『讀史新論』), Yeoksajipryak(『歷史輯略』), and Daedongyeoksa(『⼤東歷史』). Daedongcheongsa adopted the historical perspective of Doksasillon, envisioning a national history centered on the Buyeo nation. However, unlike Doksasillon, it also incorporated the history of the Gija dynasty, portraying Gija Joseon as a Confucian civilization and a powerful state. The Gija dynasty narrative in Daedongcheongsa was influenced by Yeoksajipryak and Daedongyeoksa, both of which relied heavily on the Seonussiseonwangyusagi (『鮮于⽒先王遺事記』), a forged text, as their main source. Yeoksajipryak and Daedongyeoksa sought to construct an independent national history within a Confucian civilizational framework and actively embraced the Gija narrative as part of that effort. Although Daedongcheongsa aimed to construct a national history based on the Buyeo nation—regarding the Gija dynasty as foreign—it defined the territory from Gojoseon to Balhae, including Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula, as the land of the Buyeo nation. Within this spatial-temporal framework, the Gija dynasty could be integrated into the national history. In particular, the Gija narrative aligned with Daedongcheongsa’s historiographical structure of ethnic confrontation between the Buyeo nation and the Han nation. Daedongcheongsa represents one of the diverse ways national history was conceptualized during Korea’s transition to modern historiography.