House of Yi
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The House of Yi (李氏) consists of the descendants of the Joseon Dynasty and Korean Empire royal family. All are members of the Jeonju Yi clan, and trace their descent from Taejo of Joseon.
After the annexation of Korean Peninsula by Japan, some members are raised to the Korean royal family and the Korean peerage by the Japanese government[1] until 1947, just before the Japanese Constitution was promulgated[2]. Since then, their status as royalty is not acknowledged by any country, but they continue to attract occasional media attention in South Korea. This happened most recently with the July 2005 funeral of Prince Gu, former head of the household.
Prince Won has been accepted by some members of the household as their head, but this is not universally accepted.
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[edit] History
In the 19th century tensions mounted between China and Japan, culminating in the First Sino-Japanese War. Much of this war was fought on the Korean peninsula. Japan, after the Meiji Restoration, acquired Western military technology, had forced Joseon to sign the Kanghwa Treaty in 1876. Japan encroached upon Korean territory in search of fish, iron ore, and natural resources. It also established a strong economic presence in the peninsula, heralding the beginning of Japanese imperial expansion in East Asia. The Chinese defeat in the 1894 war led to the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which officially guaranteed Korea's independence from China. The treaty effectively granted Japan direct control over Korean politics. The Joseon court in 1894, pressured by encroachment from larger powers, felt the need to reinforce national integrity and declared the Korean Empire. King Gojong assumed the title of Emperor in order to assert Korea's independence by putting himself on the same level as the Chinese Emperors. In addition, other foreign powers were sought for military technology, especially Russia, to fend off the Japanese. Technically, 1894 marks the end of the Joseon period, as the official name of the state was changed; however, the Yi Dynasty would still reign, albeit perturbed by Japanese interventions such as in 1895, when the Japanese murder Empress Myeongseong of Korea, apparently orchestrated by Miura Goro, because the Korean Empress was effective in keeping Japan at bay. In 1910, Japanese annexation of the Korean peninsula effectively ends the Yi Dynasty rule. The collapse of Russian navy in the historic battle of Port Arthur (in which Russian imperial navy was destroyed in a decisive surprise attack), led to a great weakening of Korea's umbrella of protection. The combined effect on China of the opium wars to the south and Japanese naval strikes in the north increasingly led the Japanese to see Korea as a strategic foothold into north China, just as Macau and Hong Kong were Portuguese and English trade enclaves into south China.
[edit] Japanese Rule (1910-1945)
In a complicated series of manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres, Japan pushed back the Russian fleet at the Battle of Port Arthur in 1905. Both the fleets of China and Russia had given Korea sufficient protection to prevent a direct invasion, but this ambuscade of the Russian fleet gave Japan free reign over north China, and Korea was left at the mercy of the new regional naval power: Japan. Korea became a protectorate of Japan in 1895 when Japan forced Emperor Gojong of Korea to abdicate his throne and assassinated his wife, Empress Myeongseong of Korea. Japan annexed the country in 1910 and Korea became a Japanese colony.
During the Japanese rule, the Korean imperial family endured constant intimidation by Japanese imperialists including the murder of Empress Myeongseong, their mother or grandmother, by Japanese hooligans. After Korea's liberation in 1945, President Syngman Rhee suppressed the imperial family to prevent the restoration of the monarchy. Syngman Rhee seized and nationalized most of the family's properties. The imperial family also had to shoulder the psychological and historical burden of their ancestors' responsibility for the "collapse of the nation". Stripped of most of wealth and authority, many members of the family secluded themselves from the merciless world, even from other family members. Some flew to the USA or Latin America in desperate effort to disown their ancestors.
[edit] Eunists
Emperor Gojong of Korea had nine princes and four princesses, but only three princes survived childhood: the second son, Crown Prince Cheok; the sixth son, Prince Gang and the seventh son, Prince Eun. The second son, Cheok became Emperor Sunjong of Korea, the last monarch of Korean Empire. As Emperor Sunjong died without issue, his younger brother, Prince Eun became the crown prince. His elder brother Prince Gang should have taken the position but was passed over because Eun's mother Princess Sunheon had a higher status in the court than Gang's mother Lady Chang.
After Emperor Sunjong died in 1926, Crown Prince Eun was called "King Lee of Korea" a nominal title because Joseon had already lost its sovereignty to Japan. Crown Prince Eun married Princess Masako Nashimoto (later, Crown Princess Bangja of Korea) of Japan, a member of Miyake family. Princess Bangja, once one of three candidates for then Japan's next empress, was instead designated as Eun's wife, as a medical test indicated she could be barren. Some media claimed that the arranged marriage was Japan's imperialist conspiracy to terminate the Korean imperial lineage. However, Princess Bangja gave birth to the eldest son, Prince Jin in 1921; the second son, Prince Gu in 1931.
[edit] After Liberation
After liberation, the imperial family could not come back to Korea, as South Korea's first President, Rhee Syngman, feared that the imperial family's comeback would challenge his emerging authority as the new republic's founding father. It was only 1963 that a new president Park Chung-hee, allowed the imperial family including Princess Dukhye their long-sought return to Korea. However, they could only stay at a small residence called Nakseon Hall in a corner of Changdeok Palace, Seoul. Crown Prince Eun died seven years later after long illness resulting from strokes. Prince Gu was also forced by other family members to divorce his American wife Julia Mullock against their will in 1982 due to her sterility. A series of business failures left him without support and so he died alone at the Akasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo on July 16, 2005. The site of the hotel was his birthplace 74 years ago.
[edit] Gangists
Emperor Gojong's sixth son, Prince Gang, gave birth to 13 sons and 9 daughters from 14 women. With an extremely wide range of historical evaluations over him - womanizer and behind the scene leader of the independent movement - the Japanese authorities tied the hands of the prince throughout the occupation. Unlike Crown Prince Eun, who spent most of his life in Japan and the United States, President Rhee Syngman's seizure of the imperial properties deprived Prince Gang of most of his wealth. Afterwards, many of the family members had to swallow the disgrace of working for a living. According to the prince's 11th son, Prince Seok, his mother Hong Chong-sun had to sell noodles as a street vendor. However, despite their suffering, most family members have not been able to adapt themselves to the new fast-changing capitalistic Korea. To make matters worse, many people swindled them.
In 1998, it was reported that Prince Gang's eight son died alone in a social center in eastern Seoul, and the eleventh son Prince Seok works as a lecturer at the University of Jeonju as of 2005.
Among Prince Gang's surviving four sons and seven daughters, four have lost touch with the family after they left for the United States. The other family members hold an ancestral ritual two times a year for Prince Gang, but usually only two or three of the 11 surviving siblings attend the ceremonies.
[edit] The Imperial Family
- Yi Myeong-bok (李命福 이명복)((1852-1919), the 2nd son of Yi Haeung with his wife, Princess Heungseon; m. Min Jayeong, later Empress Myeongseong of Korea, a daughter of Min Chirok, a former prime minister.
- Yi Cheok (李拓 이척) (1874-1926), the 2nd son of Emperor Gojong with his wife, Empress Myeongseong; m. Lady Yun of Haepyeong, later Empress Sunjeonghyo, a daughter of 1st Marquis Yun Taek-yeong.
- Yi Gang (李堈 이강) (1877-1955), the 6th son of Emperor Gojong with his concubine, Lady Chang; m. Lady Kim Sudeok, later Princess Deogin, a daughter of 1st Baron Kim Sajun.
- Prince Yi Geon of Korea (Momoyama Kenichi) (1909-1991), the 1st son of Prince Gang with his mistress, Lady Sugwan; m. Matsudaira Yoshiko, a daughter of Captain Matsudaira Yutaka and his wife, a daughter of Marquis Nabeshima Naohiro, a maternal grandfather of Princess Bangja of Korea.
- Yi Wu (李鍝 이우) (1912-1945), the 2nd son of Prince Gang with his mistress, Lady Suin; m. Lady Park Chanju, a granddaughter of 1st Marquis Park Yeonghyo who was husband of Princess Yeonghye of Korea. He inherited the Unhyeon Palace with a title of 3rd Prince Heung, his father's first cousin, Prince Jun.
- Yi Gap (b.1938)
- Yi Won, Hereditary Prince Imperial of Korea (b.1962)
- Yi Jeong
- Yi Seok (李錫 이석) (b.1941)
- Yi Eun (李垠 이은)(1897-1970), the 7th son of Emperor Gojong with his second wife, Princess Sunheon; m. Princess Masako Nashimoto later Crown Princess Bangja, a daughter of Prince Morimasa Nashimoto of Japan by his wife, Princess Itsuko.
- Yi Jin (1921-1922)
- Yi Gu (李玖 이구) (1931-2005), the 2nd son of Crown Prince Euimin with his wife, Princess Bangja; m. Julia Mullock later Princess Julia of Korea, came from a Ukrainian-American family.
- Princess Deokhye (1912-1989), the youngest daughter of Emperor Gojong with his concubine, Lady Boknyeong; m. Count Takeyuki Sou, a Japanese nobleman.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty article 3
- ^ 皇室令及附屬法令廢止ノ件
