Paek Chŏnggi
Paek Chŏnggi | |
|---|---|
백정기 | |
| File:89g1934y2m10d.jpg Paek in a Japanese newspaper (1934) | |
| Born | 19 January 1896 |
| Died | 5 June 1934 (aged 38) |
| Resting place | Hyochang Park Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#coordinates" was not found. |
| Years active | 1919–1933 |
| Organization(s) | Korean Anarchist Federation Black Terror Party |
| Movement | Anarchism, Korean independence |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 백정기 |
| Hanja | 白貞基 |
| RR | Baek Jeonggi |
| MR | Paek Chŏnggi |
| Art name | |
| Hangul | 구파 |
| Hanja | 鷗波 |
| RR | Gupa |
| MR | Kup'a |
| Courtesy name | |
| Hangul | 용선 |
| Hanja | 溶善 |
| RR | Yongseon |
| MR | Yongsŏn |
Paek Chŏnggi (Korean: 백정기; Hanja: 白貞基; 19 January 1896 – 5 June 1934) was a Korean anarchist and independence activist. A participant in the March First Movement, he was attracted to socialism and anarchism while he was a student in Japan, going on to join the Korean anarchist movement after moving to China. There he plotted the assassination of a Japanese consul, but he was arrested before he could make the attempt and died in a Japanese prison.
Biography
[edit | edit source]Paek Chŏnggi was born in 1896.[1] An activist of the March First Movement, in 1919, Paek organised an independence demonstration in his home town and witnessed the movement's suppression in Seoul. He briefly fled to Manchuria, where he was active in the local Korean independence movement.[2]Lua error: not enough memory. In 1921, Paek moved to Japan and began studying at the University of Tokyo. There he became a socialist, after he started reading the Labor Newspaper (Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.) and other socialist works.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. Paek was then attracted to anarchism through the work of Japanese anarchists such as Kōtoku Shūsui and Ōsugi Sakae, as well as that of the Russian anarchist communist Peter Kropotkin.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.
In 1924, he moved to China,Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. where he joined the Korean anarchists led by Shin Chae-ho.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. In the Chinese capital of Beijing, Paek gathered together with other Korean anarchists and independence activists,Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. with whom he co-founded the Korean Anarchist Federation in April 1924.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. Paek then moved to Shanghai,Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. where he worked with the Black Terror PartyLua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. (BTP),Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. a Korean anarchist terrorist group.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.
In March 1933, Paek attempted to assassinate a Japanese consul in the Six Three Pavilion Restaurant, as part of a plot by the BTP.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. But his plans were already known by the Japanese police, due to the work of an informant, and they awaited his arrival at the restaurant.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. He was arrested before he was able to carry out the attack.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. Paek and his co-conspirators, Yi Ganghun and Won Simchang, were sentenced to life imprisonment.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. Paek was transferred to Japan and incarcerated in the prison of Nagasaki, where he died,Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. in 1934.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.
Remembrance
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On 31 July 1934, the Black Newspaper (Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.; Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.) ran an article that paid tribute to Paek, remembering him as "a rebel who stood on the front line of human liberation".Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. After the surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945, Korea was liberated from Japanese imperial occupation. Paek's remains were repatriated to Korea and buried in Hyochang Park.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. Paek was interred alongside Lee Bong-chang and Yun Bong-gil, in what became known as the Tomb of the Three Martyrs.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1. Paek's epitaph includes his last words before he died:Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.
I don't expect I will be alive after another couple of months.
Alas, my fellowmen, Try not to be discouraged by my death.Even if I am dead, these ideals will live on forever,
and you will see the day when they bear fruit.Brothers, take care of yourselves and after you get out of this prison,
keep on striving for the independence and honor of our country
just as your hearts crave it in this moment.My only guilt and regret in life
is that I cannot fulfill my duty, as a child, to my elderly mother.If the day of independence comes,
please take my remains and bury them
in the ground anywhere in my free country,
and lay a rose of Sharon on my grave.
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In the 21st century tomb, Paek's tomb is still visited by people paying their respects to Korean independence activists.[3]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Hwang 2007, p. 6; Hwang 2016, pp. 31, 65, 127.
- ^ Ko 2018, p. 68.
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Bibliography
[edit | edit source]- Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1.
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Further reading
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