This article explores the meaning and bias of historical records, arguing that history is not simply a record of the facts of the past, but is also reinterpreted and reconstructed as times and societies change.
If we were to answer the very difficult question of what history is, we would say that it refers to the facts of human society’s past, and the written records of those facts. However, we need to realize that not all past facts are recorded as history. Not everything that happened in human society in the past is history. To illustrate this, let’s take an example. The fact that Kim Bachelor and Park Maiden got married is not history, but the creation of Hangul, the Imjin War between Korea and Japan, etc. are.
From this point of view, it seems that trivial events or events that are repeated on a daily basis cannot become history, and only huge events or events that happen only once can become history, but this is not necessarily the case. In the case of the Goryeo Dynasty, solar and lunar eclipses, which are natural phenomena that occur periodically, became history because the heavens were thought to warn of the absurdity of the human world, but the world’s first metal type, which was invented in the world, could not become history because the importance of the transition from woodblock or woodblock printing to metal type was not recognized. This means that whether or not a fact becomes history depends on how humans accept and evaluate it. In the end, history is a collection of facts that happened in human society in the past that were selected by someone as important. In this process, people selectively record history according to their values, cultural backgrounds, political interests, etc.
If we think of history as “the facts that happened in human societies in the past and were selected by someone as important enough to be recorded,” there are a couple of issues to ponder. The first is the question of “what do we mean by important facts worth recording” and the second is the question of “what are the thoughts and circumstances of the person who decides which facts are important enough to be recorded from the many facts that have happened in the past”. For example, the winners of a war may write history to justify and glorify their victory, while the losers may try to conceal the facts or present them in a different light. This can lead to bias in the historical record, and how these accounts will be interpreted and received by future generations is another matter. In terms of “what is important enough to record, and what are the criteria for recording,” we can say that what is useful for future generations, and what is not, can vary from person to person and from era to era.
In the previous section, it was said that what remains as history are the facts that will remain important and referable to future generations, and the facts that are recorded as history are the facts whose meaning is increasing and expanding, but in some cases, the meaning is not only increasing and expanding, but there are many histories that are interpreted in a completely different way. For example, the actions of Jeon Bong-joon and others in 1894, which were called the Donghak Revolution after liberation from Japanese colonization, are a prime example. The same is true for inlaid celadon. We don’t even know who first made them or when, but in the modern world, their excellence and originality have become known worldwide, and the fact that they were made during the Goryeo Dynasty is now one of the most important historical facts.
These examples show that history is not simply a record of the facts of the past as they were, but that its meaning is reinterpreted and reconstructed to reflect changes in times and society. In that sense, the phrase “history changes” is considered to be an undeniable truth. However, it is difficult to properly view history itself without understanding the question, “Which direction is history changing?” and “Where is human history heading in the end?” In response to these questions, historiography, which has analyzed thousands of years of human history, suggests that there is a certain direction to the changes in history. Broadly speaking, these are the paths that humans take to escape political bondage, overcome economic inequality, eliminate social injustice, and expand freedom of thought. Recognizing these directions provides important clues to understanding where we are today and predicting the future. We need to be able to discern whether what we are doing and what is happening around us is ultimately conducive to moving in this direction or not. That’s one direct and easy way to look at history.
