The Grand View of Greater Gyeongseong

There is an old saying that even mountains and rivers change over ten years. It is wrong, at least when it comes to the modern era and beyond. A hundred years have passed since this map was drawn, yet when I trace the streets and buildings with my finger, it still feels as if I am walking those very streets of a century ago. If the study of history is the work of finding the points where past and present connect, then denying the history of the early modern period seems like a kind of historical vandalism. What influence has the space created by the Japanese Empire had on modern Koreans? While we cannot deny the impact of grand narratives like nation or state, the old memories that suddenly come to people’s minds will hold within them the space designed by the Japanese Empire.

20240120