The names that sold the country and the names that defended it — written down accurately, from the sources.
※ Widely attributed to the historian Shin Chae-ho, though the sentence has not been located in that form in his writings.
Making a living came first. For a long stretch, personal success was the only goal — and there is no shame in that stretch. But the room to do something else has arrived.
We are in debt to the people who fought for independence. What they risked their lives for was not the safety of their own families but a country for descendants whose names they would never know. We are those descendants.
A sense of debt that stays a feeling leaves nothing behind. It has to be expressed, and the expression has to be a record. Writing down precisely who did what is the most concrete greeting we can send back.
A person, an organisation, a country — each ought to have standing, and each ought to have grace. It is time to speak of that, not only of individual success. Standing does not rise on slogans. It rises through how a people chooses to remember.
Not the blanket word "collaborator" but the name, the hanja, the office held, and what was paid for it.
Every entry ends with its references. What is unconfirmed is written as unconfirmed.
Recording only those who sold is half a record. The names that resisted are written down too.
In August 1936 two newspapers erased the Japanese flag from Sohn Kee-chung's chest. The first to do so closed the following year. The name we give the episode today omits it.
Key pointA surviving paper can keep writing its own history; a vanished paper has no pages. Whoever can keep a record gets to keep the memory.
Ahn Sang-ho is not among the dictionary's 4,389. The institute has now explained why: his inclusion was held in abeyance — not for innocence, but because the sources did not reach that far.
Key pointA blank arises for two reasons: no one was there, or no one could reach that far. The two are entirely different and look identical on the page.
The treaty was signed on 22 August 1910 and proclaimed only a week later. In between, 76 Koreans received Japanese peerages and 3,645 received grants. A title was not an honour but a receipt — and receipts survive.
Key pointYi Wan-yong and Pak Je-sun appear on both lists. Han Gyu-seol, who refused the Eulsa pact in 1905, refused a barony in 1910. One choice may be an accident; two are not.
An actress's love for her family left an unexpected question in the days before Liberation Day: are we qualified to judge choices made in a time we did not live in?
Key pointHer great-grandfather is on neither list. Who knew and who did not will never be settled — but the responsibility for leaving it unknowable is ours.
On 17 November 1905 the Korean Empire's diplomatic sovereignty was handed over on the assent of five men. This entry records the names and offices in that room, the peerages they were paid, and the names that answered with their lives.
Key pointAll five appear both in the 4,389-name dictionary and on the state-certified list of 1,006. Yet after liberation only 10 collaborators nationwide ever received a prison sentence.