"Hope You Feel the Nation-Building Struggles Experienced by the Independence Activist-Turned-Politician..."
On the 16th, Lee Junsik, director of the Independence Hall of Korea, donated five volumes of handwritten diaries by Baeksan Ji Cheongcheon (1888?1957) to the Independence Hall.
Ji, the director's maternal grandfather, was a legitimate armed independence fighter who went into exile in China in 1919 and was active as an independence army member. He served as the commander-in-chief of the Korean Liberation Army, the military force of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, leading the anti-Japanese struggle. In April 1947, he returned to Korea with Dr. Syngman Rhee and served as a member of the Constituent Assembly and other positions.
The handwritten diaries, registered as cultural assets in 2018, contain entries from May 1951 to December 1956 written in a mixture of Korean and Chinese characters. The main content reflects his thoughts as a politician. It includes efforts, achievements, and frustrations during his tenure as chairman of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee and as the supreme representative of the Democratic National Party. The diaries also contain considerable reflections on the independence movement period. The size is 18.3×12.3 cm, bound in hardcover. The phrase "Jayu Ilgi" (Free Diary) printed on the cover is the name of the company that produced the diary notebooks.
The diaries were kept and managed by Ji Bokyoung, the director's mother, until 2007. Afterwards, the director kept them and has now donated them to the Independence Hall. The director said, "I want to share with many people the concerns of a politician from an independence activist background who experienced the challenges of building a new nation."
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