Embracing Defeat in Seoul: Rethinking Decolonization in Korea, 1945

Abstract

Revisiting the political and social history of Seoul, Korea, in 1945, this article assesses responses to Japanese defeat and the end of empire in the context of American military occupation. The arrival of the Americans forced Japanese and Koreans alike to rethink their positions in the world. Drawing on past colonial practices, Japanese residents used the immediate post-surrender moment to ponder their future prospects, recording those thoughts in a number of public and private sources. They negotiated the passage from a colonial to a post-imperial society, I argue, by embracing a consciousness of a defeated people while disregarding criticisms of colonial rule. This investigation seeks to interpret the immediate post-World War II moment in Seoul less as a founding moment of the Cold War and more as an important transition in the history of decolonization.

Displaced peoples and the continued legacy of the Pacific War: Korean repatriation and the danger element

“… 3 For studies on Japanese repatriation see Morita Yoshino 森田芳夫 (1964) and Watt (2009). Watt (2015) contains an interesting discussion on postwar Korea from a Japanese perspective. For a study on the Japanese Sewakai (世話会) activities, see Ch'oi Yǒngho 최영호 (2013).…”