COVER PICTURE

Jessica Lim
Aug 23, 2017 · 5 min read

a biography of Queen Min – draft / protected

Last Queen of the Kingdom of Corea

posthumously? raised to title of Empress of Corea/Korea by her husband King Kojong (pretty sure about this) documents are unclear and i cant as yet read the source documents in chinese, japanese, or old style korean. so. all errors are my own

last updated January, 2019

copyright 2017 JUYL

all rights reserved

frontispiece

table of contents

Foreword

Introduction

a biography of minssiwangbi 민씨 왕비

portrait of minssi wangbi found?

1910 book by syngman rhee ‘spirit of independence’ contains what he says is a portrait of queen min but to date no officially recognized portrait of her exists

last queen of Korea/Kingdom of Corea

d. 1895

born early life – born into the min 민 clan

mother Min Chi-rok whose title was Lady Hanchaang of the Yi clan

father

though she belonged to an aristocratic family of the yangban 양반 class, the family was impoverished. their household would have been sparsely provided for, not living in material wealth like some other noble families

maybe in something like this traditional hanok

marriage into the royal family

speculation that the Daewongun (queen min’s father in law) chose her for that very reason, believing that she could be more easily controlled.

the palace gate (daemun) 대문

kyungbokgoong (kyungbok palace) above during the chosun era

a stormy relationship

with her father in-law. the daewongun

but queen min would be anything but easily controlled. extremely well-read, intelligent, and reputed to be stubborn and strong-willed she took many contrary positions to those of her father-in-law

the Daewongun below

what the traditional women’s quarters/ladies’ chamber might have looked like in queen min’s day

marriage to king kojong/gojong portrait below in year?

birth of her children

she gave birth to son who would later become King SunJong

Some historical context

art of the period showing musical performance accompanying two female dancers performing a sword dance

korean sword dancing video above

poison? birth defect of first born caused by ‘medicine’ sent by daewongun. hanyak

UnHyun Palace below

politics and policies

friendships with foreign dignitaries

isabella bird – traveller

Her travel book about korea

the red queen by margaret drabble – fictional account

other missionaries and diplomatic personnel

embassies, legations

russian legation

japanese presence

photo below shows emperor gojong’s ‘progress’ around the country (courtesy of Cornell U archives)

on the arch in the background can be seen the japanese flag on one side, and the corean flag on other. the group is photographed standing outside a pagoda, many in military uniform (imperial japanese army?)

caption reads: ‘Souvenir of the corean emperor's visit throughout his empire'

the great powers in Corea

russia

china

japan/Nippon-ilbon the empire of japan under the shogunate

England

America

the meiji restoration

after the tokugawa shogunate reforms

find diplomatic correspondence rel to when japan declared itself empire

also when how victoria bec empress of india only

assassination of Minssiwangbi

photo below showing the funeral cortege of queen min 1895

lost to history

We have very few accounts of the life of Queen Min.

historical documents are sparse

court documents of the yi dynasty where?

chosun sillok

japanese archives?

russian legation – Molendorff?

taewongun takes refuge at one point asylum several years. why!

imperial japanese archives?

NK archives? ask sinoNK. internetarchive. doc dive

SK court history of the Yi Dynasty. chronicles

UN archives decolonization ? also videos photographic sources ncheck pinterest google scholar questia

uc archives – missionary sources church jesuit archives catholic church vatican

american archives

library of congress

cia files

fbi files

wilkinson british consul

james scarth gale. appenzellers, underwood foundation. mormons?

royal asiatic society

national geographic

murder of queen min 1895? recorded where?

german legation

british documents on foreign…

total lack of any mention she existed. check my icloud for the photo UT library robarts. did research 2010?

(conspiracy?) hard to explain how british embassy could totally lack knowledge of this crime unless deliberately suppressed

based on her life

broadway musical. ‘myungsunghwanghu’

script

in korean. check east asian library for film scripts in translation (robarts library 8th floor?)

in english

in french- la coree du sud du norde

quois d’autre?

german sources?

dutch sources. – dutch traders

reception in dprk – what did they think? check sino NK

NKleadership watch

novelizations ? in japanese chinese? i think there is at least one

biographies in korean (title? v difficult to read) needs to be tr. properly. as far as i know has never been translated

hard vocab

phd thesis american. minnesota? midwest somewhere written 1973?

hard for me to access. check Google scholar

UC

or JSTOR

tv drama – secret door 비밀의문

#KDRAMA. viki.com. (all volunteer) dramafever

youtube

vimeo. vevo

cravetv

netflix

archival material

catholic church? photo archive?

russian filmmakers?

jesuit mission?

jewish synagogue?

Warburg archive

myungsunghwanghu- her tragic life and death

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