Cartography and Contraband Religion in Chosŏn Korea: Andreas Kim Taegŏn (1821-1846) and his Carte de la Corée (Map of Korea)
Type de matériel :
84
Andreas Kim Taegŏn is viewed in the Korean collective memory as the first indigenous Catholic priest and a martyr for his faith. This common perception, however, conceals a much more complex story, that of Kim Taegŏn’s life trajectory as go-between and broker. This is evidenced among other things by the Map of Korea (Carta Coreæ) that he drew shortly before his ordination to the priesthood in 1845. This article investigates the hybrid nature of this map, which is neither fully Asian nor fully Western, and seeks to go beyond the question of adopting or rejecting modern European cartography at the expense of traditional Korean cartography. Here I explore the making of a clandestine missionary cartography through the reappropriation of Korean official knowledge, and I also demonstrate how go-betweens who mastered linguistic and cultural codes shaped the history of Catholicism beyond a mere religious contribution. In doing so, this article shows how the Map of Korea sheds light on both European adaptations of Asian maps and the historical evolution of Korean cartography in the late Chosŏn period (1392-1897).
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