대한제국 말기(1904~1910) 『皇城新聞』의 현실 인식과 대응 양상의 변화: 『大韓每日申報』와의 비교를 중심으로

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the periodic perception of political circumstances and ways of responses to the situation of The Hwangseong Sinmun (Imperial Capital Gazette) in the late Korean Empire. Between the outbreak of Russo-Japanese War and the collapse of the Korean Empire, Koreans faced critical crises. In this state of crisis, several Korean media, including The Hwangseong Sinmun, one of Korea's earliest Korean-language newspapers with reformative Confucian orientation, actively led the movement to recover national rights. The Hwangseong Sinmun analyzed periodic situations and suggested countermeasures through editorials. During the short period between the Russo-Japanese War and the fall of the Korean Empire, the tone of The Hwangseong Sinmun showed a significant change. Such change reflected the newspaper's response to the urgent situation at the time. The Hwangseong Sinmun continuously conflicted between the ideal of preserving Confucian morality and the realistic goal of nurturing the competence of the nation. The newspaper emphasized the need of developing material civilization to enhance national competitiveness. However, it opposed armaments strengthening. This stance of The Hwangseong Sinmun was considerably different from the one of The Daehan Maeil Sinbo (Korean Daily News) which greatly stressed the importance of armaments strengthening. The Hwangseong Sinmun realized there was a problem in the method of enhancing national competitiveness in 1908. Therefore, It began to advocate for the importance of morality from that time. The newspaper regarded material civilization without moral foundation was rather harmful for the nation. Thus, it discussed how to achieve world piece through a new morality based on Yangmingism. However, the new morality that The Hwangseong Sinmun suggested had a strong nationalistic nature. It combined morality with patriotism in order to secure the possibility to dissolute the conflict between morality and national competitiveness. Because nationalism was emphasized, Confucian universality was weakened. Therefore, newspaper's criticism against world power was weakened.