Korean Translation of Mukjae ilgi (Diary of Yi Mun-geon) (4 books)

and Original Text of Mukjae ilgi with Punctuation (2 books)

(Kyungin Publishing, 2019)

Jeong Geung-sik

(Professor, Seoul National University School of Law)

The Korean Translation of Mukjae ilgi (Diary of Yi Mun-geon) (4 books) and the Original Text of Mukjae ilgi with Punctuation (2 books) was a project undertaken at the Seoul National University School of Law from 2014 to 2017 with the support of the Korean Studies Promotion Service (KSPS) at the Academy of Korean Studies. It was published in September 2019 by Kyungin Publishing and was selected as an outstanding research result in the field of Korean studies in 2020.

Mukjae ilgi is a daily record written by the civil official Yi Mun-geon (1494-1567, pen name: Mukjae) over the course of thirty-two years from 1535 to 1567. The diary begins with the official mourning period following the death of his mother and includes the state funeral of King Injong (r. 1544-1545), during which time he served as an officer of the Directorate of the Funerary Hall (Binjeon Dogam). Yi Mun-geon was part of the faction led by Jo Gwang-jo (1482-1519) and was implicated in the literati purge of 1545 led by Yun Won-hyeong and others upon the enthronement of King Myeongjong (r. 1545-1567). The following year, he was exiled to Seongju in Gyeongsang-do Province, Yi’s ancestral home, where he lived out the rest of his life. Thus, the diary primarily depicts the locale of Seongju as a sixteenth-century exile destination and the everyday life of an aristocrat living in the countryside during the Joseon period (1392-1910). It contains entries until the sixteenth day of the second lunar month of 1567—just one month before Yi’s death. The extant portion of the diary spans seventeen years and eight months and consists of a numerous 750,000 characters.

Although he was an exile, Yi Mun-geon held festive gatherings with the local magistrate (suryeong) and executive assistant (pangwan) almost daily and exchanged information with his acquaintances in the capital. Those who visited Seongju always remembered to visit Yi and present him with gifts. In addition, the locals occasionally visited him to plead that he put in a request on their behalf to the local magistrate. Yi received many calligraphy requests due to his good handwriting, and, due to his brilliance in the field of medicine, his house was always bustling with visitors of all social classes, from lowborn to aristocrat, seeking out medical prescriptions. Yi faithfully recorded the private and trivial details of his life, including the expectations and disappointments he felt toward his grandson, who took the place of his son who died young; the way he comforted his wife, who was often jealous and had a weak volition that resulted in sudden outbursts of anger which she soon regretted; and Yi’s own personal suffering from hemorrhoids and hernias. Knowing he may disappear forever in exile, he hoped to leave his record for future generations to remember.

Other diaries of the sixteenth century include Miam ilgi by Yu Hui-chun (1513-1577) and Swemirok by Oh Hui-mun (1539-1613). However, compared to these works, Mukjae ilgi covers an earlier period and contains an abundance of plentiful content. Since its introduction to academic circles in the 1990s, Mukjae ilgi has been utilized in a variety of academic theses resulting in a significant amount of research on the work in many different fields. However, a comprehensive approach that covered the entire text was lacking. Within this context, the annotated translation of Mukjae ilgi from its original classical Chinese to modern Korean was launched with the goal of “re-interpreting the historical understanding of the sixteenth century.” To achieve this goal, the entire text was read from beginning to end to paint an overall understanding of the work and errors found in prior annotated translations were corrected so that the work could be provided as a primary resource for academia. And as scholarship is no longer the exclusive property of scholars, but rather something which should be shared with and communicated to the public, a translation should also be approachable for ordinary readers. The names of numerous people and things appear throughout Mukjae ilgi, and thus require explanations. In this new translation, the readability of the text was increased with explanations of objects and institutions, as well as a glossary of the people who often appear in the text. 

The translation, annotation, and final review of them was completed over three years by four full-time researchers. The translation was not an easy task, as the researchers, who all developed their own styles of writing while engaged in their respective fields of research, needed to approach a single text with a consistent writing style. To standardize terms, minimize misinterpretations, and maintain the consistency of the writing style, the tedious method of reading in turns was chosen. Collaborative researchers also participated as advisors and reviewers, and help was received from outside experts as well, in terms of punctuation of the original text and translation, the publication and utilization of the annotated translation, and in the correction of errors relating to specialized information such as the field of traditional medicine. Guidelines for the translation of old texts issued by the Institute for Translation of Korean Classics (韓國古典飜譯院) were consulted, in order to adequately compare various versions of the original text while also ensuring consistency in the translation. Despite these efforts, the final result is not without some errors and incomplete parts. However, this is, of course, just one step along the path toward perfection of the scholarship, and it is hoped that it will lead to improved research in the future.

There is a need for Korean studies to be approached from an interdisciplinary and convergent manner in all scholarly fields. Mukjae ilgii depicts the daily life of Seongju, Gyeongsang-do Province in the sixteenth century. The text shows the style of the local magistrate’s rule, and the relationship between the magistrate and the local people. As the hub of Seongju’s social network, Yi Mun-geon reveals the reciprocal socio-economic power relations among various classes of people. It is hoped that through this new annotated translation, the full picture of the sixteenth-century countryside culture, which was absent from governmental historical sources, will be able to be reconstructed. 

On a more personal note, I spent my youth in Seongju where Yi Mun-geon lived his life in exile. Thanks to this annotated translation project, I was flooded with memories of my childhood and my hometown, which had become distant both in body and heart. The annotation translation of Mukjae ilgi is likely the first large-scale Korean studies research project led by a specialist in Korean legal history. This means that Korean legal history is now firmly established as a sub-field of Korean studies. And I hope that Korean legal history and legal studies not only flourish but to lead to a genuine “rule of law” in our society.