Today, July 17, is Choseon Constitution Day in the ROK. I love the caption to a photo on the Wikipedia entry because it’s unfortunately so true. “Street along a road in Seoul during Constitution Day. Flags are hung up along street lights during this day but actual celebrations throughout the country are few.”

I was looking for some nifty scene narrated in a history text about this very republican day, but, alas, I can’t even find “constitution” in the index. And then, piggybacking a post I did about Kim Gu last month, I read this about Lee Syng-man:

Supremely self-confidant and a genius of political manipulation, he was clearly more of a Chongjo or a Yongjo than an ineffectual Kojong, but he seems to have shared with all Korean kings a conception of sovereignty as something more properly invested in a head of state than in a popular electorate or its representatives. (pp. 348, Korea, Old and New: A History, Carter T. Eckert, Ki-baek Lee et al)

I’m not sure republicanism has advanced that much further since Lee’s best efforts to aggrandize himself in 1948.

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Filed under: History, Korea, Law, Politics Tagged: constitution day, rok, South Korea