조선 고종 ＜북묘묘정비(北廟廟庭碑)＞에 나타난 보수적 의식구조, 관우에 관한 꿈 그리고 자존심

Abstract

King Gojong and Queen Minbi of Joseon built the Guan Yu shrine Bukmyo in Myeongnyun-dong, Seoul in 1883. In 1887, he erected Bukmyomyojeongbi (Stele of the Northern Shrine: referred to as Bukmyobi hereinafter), which was inscribed with text delineating the purpose for and process of the creation of Bukmyo. Interestingly, this inscription says that King Gojong and Queen Minbi built Bukmyo after dreaming about Guan Yu, and believed that thanks to his spirit, the Joseon royal family was able to avoid harm during the Im-O Military Revolt in 1882 and the Gapsin Coup in 1884. This study will first reveal that King Gojong had a conservative and unrealistic worldview through an analysis of his Confucian philosophy, which is represented in the inscription and form of Bukmyobi. Second, this study will examine how King Gojong and Queen Minbi’s perception of the Japanese invasion of Korea, the Im-O Military Revolt and the Gapsin Coup was linked to their superstitions about Guan Yu. Third, it will investigate how King Gojong’s sense of his own royal dignity was expressed in the Bukmyobi, and consider the datedness and vacuousness of this perspective on himself. The significance of this study is that it is the first to examine the roots of King Gojong and Queen Minbi’s conservative disposition, as seen in Bukmyobi, and the relationship between their dream about Guan Yu and the Im-O Military Revolt and the Gapsin Coup. King Gojong and Queen Minbi’s consciousness of Confucianism and Guan Yu was not arrived at independently, and was uncritical and highly superstitious. Their perspective played a negative role in their decisions about and responses to the political situation of the late Joseon Dynasty. What King Gojong wished for by worshipping Guan Yu in a variety of ways, including the creation of Bukmyo and Bukmyobi, was the emergence of a savior like Guan Yu. Unfortunately, the salvation that King Gojong longed for was not for the benefit of Joseon as a nation in the modern sense nor that of the people of Joseon, but only for that of the royal family of Joseon. In addition, the entity which King Gojong worshipped as a representative figure of loyalty to the crown was not the actual person Guan Yu as recorded in The Records of the Three Kingdoms, but a semi-fictional character depicted in the novelization of that text by Mao Zhonggang, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.