Volta
Person1850 – 1927

Yi Sang-jae

Independence Club veteran who led the national university campaign and was first president of the Singanhoe

He travelled to Japan as an aide on the 1881 inspection mission and served at the legation in Washington under Park Jeong-yang. In the Independence Club he helped lead the Assembly of Ten Thousand People. Jailed in the Reform Party affair, he became a Christian and led the youth movement through the YMCA. In the 1920s he headed the society for a national university, raising funds under the slogan "one won from each of twenty million Koreans." In 1927 he was chosen first president of the Singanhoe, formed jointly by uncompromising nationalists and socialists, but died that year and was given a public funeral.

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2 related events

  1. 1
    1922 – 1924Movement for a National Universityleader

    Yi Sang-jae and others formed a society to found a university with Korean funds and raised money nationwide. Japanese obstruction defeated it.

  2. 2
    1927 – 1931Singanhoeleader

    Uncompromising nationalists and socialists joined to found the Singanhoe, the largest legal national organization of the colonial period.

People who appear alongside

  • An Jae-hong1891 – 1965

    General secretary of the Singanhoe who led the Joseon Studies movement with Jeong In-bo and others, and after liberation was vice-chairman of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence

  • Han Yong-un1879 – 1944

    Buddhist monk and poet, one of the 33 representatives who signed the Declaration of Independence; author of "The Silence of Love"

  • Yi Gwang-su1892 – 1950

    Drafted the February Eighth Declaration and wrote the novel "Mujeong"; argued for home rule in "National Policy" and later collaborated with the Japanese authorities (listed in the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators)

Themes this person appears in

  • Educational Institutions Through the AgesAD 372 – 1943

    From the Taehak and Gukhak to the Gukjagam and Seonggyungwan, modern schools and the colonial education ordinances — state schools that trained officials and the private schools that filled the gaps

  • Republican China and Imperial Japan1912 – 1949

    The age when the Republic of China, born of the 1911 Revolution, passed through warlord division, the May Fourth Movement, the United Front and the Northern Expedition, fought Japan’s invasion and split in civil war — as Japan moved from Taishō democracy through the Manchurian Incident and military coups to the war in China and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and colonized Korea resisted through the March First Movement and armed struggle