| In the black-and-white photo, two men wearing mustaches pose proudly in military uniforms with guns at their waists. The taller man on the left has been confirmed as independence fighter Hong Beom-do. But the identity of the short and stout man standing next to Hong has been shrouded in mystery for decades. Recently the identity of the mam was confirmed to be independence fighter Choi Jin-dong. / Courtesy of Ban Byung-yool |
Decades-long mystery solved as historian confirms independence fighter's identity
By Kang Hyun-kyung
A photo taken in 1922 was surrounded in mystery until only recently.
In the black-and-white photo, two men wearing mustaches pose proudly in military uniforms with guns at their waists. The taller man on the left has been confirmed as independence fighter Hong Beom-do, a heroic figure admired by Koreans for his successful military campaign in the Battle of Fengwudong in northeastern China against Japan in 1920. Victory in the battle was one of the Korean militias' successes and a source of pride for fellow oppressed Koreans back on the peninsula at that time.
But the identity of the short and stout man standing next to Hong has been shrouded in mystery for decades. Finally, it has been solved.
Ban Byung-yool, a professor of Korean history at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, confirmed the unknown man in the vintage photo is independence fighter Choi Jin-dong (1883-1945).
Ban learned that Choi's daughter Choi Kyung-joo, who is now living in Hawaii, spoke up after seeing the photo of her father. “Through Choi's niece, I heard that the daughter remembered the photo and said she saw it hung on the wall of her house when she was young,” Ban said. On behalf of the historian, Choi's niece sent the photo to Choi Kyung-joo to see if she could identify him.
Ban said his curiosity about the unknown man grew after obtaining the old photo in July last year at a film and photo archive in a neighborhood of Moscow. It popped up briefly in a documentary featuring the opening ceremony of the World Congress of the Communist International, better known as Comintern, an international organization that advocated and strove to spread communism worldwide. The photo was taken in January 1922 during the conference held in Moscow.
Ban shared the video with other historians at a meeting in August last year. At that time, he said, he and other Korean scholars had no clue about the man posing next to Hong in the photo.
Representing Korea, Hong and Choi attended the conference to strengthen solidarity among communists in which communists from Korea, China, Japan and Mongolia joined.
Under the direction of then Soviet Union leader Vladimir Lenin, Soviet officials took lots of photos which they gave to the participants. Also those photos were used extensively to promote communism overseas.
During the 1922 Comintern conference in Moscow, Ban said Hong received a certificate from Lenin with his autograph on it which confirmed him as the Korean military commander. Lenin also presented him with a rifle and 100 rubles. Choi appeared to have received the same gifts. The guns at their waists in the old photo are from Lenin, Ban said.
“Hong was publicity-savvy and made the most of the photos. He cut himself out from group photos or photos he took with others and handed them to Korean-Russians with his autograph on the back as a gift whenever he met them,” Ban said. “The 1922 photo was one of those he shared with others, although Hong's version only has him without Choi. Some of Hong's photos were made public thorough ethnic Koreans and that's why there are several photos of him and how he was identified and recognized by Koreans today.”
| Ban Byung-yool, a professor of Korean history at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies / Courtesy of Ban Byung-yool |
It's the first time the old photo featuring Hong and Choi together was seen in Korea, although it has been published in some Western journals and books before.
The unknown figure near Hong had paved the way for misinterpretation and inaccurate captioning of the photo. “A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution (1891-1924)” written by Orlando Figes, for example, identified Hong and Choi as “two Bolsheviks Commissars of the Far East.”
Ban said the vintage photo has “lots of stories” to tell.
“It shows Choi played a significant role in the Battle of Fengwudong and his influence back then was as significant as that of two other independence fighters,” the historian said.
Hong and another towering figure Kim Chwa-chin (1889-1930) whose life was cut short by an agent dispatched from the Japanese colonial government were well-known independence activists involved in armed conflicts against the Japanese military in Russian Far East and the northeastern part of China, respectively.
Compared to them, Choi was lesser-known.
Together with his two brothers, Choi was one of the early Korean migrants to the Manchuria region before Japan annexed Korea.
After Korea was colonized by Japan, many Koreans migrated to China and Russia in search of better lives. The wave of Korean migration included independence fighters. They chose those destinations to avoid being arrested by the Japanese police and to conduct campaigns for Korea's liberation overseas.
Choi provided shelter to the independence fighters. Owning a farmland in the northeastern part of China, he allowed armed Korean freedom fighters to use his land for training and a base camp.
The Manchuria region was his home turf. Hong initially fought for Korea's independence in the Russian Far East and later migrated to northeastern China to continue military operations against Japan.
The recovered old photo and the recent confirmation of the independence fighter's identity are valuable pieces for historians digging into the story of Korea's independence movement.