The era of liberation in modern South Korean historiography refers to the period from the surrender of the Japanese army on August 15, 1945 to the official proclamation of the independent state of the Republic of Korea in August 1948.1

From a historical point of view, the era of liberation, or, as it is traditionally called in South Korean historiography, Heban side, represents a very short period of time - only three years. Despite its short-term nature, the events that unfolded on the territory of Korea during the liberation era played a huge role in the future fate of the Korean people. It was these three years that largely predetermined the modern history of the Korean Peninsula, and more broadly, the entire Far Eastern region. Three years of intense internal conflict: the struggle of various political forces in South Korea for power, for national independence, for international recognition of self-proclaimed governments. Three years of the most severe socio-economic crisis, which turned into mass demonstrations of protest by workers and peasants throughout the territory occupied by American troops. Three years of continuous search for national unity, which ended in the tragic division of a single country into two independent states.

What are the reasons for the split? What is the role of international forces in dividing the country? Was it possible to prevent the split? What is the significance of the internal factor, in particular political disunity, in the division of Korea? All these issues are generally relevant issues in the recent history of the Republic of Korea. For certain political reasons, the South Korean government did not welcome research on the history of Korea in the transition period of 1945-1948 for a long time. Mainly because the increased interest in this era could reveal a huge number of unpleasant facts from the point of view of state policy from the history of US-Korean relations, the activities of right-wing nationalists, Korean collaborators, etc.

Since the mid-1980s, under the influence of democratic changes, South Korean historians have actively turned to the study of the liberation era. As a result, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a large number of dissertations were defended, a number of collective works were published (Hebangjonhusai inshik, Hanguk Hyundai Jeongchisa, 1989) and monographs on the history of Hebang side, which became a kind of scientific foundation for recent works on similar issues (Choe Sangyeon, 1988; Seo Jung Seok, 1991; Seo Joon-seok, 2001; To Jin-sung, 1997; Shin Bok-ryun, 2001; Kim Seok-joon, 1996). In recent years, mostly highly specialized works have been published.

1 For the purposes of this review, "surrender of the Japanese Army" refers to the public announcement by Emperor Hirohito of Japan of the surrender of the Japanese Army. In fact, it was only by September 20-21, 1945, that the Japanese forces ended their military resistance on all fronts.

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characters who study a particular area of the history of Heban side in detail. Historians are most interested in the following topics: the relationship of Korean nationalists with the American military administration, the policy of the occupation authorities in South Korea [Ahn Jin, Jung Byung-joon, Jung Yong-guk, Nam Kwang-gyu, Lee Hyung-hyun, Ho eun]; the activities of South Korean political groups, their relationships and contradictions [Lee Judae, Ko Chang-hye, Hwang Euisoo, Seo Hyun, Kim Insik].

Given the rather high degree of research into the liberation era in South Korean historiography, the presence of a wide variety of opinions on various problems of this period, we are not able to reflect them all in this article. To date, historians have done a lot of work to cover all possible aspects of the history of the transition period of the Republic of Korea: political, socio-economic, international. Therefore, at the moment, it is quite possible to identify some of the dominant approaches to covering the most pressing problems of the Korean liberation era.

First of all, I would like to focus on the problem of the chronology of the liberation era. There is no generally accepted chronology of this period in South Korean historiography. Due to the limited number of complex monographs, most authors of highly specialized works use the method of problem analysis, thus presenting the material not strictly consistently historically, but selectively, in accordance with the solution of certain problem complexes. With all this variety of forms of presentation of the material, however, it is possible to distinguish certain time boundaries of the era of liberation, indicated in most works on this period. As a rule, the beginning of Heban side is considered to be August 15, 1945. and the end is May (elections to the Constitutional Assembly), or August (proclamation of the independent state of the Republic of Korea), or September (establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), 1948. Shin Bok-ryong's fundamental work "History of the Division of the Korean Peninsula" goes beyond this chronology, in which the split falls on 1953-the end of the Korean War wars. Following his logic, the Korean War is a civil war, and the North's attack on the South should be interpreted as the last decisive attempt by Kim Il Sung to seize power and unite the country [Shin Bok-ryong, 2001, pp. 818-819].

Unlike the Russian works, not a single work by a South Korean author, let alone a detailed reference or article, mentions who liberated Korea and how. In other words, although South Korean historians write about the era of liberation, they never mention the role that Soviet troops played in the real liberation of Korea from the hated colonial regime. For them, the history of liberation begins not on August 9, 1945, when Soviet troops launched an offensive in Manchuria and North Korea, but on August 15, when the Japanese Emperor's decision to unconditionally surrender was publicly announced.

On the evening of August 15, 1945, the first national administrative body consisting exclusively of Koreans was established-the Committee for Preparing for the Restoration of Korean Statehood. It is with the analysis of the activities of this committee that most complex works begin. This beginning has a certain symbolic meaning from the point of view of the history of the development of Korean nationalism. Literally, it means that the liberation took place, of course, not without the help of allied troops, but mainly with the active work of individual Korean nationalists, who from the very beginning were concerned about the speedy achievement of state independence. Thus, South Korean historians make a certain revision of the traditional view of the history of Korea in 1945-1948, which has become traditional for foreign scientific literature, as a "battlefield" of two opposing forces - the United States and the USSR. Paying great attention to the internal factor, they begin to write about isto-

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the rii of liberation as an extremely complex and complicated internal political struggle of various political forces of Korea among themselves and with the occupation authorities.

This view is particularly clear in the works of left-wing historians (Seo Joon-seok, 2001; Choe Sang-young, 1998; Kang Jong-gu, 2002). According to their position, the era of liberation is a period of liberation not only from the Japanese colonial heritage, but also from any form of foreign influence, be it Soviet or American. That is, liberation is the process of establishing an independent Korean statehood. To achieve full national independence, it was necessary to solve three main tasks: first, to eliminate the remnants of the colonial regime (to get rid of Japanese property, change the management system, punish Japanese collaborators); second, to form a unified people's government capable of preventing the division of Korea along the 38th parallel; third, to strictly adhere to the principles of the Korean such a national ideology that would counteract any form of foreign interference [Kang Jong-gu, 2002, p. 20]. Within the framework of such a statement of the main tasks of the transition period, liberation actually means nothing more than an" anti-feudal democratic revolution"(panpongong minju hyungmyeon), the successful completion of which determines the future fate of Korean statehood [Choe Sangyeon, 1998, p. 73].

In other words, liberation, understood primarily as a kind of revolutionary process, has many connotations, without proper analysis of which it is impossible to understand the reasons for the split of the country. Taken together, all the connotations and basic meanings of liberation form a kind of semantic core of the liberation era, which has a deeply nationalistic connotation for left-wing historians. If the various political groups in Korea were eventually able to achieve the main goals of liberation in three years of internal struggle and confrontation with international forces, it would mean that they were able to preserve their national identity at the same time. The preservation of national identity, in turn, is possible only under the condition of complete independence from international forces (Ban Jae minjokjajuson).

With this approach to the problematic field of liberation, the greatest scientific interest is given to the history of the struggle of the left movement in the territory of South Korea, mainly because it was the left-wing Korean parties that strictly pursued all the above-mentioned goals of liberation. Who is meant by left-hand traffic?

In general, in South Korean historiography, all parties and public organizations are usually divided into extreme right (conservatives), moderate right, moderate left, and extreme left. This classification is based primarily on an ideological principle. Right-wing parties are those political forces that did not advocate an urgent solution to the land issue, did not support the idea of punishing Korean collaborators, and actively cooperated with the American occupation authorities. In the most concentrated form, the conservative ideology of the right-wing movement was reflected in the political platform of the Democratic Party (Hanguk Minju dan).

Having launched a large-scale anti-guardianship movement in 1946, right-wing forces represented by such political organizations as the Democratic Party, the Lee Seung Man Group, the Provisional Government, and the National Party ideologically began to be based on three main principles: anti-guardianship, anti-communism, and anti-Sovietism [Ahn Jin, 2005, p. 120; Chong Yong-guk, 2003, p. 485]. According to Seo Hyun, the policy of national independence pursued by Lee Seung-man, the Provisional Government in South Korea since 1946, from a political point of view implied national sovereignty (minjok chachhi), an alliance with the United States, and anti-communism. This line, he adds, has become the main state policy of the Republic of Korea since the creation of the Republic of Korea.

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an independent government in 1948 and continues to be so up to the present time [So Higen, 2006, p. 12].

The conservative ideology of the right-wing movement was largely determined by the social affiliation of its members, but not only. Yun Minjae writes that the Democratic Party was formed from employees of the Tong-A Ilbo newspaper, former members of nationalist Japanese organizations, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals [Yun Minjae, 2005, pp. 101 - 102]. Being large landowners, entrepreneurs who had previously actively cooperated with the Japanese colonial regime, the right-wingers certainly could not actively advocate for the solution of many pressing tasks of liberation, since this was tantamount to their political and economic suicide. At the same time, it should be remembered that not all members of the right-wing movement belonged to the well-off strata of the population, just as not all of them were collaborators.

Moderate right-wing groups are actually separate factions of right-wing parties that, due to certain political differences, have diverged from the main line of the central committee of their party. Thus, moderate right-wing groups actively joined the movement to unite the right and left in 1946, supported the meetings of the joint Soviet-American commission, and participated in the historical meeting of parties and public organizations of the North and South in the spring of 1948. Due to the lack of clear ideological criteria for identifying moderate right-wing groups, as well as the flexibility of their political course, their leaders usually include Kim Gyusik, Kim Wonbom, Won Sehun, and Kim Byung-un.

The list of leaders of the moderate left movement is traditionally headed by Ye Unhyun, Baek Namun. The political demands of the groups that consolidated around these Korean nationalists largely coincided with the platform of the Korean Communist Party. The main difference was not so much in the program, but in the tactics of behavior. The moderate left-wing movement was completely alien to radicalism, so in principle they managed to balance very well between the extreme links of the political spectrum of Korea at that time, as well as actively cooperate with the American Military Administration (ABA).

The moderate right, together with moderate left groups, initiated in the summer of 1946 the movement for the unification of right and left, or, as it is often called in English-language literature, the coalition movement. In South Korean historiography, the terms chundo pha and chwau hapchak pha are used in relation to this coalition of groups, which can be translated into Russian as "centrists". Yoon Minjae writes ," One of the distinctive features of the Korean centrists was that they were a combination of different forces, political figures who had similar positions on various issues, but did not represent any one party or individual. That is, depending on the problem or situation, the principles of unification and the composition of centrists quickly changed. If immediately after the liberation, the centrists were grouped around Ye Unhyun and Baek Namun, then with the beginning of the movement to unite the right and left in 1946, their membership expanded to include the Kim Gyusik group. When the movement to fight separate elections was launched in 1947, Kim Gu joined the centrists, becoming a central figure in the movement for national unity "[Yun Minjae, 2005, p. 524].

In general, Nam Kwang-gyu spoke most aptly about the ideological characterization of the political courses of the extreme right and centrists (moderate right and moderate left): "In fact, at the beginning of the liberation era, there was not much difference between the various national forces of Korea in political concepts, views on the political structure, social policy, on the contrary, there were many similarities. With the exception of the Korean Communist Party, many political parties had similar political doctrines and programs. Interpersonal relationships and

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political leadership was the main vector of the struggle between dozens of political parties, while the division of ideological differences was rather an exception" [Nam Kwangyu, 2006, p. 163].

The leader of extreme left-wing political groups is considered to be the Korean Communist Party led by Park Hongyong. It should be noted that almost all researchers note the extreme activity of Korean Communists in the first months after liberation, their high popularity and influence among the workers and peasants. Park Hongyong's uncompromising attitude, lack of proper understanding of the international situation around the Korean peninsula, factional struggle, as well as ill-considered tactics against the American occupation authorities led the Korean Communists of the South to a complete political impasse, from which it was no longer possible to get out with dignity. According to Lee Hyunju, " ... the period after the liberation of Korea in August 1945 and before the opening of the Moscow Conference in December of the same year was a time when the Korean Communists to some extent independently could choose and decide what their political line would be in relation to the united national front, etc. But the factionalist consciousness, each faction's preoccupation with its own superiority, and dogmatism significantly narrowed the choice" [Li Hyunju, 2006, p.109]. Shin Bok-ryong refers to Korean communists as "romantics inspired by the ideology of the Narodniks or the 'movement to the people'." With the exception of some, the Korean Communists, the historian writes, did not understand the true meaning of Marxism. "Their understanding of Marxism was so weak that they reduced socialism to the idea of social equality" (Sin Bokren, 2006, p. 295).

The struggle against communist influence in South Korea has become a major vector of political activity for right-wing political groups at the height of the anti-guardianship movement. Why did the right-wing forces strongly oppose guardianship? Here we come to another dilemma of South Korean historiography - finding out the reasons for the anti-guardianship movement. Who was right - those who supported the decision on Korea at the Moscow Conference, or those who vehemently opposed the decision? Seo Joon-seok writes that " ... foreign scholars cannot understand why, when the United States and the USSR jointly set about resolving the Korean issue, both right and left political forces, instead of promoting the creation of a national government of Korea, became fixated on putting forward secondary slogans - for or against guardianship. After their release, Korean political groups treated the struggle against guardianship or in support of the Moscow decision as their moral duty, which is why everyone was influenced by the slogans that spread everywhere "[Seo Jung-seok, 2001, p. 22]. In fact, these slogans, according to Seo Joon-seok, hid certain political interests of a number of groups that were trying to achieve the most effective result of their political activities in this way. "First of all, it should be borne in mind that there was a lot of demagogy in the slogans "for guardianship" or "against guardianship".

In the post-liberation political environment, the parties ' choice of position was most often guided by the "either white or black"principle. Therefore, they actively used such simple slogans as" for custody "or" against custody" " [Seo Joon-seok, 2000, p.23]. The Korean Communist Party (Workers ' Party of South Korea), the historian further explains, in the person of its leader Park Hongyong, supported the Moscow decision on guardianship, because it believed that Korea was not yet ready for independence, and it needed the help of allies. As for the moderate leftists, Ye Un-hyun, Baek Nam-moon, as well as those forces that were equally concerned about achieving national sovereignty, creating a united national front, like Kim Gu, the decision on guardianship clearly caused them very heavy feelings, so they could not support it at first. But since the decision of the Moscow Meeting of the three Ministers was the only joint decision of the allies (USSR,

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United States, England), concerning the creation of a national state, they eventually supported it and began to actively contribute to the success of the meetings of the joint Soviet-American commission. "Right-wing parties opposed guardianship, firstly, because they could thus expose their political rivals, the Communists, as "traitors to the motherland", and secondly, to dismiss possible criticism in their address in the event of the creation of a separate government in South Korea "[Seo Joon-seok, 2001, p. 27].

Shin Bokren writes: "It is not entirely logical to say that those who supported custody were pro-communist, while those who opposed it were nationalist groups. It is also incorrect to say that the group's pro-guardianship stance was purely emotional, while its anti-guardianship stance was theoretically sound. Both groups have taken unwise and unpatriotic positions towards their country. They did not have any clear ideas, but were concerned only with their own interests. They had to convince the masses in order to sow Jacobin sentiments in them. They were forced to lead the people in the turmoil of liberation, and they did it like an eye surgeon removes a cataract "[Sin Bokren, 2006, p. 797].

Shin Bok-ryong's metaphorical statement describing the attitude of various political parties towards guardianship largely follows Seo Joon-seok's logic. Both the first and second authors point to the extremely flat approach of Korean nationalists to solving the problem of guardianship. After all, few of the political leaders of that time carefully analyzed the text of the decision on Korea adopted at the meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow in December 1945. Moreover, few people took into account the international situation around Korea and far beyond its borders. No matter how much the Korean nationalists wanted to exclude the international factor in the restoration of Korean statehood, it was absolutely impossible to get rid of it in the current situation. Having no real power in Korea, neither in the South nor in the North, the fate of a particular political group largely depended on their mutual relations with the occupation authorities. Therefore, before turning" trusteeship " into the central topic of their political discussions, each political party had to think seriously: is it even worth it in the situation of occupation and growing tension in relations between the USSR and the United States to zealously fight the decision taken at the Moscow meeting on Korea?

From the point of view of assessing the international situation and approaching the American authorities, centrist groups have taken a relatively rational position. "For centrist groups, the occupation of Korea by American and Soviet troops was an irrefutable reality. Therefore, their view of foreign armies was quite objective and calm. From the first days of liberation, the centrists perceived the presence of foreign forces and armies as a necessary evil. At the same time, they constantly stressed that the Korean problem should be solved by the Koreans themselves, by their own efforts. Therefore, they believed that the shortest way to create a unified and independent state is to withdraw the occupation armies from the territory of the Korean Peninsula as soon as possible. Although they pointed out that it was dangerous to trust a foreign power, they did not refuse to cooperate with it after the withdrawal of the occupation armies" [Lee Hyeong-hyun, 2005, p.67]. The Korean centrists, in contrast to the extreme left and right groups that took a clearly positive or negative position towards the USSR or the United States, tried to balance in the face of growing tensions between the two major powers. Of course, they could not thus reconcile the positions of the United States and the USSR on the Korean problem, but they could at least avoid an internal conflict between political groups, which was aggravated by different assessments of the role of foreign powers in the restoration of Korean statehood.

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According to Nam Kwang-gyu, "Ye Un-hyun, following the ideas of progressive democracy and internationalism, believed that, despite the existing difference in ideology and political system between the USSR and the United States, cooperation with both states would help Korea achieve independence and liberation" [Nam Kwang-gyu, 2004, p.76].

Unfortunately, the Korean centrists did not manage to smooth out internal contradictions and prevent a split in the country. There were many reasons for the failure of the centrist policy, but we can cite only a few that are often mentioned in South Korean historiography: first, they did not have mass support; second, they were weak organizationally; and third, the American administration, although it supported the committee for the unification of the right and left, organized by the centrists, ultimately simply failed. She used it to her advantage, thus depriving any political authority and weight in the eyes of rival nationalist groups in South Korea (Jung Byung-joon, 1997; Jung Yong-yeok, 2003; Yoon Min-jae, 2005).

As a result, we have come to one of the main issues of the liberation era: Who is to blame for the division of Korea? Were the Americans the only ones who initiated the separate elections, or did the Koreans themselves have a hand in dividing their country? Given the conditions of the liberation of Korea, of course, none of the historians will dare, even with all the attention to internal political divisions among Korean nationalists, to ignore the international factor, the role of the United States and the USSR in the division of Korea. It is another matter how historians prioritize the causes of the schism.

According to Ahn Jin, the US military administration was guided by the policy of "positive selection" in relation to Korea, choosing only those political forces that were friendly to the occupation policy it pursued. Considering the national forces consolidated around the Korean Communist Party to be the most dangerous to pursue an occupation policy, the US military administration began to actively suppress them. "As a result, the alliance of Lee Seungman's group with the Democratic Party was chosen as the leading political force in the formation of Korean statehood "[Ahn Jin, 2005, p. 136]. This position, Ahn Jin believes, was dictated by the general foreign policy strategy of the United States in the Far East after World War II. "The first goal that the United States pursued in Korea was to contain the spread of Soviet influence in the region. From an economic point of view, America sought to draw South Korea into a global capitalist system centered on the United States. From a political point of view, it intended to establish a Western-style liberal-democratic system in South Korea" [Ahn Jin, 2005, p.253].

According to Shin Bokren, the discussions around the guardianship regime turned into a deep internal division, which undoubtedly contributed to the consolidation of the split. Even though the Korean nationalists of the liberation era defended the idea of state unity, the historian believes, they ultimately followed the policy of separation pursued by the USSR and the United States. "If Korean politicians had strictly adhered to the position of preserving unity, in particular, put aside their selfish interests, worried about the future of the Korean people and made every effort to do so, they would have been able to prevent the division of Korea, regardless of what policy the United States and the Soviet Union pursued. In this sense, the responsibility for division also lies with the Korean people "[Shin Bok-ryong, 2001, p. 59].

Seo Hyun believes that under the occupation, the conflicting policies of the two superpowers towards Korea from the very beginning of liberation, Koreans had little chance to maintain their national and state unity. In some ways, the custody battle has narrowed the already small possibility of unification, dividing the political forces of Korea into two opposing camps.

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According to the historian,"...if the right-wing and left-wing Korean nationalists had successfully agreed among themselves, creating a coalition government, as the Italians did after World War II, then Korea would not have known the tragic pages and today would be famous for peace, prosperity and freedom" [So Hyun, 2006, p.35].

In general, modern South Korean historiography clearly understands the involvement of political groups of Korean nationalists in the division of Korea. In fact, this position, in addition to demonstrating a certain kind of boldness among South Korean historians, makes it possible to reveal the nationalistic nature of the liberation of Korea. The liberation was carried out by the Koreans themselves, led by various political groups. Each group, having its own idea of the future political structure of the country, desperately fought for the implementation of its plan by all means available to it. But not everyone managed to stay in the lead in the end. And it is here that one feels a kind of disappointment and pain of individual historians as to how the liberation ultimately ended. The liberation of Korea ended with the victory of the rigidly conservative political ideology of the Lee Seung Man group, the only Korean nationalist who stubbornly defends the idea of creating a separate government in South Korea. Meanwhile, the era of liberation, represented by such major political figures of that time as Ye Un-hyun, Kim Gu, Kim Gyu-sik, Cho Bong-nam, could offer other ways of developing Korean statehood, more optimal from the point of view of preserving national unity and true independence.

list of literature

Ahn Jin. Migunjongkwa hangugyi minjujuyi (American Military Administration and Korean Democracy). Seoul, 2005.

Kang Jong-gu. Pundankwa jeongjeongyi hangukhyeongdaesa (Modern History of Korea: Division and War). Seoul, 2002

Lee Hyeong-hyun. Kheban'hu namhan chong'chi seregy vegukkune taehan inshikkwa yangguncholthwe nonjen (The attitude of the political forces of South Korea to the occupation forces and discussions around their withdrawal after liberation) / / Hanguk chonchhiwegesa nonchon (History of Korea's Foreign Policy). Seoul, 2005.

Lee Hyunju. Choson konyeandanyi kwollek kusonkwa chosoninmingonhwaguk (Building the power of the Korean Communist Party and the activities of the People's Republic) / / Hanguk kyungyongdaesa yong-gu (Research on new and recent History). 2006. Issue 36.

Nam Kwangyu. Khebanch'o kunnei chong'chi seregy tove inshikkwa tevenosonyl tullossan sersk thujen (Understanding of the international situation by the political forces of Korea and their differences on foreign policy issues immediately after liberation) / / Hanguk chonchhiwegesa nonchon (History of Korea's Foreign Policy). Seoul, 2004.

Nam Kwangyu. Konguk chunbiwiwonhwe chunanjojikyi yakhwakwajonkwa yein (Reasons for the weakening of the Central body of the Preparatory Committee for the Reconstruction of Korean Statehood) / / Hanguk chonchiwegesa nonchon (History of Foreign Policy of Korea). Seoul, 2006.

Seo Joon Seok. Nambuk hepsan: Kim Gyusi kiel, Kim Guyi kiel (South-North negotiations: Kim Gyusi's way and Kim Gu's way). Seoul, 2001.

Sin Bensik. Hanguk hendesawa je - kil-Ye Unhyeong, Kim Goo, Cho Bongam, nosonoyl chunyeimyro (Modern History of Korea and the Third Way: Political Lines of Ye Unhyeong, Kim Goo, Cho Bongam) / / Hanguk jongchihak hwebo (Center for Korean Politics Research). Seoul, 2000.

Shin Bokren. Hanguk pundansa yong-gu (History of the division of the Korean Peninsula). Seoul, 2001.

That's Jinsung. Hanguk minjokjuiwa nampukkwange (Korean nationalism and South-North relations). Seoul, 1997.

Jung Yong-wook. Haeban chonghu migugye taehan chonchaek (US policy in Korea before and after liberation). Seoul, 2003.

Choi Sangyeon. Migukkwa hangukminjuju (The United States and Korean nationalism). Seoul, 1998.

Yoon Minjae. Chungdophae minjokchuye undongkwa pundankukka (National Movement of Centrist Forces and Division of the Korean State). Seoul, 2005.

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