Korea and the French-speaking world: Korean heritage, arts and culture in the cultural and scientific space of French Indochina

Abstract

Korea has long been described as a “hermit kingdom” by Western societies. This perception was maintained until the turn of the 20th century. A number of political transformations challenged Korea's policy of isolation. This isolation helped to awaken a certain curiosity about Korea among Europeans. Through missionaries, scientific expeditions, trade missions, geographical missions and literature, France contributed greatly to the Western world's knowledge of Korea, and by extension, to the production of representations and a discourse on Korean society and culture. When formal diplomatic relations were established between France and Korea in 1876, the France of the Third Republic was also a France that was expanding into new colonial spaces. This article reflects on the margins of France, and in particular on colonial space as a space for the production of an idea of the Orient. As such, this article takes a look at French Indochina and its position - as a colonial space, a marginal space of France - but also as a foreground space and as such a space of translation and production of a specific imaginary of the Orient. In short, this article aims to highlight the contribution of French Indochina to the constitution of the cultural imaginary of Korea for France and the French-speaking world.