Yun Se-ju(尹世冑) is mostly remembered as a chief leader of the Korean Volunteers(朝鮮義勇隊) who died in a combat with Japanese army in north China at the end of May of 1942. However, it was not alone in far abroad that his battle front was found and formed. Also in domestic realities until he exiled to China, he continuously resisted to and fought against Japanese colonial rule. Meanwhile, he passed through various fields of national movement, taking and mobilizing all the strategies and means possible. With special reference to these points, it is attempted m this paper to reconstruct his life history of about thirty years from birth to exile and to look into rich contents and achievements of his career as a resistant and fighter for national independence.
Bom in 1900, Yun showed off a plenty of anti-Japanese temperament through some anecdotes so early in boyhood. In 1919, he took the initiative in planning and practising the March 1st Movement of Milyang(密陽) as a large-scale demonstration of the residents on March 13. Having escaped from arrest by going abroad to Zirin of Manchuria, he became a member of 13 founders of the Ui’yoldan(義烈團; Righteous and Ardent Corps). Subsequently, he participated in its first attempt at special attack to the domestic Japanese institutions and government officials by means of guns and bombs in 1920. But he was arrested unfortunately just before actual operation, along with other 19 comrades.
Throughout the police trial and nearly seven years of imprisonment, Yun maintained a dauntless attitude and continued to resist boldly to tortures and other wrongful treatments. Soon after releasement, he participated actively in establishing the Milyang Branch of the Shin’ganhoe(新幹會) and m its various activities. He also embarked on press struggle through resolute speeches at newsmen's periodical conferences and by becoming a substantial manager of the newspaper Jung'oe-ilbo(中外日報). Moreover, he gave support secretly to some local student movement and labor movement.
In autumn of 1932, Yun exiled to China solely and returned to the Ui'yeoldan. Before being decided to do so, he had to experience successively discontinuance of the Jung'oe-ilbo due to managerial hardships, dissolution of the Shin'ganhoe, and his father’s death. Until 1935 thereafter, he led management of the Military and Political Academy for Chosun Revolution(朝鮮革命軍事政治幹部學校) founded by the Ui'yeoldan in Nanking, and commanded both the anti-Japanese and the anti-Manchukuo operations, in close cooperation with Kim Won-bong(金元鳳). At the same time, he propelled the national fronts’ unification movement to contribute gravely to birth of the unified National Revolution Party(民族革命黨).
In sum, Yun’s anti-Japanese movement during his twenties and early thirties was propelled on two main axes of hometown struggle and Ui'yeoldan membership. At the same time, it was diverse enough to include many types of activity, each of which deserved a best and foremost strategy at every time/place in which he was situated. Such an internal connection made it possible for his walkings and lines altogether to form a consistent current.
It can be assured that Yun's commitment to armed struggle after 1938 have been prepared through the later Ui'yeoldan movement, which itself must have been steered carefully by his reflection on the limits of the previous forms and ways of anti-Japanese struggle. Thus a kind of dialectical logic always penetrated Yun’s search for the right way toward national revolution.