The purpose of this paper is to consider “national identity” in Colonial Korea. What was national identity in Colonial Korea, a society without “nationhood”? If it did exist in what way was it created? If the creation of the national identity by Colonial Korean intellectuals was formed as a thing in opposition to the imperial Japanese construct that national identity equaled imperial identity what exactly was it? Under the all-out war system that accompanied the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, what kind of conditions prevailed that made the production of a national identity in Colonial Korea possible? And was there continuity or discontinuity of this national identity after “liberation” from Japan in 1945? In order to carry out this research on the “joint ownership” of Korean nationality, this study focuses on national identity in Colonial Korea in the 1930s and 1940s. In the “National Studies” (Joseon Studies) of the 1930s and 1940s we can find an emphasis on the analysis of the discourse of “morality and righteousness” as in the “Rhetoric of the Empire” between Imperial Japanese and Colonial Korean intellectuals after the Sino-Japanese War. The discourse of “morality and righteousness” also occupied the central position in the formation of Korean national identity after “liberation”. This study examines how the colonial-period discourse on “morality and righteousness” among Korean intellectuals of Colonial Korea in the 1930s and 1940s prepared the ground for post-liberation discourse on national identity.

The purpose of this paper is to consider “national identity” in Colonial Korea. What was national identity in Colonial Korea, a society without “nationhood”? If it did exist in what way was it created? If the creation of the national identity by Colonial Korean intellectuals was formed as a thing in opposition to the imperial Japanese construct that national identity equaled imperial identity what exactly was it? Under the all-out war system that accompanied the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, what kind of conditions prevailed that made the production of a national identity in Colonial Korea possible? And was there continuity or discontinuity of this national identity after “liberation” from Japan in 1945? In order to carry out this research on the “joint ownership” of Korean nationality, this study focuses on national identity in Colonial Korea in the 1930s and 1940s. In the “National Studies” (Joseon Studies) of the 1930s and 1940s we can find an emphasis on the analysis of the discourse of “morality and righteousness” as in the “Rhetoric of the Empire” between Imperial Japanese and Colonial Korean intellectuals after the Sino-Japanese War. The discourse of “morality and righteousness” also occupied the central position in the formation of Korean national identity after “liberation”. This study examines how the colonial-period discourse on “morality and righteousness” among Korean intellectuals of Colonial Korea in the 1930s and 1940s prepared the ground for post-liberation discourse on national identity.