Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Iryǒn as a historian

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2013

Abstract

This article deals with the author´s intervention in the text of Samguk Yusa (三國遺事) chronicle. To be normative, Samguk Yusa presents itself as a historical text, i.e. it contains and preserves many features of the then mun, it uses all the available materials concerning the era of Samguk and T´ongil Silla.

Nevertheless, the aim of the chronicle was not telling the only official part of Korean history, but recording – through various stories – the Buddhist tradition of the history of Korea, the history of Buddhist missionaries, eminent monks, miracles, places and relicts etc. Thus, the text is far from official histories in its genre characteristics, it alterates historical and fictitious features and, it is purposeful in many aspects.

This article tries to explain Samguk Yusa from the author´s point of view, it speculates about his original intention and discusses the mains and ways of its fulfillment.