Yu Hyong-Won

Yu Hyong-Won

 

(pseudonym, Pangye surok). Born in 1622; died in 1673. Korean thinker and representative of the Sirhak movement, a progressive current in social thought that aimed at revising official Confucian ideology, propagating the “real sciences” (sirhak) and bringing about socioeconomic changes.

Yu Hyong-won was born in Seoul of aristocratic parents, but spent almost his entire life in the village of Uban-dong in Chollado Province. A scholar of encyclopedic learning, he was the first in feudal Korea to draw up a program of agrarian, industrial, and commercial reform designed “to eliminate abuses and restore the country to health.” He also advocated civic equality.

REFERENCE

Istoriia Korei, vol. 1. Moscow, 1960. Pages 357-58. (Translated from Korean.)