Korean nationalism

Korean nationalism (Korean: 한국 국민주의; Hanja: 韓國國民主義) can be viewed in two different contexts. One encompasses various movements throughout history to maintain a Korean cultural identity, history, and ethnicity (or "race"). This ethnic nationalism was mainly forged in opposition to foreign incursion and rule. The second context encompasses how Korean nationalism changed after the partition in 1945. Today, the former tends to predominate.^[1]

The term "pure blood" refers to the belief that Korean people are a pure race descended from a single ancestor. Invoked during the period of resistance to colonial rule, the idea gave Koreans a sense of ethnic homogeneity and national pride, and a potential catalyst for racial discrimination and prejudice.

The dominant strand of nationalism in South Korea, tends to be romantic in nature (specifically ethnic or "racial"), rather than civic. This form of romantic nationalism often competes with and weakens the more formal and structured civic national identity. South Koreans' lack of state-derived nationalism (i.e. patriotism) manifests itself in various ways. For example, there is no national holiday solely commemorating the state itself and many South Koreans do not know the exact date their country was founded (i.e. 15 August 1948).

Romantic ethnic nationalism in North Korea has strong salience as well, though unlike in South Korea, civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism do not compete but rather co-exist and reinforce each other. This can be attributed to the state-sponsored ideology of Juche, which utilizes ethnic identity to enhance state power and control.

In South Korea, Korean nationalism is largely divided into two strains: "ethnic nationalism", which was the belief that Korean people share blood and belong to the "Korean homeland", and the anti-imperialism driven "liberal nationalism", which forms a political center-left camp.