What is a 'munjip'?

By Mark Peterson

I recently met an old friend. He’s a very old friend; in fact, he died in 1979, but I “met” him through the massive book he left behind. His name is Yun Nam-han, a professor at Chung-Ang University, and when I met him it was at his home that had been turned into a wall-to-wall, shelf-to-shelf, crowded library — no, archive. I wondered how his wife put up with his having taken over the whole house with shoeboxes full of 4-by-6 index cards. I was introduced to him because I wanted to find articles written over time about adoption and inheritance issues as I was preparing my Ph.D. dissertation. Yun was compiling a topic index on everything ever written in a "munjip."

What is a munjip? It is a collection of writings of one scholarly gentleman — essays, memorials to the king and epitaphs — all things nonfiction. One often translates “munjip” as “anthology” but the problem with that word in English is it implies fiction, while the Korean munjip is almost totally nonfiction. There is poetry, but little else in the fiction category.

So I was able to look at Yun’s index and find some references that interested me. A short while after that visit I got word that he had died. I was dismayed and felt it a shame that he had not been able to see his work published, as he had intended. Fortunately, the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) stepped in and completed the publication — a massive book of 2,373 pages. Thankfully, they put his name on the cover — giving him credit for all the work he had done.

So, I say I “met” Yun again recently, meaning I rediscovered his massive index that I had used so often in writing my Ph.D. dissertation. Since then, I’ve used it occasionally, and each time I remember visiting his crowded, small home taken over by index cards on shelves and shelves and shelves.

I was interested in the publication of munjip once again because of my recent work on woodblock printing and metal movable type printing — some of which I’ve reported previously here in this space. At this point, I was working on surnames — which family groups were represented in the publication of munjip. I was faced with an interesting conclusion — that the printing of a munjip was a greater honor than passing the highest exam, the "mungwa." Passing the mungwa exam has generally been thought of as the greatest accomplishment in the life of a "seonbi," or scholar, in the 1392-1910 Joseon period.

For example, if you see the typical artwork on folding screens with multiple panels, each with a depiction of the accomplishments of a man, hallmarks in his life, there is always a depiction of passing the mungwa exam. Thereafter, one is eligible to serve in the government. And service in the government was everything in traditional Korea — it was the only source of wealth, prestige and power. Access to all that was the passing of the exam.

So, the theory hit me that since there were fewer people who had their munjip published than those who passed the mungwa, it must have been a greater honor to have had a munjip. There were a total of 4,300 munjip published, according to Yun, of which about 1,300 were published after the fall of Joseon in the 20th century, leaving about 3,000 munjip published in the Joseon period, compared to 15,000 who passed the mungwa exam. Most of those who had a munjip published were those who had already passed the mungwa exam — making the publishing of a munjip truly something of the elite among the elite.

The process of having a munjip published was not a simple matter of going to a printer and ordering a book to be published. It had to be ordered by the king, and woodblocks were carved in order to publish the book. Then the woodblocks had to be stored, and that usually required building a separate building for that purpose. Sometimes the printing blocks could be stored in a building already built but they often built a separate building just to store the collection of precious woodblocks. You see such buildings at "seowon," or educational institutions, scattered all over Korea.

In recent years, because the libraries and woodblocks stored at isolated seowon have been vulnerable to fire or theft, the AKS in Pangyo, the Korean Studies Institute in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, and the Korea Institute of Confucian Culture in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, have all offered to safely house the woodblocks and printed books as well.

Which surname groups had the most munjip published? Of course, the major surname groups — Kim, Yi, Pak — had their share, but I was surprised to see how many minor surname groups had sterling records in publishing munjip. In my next installment, part 2 of this article, I plan to go over the records of those surnames who were most successful in the munjip game. It was a surprise to me — I’ll tell you about it next time.

Mark Peterson ([email protected]) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.