“When imperial Japan enacted the brutal Sōshi-kaimei decree in 1939 attempting to erase Korean surnames and ancestry, clan elders across the peninsula chose defiance. Hiding five-hundred-year-old Jokbo volumes beneath floorboards and in mountain shrines, they guarded the sacred record of Korean lineage.”
1. The Colonial Cultural Eradication Campaign
Under the Governor-General of Korea, the Japanese colonial government launched an aggressive policy to assimilate Koreans into imperial subjects, culminating in the 1939 decree forcing all Koreans to adopt Japanese-style family names under penalty of administrative exclusion, denial of education, and police harassment.
2. Clan Resistance and the Preservation of the Jokbo
Andong Kim clan leaders in Andong and Seoul organized clandestine networks to copy, hide, and safeguard the clan's genealogical master records. Many scholars refused to register Japanese names, enduring imprisonment and deprivation rather than renouncing their Bon-gwan and ancestral identity.
3. The Triumph of Archival Continuity
Following national liberation on August 15, 1945, these preserved records allowed the Andong Kim clan to restore their full generational lineage intact—a testament to the resilience of Korean genealogical documentation against total colonial erasure.