Calligraphy created by Assassin while waiting for the execution of auction records in South Korea

The calligraphy by a hero of the independence of South Korea, created while waiting for the execution to kill a Japanese leader, is breaking new auction records in Seoul, since the ultra rich of the country seeks to take home the historical works of art.

Venerated in the south for their efforts to defend the country against the Japanese invasion, Ahn Jung-Geun is better known for its dramatic high-risk murder of the first Prime Minister of Japan, Ito Hirobumi, in 1909 at a train station in Harbin. Ahn shouted “Hurra for Korea!” As arrested, according to the Association of Asian Studies based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

He was hanged for the murder by the Japanese authorities in 1910, only a few months before Tokyo formally attached the Korean peninsula, marking the beginning of a brutal period of occupation that lasted until the end of World War II.

Now, more than a century after his death, the calligraphy that Ahn created in his prison cell during his last days, typically at the request of Japanese officials, is attracting new attention in the dazzling artistic scene of Seoul.

In South Korea, AHN’s life has long inspired artists of all generations, giving rise to a very famous musical, multiple novels and films, including a starring the actor “Crash Landing on You” Hyun Bin.

Ahn was arrested in his prison cell in China for about 40 days prior to its execution and remained busy writing an autobiography and doing hundreds of calligraphy pieces, including a requested by his own prison guard.

“The court and prison officials, saying that they wanted to maintain my calligraphy as a souvenir, brought me hundreds of silk and paper sheets and asked me to create for them,” Ahn wrote in their autobiography. “I ended up spending several hours every day doing calligraphy, although it was not particularly skilled.”

Although Ahn had murdered their high official ito, the Japanese who took their calligraphy kept them carefully, and some of their descendants have donated them to the South Korean government, which later designated them as national treasures.

Now, more of the calligraphies are emerging in the private art market, and the last one was auctioned last month in Seoul for 940 million Wones ($ 674,098), more than three times its initial offer.

The piece, which says “Green Bamboo”, a traditional integrity symbol, had been owned by a Japanese individual who did not want to be identified, and had done an impeccable work preserving it, said Kim Jun-Seon, a specialist in art valuation in Seoul Auction.

“I was not even mounted and it was still rolled, but when we opened the case, the scent of the ink still remained in the air,” he told News.

“Idealist wrong but of principles”

Japan said Ahn was a criminal and terrorist and refused to deliver his remains. They have never been located.

The movements to honor Ahn by Seoul and Beijing have previously tensioned ties with Tokyo, even briefly causing a diplomatic row in 2013.

In 2014, Japan criticized a monument built in China to commemorate AHN, BBC News reported. A Japanese government spokesman described a terrorist after the China-Corean memorial hall opened in the city of Harbin in China, where he was shot from Ito.

The fact that their Japanese captors retained their calligraphy “reflects the cultural and political contradictions of the early twentieth century,” said Eugene Y. Park, professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno.

In his trial, Ahn identified himself as a soldier for Korea, defined his murder of Ito as a military operation and imagined an East United Asia, which includes Korea, China and Japan, something similar to today’s European Union.

“Some Japanese may have seen him as a wrong idealist but with principles,” Park told News.

His calligraphy, which focused on values ​​such as peace and ethics, “he resonated culturally, even if he opposed politically,” he said.

“At a time when Japan’s own imperial identity was unstable, preserving his works revealed deeper tensions between respect for moral courage and the search for colonial domination.”

In 2023, the Sae-A Global Group, a South Korean conglomerate, bought one of AHN’s calligraphs for a 1.95 billion won record (almost $ 1.4 million).

The “Green Bamboo” piece was sold at an auction last month to the family of the LS group of South Korea.

“We express our intention to bring the piece back to Korea and share it with the public,” said Joung Tae-Hee in Seoul Auction, adding that the Japanese owner agreed to sell after hearing his proposal.

Lee Sang-Hyun, from the LS group family, told News that their mother “expects many citizens to see this piece and will also be studied,” and are considering donating it to a national institution.

Ahn became a Catholic when he was a teenager and ends his autobiography with the words of Nicolas Joseph Marie Wilhelm, a French priest and missionary parked in Korea, who traveled to his prison to see the activist and give him confession.

The priest, who had also baptized Ahn and was a friend for a long time, was disciplined for his trip and then was forced to return to France.

“The funny lord will never abandon you,” Wilhelm told Ahn. “It will surely take you, so rest your heart and go in peace.”

In:
• South Korea
• Seoul