• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.156-179
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• 2020

The Preservation Decree (1933) is the basic law relevant to the conservation of cultural property of colonial Chosun, and invoked clauses from the Old History Preservation Act (1897), the Historic Scenic Sites Natural Monument Preservation Act (1919), and the National Treasure Preservation Act (1929), which were all forms of Japanese Modern Cultural Heritage Law, and actually used the corresponding legal text of those laws. Thus, the fact that the Preservation Decree transplanted or imitated the Japanese Modern Cultural Heritage Law in the composition of the constitution can be proved to some extent. The main features and characteristics of the Preservation Decree are summarized below. First, in terms of preservation of cultural property, the Preservation Decree strengthened and expanded preservation beyond the existing conservation rules. In the conservation rules, the categories of cultural properties were limited to historic sites and relics, while the Preservation Decree classifies cultural properties into four categories: treasures, historic sites, scenic spots, and natural monuments. In addition, the Preservation Decree is considered to have advanced cultural property preservation law by establishing the standard for conserving cultural property, expanding the scope of cultural property, introducing explicit provisions on the restriction of ownership and the designation system for cultural property, and defining the basis for supporting the natural treasury. Second, the Preservation Decree admittedly had limitations as a colonial cultural property law. Article 1 of the Preservation Decree sets the standard of "Historic Enhancement or Example of Art" as a criteria for designating treasures. With the perspective of Japanese imperialism, this acted as a criterion for catering to cultural assets based on the governor's assimilation policy, revealing its limitations as a standard for preserving cultural assets. In addition, the Japanese imperialists asserted that the cultural property law served to reduce cultural property robbery, but the robbery and exporting of cultural assets by such means as grave robbery, trafficking, and exportation to Japan did not cease even after the Preservation Decree came into effect. This is because governors and officials who had to obey and protect the law become parties to looting and extraction of property, or the plunder and release of cultural property by the Japanese continued with their acknowledgement,. This indicates that cultural property legislation at that time did not function properly, as the governor allowed or condoned such exporting and plundering. In this way, the cultural property laws of the Japanese colonial period constituted discriminative colonial legislation which was selected and applied from the perspective of the Japanese government-general in the designation and preservation of cultural property, and the cultural property policy of Japan focused on the use of cultural assets as a means of realizing their assimilation policy. Therefore, this suggests that the cultural property legislation during the Japanese colonial period was used as a mechanism to solidify the cultural colonial rules of Chosun and to realize the assimilation policy of the Japanese government-general.