Annals of the Joseon Dynasty
| Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty | |
| Hangul | |
|---|---|
| Hanja | |
| Revised Romanization | Joseon Wangjo Sillok |
| McCune–Reischauer | Chosŏnwangjo-sillok |
The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (also known as The True Record of the Joseon Dynasty) are the annual records of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, which were kept from 1413 to 1865. The annals, or sillok, comprise 1,893 volumes and are thought to cover the longest continual period of a single dynasty in the world. With the exception of two sillok compiled during the colonial era, the Annals are the 151st national treasure of Korea and listed in UNESCO's Memory of the World registry.
The Annals has since 2006 been digitalized by the National Institute of Korean History and available on the internet with Modern Korean translation in Hangul and original text in Classical Chinese.
In January 2012, the National Institute of Korean History announced that they are to translate the Annals into English by the year 2033. They plan to start work in 2014 with an initial budget of ₩500 million, but estimate that a budget of ₩40 billion is needed to complete the project.
During the reign of a king, professional historiographers maintained extensive records on national affairs and the activities of the state. They collected documents and wrote daily accounts that included state affairs as well as diplomatic affairs, the economy, religion, meteorological phenomena, the arts, and daily life, among other things. These daily accounts became the Sacho ("Draft History"). Great care was taken to ensure the neutrality of the historiographers, who were also officials with legal guarantees of independence. Nobody was allowed to read the Sacho, not even the king, and any historiographer who disclosed its contents or changed the content could be punished with beheading. These strict regulations lend great credibility to these records. Yet at least one king, tyrannical Yeonsangun looked into the Annals, and this led to the First Literati Purge of 1498, in which one recorder and five others were cruelly executed because of what was written in the Sacho. This incident led to greater scrutiny to prevent the king from seeing the Annals. In the Later Joseon period when there was intense conflict between different political factions, revision or rewriting of sillok by rival factions took place, but they were identified as such, and the original version was preserved.
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