Choe Nam-seon

Choe Nam-seon
Hangul	최남선
Hanja	崔南善
Revised Romanization	Choe Nam-seon
McCune–Reischauer	Ch'oe Namsŏn
Pen name
Hangul	육당
Hanja	六堂
Revised Romanization	Yukdang
McCune–Reischauer	Yuktang
Courtesy name
Hangul	공륙
Hanja	公六
Revised Romanization	Gongnyuk
McCune–Reischauer	Kongnyuk

Choe Nam-seon (April 26, 1890- October 10, 1957) was a prominent modern Korean historian, pioneering poet and publisher, and a leading member of the Korean independence movement. He was born into a jungin (class between aristocrats and commoners) family in Seoul, Korea, under the late Joseon Dynasty, and educated in Seoul. In 1904, he went to study in Japan, and was greatly impressed by the Meiji Restoration reforms. Upon his return to Korea, Choe became active in the Patriotic Enlightenment Movement, which sought to modernize Korea.

Choe published Korea's first successful modern magazine Sonyeon (Youth), through which he sought to bring modern knowledge about the world to Korea's youth. He coined the term hangul for the Korean alphabet and promoted it as a literary medium through his magazines. The author of the first “new-style” poem, “Hae egeso Sonyeon ege” (The Ocean to the Youth, 1908), he is widely credited with pioneering modern Korean poetry. Choe sought to create a new style of literary Korean would be more accessible to ordinary people. But at the same time, he was proud of classical Korean literature and he founded the Association of Korea's Glorious Literature in 1910 that sought to encourage ordinary people to read the classics of Korean literature that until then had been mostly read by the elites. Through the work of the Chinese nationalist writer Liang Qichao, Choe learned of the Western theories of Social Darwinism and the idea that history was nothing more than an endless struggle between various people to dominate each other with only the fittest surviving. Choe believed that this competition would only end with Korea ruling the world. In a 1906 essay, he wrote:

"How long will it take us to accomplish the goal of flying our sacred national flag above the world and having people of the five continents kneeling down before it? Exert yourselves, our youth!".

Choe's magazine Sonyeon was intended to popularize Western ideas about science and technology though a more readable Korean that would modernize the Korean nation for Social Darwinist competition for world domination. Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910 accelerated the independence movement. Influenced by Social Darwinist theories, Choe urged in numerous articles that the Koreans would have to modernize in order to be strong to survive. In a 1917 article in Hwangsǒng sinmun (Capital Gazette), Choe wrote:

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