광무 양전·지계사업 연구사와 토지소유권 논쟁 = A Study of the Research Conducted on the Guangmu Yangjeon Projects and Debates about Land Ownership

광무 양전·지계사업 연구와 토지소유권 논쟁을 검토한다.

In 1968, Kim Yong-seop began studying the Korean Empire’s Gwangmu Yangjeon and Jigye projects. He concluded that the Korean Empire’s Yangjeon and Jigye projects were a result of the establishment of a modern land system that would accomplish the empire’s goals in preparation for land survey projects by Japan. In addition to land surveys, these projects consisted of land ownership surveys and official certificates of ownership were granted to landowners. However, land survey projects were conducted by the Japanese colonial government without abolishing the feudal landlord system.

Although neither the Korean Empire nor the Japanese Empire implemented land reform measures, the establishment of a modern land system indicated that they were both headed in the direction of land reform. Awareness of problems and the composition of early research served as a basic structure for later studies which revealed land problems during the Korean Empire and the Japanese colonial periods. Since the 1990s, empirical analysis of the land ownership survey method conducted by economic historians has been criticized for revealing the problems of ownership investigations which was the basis of the Korean Empire’s land tax revenue system.

Modern Korean historians have studied how land surveys have developed and the process of establishing land ownership through a review of the Gwangmu-Yangjeon projects. Debates over this issue remain ongoing as the land ownership situation and compliance with the issue remain unsettled. There has been particularly significant controversy over the regulation and effectiveness of landownership(시주, 時主). The perspectives on initial modern land reforms must be developed and they must be studied using advanced research methods to provide a critical appraisal of and to counter the findings of research on the Gwangmu Yangjeon project.

For example, it is necessary to broaden the scope of the overall modern land reform process, to conduct a case study of Gwang-mu Yang-an to demonstrate the interrelationship between family registers on both sides, and to study modern land ownership legislation.