The Wagner-Song Munkwa Index that has been forty years in the making will
be published in the spring of 2008. This panel celebrates this accomplishment
by looking at this valuable resource and demonstrating several of the many possible
applications of the index. The index is a comprehensive list of the 14,607 men
who passed the highest state civil service examination, the largest single tool
for recruiting the scholar-officials who served in the Choson government. The
index includes more than the names and dates of those who passed; age, family
relationships, residence, and other data are also contained in the index. These
papers will explain the structure of the index and demonstrate several interesting
applications of the data in historical, sociological, anthropological, and geographical
research on Choson Korea.
Man-o Song, Chunju University
This paper will examine the Wagner-Song Munkwa Index by first exploring how
it was compiled and brought to completion and what information it provide,
as well as some of its applications. Certainly the Wagner-Song Munkwa Index
is a resource that is valuable in the research of the elite strata of the Choson
dynasty, as a set of data that contains rich and varied information on the
more than 14,600 individuals who passed the exams over the span of the 500 years
of the Choson dynasty. The compilation of the index began over forty years
ago in the 1960s. The project began when Professor Song June-ho of Chunbuk University
and Professor Edward Wagner of Harvard University began a project called “A
Comprehensive Study of the Ruling Elite of the Choson Period”. The Wagner-Song
Munkwa Index was the heart of that study. The two professors both worked until
their deaths giving total devotion to the massive project. Unfortunately, the
index was not fully completed at the time both professors passed away. Thereafter,
Professor Song’s son, Song Man-o (the author of this paper), with support
from the Harvard Yenching Institute, has continued to work on the Wagner-Song
Munkwa Index with the result that results will be published in seven volumes
early in 2008.
Milan Hejtmanek, University of Pennsylvania
The Munkwa or High State Civil Service Examination was the central institution
for recruiting elite government officials during the Choson dynasty. Over the
741 times it was given between 1393 and 1894, out of millions of aspirants,
14,607 men passed. While these few passers may have comprised the fortunate
elite among the members of the yangban class, a munkwa degree was far from a
guarantee of success within the complex hierarchies of the central government
bureaucracy. The path to the State Council, the highest offices, was a tortuous
one, one lasting many decades, and one likely to lead as quickly downward as
up. Who were the successful candidates? How old were they? How diverse were
their social and geographical backgrounds? What was the linkage with the lower
(sama) exams? And perhaps most important of all, how did success on the examination
change their lives? Thanks to the Herculean efforts of Edward Wagner and Song
June-ho, whose scholarly work of compiling a comprehensive roster of all munkwa
passers spanned three decades, we can begin at last to attempt a preliminary
answer to these questions. This paper makes use of a rich subset of the database
to examine the career paths of successful candidates both across provinces and
within provinces, paying special attention to those officials who attained ministerial
(tangsang) status within the bureaucracy. Central government records, along
with information from private literary collections and local gazetteers will
also be cited to illuminate specific cases.
Mee Hae Park, Yonsei University
This paper will examine the meaning of passing the Korean higher civil service
exam (munkwa) based an analysis of diaries written in the Choson dynasty.
Passing the exam defined the ability to monopolize social power, arrange
marriages, control economic interests, and inherit family prestige, among other
things, in Choson Korea. In Confucian society, to pass the exam meant, on the
one hand, recognition of one’s scholarly ability, and on the other hand, a realization
of one’s filial piety. A Confucian scholar’s pious duty was not
limited to his immediate family, but he also performed filial roles for the
parents and kinsmen of other exam passers by assisting such families’ livelihood.
After a passer had served in office and retired, subsequent passers would provide
economic assistance. In most cases, one’s in-laws also provided such assistance,
for one’s success in the examination and office-holder process was often
made possible by one’s own bloodline relatives and one’s affines
(in-laws). These cases show the social meaning of passing the exam and its
application in the Choson dynasty which in turn verifies the importance of the
Wagner-Song Munkwa Index.
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