[XIX] Юн Чхи Хо (윤치호 / 尹致昊, 1864 — 1945) – человек интересной и трагической судьбы. В 1881 году он в-первые побывал в Японии, выучил английский язык, был свидетелем событий в здании корейского почтового управления 4 декабря 1884 года, плотно общался с членами Общества независимости, сидел в тюрьме за антияпонскую деятельность, отказался подписывать декларацию независимости 1 марта 1919 года, после освобождения полуострова в 1945м году он оказался на территории, подконтрольной СГА, где вскоре и умер.
А еще Юн Чхи Хо очень прилежно вел дневник. Эти дневники, который он, кстати, вел преимущественно на английском языке, - кладезь исторической информации.
Вот, например, что писал Юн в разгар Русско-Японской войны. 27 мая 1904 года:
Russian in the North and West provinces commit outranges wherever they go, their cursed tracks are marked with burnt villages, murdered women and children, destroyed fields. Fire and blood are Russians favorite means of war, beaten by Japanese, the savages wreck their important wrath on the helpless Koreans.
In the southern Provinces, through which the Fusan Railroad runs, Japanese are treating Koreans pretty much as whites treated Indians in America years ago and still treat blacks in Africa at present. Japanese nominally buy but practically rob fields, forests, and houses of Koreans. If any resist their sweet will, they kick, beat and sometimes kill Koreans like dogs. Korean has no place to appeal to for protection. The Japanese professing to be fighting for the welfare of Korea, don't even disguise their well-known intention and policy of making Koreans their slaves.
While all this is happening, the Emperor is busy in building palaces. He who whiles away his time in a couple of rooms with sorceresses and fortune-tellers,— he who has neither the wish nor time to see the light of the day or breathe a pure atmosphere outside of a heated antechamber,—he to whom might is day, corruption is joy, intrigue is life—this man wastes millions on millions, extorted from the accursed people of this accursed country, in building useless palaces only to be burnt down, or to be occupied by someone else.
Japanese seem to have decided to do nothing in the way of reform until they shall have, through the corrupt and cowardly Emperor, obtained every source of interest in the country. When they feel satisfied—can a leech be satisfied?—that they have no more to get in the shape of concessions, they may, for the sake of appearance, blow trumpets about reformation etc. etc.
А! Ну и племянник у него Юн Бо Сон (윤보선 / 尹潽善, 1897 — 1990) – второй президент Республики Кореи и сам по себе оооооочень колоритный персонаж =)
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