The development of early modern history of Korea is tightly connected with foreign countries. Not only the Japanese, but Chinese, Russian and American influence played a great role in the formation of Korean national identity and later, the Korean states. This historical narrative, however, went through modifications according to the ideological or political needs in both North and South Korea, beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, when all the Korean history was being rewritten and it reflected in the education of national history for the first time after the liberation.
This presentation introduced the results of research on early North and South Korean historiography and its influence on the history taught in schools. The reasearch was done on selected early history textbooks from each state (Chosŏn inmin haebang t'ujaengsa (kyojae). DPRK: Naegak chiksok chungang chidokanbu hakkyo; Yŏksa kyoyuk yŏn'guhoe. Kodŭngguksa, chŏnhangnyŏnyong. ROK Sŏul: Kyousa, 1964, firstly written in 1955 and published in 1957). The research qualitatively and quantitatively analysis the contents concerning the period between 1876 and 1945, with focus on the foreign influence on the main events of that time.