Rooted in Jincheon-gun’s Early Support, the Award-winning Research Formally Excavated the Kaesong Lineage of Min Wan-sik and Oh Jin-hwan
Scholarly Monograph Published via Kyobo Book Centre and Globally Indexed in SSRN and Google Scholar for Digital Archiving
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SEOUL, South Korea — The structural framework to preserve Korea’s rare indigenous physical culture has achieved a historical milestone through the confluence of municipal support, elite academic recognition, and the official revival of an award-winning scholarly journal.
The North Korean Provinces Sports Association recently announced the official resumption and republication of Gukmu Nonchong (The Journal of Traditional Martial Arts Studies). Originally acclaimed for its scholarly rigor, the journal notably received the prestigious Research Award from the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC) in 2006. Although its publication had been temporarily suspended due to administrative constraints, its resurgence marks a pivotal turning point in documenting the cultural identity of displaced martial artists and validating the transmission lines of Northern Korean intangible heritage.
The academic genesis of this research traces back to a comprehensive field study funded and supported by Jincheon-gun, Chungcheongbuk-do. Utilizing this public municipal backing, researchers selected Grandmaster Song Chang-ryeol, the certified successor of Subak, as the primary empirical subject. Led by the late Kim Jae-il (an 8th Dan Kendo Grandmaster, former Vice President of the Korea Kendo Association, and President of the Gyeonggi-do Kendo Association), the research team conducted exhaustive oral history interviews, kinesiological analyses, and technical demonstrations.
Crucially, this Jincheon-gun supported project successfully excavated and verified the rare northern transmission lineage of Subak, linking it directly to Min Wan-sik and Oh Jin-hwan (born in Kaesong, 1919). This structural discovery proved that Subak was actively transmitted through Kaesong’s distinct regional culture before being disrupted by the Korean War and subsequent territorial division. Kim Jae-il’s seminal paper, published in the 2nd Volume of Gukmu Nonchong under the auspices of the Bae-dal Gukmu Research Institute, was the exact work honored by the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee.
Expanding upon this award-winning foundation, a definitive scholarly monograph titled “Academic Research on the Excavation of Traditional Martial Art Subak Practitioners” has been formally published through Kyobo Book Centre. The volume compiles high-resolution video captures, meticulous transcriptions, and technical breakdowns from the historic 2003 invitation dialogue between Grandmaster Song Chang-ryeol and Kim Jae-il. To ensure global democratic access, the entire research output has been indexed within the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and Zenodo, making it fully searchable on Google Scholar.
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