Introduction

National Museum of Korea (NMK) was established right after the liberation by the US military government in Korea. NMK launched its activities for discovering ethnic national culture following on from the museological legacy of the Government-General Museum. However, political disorder in the late 1940s and during the Korean War hindered NMK and South Korean academics from making meaningful progress in their research on material culture. It was after liberation in 1945 that Koreans got to participate in the discovery and interpretation of their material culture through the national museum. Early pioneers of cultural nationalism in Korea were eager to find symbolic images of the nation, such as the national soul and a national progenitor. The construction of national identity by the authoritarian regimes contributed to nationalising South Korean society, as well as providing the regimes with political and moral authority. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.