If this author had to pick the most important year in East Asian history, it would probably be 1945 - the year the fall of the Japanese Empire dramatically changed the situation in the entire region.
Many different possibilities were considered for Japan’s former possessions, including the colony of Korea.
One such document on the peninsula’s fate was “A Note of Former Japanese Colonies and Mandate Territories” (Записка к вопросу о бывших японских колониях и подмандатных территориях).
Composed by the Head of the Department of the United States of America in the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, Semyon Tsarapkin, on September 5, it showed that
If this author had to pick the most important year in East Asian history, it would probably be 1945 - the year the fall of the Japanese Empire dramatically changed the situation in the entire region.
Many different possibilities were considered for Japan’s former possessions, including the colony of Korea.
Fyodor Tertitskiy is a senior researcher at Seoul's Kookmin University. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Seoul National University, and is author of "North Korea before Kim Il Sung," which you buy here.
