Season | Summer | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Period | 15 August 2021 (solar calendar) | ||||||
Introduction | "Gwangbokjeol," or National Liberation Day, is held on August 15 as a national holiday to commemorate August 15, 1945, the day on which the country was finally liberated from thirty-five years of Japanese colonial rule. | ||||||
Gwangbokjeol (光復節), National Liberation Day
National Liberation Day is a national holiday held to commemorate the independence fighters who fought and died for the country and to celebrate the liberation of the Korean people. However, under circumstances in which the dominance of the Japanese Empire and the legacies of the war in East Asia have not been fully resolved even after more than seventy years, and with the country still divided, as it is viewed, merely commemorating the past historic event might not serve the purpose. Over time its meaning has shifted toward a day on which to wish or pray for the unification of the Korean Peninsula and for peace in East Asia. |