"The institute is designed to counter an academic project of the Chinese government, which Korean historians complain distorts historical facts concerning Korea's Goguryeo Kingdom. The research foundation will focus on the study of Korea's ancient history as well as contemporary regional studies of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, with emphasis on Goguryeo history. This year, it will place priorities on the groundwork for research by collecting historical materials, supporting translations of foreign materials, and hosting academic conferences and research works. "
This could get interesting.
That is interesting, isn't it? :)
BTW that reminds me of something that's been in the back of my mind as I've been reading this. I was doing some research on the history of martial arts a couple years ago and noticed that the Korean Tae Kwon Do schools, which are tied to the Korean military, teach an "official" history of Korea, which at least in the South Korean version has a nationalistic slant, and includes mention of historical and legendary figures reaching back into the Goguryeo time period we're discussing and earlier. I'm more familiar with the southern version of the history, though I imagine there must be an equivalent in North Korea which probably has a different emphasis in keeping with NK's propaganda line. As I've been thinking about this thread I've become curious how the official Korean histories play into the controversy over the Goguryeo thing. If there's a territorial dispute between Korea and China involved I'd imagine there must be several historical factions representing different interests in the dispute; would assume Russian and Japanese historians probably also have an interest in the situation.