Legacy
The assassination of Ito by An was praised by Koreans and many Chinese as well, who were struggling against Japanese invasion at the time. Well-known Chinese political leaders such as Yuan Shikai (袁世凱), Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙; 孫文), and Liang Qichao (梁啟超) wrote poems acclaiming An.
An was posthumously awarded the Republic of Korea Medal of Order of Merit for National Foundation (건국훈장 대한민국장; 建國勳章 大韓民國章) in 1962 by the Korean Government, the most prestigious civil decoration in the Republic of Korea, for his efforts for Korean independence. Memorial halls for An were erected in Seoul in 1970 by the South Korean government and in Harbin by the Chinese government in 2006.
In the 2010 An Jung Geun Symposium in Korea, (和田春樹), an activist who once worked at Tokyo University, evaluated An by quoting (伊藤之雄), a fellow history scholar in Kyoto University. In his text published in 2009, Ito Yukio claims that the reign by Ito Hirobumi resulted in strong resistance from Koreans as it was considered the first step for annexation of Korea due to the cultural differences, and that An is not to be blamed even if he assassinated Ito without understanding Ito's ideology (2009, Ito).
On March 26, 2010, a nation-wide centenary tribute to An was held in South Korea, including a ceremony led by the Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan and tribute concerts.
Read more about this topic: An Jung-geun
Famous quotes containing the word legacy:
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)