Heungseon Daewongun

Heungseon Daewongun (흥선대원군, 1820–1898) or The Daewongun (대원군), Guktaegong (국태공, ‘The Great Archduke’) or formally Heungseon Heonui Daewonwang (흥선헌의대원왕) and also known to period western diplomats as Prince Gung, was the title of Yi Ha-eung, regent of Joseon during the minority of King Gojong in the 1860s and until his death a key political figure of late Joseon Korea.

Daewongun literally translates as "prince of the great court", a title customarily granted to the father of the reigning monarch when that father did not reign himself (usually because his son had been adopted as heir of a relative who did reign). While there had been three other Daewongun during the Joseon Dynasty, so dominant a place did Yi Ha-eung have in the history of the late Joseon dynasty that the term Daewongun usually refers specifically to him.