Yi Beom-jin

Yi Beom-jin (1852–1911), a Seoul official who passed the civil service examination in 1879, joined the court faction seeking Russian support against Japanese pressure. After Queen Min's assassination, he participated in the unsuccessful Chunsaengmun rescue attempt of 1895. He helped Gojong take refuge at the Russian legation in 1896 and became justice minister and police chief. ¹

Appointed minister to Washington in June 1896, Yi received royal credentials and a Korean flag before crossing the Pacific. He attended five presidential audiences during the period covered by his diplomatic journal, June 1896–January 1897. His staff recorded the presidential election, American political institutions, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and practiced English vocabulary and conversation. The journal was copied by legation secretary Yi Geon-ho. ²

Yi visited the Treasury to study American public finances and took an interest in Congress and the Supreme Court. He assisted Korean ginseng sellers and considered technological and institutional reform necessary to preserve Korean independence. Yet the legation's limited budget restricted even routine entertainment of other diplomats. ³

Transferred to Russia in 1900, Yi refused to deliver Seoul's approval of a Russian lease at Yongampo, provoking his temporary dismissal. After Japan imposed its protectorate in 1905, he resisted recall and stayed in St. Petersburg. He assisted Gojong's envoys to the 1907 Hague conference and sent his son Yi Wi-jong with them as an interpreter. He subsequently supported Korean resistance forces in the Russian Far East. Following annexation, he died by suicide in 1911; a bequest helped finance a Korean school in Vladivostok. ¹