again my curiosity got the best of me so questions again. I do love a good history lesson in all of these dramas, so is there any avid genealogists here that love to figure out those historical mysteries we watch?
be they true or some nontruths? those kings, queens, concubines, etc, etc, etc. wow, like the “last princess” I understand that was a true story. I would love to find lineages of these people, entangled with mystery as well. is there any? are there any people from those lines ? or are they all gone. or should I just stick with watching these dramas and call it good?
Read the wikipedia article on Sejong who is called the Great King. He invented the Korean alphabet, hangul, so that peasants could learn to read and was responsible for many changes to the government and culture. What fascinated me was that he also had 25 known children. There have been several dramas about the internecine fights among his descendants for the throne.
While in Korea a few years ago, at a museum exhibit, I saw news articles, photos, and a documentary about the end of the Joseon dynasty. Korea was a “colony” of Japan from 1905 to 1945. The Japanese forced the Yi family to marry members of the Japanese nobility. The last crown prince was married to a noble woman whom the Japanese government chose deliberately because they believed she was infertile. Surprise!! She had two sons and came to love Korea. After 1945, the US government placed royal descendants in the US at the request of the Korean government and for younger members, sent them to universities in the US.
