Portrait: AI-generated imagined likeness
Politician · Military leader
Korean military officer and politician. He seized power after a military coup in 1979 and suppressed the Gwangju democracy movement. He is a person who thinks about authoritarianism and democratization in South Korea during the Cold War.
View in catalogSeoul
Work
Gwangju
Work
December Twelfth coup
1979
Political event · Leader
Gwangju Uprising
1980
Movement · Opponent
Map: Natural Earth (PD)
Born in Korea under Japanese rule, he rose through the ranks in the South Korean military. In South Korea after the Korean War, anti-communist regimes, military political intervention, and economic growth were strongly linked.
In the chaos that followed Park Chung Hee's assassination, he took control of the military and established the Fifth Republic. While maintaining economic development, it restricted political freedom and severely suppressed democratic movements.
The crackdown in Gwangju in 1980 is remembered as a deep scar in modern Korean history. In later years, Chun Doo-hwan was held accountable in court, and the eradication of the military regime's past became a political issue.
Studying Chun Doo-hwan reveals that South Korea's democratization was not a natural result of economic growth, but progressed through repeated sacrifices and resistance to the military regime. He was an important figure in thinking about the Cold War and democratization in East Asia, and also influenced the memory of regional politics.
