Min Yeong-hwan Martyrdom Site민영환 자결터

About

The Min Yeong-hwan Martyrdom Site marks the place where Min Yeong-hwan took his own life in protest against the Eulsa Treaty, dying for his country. Min Yeong-hwan, a loyal official of the late Joseon period, demanded in front of the royal palace that the Eulsa Treaty be scrapped. When Japanese military police forcibly broke up the protest and his efforts failed, he took his own life at 6 a.m. on November 30, 1905, at the house of his steward, leaving three farewell letters: one to the people, one to the foreign envoys and one to the emperor. After his death, his bloodstained clothes and knife were hung in the wooden-floored mourning room. When the room's door was opened in May of the following year, four bamboo stalks are said to have grown up through the floorboards and the bloodstained clothes. Believing that his loyalty had appeared in the form of this blood bamboo, people called it jeoljuk, the bamboo of fidelity. At the site, in front of the Hana Building in Insa-dong, Jongno-gu, stands a memorial sculpture with calligraphy by Kim Chung-heon, sculpted by Baek Mun-gi. It is carved with bamboo, symbolizing the blood bamboo said to embody his loyalty, and a traditional latticed paper door, and it also features the dagger he used and his farewell letters.