Prof. Dr. Reinhard Zöllner

Reinhard Zöllner is concerned with the role of slavery and slave trade in early modern East Asia. In the 15th to 17th centuries, pirate activities and warfare resulted in the enslavement and trading of considerable numbers of Koreans and Chinese. Slavery was still a common institution in Choseon Korea until the 19th century, whereas in China and Japan, it was almost absent. Recent research indicates that deserting slaves tried to escape to Japan by sea but were "repatriated" to Korea without the Japanese authorities inquiring about their status. On the other side of the coin, Koreans who had been abducted to Japan in the wars of the late 16th century were used as forced laborers until their repatriation was negotiated between the two governments. Zöllner's focus will be on the relationship between international politics and slavery.

9 books, 9 edited volumes, 67 papers and various book reviews. 200 national and international presentations and lectures, 15 completed, 5 ongoing Ph.D. supervisions.

Project Phase 2

Patterns of Resistance and Agency in SADs in Pre-modern and Modern Korea and Japan

In pre-modern Korea and Japan, those identified as passive subjects of SADs were primarily
understood as the Korean Nobi, often referred to as slaves, and the personally free but economically and legally bound peasants in Japan. The right to freedom of movement was similarly restricted for both groups, which is why attempts to escape this SAD without permission were considered desertion and punished accordingly. Particularly interesting, yet scarcely researched, are attempts by Korean Nobi to flee to Japan by sea. Besides individual attempts, there were also collective escape efforts. Additionally, in the case of Korea, there were uprisings where the Nobi’s registers were destroyed to make proof of ownership impossible. In the nineteenth century, both groups also turned to religious movements that were meant to legitimize collective resistance and violence. Moreover, in Japan, there lived numerous descendants of Koreans who were abducted to Japan at the end of the sixteenth century and settled there as slaves or forced laborers. The few existing studies suggest that some of these groups tried to preserve their cultural identity in a foreign environment; others turned to Christianity until its prohibition. This project aims to explore, compare, and typologically classify the strategies of these diverse groups, which are historically linked by the neighborhood of Japan and Korea. After entering the modern era, the last legal elements of personal SAD were abolished in Korea and Japan, yet in the following decades up to the 1920s, both countries continued to experience collective emancipatory movements that connected in their methods of action and patterns of argumentation to the pre-modern movements. During the Japanese colonial period in Korea, there was even transnational cooperation between these movements. This project aims to examine whether these movements can be structurally and substantively understood as legacies from the pre-modern movements that preceded them.

The central aims of this project are (1) Identification, translation, and interpretation of relevant historical sources with a special focus on (a) transnational transactions and (b) religious movements; (2) Development of a typology of patterns of individual and collective resistance and agency in pre-modern Korea and Japan. 

1997
Habilitation and Venia legendi in Japanology, University of Trier, Germany

1988–1992
Ph.D., University of Kiel, Germany

1981–1988
MA in Latin, History, and Japanology University of Kiel (Germany), University of Hamburg (Germany), Sophia University Tokyo (Japan)

since 2008
Professor of Japanese Studies, Department of Japanese and Korean Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

2003–2004
Toyota Visiting Professor, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, USA

1999–2008
Professor of East Asian History, Chair of East Asian History, University of Erfurt, Germany

1997–1999
Professor of Economic and Social History of Modern Japan, Department of Japanology, University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

1990–1997
Lecturer, Department of Modern Japanese Studies, University of Düsseldorf, Germany

since 2010
Co-editor of the journal "Crossroads – Studies on the History of Exchange Relations in the East Asian World"

since 2009
Member of the scientific advisory board of the journal "Historische Mitteilungen" of the Ranke Society

since 2005
External reviewer for approximately 30 historical and Japanese appointment procedures at German, Belgian and French universities

since 2000
Co-editor of the series "Reihe zur Geschichte Ostasiens" 
Reviewer for national and international research organizations and foundations

• DFG (newspaper project since 2010)
• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (joint projects since 2005)
• Japan Foundation
• Japanese Foundation for the Promotion of Science
• Korea Foundation
• North East Asia History Foundation

The total sum of approximately € 1.4 million.