One of our valued customers has a personal memory of Yi Bangja (Japanese reading: Ri Masako), the last Crown Princess of the Korean Empire, the former Princess Masako of Nashimoto. Indeed he continues to respect her and visits Yi Banja's Royal Tomb in Seoul to this day.

According to our customer, the Yi Bangja connection began through a Japanese aquaintance who was a childhood playmate of the then Princess Masako of Nashimoto who became the wife of the last Crown Prince of the Korean Empire, Yi Eumin.

As I exchanged emails with this customer, I became interested in Princess Yi Bangja's life and mentioned that wanted to buy and read a book about her. The customer then replied:

" It makes me happy to know that you are delving into the life of Yi Bangja through reading, although Yi Bangja's life was a tragedy of Shakespearean heights. He would certainly have written about her, as he did with Hamlet, King Lear and other works."

This made me even more interested. My customer also spoke about memories with Yi Bangja as follows:

"The first thing YiBangja said to me when welcoming me to her home by the Secret Garden at Nakseonjae Hall in the grounds near Changdeokgung Palace were "Oh you are English, so I need to offer you tea, not coffee". Her warm comforting smile, her generosity and sense of humour, struck me then as the manner of a sincere, and most sophisticated royal woman.All the conversation was in faultless English."

I previously only knew about Princess Yi Bangja from what I could gather on the web, but I learned about her life through reading. Indeed, just as the customer said, although she was born as a member of the Japanese Imperial Family, she led a life reminiscent  of a Shakespearean tragedy.

Above all, she is a woman worthy of respect as a human being.

Here is a summary of what I have read in books so far. It is difficult to convey the subtle nuances, but I hope the general outline will come through. This summary was also prepared with the kind assistance of the customer I mentioned above.

1. Candidate for Empress to Emperor Showa and the "Infertility Diagnosis" Plot

Born in 1901 (Meiji 34) as the eldest daughter of Prince Nashimoto-no-miya, Morimasa, a member of the Japanese Imperial Family, Masako was named as a leading candidate to become the bride of Crown Prince Hirohito (later Emperor Showa). However, a doctor from the Imperial Household Agency diagnosed her with "infertility" (inability to bear children), and she was removed from the list of candidates.

Behind this lay dark political and strategic maneuvering by the Empire of Japan (the military faction) at the time.

2. Assassination of the Korean Queen and her feelings toward the marriage

The Empire of Japan was advancing the colonization of Korea. In 1895, a plot planned by Japanese diplomats and others led to the "Eulmi Incident," in which Queen Min—the legal mother of Crown Prince Yi Un of the Yi Dynasty (who would later become Masako's husband) and the queen consort of the Joseon Dynasty—was brutally murdered inside the Royal Palace. This incident carved deep resentment and distrust toward Japan even more deeply into the hearts of the Korean royal family and its people.

It is said that the Empire had a conspiracy (an attempt to sever the dynasty disguised as a symbol of Japan-Korea harmony): "To marry a Japanese imperial woman (Masako) diagnosed with infertility into the Korean royal family, which harbored severe dissatisfaction over the murder of the mother of their nation, thereby naturally extinguishing the bloodline of the Yi Dynasty."

For Masako, who suddenly learned of her own engagement through a newspaper report at the age of 15, this marriage was not merely the humiliation of being used as a political tool. It marked a tragic beginning, filling her with complex terror and internal conflict about "marrying into the royal family of a country that held severe anti-Japanese feelings because her own nation had murdered their queen." Nevertheless, Masako accepted the marriage, believing it would serve her country.

3. Marriage to Crown Prince Yi Un

In 1920 (Taisho 9), under the grandly raised pretext of "Japan-Korea Harmony" and "Naisen Ittai" (Japan and Korea as One Body), connecting the Empire of Japan and the former Korean Royal Family, the marriage to Crown Prince Yi Un of the Yi Dynasty was decided and carried out. Nashimoto-no-miya, Princess Masako, became Crown Princess Yi Bangja, the consort of Crown Prince Yi Un. In reality, it was a political marriage in which the Empire's motives intersected, with a gloomy plot to sever the dynasty hidden behind the scenes. Publicly, however, it was held as a celebratory marriage symbolizing friendship and harmony between the two nations.

It turned out though that Yi Bangja, who was supposed to have been diagnosed as "infertile," gave birth to a healthy boy (their first son, Jin) in 1921, the year after their marriage.

This birth shattered the plot to sever the dynasty and exposed the falsehood (or misdiagnosis) based on harsh political motives. As a result, the three doctors who had diagnosed Yi Bangja with infertility were disciplined and dismissed.

4. Successive Tragedies

Political pressure constantly followed the two of them. They were placed in a harsh situation trapped in the middle: not only were they viewed with strong hostility and suspicion by the Korean people suffering under Japanese rule and oppression as "aggressors," "defilers of the Korean royal bloodline," and "propaganda," but they were also treated coldly by some Japanese who were consumed by elitism as "beings outside the framework of the pure Japanese Imperial Household."

While sharing these hardships, the couple fostered a deep love and trust for each other.

However, further tragedy struck them.

In 1922, when they visited Korea for the first time with their newborn first son, Jin, the baby suddenly died of acute indigestion at just 8 months old. Due to the circumstances of the sudden death, rumors of poisoning were strongly whispered, but historically the truth remains unknown.

5. Downfall After Defeat in World War II

With the defeat in the Pacific War (World War II) in 1945, not only their status in the Royal House of Yi, but also Yi Bangja's inherent status as a member of the Japanese Imperial Family (from the Nashimoto-no-miya family) completely ceased to exist. With the enforcement of the new Constitution and the imposition of property tax by GHQ, all their assets were confiscated. Their privileges and economic foundations were stripped away overnight from the couple, who had lived in a splendid world of royalty. Furthermore, with the San Francisco Peace Treaty taking effect in 1952, the Japanese government established the loss of Japanese nationality for people of former Korean registration, causing Yi Bangja to lose her Japanese nationality as well. She was confronted with the harsh reality of falling into statelessness despite being a former imperial family member.

The couple wished to move to South Korea, the husband's homeland, but the newly formed Syngman Rhee administration, which had strong anti-Japanese feelings, branded and strongly rejected them as "collaborators with the former Empire of Japan." Additionally, Syngman Rhee who himself took pride in having royal blood of the Joseon Dynasty,  seemed concerned that the return of the legitimate Crown Prince Yi Un would threaten his own position. Denied by both Japan and Korea, and unable to acquire South Korean nationality, Yi Bangja was forced to live a life of extreme poverty, unimaginable from her past raised as a princess and imperial family member. Losing her home and lacking even daily living expenses, she bore the severe drop in status and pain of going from royalty to chasing piecework at home.

6. Husband's Illness and Return to Korea

In 1959, Yi Bangja's husband Yi Un collapsed from a cerebral thrombosis, suffering severe disabilities and falling unconscious. Around this time, following the April Revolution in South Korea (a movement against Syngman Rhee's long-term dictatorship), Park Chung-hee took power. He expressed a welcome for the couple's return, and announced the "restoration of their South Korean nationality." In 1963, the couple finally achieved their return to South Korea and moved to Nakseonjae Hall in Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul. However, Yi Un passed away in 1970 without ever recovering.

7. Later Years Dedicated as the "Mother of Korea"

Even after her husband's death, Yi Bangja chose not to return to Japan and instead remained in her husband's homeland, South Korea. Carrying the history in which Japan had sought to colonize the country and she herself had been swept along as a victim of national policy, Yi Bangja dedicated the rest of her life to welfare for children with physical disabilities and special education for children with intellectual disabilities, which were lagging behind in South Korea at the time.

Investing her private funds, she established "Myeonghwi-won," a welfare facility for children with physical disabilities, and "Jahye School," a special education school.

Furthermore, Yi Bangja's handicrafts (cloisonné), calligraphy, and ceramic works were very popular and sold well under the Park Chung-hee administration, so she used the funds earned from selling her own works to cover the operation costs of her welfare projects and facilities.

Yi Bangja's sincere and devoted attitude touched the hearts of the South Korean people, and in 1981, she was awarded the Order of Civil Merit (Moran Medal) by the South Korean government.

On April 30, 1989 (Heisei 1), she passed away peacefully in Seoul at the age of 87. The funeral was held as a semi-state funeral by South Korea. Prince Takahito and Princess Yuriko Mikasa of Japan attended the funeral of Yi Bangja (Crown Princess Euimin) at Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea, and she rests quietly in the same tomb as her husband, Yi Un.

My reading source introduces various other episodes as well.

Although I have greatly summarized the content, I would be delighted if even just one more person became interested in Yi Bangj