Kim Koo

Kim Koo (1876–1949), known by his pen name Baekbeom ('White Tiger'), was a Korean nationalist leader, freedom fighter, and statesman revered in South Korea as the 'Father of the Nation'. Participating in the Donghak Peasant Revolution at sixteen and imprisoned and tortured by Japanese colonial authorities following the 1910 annexation, he fled into exile in Shanghai following the March 1st Independence Movement of 1919.

In Shanghai and later Chongqing, Kim led the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, organizing the Korean Patriotic Organization and the Korean Liberation Army. In his beloved essay My Wish (Naui Sowon), he expressed his dream that Korea become not a military empire, but 'the most beautiful nation in the world, rich in culture and moral virtue'. Following liberation, he passionately opposed the division of Korea into separate North and South regimes before being assassinated in Seoul in 1949.