Yi Kang
Korean prince (1877-1955)
Yi Kang, Prince Imperial Ui (Korean: 의친왕 이강; 30 March 1877 – 15 August 1955), also known as Prince Uihwa (1891–1900) or King Ui (1900–1955) was the second son of Emperor Gojong of Korea and his concubine, Lady Jang, who was a court lady-in-waiting.
In 1891, his father King Gojong issued a decree naming Yi "Prince Uihwa" with the style of Royal Highness. Yi married Lady Kim Deok-su, the daughter of court official Kim Sajun.
Upon declaration of Korean Empire in 1897, Yi was enthroned as King Ui or Prince Imperial Ui by his father Emperor Gojong of Korea in 1900 along with his younger brother, Yi Un.
Biography
Education and early life
Despite being born as a son of Gojong of Korea, there are not many official records about his early life, which may be a result of having been borne by Lady Jang, a court lady-in-waiting of King Gojong but not the king's official consort or concubine during her lifetime. Lady Jang came from the Deoksu Jang clan, and Queen Inseon (Hyojong of Joseon's queen consort) was her distant relative. According to the tradition, the half-brothers of the crown prince, in this case, Yi Cheok (future Sunjong of Korea), needed to move out from the palace until the latter reached the age 10, so there were some years that Yi Kang lived with Pak Yung-hio, the son-in-law of King Cheoljong. During the Kapsin Coup in 1884, Yi Kang and his mother were taken by Pak Yung-hio to the palace; contemporary rumors claimed that the coup d'état tried to replace the king with Yi Kang; but after the coup ended, Yi left the palace again.
Later, Queen Min, Gojong's wife, asked her husband to grant Yi Kang a title, so Yi Kang became Prince Uihwa (의화군) in 1891. After three rounds of choosing in 1893, the daughter of an official Kim Sa-jun, Lady Kim Deok-su, was chosen to be the spouse of Yi Kang, which was arranged by Queen Min.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yi Kang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.