Editor’s Note: This is the first article in our new series Nation in Transition, which will see national beat reporter Seong Mi-yeon travel the country and report on a story that shows how Haesan is shifting, or how locals are seeking to preserve long held traditions in an increasingly turbulent modern age. The series will take Seong across the nation as she is tasked with reporting one story from each province, with the details left up to her. In this article, she starts the series in Anfa, where a dedicated historical society searches through suburbia for signs of a lost castle.
By: Seong Mi-yeon, Senior National Reporter
VILLEFRANCHE, ANFA: The ragtag crew drives up to the edge of suburbia, where orderly, Arrivee-style townhomes line leafy streets, and eagerly surveys their surroundings. “This ditch here is where the tributary could have been, and that neighborhood over there could have been the lake we see here,” claims Paul Guignard, pointing on his handheld1 to a photo of an old map. Guignard is the leader of the group I’ve followed here, the Chateauvignts Historical Society, and is a professor of Arrivee and Northern Studies at the University of Marchal. Even in the oppressive summer heat, he and his devoted comrades have trekked to the edge of the Anfa metroplex for an unusual reason: to search for remnants of a long forgotten castle.
When the French arrived to the Haesanite north, they famously built up castles across their territory to help oversee governance and to help secure the land from claims from other nations, especially with the spectre of Opthelian aggression. All in all, the French would end up building twenty castles in total, forming the backbone of what would become known as the Chateauxvignts system. Many of these often opulent castles still remain, most notably the palatial Chateau d’Anfe, but six have been lost to time. Three were destroyed by Opthelian cannon fire during the War of Haesanite Succession, the planned chateau in Mihang was torched by residents before its completion, the Chateau du Cap in Hyeolseo Province was swept to sea by a tsunami nearly a century ago, but the Chateau Villefranche, presumably located somewhere here on the southern edges of Anfa Province in the shadow of the Marchal Valley, has never been located. Guignard thinks he, and his coalition of history obsessed scholars, can finish the task.
On this particular search, they are armed with new knowledge, a trove of colonial documents discovered in a sealed cellar at the Chateau des Coquilles near Myeongsa with more exact locations of the entire Chateauxvignts system, but as Paul explains, even with that information, it is particularly challenging in this case. He states, with a bit of frustration and resolve to his intonation, “[the government] dammed the Marchal [River] in the 70s and straightened it out to prevent floods, even if it was directly on the river in the 18th century as the map shows, it would have been located several miles to the west of where the river is today.” Hence, we’re out here in the middle of suburbia looking for traces of “historically alluvial terrain”.
I asked Paul why his Historical Society has taken this on, since, in theory, this would be a topic of interest for many scholars at northern universities. He tells me that while historically this had been the case, with even some of the most revered names in Northern Studies, like the legendary scholar Jacques Roussel of Universite du Anfe, have written research on the topic, it has been for too long a silver whale that has eluded even the most devoted researchers, and has gained a strong taboo. For experts like him, searching for the elusive Chateau Villefranche must perpetually remain a hobby.
My primary reason for joining them on their excursion was to figure out just what exactly drove them to spend hours scouring old maps and documents to find a long lost castle that may or may not have ever been constructed. For some like Paul or secondary school teacher Marie Arnoud, it was about fighting to tie up the loose ends of history. Others had a more personal reason for joining, like Sylvain Petit, who said that the search and deep dive into Arrivee relics made him feel more in touch with his ancestors, who arrived in Haesan over 200 years ago. For others it is the general spirit of conservationism2 that drives them, like Melanie Collet, who says she was inspired by the work of Corinne Depuis3 as a young girl, and believes that “if this castle truly is out there, we need to find the truth, so that it can be preserved for generations to come.”
By the early afternoon, rain began to fall, and the expedition returned back to the city. There was no concrete proof of anything, but theories abounded about the area and its potentially historic foundations. What resounded most though was the group’s optimism, and as I parted with them, I was left with an odd feeling of warmth and determination and with the belief that even amongst futility there would still be a path forward for those who dared to seek out their heritage.
- Mobile phone in Haesanite English ↩︎
- A philosophy founded in Haesan in the 1980’s, conservationism regards the preservation of that of extraordinary beauty, whether they be natural or historic, against the forces of “hyper-urbanization” ↩︎
- One of the founders of conservationism, Depuis led historical preservation efforts across Haesan, most notably the restoration of the Chateau d’Anfe, and also led campaigns to drastically expand the national park system in Haesan ↩︎
