Marie Antoinette Sontag was an influential associate of the Korean imperial court who first came to Joseon (Korea) to head the household of the Russian emissary there, Karl Weber (a distant relative by marriage), in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1838 to a young elementary schoolteacher and his wife, she spoke French, German, English, Russian, and upon reaching Korea, learned Korean. She worked for the Korean imperial government as a kind of consultant, which was in need of her talents in the social sphere as they increased their interactions with emissaries and diplomats of many countries. During the course of her work, she developed a personal relationship with King Gojong and Queen Min. Through her friendship with Queen Min, the queen became increasingly hospitable to the overtures of the Russians and desired to deepen Joseon’s diplomatic relationship with Russia.
As Queen Min had a great deal of political power and influence, with her hold on power believed to be firmer than her husband’s, this was threatening to Japanese forces inside of Joseon, which also had their eye on the kingdom.[1] In October 1895, the Japanese government sent a team of assassins to kill the Queen, which they did brutally, murdering her and her ladies-in-waiting and burning their bodies in what became known as the Eulmi Incident. Sontag helped King Gojong flee (apparently disguising him in women’s clothing) to the Russian legation in the immediate aftermath in order to secure his safety. Just a few years later, Japan took over Korea as another of its colonies.
Even after the death of her patroness, Sontag continued living in Joseon, putting her skills as a talented socialite to use to entertain diplomats and the local aristocracy, and very likely secretly advancing Russian interests there. She developed a close working relationship with King Gojong and Queen Min, doing things such as hosting banquets and offering design tips for some Western style chambers which the King and Queen wanted to add to their palace for some exotic flavor. After the Queen’s murder, she became close to the king, introducing him to European customs such as taking coffee and pastries at breakfast.
For her services to Joseon, she was awarded with, first, a traditional hanok (Korean style house) and later, a five-bedroom Western style house, which she used as a guesthouse, renting out the rooms. The Joseon government decided that, since she was already using her house as a de facto guesthouse for diplomats, they would tear it down and build her a larger one. Thus, in 1902, they built a new, larger building for Sontag to live in and manage, and, over time, it became known as The Sontag Hotel. Marie Antoinette Sontag was the proprietor, and she also opened up a coffeeshop on the first floor, the first of its kind in Korea. Many notable politicians, writers, artists, and other influential people of the time visited and stayed in The Sontag Hotel. As one can imagine, many deals must have been secured there by placing the right people together, and Sontag herself must have relished the role of puppet master.
Its role as a trendy hotspot as well as a hotbed of international intrigue faded away when Sontag herself stopped running it. She left Joseon in 1909, one year before Japan took it over, likely seeing the writing on the wall as most international posts in the Joseon imperial government had been staffed by Japanese for some time.
Both Queen Min and Marie Antoinette Sontag amassed unusual amounts of political power by taking advantage of the tendencies of others to underestimate their ambition. Queen Min was chosen as the wife of the teenage King Gojong (used as a puppet by the Daewongun, who held true political power) because she seemed docile; her father was dead and had no chance to use his daughter to advance his own interests; all in all, she was noble, with an unexceptional education and her family line did not appear to harbor any threatening ambitious family members. However, she herself was the ambitious family member who would threaten and overtake the Daewongun’s power. She delivered herself an education on politics by self-studying Chinese classics. Through her own machinations, she was able to steadily replace all of the Daewongun’s allies in court with members of her own clan and seize political power. Although under Queen Min, Joseon did experience intense pressure from competing colonial powers which sought to take it over and eventually succeeded, she did attempt a balancing act and to play each off of each other, such as her overtures toward the Russians, and she weathered several assassination attempts before she was ultimately killed.
Though she was deeply involved in palace politics, Sontag herself was not a femme fatale but a rather dowdy housewife-appearing woman who passed herself off as a domestic expert, an excellent cook and decorator.[2] She was in her late fifties when she first arrived in Joseon. (To make a glib comparison, imagine if Martha Stewart became the personal advisor to the President of Indonesia in the early 2000s.) She ingratiated herself with King Gojong in just this way, by preparing his coffee in the mornings and hosting banquets with dignitaries in the palace. To solidify her role, he appointed her “Imperial Mistress of Court Ceremonies.” Foreign politicians and businessmen who wanted access to the king or others in his court would typically use Sontag as an intermediary. She managed the budget of the court in order to host parties and banquets, and she did not spare any expense for champagne and caviar. We can imagine that she did not spend much time considering the fate of average person in Joseon, which was quite grim.
Though the story of these two powerful women and their influence on turn-of-the-century Joseon seems very compelling and full of palace intrigue, I haven’t been able to find much in the way of dramatic retellings. Apparently, the playwright and director Cha Bumseok차범석 wrote a play entitled Sontag Hotel in 1976, and author Yi Sunwon 이순원 wrote a historical novel with the same title in 2012, but neither one were either of these authors most well-known works. However, with the constant stream of Korean historical dramas and films, I’m sure I won’t need to wait long. But as a former innkeeper myself, maybe I should try my hand at it.
[1] See Jager, Sheila Miyoshi. (2023). The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. for a retelling of the contest for Korea at the turn of the century
[2] The article "Braesel, Sylvia. (2014). “Marie Antoinette Sontag (1838-1922) ‘Uncrowned Empress of Korea,’” Transactions, Royal Asiatic Society Korea, Vol. 89." summarizes her life and career.
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