Seok Joo-myung

He wrote a small dictionary Lernolibro de Esperato Kun Vortaeto 1947 because he was deeply involved in international peace movement to resist Japanese imperialism. He didn't change his Korean name into Japanese name until liberation. He voluntarily transferred to the Jeju natural medicine laboratory in Seogwipo, Jeju Island in 1943. While he had been working here for two years, he was fascinated by particularity of Jeju culture and absorbed in Jeju exploration. Six general books: Jeju dialect, Jeju population, Jeju document, Jeju essay, history of Jeju insect, and Jeju data, were published. These are valuable resources for Jeju study.

In 1940 A Synonymic list of butterflies of Korea was published by The Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It was the first time for a Korean to be sponsored by the British Royal academy. After that, he was selected as a regular member of world entomology. Throughout his entire life, he had collected 750,000 butterflies samples and sorted and marked the locations on the Korean maps and world maps each way. When the Korean War broke out, he tried hard to keep his samples and maps so he couldn't escape Seoul. Unfortunately, his collections were totally burnt. With his sister's brave efforts of carrying the maps on her back, the distribution maps of Korean butterflies by Sok, Chumyong, in 1973 was safely released in the world after his death. The book is made of 500 maps with red mark with accuracy. Due to his research of Korean butterflies, modern entomology on butterfly has been being studied by a great number of scholars in the field.

Seok Joo-myung (Korean: 석주명; Hanja: 石宙明; November 13, 1908 – October 6, 1950) was a Korean lepidopterist who made significant contributions to the taxonomy of the butterfly species of Korea. He was also a noted linguist and pacifist.

He was born in Pyongyang, North Korea, on November 13, 1908. His life had been tough during Japanese colonial era from 1910 to 1945 and a sudden attack took away his life on October 6, 1950. He graduated from Kaesong Songdo Higher Normal School in 1926 and then graduated from Kagoshima Higher Agriculture and Forestry School in Japan in 1929. In 1930, he a biology teacher at Songdo Middle School and worked there for 10 years. From that time, he dedicated his life to butterflies and Jeju research. Korean people call him Korean Fabre, lightening his brilliant achievements in the dark period.