Donghak was presented as a savior ideology to the people of the Joseon Dynasty who were faced with the contradictions of the political order and the worsening invasions of the 19th century. It was also created to include the ideology of independent and subjective nationalism in response to foreign invasions. Fundamentally, Donghak was based on a strong will to save the people who were suffering mentally and economically from the distorted political structure of rule by powerful families, harsh exploitation, and the impotence of state power, while protecting the country and people by responding to Western powers invading the East through Western learning. The center of Su-un’s thought completion and propagation was the idea of restoring humanity and protecting the nation and people from foreign invasion, and the core was making the people aware of their own nation. Therefore, Donghak opposed the invasion of the West and Japan and, through the consciousness of independence to break away from China, awakened the national consciousness of the people and united them, thereby realizing nationalism, and it became the ideological foundation for developing the anti-invasion nationalist movement. Donghak attempted to confront the sense of crisis regarding the preservation of the nation and people with the logic of Joseon nationalism. Accordingly, Donghak’s nationalism can be said to be an ideology of resistance against illegal invasion. It is not a self-righteous and selfish nationalism, but an ideology of national preservation in response to the invading forces, and it contains a resistant nationalism. This is seen as having a difference in that Donghak’s nationalism is presented as the embodiment of resistant nationalism, while European imperialism is an economic invasion nationalism aimed at maximizing capitalism. This Donghak finally formed nationalist ideology through the development of the Second Donghak Peasant Revolution in 1894. It also increased national consciousness and anti-Japanese capabilities, and laid the historical foundation for the popular national movement and anti-Japanese struggle that unfolded thereafter. t also served as the ideological foundation for the people living in the 19th century to recognize themselves as the main actors in modern reform and the formation of Korean nationalism through the Donghak Peasant Revolution. Accordingly, Donghak became a pioneering nationalist ideology that enabled the first experience of a modern nationalist movement from below, and it can be evaluated as a pioneer in the history of Korean nationalism by presenting the legitimacy and objectivity of the Donghak Peasant Revolutionary Movement that took place in the first and second stages, and thus serving as an ideology of the times that could create modern Korean history.