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The Story of Manchuria and the memory of Yun Dong - ju

  • DONAM OHMUNHAK
  • Abbr : 돈암
  • 2016, 30(), pp.155~197
  • DOI : 10.17056/donam.2016.30..155
  • Publisher : The Donam Language & Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature > Korean Literature > History of Korean Literature
  • Published : December 31, 2016

Kim Shin Jung 1

1한국방송통신대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to examine how ‘the story of Yun Dong-ju’ is transferred to ‘the story of Manchuria’, especially ‘Manchuria’ as a tool to recompose the memories of him, while focusing on the way that the Korean society remembers him. The story of Yun Dong-ju, who was born in “the cradle of the Korean independence movement”, illustrates him as one who was considered the icon of the history of the movement and regards him in the context of “resistance.” However, it is often neglected that Yun Dong-ju was a ‘marginal man’ who constantly stood aside from the boundary of a nation-state, raising the questions on it, and distinctly took the problems of this marginality in account if we remember him as “the star in the dark age” – resistance poet, patriotic poet, and nationalist poet. In fact, Yun Dong-ju situated himself outside the boundary and continually crossed the distinction between two cultures, while being aware of the marginality. Gando, the area in Southern Manchuria where he was born and raised, has also to do with why he was sensitive to the issue of ‘marginality’. His birth place is the method to lead him to observing the issue of marginality because Gando was the part of the territory of the Japanese Empire and also it was his hometown, but located outside of Joseon, his motherland. Yun Dong-ju was able to observe the status of Joseon objectively because he was outside the boundary. Later, he understood his true identity which was confusing at first and recognized the complex conditions of Gando by leaving from the place and being outside of Japan and Joseon. He lived his life as a descendant of an immigrant and constantly crossed the boundary among three cultures. Therefore, his poems describe the discomfort of living in “other country” with foreigners and often reflect his anxiety and concern as a noncitizen. This paper proves that the Korean society’s nationalist perspective on Yun Dong-ju’s literature, and how his literary works are perceived and comprehended in the society was the result of composing the past discourses, which was the partial understanding of him.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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