『아이생활』 연구

Abstract

This article examines juvenile magazine 『Children’s Life』 issued for 18 years during the colonial era in Korea. Because 『Children’s Life』 was published with foreign funds for mission work, its issuers or editors were either foreign missionaries or ministers. This led to the state of subordination regarding editorial rights, and it resulted in the lack of consciousness on national letters demanded to the editors of magazine in the colonial era. 『Children’s Life』 dealt with national symbols or heroes at first but later replaced them with Western figures. This was the aftereffect of the colonial policy, but the frequent appearance of American figures led to readers acquiring pro-American attitudes. In the history of modern juvenile literature, 『Children’s Life』 made great contributions in the area of Children’s songs. Especially its contributions made to inserting creative Children’s songs, introducing foreign Children’s songs, excavating criticism on Children’s songs, or supporting juvenile literature movement were fairly valuable. Despite the excessive inclusion of Christian contents in 『Children’s Life』, its contributions to developing juvenile literature are undeniable. Due to the faults of the editing staff not recognizing colonial conditions objectively, however, it could not secure any noticeable features of its own other than the Protestant color but ended up destroying all the achievements it had made in the beginning itself after all.