역사적 관점에서 본 ‘태왕사신기’

Abstract

The historical fantasy drama Taewangsasingi(The Story of King Kwanggaet'o and the Four Directional Animals), which deals with the story of the Great King Kwanggaet'o who established the most powerful phase in Kouryŏ, has been planned in 2003 for the purpose of meeting the social needs to prevent the historical distortion of Koguryŏ history at the time when the Northeast Asian project of China caught the public attention of Korean people. In Taewangsasingi, King Kwanggaet'o was described as 'the modern leadership with gentle charisma' and as a king who would recover the Chyusin Empire as a reincarnation of Hwanwung. In the process of drama making, for a dramatical interest, it cannot but help adding some imagination, exaggeration, and fabrication. Among the contents of Taewangsasingi, following are some points which are different from historical records. First of all, there is a problem of anachronism in several aspects. It traced the origin of the Four directional animals which were originally accepted from the Central Plain region in China back to the Hwanwung period. Some terms such as Sonobu, Chŏlnobu, a tribe and a patriarch which already dismissed before the reign period of King Kwanggaeto appeared again in the drama. And it showed that in the 4th century, a noble could possess more private military than that of a king. All these information is not accorded with the written history. In addition, since it tries to avoid a possible conflict with neighboring countries and to make it easy to export a drama abroad, it did not describe the Later Yan and Japanese Wa overtly, two major countries in the warfare during the King Kwanggaet'o, but only unidentified Hwach'ŏnhoe appeared in the drama, making the historical background obscure. As it described the 4th century Koguryŏ as a legendary age, and King Kwanggaet'o as a king of Chyusin who had been waiting for two millenniums since Hwanwung, it gave lesser importance in Tangun Chosun, and degrading other Koguryŏ kings including Chumong. All these resulted in the devaluation of the history of Old Chosun and Koguryŏ. Likewise, Taewangsasingi is a drama which contains some points quite different from historical records. However, the drama has its significance in terms of showing the historical and social aspects at that time. Taewangsasingi provides us with an important insight that modern Korean society still has strong ethnocentrism, as well as is trying to strive for 'an interest' depart from the obligation that the society does not allow diverse perspectives about the problem concerning a people and patriotism. Also, the reinterpretation on King Kwanggaet'o, the emphasis on Sosŏno, and the description of Huksu Malgal as a major character all reflect the changed perception in modern Korean society.