전쟁과 변경- 러일전쟁과 함경도의 현실 -

Abstract

This article examines the experiences and awareness of war by local residents of Hamgyeong Province, which was across the border from Russia, and from socio-economic and historical perspectives. As Russia and Japan were engaged in a prolonged war, Hamgyeong Province received serious damage and losses. During the summer and autumn of 1905, there were public outcries due to the impact of great floods and the attack of livestock by epidemic diseases. Local people suffered even greater damage from the Russian troops than the Japanese. Thus many local residents in the province fled to Primorsky,Manchuria, and even government offices in China. Previous research has reported that compared with Japan, Russia intruded less into northern areas of the Korean Peninsula. But unlike most research data reported, all of the local residents in Hamgyeong Province did not always blindly trust Russian troops. There are not a few documents on cases and examples in which Korean troops engaged in battle against Russian troops, and Koreans resisted against Russia. Koreans in the province had good feelings toward Russia, but the nation did not accept this. With war continuing, the Russian troops changed their antagonistic stance toward Japan, and showed a friendly attitude. There also was massive military mobilization not only by Russia and Japan, but also by non-government institutions. As the fierce commercial war waged, international and regional commercial trade declined greatly. These added to the suffering that local citizens experienced. After the naval battle in the East Sea in which Russia’s Baltic Fleet was defeated by the Japanese fleet, Japanese troops gained an edge in land warfare. As a result, the Japanese troop expanded their areas of infiltration. One of the most important reasons why the military administration was established only in Hamgyeong Province was because it was needed to connect the linkage with Russia; to block anti-Japanese Korean independence activities; to prohibit such activities from extending beyond the Korean border; and to keep tight control of the spheres such as public life. In the process, local troops in the Daehan Empire (K. Jinwidae ) in Bukcheong and Jongseong were dismantled. In some regions, a “Russia-style military administration”was founded, too. It is true that Russia received a relatively friendly response from local residents in Hamgyeong Province. Yet, the majority of those people suffered serious damage and losses in labor, in both physical and mental terms, by the Russo-Japanese War being waged, regardless of their will to fight. Most Korean local residents in the province thus had a strong awareness that they were people mobilized in the “war between third nations.” Finally, they perceived that the Russo-Japanese War merely cost lives in the less-developed imperial nations and brutally deprived them of property.