독립문 정초식에서 불린 애국노래의 역사적 배경과 음악적 구성

Abstract

This study analyses the historical background and musical characteristics of “Korea,” “Independence,” and “March,” which were sung by Pai Chai Hakdang students at the cornerstone ceremony of the Independence Arch on 21 November 1896. These songs, which used new lyrics set to hymn tunes, are significant as the first instance of students singing patriotic songs in a formal setting. However, primary sources such as newspapers and magazines of the time mainly mentioned the titles of the songs. They left no specific record of the tunes, so their specific tunes or lyrics remained unclear for a long time. The lyrics recorded in books such as The History of Pai Chai (1955) and The History of 80 Years of Pai Chai (1965) were found to be different from the actual lyrics through a lyric sheet released in 2013. The lyric sheet was found in The Korean Repository, an antiquarian bookstore in Berlin, Germany, and sparked a new debate about the song’s melody and lyrics. Based on this, this study explores in depth the historical background and musical composition of the patriotic songs sung at the cornerstone ceremony of the Independence Arch. In particular, this study builds on the melodic tracing work done in my 2020 dissertation to examine subsequent scholars’ interpretations and arguments and confirm the accuracy of my initial analysis. To do this, I have consulted hymnals and other relevant literature from the period, traced the melodies to which the songs were performed, and reconstructed them in musical notation. This work is an essential resource for rethinking the significance of musical expression at the cornerstone ceremony of the Independence Arch in Korean music history, and for understanding how music contributed to expressing patriotism and strengthening the sense of community in society.