1950년대 북한아동문학의 현황 (1) - 서정 및 서사 장르를 중심으로 -

Abstract

This study presents an investigation into the state of children’s literature of North Korea in the 1950s right after the Korean War by analyzing Children’s Literature, a children’s magazine published in North Korea. Korea’s children’s literature was formed during the Japanese rule of Korea and had maintained its single organization until the Korean War broke out and Korea was divided into North and South Koreas, where two separate groups of children’s literature started to grow and create their own unique streams under the different regimes. After the long Cold War period was over, the South Korean government lifted the ban over the writers who voluntarily moved to North Korea or abducted by the regime. In the field of general literature, active research efforts were made on the literature of North Korea. However, it is unfortunate to raise few discussions on its children’s literature especially with no information provided regarding the state of its children’s literature before, during, and after the Korean War. Therefore, this is the very first paper to examine the aspects of North Korea’s children’s literature right after the Korean War. A review on Children’s Literature reveals that North Korea’s children’s literature enjoyed a great deal of diversity in terms of genres unlike its South Korean counterpart. While they usually created “children’s songs and verses” in the area of lyric literature in South Korea, they engaged in about ten genres including “children’s play songs,” lyric and epic poems” and “Gasas” in North Korea. The unique diversification of children’s literature in North Korea can be attributed to the characteristics of the North Korean society such as the focal point of the party and the leader and the abundance of group activities. There was also a disparity in epic literature between North and South Korea. North Korea saw more importance on “ocherks,” “stories” and “fables” unlike South Korea. The authors heavily depicted the hard work of laborers at factories or cooperative farms since it was the most urgent to restore buildings in the wreckage of war and boom the economy. The literary works either told a story about heroes of resistance against the Japanese rulers and the Korean War or praised the party and the leader. After the Korean War, children’s literature of North Korea concentrated on “cooperation to build a successful socialist nation” rather than “children” or “children’s literature” itself. The diversity of the literary works continued until 1956 but ceased to exist after 1958, when the political strife was settled, with the political nature being further highlighted.