‘번역’의 시대, 번역의 문화 정치―1950년대 번역 정책과 번역문학장

Abstract

The 1950s is commonly called 'Renaissance Era of Translation (Literature)' in our history of translation. Translation serves as the most effective instrument to fill the vacant era and turning point of knowledge that was formed through historical tensions of the colonial era, the liberation period, Korean War, and the division of the nation. Particularly, the 1950s is the period in which state power was armed with anti-Communism through the historical momentum of the establishment of the single government and the Korean War and was speeding up the construction of the nation state. In such a period, the modernization of knowledge was required as part of the construction of the nation state, and under these circumstances, the translation policy was the most important knowledge structuring project. From the era of the U.S. military administration in Korea, translation was the project that the government politically supported and managed. The translation policy was a kind of cultural policy to imbue the people of the occupied country with the fantasy that the country called the United States was the suzerain state of liberalism. Even after the 1950s, the translation policy continued to be enforced through the United States Information Service and the UNKRA, the U.S. aid organization. So lots of books related to literary works, humanities, and science were planned and translated by these organizations. The Ministry of Education also received aid from the U.S. organizations and conducted the translation-support policy, and individual publishing companies were also the beneficiaries of such aid policy in their translation projects. The texts for translation were mainly the Western classics and contemporary critics that were useful to instill West centrism, liberal democracy, anti-Communist consciousness, or practical books for teaching materials. Such translated books were first distributed to culture centers and university libraries, and then distributed to the general public through individual publishing companies. The distribution of American magazines was also one of the U.S. culture policies. American magazines such as "Partisan Review" distributed by the U.S. Information Service became very important media for the intellectuals of the day to accommodate avant-garde cultural theories. The intellectuals read these articles and selected the texts to translate to make a living and egarded them as provisions necessary to build up their consciousness. And based on such consciousness, they engaged in writing. Thus translation contributed to turning the consciousness of the intellectuals and translators at that time into anti-Communism, nationalism, and the West-biased knowledge discourses. The main agents at that time were in the course of unconsciously conniving together into nationalistic cultural policy, and the power of translation at that time was so great. Of course, like Kim Soo-Yeong, there were intellectuals who explored new consciousness world freed from colonialism through translation, and this point is the outcome worthy of our notice, even though it is minimal.