손진태 설화 연구의 특징과 의의

Abstract

Son Jintae(1900~?) is a representative researcher who left a remarkable record of achievements on the area of history and folklore during Japanese colonial era. He shows complicated consciousness which is not able to evaluate an unilinear way. He looks like a person who is on the status of liminality. We can see this tendency among the research activities written in both Korean and Japanese, crossing the border between the research of history and folklore, and seeking correlation with both character of ethnicity and universality of humankind. Son Jintae brought light on a subject about an unique and universality of ethnicity by comparative folktale research, which can prove existence value of Chosŏn. It was an effective way to gain recognition that reveals independent features and cultural universality to prove value of Chosŏn under the Japanese occupation. It is significant to verify Son Jintae's qualitative change of sense which is related with his individual history before and after the independence from the Japan occupation. It can be verified by comparing his writing which is published in Sinmin(新民) with a book The Research of Ethnic Folktale in Korea(韓國民族說話의 硏究). We can make conclusion that the identity of Chosŏn and possibility of autonomous ethnicity development were emphasized but quintessential of point of view was not basically changed. Son Jintae was pioneering researcher with modern research methodology who stood on the liminality between Japan and Chosŏn, the study of history and folklore. It is difficult to say that Son Jintae was totally free from imperialistic ideology because he was educated at the university of Japan. His tendency for evolutionary theory also show us that he was closely connected with comtemporary dominant scholarly atmosphere. Nevertheless, we are not able to ignore the Son Jintae's attitude that concentrated on an empirical study with constant exertions. Therefore it is not easy to define not only Son Jintae's value and significance of the study result but also his ideological and political tendency as one-way standard. In fact, the feature and significance of his research is acquiring the aspect of cultural interactional transaction and productive attribute.