『소년』의 ‘영웅’ 서사와 동아시아적 맥락

Abstract

This article examines 'national', 'industrial' and 'spiritual' heroes in Sonyeon(『少年』), each of which was 'translated' from the west through Japan to Joseon(Korea). Admiring and commemorating 'national heroes' to enforce national solidarity in the 19th century Europe was replaced by the attempt to form 'unknown heroes' in the early 20th century East Asia. Although the idea of 'unknown heroes' was abolished by its first advocate, Tokutomi Soho(德富蘇峰) after he converted from democratism(平民主義) into imperial nationalism, it was appropriated by Liang Ch'ich'ao(梁啓超) to indicate patriotic martyrs and by Sin Cheho and Choi Namsun to interpellate 'the mental nation' without the nation-state. In order to form 'the mental nation', Choi introduced moral disciplines and, as a result, his heroism could encompass 'industrial heroes.' 'Independence' and 'endeavor' which Choi regarded as the object and the means of the moral discipline originated from Fukuzawa Yukichi(福澤諭吉)and Tokutomi Soho. However, the two Japanese intended to make 'civil subjects' with those virtues while Choi focused on them to make subjects protesting against the colonial regime. Finally, under the influence of Uchimura Kanzō(内村鑑三)', Choi discovered the colonial nation(民族) as a kind of 'spiritual hero', who suffered ordeals to accomplish god's mission of saving the world. Through a series of 'translation', the colony dislocated and appropriated imperial discourses and functioned as a broken mirror which reflected both contradiction of the empire(fissure of ideology) and its frustrated possibility(drive for Utopia).