학병(學兵)의 기억과 국가 - 1940년대 학병의 좌담회와 수기를 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to review the ways of individual experiences being “forgotten/remembered” by the logic of building a nation during the Liberation Period of Korean based on the round-table talks and notes by the student soldiers in the 1940s. In the round-table talk held by Shincheonji after Korea took back its independence, the student soldiers who got back from Japan criticized Japan as the “public enemy” and emphasized their “superiority” delivering the stories of their sacrifice and fight for the sake of “Chosun people.” Those who refused to enlist as Japanese soldiers talked about what hardship they suffered running from the Japanese police accusing them of evading the duty. They described their hardship in a way similar to the hardship of the Chosun soldiers who fought for independence and thus turned their stories into the narratives of the independence warriors. The returning student soldiers completely “forgot” their individual desires for success in life, fame or longer life in the ways of their recalling their past and reproduced their “memories” as warriors “with the cross on their back for the people.” That is, they emphasized that their consciousness of “people” was more than strong while talking about their experiences during the colonial days and thus were reborn as pure people and warriors for the people. The Liberation Period was characterized by the culture of “colony-empire”(continuance) and plans for building a new nation(cessation). The Chosun people including the student soldiers who were passionate about building a new nation were ready to forget their past for the sake of their future where there was a new nation.