의기(義妓) 논개 전승 - 전쟁, 도덕, 여성

Abstract

This paper deals with the process of the appropriation of the Non'gae narrative by the traditional Korean state and the local Confucian notables of Chinju. Non'gae, a female entertainer at state's service, died when Japanese troops stormed Chinju, in the southernmost part of Korea, in 1593, plunging herself voluntarily into a abyss from a cliff where she was taking shelter during the time of Japanese soldiery's rampage, and supposedly taking a Japanese soldier or commander (the reading of the source material is disputed) who might have tried to rape her, together with her. While her behaviour could also be interpreted as desperate self-defense against a rape attempt, the first-ever chronicler who mentioned this incident in writing, Yu Mongin, chose to read it as a "loyalist" refusal to serve a Japanese on the part of a "faithful subject", "enlightened" by the Confucian monarchy (<Ôuyadam>, 1621). Then, with the eventual acquiescence of the state, the Chinju Confucian gentry, frustrated by the alienation from the central power after a Chinju-based bureaucratical fraction was purged following a successful coup d'etat in 1623 and wishing to heighten its prestige, chose to emphasize Non'gae's "loyalty" and "faithfulness" to a degree of turning her into a major heroine of the Imjin War against the Hideyoshi invasion (1592～1598) and a local celebrity, an object of official sacrifices. Much of detail about her descent, family ties and the "Japanese general" she supposedly killed, was invented in the process. Heroisation of Non'gae reached its peak in the immediate aftermath of the devastating Korean War (1950～1953), becoming by this point a part of the nationalistic ideological effort by the South Korean state and the conservative local establishment in Chinju and several other adjacent communities.