<少年>誌에 나타난 ‘獨立’ 개념의 특징과 그 배경

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine the characteristics of the “independence” concept, found in the magazine of Sonyeon. In order to understand the “independence” concept that Choi Nam-Seon had emphasized, the study is going to examine how the concept of the independence introduced in the forming period of the modern times in the Korean Peninsula had vibrated between the state and the individual. First, the study puts the focus on the vocabulary of strenuous efforts, because the word included the implication that Chosun should keep an independent economic and military power, even if it was a different word from the independence. Therefore, it can be understood that a certain degree of the implication of the independence in the sense of the modern time was included in the word of strenuous efforts at the time. The concept of the independence has been regularly introduced since the newspaper of The Independence was founded. But the independence at the time showed the tendency where the meaning of independence was limited to the national independence in the exclusive relation with Qing dynasty in China. And with the passage of the time, the independence in the national dimension was expanded into the people’s independence, together with such words as, rights, human rights, and civil rights, but when the national crisis emerged due to the change of the domestic and international situation, the meaning of the independence reverted to the national dimension again. The concept of the independence in the magazine of Sonyeon, which was founded in such background of the time, was formed again under Choi Nam-Seon’s judgment that for the independence of the country, the individual independence should be obtained first more than anything else. As the premise for the individual independence, Choi Nam Seon chose boys and their determination to make success in life, and educated the morals and values of general ideas, with which independent individuals should be provided. He judged that such general ideas were the mental infrastructure to form the people and state and the basic ideology constituting the true individual independence and culture. However, when it was impossible to achieve the national independence since 1910, Choi Nam-Seon gave up the thesis of the independence and converted it in the way of the discovery and reinforcement of the national spirits.