대한제국기 ‘극장국가(theater state)’ 연구(1)

Abstract

This is the study on the 'Theater State' in the Daehan Empire of the Emperor Kochung in the late 1900 with the theatrical concepts of cultural performance theory which has been useful for investigating historical, social, and cultural collective memories and their transformation mechanism in the society. The performance theory is based in the notion, ‘performativität’, by which the performance can contain vary performance forms. Performativität is the notion which points up the certain process that can cause the perceptional emotion communication called ‘liminalität’ to the performers and audiences in the performance. The social spectacle is also understood and presupposed by the performativität. Generally speaking, the spectacle has been used of explaining the visual cultural experiences in society. Fundamentally, spectacle had resulted from the latin ‘spectaculum’, which was used to designate theatrical representation in France. In the case of movie, spectacle was the grand show with showy technological attractions. But in my study, I want to concentrate on the 'theater state', which can be consisted of cultural performance and spectacle and have been organized to show the political and socio-historical relationships, especially, the Emperor and his people in the Daehan Empire period of the Emperor Kochung of the late 1900. In addition to it, I search for the historical collective memories of the Daehan Empire, The government of the Daehan Empire was continuing with its efforts to enforce and recollect the imperial images and authority of the Emperor and his Empire to get the approval of the people and international society. The theater state as the cultural performance was the concrete effort to establish the collective memories of the Daehan Empire. It was performed as national ceremony, in which the Emperor Kochung was the director and actor.