북한 소설에 나타난 6.25전쟁 전후 서울과 평양의 도시 이미지

Abstract

The purpose of this research paper is to compare the images of Seoul and Pyeongyang before and after the Korean War as manifested in the North Korean novels. This paper analyzes the way that the capital cities of the South and North were depicted by the North Korean novelists before and after the war and how cultural symbolisms were compared. Seoul and Pyeongyang residents’ sense of pride towards their own cities helped to help it as the established psychological matter concerning the system of separation amidst the awareness of substitution and sense of competition towards the other party. According to the North Korean novels who depicted the war, Seoul managed to safeguard the traditional cultural assets, but the remnants of the Japanese colonialism and the aftermaths of the confusion caused after the liberation also remain in the city. Moreover, Seoul now looks like a deformed city since the image of the barracks-like city aggravates the situation. Although traditional cultural heritage of Pyeongyang and its look and feel as a city got completely destroyed by the war, this was indeed a blessing since Pyeongyang managed to build a completely new city centered on the socialist urban planning. Moreover, Pyeongyang managed to earn even the cultural icon, which is the ‘Juche (self autonomy)” type of modern city based on the ideology of Juche after reconstructing the city after the war. Likewise, the images of these two cities are asymmetric as depicted in the novels, but the conclusion reached is that there is a need to turn the direction into a reciprocal direction to ensure increased interaction, instead of sustaining hostile relations when it comes to the cultural symbolism of these two cities.