월북시인 김상훈・『통일을 불러』・주체문예

Abstract

This study is aimed to focus on examining Kim Sang-hoon’s collection of poems, Calling for Reunification and revealing its value in literary history and lyrical meaning. This collection of poems was compiled after the poet’s death by his widow and the society of North Korean literature. The main ideology and editorial principles of the collection follow ‘subjective literature’ which is known to have been advocated by Kim Il-sung and organized by Kim Jong-il. It also details the process of overcoming ‘the March of Hardship’ in the Kim Jong-il era that drove North Korean society into unprecedented chaos and pain in the 1990’s and sublimating and ritualizing Kim Il-sung’s ‘Yuhoon Rule’ and Kim Jong-il’s ‘Idea of Seongun’ being practiced by the son, ‘Kim Jong-eun’. To reveal the excessive ideology and totalitarian nature of Calling for Reunification shown in this process, this researcher has borrowed the concept of ‘the theatrical state’ adopted in another researcher’s book, North Korea, the Theatrical State. Also, this author has utilized the three frameworks of ‘the power of guns’, ‘the power of love’, and ‘the ethics of coexistence’ which form the foundation and structure of it and corresponded the three to ‘the Leader’, ‘the Mother’, and ‘the People’ each. In fact, Calling for Reunification contains the poems created between the period of liberation and 1987 selectively. Therefore, it is natural truth that the ideology and contents of ‘the Leader,’ ‘the Mother,’ and ‘the People’ continued to change over time and according to the North Korean regime. The Kim Il-sung family, however, used ‘subjective literature’ that had emerged as the guiding principle of North Korean literature since the mid-1960’s as a method of sublimating and beatifying socialist ideology, the tradition of anti-Japanese revolution, and ‘the subjective state’. Although the poet’s widow and North Korean literary circles were deeply engaged in editing and publishing, ‘Calling for Reunification’ is believed to have faithfully followed the ideology, form, frame and discourse of ‘the theatrical state’ formulated by Kim’s three-generation hereditary system in its preface, editorial review, and first-part poems. Later, in order for two Koreas to read and discuss Kim Sang-hoon’s poems together in terms of the history of reunification literature, it seems inevitable to exclude ‘the power of guns’ centered on the Leader as much as possible before anything. At the same time, the first priority should be placed on sorting out the poems related to ‘the Mother’ and ‘Ethics of Coexistence’ sung and dedicated to the happiness of all people.