‘상상하는 모어’와 그 타자들-‘김수영과 일본어’의 문제를 통해 본 전후세대의 언어인식과 언어해방의 불/가능성

Abstract

In 1966, Suyeong Kim made a scene: he wrote a contribution to be published in a magazine all in Japanese, and that was translated into Korean when the magazine was released. Writing articles in Japanese was a quite sensitive act that might result in complcated emotions and ripple effects on Korean artists even during the colonial period. Not only was it linked with the national identity, but also it required a firm stand between the cooperation with and resistance against the cultural policy of violent colonization. For whatever reason he wrote the article, writing in Japanese during the colonial period was regarded as a 'shameful conduct.' Then now, 21 years after the liberation, how should we view Suyeong Kim's act of writing the contribution in Japanese? More surprising than writing in Japanese itself, the contents confessed the relation between Japanese and all his history and cultural history in detail. This confession was another 'ethical attitude,' which was totally different from that common among the post-war generation, that is, 'the shameful Korean(speaking Japanese)'. He said that for more than 20 years of his literary art activity, he was never free from Japanese at all. He admitted that he would always write articles in Japanese and then have them translated into Korean. However, he declared that he was not shameful of failing to break free from the restrain of Japanese. Rather, he argued that contemporary literary men who failed to break free from the restrain of Japanese but pretended to succeed should be 'shameful' of themselves. How should be view this paradox of Suyeong Kim and his reversed pride? Now, about 21 years after the national liberation(and continually), this happening of Suyeong Kim makes us think of the fundamental relation between Korean and Japanese. Understanding the relation between Suyeong Kim and Japanese and 'recontextualizing' it is essential for a new understanding of the bilingual identity of the post-war generation, and at the same time, it is a turning point of re-recognizing the bilingual situation, no, multilingual situation throughout the history of Korean literature. Right from the very point of time, we may be able to reconsider the possibility and impossibility of linguistic liberation as well as the binding aspect of language.