잡지 『학생계』 연구－ 1920년대 초반 중등학교 학생들의 ‘교양주의’와 문학적 욕망의 본질

Abstract

This is the first paper to study on a magazine Hacksaengkye whose text has recently been found. Hacksaengkye, a comprehensive education magazine, has all together eighteen volumes, published from July 1920 to November 1922 by Hansung Publishing Company. The publisher of the magazine was a group of elites who had studied in Tokyo, Japan, and whose object was to enlighten students in Chosun. “Learn modern knowledge and cultivate character” was the specified aim to be achieved through the utilization of the magazine and this was what is called “education-oriented principle,” the theoretical foundation established by those elites who were benefited from modern education system. This education-oriented principle enabled students to pursue self-realization and modern individualism, taking a different direction from realizing modern citizen that was the major discourse among the youth in the 1910s. Those elites believed that it was students’ obligation to gain modern knowledge and cultivate character through avid reading in order to establish leadership. This also served as a good excuse for students from the thought that they should take part as activists for the independence of the nation. Moreover, combining with elitism, this education-oriented principle led modern intellectuals in Korea to form the sense of privilege and the sense of being a chosen people. Literature took its part in this trend significantly but secretly. The introduction of a prize essay system in Hacksaengkye was the answer for students’ literary desire in the early 1920s. This system brought the prize-winner students not only a monetary benefit but also fame that they were promising writers chosen by prominent senior writers. Through this characteristics of the system literature was able to be highly regarded and, at the same time, students could fulfil their pursuit of elevating the social status. The prize essay system in Hacksaengkye well showed the process of the foundation of the world of “modern writers” at that time. Kim, Uk, Hwang, Sukwoo, Oh, Chunsuk and No, Jayoung were those who educated abroad and utilized the system to spread their literary ideology in Chosun. Hence, the prize essay column functioned as the place to enjoy and reproduce the literary ideas of Dongin, which those writers were educated and influenced while studying abroad. Under the prize essay system, “literature” was the most desired medium for students to learn modern knowledge and cultivate character. Future writers were taught by the most prominent and high educated professional writers who studied abroad. Of course, it was only possible because they were “students,” the beneficiary of the modern education system. Thus, literature of the early 1920s was now exclusively appropriated within the modern education system. Once students, the beneficiary of the modern education system, became the main body of the literary society, literature was exclusively learned and enjoyed within the circle of intellectuals and bourgeois who afforded to receive modern education. This enabled literature to strengthen its position. Hence, Becoming a writer meant elevating his/her social statue to that of intellectuals and bourgeois. Therefore, “sanctuarization of the literary world” in the early 1920s was not only pursued by Dongin. What the literary columns in Hacksaengkye reflected was the fact that even “popularization of literature,” a slogan in the 1920s, could, in fact, be realized within the modern education system, and, consequently, was very much the class expression.