한국전쟁과 마을 -기존연구의 정리와 향후 연구의 과제-

Abstract

The Korean War can be characterized as a civil war. The civilians in the area occupied by the North Korean Army were split into the left and right wing and killed each other during the occupation and after the retreat of North Korean Army. The present study explored the possible causes of this tragedy of massacres occurred in the farming villages. There seemed to be three reasons why there were so many people killed in the farming villages during the Korean War. First, there was still a strong sense of class distinction in the rural communities although the caste system was abolished at the end of 19th century. Conflicts between the landowners and tenants, between the upper class people and lower class people exploded during the war and were led to the tragic killings. Second, scores of people have died because of a feud between neighboring villages or between the relatives and families in a village. It was found that there has been a strong sense of rivalry among these villages and/or families and the war gave a chance to revenge for those who thought to have suffered unfair treatment. Third, there was a contention between Christians and communists that was also led to massacres. North Korean Army believed that Christians were dangerous because many Christians took an active part in right-wing organizations, and so attacked them. There were other decisive factors in this war as well. Influentials in the villages, such as intellectuals or highly considered landowners, and governments of South and North Korea meddled in the conflict and enticed the people into a collision for their own interests or beliefs. Since neither South nor North Korean government had a strong power base, they contrived to strengthen the power base by pushing people to stand on one side, either right or left. As a result, scores of ordinary people in the farming villages were sacrificed.