개화기 조선의 民會 활동과 「議會通用規則」 ― 「의회통용규칙」의 유통과 번역 양상을 중심으로

Abstract

Upon joining the Independent Club in July of 1897, Yun Ch'iho (1865-1945) organized a debating society, and introduced a western debate culture through a manual titled Ŭihoe t'ong yong gyuch'ik (1898), his translation of Robert`s Rules of Order (1876) by Henry. M. Robert (1837-1923). The first advertisement for Ŭihoe t'ongyong gyuch'ik appeared in The Independent and ran for approximately one year, beginning on 12 April 1898. It then disappeared from the newspapers until it reappeared in the Hwangsŏng sinmun on 31 May 1906, and was listed continually in Taehan maeil shinbo. The reason for the increased demand for this text during this period was that organizing political civic associations (民會) was popular among Korean intellectuals who wanted to overcome or use Korea's status as a protectorate of Japan. In Japan, Robert's Rules of Order was translated as Kanmin gijō hikkei (1880) by Nagamine Hideki (1848-1927). The aim of Kanmin gijō hikkei was a precise transmittance of the information in the original. In contrast, Ŭihoe t'ongyong gyuch'ik was a selective translation that focused on the organization and management of civic associations. Therefore, the first objective of this translated text was to help members understand and learn reasonable processes of deliberation through their participation in a civic association as a small society. But the ultimate objective of this text, as an Enlightenment project, was to give Koreans an understanding of modern society and the modern state, and what it might mean to be a member of such a society or state.