북한의 문학 장르 오체르크 연구

Abstract

This study presents an investigation of Ocherk, which was a new literary genre in the literary history of North Korea and very significant in that it revealed the relationships between the early day literature and politics of the nation. After 1952 when it was first introduced in an essay by Lee Hyo-un, it remained contradictory in terms of contents and identity and confusing in the aspect of terms until 1961 when it started to be called nonfiction literature in the critical writing by Choi Il-ryong. The introduction and the changing process of Ocherk were closed related to the North Korean regime's external and political relations. In other words, Ocherk hit the perfect timing being needed by the regime for identity establishment for the nation. For Ocherk, they usually adopt an actual story on which they write an narrative. There are Ocherks based on travel, portrait, event, comment on current events, and war. According to Lee Hyo-un, Ocherk is "a literary genre of autonomy and pride and has the specific elements of a comment on current events and academic research as well as the iconic elements unlike other kinds of comments on current events." Ocherk is "the tactical and fire-eating literary genre" and "the active kind of weapon in the history of Russian literature used by progressive writers in their lives aggressively and constantly." Under the belief that "it promotes the formation of a new socialist human being to agitate and propagate the accomplishment," the goal of Ocherk is "popular communication" and the success of an Ocherk work depends on "the right choice of a theme and its social and political implication." Although Ocherk was imported from the former Soviet Union, it's hard to ignore its relations to the traditional prosaic and descriptive, explanatory literature of North Korea. Ocherk survived the self-criticism that swept over the entire literary world of North Korea, which was supposed to impugn 'the trends of documentation and schemes" in the literary history. In particular, its relationships with the political arguments show the process of paradigm shifts in the literary genre hegemony and reflects the very political feature that demonstrates the influential control of the former Soviet Union over North Korea. Ongoing study on Ocherk will provide the chances to understand the North Korean literature more objectively and deeply.