식민지 문학자의 만주 체험-이태준의 「만주기행」

Abstract

A famous Korean novelist Tae-jun Lee who was a former member of modernist group Kuinhwoe(group of nine literary men) traveled Manchuria in 1938. He wrote an account of his travel, "Travel Writing of Manchuria" as soon as he returned to Korea. In the account of his travel, it was revealed that he had compassion on Korean peasants in Manchuria from the point of view of a nationalist. In addition, his own inner consciousness as a colonial citizen was also revealed. In comparison with Japanese literary men who had traveled Manchuria and left travelogues in the same age, Lee strongly showed self-identification as a colonial citizen. Another characteristic of the "Travel Writing of Manchuria" is showing how Lee experienced Manchuria's modernity. Enlargement of railway lines and new urban construction plan was the twin symbols of Mnachuria's modernity. While he traveled several new town through railway lines built by Mantetsu, Lee witnessed that Manchuria was under the rule of Japanese monopoly capitalism. And then, he recognized that Korea which was under the control of Japanese imperialism and Manchuria which seemed to be a independent state were in the same circumstances. In 1939, Lee wrote a novel Nong-gun(farm laborer) on the basis of the "Travel Writing of Manchuria". Nowadays the characteristics of the novel is in a controversy. The main point of the argument is whether the novel was realist or pro-Japanese. In this paper, the point is regarded as a wrong one. Actually the novel was neither realist nor pro-Japanese. It made use of nothing but realist method, therefore it was a kind of Saengsan Soseol(production novel) which was a unique type of novel in the late 1930's.