일본 사회와 윤동주의 기억

Abstract

In the Japanese society, the memory of Yoon Dong-Ju had existed as “trash memory,” forgotten from the official realm of memory. The process in which the memory of Yoon’s personal experiences mediated through his life and poems and the collective memory of the Korean and Japanese society intersect and relate with each other is also the process in which the memory of Yoon Dong-Ju is constructed to become a meaningful sign in the Japanese society. How Yoon was remembered in Japan in the 1970s and 80s can be summed up as “resistance” and “religiousness.” The memory of Yoon – extracted by the Japanese intellectuals, Korean residents in Japan, and Christians – functioned as a counter memory against the official memory of the post-war Japanese society. Yoon Dong-Ju, whose memory reminds people of the experiences of a minority individual, the Japanese militarism and colonialism in the past, and thus brings up the issue of the political minorities in the Japanese society, becomes a medium through which Japan’s national legitimacy is questioned However, Yoon Dong-Ju as a counter memory appears to have lost its individuality and otherness by being absorbed and included into the construction process of the identity of the Japanese society. From the symbolic moment of 50thanniversaryoftheendoftheWWIIinthemid-1990s,YoonDong-Ju has become “the icon of peace and reconciliation” that symbolizes the coalition of Korea, Japan, and the whole Asia. During the process, the minority resistance mediated through the memory of Yoon was erased. Moreover, this process has transformed the specific memory of a certain Japanese past, such as militarism and colonialism, into a general human experience of a war. Even the religiousness combined with Yoon’s literary purity has changed into a manifestation of universal love for mankind. Continuous construction of memorials, successive commemorative events, and the attention of media show that the memory of Yoon Dong-Ju is now regarded as effective in terms of functioning as an officially recognized memory. However, on the other hand, the process in which the memory of Yoon becomes official, is also a process in which the numerous and complicated memories mediated through him are homogenized. Yoon Dong-Ju is thrown back into the pile of “trash memory” when the multilayered space of his memory, which includes Jiandao, Pyeongyang, Kyeongseong, Kyoto, and Fukuoka, is homogenized.