일제강점기 안창남의 항공독립운동

Abstract

In the Japanese Colonial Era, An, Chang-nam(1901-1930), who was a pilot, became a folk hero of the colonial Korea and inspired national consciousness. An, Chang-nam was the embodiment of Koreans who wanted to soar from the oppressed colonial reality. He gave a hopeful influence such as pride and courage to the Korean people in the gloomy colonial era. The Japanese government, the Japanese Government-General of Korea, and the Japanese Korean Army actively supported An Chang-nam’s flight visiting homeland to glorify colonial rule because he was a colonial Korean man who acquired the advanced flight technique in Japan. They wanted to publicize the actualization of their aviation policy and the military’s technical improvement and expected a propaganda effect in the colony as a part of the new science dissemination movement which was started in the 1920s. An Chang-nam had a flight back home, however, hoping for national support of his compatriots, on behalf of Koreans who wanted to learn the advanced flight technique. The Korean people gave a meaning to An Chang-nam, as an existence of ‘making an epoch in civilized life of the Korean people’ by acquiring skills in modern technology and being the first Korean man to fly over the Korean peninsula with patriotic ardor. An Chang-nam’s flight visiting homeland was also the starting point of the autonomous science popularization movement made by the colonial Koreans. The homecoming flight served as a momentum to awaken An Chang-nam, the pure Korean young man himself, to national consciousness. Moreover, going through the Great Kanto Earthquake, An Chang-nam became more aware of national consciousness as a colonial Korean man. He sought specific ways to devote himself to his people as a Korean pilot since then. An Chang-nam crossed into China for realistic strategies of the aviational independence movement and made contact with the agents of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai. He went into Chinese warlords to participate in the revolutionary movement, earnestly seeking to train pilots in the army for the national independence. Lyuh, Woon-hyung introduced him to join the Feng Yuxiang’s army in Beijing, and he entered the anti-Japanese war on the National Revolutionary Army side of Chinese Kuomintang, sympathizing with its anti-imperialism ideology. Then he belonged to the Yan Xishan’s army in Shanxi province under the guidance of Lyuh, Woon-hyung again and took part in Northern Expeditions and the anti-Japanese armed struggle as an air force commander with the National Revolutionary Army. As the major general of Shanxi’s Air Force and a Korean fighter for the aviational independence movement, it seems that An Chang-nam had considerable authority and financial firepower. Especially, An Chang-nam organized the Korean Independence Resonance Party affiliated with nationalism, playing a key role in planning to establish military schools like a flight school and to train the military and supporting considerable independence movement funds for its entry operations to Korea. The Korean Independence Resonance Party decorated the grand finale of the heroic struggle in the late 1920s. From the mid-1920s, a number of Korean pilots who studied in Japan joined the Chinese army and participated in the anti-Japanese armed struggle after An Chang-nam. As the lieutenant general of Shanxi’s Air Force, he unfortunately died in a plane crash during practice flight at flight school of Shanxi’s Air Force, but his spirit led other Korean pilots in China into the aviational independence movement.