일제강점기 閔泳殷의 ‘유지정치’와 식민권력의 청주지역 침투

Abstract

Japanese imperialists made diverse attempts to strengthen dominance over regions after the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910. Against the backdrop, pro-Japanese community leaders who did activities in regions during Japan’s colonial rule over Korea were those who were intentionally nurtured by Japanese imperialists. They represented local residents’ interests for their social fame and economic interests while they actively performed community leader activities leading the policies of the Japanese Government General of Korea. A representative figure who did such activities in Cheong-ju, Chungcheongbuk-do is Min Yeong-eun. During the period of Korean Empire, he held various posts in succession such as county governor of Goesan and Cheongju and represented the interests of the Japanese Government General of Korea and local residents, thereby expanding his influence, and through his public posts he performed based on such influence, he mediated both interests and received all kinds of privileges from Japanese imperialists. Min Yeong-eun performed diverse community leader activities in order to win trust from local residents. He actively conducted educational, charity, and petition activities and contributed enormous amount of his assets to establishment and operation of schools, founding of scholarship foundation, recovery of local disasters and prevention of disasters, and salvage of the poor, and took the lead in all kinds of petition activities. Meanwhile, Min Yeong-eun did various economic activities such as agriculture, forestry, transportation business, warehousing, and financial business aimed at creating finance for community leader activities and for his own economic interests. Although Min Yeong-eun became the richest person in Chungchongbuk-do through such activities, his economic activities were connected with the harmful effects of colonial policies. That is, there was an aspect that economic pain of Koreans according to colonial policies was converted into his economic interests. From the perspectives of the history of research on local community leaders during Japan’s colonial rule, what drew most attention was that he performed diverse forced labor activities in order to accomplish and maintain the colonial system. He worked for a local advisory body throughout Japan’s colonial rule and took the lead in controlling local peasant movements and youth movements including the March First Independence Movement. During the 1930s, he actively collaborated with Japanese imperialists for thought control and war of aggression. It cannot be said that all the countless number of community leaders did pro-Japanese activities like Min Yeong-eun. Nonetheless, a large number of community leaders did activities like Min Yeong-eun and pursued their interests. In such process, they led spread of colonial power over their region and contributed to prevention of national movements including social movements. Therefore, Min Yeong-eun’s case should be viewed from a large perspective of spread of colonial policies and control of national movements regarding local community leaders in their regions.