두 개의 암초에 맞선 실험적 항해

Abstract

Even today the academical efforts seeking for the traces of the writers who crossed over into North Korea have steadily been developed as a prior preparation to write a unified history of Korea Literature. The writers who crossed over into North Korea, at the centennial anniversary of their birth this year, are Go Kyung-heum, An Mak, An Ham-kwang, Lee Chan, Heo Jun, etc. Go Kyung-heum and Heo Jun wrote novels, Lee Chan was a poet, and An Mak and An Ham-kwang were active in criticism. The history of literature of North Korea, however, mentions nothing about them except Lee Chan. It seems that all of them but Lee Chan have gotten the political purges. Judging from the situation, it seems that the literary men who crossed over into North Korea had tried their own artistic experiments in rushing torrents of history but had struck on two reefs of Fascism and the division of the country, nothing special left behind. Since 1967 after the 1945 Liberation in North Korea there had been fierce struggle for power between two groups, the one who wished to hold by the literary tradition of KAPF(Korea Artist Proletariat Federation), the other who intended to form a new tradition paying tribute to the anti-Japanese partisan struggle of Kim Il Sung. The former was based on the aesthetics of Marxism-Leninism and the latter was formed on the basis of the idea of the so-called Juche. The struggle for power had justly resulted in the victory of the latter whom Kim Il-sung backed up. Consequently, it seems that Go Kyung-heum and An Ham-kwang and An Mak and others followed the case of Han Seol-ya in sacrifice. It seems, not certain, that Heo Jun also disappeared from the scene of the history at that time. Even though they shared the same color among the writers of KAPF, the phases of their lives and literature put on the diversity and versatility indeed like the colors of light through the prism. Going deep into the study not by 'exclusion rule' but by ‘logic of convergence' I get to confirm that there's a certain universality as a common phenomenon in them. And seeing the phases not through the sentiment recalling the memories and the retrospection but through the view of <now-here>, I felt something left to be missed a lot for the cultural spectrum replaced by the political uniformity. To sum up, first, there was a 'pure passion' as an artist in the lives and literature of the five writers who crossed over into North Korea. Second, even though there were so much differences in their personal ideas and views of the world, there was a nationalistic fervor against Fascism in common. Third, it's certain that even though they were under the division situation of their country, the writers who crossed over into North Korea pursued the object for establishing an ideal socialist state of equality and democracy. Fourth, it is confirmed that the five writers who crossed over into North Korea all got sacrificed in a way in the struggle for the political hegemony. It's the same reason why Lee Chan became the indirect victim, too. Fifth, these artists, who were born in 1910, were criticised for their deficiency of 'severity as a writer'. The reason is that a lot of the writers left their works in the history of the literary movement but few writings left in the reference library where writers practice their creative writings.